Fallout

by Ariel Tachna

  “A crack in the core?”

  “No, if we had that, the pressure inside would be out of balance. Once we put the boron solution in, it’s stayed within a predictable range, so the core is intact.”

  “I thought the computer systems were supposed to monitor the valves and stuff for leaks.” Derek guided Number Five deeper into the secondary containment system. The Geiger counter readings stayed fairly stable, so while he wasn’t sure they were moving closer to the source, he figured they weren’t moving farther from it.

  “They are,” Sambit said, “but we’ve already gotten inconsistent readings from the system in other areas. We can’t afford to rely on those readings until we’ve verified them.”

  “So what are we looking for?” Derek asked again.

  “At the moment, a spike in the radiation levels,” Sambit said. “Something to give us a clue where to look more closely.”

  “So I’ll just keep letting Number Five wander.”

  Sambit nodded, and Derek let silence fall between them.

  “You realize that after that conversation, Lyrica probably knows you’re gay too,” he said eventually.

  “I told you. I don’t deny that I’m gay. I simply don’t choose to broadcast it to every person I meet regardless of their need to know or the impact their knowing might have on me,” Sambit replied. “I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m choosing who I show certain sides of myself to, the same as I choose who I show my sense of humor to, or who I tell about my childhood in India. If Lyrica knows now, that’s fine. If she doesn’t, that’s also fine. She can draw what conclusions she chooses to. If they are incorrect ones and it interferes with our working relationship, I will correct them, but until then, it doesn’t matter.”

  “How can it not matter how people see you?” Derek asked, puzzled rather than angry now that the initial, ingrained reaction to Sambit’s revelation had worn off.

  “Because how they see me doesn’t affect who I am,” Sambit explained. “I don’t define myself by how others see me. I know the truth about myself, and nothing else matters. If someone makes a false assumption and it affects how we interact—if a woman flirts with me and won’t take no for an answer, for example—I might correct that assumption, but most of the time, those interactions are too fleeting or inconsequential to make it worth the effort. Whether I say I’m not interested or I’m gay, the result is the same, so why make it into a bigger issue than it is?”

  “Because if she knows you’re gay, she might introduce you to her cute brother,” Derek said, but Sambit didn’t smile at Derek’s attempt at a joke. “Okay, sorry, that was lame.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Derek sighed and tried to formulate an explanation for his experiences and convictions. “I tried ignoring how others saw me,” he said slowly. “I tried to ignore the comments and taunts and assumptions, the jocks who figured that because I was gay, I’d be willing to blow them when they couldn’t get a girl to do it. I was a cocksucker so why not suck theirs? I tried to ignore the jeers when I walked down the school halls and they crucified me for being smart at the same time they crucified me for being gay. I tried letting that roll off my back, and nothing changed. So I went away to college where at least being smart didn’t make me different. Being gay still did, and hiding it didn’t work because people found out, and then they accused me of lying because I hadn’t told them. I got tired of it. If I put it all out there up front, no one can accuse me of lying. No one can accuse me of being something I’m not.”

  “I can see that helping with the people who accused you of lying, but how does it change the way the jocks treated you in high school?” Sambit asked. “Their actions came from their assumptions about what it means to be gay, not from anything you said or did or didn’t say or do.”

  “I’m a little stronger now than I was then. They can’t force me onto my knees anymore.”

  EVERYTHING made so much more sense now.

  That was Sambit’s first thought when the import of Derek’s words sank in. His second thought was outrage at the thought of anyone being subjected to that kind of abuse. “Did you report them?”

  “Of course I did,” Derek said. “You know what the coach told me? They didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a bit of harmless roughhousing. Boys will be boys, after all.”

  “What about the principal? Or the police?” Sambit asked.

  “It was my word against theirs,” Derek said bitterly. “There was no physical evidence other than a bruise on my knee that could have come from anywhere, and those were the boys who were going to win us a state championship in football this year. Nothing could be allowed to jeopardize that.”

  “For what it’s worth, and I realize that’s probably nothing, I believe you,” Sambit said. He wanted to reach over and comfort Derek, but the hurt was hardly new and the other man was already so prickly that Sambit didn’t want to make it worse.

  “It’s old news,” Derek said.

  Sambit might have believed that if Derek hadn’t retreated behind his defensive mask again. The sudden beeping of the robot’s Geiger counter interrupted them before Sambit could figure out what to say next.

  “What the hell?” Derek demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Sambit said. “Give me a minute.”

  “At those levels of radiation, a minute is all you’re going to get before the circuits are fried. I don’t have a backup robot.”

  “Okay, get him out of there,” Sambit said. “I’ll study the video he took and hope I can see something from that.”

  He waited while Derek directed the robot back out of the secondary containment system. “With that kind of exposure, it’ll have to stay outside until we can get a hazmat suit to take off its shell,” Sambit said. “We can’t work on it without one.”

  “Which means dealing with Tucker,” Derek said with a groan. “I hope to Christ we got something useful in the videos because I don’t want to have to fight with that asshole for nothing.”

