Kill Zone

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Even though water was no longer draining out, the fallen and damaged fuel rods had substantially increased the ambient radiation levels in the chamber. Maybe their efforts minimized the possibility of setting off the Velvet Hammer warheads, but the risk still remained. It seemed like weeks ago that Mrs. Garcia had given her spontaneous tutorial of how neutrons could be reflected, absorbed, and re-radiated until they struck a critical target.

  Adonia stopped at the ladder that hung down from an access hatch in the rock ceiling, the only way to reach the shaft drilled up toward the top of Hydra Mountain. They would have to climb the thirty feet on the open, unsupported metal steps. “I feel like we’ve all joined the circus. I knew I should have taken those trapeze lessons.”

  Shawn grasped a rung at shoulder height and rattled the hanging ladder. “I’ll climb first and open the hatch. Adonia, help Dr. Garibaldi up the ladder.”

  “I’m fine,” the scientist protested unconvincingly. “Don’t let me slow you down. This is too important.”

  Adonia lifted her eyebrows. “Shawn, you know I don’t have the strength to haul him up, rung by rung, if he needs it. Let me open the access hatch while you secure him with the line. I’ll take the other end of the rope with me, as security.” She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You know I’m right.”

  Shawn pushed her gently forward after handing her one end of the rope. “You usually are.”

  She tied the rope around her waist. “I’ll secure it to something stable once I open the hatch.” She grasped the ladder’s thin metal sides and gave it a shake, not impressed with its sturdiness. “On top of everything else, I’m going to have Rob Harris write up a safety violation for this ladder once we get out of here.”

  Garibaldi coughed as he tried to stop laughing.

  With the rope trailing at her side, she climbed the ladder, didn’t look down, didn’t look back. Staring only at her hands, she relaxed into a clockwork motion of reach, step, reach, step, and soon found herself at the granite ceiling. The round access hatch rotated up into the shaft; a lever on the door served as a handle.

  Keeping a hand on the ladder, she reached up and grabbed the lever, tried to turn the handle—and the lever didn’t move at all. She grunted and tried harder, but still nothing. Her heart pounded. After all this, they were stymied by a stuck handle?

  Trying not to panic, she inspected the area around the lever, dreading that a padlock might secure the hatch—which made no sense at all, but considering the intersecting red tape of the classified SAPs, she wouldn’t have been surprised if some mid-level clerk had added a lock for “extra security.”

  She struggled again to turn the handle, and in the process, pushed straight up. A spring-loaded mechanism popped, released the latch, and the metal hatch swung up into the shaft, recessed into the rock wall. “Oh,” she said, embarrassed as she realized that the handle was only necessary to pull the hatch back down into place.

  She climbed two more rungs and poked her head into the vertical shaft bored up through the rock ceiling. Four metal ducts vented into the shaft, directed upward. She could smell the residue of stale, oily fumes; this must be where the diesel exhaust from the crane engine and other heavy machinery was vented.

  LED lights ran up opposite walls of the shaft and disappeared high above, showing an endless line of steel rungs that went up to a vanishing point. Safety mesh lined the shaft’s inner walls to keep dislodged rocks and debris from tumbling into the cavern. The walls and rungs were covered with layers of grime, dust, and dark grease. Adonia couldn’t guess the last time anyone had entered the shaft.

  Shawn called from below. “Everything all right?”

  She untied the rope around her waist, looped it around the lowest two rungs in the shaft, and securely tied it. She gave it a quick yank and climbed back down far enough to poke her head out. “Ready. The line’s secure.”

  From below, Shawn gave it a tug, then turned to the weary scientist, securing him with the rope. “Up you go, sir. Hold on to that ladder.” With a grunt, Garibaldi began the thirty-foot climb on the open ladder toward the rock ceiling, rung over rung. Keeping two rungs behind, Shawn called up. “I’ll follow him, Adonia. You keep climbing, and we’ll be right behind you. I’ll close the access hatch after I’m inside.”

