Radiation Hazard (The Stasis Stories #3) Read online

  ~~~

  Ralph felt like his eyes were bugging out. The reactor core temperature was continuing to climb. Even with the control rods in. It was normal for the temp to climb somewhat due to the ongoing, though diminished, nuclear reaction in progress.

  But the ECCS should be cooling it down!

  He checked the ECCS status. His display indicated it was off!

  “What the hell happened to the ECCS?!” he screamed.

  Several other men checked their boards and saw both ECCS systems were off.

  ~~~

  Jared realized he’d done exactly the wrong thing. Suddenly he developed horrible cramping in his gut. A squirt of urine ran down his leg and he thought he was about to soil himself. Both frightened and horribly embarrassed, he turned from his post and fled to the bathroom.

  ~~~

  Ace Berry, who was supposed to back up the rookie, clutched at his chest as he fell out of his chair.

  Several long agonizing minutes passed before the other men realized that Jared was gone.

  And that Ace had had a heart attack.

  And that both ECCS systems had been shut off at Jared’s board.

  Even more time passed before they realized some of the control rods were still up out of the core. Someone manually activated the circuit, causing the failsafe motors to force the control rods down but the delay had resulted in a great deal more heating.

  It took more time than that to locate the breach in the coolant pressure line and bypass it.

  Before they were able to pump water back into the reactor, a small portion of the core had heated so much it melted. When the new water met this extremely hot nuclear fuel, the pressure in the reactor’s vessel rose so high that some of the steam was vented into the containment building.

  The containment building was designed to hold pressure from such an event and should easily have held the pressure that developed, but the building had provisions for venting in case of overpressure and one of the vent valves had stuck in a slightly open position after a recent test. It vented a small amount of steam containing radioactive cesium-137. This went on for several hours before anyone noticed it.

  ~~~

  When Jared Blank left the bathroom, he looked for a long moment toward the control room he’d deserted, then shook his head and left the building at a run.

  ~~~

  Ace Berry did not survive.

  Chapter One

  AP—Consternation and dismay run rampant in Eastern Virginia!

  An accident at the Surbury Nuclear Reactor has released a plume into the atmosphere containing the radioactive isotope cesium 137. This plume is thought to be threatening the nearby cities of Newport News, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake. Though an evacuation order is not in place, reports are that traffic out of the area is heavy.

  The nature of the accident is not clear at this point. The number two reactor is said to have undergone a “scram,” an event in which the rods controlling the nuclear reaction are thrown home to shut down the nuclear process. For reasons that are not clear, despite the scram, the reactor overheated, causing at least some melting of the nuclear material and the structures supporting it, a so-called “meltdown.”

  One of the workers at the plant has died and two have been hospitalized. If radiation is the cause of the hospitalizations, it is thought to be unlikely that the workers will survive.

  This reactor, well over sixty years of age, has been the scene of several demonstrations in the past five years. Elaine Bosler, leader of one of the protest groups said, “It is simply insane to be operating a reactor that’s over six-decades old. Especially when solar power is now less expensive than the energy produced by Surbury. Despite the risks and the lack of need, this hazardous nuclear machinery has remained in operation. Now we all suffer the consequences of that decision.”

  In response, a Vinargy Power spokeswoman noted that there is good data to support the contention that nuclear energy is actually the safest of the means for generating electricity. Also, she points out that there is still no economical method for storing the energy produced by solar farms during the day until peak usage hours in the evening. She said, “The output of this nuclear plant allows it to accommodate the needs of our customers day or night, cloudy or bright, and windy or quiet.”

  Art Turpin, plant manager at the Surbury reactor, shook his head at the scope of the disaster.

  It could’ve been worse. The amount of radiation released had been miniscule. The highest dose anyone had sustained was substantially less radiation than a person would get from a chest x-ray. It was, however, a public relations disaster. And Art knew better than to say the radiation dose wasn’t a big deal. People’s feelings about radiation could be extreme.

  The reactor’d been destroyed. Though very little radiation had escaped, the reactor itself and the interior of its containment building was highly radioactive and completely nonfunctional. Cleanup would be exceedingly expensive, so one of the company’s sources of income had just been converted to a big red line on the balance sheet.

  On my watch, Art thought.

  Typical of most nuclear plant accidents, a series of near-simultaneous mechanical faults had initiated a problem that should still have been soluble, but a comedy of human errors had magnified, rather than containing, the problem. God damn Ralph Williams anyway, Art thought. The SOB had a history of so intimidating employees under his command that they became nonfunctional. He’d gone through remedial training on the issue three times, yet once again he’d practically destroyed a good man… Art shook his head in frustration. Going down that path gets me nowhere, he thought.

  “Darcy?” Art called out to his admin, grateful that she’d agreed to work overtime during the crisis.

  “Yes, Mr. Turpin,” she responded. “Coming…” She appeared in his doorway, took one look at him, and said, “How can I help?”

  “Despite your screening, I’m still getting some whacko messages in my email.”

