Quake (21 page)

Lauren Dykstra awoke from a confused, groggy sleep during which she had dreamed the ground was rolling and shifting and dancing and twirling beneath her, and thought she'd been struck blind. Her eyes were open. She was sure of it. And yet she could not see. She wanted to wave a hand in front of her face as a vision test but both of her arms were solidly pinned. She was positive that earlier she could move one at least a little bit, but somehow it seemed like the bookcase she was trapped beneath had shifted while she was out, smothering her even worse than before. She could move her head somewhat, though, and when she tilted it, the shade of black lightened just a bit.

It's nighttime, silly, that's all. Chill out! With all the lights destroyed, the only light would be what filters through the wrecked library from the moon and stars.

Still, even her inner voice—the one that was usually right about things, like the time it told her the guy she liked in her junior year was going to ask some other girl to the prom, and that time when she decided not to study the obscure bonus material for the AP chemistry test because everybody said it wasn't going to be on there . . . That voice had an annoying habit of being right, and right now it was telling her that something was very, very wrong with her.

I'm dying, aren't I?
she asked her inner voice. She didn't like to call the voice God. That's not really what it was to her. It was more like a guiding light that, when it chose to appear, was usually correct.

Though not always. She remembered the time when she was contemplating watching one of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 tribute specials on television, and the voice was telling her that if she watched it, she'd be able to recall a new memory of her mother. When you lose your mother at age five, every memory becomes vastly precious because five-year-olds don't have a large capacity for long-term memory and there wasn't a lot to choose from to begin with. If you lost your mother at age thirty-nine, on the other hand, while naturally it was a tragic event, you still had your entire childhood with her to look back on, not to mention all the adult years after that. Gone at five, it was like trying to hold on to a beloved phantom.

But every now and then, as she grew older, a new memory would hit her like a flash of lightning, at the most random times—waiting for the bus, taking a shower, walking down the stairs.... She'd recall some interaction or scene with her mother in the most striking detail—picture her so vividly that she knew in her heart of hearts she was remembering something real; maybe she'd be offering her milk and cookies in the middle of the night after she'd awoken from a bad dream, or telling her that she didn't have to go to school that day if she didn't want to, let's stay home and play dolls....

When she got one of these flashbacks, she always stopped whatever she was doing, no matter how awkward that might be for the situation at hand, and replayed it over and over until she was sure she wouldn't forget it, until she had burned the images into her neurons.

So when the day before the tenth anniversary of 9/11 her special voice told her that if she watched one of the tribute specials on TV—something her father had sharply warned her against (You don't need to relive it again, Lauren)—she'd pick up a new memory of her mother.

So against the advice of her dad and family friends, even her own friends, she'd sat through the entire three-hour production, crying in places, even learning a few new facts about the tragedy. But by the time some stupid sitcom was on after the tribute, she still hadn't dredged up any new memories.

The voice had been wrong. It was not infallible. She'd been crushed to learn that then—it weighed on her heavily, knowing that not only did she not receive another memory but also that her inner voice was not perfect.

But now . . . Lauren managed a thin smile in the darkness. Now she couldn't be happier that she knew the voice could be wrong.

Because it was telling her she was going to die.

A metal dish of some kind banged into the floor next to them. Sam pointed toward the center of the massive room. “Let's take cover. There's a control booth over there,” he said, pointing again. Jasper saw a squat, metal enclosure about a hundred feet away. They ran for it, more objects crashing around them. An aluminum metal bar glanced off Jasper's right forearm as he ran, and he stopped to see if his radiation suit had ripped.

Still in one piece!

He wasn't sure why he'd stopped. He hadn't been looking over Sam's shoulder to read his dosimeter or anything like that, but that was because his suit had been intact. He was doing what he reasonably could to prevent radiation sickness. A tear in the suit would change that. Of course, those two terrorists they'd fought hadn't been wearing radiation suits and they didn't instantly drop dead, that was for sure, but they were hell bent on killing themselves, anyway.

“Around this side,” Sam said, disappearing around the metal shack.

Jasper followed his path. If anything, by the time he reached the open door the seismic activity had intensified. At one point he simply could not hold himself up and was flung to the floor. He felt a lull in the movement and jumped to his feet and ran. Inside the control booth, the very walls of the structure were in motion. It reminded Jasper of being inside the back of a small moving truck while it rolled down the highway. Thankfully, the workstation stools were bolted down. He sat on one and gripped the edge of the control station. Sam did the same. They could hear unknown debris raining down on the metal roof.

