Chapter Thirty-Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 36 MINUTES

ETHAN COULDN’T BELIEVE he was about to let an eleven-year-old help stop a nuclear disaster.

“You know,” Ethan said, “at a nuclear power plant, I never thought a bring-your-kid-to-work day would have them participating.”

Steve chuckled as he made his way across the control room, trying to hide a small limp. Taking a seat, he watched with pride as Matt talked with the engineers while they got everything set up. The control-room door opened; Dwight ran in with a remote and handed it to the boy.

Steve jumped to his feet. “Has that been—”

“Yes, it’s clean,” Dwight confirmed.

“Okay,” Matt said, punching a sequence of buttons on the controller. “Tell him to press the button on the bottom of the drone.”

“He can hear you, actually,” Vikram said, pointing to the radio. And just then, a live video feed of a pair of hazmat-gear-covered boots standing on grass came up on the screen. The feed shook as the engineer outside flipped the drone around and stared right into the camera. Over his shoulder, the tail of the plane was visible.

Matt hopped up and sat cross-legged on the table, the blueprints laid out beside him, as everyone double-checked the video and audio feeds. Matt walked the engineer through the calibration process, and soon the Clover Hill employee gave a thumbs-up.

“Matt? You good too?” Vikram asked.

Matt turned to Steve. Steve smiled. Matt smiled. “Ready,” he said to Vikram.

The control room was quiet as they watched the engineer outside on the screen. He swiped his badge on a panel next to the door, then entered a code. A green light lit up on the panel, and the engineer opened the door and stepped inside.

“Okay, set it on the ground,” Matt said. A moment later, the camera shot moved down to the floor. Matt worked his thumbs across the joysticks, and the drone lifted off the ground. On the screen, light filled the shot, then disappeared as the engineer went back out the door.

“Okay, you’re going to want to go straight down this hallway,” Vikram said, hunched over the blueprints, “then take the second right.” Matt adjusted the joysticks, and the drone moved forward.

There was no audio. The building was completely empty. Occasionally, it would fly past a blown-out window and over broken glass that covered the linoleum floor. Everyone in the room was rapt as the drone moved through the building.

“Why are the doors all open?” Matt asked as the drone passed through yet another doorway.

“Security feature post-Fukushima,” Joss said. “In the event of a power loss, default is for the interior doors to open, not close and lock. People got trapped when the water shorted electronic doors and they wouldn’t unlock.”

Matt considered that. “But what if the power was cut by bad guys trying to get in?”

No one had an answer.

Just then, static filled the drone’s video feed for a split second.

“Does it have enough battery?” Ethan asked.

“I hardly used it today,” Matt said. “That’s not the battery.”

The drone passed through the doorway to the stairwell that led to the basement. The stairwell was lit only by emergency lighting, which gave off a dim and eerie fluorescent glow, so Matt punched a button and the drone’s headlight clicked on. The bright white walls momentarily washed out the picture until it gained focus a second later—just as the image went fuzzy again, this time for a couple seconds longer.

Matt guided the drone down one flight of stairs, past an open door, then down another. As the drone approached the bottom, Vikram looked up.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re almost to the basement. That’s where the three generators are. That’s where the water cannot get to. The subbasement below that, that is where the pump is. That’s what we have to see. We have to know if it’s flooded or not.”

The drone reached the bottom of the stairwell, rounded the corner, and entered the basement. The headlight shifted with it, shining into the room, illuminating a row of three large generators covered in lit-up buttons. The screen blinked on and off, mirroring the lights on the first generator, which, at that moment, were flashing off and on irregularly. Matt angled the drone down…

And that’s when they saw the water.

Not just the subbasement—the basement itself was starting to flood.

Everyone snapped into action.

Check and verify callbacks were shouted and the staff in the control room shifted into a frenzy as they prepared to start the pump. Adding to the panic, the drone footage trembled, then wisps of smoke rose, and the drone began to fly erratically.

“We’ve seen enough, Matt,” Ethan said. “Get it out of there.”

Matt shook his head. “I’m trying. It won’t do what I tell it to.”

The screen blinked on and off, going fuzzy and hazy. Then, with no warning, the whole thing suddenly dropped, and the camera view became a free fall heading straight down. Just before the drone hit the water, the screen went black.

“Fuck the protocol,” Joss cried out. “Start the pump!”

But before the words were out of her mouth, a loud alarm went off and a red light began blinking on the panel.

“EDG One is down!” Maggie said.

“Do it!” Joss screamed. “While we still have the other two!”

Ethan flipped the switch. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the pump to start.

It didn’t.