Fallout

by Ariel Tachna

  “He is,” Derek agreed. “That’s William Jones. He’s a favorite of mine.”

  The man who’d asked about the pictures made a sound of disgust and walked away. “Don’t mind Jeremiah,” she said softly. “He’s a born-again Christian who thinks he has the market cornered on righteousness. He’s a pain, but he’s a hard worker and he knows his way around the systems here.”

  “Great,” Derek said, “a Bible thumper. Just what I need.”

  “Sarcasm becomes you,” Lyrica teased. “You, Sambit, and I will be one team. We’ll put him on the other team so you don’t have to deal with him.”

  “So who are the other two?” Derek asked.

  “Melanie Bowman and Thomas Dougherty, two other plant employees,” Lyrica replied. “They may not have your skills with a robot, but they can at least monitor systems during our off shift, even if they can’t do as much to fix problems as we can.”

  “If one of them is willing to learn from a fag, I can show them how to use the robot,” Derek said, unable to stop the bitterness in his voice.

  “Don’t judge us all by Jeremiah,” Lyrica said. “Bay City might not be Houston, but that doesn’t mean we’re all redneck hicks with nothing better to do than bash the gay guy.”

  “Sorry,” Derek said. He was even mostly sincere. Lyrica had been nothing but kind to him since she’d arrived, and he had no real reason to assume Melanie and Thomas would be any different. One bad apple didn’t ruin the whole bag, as his mother was fond of saying.

  “Soup’s ready,” Sambit said, handing Derek a bowl. “It’s nothing fancy, but they didn’t bring us anything fancy. Still, it’s hot, and hopefully it’ll be filling.”

  Derek looked down at the beef and vegetable soup. Definitely not fancy. “We did survive a hurricane,” he said, trying to lighten the suddenly heavy mood. “I suppose we should be thankful for hurricane rations. It’s not like we have a gourmet kitchen at our disposal anyway, right?”

  “No, just a microwave and a coffee maker,” Lyrica said. “We’ll make do with that until we can get something better or until we can get out of here.”

  “So how long are we likely to be stuck here?” Derek asked, taking a sip of the soup. “Best and worst case scenarios.”

  “Worst case scenario is something like Chernobyl or Fukushima,” Sambit said, “where repairs really aren’t an option, and we have to seal the plant and abandon it permanently. That’s the last resort, especially here because of the other two reactors. Unless Tucker finds something, there’s no reason they couldn’t be reactivated as soon as there’s a crew to monitor them.”

  “Best case scenario, a couple of days,” Lyrica continued. “We cool the core down, check all the containment systems, and leave it to restart once it’s declared safe to be back in the area post-hurricane.”

  “And likeliest scenario?” Derek asked.

  “Somewhere in between,” Sambit said. Lyrica nodded in agreement. “The systems are damaged enough that the computer readings aren’t accurate, which means we can’t just turn everything back on and assume the automated systems will work properly. Not that we’d ever do that with a nuclear power plant, but we already know the automated systems are compromised. We have to determine the extent of the damage to the core and containment vessels first, then to the monitoring systems, and get those repaired or new systems in place. Granted, not all of that has to happen immediately, and not all of that will require your assistance, especially if the radiation and heat are under control so that it’s safe for people to move about the complex, but this isn’t going to be over tomorrow.”

  “Then I guess the next thing to do is to see what kind of damage there is outside,” Derek said.

  “There are hazmat suits, although we’d have to see what sizes we can find,” Lyrica said. “They’re only good for about fifteen minutes because of the size of the breathing apparatus, but we could see quite a bit in fifteen minutes, and we can always come back inside and switch suits if we haven’t seen everything we need to see.”

  “We can also send Number Five,” Derek suggested. “I’m happy to tramp around in a hazmat suit if that will be the most help, but the drizzle had stopped when Fido and I went outside. Number Five can deal with a certain amount of moisture in the air and on his track roller, and while radiation can eventually damage the circuits, it’s not as sensitive as we are.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Lyrica said, “but some things are just best seen in person, and I think this may be one of those times. I don’t know how else to explain it except to say that there’s a sense of a situation that goes along with being in the middle of it that nothing else can replace.”

