A Day in the Life of an Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Page 2

  Part Two

  Bang.

  There was a clap of what sounded like nearby thunder followed by a roar that faded in to a low rumble. The building shook and there was a crash. David, who had returned to his office for morning tea break, had fallen off his chair.

  “Ahh. Ouch!” winced David.

  “I can't see any clouds.” said Julie as she peered at the clear blue autumn sky for the source of the noise.

  “What the hell was that?” said Bill coming out of the toilet, feeling refreshed after his snooze but a little shaken by his sudden awakening. Harry too came to see what was going on as did Tom and Pauline.

  “Tea time” came Betty's voice from the tea room and the staff obediently headed towards the tea room.

  “I hope it wasn't the reactor. It'll be like Chernobyl all over again.” Said Julie, the worry clear in her voice.

  “Couldn't see anything over there from the east window” said Harry. The distinct sound of an old-fashioned bell phone ringing stopped everyone in their tracks.

  The red phone, installed in 1955, had never rung. It doing so now signalled that the staff were about to go in to their other role as the Radiation Emergency Response Management group or “Radiation ERM” as the sign on the main door said. Someone had added a “?” for good measure, no one had bothered to clean it off besides it pretty much summed things up really.

  “I'll get it.” said Bill as he ran to the phone, housed in a “break glass in case of emergency” case; budget cuts prevented the case being removed when someone pointed out that actually people would be calling the phone in an emergency. Bill smashed the glass with the little hammer provided and picked up the receiver.

  “Uh huh”, Bill paused, “I see.” Another pause, “Oh okay, no problem.” he said breezily as he returned the receiver to the cradle.

  “It's all right, no need to panic, it wasn't the reactor.”

  Julie sighed with relief and the tension in the building relaxed noticeably.

  “So what was it?” enquired Harry.

  “Oh, the guy sounded in a hurry, probably going to tea, but something about core storage and an explosion involving two plutonium cores. No biggy.”

  Panic exploded in the building. Pauline and Tom decided to hold an impromptu meeting under a desk. David kept repeating “No” a lot while pacing back and forth rapidly.

  “Nooo, the tomatoes!” exclaimed Julie as she ran back to the office to close the window she'd opened earlier.

  Harry meanwhile sat down with a content smile on his face.

  “Won't be long now.” he said to himself.

  At that moment Sandra, a young and very attractive administrative assistant came in. She was a source of friction between David and Bill as both fancied her in their own awkward ways.

  “What's going on, I heard a kind of explosion, then it was like an earthquake and now I can't get out of the building because the door's locked.” Everyone ignored her.

  Bill looked around at the chaos. “Huh?” he thought. “Perhaps it's worse than I thought.”

  Core Storage was a large slab like building that squatted ominously in the centre of the site. It was where plutonium cores were manufactured and stored until they could be fitted inside a missile; plutonium cores are the part of a nuclear missile that goes bang.

  There'd been a build up of the plutonium cores since a nuclear arms limitation deal with Russia five years ago; it had stopped missile production but not plutonium core production, well they had to produce something.

  Plutonium cores are the size and shape of footballs. They are also very radioactive and if two cores get too close to each other they heat up very dramatically.

  To prevent two cores getting too close to each other their movement is carefully controlled by a system of flags and bells.

  People wearing lead aprons known as “industrial staff” carry the plutonium cores in string shopping bags; industrial staff do all the jobs that scientists knew enough not to.

  The corridors and rooms of the core storage building were carefully divided up in to sections by lines painted in red on the floor. When someone carrying a core entered a section they would raise a little flag; if the flag were already raised they wouldn't enter. When they left the section they pulled a string that rang a bell and lowered the flag so the next person who came along would know they could enter.

  It sounds simple but it took a team of four engineers to design it; they'd have used lights and switches but a green initiative meant they had to create a system that didn't add to the establishments' already sizeable electric bill.

  The core storage building had one window that overlooked an area of scrub land about the size of four football pitches side by side, a concession to the unions who'd complained that working in the original windowless design would have been like working “down t’ pit” in the 17th century, not befitting of 21st century workers; no one thought to point out that even 21st century mines lacked windows.

