The God Particle (3 page)

‘Thank you, Serena, but I must do this myself. Did you get
any anomalies from the data you extracted from the detectors?’

‘No, Professor. Everything seemed normal,’ Serena replied.

‘There is one thing you can do for me. Can you pull up the
electromagnetic data readings before, during and after the experiment? I’m
particularly interested in any surges or peaks that may have occurred, when the
collider was at full operational capacity.’

‘Certainly, Professor. I’ll get onto it straight away.’

Katashi’s prayers were answered by way of an electricity
pylon and a red Toyota Corolla. The pylon was at the far end of the compound;
its three legs had buckled under the weight of the flotsam that had gathered
around its base, but it was still holding its own. The tree, on which Katashi
was clinging, snagged one of the legs. The Toyota, which was floating behind,
hammered home the branches and the tree held firm against the rushing tide.
Katashi shivered uncontrollably as he saw the lifeless, bloated face of an
older man staring blankly at him through the windscreen. He looked away.

Now stationary, he relaxed enough to survey his surroundings.
He took off his mask and breathing equipment to get a better view. The entire
compound was flooded. Buildings were submerged up to their first floors and
some of the flimsier structures had sustained considerable damage. The
portacabins, which were being used as a temporary canteen whilst the main
restaurant was being refurbished, had disappeared under the water altogether.
One of the coaches ferrying personnel to safety was floating upside down, with
only the air in its tyres stopping it from completely sinking.

Katashi could now make out the bodies of some of his
colleagues, bobbing along with the rest of the debris. Selfishly, he scoured
the area for any of his own team who may have perished, clearly identifiable by
their white protective overalls; he didn’t recognise anybody he knew and gave a
sigh of relief, then instantly felt guilty for not mourning the loss of his
other co-workers.

The tsunami hadn’t destroyed the entire perimeter wall, at
least not in this part of the compound, but it had washed away a section of
about twenty feet, through which water gushed, carrying with it everything that
the tidal surge had managed to scoop up, tear down or break apart.
Occasionally, a large object would bridge the gap, creating a temporary dam, as
smaller items built up behind; however, the force of the flow was too strong
and a breach would inevitably occur, crushing the obstructions to pulp.

The Toyota, which had been so crucial in securing Katashi’s
vantage point, freed itself from the tree, spinning off in the direction of the
waterfall. Katashi was relieved to be free from the horror of its grey-faced
passenger. However, this relief was short-lived; he could feel the trunk
beneath him shift, as the current tried to dislodge him from the pylon. One by
one, the branches anchoring him to the steel structure bent, then snapped,
until finally it was impossible for it to maintain its hold and it, too, broke
free.

Katashi could see the roof of the Toyota some two hundred
yards in front of him; somehow it was managing to stay afloat. As it neared the
gap in the wall, it was joined by a small capsized boat, several trees and a
slick of wooden planks, branches and household debris. The car slammed into the
boat and they fused into one. Without faltering, they carried on their journey
together.

The hole in the wall was now partially blocked by the thick
branches of one of the larger trees. Smaller items were being washed through,
unimpeded, but larger items were being sifted out, adding to what was fast
becoming a mega-dam.

The car-boat careered into the wall, just to the left of the
hole, with such force that Katashi was convinced it would punch its way
through; but instead, the boat shattered, as if it were made of glass, breaking
up into a thousand pieces, which were then dutifully carried through to the
other side by the tidal flow.

As Katashi neared the blockade, he could hear the crushing
of metal as the Toyota was being squeezed through an ever-decreasing gap
between the wall and the branches of the tree. He searched frantically for
somewhere to escape to, but there was nowhere. He knew, if he tried to swim for
safety, the current would pull him back into the carnage. He closed his eyes
and braced himself for the impact.

Several seconds passed, but there was no collision. Curious,
he opened his eyes. The screeching noise, caused by the car scraping against
the wall, had stopped abruptly. He expected to see the car to have either
disappeared through the gap in the wall, or to have sunk; but as his eyes
adjusted to the light, he could tell that neither had happened. The car, in
fact, seemed to be coming towards him, the hideous apparition of the perished
soul clearer than ever. Katashi looked around him and saw that all the wreckage
had either slowed down, stopped or gone into reverse, depending on its
momentum. The surge was receding.