  Derek had spent his career thus far creating machines that provided that sense of situation across the gaps of outer space, but he didn’t argue. In this case, they could go out into the middle of the situation and have that personal touch, so he saw no reason to insist.

  Fido whined when Derek got up and started out of the room again. “I know, boy,” he said, going back to reassure the dog. “You don’t know what’s going on, you’re in a strange place, and the one person you do know keeps disappearing on you. You’re doing great. It’ll be someone else’s shift soon, and then I can sit here and keep you company, okay?”

  “I’ll watch him if it will help.”

  Derek looked up to see the woman Lyrica had identified as Melanie. “I don’t know how he feels about strangers,” Derek began, only to realize how inane a statement that was when he had been a stranger to the dog only that morning. “But if you’re sure you don’t mind, I’d worry less knowing he wasn’t left alone again.”

  “Again?” Melanie asked.

  Derek explained quickly how he’d found Fido that morning.

  “That’s horrible!”

  Derek decided he liked her. “Stay with Melanie, Fido, okay? I’ll be back soon.” Fido wagged his tail and moved to Melanie’s side. “Good boy,” Derek praised before joining Lyrica and Sambit in the hallway. “Let’s get this done. It’s getting late. We don’t have a lot of daylight left.”

  They sorted through the hazmat suits in storage until they found ones that would fit well enough to protect them. Lyrica helped them get the suits on and fitted correctly and showed them how to switch on the two-way radios that would let them communicate while they were outside.

  “I may as well be wearing a spacesuit,” Derek said as they clunked toward the door, the steel-toed boots feeling awkwardly heavy compared to the weight of the light boots he’d had on earlier.

  “Pretty much,” Lyrica agreed through the radio. “These suits are designed for situations where everything out there is presumed to be bad. The only thing it doesn’t have is temperature control.”

  “So what are we looking for?” Sambit asked as they tramped across the flooded yard toward the side of the control building.

  “Anything that isn’t as it should be,” Lyrica said.

  “That might help Sam, but it doesn’t help me much,” Derek said, turning his head left and right as much as the hazmat suit would allow to try to get a feel for the area.

  “So think of it as a chance to get the lay of the land for later, when you have to do this with Number Five,” Sambit suggested, “and some things will be obvious even to a layman’s eyes.”

  Derek rounded a corner and caught sight of a body on the ground, the legs caught beneath fallen concrete. “Like that?” he said with a grimace.

  “Oh, God,” Lyrica said, the words as much a prayer as a curse. She hurried to the body. Derek and Sambit followed, lifting the concrete slab and pulling the body free.

  “I almost don’t want to turn him over,” Lyrica said. “It’s almost certainly someone I know, and I’m not sure I want to know who.”

  “If you would rather go inside, Derek and I can take care of him,” Sambit offered, his voice so rich with compassion that Derek found himself nodding his agreement even though he had no interest in dealing with a dead body.


  “No,” Lyrica said, “I’m the manager. I need to deal with this.”

  “You don’t have to,” Derek said, echoing Sambit’s offer.

  “I appreciate the thoughtfulness,” Lyrica said, “but I’ll have to deal with it eventually. I’ll have to fill out the paperwork if nothing else. It was a job site accident that killed him.”

  “It was a hurricane that killed him,” Derek said, bending as best he could and helping Sambit roll the body over so Lyrica could see the man’s face. Derek was glad of the heavy suit that blocked what had to be an awful smell emanating from the bloated form. He could see early signs of decay already, suggesting the man, whoever he was, had been here a couple of days at least. Derek was no expert, but he’d watched enough forensics shows to know that decomposition didn’t start instantly. “Do you know him?” he asked when Lyrica didn’t say anything.

  “Yes,” she replied. “That’s Ernesto Diaz, the second shift manager. I took over from him every night when I came on night shift. We weren’t friends, but we were friendly.”