  “We have the Geiger counter readings if nothing else,” Sambit said. “They’re proof that we have a problem. Let me look at the footage and see if I can spot what’s causing it.”

  Derek hit play on the recordings Number Five had made, scooting back so Sambit could peer more closely at the screen, watching the corresponding Geiger counter numbers as he studied the frames. “I don’t see anything out of place other than the outer wall,” Sambit said finally. “The turbine, the condenser, the generator all look exactly like I would expect them to look under the circumstances.”

  “Could they have gotten irradiated somehow?” Derek asked.

  “Obviously they did,” Sambit said. “The question is how. There shouldn’t be any transfer between the reactor and the turbines. The whole point of a pressurized water reactor is to keep all radioactive material confined within the reactor building.”

  “So what brings the heat out, then?” Derek asked. “I mean, it’s steam from the heat of the nuclear reaction that turns the turbines, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Sambit said. “There’s a transference system within the reactor building where the heated coolant from the core runs through pipes surrounded by water. That water produces the steam that comes out to the turbines.”

  “So what would happen if some of those pipes were damaged?” Derek asked. “Could the water and the coolant get mixed together so that some of the radioactive material could end up in the turbine area?”

  “If so, the plant is fucked,” Sambit said. “There’s no way to get in there for repairs. This unit will have to be decommissioned like the one that melted down on Three Mile Island.”

  “I thought you didn’t curse,” Derek teased.

  “You must be rubbing off on me,” Sambit replied, summoning a smile.

  “Not until we’ve had a chance to shower, thank you,” Derek joked. “Neither one of us smells particularly pleasant at the moment, I imagine.”

  Sambit bog
gled at the speed Derek changed moods. From vulnerable to defensive to flirtatious in the span of minutes. He couldn’t decide if that made the other man infuriating or fascinating. Or both.

  “And here I thought getting sweaty and dirty was the point,” Sambit replied, not sure where the boldness came from but unwilling to let the moment pass.

  “You’re supposed to end up sweaty and sticky,” Derek agreed, “but I can only deal with so many days of body odor when I start, and I passed that point two days ago.”

  Sambit laughed and shook his head. “You win. Let’s get Number Five unwrapped and see if we can figure out any other explanation for the radioactivity around the turbine before we give Tucker the bad news.”

  “I can’t help you figure out the explanation,” Derek said. “I’ll deal with Number Five because I want to run some diagnostics anyway. You and Lyrica can come find me when you have something I can actually help with.”

  “You just don’t want to deal with Tucker.”

  “There is that,” Derek agreed, “but I really should check the circuits in Number Five. They aren’t built to withstand that kind of radiation for long.”

  “Put a hazmat suit on, at least a lower grade one since Tucker hasn’t bothered locking those up, before you take the covering off Number Five,” Sambit said. “If that kind of radiation could damage Number Five, just think about what it could do to you.”

  Derek looked down at his dosimeter. “I’m thinking.”

  Chapter 7

  DEREK spent two hours running diagnostics on Number Five, switching out circuits, cleaning and oiling gears, and generally doing everything he could to avoid having to go find Lyrica and Sambit while they argued with Tucker. He couldn’t follow the conversation, but he heard raised voices now and then, enough to let him know they were indeed arguing.

  When he finished with Number Five, he opened a browser and searched for information on radiation sickness. Not that he thought they were in any immediate danger, since their dosimeters measured how much radiation exposure they’d had since they arrived and they hadn’t sounded any alarms, but he wanted to know what to watch for just in case. He read one article and shut the browser, sick to his stomach at everything he’d seen. Nausea, vomiting, headaches, fever, dizziness, cognitive impairment.

  Death.

  He’d known that before he came. He remembered reading about Hiroshima in his history classes and the effects, both immediate and lingering, of the bombs dropped there and in Nagasaki. He just hadn’t thought about it in connection with himself. Not really.

  He ought to call his mother, just in case. He couldn’t tell her where he was or what he was doing, but he could tell her he loved her so that if he didn’t make it, they’d be the last words he said to her. “Come here, Fido,” he called, needing the reassurance of the dog’s company.

  Fido stood up from where he’d been sleeping just beyond Derek’s reach and padded closer, laying his head on Derek’s lap. Derek rested his forehead against Fido’s shoulder and stroked the solid body. He couldn’t die. He had to take care of Fido, radiation sickness be damned. He’d simply have to dodge that bullet one way or another.

  “That’s a very comforting sight.”

  Derek looked up from Fido’s side to see Sambit at the entrance to the room where he was working. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, and the corners of his mouth were tight. “What did Tucker say?”

  “He ranted for a while about exceeding our authority by taking Number Five out without his permission,” Sambit began.

  “Fuck that,” Derek said. “Number Five answers to me, and I don’t answer to him.”

  “He thinks you do,” Sambit said with a sigh. “When he was done with that tirade, he started in on the readings and the conclusions we drew based on them. He challenged the accuracy of them, although Lyrica shot that down pretty quickly by citing the readings on our Geiger counters when we went outside yesterday. Then he blew off the suggestion that the system was compromised. He has one goal, as far as I can tell. To get the plant running again.”

