He didn’t want to turn around, but, of course, he had no choice. Lifting his face from his hands, he forced himself to turn slowly toward the barrier and the ghastly sight waiting for him on the other side of the transparent wall. Maybe this was his punishment for failing Sandra and the others. He needed to come face-to-face with what he’d done.
Toyoaki Yamato was there, pressed up frantically against the barrier, pounding with both hands against the unyielding plexiglass. Behind his visor, his face was a portrait of sheer, unadulterated panic. Joe couldn’t hear Yamato’s screams through the soundproof wall, but that wasn’t necessary; the fear and desperation in the man’s eyes spoke loud enough. The doomed technician was begging for his life, even though he was already as good as dead.
I’m sorry, Joe thought. It’s too late. There’s nothing I can do.
Part of him envied Yamato. At least his suffering would be over soon. He wouldn’t have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t have to tell his son that he would never see his mother again. For a moment, Joe was relieved that it wasn’t Sandra pounding on the barrier, and felt ashamed for his cowardice, but then the rest of the work crew rounded the corner, catching up with Yamato. The other men threw themselves against the barrier as well, blind animal fear overcoming their reason. Their frenzied faces shrieked behind their masks. Their fists pounded relentlessly at the impenetrable wall between death and survival.
But Sandra didn’t try to break through. Instead she merely slumped in exhaustion on the other side of the wall. Anguished eyes sought out Joe’s and they stared at each other hopelessly. Only inches of solid plexiglass divided them, but it might as well have been a continent. Joe tried to speak, to push the words past his throat, but they wouldn’t come. His throat tightened. His eyes burned with tears that had yet to spill down his face. He couldn’t imagine how they had possibly come to this unthinkable moment. It wasn’t fair…
“Joe,” Takashi interrupted. “I’m closing the shield.”
No, Joe thought. Not yet! He looked around frantically for the fallen walkie-talkie and snatched it from the floor. Tears began to fall as he held it to his lips. “Sandra? Can you hear me?”
There was so much he needed to say, so much he had to apologize for, but only static answered his agonized entreaties. She shook her head sadly, holding his gaze with her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
She couldn’t hear him, but she didn’t need to. His pain and anguish and guilt were written all over his face. The fear faded from her eyes as a strange calm appeared to settle over her. He could tell she knew what he did, what he’d had to do, and what it had cost them both. She placed her palm up against the glass. He reached out to place his own hand over hers, only to hear a jarring buzzer inform him that their time was up.
The second barrier engaged. Two solid-lead doors slid in from both sides of the doorway. Joe yanked his hand back just in time. For a few final moments, their eyes met in silent communion. Her lips moved, as though she was trying to comfort him, or perhaps just say goodbye, but he would never know what her last words were.
The doors slammed shut, cutting her off from view… forever.
Goodbye, Joe thought. May God forgive me.
He wasn’t sure he ever would.
A violent tremor jolted him from his grief. The building quaked all around him. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling. The floor bucked beneath him.
“The entire plant is collapsing!” Takashi shouted from the comm. “We have to get out… NOW!”
Joe placed his hand on the lead door, exactly where he knew Sandra’s face must be. It tore him apart to know that she was still there, still alive, less than a foot away. Entombed inside a radioactive deathtrap, facing the end without even her family beside her in her final moments. And it killed him to know that now he had to leave her.
“You have to live!” she had said. “For Ford!”
Joe knew she was right. If not for their son, he would have gladly stayed behind to perish with Sandra. At least they’d be together, even if a wall of lead separated them, but he had to think about Ford now. The boy couldn’t lose his mother and his father. He owed it to Sandra to make it out of this alive… for Ford’s sake.
Tearing himself away from the lead doors, he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.
The control room was empty now. Not even Takashi remained to bear witness to the plant’s final moments of operation. Unattended monitors captured real-time video surveillance of the last wave of plant personnel fleeing the complex. Joe could be glimpsed on one monitor, barely making it to the parking lot in time, along with Takashi. Squealing cars and trucks sped out of the gates, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the plant. Power lines snapped and whipped about, spitting showers of sparks. The sky-high transmission towers in the switchyard tottered.
Another screen watched over Reactor Room One, deep in the heart of the abandoned plant. The five-hundred-ton pressure vessel containing the reactor core was shielded by dense layers of steel and concrete, but hot gases continued to leak from the ruptured casing. Silence reigned over the compromised chamber until the massive vessel suddenly toppled over, crashing onto the reinforced concrete floor, as something huge and inconceivable burst up through the floor. A violent discharge of radiation wreaked havoc with the transmission so that the screen caught only a fleeting glimpse of a large, blurry object that vaguely resembled a claw…
Then an immense pulse of energy, indescribably powerful, swept through the entire plant, disrupting every electronic circuit and knocking out all the lights.
The screens in the control room went black.
The Janjira International School was a one-story building boasting traditional Japanese architecture, complete with bamboo shutters on the window. Sitting in class with his fellow students, facing the blackboard, Ford found it hard to concentrate on Miss Okada’s language lesson. He couldn’t wait for the day to be over so that his dad could finally see the surprise he and Mom had prepared for him. Ford was also hoping for some chocolate cake and ice cream. His mouth watered in anticipation.
Emergency sirens started wailing outside, distracting Ford from his sugary daydreams. The sirens sounded like they were coming from only a few miles away. Frowning, Miss Okada turned away from the chalkboard. “All right, children,” she said in Japanese. “Let’s practice our safety drills.”
Ford figured it was just another duck-and-cover drill as well, until a fearsome metallic groaning penetrated the thin walls of the classroom. Both teacher and students stopped what they were doing and turned their heads toward the window, where the nuclear power plant could be glimpsed not far away. Ford instantly thought of his parents — and how stressed his dad had been that morning.
Did this have something to do with that problem at the plant?
He rushed to the window, even as Miss Okada tried to herd the rest of the class out the door. Boys and girls in matching blue uniforms poured out of the school onto the grassy lawn outside, even as the ominous rumbling grew louder and louder. His teacher called to him, but Ford barely registered her anxious voice. Unable to look away, he stared out the window as…