  Since the disaster at the number two reactor, Darcy’d been screening the deluge of emails he’d been getting, deleting the crap, pawning off complaints to the PR office, and generally trying to leave Art with a manageable burden. Darcy walked around to look over his shoulder at his email window. He said, “There’s this one from some college kid who thinks he’s got a material that can block all the radiation coming out of the reactor and—”

  “Um, yes,” Darcy interrupted. “He’s a physics student at UVA and—”

  “Darcy,” Art interrupted in his turn, “I don’t care if he’s an angel studying to be God, there isn’t any material that can block all the radiation coming out of the reactor.”

  “Um,” she said doubtfully, “okay.”

  He rolled his eyes, “Really, Darcy, there isn’t.”

  “Okay.”

  Art could tell her wishful thinking engine was still running full blast, but he ignored it. “Next. There’s an email from you about a call from Aaron Marks of Space-Gen?”

  Darcy nodded.

  “Normally, I’d be all about calling Marks back because I respect the hell out of the guy. But right now my plate’s a little full. Do you know what he wanted?”

  “He wanted you to talk to Kaem Seba.”

  “Who the hell’s Kaem Seba?”

  “Um, he’s the UVA physics student. Marks was calling to tell you that Seba has a material that blocks radiation.”

  Art’s eyes narrowed and he glanced down at the email that was still open on his screen. He skimmed over it quickly, then looked back up at Darcy. “Did you confirm that the message came from Marks?”

  Darcy nodded, “As best I could. I called his office and his administrative assistant said he’d called you.” She grinned, “Apparently they get a lot of callbacks from people worried they’re being pranked. I’d deleted Seba’s email but pulled it back out of your trash when Marks called.”

  “And why was Marks calling me about this UVA student?”

  “Marks says Space Gen’
s using some of Seba’s material too. When he heard about the disaster—”

  Art put up his hand, saying, “Please call it an event, not a ‘disaster.’”

  Darcy raised an eyebrow, then said, “When Marks heard about the event, he thought Seba’s material might be helpful and suggested Seba contact you.”

  “Because it blocks radiation?” Art said, disbelief evident in his tone.

  Darcy nodded.

  “This kid have samples?”

  “In that envelope there,” Darcy said, pointing at a 5 x 7-inch manilla envelope on his desk labeled “Stade sample.”

  “How’d he get it here already?” Art asked suspiciously as he picked up the envelope and pulled back the flap, seeing what looked like a very-thin mirror, about 3 x 6-inches.

  “He drove it down here in an Uber this afternoon,” Darcy said, “Careful, it’s kinda hard to handle.”

  Art reached in to grab the mirror, but couldn’t seem to get a grip on it. After trying for a few seconds without being able to pull it out of the envelope, he frowned at Darcy wondering what kind of trick she was playing. Could she have glued it into the envelope and oiled the mirror? he wondered. This is hardly the time for jokes!

  She reached out a hand. When he gave her the envelope, she opened the flap, then jerked on the envelope, leaving the mirror tumbling behind it.

  Floating in the air like a feather—except it didn’t seem to be falling at all.

  Then Art noticed that one corner was dropping, apparently pulled downward by a short loop of string tied through a hole there. The string seemed to be weighing down that corner. Art reached out and took the mirror, but it slipped unstoppably out of his grip again. In fact, because he started squeezing harder and harder as it inexorably slid through his fingers, when it got to the end, it shot away like a watermelon seed.

  As Art stood gaping at it, Darcy reached out and caught the tumbling mirror with a basket of clawed fingers from both hands. She shifted her fingers and then pinched it between thumb and forefinger, gripping it at the site where the string passed through the hole and provided some friction. “This seems to be the only way to hold onto it. Well, that and keeping it in the envelope.”

  “There’s no way that’s going to block much radiation,” Art mused aloud.

  “They both say it’ll block all radiation,” Darcy said.

  “We’ll see about that,” Art responded, taking the mirror by the string, then grasping it by the corner and reaching for the envelope. Darcy opened the envelope and he slid it in, then looked at his desk. To Darcy, he said, “Is there anything else that’s urgent?”

  She shook her head.

  He held up the envelope. “I’ll have Ron check to see if this really blocks radiation…” He shook his head, “But there’s not a chance in hell it will.”

  Darcy picked up a sheet of paper and held it out. “These are its material properties. I’ve written Seba’s phone number at the bottom.”

  Art’s eyes scanned over the properties listed on the sheet, then said tiredly, “This is complete bullshit.”

  “Um,” Darcy said, “Mr. Marks said you might say that. That every engineer who sees those numbers calls bullshit. He said you should consider what it felt like when you touched the Stade.”

  “Touched the what?”

  “Stade,” she answered. “It’s what they call the material,” she indicated the envelope with the sample. “He said you should think about what you felt and how it correlates with the coefficient of friction listed on the sheet. That the other properties are also true… no matter how hard they are to believe.”

  Art’s eyes went to the zero listed for the coefficient of friction and his eyebrows rose as he considered just how damned impossible it’d been to hold onto the sample. It can’t be zero, he thought, but it’s gotta be pretty damn close. Then his eye caught on the density, which to the best of his recollection was quite close to the density of air at sea level and would explain the way the little mirror floated in the air. Then his eye went on to all the impossible mechanical property results that were followed by notations saying that the material had withstood loading to the limits of the testing equipment. If this stuff’s even close to this strong it’d be ideal for reactor pressure vessels and piping, and containments, and… if it isn’t terribly expensive it could lower costs, maybe make nuclear plants safe enough for the idiots who’re always protesting against them.

