METEOR STORM

by David Capps

  I hooked my leg around a diagonal section of the open I-beam and leaned toward the generator. It was sliding into the crack in the roof as I grabbed the two large wires dangling in the air. I jammed the ends of the wires together. A bright white arc came from where the two wires touched. The generator quickly spun down and dropped. I hung on to the wires as the generator hung there in the air.

  “Get up here and grab on to this thing,” I shouted, “It’s heavy.”

  Ed raced up the ladder and pulled the generator over to him.

  “You got it?” I asked.

  “I got it,” Ed replied.

  I let go of the wires and Ed guided it back down the ladder. Ralph and Ed set it down on the wooden work bench.

  “How the hell did that happen?” Ralph said.

  “This must be why it always has to be connected to an electrical load,” I said. “Now help me get down from here.”

  The workers moved two work benches over, and Ed placed the ladder on top of the benches. Ed climbed up and guided my legs down until I was securely on the ladder. I was still shaking as I stepped on the floor.

  “I gotta tell you,” Ed said. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “Me, too,” Ralph added.

  “Okay,” I said looking around, “let’s try it again, this time hooked up to the electrical load.”

  We reassembled the crank system and hooked the large wires to an eight foot by eight foot board Ralph had set up with rows of incandescent light bulbs mounted on it. As Ralph started cranking again, the light bulbs started to glow. This time there was only a small amount of static electricity we could feel around the generator. It started picking up speed and stabilized with all of the light bulbs shining brightly.

  “How much power is it generating?” I asked.

  Ralph looked at the lights. “Just over seven kilowatts,” he said. “It works!”

  Everyone cheered.

  “How long will it keep generating electricity?” Ralph asked.

  “Between six and seven years,” I replied. “Then we recharge the magnets and it’s good for another six to seven years.”

  “Damn,” Ralph said.

  “You want to stop it,” I said, “just short out the output wires.”

  “Is there a scale around where we can weigh this thing while it’s running?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Ralph said, “there’s one about a half mile from here.”

  “Then let’s go,” I replied.

  Ralph led the procession. Four of us carried the generator and eight others carried the large panel with the lights mounted on it. The scale was an antique, with triple bars and movable weights on it. We set the generator down on the scale and set everything up. The generator weighed in at 87 pounds.

  “Okay,” I said to Ralph, “start cranking.”

  As the generator started coming up to speed, the scale shifted with a clunk. The generator was weighing less. Once it came up to operating speed, we moved the weights on the scale. It balanced at 56.5 pounds.

  “That’s more than a third of its weight,” Tia observed. “How can that happen? Weight doesn’t just disappear.”

  “What happens if we remove some of the electrical load?” I asked.

  Ralph walked over to the electric light bulb panel and disconnected a bank of lights. The remaining lights started glowing even brighter and we could hear the generator pick up speed. The old scale clunked again. When we rebalanced the scale the new weight was 43 pounds.

  “This is crazy,” Tia said. “Now it’s less than half its original weight. What the hell is going on?”

  “Okay,” I said, “shut it down. Let’s try something.”

  Ralph shorted out the output wires and the generator came to a rapid halt.

  “Will it run upside down?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Ralph replied.

  We turned the generator over and checked the weight again. We were back at 87 pounds. Ralph reconnected the remaining bank of light bulbs.

  “Start cranking,” I said.

  Ralph turned the crank and the generator started running on its own. The old scale clunked again, but this time in the other direction. When we rebalanced the scale it showed the generator weight at 117.5 pounds.

  “It’s heavier,” Tia said. “How can that be?”

  “It’s directional,” I replied. “The weight isn’t disappearing. The generator is producing an energy field that’s shifting the effect of the weight. That’s what we were feeling the first time this thing ran.”

  “Like static electricity?” Tia asked.

  “Yes,” I replied, “that must have been an anti-gravitational field.”

  “Could you use this to make something fly?” Tia asked.

  “Sure looks like it to me,” I replied. “But how would you control it?”

  Tia looked at me. “That’s going to take some thought,” she said.

  * * *

  Later Ed came over to me and whispered.

  “I’ve been watching Saltzman,” he said. “He has a communication device. I’ve used one before in the SEALs. It’s a burst transmitter, almost impossible to detect.”

  “You think he’s communicating with his submarine?” I asked.

  “The burst transmitter doesn’t have that kind of power or range,” Ed replied. “He’s not alone. There’s a covert team working with him somewhere within ten miles of here.”

  “How much about us do you think he knows?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t seem to know I was a SEAL.” Ed replied, “I haven’t said anything about it to him. He seems more interested in John and what is being done to rebuild our civilization.”

  “Do you think he’s connected to the DIA?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Ed replied. “As a SEAL, I did quite a bit of work for the DIA. If he was a part of the DIA, he should have recognized me, and he hasn’t.”

