Powerless

by Tim Washburn

  After arriving there, I struggled not only with the physical wounds but the emotional wounds—why did I survive and the others didn’t? It was a question I couldn’t answer until I met Amelia. With a head of red, curly hair and skin the color of porcelain, she had freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her beautiful nose. She was nearly as tall as I am, and I took every opportunity to peer into her green eyes as she led me by the elbow along the busy corridors. After four years of nursing, she had witnessed the tragedies of war firsthand, but she hadn’t let the suffering consume her. Her cheery disposition was a welcome relief to every wounded soldier confined to the hospital.

  From the first moment I saw her I knew she was the woman I wanted—to care for, to love like no other.

  Every soldier in the hospital was in love with Amelia—hell, who wouldn’t be? She was smart as a whip and, though not drop-dead gorgeous, attractive nonetheless. The red hair was often pulled back into a ponytail, revealing a face almost devoid of makeup.

  I felt the envious stares of the other wounded soldiers as Amelia and I shared a meal at the two-top table tucked into the corner of the hospital cafeteria. I felt like the guy crowned prom king sharing lunch with her. The way she laughed, the way she cocked her head when she contemplated an answer to another of my endless questions, the way she brushed the strands of hair from her face—each little gesture was magnified in my mind.

  “Can we go on a real date?” I blurted out during one of our meals.

  “Zeke, if you haven’t noticed, we’re in a hospital. Besides, I make it a policy to not date my patients.” She’d said it with a smile, but my heart was no less crushed.

  “What about when I get out of the hospital?”

  She paused for a long while. “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER 23

  NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

  Wednesday, September 29, 12:09 P.M.

  Samuel Blake is seated in his office reading through the latest data when Kaylee Connor taps on the door.

  “Sam, we have reports of power outages in Alaska and Northern Canada as well as rolling blackouts all along the eastern seaboard.”

  “This storm is moving much faster than I thought possible.”

  “You think solar flares might be causing it or is this the leading edge of the geomagnetic storm?”

  “I don’t know. I would find it hard to believe that the CME is already here. I told the President we probably have another eight hours. And I thought that was a safe estimate. What does the latest data tell us?”

  “That’s just it, Sam. Not only is ACE dead, but as recently as five minutes ago, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory was no longer broadcasting information.”

  Dr. Blake stands. “SOHO’s dead?”

  “We don’t know. NASA is working to reestablish communication. They don’t know if this is an anomaly or if the satellite is fried. My bet is that the satellite is toast.”

  “Damn.” Sam thumbs his glasses farther up his nose. “I think the plasma storm could hit much sooner than we thought.” He brushes past Kaylee, on a beeline back to the conference room. Kaylee follows.

  Sam flips on the camera, clips on the microphone, and inserts the earpiece in his ear. “Can anyone hear me? Hello? This is an emergency. Is anybody listening?” He turns to Kaylee. “How does this thing work?”

  “I think it has to go through the satellite for them to hear you.”

  “Well, we know that’s not going to work.” He yanks off the microphone and removes the earpiece. “See if you can get in touch with Major Garcia. Maybe she can work this up through the command, if I’m unsuccessful.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kaylee shouts after him.

  “I’m going to try to contact the President.” In his office, Sam scoots around his desk and sits. He taps the mouse to wake the computer but stares at the screen. Then he launches Google and types in a search phrase. When the results appear, he reaches for the phone and punches in the digits.

  “Hello, you’ve reached the White House. All operators are currently . . .”

  CHAPTER 24

  Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station

  Maces Bay, New Brunswick, Canada

  Wednesday, September 29, 12:15 P.M.

  On a point of land jutting into the Bay of Fundy, part of the Atlantic between New Brunswick, Canada, and Nova Scotia, sits Canada’s only Atlantic coast nuclear reactor. Three years behind schedule and one billion dollars over budget on the latest refurbishment, the CANDU 6 reactor has just recently been restarted, generating 630 megawatts of electricity.

  Pierre Gagnon, a slender man of French descent, and three other employees are manning the state-of-the-art control room that rivals even the most sophisticated control rooms at NASA headquarters. The front wall contains lights, dials, and gauges by the hundreds, all to prevent a nuclear mishap. Set away from the wall, taking up most of the middle portion of the room, is a large desk that contains the group data displays, or computers, which provide feedback from the nearly three thousand other sensors scattered throughout the plant. Gagnon is manning the main desk while swiping through cell phone pics of his recently born second son.

  Without warning, the front wall lights up with warning lights and a siren sounds just before the power to the control room dies.

  His cell clatters to the desk. His coworkers, who had been making progress notes at the main display, freeze in place when the lights extinguish. The automatic diesel generator kicks on to relight the control room. The backup generator powers only the control room so the nuclear plant can be safely shut down.

  Although there are numerous built-in fail-safes to halt the fission of nuclear material during a power loss, the staff is drilled repeatedly on what to do when the plant loses electrical power. All four workers scurry about the room trying to put those lessons into play.

  The monitors flicker back to life. “Power’s out for the entire plant,” Gagnon shouts.

  “Did the control rods drop?” one of the other workers shouts over the noise.