  The scrubland served as a short cut between the main gate buildings and the science buildings for the sites' classified post carriers. Classified post carriers were young people who carried post sacks supposedly filled with classified documents; in fact most of the contents were jokes and other trivia, a practice that continued because email wasn't allowed on site for security reasons.

  By chance a core storage movements operator noticed a new postal worker as he was passing the only window in the building.

  Even at a distance she was clearly very attractive with long curly blonde hair that shimmered in the sunlight as she moved, much like in it does in those shampoo adverts. The morning mist swirling around her shapely legs as they glided gracefully through it enhanced the effect. Venus Rising had nothing on this, the core movements’ operator didn't stand a chance, he was mesmerised.

  “Jack, you have to see this,” he shouted to his mate who'd being following him at a safe distance.

  Jack approached Norman curious to see what he was talking about. As Jack caught sight of the postal worker his jaw dropped and he almost let out a gasp before both he and Norman spontaneously and violently vaporised as the plutonium cores they were carrying melted together to form a pool of super hot plutonium; it was as if someone had ignited a small sun in the room. This was the loud clap that had been heard by Bill and the rest.

  In order to get plutonium to explode in the way nuclear bombs do requires that a two lumps of plutonium be brought together in a very precise and controlled way. This is why it's not easy for terrorists to make them. If they are not brought together in exactly the right way they just “fizzle”.

  “Just fizzle” means they release the same amount of energy as they would if they'd exploded but over 10's of minutes instead of 10's of nanoseconds.

  “Thankfully they just fizzled” isn't really the right thing to say but suffice to say the two plutonium cores “just fizzled” in to a molten mass that was about as hot as the surface of the sun.

  It took less than 2 seconds for the molten mass of plutonium to eat through the floor down in to the main store where the other plutonium cores were kept just far enough apart to be safe.

  As it continued to melt through the floor of the main store it upset the careful balance of the other plutonium cores causing them to roll towards where the molten mass was already working its way to the centre of the earth and probably beyond. Needless to say all the other cores heated up in similar dramatic fashion. This was the roar they'd all heard.

  A small lake of molten plutonium formed and flowed towards the original point throwing out highly radioactive clouds of vaporised concrete and steel as it sank in to the ground.

  Bill and the rest were obviously unaware of the finer details of this but all bar Bill had figured out the bigger picture and it wasn't good, though it was now dawning on Bill too.

  “Everyone needs to calm down.” shouted Bill authoritatively. Surprisingly people began to and they congregated around Bill expectantly. It was as if Bill, being
the only calm one, was a guiding light on a stormy night.

  “Now, we need to figure out what's happened.”

  “What's happened is that all 1500 or so plutonium cores in core storage have melted together and are now working their way to China while throwing out great clouds of radioactive dust that's going to make most of England uninhabitable for thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. If only it had been just the reactor.” said David in a high-pitched squeak that reflected his full understanding of the bleak situation.

  “Are you sure China is on the other side of the planet from here?” said Julie. Tom looked about to give an authoritative answer but Bill interrupted.

  “Look the building's gone on lock down and we need a plan to get out of here.” he said.

  “We can't.” said David in despair.

  “My mother says there's no such word as can't.” said Bill.

  “What can we do?” asked Sandra nervously. Even though she only had GCSE grade E physics she'd grasped how serious the situation was.

  Bill looked at her, my chance to shine and get the girl he thought, picturing himself as a modern-day knight in shining armour. Sucks to you David. His inner self grinned smugly behind his serious face.

  “Not sure.” he said.

  “We've got the nerve.” said Tom.

  “The nerve to do what?” asked David with a large dose of contempt.

  “No the NERV” Tom clarified by spelling out the acronym.

  The NERV or Nuclear Emergency Response Vehicle looked like one of the larger Winnebago Recreational Vehicles used in the USA. This wasn't really surprising because that's essentially what it was.

  The Americans had stripped out all the comforts, lined it with 2mm lead sheet, added extra draft excluder to the doors, welded the windows shut and sprayed the shell including the windows dark green.

  They sold it to the British for $8million US for them to kit out as they wished. As they explained to the MOD procurement office their laws prevented them providing any of their propriety classified stuff but they'd left the CB radio as a gesture to their special relationship with England.

