"I don't wish to state the obvious, but if that door comes down, it will take more than a shower to decontaminate us," Moulding said in a quiet voice that crackled with tension.
McShay came out of his stupor in a flash; the thought that a security door designed to survive a direct nuclear strike might ever be breached was so impossible, his mind hadn't leapt to consider the consequences of what was happening.
"Everybody fall back!" he yelled. "We need to seal this area off-"
The next second the door exploded outwards. McShay had one brief instant when he glimpsed the shape that surged through and then the gunfire erupted in a storm of light and noise, and a second after that a wave of soft white light came rushing from the reactor core towards them all.
The first person to see what had happened to Dounreay Nuclear Power Station was a farmer trundling along the coast road in his tractor. The sight was so bizarre he had to pull over to the side to check it wasn't some illusion caused by the sea haze. The familiar modernist buildings had been lost behind an impenetrable wall of vegetation; mature trees sprouted through the concrete and tarmac, ivy swathed the perimeter fences and buildings, dog roses and clematis clambered up the side of the administration block, cars were lost beneath creepers; all around squirrels, rabbits and birds skittered through the greenery. And if anyone had decided, for whatever reason, to check for radiation, they would have found none, not even in what had been the reactor core. Nor would they have found any sign of human life.
May 2, 8 p.m.; News Internationaclass="underline" Wapping, London:
"There's no point in us being here." The accent was pure Mockney, hiding something from the Home Counties. Lucy Manning repeatedly punched the lift button, then shifted from foot to foot with irritation as she watched the lighted numbers' soporific descent. She was in her twenties, dyed-blonde hair framing a face that had the cold hardness of a frontline soldier.
Beside her, Kay Bliss could have been a mirror image or a copycat sister, but the look and the accent were all part of the office politics; a game they both knew how to play. "Oh, fuck it, Lucy, we're getting paid, aren't we? It's nice not to be out doorstepping some twat until the early hours for a change." Her voice had the hard vowels of a Geordie, though she could hide it when she had to.
"There's some idiot from Downing Street permanently in the newsroom," Lucy continued, "going over every piece of copy with a fine-tooth comb. DNotice on this, D-Notice on that. We'll be like some fucking cheap local rag soon. Golden wedding stories and photos from the Rotary lunch." Lucy strode into the lift the second the doors opened, then rattled her nails anxiously on the metal wall. "Come on. Why are these things so fucking slow? All the technology we've got in this place, you'd think they'd be able to get lifts that worked quickly."
"We're not even supposed to be using them. All those technology crashes-"
"Like we've got time to walk up and down flights of stairs all day."
Kay held her breath until the doors opened on the newsroom floor. She'd spent an hour stuck in it with three monkeys from the loading bay and it wasn't an episode she wanted to repeat.
Lucy was still talking as she dodged out between the opening doors, "It started with that terrorist strike on the M4-"
"Damon covered that." Kay looked puzzled for a second. "Terrorists?"
"It had to be terrorists. It wasn't that long before the Martial Law announcement."
"Someone said a Yank plane had gone down carrying nukes."
Lucy shrugged. "And there were all those phone calls from the great unwashed claiming they'd seen some fire-breathing monster." She flung open the swing doors. "Sometimes I wish I worked for the FT."
The newsroom was quiet now that all the dayshift had departed. The night news editor stared at the slowly scrolling Press Association newsfeed on his computer while lazily chewing on a cheese roll. One of the sports reporters whistled loudly.
Mello, darlin'," Kay shouted back with a cheery wave.
"It's all right for them," Lucy muttered moodily, "their Ludo tournaments never get censored."
"You're in a right mood, aren't you?"
They'd walked on a few paces before Lucy said, "I had the splash today and they pulled it."
"Oh, that explains it. Bitter and twisted at not getting any front page glory. What was the story?"
"A whole unit of Royal Marines slaughtered up in the Highlands. A hot tip from my man at Command Headquarters." She stuck out her bottom lip like a sulky child.
"Wow. A proper story. No EastEnders stud getting bladdered in that one," Kay said with what Lucy thought was an unreasonable amount of glee. "But you didn't really expect to get it through, did you?" Lucy shrugged. Kay's expression gradually became troubled. "Slaughtered? In Scotland?"
"Hey, it's the Barbie twins!" Kevin Smith, one of the sales managers, had been lurking around the news desk. The hacks hated him for his retro-yuppie look and his aftershave stink, but he insisted on pretending he was one of the boys.
"Fuck off, Kevin," Kay said with a mock-sweet smile.
"Careful you don't cut yourself with that." He patted the desk so they could both sit next to him, but they studiously went round to the other side where they could talk to the handful of freelancers doing the night shift.
"What's up?" Lucy perched on the edge of the desk so she could tease the newbies with a flash of her thigh.
"Don't bother the fresh meat!" the news editor barked. "Get over here!"
Kay was first over. "What is it, chief?"
He tapped the screen as he spoke through a mouthful of cheese roll. "PA says the PM's making an announcement at nine. Half the cabinet is getting the boot and they're setting up a coalition with the other parties. Government of National Unity or something."
"Good policy. Get all the losers in one place. It'll probably be as successful as their Martial Law that they haven't got enough manpower to enforce." Kevin had wandered over and was reading the newsfeed over the night news editor's shoulder.
"I'll take that one," Lucy called out.
"You're both working on it." The night news editor rammed his chair backwards into the sales manager's groin. Kevin exhaled sharply, but continued to force a smile.
Kay tore off a sheet of printer paper to make notes. "Blimey. Two proper stories in one day. It's a sign-the world really is coming to an end!"
They all stopped what they were doing as the night news editor leaned forward to peer at the screen, swearing under his breath. "Somebody must have rattled Downing Street's cage. There's a whole load of stuff coming up here. Flights grounded earlier, now we get `train services limited… No international calls… maybe extended disruption of the phone network… orders to shoot looters on sight…' What the fuck is going on?"
A middle-aged man in a smart dark suit moved slowly from the editor's office towards the news desk. He had a nondescript haircut and bland features and he carried himself with the stiff demeanour of a civil servant.
"When are you going to tell us what the fuck's going on?" the night news editor bellowed. "It's a fucking outrage! The people have a right to know-"
The dark-suited man dropped a sheet of paper on the desk. "This is tomorrow's page one story. `PM Launches Battle of Britain."'
They all looked at it, dumbfounded. "You can't do that!" Lucy could see another byline disappearing before her eyes.
The night news editor scanned the paper, then hammered it beneath the flat of his hand. "We can't print this! It doesn't fucking say anything! Just fucking PR guff? Nobody has any idea what's going on, they don't know who the fucking enemy is! It could be a fucking coup for all anyone knows! There'll be panic in the streets-"