“Simon’s right. I don’t expect he wants to find us alive,” Adonia said. “If he’s the only one, he can tell the story however he likes.”
“—you have my personal assurance that each of you will be cared for in a special medical facility, where you will also be debriefed in a secure environment until all of this can be worked out. So hold on just a little longer. We’re coming for you! The emergency teams will soon be on their way with all due speed. When they find you, they’ll escort you to safety. Good luck, and Godspeed.”
The loudspeakers fell silent, leaving the huge cavern to echo and hum with background noise.
“Like hell they will,” Garibaldi said. “You know he’ll squirrel me away in some covert, undisclosed location until I die. I doubt the word ‘radiation’ will ever even be used in any public announcements. If he expects me to go quietly and pretend I suffered a heart attack, he’s in for a big surprise.”
Adonia began to shake with anger. If a prominent activist like Simon Garibaldi died from radiation exposure, such a casualty would cause a public uproar. If van Dyckman was already sweeping the deaths of Victoria Doyle and Senator Pulaski under the rug, would he whisk Dr. Garibaldi away to a locked-down hospital wing for “special medical attention,” keep the scientist away from his Sanergy activists until he succumbed from radiation sickness? Just so Garibaldi couldn’t blow the whistle?
The older scientist looked to Shawn and Adonia, red with frustration. “And while I’m in quarantine, you two will be transferred to the Aleutian Islands. You’ll have no chance to make a public comment.”
“At least we’ll be together,” Shawn said to Adonia with wry humor. “For the first time in our careers.”
“I’d rather be together somewhere other than Shemya, Alaska,” she replied, then made up her mind. “Keep climbing. We’ll get out on our own.” She ascended, rung by rung, toward the converging lights far overhead.
Garibaldi panted as he climbed after her. “We need to get the word out, fast. Give me a phone and a few minutes, and I can mobilize my Sanergy contacts. Then we won’t be swept under the rug.”
Shawn called up from below. “Van Dyckman got out, and so can we.”
Garibaldi flexed his burned hand, then gripped the next rung. “We escape, spread the word, and stop this ‘temporary storage’ insanity without widespread public discussion and agreement. Or we die trying to get out of here — and believe me, that would not be my preferred outcome. We have to stop kicking the can down the road and figure out a permanent, long-term solution.” He was quiet for a moment. “Maybe that means opening Yucca Mountain after all. With the accelerating pace of science and technology, I suppose it might be possible to solve the current environmental concerns — so long as someone actually works on it. I just worry that an easy solution will be a disincentive to develop cleaner, safer energy alternatives.”
“Or there’s another possibility,” Adonia said. “If one of those random neutrons rattling around the lower cavern hits its mark, the Velvet Hammer warheads could detonate any second now.”
“Look on the bright side,” Shawn called up. “That would solve the problem of what to do about Hydra Mountain.”
43
As she climbed higher into the shaft, air currents whistled around Adonia, whooshing up from below like a hurricane squeezed through a straw. Several rungs below her, Shawn encouraged Dr. Garibaldi to keep climbing.
Soon she reached a horizontal vent screen that covered another tunnel recessed into the granite, going sideways instead of up. She called down over the roaring flow of air. “Hold up! I think we’ve reached an access hatch to the upper-level ventilation ducts.”
Shawn called up to her, “Is it open? Can we get inside?”
Air blew in Adonia’s face as she tried to peer through the slats of the opening, but she saw only white pleated layers of fabric. “It’s covered with a filter.”
“No surprise, considering all the dust in here,” Garibaldi said.
Adonia pushed, then pounded against the screen, but it didn’t budge. Both the hatch and the inside frame were secured with numerous screws sunk deep into the granite. “We’re not getting in without a toolkit.”
Garibaldi looked past Adonia, straight up the shaft. “Then we keep going. Top of the Mountain, all the way up — and outside.”
“Could be five hundred more feet,” Adonia said, not looking forward to it herself. “Are you going to be able to make it?”
“Well, I’ll have to. Dying here at this point would be a waste of my efforts. I might have only two weeks left, but I intend to make good use of them. So much to do and so little time.” He paused. “Ah, that phrase never meant so much before.” He heaved a deep breath, then continued in an angrier voice. “If I’m going to die, I don’t want my death to help cover up the mess van Dyckman created by cutting corners.
“Why do you think I became an activist in the first place? I used to work for the DOE, really bought into the mission. I followed the procedures, believed that everything was safe at Oakridge. I had major responsibilities, a decent salary, great benefits, challenging work.”
A troubled look crossed his face. “Until a routine system failed in one of the Oakridge storage chambers, a power outage and a traditional lockdown. I… was inside one of the small vaults, just like Mrs. Garcia. The power went off, and I was trapped alone in the dark. But the worst part was the terror of the unknown, sure there was radiation all around me.”
He made a self-deprecating sound. “Oh, I’m a scientist and I know full well what you need to worry about and what you don’t — but that’s all on paper and computer simulation. It’s completely different when you’re cold, dark, and all alone. I tried to convince myself I had nothing to worry about. I was sealed inside a pitch-black chamber filled with radioactive casks. At least I had an intercom, and the team on the outside — led by Rob Harris himself, in fact — kept in contact, reassuring me throughout those terrifying hours until the lockdown was over, but they were just detached voices in the dark.
“Over the intercom, Harris walked me through calculations for those two hours, forcing me to go through what I already knew, but had forgotten in my panic. He helped me understand the exposure, convinced me that I wasn’t going to die. But during that long, dark limbo, your eyes play tricks on you and you begin to experience false light, hallucinations… spurious flashes that you think are radiation bursts. Oh, it’s so convincing! All the science in the world doesn’t make up for one unexplained bump in the night.”
Adonia was fascinated and horrified. This was the first time she’d seen the erudite Garibaldi open up about what had turned him so strongly against the nuclear industry.
“After I was rescued, a young public defender worked like hell to get me medical care, psychological counseling — it was the young attorney’s first job out of law school… but the DOE rolled over her. They showed her my dosimeter, told her that my exposure was ‘acceptable,’ although high enough that I had to stay away from radiation sources for quite some time. I was assigned to a desk job at DOE Headquarters, far from any active nuclear site. They even gave me a nice raise, but acted as if everything was fine. Nothing to worry about. They were so glib and dismissive.
“That experience changed my worldview. The fact that they said I would have no lasting consequences from my ‘unfortunate ordeal’ made me realize we weren’t speaking the same language. And I no longer believed we were on the same side.”
He was quiet for a moment as he hung there, resting. “I knew I had to leave the DOE. I had to fight for safe alternatives to nuclear power, for a sustainable energy grid that doesn’t endanger the environment just to power our hair dryers.” He chuckled. “Yes, that sounds like pie in the sky, but I refuse to believe that a goal can’t be achieved just because it’s ambitious. I had hoped to make more of myself, do something significant with my scientific career. Well, well, maybe this gives me the opportunity, even if it’s a shitty one, if you’ll pardon my language.”