Superman circled the plant three times, scanning it with his x-ray vision. The good news: of the fifteen thousand plus employees, Superman counted only seven remaining, all of which were located in one of the plants lower levels. The bad news: due to the radiation shielding and lead plating, nearly forty percent of the plant was inaccessible to his X-ray vision.
That meant that there could be more employees scattered throughout the plant.
Superman made one final sweep. He hated lead. And this plant had entire sections the seemed to be lined with the stuff. If time permitted, he vowed that he would check all the areas he could to ensure they were clear of civilians, but in the meantime, he'd have to trust that the authorities did their job and properly evacuated the plant.
He flew towards the entrance and landed their. He was greeted by a couple of uniformed officers.
"Superman." One officer said, extending his hand.
Superman shook it firmly. "Officer…" he read his name plate. "Watts."
"We got everyone out." Officer Watts explained. "All except for a few technicians. They insisted on staying. Everyone else has been placed on a bus and is currently being transported out of the city. Special Agent Davison of the MHD radioed; he's about ten minutes out."
"Good work." Superman said calmly. "You two have done your jobs. Time for you to get as far away from here as you can. No one needs to be here that doesn't need to be here."
"Thank you, sir." Officer Watts responded. The other uniform just nodded. "All the technicians are held up in the main control room. Two levels down. You'll need this security card…" He handed Superman a small plastic badge, the words Level 6 embossed diagonally across the background . On it was a headshot of an older man with thick grey hair and bushy eyebrows. The name on it read J. Shuster.
"Just follow the signs." The officer urged.
Superman nodded.
The two uniformed officers began walking towards the parking area while Superman made his way towards the large double doors heading into the plant.
"Superman!" one of the uniforms called out.
He paused and turned.
"If…" the man began. "If the plant does… you know…. Is there anything… anything you can do to save the city?"
Superman met the officer's eyes.
"Metropolis means the world to me." He said evenly. "I will do everything… and I mean 'Everything'… in my power to save it!"
The officer seemed to swell before Superman's eyes. He smiled and nodded repeatedly. Then with a gesture that was half wave, half salute, he turned and hurried towards his awaiting squad car.
Superman watched the two men climb into the vehicle and drive off over the ridge towards Metro Parkway North.
He turned and entered the plant then, his mind torn between the vow he just made and what it might mean if he kept it.
Would he put his all into saving Metropolis? Yes.
Would he be able to live with himself knowing his actions may have killed the woman he loves? Now that was the real question.
The plant was a labyrinth of winding corridors, subterranean passages, and service tunnels. Superman passed through twelve security doors on his way to the area marked "Reactor Control Room"; the words embossed on the large placards that hung on the walls in odd intervals.
As he went, he scanned the plant with his X-ray vision and listened intently to his surroundings. His scans revealed only more lead shielded areas and not much more, while his super-hearing simply amplified the ambient background noise of the plant; grinding gears, running motors, spinning turbines, high pressure water moving through large cooling systems, the ever present hum of electricity traveling along high powered lines.
And while Superman didn't know what a Nuclear Plant was supposed to sound like per say, he didn't hear anything that sounded out of the ordinary, all things considered.
He arrived at the doors to the "Reactor Control Room" and swiped his barrowed security badge. There was a "beep" and then the twin steel doors slid apart.
The room was a completely bare, save for the small group of people inside. White floor, white walls, white ceiling; each smooth and featureless. There were no desks, no chairs, no computers, no monitors, no keyboards or computer terminals. Nothing. A space sixteen feet wide, twenty feet long, and nine feet high, filled with muted white nothingness.
Superman would have sworn he was in the wrong place, had it not been for the raging argument.
"No! No! No!" a man was shouting, pacing back and forth through the open area. He was young and fresh-faced. His hair was bright red, long and curly, and draped just past his shoulders. His face was pale and sprinkled with freckles. Large black horn-rimmed glasses covered large grey-green eyes. His face was completely smooth save for a thick red soul patch on his chin. He was wearing a white lab coat over a green t-shirt with a logo Superman didn't recognize, faded blue jeans, and tennis shoes that seemed as if they may have been older than he was.
"I checked the sub-routines three times, the primary control programming five times, and the automation controls twice. I'm telling you they're clean!" he said adamantly.