  Adonia started up the metal rungs, giving the other two enough room to follow her. The lines of LED lights converged high above her head, but since she had no points of reference, she couldn’t gauge how high the shaft actually went. Somewhere up there the shaft had to vent to the outside. When she’d first arrived at the guard gate that morning, she remembered how high and rugged Hydra Mountain had seemed.

  They might really have some climbing to do.

  A loud feedback noise squealed throughout the underground cavern, a clicking sound, then another sharp staccato of feedback boomed from old-fashioned facility loudspeakers mounted on the rocky walls.

  Garibaldi hung on to a rung, pausing. “The intercom system must be active now. Harris is trying to contact us.”

  “About time,” Shawn said. “If the intercoms are working again, maybe the reboot is almost over.”

  But none of them were prepared to hear the voice that came over the loudspeakers.

  42

  The speakers blared through the enormous cavern, and the voice sounded like a pronouncement from Olympus. “Ms. Rojas? Colonel Whalen? I don’t know if you can hear me. Dr. Garibaldi?”

  Adonia couldn’t believe it. “That’s not Harris—it’s Stanley!”

  “Van Dyckman’s alive?” Shawn held himself steady on the ladder. “How did he get out of the vault and the sticky foam?”

  Garibaldi asked, “And how did he get out of the cavern?”

  The voice continued to boom out. “I hope against hope that you managed to survive. I’m afraid Undersecretary Doyle is dead, but I made it out through a maintenance shaft. I’m back in the operations center now.”

  Shawn hung on the lower ladder and yelled, “We’re here!”

  “He can’t hear you,” Garibaldi said. “Loudspeakers aren’t made for two-way communication.”

  “If you’re alive and can hear me, please stay where you are,” van Dyckman continued. “You’ll be safe. The system reboot will be over in eighty-seven minutes, and then we’ll finally have access to the facility’s inner storage levels. We’ll rescue you, don’t worry. Specially cleared recovery and decontamination crews are waiting just outside Hydra’s main entrance, as well as NEST teams. We have everything under control out here. There’s nothing you need to worry about.”

  “If Stanley escaped, then he would have told the rescue teams exactly what they’ll find down here, the cooling pools and the nuclear devices,” Adonia said, feeling great relief. “They’ll be prepared when they enter.”

  “But he doesn’t know about the leaking pool with the damaged fuel rods,” Garibaldi pointed out. “Or the Senator’s body plugging the breach.”

  Van Dyckman’s voice sounded pompous, and much too loud. “I have assumed control of Hydra Mountain and relieved Site Manager Harris of his responsibilities for gross negligence. He is being held, pending arrest. I’ve already announced this to the rest of the facility—”

  Adonia realized he wasn’t speaking for their benefit at all. She was rattled. “He’s relieved Rob Harris? Arrested him?” She remembered how van Dyckman had held that ill-advised press conference after the extremist attack on Granite Bay and claimed credit for supervising the recovery effort. “Harris wasn’t the one playing fast and loose with regulations.”

  Over the loudspeaker, van Dyckman’s voice sounded businesslike and commanding. “I’m doing everything in my power to bring you safely out on the assumption that you’re still alive, and then we can determine what to do. Once Mountain operations get back to normal, I’ll work with the staffs of Senator Pulaski and Undersecretary Doyle to make appropriate decisions. We will find a way to preserve Valiant Locksmith for the good of the count
ry. Again, I don’t know if you can hear me—”

  “He sounds more concerned with his nuclear storage plan than with our well-being,” Garibaldi said, then added more ominously, “It would be a terrible inconvenience to him if we were still alive.”

  Van Dyckman’s amplified voice grew harder. “You must be very careful not to let word get out, which could cause a widespread panic. All Hydra Mountain internal matters must remain at the highest level of secrecy, until we can determine a proper framework for disseminating any information.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Garibaldi said, appalled.

  Van Dyckman rambled, probably assuming that he was speaking to an empty chamber full of dead people. Was this a sort of confessional for him?

  “—far greater ramifications than this temporary setback. A black mark on the program now could turn Valiant Locksmith into another expensive political disaster like Yucca Mountain, and we can’t let that happen.”