Not again,
was all Jasper could think, while Sam stared out the shack doorway.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

Both men remained hunched on their work stools, clutching the edge of a machinery control console.

“I think that's it,” Sam ventured.

As if to mock him, the ground vibrated once more—a quick but powerful jolt that almost knocked Jasper from his seat—and then all was still once more.

“I'll try not to jinx us anymore,” Sam said.

“I think this last one lasted even longer than the original quake,” Jasper said. Sam nodded in agreement. “Seemed like it could have been just as strong if not stronger, too,” he said.

Slowly, Jasper released his grip on the workstation. He held his hands out for balance, testing the stability of the floor. He carefully rose to his feet. Sam remained sitting and turned to look at the controls in front of him. Jasper followed his gaze. Many of the lights that were on when they entered were now dark, Jasper noticed.

He shook his head. “How much more of this can the plant take?” he wondered aloud.

“Not much,” Sam said, frowning while he toggled a switch back and forth. “In fact, I think we should go and recheck the work we just did on the water system, just to make sure it's all still functional.”

Jasper sighed. Just when it seemed like they might have gotten a leg up on the situation . . .

“I'm curious as to what the spent fuel pool looks like now, too,” he added. Then he picked up his dosimeter and stared at it. Jasper watched as he shook the thing and then looked at it again.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Reading higher now.”

Jasper looked at the arm of his suit again, where the rod had hit, inspecting it even more carefully.

“How much higher?”

Sam let the dosimeter rest again at the end of its lanyard. “We'll be okay. Looks like that was it for the rumbling. Let's check out the damage.”

They cautiously stepped out of the control shack and surveyed their surroundings. Jasper's heart sank as he surveyed the most recent wave of damage. Fresh scraps of metal and clusters of concrete lay everywhere. A clear liquid dropped in a stream from high above that wasn't there before. Jasper's initial reaction was to hope that it was only water and not some kind of acid or industrial solvent, but then he hoped it wasn't water because that could mean the elaborate plumbing system they'd just organized had been damaged.

This place is falling apart!

“This place is falling apart,” Sam said. It spooked Jasper that he echoed his sentiment so exactly through the headset in his ear, but then again, he thought, looking around, there weren't many other ways to say it.

“Yeah, let's just hope we can keep it together long enough to cool that SFP. Speaking of, what are we closer to, the fuel pool or the cooling stations?”

“Cooling stations. We'll go in backwards order, visiting the primary cooling loop last.”

They threaded their way across the ransacked energy facility. Jasper had the dead terrorist's pistol at the ready. What if this new damage had opened up a passage down into the fuel handling or reactor buildings? He missed Peterson. Twenty minutes later, they reached the station they'd visited second on their first go-around.

Sam went to work examining the control settings while Jasper kept watch. It seemed like there were a lot of streams of liquid pouring down from the ceiling in different places—some were sparse little trickles while others were damn near mini-waterfalls. He was about to ask the tech how it was going when he turned around and said, “We're okay here. Made a couple of minor tweaks but, honestly, they might have been necessitated even without the aftershock. Or, if that
was
the bigger quake, then technically I think they'll call the first one a foreshock,” he lectured.

“Who
cares
what the hell they call it? Let's get over to the other station with the loop.”

Sam looked up at him sharply, not saying anything.

“I'm sorry, didn't mean for that to come out so harsh,” Jasper apologized. And he didn't. But hey, he was only human. He'd been drawn into this by degrees, and now he felt like he was in
way
over his head. Yet if he was to survive, and by extension if the entire City of New York was to survive, then he and Sam would need to maintain a solid working relationship.
Don't piss him off. He's only human, too. Last thing we need right now is to be fighting each other.

“Apology accepted. I get a little long-winded sometimes. Believe me, you're not the first person to let me know. Okay, primary loop—this way!”

Sam set off toward the wall walkway. When they reached it, they were dismayed to see that it now hung down to the floor at a crazy angle in most places. They skirted its span along the floor instead. Ten minutes later, they arrived at the primary cooling loop arrangement on the work floor. Sam took a look at the equipment and cursed softly. He removed a pair of pliers and a wrench from a tool belt worn around his suit and did some work on one of the pipe fittings.

