Adia, Scientist

Explosion

Suddenly, the chamber sparked! Seams glowed blue! Blue-purple flashes illuminated the lab. Gasps from my coworkers! Smoke burned my nose.

Citsa waved for a cleaner sim.

The irradiation chamber shuddered. Clanked on the counter. A chain reaction began — "Prog One. Open dimportal!" Swirling green appeared behind it. I waved a calcs screen. Shouted coordinates from a list. The first glowed red. The second, green. Red. Red. Red. Too slow! Progs run.

"Location Two!" Pulled the dimportal over the chamber. Flung it through the ceiling!

I used my hands. Instead of speaking the coordinates my holographic grid indicated, I used my hands. A perilous habit.

"Tracking!" A holo followed it into the sky. It exploded in blue and purple over the Barrens, where I meant. We are safe.

If I had spoken more of them, it would have gone off here. Did not trust progs to contain such a powerful reaction here!

"That was extremely dangerous!" With a step towards me, Ossy stared at burns on the meltedsand counter. Black streaks against white inin. "What if you missed the Barrens and hit Kleideu?"

"The tracking prog shows, it ported there, in the middle of the Barrens." I pointed to the Prog One holo, Eicken's standard emergency prog, and made sure he saw. Coordinates that I carefully put in order, with the most remote first. My hand shook, so I pulled it down. Two weeks' work! Gone.

Progs ran to check for people, ships, portals, or important work. Commands to contain any reaction with a certain density, height, strength. Progs to alert anyone in the Barrens. Progs to choose alternate locations.

The most essential ones ran first and called 50 others. I wrote my emergency protocols carefully, so that if I panicked and used my hands, no one but myself would be hurt. But, if my prog had run properly, I would be vaporized on the Barrens, with my experiment! I gasped, but my mouth just opened.

Vonn checked my display and nodded. A prog ran to verify the health of every scientist, every citizen in our colony. One holo glowed red. Mine?

Felt the faint tingle of radiation burns—through a 1000x containment field! I stared at my hand in disbelief. Both hands. White with the charred dust left when ANW burns. My hands came into direct contact with part of the reaction. The acrid smell included the bitter smell of ANW!

Vonn waved hygiene on my hands and steered me to a chair by my quivering elbows. "Be calm. I will get help—"

Citsa frowned at me. "How did that happen?"

"It was not Adia's fault. The irradiation chamber failed; her quick action saved us!"

Derees stood by Vonn. His hand quivered on my shoulder. "Leave us! Both of you have work."

Tanda brought an ointment and smeared it over my trembling fingers.

A holo showed what happened. Prog One records all incidents. Takes holos from every person's angle and combines them into one. Director Pragate and Security surely see it now. The holo clearly showed my hands going too far into the dimportal.

If I had spoken all the coords and waited for verification, as procedures demanded, the explosion would have happened here, in the lab.

A simulation predicted the 1000x field would not have contained it. Flagged an error in the 1000x code. Sent the sim to Safety. Safety Section made an error? That is how my hands slipped into the portal?