"But if the virus is time released," this from a woman. "Then it wouldn't appear in any of the systems until it was too late! We have to do a complete system reset! It's the only way to be certain there are no foreign programs!" She seemed just as young and eager as the man she was arguing with. Her skin was light brown and hinted at a Hispanic origin. Her hair was cut very short and styled very masculine. Her eyes were light brown with hints of green. She was short and petit, but closer inspection showed the hints of muscle beneath the white lab coat, white blouse, tailored grey slacks and black mid-heeled boots.
"Am I interrupting?" Superman asked.
They both looked at him and then, and as if rehearsed, they both went back to their argument.
"A complete system reset!" the redhead laughed. "That would shut the plant down for at least seventy-two hours! We would have to reinstall every sub-routine, command program, security protocol, diagnostic and monitoring tool we have in place! Not to mention the time it would take to recalibrate the cooling systems, turbine ratios, and reactor settings!"
"Let's see…" the woman replied, raising her hands in a scale like manner. "Three days of reprogramming." she raised and lowered her left hand. "Total reactor meltdown and the complete destruction of a major city." she raised and then dropped her right hand. "Why are we even arguing about this?" she asked plainly.
"What exactly are you arguing about?" Superman asked.
Another man stepped towards him. He was an older man of Asian decent. His hair was grey and his eyes were dark brown. He had a thick grey mustache and a smile that seemed a mixture of pleasure and remorse. He was about five seven in height and not much more than a hundred and fifty pounds in weight. Absent was lab coat. He wore only a sky blue polo, black khaki pants, and plain black loafers.
"Superman." He said as he approached, hand extended. "I am Dr. Kevin Yamamoto, Lead Controller. It is both a pleasure and an honor to meet you, although I wish it were under different circumstances."
Superman took his hand and shook. "Mr. Yamamoto. What's going on?"
"My colleagues, Dr. Andrew Mullen," he gestured towards the red head. "And Dr. Karla Morales." He gestured towards the woman. "Have a difference in opinion on how to proceed with our current… situation."
There were three other people in the small room; each of them a uniformed officer. They all look either bored or anxious to be somewhere else.
"Have you been able to isolate the virus?" Superman asked.
"That's just it," Dr. Yamamoto explained. "There is no virus. At least not one we can detect."
"Yeah," Dr. Mullen interrupted. "And believe me, I looked. I checked each and every file personally; program files, back-up folders, system folders, personal logs, even the recycle bin. And besides a few tracks by the 'Flaming Love Monkeys' and some candid shots of Dr. Morales here at last years Christmas party… I didn't find anything!"
"And you wouldn't find anything," Morales fumed. "if the virus is time released! It would lay dormant in some file or some random line of code until a specific time and then it would activate, causing the systems crash. Then we all go boom!"
"Is that possible?" Superman asked.
"Theoretically." Mullen answered. "But like I said; I checked all our files and systems. There isn't anything there!"
"Could someone upload a virus from the web?" Superman asked again.
"No." this from Dr. Yamamoto. "This system operates on closed servers. There is no internet connection. All our operational data is stored and backed up on private drives. They are manually removed from the main CPU and uploaded to Lex-Corp every twenty-four hours."
"So if there is a virus in the system, it's something that had to be uploaded within the last twenty-four hours, right?" Superman asked.
"Last ten hours." Mullen corrected. "The servers were last cleaned ten hours ago."
"And who had access since then?" Superman asked.
"Just the three of us." Dr. Yamamoto answered. "No one else has had access to the programs within the last three days. We work twelve hour shifts on a rotating schedule. There are always two of us here at all times. The system is nearly ninety-five percent automated, so we are here more to monitor things and make sure nothing goes wrong. I was coming in to relieve Dr. Morales… and then… that… 'announcement' was made. The three of us have been here ever since."
"That poor woman." Dr. Morales whispered.
Superman looked at her. She was rubbing her fingers over a small crucifix hung on thin gold chain around her neck. She noticed him looking and turned away.
"It is possible that this is all just a hoax." Mullen said absently. "I mean the stones it would take to cause a meltdown and destroy an entire city… Someone would have to be seriously screwed in the head for something like that!"
"Screwed in the head enough to say," Superman began. "Blow up a ferry full of people. Or a school bus full of children. Or… torture a woman on worldwide television."