  “Is there somewhere we can take him?” Derek asked. “Somewhere inside at least until the coroner or someone can get here.”

  “That could be weeks,” Lyrica said, her voice breaking.

  “All the more reason to move him inside where his body is protected from the elements and any scavengers who survived the storm,” Sambit said. “Even a storage shed would be better than leaving him outside.”

  “We can put him in with the used rods, I guess.” Lyrica pointed to a shed on the far side of the complex. “It’s not an area we’ll need to access until the plants are running again, and even then not right away.”

  “Stay here. Sambit and I will take care of him.”

  “You’ll need my access code,” Lyrica said, “and I should come. I need to do right by him.”

  Derek let it go, bending awkwardly to pick up the man’s shoulders. Sambit lifted his legs, and together they crossed the waterlogged yard to the shed Lyrica had indicated. She entered her code in the keypad, which, mercifully, still worked and opened the door to let them inside. They carried the body over the sill, laying it out along the wall. Derek crossed himself as Sambit knelt and whispered a prayer in a language Derek didn’t understand.

  “Thank you,” Lyrica said to both of them. “Now we have about seven minutes left on our air supply. As important as it was to take care of Ernesto, we need to check out the reactor.”

  After making sure the door locked behind them, Lyrica led them toward the core for unit three. “Keep an eye on your Geiger counter,” Sambit told Derek. “We’re fine inside the suits, but a spike in radiation will let us know if there’s a problem.”

  They circled the containment building until they found the hole Lyrica had postulated must be there. Almost immediately, Derek’s Geiger counter started sounding. “Not good, guys.”

  “I see that,” Lyrica said. “We’ve got to get closer anyway. Until I see what’s going on, I won’t know what the problem is or how to fix it. We’ve got three minutes left.”

  “Will the suits protect us against this level of radiation?”

  “Not for long, but for long enough for me to check out the Standby Gas Treatment installation. Stay here.”

  Derek met Sambit’s eyes through the glazed plastic of their masks. Of one accord they followed her over the collapsed concrete and into the corridor they hadn’t been able to explore before. Sweat ran down Derek’s back as the heat mounted, but they dodged downed rebar and caught up with Lyrica. “I thought I said to stay there.”

  “You already know we don’t follow directions well,” Derek replied. “Tell us what we’re looking for so we can get the fuck out of here. I’m sweating like a stuck pig inside this contraption.”

  “That,” Lyrica said, pointing to the Standby Gas Treatment system. “It’s supposed to filter air so it’s safe to be released into the environment, but with this hole in the containment wall, it’s useless. We’ve got to get back inside. We’re going to run out of air.”

  She led them back toward the entrance to the control building at a half-run, all they could manage in the bulky protective gear. At the entrance, she unfastened the hood and pulled it back. Sweat and maybe tears covered her face. Sambit followed his example, peeling back his hood and starting to take off the hazmat suit. Sweat had pooled under his arms, soaking his shirt. He took it off as well, so he stood in only a sleeveless undershirt, the ribbed fabric clinging to every dip of muscle. Derek swallowed hard as he unfastened his own helmet. He hadn’t had any hint that Sambit was hiding a body like that underneath his buttoned-up exterior.

  “Get rid of the suit,” Lyrica said. “You can’t wear it inside now that it’s been exposed to that level of radiation. We’ll leave them out here for now and deal with them properly when we have the means.”

  Derek stripped the hazmat suit the rest of the way off, relieved to have one less layer of gear on in the stifling humidity of a late summer day in south Texas. The temperature hadn’t risen too high yet, fortunately, but that just meant they were breathing cool water instead of hot water. At least the climate control in the building seemed to be working at the moment. If it went out, they’d really be miserable.

  “Johnson, Patel, Marshall, what do you think you were doing, going outside without my approval?” Tucker shouted the minute they stepped back inside.

  “Pissing you off,” Derek replied flippantly. “Dr. Patel, Dr. Johnson, I believe we’re off duty. We’ll see you in about twelve hours, Tucker. In the meantime, try not to make matters worse, will you?”

