The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of survival) Read Online Free Page B

bobbed gently up and down on the calm blue water.
    Edging the German-made sports car deftly into the parking slot, Ben grabbed his briefcase, and with a dozen long strides, stepped into his office in the front of the control room.
    At 8:28 a.m. the huge reactor was already underway, splitting the U235 atoms and producing tremendous amounts of heat. Ben smiled to himself, the self-satisfied smile of a man who had complete understanding of the complex working of this monstrous unit. It gave him a comfortable feeling to be in this dust-free room, with computerized control boards and buttons, and with the ocean less than six hundred feet away.
    Donning his lab coat, he picked up a clipboard and began making his rounds as he routinely did each working day. This would be the last round he ’ d make for a month. His vacation began at the end of the day. He casually nodded to his colleagues as he checked his readings against previous records and dutifully noted them in the proper spaces. The main control center was a sterile, ultra-modern room, its control consoles in white and the men in white lab uniforms. All screens, indicators, buttons, and levers for the normal and emergency operations of both the reactor and the generating plants were contained within these four, heavily-insulated walls. The plant represented the finest in engineering design, the ultimate in construction. The facility was built on the beach because of the need for vast amounts of cooling water for the reactor. No other spot had been feasible in arid southern California. The area was laced with old fault zones, the San Andreas fault itself being nearby, but the structures were created to withstand the most violent earthquake.
    The reactor was housed apart from the control center. Dome covered, the reactor building was equally well constructed to take the shakings from the earth without being split or damaged. Inside, the reactor core and its thousands of fuel rods were protected from the incoming coolant by metal jackets within their steel reactor vessel, which was completely encased by a thick, steel drywell.
    It was an extremely efficient operation and Ben appreciated that efficiency as much as any physicist. He wasn ’ t blind to the potential dangers of nuclear energy, but he knew that so long as the machinery functioned properly, and there was no human error, and no accidents, then there was no way that the enormous quantities of radioactive poisons could escape into the environment. True, every two years the fuel rods would have to be removed and transported to a reprocessing plant for cleaning, removal of plutonium and burial of the remaining radioactive wastes; but again, it was simply a matter of everyone doing his job properly. It was over a year ago that White Water had been refueled last. Ben remembered getting a queasy sensation in his stomach as the diesel truck, groaning, had pulled onto the freeway with its heavy load of radioactive fuel rods en route to the reservation. But the two year accumulation of radiation was well contained. Nothing short of sabotage could release its deadliness to the air.
    Glancing at the clock Ben noticed that the time was 8:42 a.m. Precisely at that moment, the cement floor began to slide under his feet. His head snapped around in surprise as he instinctively reached out to steady himself, grasping onto the edge of a console. His feet were firmly planted on the floor, perhaps twenty-four inches apart, yet he felt like he was on a large skate board as his body was thrown first forward, then backward. Attempting to regain his balance, Ben dropped his papers and held firmly to the console with both hands.
         Across the room, Michael Percy had been cast broadside into the front of the master control board. Scrambling to latch onto something stable, Mike ’ s hands frantically waved over the instrument panel. “ Jesus Christ! ” he yelled, “ what ’ s happening? ”
         “ Mike, ” Ben shouted, “