  Shawn frowned. “He’s covering his butt faster than he can rescue us.”

  “Simon’s right. I don’t expect he wants to find us alive,” Adonia said. “If he’s the only one, he can tell the story however he likes.”

  “—you have my personal assurance that each of you will be cared for in a special medical facility, where you will also be debriefed in a secure environment until all of this can be worked out. So hold on just a little longer. We’re coming for you! The emergency teams will soon be on their way with all due speed. When they find you, they’ll escort you to safety. Good luck, and Godspeed.”

  The loudspeakers fell silent, leaving the huge cavern to echo and hum with background noise.

  “Like hell they will,” Garibaldi said. “You know he’ll squirrel me away in some covert, undisclosed location until I die. I doubt the word ‘radiation’ will ever even be used in any public announcements. If he expects me to go quietly and pretend I suffered a heart attack, he’s in for a big surprise.”

  Adonia began to shake with anger. If a prominent activist like Simon Garibaldi died from radiation exposure, such a casualty would cause a public uproar. If van Dyckman was already sweeping the deaths of Victoria Doyle and Senator Pulaski under the rug, would he whisk Dr. Garibaldi away to a locked-down hospital wing for “special medical attention,” keep the scientist away from his Sanergy activists until he succumbed from radiation sickness? Just so Garibaldi couldn’t blow the whistle?

  The older scientist looked to Shawn and Adonia, red with frustration. “And while I’m in quarantine, you two will be transferred to the Aleutian Islands. You’ll have no chance to make a public comment.”

  “At least we’ll be together,” Shawn said to Adonia with wry humor. “For the first time in our careers.”

  “I’d rather be together somewhere other than Shemya, Alaska,” she replied, then made up her mind. “Keep climbing. We’ll get out on our own.” She ascended, rung by rung, toward the converging lights far overhead.

  Garibaldi panted as he climbed after her. “We need to get the word out, fast. Give me a phone and a few minutes, and I can mobilize my Sanergy contacts. Then we won’t be swept under the rug.”

  Shawn called up from below. “Van Dyckman got out, and so can we.”

  Garibaldi flexed his burned hand, then gripped the next rung. “We escape, spread the word, and stop this ‘temporary storage’ insanity without widespread public discussion and agreement. Or we die trying to get out of here—and believe me, that would not be my preferred outcome. We have to stop kicking the can down the road and figure out a permanent, long-term solution.” He was quiet for a moment. “Maybe that means opening Yucca Mountain after all. With the accelerating pace of science and technology, I suppose it might be possible to solve the current environmental concerns—so long as someone actually works on it. I just worry that an easy solution will be a disincentive to develop cleaner, safer energy alternatives.”

  “Or there’s another possibility,” Adonia said. “If one of those random neutrons rattling around the lower cavern hits its mark, the Velvet Hammer warheads could detonate any second now.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Shawn called up. “That would solve the problem of what to do about Hydra Mountain.”

  43

  As she climbed higher into the shaft, air currents whistled around Adonia, whooshing up from below like a hurricane squeezed through a straw. Several rungs below her, Shawn encouraged Dr. Garibaldi to keep climbing.

  Soon she reached a horizontal vent screen that covered another tunnel recessed into the granite, going sideways instead of up. She called down over the roaring flow of air. “Hold up! I think we’ve reached an access hatch to the upper-level ventilation ducts.”

  Shawn called up to her, “Is it open? Can we get inside?”

  Air blew in Adonia’s face as she tried to peer through the slats of the opening, but she saw only white pleated layers of fabric. “It’s covered with a filter.”

  “No surprise, considering all the dust in here,” Garibaldi said.

  Adonia pushed, then pounded against the screen, but it didn’t budge. Both the hatch and the inside frame were secured with numerous screws sunk deep into the granite. “We’re not getting in without a toolkit.”

  Garibaldi looked past Adonia, straight up the shaft. “Then we keep going. Top of the Mountain, all the way up—and outside.”

  “Could be five hundred more feet,” Adonia said, not looking forward to it herself. “Are you going to be able to make it?”

