by Ariel Tachna
“Fine,” Marshall said, his voice low and hard. “I’ll bring Number Five back to recharge while you call around to find out what you need.”
He stalked toward the door, laptop in hand, turning back as he reached the exit. “Do you want coffee?”
Sambit made a face. “No, but tea would be most welcome if there is any.”
Marshall scowled again. “I’ll look.”
The thoughtfulness of the question, even as grudging as it had seemed, surprised Sambit. Maybe he had judged Marshall too harshly. People dealt with stress and danger differently. Maybe Marshall’s surliness was a result of that rather than his usual personality. Resolving to give the man another chance, Sambit picked up the phone to call the NRC and anyone else he could think of. They needed the passwords, they needed supplies, and they needed more help.
BACK in the break room, Derek guided Number Five to the nearest plug, setting it up to recharge the robot’s batteries. Once that was done, he started digging through the cabinets. Fortunately the plant had a bottled water station so he didn’t have to worry about the state of the pipes, although he hoped they had some refills somewhere or they’d be thirsty soon. He ought to call Kenneth and insist they get some supplies in here, not that Kenneth was necessarily the one in charge. He was, however, the one Derek could reach.
Finding the coffee grounds, he set a pot to brew and went looking for tea for Sambit. Of course the other man would be difficult and not drink coffee like sane people. Still, Derek had offered. He was many things, but he wasn’t an Indian giver—the expression amused him even though he knew Sambit was a different kind of Indian. He’d offered to make tea, so if he could find it, he’d deliver on his promise.
He finally found one lone tea bag in the back of the last cabinet. He had no idea how old it was or even if that mattered for tea, but he got hot water from the water station and put the tea bag in to steep. That done, he turned to the dog lying patiently in the corner, its ears perked up and its tail wagging. Whoever had trained the mutt had done a fantastic job. “Come here, Fido,” Derek called, patting his knees.
The moment Derek called, the bundle of energy that was his dog exploded out of the corner, racing to Derek’s side, his claws scraping on the linoleum floor as he skidded to a stop, tongue hanging out to one side.
“I wasn’t gone that long, was I?” Derek stroked the dog’s soft muzzle as he spoke, calming them both. He hadn’t realized how stiff he was until he’d sat down to relax for a moment. His shoulders ached from the tension of the last hour, searching for the pumps Sambit insisted were the only way to stop the core from melting down, struggling to keep Number Five on track through the rubble and the haze. They hadn’t found any bodies, thank God. He didn’t know how he would’ve dealt with that, although he supposed they weren’t out of the woods yet in that regard.
“I didn’t think to bring any food for you,” Derek said, scratching behind Fido’s ears. “I thought I was taking you somewhere safe before I came here, but my boss apparently had a different definition of looking after you than I did. Why don’t we see what’s in that refrigerator? If backup power didn’t go off until an hour ago like Sambit said, maybe there’s stuff in there that’ll still be good. You don’t mind leftovers, do you?”
Fido whined and wagged his tail, so Derek opened the fridge and dug around for something he thought the dog would eat. Finding a likely-looking steak with mashed potatoes, he set the container on the ground. “I’ll ask Kenneth for some proper dog food when I call him about the rest of our supplies. This’ll have to do in the meantime.”
Fido devoured the food in the container, returning to Derek’s side as soon as he was done. He rested his chin on Derek’s knee, content to be petted.
Derek closed his eyes as he sat there, trying to bring his nerves under control. Nobody in southeastern Texas had his skills with a robot. He knew that, but it didn’t stop the ingrained worry that he’d screw something up, that someone else would’ve done a better job than he could possibly do.
“Were you able to find any tea?”
The voice startled Derek out of his wandering thoughts. He jerked upright, startling Fido, who growled unhappily. “I’m not your servant,” Derek snapped. “The tea is on the counter over there. Did you reach the NRC?”
“What is with your attitude?” Sambit demanded, ignoring Derek’s question. “I didn’t say I expected you to bring me the tea. I simply asked if you’d found any.”
“My attitude?” Derek shouted, falling back on the habit of taking the attack to his attackers that had been his only defense in junior high and high school. “What about yours? Everything by the book, all starched and prim and proper, never take any risks and shoot down anyone who tries to think outside the box? What about your attitude?”
Even in his anger, Derek could see Sambit take a deep breath, could all but see the other man make the decision not to rise to Derek’s bait. “If I’ve offended you, I apologize. I’ve been on edge because of the danger we were in, but that doesn’t excuse any bad behavior on my part. I will take my tea and go outside to wait for the supply caravan to arrive, along with the passwords and a few more people so we can work in shifts.”
The calm in Sambit’s voice and demeanor deflated Derek completely. “You don’t have to do that,” he said with a sigh, turning to pour his coffee so his conflicted emotions wouldn’t show on his face. “I have a habit of flying off the handle, and stress makes it worse. It hasn’t been a very good few days.”
“For any of us,” Sambit replied, his voice quiet. “If I sit here and drink my tea, will it disturb you?”
Everything about the other man disturbed Derek, but that wasn’t Sambit’s fault. “No.”