Dr. Mullen actually seemed to grow even paler.
"Maybe we should go to the control room so you can show me how your systems work." Superman said to Dr. Yamamoto.
Dr. Yamamoto frowned. "Superman, you are already in the control room."
Superman looked at the bare space and frowned.
Mullen smiled. "Dude…" he beamed. "Check it out…" He turned towards the far wall. "Overlay." He said in a loud clear voice.
And the room responded.
It began with the walls…
It was like watching the condensation on a beer mug evaporate. The white color in the floor, ceiling and walls seemed to just bleed away, like smoke under the force of a fan, revealing a room made almost entirely of a transparent material. The expanse of the plant was laid out all around them; a patchwork of catwalks and crawlspaces, all bathed in an amber-hued halogen lights that cast long shadows around the massive room. The area was laid out with the twin reactor chambers spaced about a football field apart from one another, the idea being that if something went wrong with one, the damage could be contained and isolated before it affected the other areas.
The chambers themselves where large dome like structures; fifty feet in diameter at the base, the roof reaching thirty feet high. There was a long catwalk connecting the two domes, which in turn was bisected by another catwalk, this one running to a small room sixty feet below the control room. On the other side of chambers sat the coolant tanks, six in all; three dedicated to each reactor. Large, round, bloated spheres; each with a ten thousand gallon capacity.
They sat in tight little clusters, each close to their designated chamber; large, thick pipes snaking from tanks to reactors.
Next, the "overlay" flashed to life.
All around the room; on the floors, walls, and ceiling; words, numbers, graphs, and various readouts overlapped the real-time display of the plant in a three-dimensional layout. The reactors were marked as LXHNR1 and LXHNR2; temperature, coolant levels, and production output hovered over each dome. Digital numbers also hovered over the coolant tanks, reading their capacity in gallons, each tank marked by a different element of the periodic table. Numbers hovered over pipes. The words "ON" and "OFF" floated above valves; "ON" was highlighted in most cases, "OFF" in others.
Superman looked down "through" the floor and had to move his foot to see the words "Scrub Room" floating over the small room below.
Finally, there were a series of monitors that seemed to just float in the upper portion of the room, where the ceiling and far wall meet. Superman could still make out the seam. There were five monitors in all, each with a different image.
"This is where we monitor everything aspect of the reactors:" Mullen explained. "Temperature, radiation levels, system automation, power output, water circulation; everything. This screen here," he pointed to the monitor screen in the center. "These are security cameras located inside the reactors."
Superman took a step forward in eyed a screen that was broken into four images, each one a different angle of the reactors interior.
The reactor chamber was large and round, the floor shaped like a bowl, a level walkway circling perimeter and one running along the center. The conclave portion was submerged in some type of liquid. Just beneath the surface, Superman could see a collection of lights shining up from the floor.
"That's reactor one." Dr. Yamamoto added. "And that's number two." He pointed towards a second monitor.
"What's that liquid?" he asked.
"That's the coolant." Dr. Morales answered. She reached up and double tapped the air in front of the monitor. The image zoomed in, the monitor doubling in size; the high-definition image now taking up twenty percent of the wall. "We use a chemical mixture of water, liquid nitrogen, and a third reagent that both keeps the liquid nitrogen from instantly freezing the water and even decreased the overall temperature of the mixture by up to a hundred degrees. The three chemicals are mixed together just before entering the chamber, to optimize the effectiveness.
Water from the dam is pumped into the green tanks, and using a chemical bonding process, its super cooled to minus 150 degrees. It's a fairly stable chemical compound, but it's still quite dangerous. Touching it would be worse than sticking your finger into liquid nitrogen." She warned. "The mixture is then pumped through the reactor chamber, as well as through those pipes running along the walls," she pointed at one of the screens. "We use it to regulate the external temperature of the reactor as well. Since the control rods stay relatively intact during the process, the level of waste is reduced by seventy percent. Once the coolant is heated to a certain level, it's pumped out of the chamber and into the steam collectors that power the turbines. The residual condensation is cycled back into the dam water, and then again into the cooling process and so on. This process increase energy output over a hundred and fifty percent since almost no water is every truly lost."
"Impressive." Superman stated, looking around the room with a bit of awe. "And what would happen if the cooling system was turned off?" he asked.
The technicians exchanged nervous glances.
