Chapters (32)
There was a brief moment of hesitation before the room erupted into a quiet frenzy of activity. Joe suddenly found himself at the eye of storm, overseeing emergency measures he had expected to go his entire career without implementing. The full import of his decision hit home and he felt weak in the knees. A cold sweat glued his shirt to his back. What if he had over-reacted and pulled the plug too soon? This could be the biggest mistake of his career…
Breathe, he reminded himself. Think.
He put down his coffee cup on a nearby table, figuring that his heart was already racing fast enough, thank you very much. Diagrams and blueprints were strewn across the table, along with a selection of walkie-talkies on a tray. He snatched one up and started scanning through the channels, searching for a signal. He needed info and he needed it now, damnit.
And he needed to know that Sandra was okay.
Before he could get hold of her, the mug started vibrating across the table, spilling coffee onto the blueprints, which were also shaking as well. Joe glanced in alarm at the monitors, where the pulse pattern was spiking into a new shape. A stronger, secondary jolt, accompanied by a deep sonic thrum that Joe could feel all the way to his teeth, rattled the glass windows of the control room. The walls shook.
Even worse, all the monitors and other electronics lost power for a second, briefly killing the lights, before they popped back on again. Startled technicians swore and shouted and scrambled to check their systems. Agitated voices competed with each other, everybody talking at once.
“No status!” Takashi blurted. “Everything’s rebooting!”
“Calm,” Joe insisted, trying to maintain order. “No yelling.”
Takashi got the message, settling down. He regained his composure as Joe raised his voice to be heard over the clamor.
“All personnel not needed for SLCS procedure should begin to evacuate the plant,” Joe announced. “You know the drill.” SLCS referred to the Standby Liquid Control System, which could be deployed to shut down the reactors in case the control rods failed to insert. He waited long enough to see his order being carried out before raising the walkie-talkie to his lips. A recorded announcement blared over the intercoms in the background. He placed a hand over his ear to tune it out. “Sandra? Sandy, can you hear me? You need to get back up here!”
At first there was no response, as he urgently spun through the channels, but then he heard his wife’s voice over the receiver, broken up by bursts of static:
“—ear me… anyone co… this is… report… damage to t—”