SAN ONOFRE
Phillip Good
65,000 words
San Onofre Copyright © 2008 by zanybooks.com
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter 1. Dolly Parton by The Sea
The San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant can produce 2,710 Megawatts of electricity when all three of its reactors are operating at full power, enough to supply all the electrical needs of Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties and leave a Megawatt or so over to sell on the open market. To produce the same amount of electricity as the 30 tons of nuclear fuel consumed each year by San Onofre reactor unit 2 or 3 would require 2.3 million tons of atmosphere-polluting coal, or ten billion barrels of shore-bird destroying oil, or 54 billion cubic feet of irreplaceable natural gas.
The San Onofre plant is perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and the endless series of rolling breakers that the long-board surfers love can be glimpsed through the gantries that connect reactor units 2 and 3. The ventilator-tipped concrete domes that house these two reactors, each 173 feet high and 159 feet across, give San Onofre its common name, "Dolly Parton by The Sea."
The much smaller Unit 1, a pilot plant built during the early phases of the project, blends in with the other buildings, its flattened, slightly-conical top covered with a twenty-year accumulation of gull droppings. Though smaller, the people who work at San Onofre treat this reactor with the same respect they give the two other sleeping bombs. For the same nuclear energy that satisfies the electrical needs of three and one-half million people could, if released in a single explosive burst, destroy 300,000 lives. An explosion in one of the three Southern California Edison reactors would level the nearby town of San Clemente and turn the entire Southern California coast line, California's Riviera, into a nuclear wasteland.
All of the workers at San Onofre are concerned with safeguarding the nuclear materials that are stored there from theft or sabotage. Fully one-third of the employees have no other responsibilities than to supervise the handling, transport, and storage of dangerous radioactive materials. As many or more of the workers are involved with maintaining the security of the plant as are directly involved with the generation of nuclear power!
Besides the security forces, who range from the familiar guard at the gate who inspects your car to an entire SWAT team of crack marksmen, hundreds of clerks track the progress of the uranium pellets as they move from the mine to the reactor core, and hundreds more check the daily conduct of the plant.
Five levels of security forces ring the plant, six if you count the marines at nearby Camp Pendleton. The first level is hidden back in the offices of Security; they arrange for the screening of new employees, including an FBI check, if necessary, and for the training and additional screening of any employees who will have direct access to nuclear materials. The second level, the guards at the gates who inspect you and your automobile on entry, receive pretty much the same training and have pretty much the same background as the guards at any other industrial facility. They tend to be older, near retirement and are there as much to turn away the tourist headed for the nearby State Park as to provide any real security.
The third level, installed after 9/11, consists of machines that scan, sniff and inspect all incoming personnel and vehicles.
The fourth level of guard, whole platoons of them, work inside the plant, in the so-called protected areas adjacent to the reactors. Many of these guards are contract employees, but all have been trained to work in and around radioactive materials and to recognize the dangers associated with them. Anyone whose job requires access to radioactive materials has to pass through these guards, at least once, and usually two or three times on the way into the reactor core. A series of unbribeable computer-controlled doors also monitor access to the reactor area. The guards at the highest level of security are all full-time employees of Southern California Edison, the utility that owns the San Onofre power station. These men (only two women are in this group and both are employed in a secretarial capacity) receive training in paramilitary or SWAT techniques. If a gang of terrorists decides to crash the San Onofre site, they will do so under steady gunfire.
But neither terrorists nor foreign power is likely to make the attempt. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is actually located on federal land that has been leased from the adjacent Camp Pendleton Marine base. A routine training exercise for the Marine recruits involves the rapid grouping of forces, usually two or three companies, into a defensive perimeter around SONGS. When Russian or Chinese trawlers are seen offshore, an escort of U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers won't be far behind. At least once a year, the Navy and Marines hold a joint exercise, landing troops on the beaches to the south of the plant. The surfers scramble for cover as the big gray ships move in for the landing and the sky turns black and noisy with the helicopters and gunboats that are assisting.
Although the security forces number in the hundreds, the regulatory affairs people number in the thousands. "Ideally," as E.T. Simpson, the site supervisor is fond of saying, "everyone at San Onofre considers themselves part of regulatory affairs." It is regulatory affairs' job to ensure all activities at San Onofre are conducted by the book, and that "book" has several hundred volumes. The first dozen volumes contain the regulations, the official pronouncements of the Nuclear Research Council, or NRC, an agency of the United States government. The remainder, which have been put together by San Onofre's management with NRC approval, spell out each working procedure and each employee's functions in detail. As a San Onofre employee, either you adhere to these procedures or you may plan on working somewhere else tomorrow and perhaps even later on today.
For the object of all this regulatory effort with its four tons of paper each year is to ensure no mistakes are made in the handling of nuclear materials. No mistakes, none, neither small ones like the gauge failure at Three Mile Island that resulted in the evacuation of several hundred people from the surrounding community, or large ones like the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine where hundreds died at the site of the explosion and thousands more across Europe and Asia and the Americas had an increased incidence of cancer, leukemia, and birth defects throughout the next two generations.
To be fair, and to give well-deserved credit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the accident record of the American nuclear power industry is pretty good. In fact, at San Onofre, it is better than good. San Onofre has never had even a first stage alert—"possible malfunction," although, on several occasions, one or more of the reactors has been shut down for days or weeks for preventive maintenance, maintenance that ensures no malfunction does occur. The NRC and San Onofre management recognize that anyone can make a mistake, I can, you can. But if people work by the book, in teams, and never alone in a hazardous area, if even the backups have backups, a mistake won't go uncorrected for long.