He dived off his makeshift raft and swam, with astounding
strength, towards the control room, which was located in the centre of the
compound. By the time he reached the building, he was able to touch the floor
on tiptoes. Brushing aside the branches and twigs that had collected around the
door, he made his way inside and up the stairs.

‘Katashi! You alright?’ It was Masumi Makoto, head of
operations and Katashi’s boss. He looked up from the bank of monitors and
gauges he was studying.

‘I’m fine, but I’m not sure where the rest of my team is,’
Katashi responded. ‘Have you heard from any of them?’

‘No, not since the tsunami hit.’

‘What exactly happened?’ Katashi queried.

‘We’re not a hundred per cent sure at the moment,’ Masumi
replied. ‘But, what we can gather from news reports, is that the earthquake
triggered a massive tsunami, which hit the northeast, deluging all towns along
the coast and then sweeping inland.’

‘Which towns were affected the most?’ Katashi asked.

‘As far as we can tell, Sendai and Soma took the brunt of
the force. It’s reported that most homes have been destroyed with estimated
casualties...’ Masumi checked himself, as he realised that Katashi’s family
lived in the area.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Masumi, resting his hand on Katashi’s
shoulder. ‘You must be worried sick about your family. All landlines are down
in the area, but you can try them on my satellite phone,’ and he handed his
phone over to Katashi.

Katashi sat down at one of the vacant desks and tapped in
his wife’s cell number. His heart skipped a beat as a fuzzy connection was
made. Thankfully, he thought, they’re safe. But his exhilaration turned to
disappointment as the voicemail kicked in after the obligatory ten rings. He
left a message for her to ring him back, trying to keep his voice as level as
possible, but his anxiety was showing through.

He handed the phone back to Masumi.

‘Let me know if my wife calls.’

‘Of course,’ Masumi replied.

‘What’s the situation here?’ Katashi asked.

‘Not good, I’m afraid,’ replied Masumi, gravely. ‘The surge
knocked out the diesel generators and the core temperatures are rising. It’s
not critical at the moment, but if we don’t get them back on-line quickly, it
will be.’

‘Ok. I’ll round up the rest of my team and we’ll see if we
can get them started.’ With that, Katashi left the control room and headed for
Reactor 1, where he had last seen his team. By the time he had got back
downstairs, the waterline had receded to waist height.

He thought it ironic that there was not a cloud in the sky,
yet the place was flooded. He waded through the silt-laden water, but it was
difficult to avoid the hidden rubble that had been deposited on the compound’s
floor. Twice he tripped on some unseen obstacle, falling face first, arms
outstretched to break his fall.

He reached the reactor building to find two out of the
three-man team waiting for him there.

‘Where’s Tamotsu?’ Katashi enquired.

‘We thought he was with you,’ they replied, almost in unison.

Katashi recalled the last time he had seen Tamotsu. ‘Have
you checked inside?’

Katashi didn’t wait for a reply, but instead headed for the
closed door. With trepidation, he turned the handle and yanked as hard as he
could, dislodging the sludge that had built up around the base of the door. It
opened with some reluctance, revealing a pitch-black interior. The absence of
noise from the diesel generators gave the room an empty presence.

Turning on his flashlight, Katashi entered and swept the
beam around the building. Apart from the two feet of water he was standing in,
there didn’t appear to be much damage. He trained the light on what he first
thought was a pile of rubble, halfway up the stairs; however, as he moved
closer, he realised it was the crumpled body of Tamotsu. He knew straight away
that he was dead; his head was turned at an impossible angle to his body, his
eyes gazing, blankly, over his right shoulder. The force of the wave must have
knocked him back into the building, breaking his neck instantly. It was a
harrowing sight and, for a moment, Katashi felt the acid in the pit of his
stomach lurch. He concentrated with all his might on not heaving.

The other two team members were now at Katashi’s side,
snapping him back to reality. They stood there a while in silence, staring down
at their colleague’s limp remains.

‘At least he didn’t suffer,’ Katashi murmured in
consolation, more to comfort himself than the others.