  Art raised his eyes, realizing that Ron wouldn’t be available at this hour of the day. Waving the sample, “I’ll get this tested tomorrow. It might be useful if… Um… Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Darcy said. “Time to go home?”

  He nodded, his thoughts already far away.

  ***

  Kaem and Gunnar were working on what Kaem thought of as their “thermite protected stazer.” The circuit boards, microwave generators, and lasers were inside a steel case. Kaem had just rearranged the components on the circuit board to make the stazer functional.

  Kaem quickly checked the visual integrity of the fuses that ran from the bolts to the thermite under the circuit board. With the power off, flint igniters rested against steel wheels turned by the bolts. Thus, unscrewing the bolts with the power off produced sparks that would light the fuses and destroy the stazer. He hooked the control cable from the stazer up to his laptop and entered a long password that allowed him to electronically retract the flints from the steel wheels in the first case. Then he and Gunnar screwed the steel case closed. Kaem released the flints in that first case and disconnected the control cable. They settled the steel case into the second case which was made of Stade. Positioning it jacked the control cable from the first case through to the second one. Now Kaem entered a second password that let him retract the flints for the second case. They inserted the bolts that closed that case. Kaem released/activated the flints in the second case and they put the stazer into the third and largest case, this one also Stade, but with a bumpy surface and handles to make it possible to grip it with your hands. Kaem jacked the control cord into the third case and entered another password that let him retract/disable the bolts in the third case. After they’d tightened the bolts on that one, Kaem enabled the igniters in the third case.

  Kaem looked at it. “It’s kinda big with all three cases around it.”

  Gunnar shrugged, “Makes it harder to steal.”

  “And we’ll still have to carry this second case,” Kaem said unhappily, pointing to the separate case full of nonproprietary, high-powered equipment, mostly power supplies. They were keeping power supplies out of the stazer case to limit overheating inside the Stade cases. Since Stade was a perfect insulator, they had a system of fans that pulled air in one side and pushed it the other through hundreds of one-millimeter, non-aligned vent holes in the cases. This would hopefully keep the low powered electronics that remained on the board at safe temperatures. Those vent holes also provided egress for smoke coming from the thermite should it be activated.

  Gunnar had ignored Kaem’s complaint. He said, “Hey, those long-ass passwords you’re entering. How many of them are you using?”

  Kaem gave him a puzzled look. “Three of them. One to disable each of the sets of flint igniters…” He paused with a thoughtful look, “Well, there’re also a couple of passwords necessary to use the stazer without setting off the thermite. If you’re including them there’d be five.”

  “What the hell Kaem! Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna forget a password and blow up a stazer yourself? Assuming you don’t have it written down, if you forgot one of those five passwords, you’d essentially have destroyed every stazer we have since you wouldn’t be able to use or repair any of them.”

  Kaem frowned, “If I forgot the password for one stazer it wouldn’t destroy the others.”

  “What do you mean. If you lost the password to one of them, you’d have lost the passwords to all of them, right?”

  “No,” Kaem said slowly, “each stazer’ll have its own set of
passwords.”

  Gunnar stared at him. “Good God Kaem! You think you’re gonna remember five passwords for each stazer?!”

  Kaem nodded. “I remember stuff like that pretty well.”

  “You have some kind of photographic memory?”

  “Not exactly. I have to decide to remember things, but once I’ve decided it seems pretty foolproof. I’ve never forgotten anything once I’ve decided to remember it.”

  Gunnar stared another moment, then said, “Well, for the company’s sake, I hope to hell nothing ever happens to you. We’d be SOL.”

  Kaem nodded. “I’m working on a way to leave instructions for you guys if something happens to me. Something that’d explain how to make stazers and do all the other stuff. I guess I’d better add the stazer passwords to those instructions.” He looked down at the stazer they’d just finished, “You ready to test this thing?”

  Gunnar nodded and they stazed a few samples. Once they were sure it was working, they stazed some coats Gunnar and Arya had made up using Gunnar’s waffle cloth ideas. They weren’t stazing actual jackets, rather they were stazing the various panels of cloth that’d be assembled into jackets once sections of the panels had been stazed. Segments of Stade were being formed on sheets of nylon cloth that’d been covered with waffle-cloth Stade-forming segments. There’d be two layers to the Stade segments, aligned to overlap so the gaps between the Stade segments that formed in one layer would be covered by the Stades in the overlying panel. The Stade panels were quite large over the less mobile—but more vital—chest and abdomen and smaller in areas that needed to move such as the shoulders and elbows.

  They used a vacuum setup to pull the cloth tight against appropriately sized mannikins so the Stade would be curved to fit the body better than their original bulletproof Stade jackets that were made entirely out of flat plates.

  Unfortunately, the first one they stazed had a lot of areas where Stade failed to form. Gunnar was upset. “What the hell happened?! The stazer worked fine on the test samples!”