Derek could practically feel Sambit waiting for him to finish his sentence, to invite the other man to sit down, to say something, but Derek couldn’t make himself form the words. Instead, he busied himself adding creamer and sugar to his coffee until it was tan instead of black, and sweet enough to rot his teeth. He couldn’t drink it any other way.
“How long before the supplies arrive?” Derek took a sip of his coffee as he turned around to face Sambit.
“They said it would be at least an hour,” Sambit answered. “I asked them to bring dog food as well as food for us. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but we can’t stay healthy for long on vending machine snacks and soda.”
“If the machines even work still,” Derek agreed. “If we’ve got time to kill, I suppose we should figure out what kind of living quarters we’ll have.”
“This is it, I think,” Sambit said. “They’re bringing cots, they said, but we’ll have to set them up wherever we can find space. The roads are washed out, and even if they weren’t, we’d have to go a hundred miles or more inland to find a hotel that has power and isn’t damaged. College Station is a hundred fifty miles from the coast, and we got slammed. The eye passed directly over Bay City. There’s nowhere left around here.”
“Well, shit,” Derek said, ignoring Sambit’s flinch. “I guess I’d better stake my spot out now before we get invaded by whoever they’re sending to work with us.” He dug in his laptop bag and pulled out his magazine, flipping through it until he found the pinups. Pulling them out carefully, he grabbed some thumbtacks from the bulletin board and used them to hang the images in one corner of the break room. “There, my own personal little sanctuary.”
“Are you trying to offend people?” Sambit asked.
“Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with images of half-dressed or naked women,” Derek said. “The world assumes all men will find such things attractive. If it’s all right for me to be subjected to images for their titillation, then it’s fine for me to post images for mine as well.”
“I’m pretty sure that constitutes sexual harassment,” Sambit pointed out.
“What are they going to do?” Derek scoffed. “Fire me? Fine, I’ll take Fido and go home. I do have a house and a life to go back to. Oh, and a job that actual
ly pays me instead of this one that I’m doing out of the kindness of my heart since I can’t get to Clear Lake and NASA at the moment.”
“Why are you like this?” Sambit asked softly. “Why are you determined to anger everyone around you? Putting that much negative energy out into the world is sure to bring it back on you someday.”
“I’m just sending back all the negative energy the world sends at me.” Derek knew his voice sounded mocking, but he couldn’t stop the reflexive defense mechanism he had developed after enduring years of taunts in high school for being too smart—and too gay—to fit in with the rest of his classmates. They’d taught him all too well that the best defense was a good offense, and if that meant being offensive, he could live with that. He was living on his terms, and that was all that mattered. “They take one look at this bracelet around my wrist and think they know who I am.”
“And you do nothing to prove them wrong,” Sambit said, indicating the pictures with a wave of his hand. “Indeed, you do everything you can to prove them right.”
“What’s to prove?” Derek challenged. “I’m gay. I like dick.”
“As is your right,” Sambit replied with that infuriating calm that made Derek want to see him flustered. “That doesn’t mean you have to advertise the fact. Why does it matter if they know you’re gay? It’s not any of their business.”
“Easy for you to say,” Derek said. “I’ll bet you’ve got a pretty little wife and five kids stashed away in College Station. You’ve never done anything unexpected. I know your type.”
“Perhaps you do,” Sambit said, “but you don’t know me. You’re making the same kinds of assumptions about me that you say the world makes about you. You assume I’m married because Indian men usually marry by the time they’re thirty and I passed that marker a few years ago. You assume I have a family because you know Indian families are often large. For your information, I’m not married, nor have I ever been. I have no children, not even a pet. Be careful of the assumptions you make, Mr. Marshall. They say far more about you and your biases than they do about me.”
Derek spluttered in indignation with absolutely no idea how to counter Sambit’s argument. “Just leave me the fuck alone, okay? You don’t know anything about my life.”
“You are correct,” Sambit said, “but I do know something about you. I know you are not a bad man. That dog adores you, and despite what you said about the time you have had him, the feeling is obviously mutual. You may hide behind your anger and bravado and bad language, but there is a gentle heart underneath it all or Fido wouldn’t trust you the way he does.”
“I have the food,” Derek reminded Sambit, not at all comfortable with the other man’s assessment of his character.
Sambit shook his head. “That’s not why he follows you with his eyes the way he does. You saved him, and you’ve stayed by him when you could have abandoned him again. That says something far more powerful about your character than the façade you put on for the world. You should let people see that side of you too, not just show it to your dog. You might be surprised what you would receive in return.”
“Nothing but heartbreak and derision,” Derek replied. Sambit’s words held more than a little seduction. Derek got tired sometimes of putting up the front that kept the world at a safe distance, but he’d learned the hard way not to trust anyone not related to him by blood. His parents didn’t understand him, but they supported him. The rest of the world had done nothing more than knock him down and try to keep him there.
“We have a saying in my country,” Sambit said with a sad smile. “Karma is a bitch, Mr. Marshall. Perhaps you should think about that.”
