Emergency klaxons started blaring behind them like angry foghorns. Flashing red annunciator lights turned the sterile white corridors incarnadine. Sandra glanced back behind her, as did the rest of her team. Panic gripped her heart. They all knew what the sirens and flashing lights meant and why the klaxons were getting louder and closer by the moment. The danger posed by the tremors was no longer just a terrifying possibility. The fiery genie inside the reactor had escaped its bottle and was chasing after them.

They were going to die, unless they made it to safety in time.

* * *

Takashi was alone in the control room. The rest of the staff had already deserted the premises, including Hayato. The older man had volunteered to stay behind, but Takashi had convinced him to take charge of the evacuation instead. Hayato was a family man, with a wife, children, and several grandchildren who needed him, while Takashi had put his career ahead of any serious relationships so far. The young engineer stared in horror at a hallway schematic of the lower levels. Blinking red icons indicated the rapid spread of radiation throughout the corridors. His eyes widened in dread as stayed at his post, torn between his duty to contain the disaster and his purely human concern for his friends and co-workers. He could only imagine how excruciating this must be for Joe Brody, even as Takashi worried whether the American engineer would really be able to do what was necessary, no matter the cost.

Takashi wasn’t sure he could, not if it was his true love at stake.

* * *

Joe stared anxiously past the threshold, frozen in fear. He listened numbly to Takashi’s fractured voice over the intercom. Static interference mangled the transmission, rendering it barely comprehensible:

“Brody—we—ah—each—”

“What?” Joe asked, straining to make out what was being said. “Say again?”

“Catastrophic radiation breach!”

Joe had thought he couldn’t be any more scared, but this nightmare just kept getting worse and worse. Utter horror transfixed him. This couldn’t be happening…

“Seal the corridor,” Takashi pleaded, “or the whole city will be exposed!”

* * *

Keep going, Sandra thought. Just a little further!

Terror overcame exhaustion as she and her crew sprinted down a corridor, despite the best efforts of the earthquake to slow them down. An earth-shaking rumble caused the floor to quake beneath their feet, tossing them from one side to another. Yamato tumbled headfirst onto the concrete floor, forcing Sandra to turn back and help him to his feet. His visor had survived the fall intact, thank goodness, and they were about to resume their flight when—