  He walked into the break room and flopped down on his cot, sweaty clothes and all. Fido crawled out from under his cot immediately, whining as he rested his head on Derek’s arm. Derek patted his head absently.

  “Mr. Marshall,” Tucker said, coming into the break room, “we need to have a word about your attitude.”

  “No, we don’t,” Derek replied, not even opening his eyes. “I don’t work for the power plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or any other organization that gives you any authority in my regard. If you’d care to take it up with NASA, you can contact Kenneth Woodall. If he has an issue with my attitude, then I’ll worry about it. Until then, go away and leave me alone. I’d like to get some sleep so I’ll be ready to do whatever Dr. Johnson and Dr. Patel need me to do tomorrow.”

  Derek could hear Tucker spluttering in frustration, but he didn’t acknowledge the man any further. He’d played nice all day—well, nice for him anyway—and he was done.

  “You don’t gain anything by antagonizing him, you know.”

  The words were accompanied by a nudge to his ankle and a sudden dip in the cot. That brought Derek’s eyes open to the vision of Sambit perched on the end of his cot, still in his undershirt and dress slacks. He’d wiped the sweat from his face and chest, but a drip still lingered on the end of his hair. Derek fought the irrational need to sit up and brush it away.

  “I gain a hell of a lot of satisfaction,” Derek said. He didn’t reach for that tempting bead of sweat, but he did sit up. He felt far too vulnerable lying flat on his bed beneath Sambit’s piercing gaze.

  “He isn’t going away just because he’s a pain,” Sambit said. “The more you antagonize him, the harder it will be for all of us to work with him. You get to go back to NASA eventually, but Lyrica would like to keep working here. I’m in the classroom rather than in a plant, but I still work in this field. He could make our lives difficult even if he can’t do anything to yours once you leave.”

  “I’ll get you a job at NASA,” Derek offered. “We’ve been experimenting with using nuclear power on some of the long-range spacecraft. You could consult on those projects.”

  “That’s a generous offer, but is it really one you can make?” Sambit said. “Just think a little about the rest of us before you make too much of an enemy of him. Unless you’re trying to make an enemy of the rest of us as well?”

  “No, of course not,” De
rek said.

  Sambit cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Okay, fine, I’m not Mr. Congeniality, and I was a little abrasive when we first met, but it’s been a rough few days. Yes, I know”—he waved his hand to cut off Sambit’s interruption—“it’s been a rough few days for everyone. I get that. Really, I do, but that’s the best I’ve got at the moment, okay? I walked out of my house this morning to find barely half a dozen houses in my neighborhood still standing. I found Fido in the wreckage down the street, soaking wet and shaking from fear. It’s a miracle he didn’t drown or get crushed when the building fell down around him. I got a series of nasty phone calls from my boss, and then orders to pack up my robot and come here where I know no one, know nothing about what I’m supposed to be doing to help, and where the risk to my long-term health is as great or greater than that bitch of a storm. I’m entitled to feel a little rough around the edges.”

  “You waited out the storm at home?”

  Derek shrugged. “Do you know how many times I’ve seen people evacuate because this was ‘the big one’?” Sambit shook his head. “I don’t either. I’ve lost count, it’s happened so often. The storms fizzle out or they change direction or they don’t do the damage everyone says they will, so I shrugged and figured this one would be the same as all the rest.”

  “Only it wasn’t.”

  “No, it certainly wasn’t,” Derek agreed, “but by the time I realized it wasn’t, it was too late to try to get out. My house is on a bit of a rise so it didn’t flood, and I have storm shutters so it was safe from flying debris, but on my motorcycle, I’d have been toast.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “I was beyond lucky, and I know it, but it’s left me a little shaken.”

  Sambit nodded. “If you won’t be offended by the suggestion, I know something that might help.”

  “I already tried tequila,” Derek joked. “It didn’t work.”

  Sambit smiled. “No, not alcohol. Yoga.”

  “Yoga?” Derek repeated. “How is that supposed to help?”

  “Stand up and take off your socks and I’ll show you,” Sambit offered.