Piping lined the ceiling, electrical conduits, water lines for emergency shower stations, thicker pipes for house vacuum or hissing Continuous Air Monitors that sucked air through filter paper hooked up to radiation counters.
He shuffled down painted cinder-block halls, his plastic booties scuffing on the linoleum, until he passed through another airlock door into his glove box area, part of the metallurgy and fabrication lab, though most of the glove box labs looked the same, regardless of whether they were recovery stations, machine shops, laser welding boxes, or inventory chambers.
The lab room had six of the glove box stations, each one relatively new, with the metal painted a dark blue. Circular metal ports were spaced evenly across the transparent angled window; Duane could unseal the port he needed and slide his hands into the thick gloves mounted to the metal walls, doing his work without getting contaminated. Large exhaust chimneys sucked air out of the glove boxes through thick, squarish High-Efficiency Particulate Air filters. Fire-suppression sprinklers dotted the ceiling.
Duane went over to where he had left his flannel shirt, but saw to his dismay that the badge wasn’t clipped to the collar where he always left it. He looked around, cold and angry. His knees trembled. Ronald must have done something.
Duane felt like a genuine Charlie Brown. And every time he went to kick that football, someone snatched it away from him at the last instant. The only peace and solitude he got at work was when he could huddle in the bathroom. Some people had noticed just how much time Duane spent hiding in the stall in the men’s room, enough that a few had blessed him with the awful nickname of “Diarrhea Duane.”
Right now Duane wondered what Ronald and his friends had done with his badge. If Duane lost his badge it would be a security infraction on his record. It was his fault for not wearing it, for giving Ronald the opportunity for his stupid pranks. He was supposed to wear his badge at all times, and he had screwed up. For all his years at the Lab, Duane’s record was spotless, though unimpressive. He didn’t want to risk a black mark on it, especially when people were talking about cutbacks and layoffs.
He fumbled in the pocket of his shirt draped across the chair, found a small hard lump. He pulled out the black plastic Nuclear Accident Dosimeter that had been clipped to the back of his badge. Why had Ronald taken out his dosimeter? What were they doing?
Feeling cold sweat, Duane looked around his chair and his small worktable — then suddenly rushed forward to his glove box station. He pressed his hands against the tilted glass and looked inside to the contaminated area, seeing squeeze bottles of chemicals, the grinder, the grit-caked balance and counterweights, small plutonium strips sealed inside acrylic disks, pliers, a screwdriver — and his own green photo ID badge smiling up at him from within the glove box, sitting in the horrendous invisible storm of radiation.
Ronald had bagged it through the access port on the end of the glove box, unsealing the metal hatch and sticking the badge through into the attached plastic bag. Then, reaching through with the gloves at Duane’s station, he had unsealed the badge to leave it sitting exposed.
The plastic square itself had no dosimeter on it, but Duane shuddered to see his own picture there inside the hazardous box. A fully exposed dosimeter would have brought down a full-scale investigation from DOE headquarters in Washington, DC. Ronald had covered his tracks, and Duane couldn’t prove anything.
Working frantically, he pulled on a pair of rubber surgical gloves and uncapped the circular metal coverings to a pair of installed thicker gloves mounted to the interior of the box. He slid his hands inside, groping for his badge. After several tries, he picked it up, a thin plastic rectangle the size of a playing card.
He felt his heart pounding, his stomach knotting, but he followed procedure as best he could, wrapping the badge in a plastic baggie, then undogging the access port to slide the contaminated bag through into another sealed bag, which he pulled through the access hatch inside-out.
Duane kept his rubber gloves on and got a set of tongs from the outside tool locker so he wouldn’t have to touch the badge. Every second he just knew that his badge absorbed more and more of the deadly stuff. His vision fuzzed from terrified tears.
Using the tongs to hold the double plastic bag, Duane raced over to the bathroom. He held the bags under the running water in the sink, trying to rinse off the radioactivity, not caring what contamination flushed down into the drain. He didn’t know if this would work but it seemed like it should.
After a few minutes under the cold water, he tore off the outer plastic bag, rinsed the inner bag even longer, turning the tap to hot, and then tore the bag again to pluck the thin badge free. He held it under the water for a long time, getting rid of the contamination.
To make extra sure, Duane decided to use the liquid pink soap in the dispenser. With his gloved hand he pushed up on the metal plunger hanging at the bottom of an old translucent plastic container, pumping it several times to squirt soap over all sides of the badge. Still wearing the surgical gloves, he lathered his badge and rubbed that under the running water again — until finally Duane felt he was safe.
He dried the badge carefully with a brown paper towel to make sure he wiped off all traces of the radioactive water. Then he pulled off his surgical gloves and threw them in the wastebasket.
Still shaking, partly from anger, partly from fear, he clipped his badge back to the collar of his orange lab coat, trying to keep it as loose and as far away from his body as possible.
He couldn’t wait until he got home to spend the evening with Stevie. At least his son loved him with an unqualified affection. As he rocked his boy in his arms, he could think only of the good things, forgetting his nightmarish days on the job.
CHAPTER 11
Daydreaming during the hour drive from San Francisco International airport, Hal Michaelson felt his eyes growing gritty from too little sleep and too much traveling. He wanted to go back home and sleep it off until his body caught up with the time zone, but he had to get back to work. It was noon already, and he had to put all the wheels in motion for the upcoming IVI demo. The nap he had snatched on the plane was all he was going to get.
He could have slept more the night before — but Amber hadn’t given him much chance… not that he minded.
His mind on autopilot, Michaelson automatically turned off the interstate after a numbing drive across the San Mateo bridge, through the East Bay lunchtime traffic mess, and finally over the grassy hills into the Livermore Valley. He turned off the Vasco Road exit, but the Westgate Drive entrance to the Lawrence Livermore Lab came as a surprise.
Michaelson snapped out of his funk and turned left into the sprawling, fenced-in complex of the government research installation. When the gate guard stepped out of his kiosk into the road, Michaelson rolled down his window and fished for his badge. He extended it to the guard, who tapped it without much interest and let Michaelson drive through the gate onto the site.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory looked more like a university campus than one of the nation’s primary nuclear design facilities. People cycled past, some riding their own ten-speeds, others pedaling battered red Schwinn bikes the Lab kept for employee use. Wind rustled the tall eucalyptus trees that stood over bike paths and buildings.
It was lunch hour, when the scientists, administrators and support staff suddenly became health conscious, shucking their work dress for shorts and colored spandex tops. Men and women jogged in groups of two and three just inside the gate, around the par exercise course, running from station to station, performing calisthenics suggested by the fitness placards, then running to the next stop. The sun shone down, and everybody enjoyed the fine weather — a big switch from Washington, DC, Michaelson thought, where it was just too damned hot and sticky to be outside.