  The British added personalised licence plates “ERV 1”, a bumper sticker that said “Don't Worry We're British” and painted the number 67 on the roof in white; this wasn't so it could be easily identified by helicopter support but rather to fool any operators of spy satellites in to thinking they had more than one.

  They'd also kitted out the inside with wood tables, several respirators, a comprehensive tool kit, a chemical fire extinguisher, a box full of individually packed camouflage ponchos (they keep radioactive dust off the skin) and a copy of the yellow pages next to a mobile phone, red electrical tape signified that the phone was for emergency use only; string secured both phone and yellow pages to the desk.

  “Of course,” said Bill, “we can easily get out in that.”

  “Yeah but we can't get to it because we'd have to go outside and anyone going out there unprotected would be toast in, oh I don't know, 30 seconds say.” If there was one thing David knew it were the morbid facts about radiation exposure.

  “We could use a cart,” said Tom. “We could build a cabin on a cart with lead bricks, rig up some string to the steering handles, brakes and stuff so they can be operated from inside the cabin. Then some one could use it to get to the NERV.”

  There was silence as people tried to think of ways to shoot down this surprisingly good idea from Tom.

  In the tearoom Harry groaned, evidently he felt his family's reward slipping away.

  “Right then.” said Bill, “We'd better get on with it.”

  “Wait.” said David. Bill watched David as he ran to the tearoom and wondered what he was up to. Suddenly the theme from The A Team film erupted from the tearooms' MP3 player. Bill rolled his eyes. Montage music, that's all they needed. They got to work.

  David, Bill, Sandra and Pauline busied themselves constructing a cabin on a cart out of lead bricks while Tom went off to work on something else.

  They discovered string wasn't strong enough to use to rig up the steering, break and accelerator handles but fortunately David had several metres of high-grade platinum wire in his laboratory so they used that instead; at £30,000 a metre it was probably the most expensive steering mechanism in the world. Fortunately they found a single 4cm thick lead impregnated glass block when David pointed out it would be useful to see out of the cabin.

  Rather than draw straws as Pauline suggested Bill volunteered to drive the cart; determined to be the hero he'd insisted over David's protestations that he wasn't experienced enough and that Tom should go. Sandra was surely impressed thought Bill.

  The cabin walls were too high for Bill to easily climb in from the floor so they decided to lower him in using the hoist normally used to lift the heavier sources on to the carts. David manned the controls.

  Sandra ran over to Bill as he finished fastening a makeshift harness around his waist. She flung her arms around him and planted her mouth on his giving Bill the first kiss he'd ever had from someone not related to him. Bill felt his cheeks burn as he gazed in to her deep blue eyes.

  “For luck.” she said smiling. “Oh and you'd better take this” She slipped something in to the back pocket of his jeans, holding her hand there a little longer than was perhaps necessary. It sent a tingle up and down Bill's spin.

  “The NERV garage door remote.” She explained and winked.

  Suddenly the hoist yanked Bill upwards.

  “Sorry thought you were ready.” said David without much sincerity.

  Bill glared at him, as he swung ungainly over the cart. Just as suddenly he was unceremoniously dropped in to the cabin.

  “Damn! Sorry, though it was the red button to lower, it's the yellow one right?” said David.

  “Yes, the one with the down arrow on it. The red is the emergency release!” shouted Bill from inside the cabin with just a hint of sarcastic anger. He knew what David was doing.

  Pauline, Sandra and David placed a 1cm thick steel plate on top and piled more lead bricks on that encapsulating Bill inside. Bill peered through the window and noticed how the glass made everything look bigger.

  “Wait!” shouted Tom as he ran in to the room breathlessly. He attached something to the back of the cart and stood back.

  Pauline, Sandra and David looked. It was a rectangle of dark grey metal with the words “Little NERV” etched in to it and accented in red.

  “Titanium. I used the new laser etching tool.” said Tom proudly. Nobody seemed impressed with his high precision work.

  “Okay ready. Hit the button to open the loading bay door and leave the room. Don't forget to close the doors to the corridor!” came the muffled voice of Bill from inside the cabin.

  Bill watched the shutter rise revealing the bizarre world outside. The sky was thick with a green tinged black cloud that churned and glowered angrily. Occasionally lightning forked across it and Bill could hear the muffled rumbles of thunder through the lead walls of the cabin.