  “That would be fine if it weren’t dangerous,” Derek said. “Can’t he focus on getting the other two running again and let this one close?”

  “You’d think so,” Sambit said, rubbing his temples.

  “Is your head bothering you?” Derek asked sharply, the descriptions he’d read too fresh in his brain to ignore the signs.

  “It’s just stress from dealing with Tucker.”

  “Maybe it is, but headaches are also a sign of radiation sickness,” Derek said, his stomach churning at the thought of Sambit coming down with the awful symptoms he’d read about.

  “It is, but I’m not nauseated, and that precedes the headaches,” Sambit said.

  “Are you sure?” Derek said. “I mean, I know it usually does, but isn’t it possible that you skipped a step?”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Sambit said, “but my dosimeter readings aren’t anywhere near the levels they would need to be for the radiation to make me sick.”

  “Yes, but everyone is different. It makes sense that people would react differently. Do we need to call a doctor?”

  “Derek, I’m fine,” Sambit said. “I’ll take an Advil and lie down in a quiet, dark room for an hour or two, and I’ll be all better.”

  Derek hesitated for a moment, but the need to help outweighed the fear of being refused. “I could rub your shoulders for you if you think it would help. If it’s really tension and not radiation, it might help you relax.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Sambit said. “Usually I would try meditation or some stretches, but I usually get to that point before my headache gets this bad. I’m not sure mind over matter will be very successful when my mind hurts too much to concentrate.”

  “Take off your shirt,” Derek directed, “the outer one at least. You can leave your undershirt if you’d be more comfortable.”

  Sambit shook his head, unbuttoning the oxford shirt he wore and tossing it aside before stripping off his undershirt. Derek had seen him without the outer shirt yesterday, and he’d felt his own muscles strain as they practiced yoga that morning, barely able to hold some of the strength poses that Sambit did with ease, so he knew Sambit had to have some muscle, but that didn’t prepare him for the sheer beauty of the bare torso. His chest, not darkened by the sun, was closer to the color of teak than mahogany, with a patch of dark hair in a triangle across it, narrowing to a thin band that arrowed down into the waistband of his trousers. He could have posed for any of Derek’s magazines in a heartbeat.

  “Lie down,” Derek suggested. “You’ll be more comfortable, and if you fall asleep, you can stay there instead of having to move later.”

  “Let me take some Advil and then I will,” Sambit said. Derek watched as Sambit dug in his bag and fished out the analgesic. He swallowed it dry and stretched out on the cot, twisting one way and then the other as he tried to get settled. Derek told himself to stop being ridiculous as his mouth watered at the sight. Sambit may have been lying down, but he wasn’t lying down for Derek, not in that sense. He was getting ready for a backrub intended to ease a tension headache. Nothing more.

  So why did it feel like so much more?

  Derek closed one hand around the back of Sambit’s neck, kneading the tight muscles with firm pressure. Sambit’s skin was warm beneath the pads of Derek’s fingers, the fine hairs on the nape of his neck creating an erotic friction against Derek’s skin despite his determination to keep this friendly, nothing more. He took a deep breath, smelling the spicy hint of days-old cologne beneath the sweat on both their bodies, and it added to the growing sense of intimacy. Ordering himself to concentrate on the matter at hand and not on all the lascivious things he’d do if the situation—and the man—were different, he moved his hand down to Sambit’s shoulder, his other hand joining the first to work at releasing the tension in the tight muscles. Sambit might be gay after all, and he might even be willing to give Derek a chance in this aren
a, but a relationship couldn’t work between them, and Sambit wasn’t the type for a fling. Derek might be more adrift than he’d felt in years where another man was concerned, but he didn’t think he’d lost all judgment about his potential partners.

  “You feel awfully warm,” Derek said as he continued the massage. “Are you sure you aren’t feverish?”

  “There are other reasons besides a fever to have heated skin,” Sambit said softly, his eyes closed and his face composed so that Derek didn’t know how to interpret that. He knew how he’d like to interpret it, but Sambit couldn’t be flirting with him in earnest. Could he? “My normal body temperature is about a degree above everyone else’s. No one’s ever been able to figure out why, but I always feel like I have a low-grade fever when that’s just the way I am.”

  That shot down the flirting idea.

  “Okay, just checking,” Derek said in a strangled voice. “Fever is another sign of radiation sickness.”

  “Derek, I teach future nuclear engineers,” Sambit said. “We drum the symptoms of radiation sickness—and the need to pay attention to those symptoms—into them from the very beginning, and we don’t let up until they leave us four to six years later. I promise I’m paying attention, but I know my own body, and this is a tension headache, probably coupled with sinus pain from the changing weather and the humidity. I feel feverish because it’s hot and because my skin is always warm to the touch, even when it’s cold outside. I’m not nauseated, and I haven’t had anywhere near a dangerous dose of radiation. Now stop fretting and either finish the massage or let me go to sleep.”