  “So, regular Navy?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Can you let John know about the support team without tipping our hand to Saltzman?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  * * *

  We moved the generator back to the Phoenix Super Magnet Cooperative, set everything back up and let the generator run through the night and into the next day. When I checked for heat buildup I got the shock of my life. The generator was stone cold and so was the air around it. The static electric field the generator produced still bothered me. I picked up a volt meter and held one probe on the bottom of the generator and moved the other probe toward the top. An electric arc jumped from the top of the generator to the probe with a loud snap. The electric discharge also swept through my arms and across my chest, knocking me down to the floor.

  Tia and Ralph rushed over to help me get back up to my feet. I was shaking and my arms still felt numb from the shock.

  “Carl, are you okay?” Tia asked.

  “I think so,” I replied. “That’s a lot of power we could be using. Ralph, can you make some copper plates to collect that energy from the top and the bottom?”

  “Sure,” Ralph said. “Is it AC or DC?”

  “My guess is that it’s Direct Current,” I said. “Let’s connect the plates to some light bulbs and see how much power we’re dealing with here.”

  Ralph shut the generator down and made the copper plates. Once everything was hooked up we restarted the generator.

  “It’s Direct Current alright,” Ralph said. “Power level is about one and a half kilowatts, which brings our total to over eight and a half kilowatts. But how do we combine the AC and DC components?”

  “John will know somebody who can do that,” I replied.

  * * *

  Ed and I talked privately with Ralph about being able to talk with John over the radio. Ed and John had a code word system in place, so he was the one to make the radio update with John. Dave Saltzman hung around closely, watching everything, including our radio reports to John. As Ed t
alked with John over the radio, I listened to see if I could pick up on any hidden message. I couldn’t. It all seemed so natural and had an easy flow to it. Saltzman didn’t seem to notice anything, either.

  Ralph shut the generator down and was in the middle of hooking it up to power the factory. Saltzman was intent on the generator installation, so Ed and I had a few minutes to talk privately.

  “Did you get the message to John?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Ed replied, “in fact, he had already been notified by the robot’s head about the burst transmissions. He even knows where the covert team is located and when they communicate with the Navy.”

  “What does John want us to do?” I asked.

  “Just what we’re doing,” Ed replied, “I’m thinking there are more Navy ships out there than just the submarines, and they don’t want anyone to know.”

  “You think the President knows about the other Navy ships?” I asked.

  “I’m sure he does,” Ed replied, “but after the Navy submarines didn’t do anything regarding the President’s orders and Saltzman’s arrival here with John, I think it’s a whole new ball game.”

  * * *

  The greatest problem we now had was the radiation from the country’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors, spread out over 64 power plant sites. John’s survey results indicated that 54 of the reactor vessels sustained no structural damage that could be seen from the outside, and another 40 had sustained minor damage. That left 10 reactors with an unknown amount of internal damage.

  Once Ralph had electrical power in his factory, construction of the next generator moved rapidly. A tall lanky man strolled into Ralph’s shop.

  “Guys, this is Hank Ashton,” Ralph said. “He was the supervisor at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant complex just west of here. He’s been out to the plant. There is no direct damage to the reactor building. The three reactors were all shut down when the meteor storm started. The radiation is coming from the rods in the cooling pools, which boiled dry after the auxiliary generators either ran out of fuel or were damaged by meteorites. He thinks if we can power up the cooling pumps, we can stop the radiation and recover the power plants.

  “How much electrical power will that take?” I asked.

  “Twenty kilowatts,” Hank replied.

  I looked at Ralph.

  “Already under construction,” Ralph replied. “John’s on board. All of the nuclear power plants have the same kind of cooling system for the fuel rods. If we can recover one plant, we can recover them all.”

  “And stop the radiation hazard to the people,” I replied.

  “Exactly,” Hank said.

  “How high is the radiation at the plant?”

  “With a full radiation suit, fifteen minutes maximum one time exposure,” Hank replied.

  “Is that enough time to hook up wires to the cooling pumps?” I asked.

  “Depending on the damage inside the building, it should work. Worst case, we have three or four people lined up and we work in shifts.”

  “And how far away from the building will we have to be without radiation suits?” I asked.

  “Quarter of a mile,” Hank said, “depending on the wind direction.”

  “Swell,” I said, “now all we have to do is come up with a half mile of wire.”

  “You have any idea how much wire is lying on the ground out there after the meteor storm?” Ralph asked. “Half a mile is nothin’.”

  “So how many radiation suits do we have?” I asked.

  “Well,” Hank said, “that’s the rub. The radiation suits are all stored at the power plant.”

  “And someone has to expose himselve to lethal radiation in order to get the suits?” I asked.

  “That’s kind of the deal,” Hank said. “We actually have several volunteers.”

  “You checked all of the first responder facilities for a suit?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Hank said, “no suits.”

  “Any universities with nuclear energy departments?” I asked.

  Hank had a startled look on his face. “There’s one,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Ralph?” I said.