“I don’t go around doing bad things to people,” Derek protested.
“Karma isn’t only about action,” Sambit explained. “It is about everything you put out into the world. I have only known you a few hours, but I have seen very little to foster good karma other than what you have done for your dog. It’s not about what the world gives you, Mr. Marshall, but about what you put out into the world. Maybe it will give you back heartbreak and derision, as you put it, but if all you send out is that same negativity, you will miss the chance at more. Do you think Fido would have reacted the same way he did if you had come at him with your anger and cursing?”
“Leave me alone,” Derek said again.
“As you wish.” Sambit took his tea and left Derek alone in the break room with his pinups, his dog, and his doubts.
Chapter 3
SAMBIT stood at the door of the power plant, sipping his tea and wishing for milk, but he had learned to drink black tea almost as a defense mechanism when he had first arrived in America. While he could usually find hot tea instead of the iced tea most Texans seemed to prefer, he rarely found milk to put in it. His colleagues who drank coffee all used the powdered creamer, which tasted like chemicals to Sambit. Black tea was better than polluting his body with that mess.
Taking another sip, Sambit thought back over his conversation with Derek. He could not decide what to make of the man. On the one hand, he was foul-mouthed, abrasive, and otherwise difficult to get along with. On the other hand, Sambit had stood and watched him with his dog for several long moments before interrupting, and the man sitting there stroking that mutt’s head bore no resemblance to the angry man who had reappeared the moment Sambit spoke. Sambit had no explanation for the dichotomy, but he already recognized the fascination that came from his need to understand. In his experience, people acted predictably for the most part if one knew enough about them and their situations, and that meant Sambit still had things to discover about Derek to explain the seemingly out-of-character actions. The question was which side of Derek was the real one: the confrontational one or the one who rescued an abandoned dog and fought everyone to keep him safe after that? Sambit was inclined to believe it was the tender side because the confrontational side made sense as a façade, but the tenderness made no sense if the angry side was the sum of the man.
The image of Derek sitting in the chair, eyes closed, face defeated as he stroked the dog’s head, tugged at Sambit. Nothing in that image set his teeth on edge the way Derek did the moment he opened his mouth. On the contrary, it called to Sambit’s soul. His mother had always said he was a healer at heart despite his career choices. He couldn’t walk by a person in pain or sorrow without trying to help. Derek might deny it—no, Derek would deny it—but Sambit recognized a person in need of a friend. He’d seen the images Derek hung on the wall. He wasn’t at all the type Derek would find attractive, but it was better that way. They could be friends without having to worry about attraction muddying the waters. Derek wasn’t Sambit’s type either.
The sound of helicopters approaching drew Sambit’s attention from his musings. He set aside his tea, cold now, and went out to meet them, curious to see whom the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had sent to help them.
The military pilots set the helicopters down with great precision, and the process of unloading supplies began almost before Sambit reached the landing site.
“Mr. Patel?”
“Yes, I’m Dr. Patel,” Sambit replied.
“James Tucker from the NRC. I’m here to oversee the shutdown of the plant. Thank you for coming so quickly to help.”
“I’m always glad to be of service,” Sambit said, his hackles rising already at the implication that the project would be taken from his hands. He didn’t know anything about Tucker, but he got the impression of a bureaucrat rather than an engineer. “We got the HPCI pumps running again, but without the computers or schematics, we didn’t want to push our luck beyond that.”
“How did you even do that?” Tucker asked. “From everything I heard in the briefing, you shouldn’t have been able to get close enough to the reactor to turn them on.”
“I had help,” Sambit said, smothering a smile. “I’ll introduce you to Derek Marshall from NASA. He’ll be better equipped to explain.” He could already envision Derek’s reaction to the stodgy bu
reaucrat. This might be one instance where Derek’s abrasive attitude could work in their favor. They needed the passwords the man could provide, but they didn’t need the regulations that went along with them. Derek had already proven that, and after seeing Number Five at work and what Derek was capable of doing, Sambit was inclined to trust him to do it again rather than wait for more conventional means of dealing with the reactor issues. “Do you have the passwords for the central computer?”
“Yes, I brought them with me,” Tucker said. “Who is Marshall? My briefing only mentioned you.”
“A robotics engineer from NASA,” Sambit said, escorting Tucker inside. “You did read about how they used robots to access areas of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in order to speed up the repairs and recovery there, didn’t you? I realize that’s been a few years, but someone in your position must surely keep up with advances in technology around the world.”
“Of course I did,” Tucker blustered, leaving Sambit with the definite impression that the man had done nothing of the kind. “I just didn’t realize anyone with those skills had been brought on board here.”
“I’ll let him know you’re here while you’re getting the computers up and running,” Sambit said. “He’ll be eager to get back to work.”
“We’ll have to take stock of the situation and see what needs to be done and—”
“Mr. Tucker,” Sambit interrupted. He’d heard all the same arguments coming from his own mouth when he was talking to Derek, but the man had changed his mind. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but time is of the essence here. Get the computers online and then get out of the way so Mr. Marshall and I can do what needs to be done.”