CONTINUUM Serrano Point: 2028

CHAPTER XVI

-Wednesday, August 29 2028 (06:25)

Serrano Point Power Plant Control Room

“Sir, we’re having trouble with the main coolant line,” said one of the technicians. His supervisor walked over, bending down to study his computer screen.

“It looks like something triggered the shutoff valve,” he said after a moment. “Okay, that’s weird. The auxiliaries are still operating though, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll get a maintenance team to go take a look.”

Two hours later Savannah strode into the control room, her guards in formation behind her and Pinington by her side. Frank was already standing with the plant’s operator studying the large display screen set into the far wall.

“Mr. Philips,” Savannah said to the operator. “Report.”

“About two hours ago the primary coolant main went offline. Fifteen minutes later so did the secondaries. And the reactor isn’t responding to our commands, so we can’t shut it down.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Savannah said.

“No Ma’am. We still have a little while before the situation becomes critical, and if necessary the reactor can be shut down manually. In the mean time we’re looking into alternate means of getting coolant into the reactor.”

“I’ve sent a team to investigate,” Frank said. “Ma’am, obviously at this point we have to consider sabotage, too many things are going wrong at once here.”

Savannah nodded. “How bad can this get Dennis?”

“It’s too early to say,” Philips responded. “But meltdowns don’t happen because something goes wrong. They happen when fifteen things go wrong.”

Savannah folded her arms across her chest. “By my count we’re already at three.”

“Sir,” a technician called out, “we just lost all the outtake lines.”

“What!” Philips stepped forward as a new diagram appeared on the main screen.

“Mr. Philips,” Savannah said.

“Ma’am…”

“How bad.”

“Well without coolant coming in they weren’t doing much, but we were hoping to reconfigure some of them to run coolant through the reactor. It wouldn’t have been a permanent solution, but it would have bought us time.”

“Can you think of any other way to cool the reactor?”

Philips looked at her. “No Ma’am.”

Savannah nodded. “Major Hess, this is definitely looking like sabotage.”

-08:19

Captain Kyle Reese led his team through one of the power plant’s mechanical areas. He had six soldiers with him, along with two plant technicians.

“It’s over this way,” one of the techs said. She led them around a bank of machinery to a large pipe about two feet in diameter.

“This is the coolant line?” Kyle asked.

The tech nodded. “Yeah. The shutoff valve should be over here…” She ducked under the pipe, Kyle and two of his soldiers following behind her. “What the hell… someone’s smashed up this control panel.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “I can see that. What about the valve?”

“We should still be able to reopen it manual,” the tech glanced further down the pipe in search of the valve, spotting at after a few moments. She quickly sprinted towards it, the other three trailing behind her.