  A fluorescent emerald-green dust swirled low on the ground, drifting in several places to form small shimmering piles. For some reason the rabbits seemed quite happy scampering about in it.

  Bill looked at the rabbits, their fur was fluorescent green, coated with the dust and their eyes were glowing red as if they were demon possessed. Bill shuddered. A couple stared back at Bill and hopped towards the cart menacingly. Bill took a sharp breath and held it. Then they seemed to lose interest; they hopped away to frolic in a particularly bright dust drift.

  “Okay now to get this show on the road.” Bill tugged on the accelerator wire and the cart moved steadily out in to a world that looked like something from a 70's science fiction B film.

  The garage was about 50 metres from the building. Bill turned the cart in the right direction.

  Just over half way to the garage the cart began to slow down.

  “Oh crap.” said Bill as he remembered he should have put the ca
rts' batteries on charge over the weekend. He invoked the one thing he always did when under extraordinary stress.

  “Oh mummy”, he said. “Oh mummy.” he repeated several times as if this mantra would speed the cart up. It didn't but neither did the cart slow down.

  The cart slowed to a snails' pace when it hit the slight incline to the garage door and the electric engine began to whine.

  Bill had never been to church, never really thought about religion but if questioned he would have said ”Err?” making him an agnostic. He tried it now.

  “Oh God, oh God please, oh God” he repeated. The cart inched its way towards the garage but the change in mantra had no effect.

  Half way up the slope Bill hit the remote and the garage door began to roll open slowly.

  “Thank God Sandra remembered to check the remote control's batteries.” he muttered under his breath. In reality neither God nor Sandra had checked the batteries, he was just lucky it worked.

  Over the next 10 minutes the cart dragged itself in to the garage, where it coughed and died. Inside Bill let out the breath he was sure he'd being holding since the cart was half way up the slope. Renewed determination and optimism flowed through him.

  “Right.” Bill pressed the remote control again and heard the door begin to roll shut.

  He waited for the satisfying clunk of the door shutting that the engineers had designed in to it; they'd won an award for it and been head hunted by BMW.

  With the door closed Bill pushed up against the roof of the cart. The roof lifted but it was too heavy and it crashed back down.

  “Noooo!” Bill wailed and burst in to tears. “It can't end like this.” Suddenly his mother appeared, a misty vision in front of him.

  “Who's mummy's little soldier?” she said smiling at him as she hovered 20cm in front of Bill's nose. Anyone else would have cringed at this but Bill could feel a new strength building in him. He felt himself expanding, he imagined himself as David Banner turning in to The Hulk. He pushed up hard and fast. The roof moved as before.

  At that moment everything began to shudder violently, this had nothing to do with Bill's mum but more on that in a moment. Bill slid sideways and the steel sheet of the roof crashed down but through the violent shaking Bill could hear lead bricks hit the floor.

  When the shaking stopped Bill tried again and the roof was a lot lighter. With a last blast of strength he threw off the steel sheet and stood triumphant as it clattered to the floor. It would have been quite impressive had anyone been there to see it.

  Using a hand to help him he vaulted athletically over the side of the cart. Unfortunately the brick he pushed down on slipped and he fell awkwardly, finishing what would have been another impressive move rather ungracefully. He thanked the fact no one was there to see him as he rubbed his sore ankle.

  The NERV was kept in constant readiness. Its tank was kept topped up. It was given a regular run around the site and the engine was kept tuned to peak condition. The chrome was also kept gleaming and the keys were kept under the driver's side sun visor.

  Bill climbed inside the NERV and having closed the door he pressed the garage door remote. It began to slowly rise again revealing the horror of the green tinged world filled with rabbits. While it did so Bill went through the checklist his uncle had taught him.

  “Brake.” He pushed down on the brake pedal.

  “Check”.

  “Accelerator” he pumped it vigorously.

  “Check.”

  “Lights” - he flicked the switch and the main beams made the swirling green dust beyond the garage door look like a laser disco effect. Bill noticed there were now rabbits everywhere and for some reason they were all looking in his direction.

  “No worries, I'm safe in here.” he said out loud to reinforce the point. “Bring it on bunnies” he challenged. The rabbits decided to decline the challenge and carried on with their fun instead. Bill carried on his checklist.