  “Negative on the control rods,” Gagnon says. “They have not released.” The control rods are suspended above the core by electromagnets and are designed to drop with the sudden loss of electricity. Constructed of materials such as hafnium and boron, the rods control the rate of fission.

  “What about the injector system?” another worker asks.

  “Waiting on computer reboot to know for sure, but why didn’t the rods drop?” Gagnon says. Although they have drilled endlessly on these emergency measures, it’s not the same when the real thing happens.

  “Think the safety line on the rods is still in place from the refurbishment?” Antoine Cassel asks.

  “Oh shit,” Gagnon yells. “The gadolinium nitrate was not, repeat not, deployed. The injection system failed.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Cassel says. “All of those damn systems are supposed to kick in automatically.”

  His question goes unanswered as Gagnon grabs one of the numerous telephones and places the call that no employee wants to make. As soon as the phone is answered, Pierre says, “Sir, the reactor is still active without the cooling systems. We are facing the real probability of a core meltdown.”

  CHAPTER 25

  TransJet Flight 62, near the coast of Scotland

  Wednesday, September 29, 12:33 P.M.

  Captain Steve Henderson wipes his brow. “Plot a course to London Heathrow.”

  “We’re not going to Paris?” Copilot Cheryl Wilson asks.

  “Hell no, we’re not going to Paris. I’m not flying this plane over half of Europe with no navigation or communications.”

  Cheryl reaches for the book containing the maps of Europe as the captain uses his left hand to dial through the radio frequencies. “Glasgow Center, TransJet Flight 62 . . . come in.” Nothing. He dials another frequency. “Glasgow Center, TransJet Flight 62, please acknowledge.” He dials another and tries again. Not a peep.

  “Check your cell p
hone again, Cheryl.”

  She reaches across the maps to extract her cell phone from the side pocket of the fuselage. “No service,” she says as she tucks the phone under her leg.

  “So much for room service in Paris,” he mutters.

  She glances at him. His mouth is clenched and his broad shoulders are trembling from the constant strain. “We can do this, Steve. We need to use the same landing procedure we’ve used a hundred times.”

  “What happens if one pilot panics and doesn’t follow protocol?”

  “We’re all professionals, Steve. I don’t think we need to be concerned with someone panicking.”

  “I’m glad you’re so self-assured.” His size-fifteen shoes are working the pedals, battling a nasty crosswind.

  “Come to a heading of one-two-zero,” she says in her calmest voice.

  “Turning to one-two-zero.”

  Cheryl traces their path on the map with a red manicured nail. “We’re going to skirt Glasgow to the east, then turn south.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Keep an eye out the window for other traffic if you can. Please.” Steve takes a deep breath before punching the button that triggers the cabin intercom system. “Folks, this is the captain speaking. We have been diverted to London.”

  The groans from the cabin can be heard through the closed and locked cockpit door. “I apologize for the inconvenience. We should be on the ground in London shortly, where ground personnel will assist you.” He punches the cabin intercom off.

  “You did good, Steve. Normal voice, no sense of panic.”

  “Thanks.” The intercom light flashes and he hesitates before answering.

  “Better explain to the flight attendants what’s happening,” Cheryl says.

  He fingers the button and listens for a moment. “Lisa, come to the cockpit and I’ll explain.”

  There’s a single knock at the door a moment later. Cheryl stands to unlock the cockpit door. Lisa Robbins has flown with Steve and Cheryl numerous times. She enters the cockpit as Cheryl retakes her seat.

  “What’s the deal, Steve?” she says.

  He looks at her briefly. “We have no satellite navigation and no communications. Everything went dead just as we were passing the southern coast of Newfoundland.”

  Lisa takes a moment to digest the information. “What can I do to help?”

  “Thanks, Lisa. Keep the passengers calm until we can put her on the ground. Tell them Paris is socked in with fog, or whatever else you can come up with.”

  “I can do that.” Lisa exits the cockpit.

  Cheryl relocks the door and returns to her maps. Making quick calculations on time and distance, she marks the time to the new compass heading. She pulls a binder from another side pocket of her seat and does a quick read of the landing procedures for London Heathrow. “Steve, we need to think about starting our descent.”

  Steve winces as he reaches for the throttles. “Where do we need to be?”

  Cheryl glances at the altimeter. “Bleed off about six thousand.”

  He looks out the window for any glints of metal in the sun before slowly pulling back on the throttles. “Descending to twenty-seven thousand. Is the TCAS system on?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Cheryl says while she cranes her neck to survey the brilliant blue sky around them.

  Steve eases off the throttles. “Now might be a good time to say a prayer.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Durant

  Zeke wanders into a vacant waiting room and collapses onto a chair.

  I took Amelia’s “maybe” response and ran with it. A week later, I gained my release from the hospital and found a run-down one-bedroom apartment near the hospital and signed a six-month lease. I could have cared less that the beige carpeting was stained or that the stove only had one working burner—proximity to Amelia was my only desire. Three days a week, I limped into the rehab office and worked with a therapist to regain my range of motion and had a lunch date with Amelia. Our lunches soon turned to dinners out, and I felt like the luckiest guy in the world when we spent the weekend at her place.