  “I’m on it,” he replied. “It’ll take a couple of days to get there and back on a bicycle, if it hasn’t been destroyed in the fire.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The guy we sent out to the university hadn’t returned by the time the generator was ready. We slowly moved the generator out to the Palo Verde site. Even with a bicycle pulling the modified trailer it took two days to make the journey. We set up on the north side of the power plant and uncoiled the wire. Hank had a whole crew of people there to help. Dave Saltzman stood back observing. He was an officer on a nuclear submarine. He had to know what Jason was facing.

  Jason, the volunteer picked to go into the radiation and retrieve the suits, sat on a rock, staring at the ground. I had learned he was only twenty two years old and had lost his entire family and his fiancé in the meteor storm. He had been suffering from severe depression ever since. He didn’t really want to die, but going on was such a struggle that he had decided that doing something heroic to save others might just make all the emotional pain and struggling worthwhile.

  “If I run the whole time, will that make a difference?” Jason asked.

  Hank shook his head. “Sixty seconds at the radiation levels inside the plant and you’re over the lethal limit.”

  “How long before I start getting sick?”

  Hank fidgeted and glanced around before looking Jason straight in the eyes. “Eight to twelve hours.”

  “So I could walk in and out and still be able to carry the suits?”

  “Yes,” Hank said. “You won’t feel anything at first.”

  Jason took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “And when I get sick, what then?”

  Hank lowered his head. “We’ll do everything we can to help,” he said, “but it’s not a good way to die.”

  “Okay,” Jason said, “I’ll see you in a little while.”

  He stood up and started walking toward the plant. I had that anxious feeling in my heart again. Something was happening. I thought it was over the fact that someone was giving up his life to help a larger cause, but that didn’t feel right, either. I looked at the road. There, in the distance, something was moving. It was too far away to make out exactly what it was, but something inside me knew. Jason was about to open the door to the plant. He had his hand on the door handle when he looked back at us one last time.

  “Jason!” I yelled. I waved my arm, motioning him to come back.

  “What is it?” he asked as he got back to us.

  “Just wait,” I said. “Something’s changing; I can feel it.”

  Jason looked at me and then over to Hank. Hank shrugged his shoulders. I turned to the road and pointed.

  We watched as a bicycle rider slowly came into view. He was waving one arm in the air as he rode. “Am I in time?” he asked as he arrived. “I rode all of yesterday and all night long to get here. Has anyone gone in there yet?”

  “No,” I replied. “Jason, here, was just on his way in when I stopped him.”

  “Good,” he said breathing hard. “We found a suit. It was buried in the collapsed building. It took us three days of digging to find it.” He dug the suit out of his backpack. “Here.”

  Jason looked at the suit with tears in his eyes. “Thanks, man.” Jason said as he took the suit.

  Hank checked the suit out. “It’s an older model,” he said, “it’ll be good for only about five minutes inside the plant, but that should be enough time for Jason to get in and out.”

  Jason turned to me. “How did you know?” he asked.

  “Just a hunch,” I said.

  Jason looked at me for a long moment. “Right,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Hank helped Jason into the suit and Jason walked quickly into the plant.

  Three minutes later, he emerged carrying a dozen radiation suits.

/>   Hank’s crew suited up and started pulling the wire toward the plant. They were inside less than ten minutes when they emerged, trotting back to our position.

  “We’re all hooked up and the switches are all on,” the crew leader reported.

  We attached the wires to the generator and started to rotate the crank. The generator started to spin on its own. Hank measured the voltage and current coming off the generator.

  “Looks good,” he said. “It’s going to take two hours to fill the pool. I’ll go in and take some measurements of the radiation then.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Hank jogged the quarter mile into the plant in his suit, carrying his radiation meter. Twenty minutes later, he hadn’t come back out.

  “Shouldn’t we send someone in to see what happened?” I asked.

  “Hank knows what he’s doing,” the crew leader said. “Give him some more time.”

  At the thirty minute mark, Hank emerged from the plant building slowly walking back. Half way back to us he removed the helmet from the radiation suit.

  “It’s working,” he said as he arrived. “Radiation levels are falling. The cooling pool is full and the reserve water pool is filling. I inspected the control room and everything looks like it should work. We need to get team two and three out here; we can send a team in only once, and we’ve got two more reactors to rescue. Good job, everyone.”

  As I talked with Hank, I noticed Dave Saltzman wander off to the side. He was reporting in.

  * * *

  The next day Hank’s Team Two ran additional wires from reactor Building One to Building Two. By noon, the cooling pools were full and Team Three took over, running wires from Building Two to Building Three. By late afternoon, the radiation levels were down significantly.

  “In two or three days we can start decontamination,” Hank said. “A week or two after that we can try bringing the first reactor back on line. If that works properly, you can have your generator back. We’ll be self-sustaining and ready to supply electricity to the area from that point on.”