“All good now,” he said, reholstering the tools. He led the way up to the control station, where they had to climb up the separated walkway. He played his light over the switchgear panels and made several adjustments, then stepped back as if to admire his work. Jasper heard him take a deep breath.

“What do you think?” Jasper asked.

“Pressure dropped a little more than I'd normally be comfortable with, but under the circumstances, it'll just have to do. Let's check the fuel pool.”

Jasper nodded and they jumped from the walkway back to the floor, where they traversed the expanse toward the distant containment wall. Thirty minutes of careful navigating later and Jasper recognized the rod handling machine he'd manipulated under Jeffries's direction. They entered the walkway that led to the fuel pool deck and then Jasper was staring down at that turquoise water again.

And there in the middle of it was Alex White's body, floating peacefully in the midst of the chaos. Jasper almost envied him. His journey had come to an end. He no longer had to deal with this mess.

The pool itself didn't look any different to Jasper, and for that he was grateful. On the way over he'd been scared that they'd arrive only to see bare rods already smoldering.

“Who was that?” Sam asked, acknowledging that whoever it was must certainly be dead.

“Alex White.”

“Damn.” He said nothing more and Jasper didn't want to press him for details on how well he did or didn't know him. There'd be plenty of time for that later if they made it out of this.

The two let a moment of silence pass. Then Sam said, “Okay, I need to check something over here.” He led Jasper off to the left where a computer monitor glowed behind a glass console. Sam tended to it while Jasper looked up toward the broken catwalk. He thought maybe he was looking in the wrong place until he realized that it was simply not there anymore. It had fallen from its remaining end . . .
into the pool
? That sure as hell wouldn't be good.

But then he spotted it, dangling precariously from some infrastructure about halfway down from the floor it used to be attached to and the pool surface. Well, at least the terrorists weren't getting across that way, that was for sure. No ladder was going to bridge that gap.

“All right, amazingly the pool is still holding water, which was my main
new
concern. We don't want it leaking out into the river or the ground, thereby lowering the level even faster. But the water temperature is still critical. This is gonna boil off any minute now.”

Jasper jumped at the sound of a new voice over their communications channel.

“Calling Jasper Howard, calling Jasper Howard. This is Frank Mendoza, do you copy?”

Jasper watched Sam turn away from the instrument console at the sound of Frank Mendoza's voice. He nodded.
Go ahead.

“Yes, Frank! I hear you. You must be close! Do you have water?”

“Copy, that, Jasper. Yes, I'm in a convoy of sorts. We've got six water trucks. About 50,000 gallons altogether.”

Jasper looked over at Sam.
Is that enough?
Sam gave him a thumbs-up.

“Fantastic, Frank. You are the man! Where are you now?”

“I'm at the plant entrance gate. It's closed and locked. I don't see anybody.”

Sam turned back to making his console adjustments while Jasper spoke to Mendoza.

“I'm sorry, but I don't think there's anyone up there to open it, and we're stuck down here. I'll need you to just take one of the trucks and ram on through. That gate will fold.”

A pause ensued and for a moment Jasper was worried that he was going to say he didn't want to drive the truck through the gate. Then his com channel opened up once more with the sound of idling engines in the background.

“Will do, Jasper. Always wanted to try that. Give me a minute . . .”

While he waited for Mendoza to back up and drive through the gate, Jasper looked up and across the fuel pool to where they'd walked out on the broken catwalk. It unnerved him that a murderer with a gun was most likely wandering around up there somewhere. In fact, Jasper noted, if they were to walk out to the edge of where the catwalk used to be, they'd be able to see them down here on the SFP operations deck. And then a second worry nagged at his consciousness.

Should he ask Sam if the radiation exposure levels are safe enough for Mendoza and his drivers to even come onto the plant property? They'd been compromised after all, and Sam admitted that after the last aftershock the levels were higher. But to ask Sam meant that Mendoza could also hear, now that they were on the shared channel. He could not afford to scare him off now. But this man had gone way out of his way to help them. He simply could not in good conscience put him in possible danger without at least making him aware of the risks.

He walked over to Sam and pointed to his dosimeter. He hoped Sam would catch his meaning, but he merely held the instrument up for Jasper to see. Jasper shook his head and pointed up and away toward the outside. Sam followed his gaze and appeared to catch his meaning. He waggled a hand held out flat.
Iffy
.

That was it. Jasper had to warn Mendoza. He would not be able to live with himself if he did not.

“Listen, Frank, can you hear me?”