His body then stiffened. ‘We’ve got a job to do, otherwise
Tamotsu won’t be the last casualty. We need to restore power to the cooling
pumps before we have a total meltdown on our hands.’ He looked around at his
colleagues. ‘You two, take Tamotsu’s body into the containment chamber,’ he
ordered. ‘We’ll pay our respects later, when we have more time!’ Then he turned
and waded across the room to the generators.

The enormous Lister diesel engines, which were the
powerhouse of the generated backup electricity supply, sat in twelve inches of
water; however, Katashi could tell, by the distinct tidemark on the wall, that
they must have been fully submersed at some point. He knew it would be futile,
but he tried to restart the engines anyway, using the automatic ignition.

He pressed the red button and the turbines churned over,
spluttered, and then died. He tried again, several times, but to no avail;
saltwater had obviously got into the system. He knew he would have to strip the
engines down, dry the individual parts, and reassemble them. But that would
take time, and time was something the Fukushima power plant was fast running
out of.

The only hope they had was to use the ‘third-line’ backup
power, whilst Katashi worked to fix the diesel generators. The third-line
backup supply was a bank of fifty batteries, in principle much the same as a
standard car battery, except much larger and far more powerful. These were
located in the containment chamber to protect them from the weather.

‘Switch over to the battery backup!’ Katashi shouted up to
his two colleagues.

Within seconds, the huge pumps began to whir into action. It
was now a race against time to get the diesel engines working, before the
batteries exhausted themselves.

***

It had taken twelve hours to get the generators in Reactor 1
back on the grid, while those in Reactor 3 had only taken him just over eight;
he’d worked quickly with knowledge gained from the previous one. Both reactors’
cores were now cooling down as they were designed to do.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case in Reactor 5; the core
temperature was rising to a critical level. Unless power to the pumps was
restored, the temperature of the fuel rods would continue to rise until they
melted, pooling at the bottom of the reactor vessel. It would then just be a
matter of time before the pressure built up to such an extent that the
containment chamber would explode, creating an atomic shockwave, four hundred
times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The backup batteries powering the pumps had run out two
hours previously, at which point Katashi had ordered the rest of his team and
the skeleton staff left behind to operate the plant, to evacuate. Nobody had
argued.

The welfare of his family played heavily on Katashi’s mind,
despite his efforts to block everything out in order to concentrate on
completing the task as quickly as possible. Just before he left the plant,
Masumi had informed him that he still hadn’t heard from his family. Images of
his dead protégé, Tamotsu, mingled with pictures of his family, flooded into
his subconscious. He knew Hikari had the commonsense to get to higher ground;
it was just whether she had the time to pack his father in the car and collect
his daughter from school, before the tsunami struck. There was nothing he could
do about it while he was still in the power plant, so the sooner he could get
the generators started the sooner he would be reunited with his family.

He had already managed to disassemble the generators, had
dried each component and was in the process of reassembling them, when he heard
the alarm. Meltdown was imminent. There was just no way of knowing exactly how
long he had left. Theoretical scenarios could predict the system’s anticipated
breaking point but, in reality, there were too many factors that could affect
the outcome.

His clothes under his protective overalls were wet through,
his hair was matted to his scalp and beads of sweat formed on his top lip, but
he reasoned that every second counted. As long as his protective suit didn’t impede
him, then he could put up with the discomfort rather than taking the time to strip
off.

A loud bang, followed by a hiss of steam, made him jump and
he dropped his wrench into the water, beneath the generators. Fumbling around
on the floor, his hands sieved through the layers of silt, trying desperately
to locate the tool. He adjusted his position so he could reach further under
the generators. His fingertips nudged something hard. He stretched his hand out
as far as he could and felt the cold steel of the spanner.

That was the last thing he ever felt. Katashi wouldn’t have
felt the shockwave of the nuclear blast as it ripped open the reactor. He
wouldn’t have felt his protective clothing evaporate in an instant, as the
expanding fireball, three times hotter than the Sun’s surface, burst through
the containment chamber. He wouldn’t have seen the flash of light, so intense
that it melted his eyeballs. And he wouldn’t have felt his blood boil and his
body vaporise, leaving only his shadow etched on the wall, before it too
disintegrated into shrapnel, as the shockwave continued its lethally
destructive path.