Powerless (8 page)

 

O
n 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.”

 

C
aptain 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 phone 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.”

 

Z
eke wanders into a vacant waiting room and collapses onto a chair.

 

 

 

 

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.

“Okay, Mr. Marshall, we're going to wheel you into the cath room. You'll be given a mild sedative and the doctor will numb up your groin area before making a small incision. Then he'll thread the catheter up your femoral artery to your heart. Using a fluoroscope and a contrasting dye inserted through your IV, the doctor will be able to pinpoint the blockages. Then he'll place a metal stent into your coronary arteries to improve blood flow. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?” he says.

The question goes unanswered as the nurse wheels him across the hall into a room where the lights are dimmed. They transfer him to another, firmer bed and wheel the empty gurney out of the room. Someone pushes a needle into the port on his IV line and he becomes sleepy, until he feels a sharp stick very near his manhood.

“Mr. Marshall, we're going to start the procedure.” His groin goes numb, and he feels the pressure of the insertion, but no pain. He nods off as the catheter is slowly fed up his artery.

As the head of the catheter nears his heart, the room is plunged into darkness.

“Everyone freeze!” the doctor shouts. “I don't want to rip open a coronary artery because I can't see where the damn cath is.”

They wait for the automatic generator to power on. The doctor holds his gloved hands a good distance from the device tickling the edges of Robert Marshall's heart.

“What happened?” A nurse says.

“Don't know, but it couldn't have happened at a worse time,” the doctor says.

The darkness is profound, and the only disruption to the silence is Robert Marshall's steady breathing. After a few minutes, the lights come on, but they have to wait a few more moments for all the hardware to reboot.

Once they're up and functioning, the doctor shakes out his hands before grasping the device. “Let's get this over as quickly as possible.”

 

 

Downstairs, Zeke and his mother are sitting in the waiting room when the lights go out. Zeke feels his mother's hand fumble for his.

“There should be a backup generator,” he says.

“What about your father?”

“He'll be fine.”

The lights flicker, then burn steady. The admissions people scurry around behind the counter, repowering the computer system as a steady stream of need-to-be-seen patients hovers around the counter.

Two ambulances approach, their lights sending waves of red and yellow pulses across the waiting room. Zeke stands and walks closer to the window to see what's happening. Another ambulance zooms by and all three screech to a stop at the emergency entrance. There's a flurry of activity as paramedics and nurses remove the injured. Three gurneys are wheeled through the automatic door of the ER. Zeke walks over to the admissions desk. “What happened?”

An older woman behind the counter answers. “Traffic accident. Apparently most of the traffic lights quit working. You'd think they'd have the sense to slow down if the light was out.”

Zeke drifts away and returns to his seat.

“What's all the commotion?” his mother asks.

“Big traffic pileup. Something about the signal lights not working.”

“That's odd.”

Zeke glances at the overhead lights, a tickle of something creeping down his spine.

A nurse, dressed in purple scrubs, steps through a side door. “Marshall family?”

Zeke helps his mother from the chair and the nurse leads them into a small, private consultation room.

“The doctor will be in shortly,” she says before disappearing behind a different door.

The two share a glance but don't speak. The doctor walks in and introduces himself. He sits wearily and hands across a couple of photographs of Robert's heart.

“Mr. Marshall is a lucky man,” the doctor says. “We found eighty-five percent blockage on two coronary arteries, and ninety percent blockage on a third. I inserted three stents to reduce the blockage and improve blood flow. He should feel like a new man.”

“When will he be able to go home?” Barbara says.

“We'll keep him overnight to make sure the incision site clots off.” The doctor stands and shakes both of their hands before leaving.

“That's good, Mom. His heart attack could have been much worse,” Zeke says. “If you'll hand me your cell phone I'll call Ruth to fill her in.”

As they exit the small room Zeke powers up the phone. No service. He walks toward the window hoping to get a better signal. No luck. He walks toward his mother. “I can't get a signal on your cell. I'm going to try a landline phone if I can find one.”

Zeke hands the phone back to his mother and strolls down the hall in search of a landline phone. He finds one tucked into a corner near the elevator. He punches in his sister's number and puts the phone to his ear—and hears nothing but the faint echo of his own breathing. He flicks the small white button where the handset rests and listens for a dial tone. Still nothing. He replaces the phone and steps over to the volunteer desk, manned by a pair of white-haired elderly ladies.

“Are you having phone issues?”

The one on the right offers him an apologetic smile. “Only if you're trying to make an outside call. It works for in-hospital numbers but for some reason we can't get to an outside line.”

Zeke ponders this for a moment. “This happen when the power went out?”

“Why, yes, it did, come to think of it.”

He taps the counter with his knuckle. “Okay. Thanks for your help.” He returns to where his mother is sitting.

“I can't get the call to go through. Doesn't even ring.”

“That's strange. I've never had any trouble getting through to her.”

A different nurse appears in the waiting room and leads the Marshalls into the recovery room. Zeke's father is lying flat on the bed while a nurse applies pressure to the incision site. She's standing on her tiptoes, placing most of her weight on her outstretched hands. Robert Marshall grimaces under the pressure.