He heard the roar of revving trucks when Frank came back over the airwave. “Affirmative. I just broke through the gate. My boys are rolling through now.”

“Okay, great. But listen there's something I need to tell you.”

“Go ahead.”

He looked at Sam to see if he would protest, but he only nodded. It was the right thing to do.

“There is a risk of radioactive contamination of you coming onto the property here.”

Then Sam cut in, recognizing that his authority was needed. “It's not very high, but is higher than normal. My name is Sam Wilkson, by the way, Mr. Mendoza. I'm a reactor technician working with Jasper down here in the fuel handling building of Reactor Number Two to get the cooling system ready for your water.”

There was a slight pause as Mendoza digested this. Then he said, “But it's not like we'd instantly get sick, right?”

Sam jumped right in. “No, nothing like that. I'm not a medical doctor, okay, but let's just say that the very long-term consequences may be unknown. And even down here where we are right now, it's not all that bad, although we are wearing hazmat suits. Up there at the water fitting, it'll probably be like you're getting the same amount of radiation as if you went and had about ten dental X-rays done in a row. But we'd feel it'd be disingenuous not to inform you that the radiation levels are higher than normal, that's all.”

“I—we—appreciate that. But there's no one else you have who can do this, right? Your crew is dead or gone?”

“That's correct,” Sam said.

“Yes,” Jasper agreed.

“And if we do nothing, then you could have this radioactive fire Jasper was telling me about earlier, right, and then the whole city, including me, would be screwed.”

“Right again,” Sam said, adding, “and we need to get working on that.”

“I'll let my guys know. Just give me one minute,” Mendoza told them.

Both Jasper and Sam stared down at the fuel pool, the surface of which was definitely bubbling now. They hoped they could spare that minute. He had absolutely no idea what they would do should Mendoza and his impromptu posse decide that they were going to leave.
I guess they could at least leave the water trucks....

Then Mendoza was back on the radio. “Everybody's okay with it. Ten X-rays to save the city? Bring it on. So where do we go?”

Sam issued driving instructions while Jasper kept lookout.

“On our way,” Mendoza said. They heard him honk his truck's horn.

“When you get there,” Sam said, “it's going to be one truck at a time. Connect the fitting of one truck, let me know it's ready, and I'll initiate the pumping process. When that truck's drained, disconnect it, move it out of the way, and bring the next one in line up to repeat the process. Clear?”

“You bet.” Before long Mendoza was describing buildings to use as landmarks and Sam was directing him to the water pump fitting.

“Place is like a ghost town,” Mendoza noted.

Haunted by terrorists
, Jasper thought. He alternated his gaze from the former catwalk level above and the rapidly boiling water below, where Alex White's body floated around in circles.

Jasper wondered if they should also tell Mendoza about the terrorists, but the pump fitting area was far enough from the reactor building entrance that the gunmen probably entered that he didn't think it was a concern. And it would seem ridiculous to have to say now, after the radiation threat, “Oh, yeah, and by the way, be on the lookout for armed terrorists.”
Do you want this water or not? Don't scare them off.

He decided to tell them about the terror threat as soon as the trucks' water had been pumped. Remind them at that point not to go wandering around . . .

“I've got my tanker connected.” Mendoza came through over the radio. “Now what?”

Sam answered him. “Be sure it's tight, because otherwise once I start the pump it could fly off and deck you in the face, not to mention we'd lose the water.”

“Hold on.” A few seconds elapsed and then Mendoza said, “It's on there tight.”

“Okay. Then here we go. Stand by and I'll keep you posted.”

Sam bent to the control station, flipping switches, consulting LCD readouts, turning dials. Then he stood straight, took one look down at the fuel pool, and punched a red button.

Jasper could neither see nor hear anything special happening. Sam stared at his instrument console intently. Jasper hoped that the most recent temblor didn't cause too much damage to their cooling system.
He mentioned before that the pressure was lower than he'd like....

“Yeah, I hear it pumping,” Mendoza said.

“Wish the flow rate could be faster,” Sam said. “If you're around 8,000 gallons, it's going to take about”—he squinted at a computer monitor—“ten minutes. Times six for all of the trucks.”

“I'll let my drivers know and make sure they're all lined up good so we can move up smoothly.”

Three trucks had emptied their payloads when Mendoza's voice crackled over the radio channel. It was higher pitched than normal.

“Jasper, Sam! What the hell's going on? We're getting shot at out here!”