  I found a good job, a career starter, and spent every moment of every day thinking about Amelia. Was I infatuated with her? You bet your ass I was. I was head over heels in love with that caring, understanding, brighten-my-world woman. The memories of war faded as our relationship deepened.

  At the start of our fourth month of dating, I descended to bended knee. “Amelia, I love you more than life itself. Will you marry me?”

  She clapped her hands to her mouth as tears drifted down her cheeks. “Yes, Zeke. Yes.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. We were both crying as she covered my face with kisses.

  Amelia had been married once before, to her high school sweetheart, with a big, lavish wedding. The marriage lasted only two years, and another large wedding production wasn’t on her bucket list. We agreed on a small civil ceremony with our very close friends and family members a month later.

  After the ceremony we jetted off to the shimmering waters of the Caribbean for a week of sun. Laughter and lovemaking were constant staples of our week in paradise.

  Two months later, we purchased our first home—a three-bedroom, single-story rancher in a neighborhood of other young couples. The house was older, built in the ’50s, with brick along the bottom third topped out with siding painted a bright shade of blue we both laughed about. A project house in need of a little TLC.

  One day a few months later, Amelia snuggled next to me on the sofa, her legs splayed across my lap, her tanned feet sporting the dark blue nail polish of a recent pedicure. She took my hand. “Zeke, I’m pregnant.”

  “You’re what?”

  “We’re having a baby.”

  We were in the third trimester of Amelia’s pregnancy when complications began to develop.

  Claiming exhaustion one night, Amelia went to bed early, leaving me on the sofa, channel surfing on our new television. A horrible scream shattered the quiet. I raced into the bedroom to find my wife convulsing. “Amelia!” I screamed her name, unsure of what to do.

  I sat gently on the bed and wrapped one of my arms around her thrashing body while I fumbled for my cell phone. With trembling fingers, I finally got the numbers 911 pressed.

  “Hurry, goddammit!” I shouted.

  The convulsions subsided after about twenty seconds and she slipped into unconsciousness.

  “Amelia . . . Amelia . . . Amelia.” I gently shook her but she didn’t respond.

  The rest of the evening was a haze of disbelief, pain, and worry as the ambulance arrived and the paramedics struggled to stabilize her. She was whisked out the front door, and I shuffled to the ambulance and climbed through the double doors. The paramedic was a flurry of activity as he started an IV and injected a variety of medicines into her body. I sat in a foggy haze, staring at the face of my unconscious wife.

  “Eclampsia” is what the doctors told me. I didn’t know what that meant. Amelia never regained consciousness and drifted off into a coma. One week later, she died, taking our unborn child with her.

  Zeke turns away from those passing along the hospital corridor, wiping away the tears. He shuffles along the hall until his heavy breathing subsides and the tears have dried. He wipes his nose and makes his way back toward his father’s room. He pauses before entering to allow the redness on his face to dissipate. When he steps inside, his mother stands up from the chair and wraps her arms around her son.

  “It’s really okay, Mom,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “This doesn’t need to be a taboo subject. It’s been three years. It’s time to let all that go.”

  His mother’s breath is warm on his chest. “I love you, Zeke. You’ve suffered more heartache than most people could ever endure.” She takes a step back. “They’re on the way to get your father for the heart cath.”

  “So soon?”

  “They think he’s stabilized enough and want to eliminate the blockage as soon as possible.”

  Zeke
steps over to his father’s bed and reaches for his hand. “You’ll be fine, Dad. Hell, they do these procedures a dozen times a day.”

  “I know, son. I’m not worried.” He pauses. “But . . . I want to tell you that I love you, son. I don’t know if I’ve actually ever said those words to you, but now I have. I love you and I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

  Damn, just when Zeke had the tears stopped. “I love you, too, Dad. You didn’t need to voice the words for me to know that. Now quit being so damn sentimental—”

  An unfamiliar nurse breezes into the room. “So, Mr. Marshall, you ready to get that ole ticker fixed?”

  “Yeah, I am,” Robert says. “But I wish they could just replace the batteries.”

  The nurse laughs as if she hadn’t heard the same thing a dozen times. “This will be better than batteries,” she says, pulling the bed toward the door. “We’ll have that heart of yours pumping as good as the day you were born.”

  Before the bed clears the doorframe Zeke reaches out to give his father’s hand one last squeeze.

  The nurse glances over her shoulder. “If you two would like to wait in the waiting room, I’ll let you know something as soon as I can.”

  Upstairs the nurses prep Robert Marshall for his cardiac catheterization. A sudden whirring noise sounds and the nurse leans over and begins to shave the groin area of his right leg. His body tenses.

  The nurse stops. “Relax your leg, Mr. Marshall. No need to be embarrassed. I’ve seen just about everything there is to see.” She has a singsong voice, an accent Robert can’t place. Her round, dark face is creaseless, making it difficult to guess her age.

  He relaxes slightly, but as the battery-powered shaver runs against the area near his testicles, his cheeks blush. The nurse clicks off the machine and swabs the shaved area with Betadine while another nurse starts an IV in his left arm.