"You want the technical version?" Mullen asked.
"Humor me." Superman answered.
"Well," Mullen said, pointing at a series of readouts on one of the monitors. "This is the current temperature inside the reactors."
The screen showed a vertical scale the ranged from negative two-hundred degrees on the low in and over five thousand degrees on the high end. Currently, there was a triangulated marker hovering between three hundred and four hundred degrees Celsius. It read 355degrees in large numbers next to the marker.
"The cooling programs AI generally keeps the temp somewhere between three and four hundred degrees, by either increasing or decreasing the amount of coolant pumped into the chamber, and the number of active control rods. If the system was shut off, then the core temperature would start to rise. At one thousand degrees, the water inside the reactor is flash evaporated. At twenty-five hundred degrees, the reactor walls start to crack. Four thousand, they melt. Literally. Around five thousand, the fuel rods turns to liquid and melt through the bottom of the core. Typically, a liquid uranium rod could drop fifty to a hundred feet into the earth before it stops. Now, that's bad for the planet for two reason, the least of which being the interesting plant life that would follow. The first being that everything within a fifty mile radius; every piece of soil, rock, tree, and water source would become radioactive. Eat so much as an apple of a local tree and you'll develop the cool ability to glow in the dark." Mullen turned and looked at Superman. "Can you do that?" he asked.
Superman just looked at him.
"Humph…" Mullen grumbled, seemingly disappointed. He turned back towards the monitors. "Anyway," he continued. "The local eco system would be the least of your worries."
"Why is that?" Superman asked.
"Well," Mullen went on. "There wouldn't be much left after the explosion."
"Wait," Superman cut in. "I thought it was impossible for a meltdown to cause a nuclear explosion; that the uranium used would have to be extremely enriched; more than the commercial grade all reactors are supposed to use."
"True." Mullen beamed. "But we're not talking a nuclear blast. See… when the uranium fuel rod melts through the floor, its not going to drop into the earth… it's going to hit the water first. It will flash fry every drop of water in the bay, the dam, and the river." Mullen frowned. "Imagine pouring a cup of water into a steaming hot pan full of cooking grease." He put his hands together and made a small circle. Then, with a sound effect like an explosion, he slowly spread his hands and fingers apart. "The resulting steam blast will wipe out everything within five, maybe ten miles. I don't know what that wacko was talking about when he said two hundred miles."
"Maybe he just wanted to scare everyone." Dr. Yamamoto suggested. "Two hundred miles sounds a lot worse than ten miles."
"Or maybe he knows something we don't." Superman stated plainly.
An ominous silence filled the room.
There was a "Beep" and then the security doors slid open again. Agent Davison and Agent Sanders entered the room. Agent Sanders took one look at, or rather, through, the transparent floor, down at the sixty foot drop beneath her, and clutched Davison's arm for dear life. Davison looked down and froze almost mid step.
"What the hell!?" he gasped.
Mullen laughed.
Dr. Yamamoto stepped forward. "You must be the agents that phoned ahead." He introduced himself and all the others, save for the uniformed officers.
They looked around at all the faces, each one heavy with shadows and dark thoughts.
"What'd we miss?" Agent Davison asked. "And where the hell is the floor?"
Superman and Dr. Yamamoto brought them up to speed.
"You said a system reset would erase any virus that could harm the cooling system." Agent Davison asked when they were done.
"Yes." Dr. Morales said.
"It would be like cutting off your hand to save your finger." Mullen frowned.
Superman looked at Dr. Yamamoto. "Will resetting the system work?" he asked simply.
Dr. Yamamoto looked from Superman, to Dr. Mullen, to Dr. Morales and then back to Superman.
"It will work." He answered finally. "But Dr. Mullen is also correct. While a system reset would purge the servers of any potentially harmful viruses, it would also cripple the plant. It will take days to restore the systems."
"Will Metropolis lose power?" Superman asked.
"No." Morales answered. "The storage units will keep the city running for up to ten days."
"No loss in power," Agent Davison realized. "No fried hostage."
Superman nodded.
"Do it!" Agent Davison ordered.
"You're kidding me!" Mullen protested. "This is crazy! We're going to have to start from scratch! We'll lose all the data, all the settings, all the—"
Agent Davison grabbed him by his coat lapels and pulled him close, placing his face an inch away from his own.