  “Indicators”, he flicked a stick and the windscreen wipers came on.

  “Damn, windscreen wipers, check” he flicked them off.

  “Indicators” He flicked the other stick up and the left indicator light flashed. He flicked it down and the right indicator light blinked.”

  “Check.” He switched them off.

  “Right.” He turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared in to life.

  Putting the automatic in to drive he pressed down slowly on the accelerator. The NERV rolled forward heavily. Half way out he slammed on the brakes causing the NERV to lurch to a sudden stop.

  “Seat belt.” He fastened it.

  “Check!”

  He accelerated away steadily; Bill could hear rabbits crunching beneath the wheels as he drove towards the buildings' main entrance.

  While all this was going on about 2km beneath the site the molten mass of plutonium had hit a large underground lake vaporising it instantly, forcing super heated highly radioactive steam through faults in the rock so causing an earthquake. Aside from the violent shaking that had released Bill from his proverbial lead coffin no one was aware of this but it will become important shortly.

  Bill resisted an insane temptation to go for a spin; it was a novelty to drive on his own because he hadn't passed his driving test. Remembering the need to save Sandra, not to mention the kiss, he drove straight around to the front of the building causing rabbit carnage as he went. Pulling up some distance after the main entrance he began reversing awkwardly up to the door.

  The plan was to get people in to the rear of the NERV through the door of the building; fortunately the door had a lock down override button inside an entirely justifiable “break in case of emergency” box.

  Bill heard a roar and a terrible whining sound. The rabbits scattered in all directions as jets of steam blasted out of the drains and high in to the air.

  Clouds of green tinged steam enveloped the building. Bill waited. After a few minutes the roar died down and with it the steam began to clear. He continued reversing the NERV unsteadily towards the main entrance.

  With the rear of the NERV as close to the main entrance as possible Bill cut the engine and honked three times. This was the signal Tom had said to use.

  “Honk 3 times so we know that it's you.” he'd said.

  Nothing happened. Was it 4? Bill wasn't sure so he honked once. Still nothing. Maybe 3 honks then a break before a 4th had confused them. He honked again this time 4 times in quick succession and waited. Minutes passed, still nothing.

  “What's keeping them?” he said under his breath. Annoyed he decided there was only one thing to do, go check for him self. He climbed through the hatch in the back of the cabin and in to the rear of the NERV. He donned a poncho and a respirator and opened the rear door of the NERV.

  The hammer to break the glass on the buildings' emergency lock down release was missing so Bill grabbed the fire axe someone had thoughtfully provided as part of the NERV's emergency response gear and took a swing at the glass pane of the door. The glass shattered with that satisfying sound breaking glass makes.

  The power was out, Bill peered in to the gloom of the building's lobby. He could here water dripping and through the gloom he could see everything was soaking wet.

  “Oh no!”, he felt his heart sink as he went to where the others were. It was obvious that the super heated radioactive steam had escaped through the building; he could still feel the residual heat.

  Sandra and David looked so peaceful in each other's arms the sodden remains of a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich still in Sandra's hand, both wore a contented smile even in death. At least she died happy thought Bill bitterly.

  He wasn't sure if the same was true of Tom and Julie. They were also locked in an embrace but it looked more like Julie was trying to struggle free of Tom's unwanted advances. Bill thought this odd as he'd always assumed Tom had a thing for Pauline. Pauline was near by slumped over a copy of Cosmopolitan, she would never know how to drive her man wild in bed thought Bil
l.

  Bill saw Betty draped forlornly over her tea trolley further down the corridor, soggy tea bags scattered around her like a mock tribute. In life she'd always been so cheerful but now she just looks sad though Bill. He felt completely deflated. Tears welled up and he choked.

  Suddenly he heard a sound, someone was moving around in the tearoom. Had someone survived? Then he heard the unmistakable voice of Harry; of all people Harry would be the one to survive.

  “Bill! Bill! Wake up you lazy boy, it's 11:30. Almost time for dinner.” Harry banged on the cubical door as Bill came round. His bum was numb and his arm had gone to sleep. His head throbbed.

  “Ouch.” he moaned. Above him water dripped from the leaking cistern valve.