He was moving quickly. If he wanted to get out alive, he knew time was his enemy. He could feel the frustration building. The engineering team had been able to isolate the problem, to a certain degree. But he still had to find the damaged connection, and the only way to do that was to check each one in turn.

He could feel his uniform below the metallic fabric, wet, soaked with sweat. The rad suit was hot, like an oven inside, and it was cumbersome, slowing his movements. He was tense, knowing each second that passed might be the last one, the final chance to save Dauntless. And he was scared to death, struggling to keep his body from shaking as he worked his way down the line of pipes and wires and conduits that made the reactor function.

Then he saw something. Not the damaged section, but a clue where to find it. It was an alarm, one that had been tripped when the damage occurred. But it was also damaged, its wiring charred.

That’s why we didn’t get anything on the main panel…

He reached out, holding an instrument he’d pulled from his bag. It was a battery-powered spectrographic scanner. It would pulse energy through the reactor’s circuits, not enough to do anything except identify the location of the break. Carson knew it had to be close. The tripped alarm was part of a limited series of connections.

His eyes moved down to the small display on the device, and he felt a wave of excitement. There it was. But his satisfaction was short-lived. He walked about two meters, and he looked up at a bank of equipment ten meters high. And the damage was almost at the top.

He sighed, trying to ignore the clock in his head counting down the minutes until enough radiation would penetrate his suit to build up a lethal dose. He was thankful he didn’t have an exact figure on how long he could survive.

Maybe I’m dead already…

There was a small access ladder next to the tower. It was an easy enough climb…for a man who wasn’t wearing a baggy, ill-fitting rad suit. But there was no choice.

He reached up, grabbed the highest rung he could reach, stepping up with one foot, then the other. His sweaty hands slid around inside of his gloves, making his grip tenuous as he moved slowly upward. His injured hand ached terribly, and he tried to put most of his weight on the other hand, and his legs.

It felt like hours were passing, but he knew it had just been seconds. Still, he didn’t have even seconds to waste, and he pushed harder, climbed more quickly.