"I don't care if you have to spend the next five years running the place with a candle and a calculator!" he barked. "Reset the system!"
He released the man so suddenly, Mullen feel back on his rear. For a moment, it looked as if he would fall all the way to the plant floor sixty feet below. Mullen looked up at the Agent as if he was the boogie man. After a few moments of regaining his composer and adjusting his glasses, got to his feet and he turned towards the monitors.
It was then that Superman noticed the small dot of amber light floating in mid air. Mullen reached out and pressed it, and a virtual keyboard flashed to life.
He began typing commands, taking time to double tap one monitor, increasing its size. It seemed to be listing of all the active programs. Mullen selected one by double tapping the monitor again.
"This is going to take a few minutes." He explained. "I have to shut down the reactors before we can reset the system; pull the fuel rods, reset the control rods, flush the coolants. I'm also going to have to switch the entire plant over to reserve, get the back-ups running, and cycle the batteries… "
"How much of what you just mentioned requires you to keep speaking?" Agent Davison asked, more than slightly annoyed.
Dr. Mullen continued working in silence. With a slight smirk, Dr. Morales pressed yet another amber dot, bringing another virtual keyboard to life. She began assisting him.
Davison addressed the uniforms next. "You four are relieved." He said plainly. "There's a chopper in the parking area ready to get you out the area. No one needs to be here unless they need to be here. That goes for the two of you as well, Dr. Yamamoto, Dr. Morales."
"I'm afraid I'll be staying, Agent Davison." Yamamoto replied.
"If 'coppertop' here can handle the reset, then you two don't need to stick around." Davison argued.
"I helped to build this reactor, Agent." Yamamoto explained. "And while I'm more than confident Dr. Mullen can handle the reset alone, if there's any hiccups during the reboot, I'd prefer to be here to assist him, if necessary."
Agent Davison looked at the smaller man for a long tense moment. The older man locked eyes with him and made it apparently clear that he wasn't about to go anywhere.
"Fine." Davison said at last. "Guess that means you get the golden ticket, Morales."
"No." Just the one word was all she said. She didn't even bother turning away from the monitor.
"Look…" Agent Davison fumed. "I get it. You work here, and these reactors are like your babies, or what ever the hell makes since to you right now, but I don't need all three of you to be here right now! And if things go sour, I'd rather have a few less bodies to worry about!"
And slowly, Dr. Morales slowly turned around.
"No, Agent Davison, you don't 'get it'." She said calmly. "There is no one in the world that knows these reactors, or these systems, better than the three of us. Can Mullen do it alone? Yes. Can Dr. Yamamoto handle anything he can't? Yes. But what we are about to attempt has never been done before. There are a million different variables, and if there is the slightest chance that I may possess the smallest sliver of information that may help this plant avoid a nuclear disaster, than I'm going to stay and make sure I do what I can. And as far as I'm concerned, Agent, if there's anyone in this room that doesn't need to be here right now, it's you and your officers."
And without waiting for a response, she went back to the monitor and her work.
Superman fought the urge to smile.
Agent Davison actually looked embarrassed for a moment. He looked at Agent Sanders, who simply shrugged.
"Guess that leaves you." He said to her.
Her face was suddenly angry. "What? Why? I can help you with—"
"That's an order, Agent." Davison said softly.
It was his tone that caught her attention; gentle and compassionate. And his eyes, eyes that usually held all the subtlety of a thunder storm, eyes that were now filled with an almost pleading gaze.
"Sir." She complied after a long moment, but held his gaze for moment longer.
Without another word, she left the room, the four uniforms on her heels.
They left the room silently, and only Superman watched them go.
The twin steel doors slid closed behind them.
The room was near silent then; only the sound of virtual computer keys being pressed and the ever present hum of distant motors.
Agent Davison drew even with Superman.
"Why do I feel like a snowball headed straight for hell right now?"
"Because you're thinking the same thing I am." Superman answered softly.
"If he's as smart as we think he is," Agent Davison whispered. "Then he will have thought of this."
"And only Superman can stop it." Superman thought to himself.
Agent Davison drew in a long, deep breath and let it out very slowly. "Let's just hope our guy's not as smart as we think he is." He said finally.
Superman didn't respond. He was too busy worrying about what it would mean if in fact he was as smart as they thought he was.