  “Well, I’ll have to. Dying here at this point would be a waste of my efforts. I might have only two weeks left, but I intend to make good use of them. So much to do and so little time.” He paused. “Ah, that phrase never meant so much before.” He heaved a deep breath, then continued in an angrier voice. “If I’m going to die, I don’t want my death to help cover up the mess van Dyckman created by cutting corners.

  “Why do you think I became an activist in the first place? I used to work for the DOE, really bought into the mission. I followed the procedures, believed that everything was safe at Oakridge. I had major responsibilities, a decent salary, great benefits, challenging work.”

  A troubled look crossed his face. “Until a routine system failed in one of the Oakridge storage chambers, a power outage and a traditional lockdown. I … was inside one of the small vaults, just like Mrs. Garcia. The power went off, and I was trapped alone in the dark. But the worst part was the terror of the unknown, sure there was radiation all around me.”

  He made a self-deprecating sound. “Oh, I’m a scientist and I know full well what you need to worry about and what you don’t—but that’s all on paper and computer simulation. It’s completely different when you’re cold, dark, and all alone. I tried to convince myself I had nothing to worry about. I was sealed inside a pitch-black chamber filled with radioactive casks. At least I had an intercom, and the team on the outside—led by Rob Harris himself, in fact—kept in contact, reassuring me throughout those terrifying hours until the lockdown was over, but they were just detached voices in the dark.

  “Over the intercom, Harris walked me through calculations for those two hours, forcing me to go through what I already knew, but had forgotten in my panic. He helped me understand the exposure, convinced me that I wasn’t going to die. But during that long, dark limbo, your eyes play tricks on you and you begin to experience false light, hallucinations … spurious flashes that you think are radiation bursts. Oh, it’s so convincing! All the science in the world doesn’t make up for one unexplained bump in the night.”

  Adonia was fascinated and horrified. This was the first time she’d seen the erudite Garibaldi open up about what had turned him so strongly against the nuclear industry.

  “After I was rescued, a young public defender worked like hell to get me medical care, psychological counseling—it was the young attorney’s first job out of law school … but the DOE rolled over her. They showed her my dosimeter, told her that my exposure was ‘acceptable,’ although
high enough that I had to stay away from radiation sources for quite some time. I was assigned to a desk job at DOE Headquarters, far from any active nuclear site. They even gave me a nice raise, but acted as if everything was fine. Nothing to worry about. They were so glib and dismissive.

  “That experience changed my worldview. The fact that they said I would have no lasting consequences from my ‘unfortunate ordeal’ made me realize we weren’t speaking the same language. And I no longer believed we were on the same side.”

  He was quiet for a moment as he hung there, resting. “I knew I had to leave the DOE. I had to fight for safe alternatives to nuclear power, for a sustainable energy grid that doesn’t endanger the environment just to power our hair dryers.” He chuckled. “Yes, that sounds like pie in the sky, but I refuse to believe that a goal can’t be achieved just because it’s ambitious. I had hoped to make more of myself, do something significant with my scientific career. Well, well, maybe this gives me the opportunity, even if it’s a shitty one, if you’ll pardon my language.”

  “We’ll get you out of here, Simon,” Adonia said. Although she knew his dream was not realistic, she really meant it.

  Shawn agreed. “That’s why we have to stick together. Valiant Locksmith may have been a viable solution for a long-standing problem, but a mismanaged mess like this won’t accomplish anything. It wasn’t what the President signed up for. I know—I was there when Dr. van Dyckman presented his idea for Hydra Mountain. We’ll get out, and then he won’t be able to keep us all quiet.”

  Garibaldi summoned his energy. “Let’s get going. We’re wasting time.”

  * * *

  They climbed higher into the Mountain, far out of range of the loudspeakers, so they would not have been able to hear van Dyckman if he’d made more pronouncements. When the lockdown ended, the NEST teams and emergency responders would break through the sticky foam that blocked the guard portal and arrive in the lower level wearing full respirators and decontamination suits, but she didn’t think they expected to find anyone alive.