Is all this paper worth it, an engineer might ask herself, after spending four hours filling out requests and reports on a ten-minute repair. Probably, yes, for sure, would be the answer, especially if the employee has children, or a family, or just a significant other that she cares about.
To guard against the occasional employee bent on self-destruction, Southern California Edison runs regular psychological profiles on each incoming employee and contractor and tests and reexamines every employee at least once every three years. Random drug tests—for alcohol as well as narcotics, along with locker and vehicle inspections eliminate those whose fitness for duty is questionable. Of course, no number of safeguards can protect the plant from a single dedicated political activist, one who can pass a sanity test and a detailed security investigation, and yet, just to make a point, is willing to blow up a multibillion-dollar industrial facility, kill 3,000 civilian and military employees, contaminate 250,000 acres and a half-mile of the best surfing beach in the country, and blight and endanger 3 1/2 million human lives. But then, how likely is it that such a person would apply for a job here?
Chapter 2
The surfers were the first things Poul noticed as he turned onto the San Onofre access road. Little black specks on the ocean, off the point near the railroad tracks. Each black speck rode a pale tan board, and when the wall of green water crested, Poul could see the board and the speck outlined against the wave, see them falling and moving forward, falling and moving a hundred yards or more to shore.
He hadn't noticed the surfers when he'd come to San Onofre for the job interview. Of course, he'd had tunnel vision most of that day. "Concentrate on the essentials," Lenore had admonished, "Be a phony. You'll have a chance to be yourself. Later. After you are hired."
Mary-Ella, the woman from the agency, merely warned him, "Don't miss the turnoff for San Onofre. It's another 17 miles before you can turn back." Basilone Road the exit was called and then, in smaller letters, "San Onofre State Beach." No mention of the nuclear power plant standing on the bluff above the ocean.
He'd been in some kind of altered state the day of the job interview. Wanting to get it over with and, at the same time, not sure he wanted to do it at all. He wasn’t sure he was cut out to be a saboteur. He wasn’t exactly sure just what kind of person he was cut out to be.
Less than a half mile after he left the freeway, Poul changed his mind, and pulled a U-turn only to find he was heading the wrong way on a one-way road. He wised up quickly when a blue Ford Bronco shot past him honking furiously and, as quickly, he pulled a second U. He couldn't believe a road this scenic could lead to the site of a nuclear power plant, and became a believer only when he reached the first guard gate.
At the gate, an aging guard inspected his driver’s license and had him open the Toyota’s trunk, then sent him still another three miles down the road to pick up a temporary badge. A second guard pointed him toward the Visitor's Center, where Poul filled out a form, showed his driver's license a second time—they actually checked his face against the photo, and, badge in hand, drove back to the first gate.
He was going to be late for the interview. He'd allowed himself an extra thirty minutes when he left the commune in case he got stalled in traffic, and those thirty minutes were definitely up.
At the guard gate again, they scanned his temporary badge, made him wait for a few minutes, unnecessarily he thought, and then gave him a map and a single direction, "bear left at the Y." Poul could feel the guards' eyes on him as he drove around the curve and up the hill away from the ocean. But the real stress came from inside; he felt sure he wasn't going to make it, that he had driven all this way so they could discover, somehow, he was not the right person for the job, that he was somebody completely different from the person he was pretending to be.
He found building 48 readily enough, but the parking places in front of the building were filled, and he was forced to drive farther and farther away in search of a parking spot. Again he glanced at his wristwatch. Definitely out of time. He'd blown the interview. He stopped the car then, shut his eyes, and reached inside himself till he located a small piece of overlooked confidence: No, he wouldn't give up.
He took a quick look in the rear view mirror and tightened the knot in his tie. As always, he wished he could adjust the facial features that formed the image. An unnecessary dimple, a nose that had once been broken. Not quite a man's man, yet not pretty enough to have women turn around to stare. More of a Pierre Boisson or a Keanu Reeves than a Sean Connery.
But he hadn't come to San Onofre to impress women. You look right for the job, he told himself, dignified, not too young and not too old. A man with experience, a man you'd want to hire.
A last glance at the watch. Just time enough to quick march to the interview and hope the sweat wouldn't work through his shirt. He hoped, too, that small bit of confidence would see him through the day. Somebody should have told him more about all the security, all those guards.
(Someone had, he remembered, back at the commune, Thor; but Thor had the sort of irritating personality that made you want to tune him out. Poul could get the job on his own; he could do it.)
In the end, the job interview was one of the most laid back Poul ever had experienced. Everyone was in shirtsleeves, except for one man, the fellow he'd come to see, who wore a lightweight windbreaker with the letters SCE for Southern California Edison stenciled on the front. Poul had worn a suit—you had to wear a suit on an interview, and Lenore had made him go one step further and wear his blue "power" suit, but he tried to make it look as if a suit would be the last thing he'd wear ordinarily.
Nobody really asked him any serious questions. They told Poul the sort of things they did and asked him about the sort of things he liked doing. He told them he liked doing the sort of things he'd heard them say they liked to do and they seemed pleased by his responses. (It was easy to be a saboteur, he thought, or, at least, it was no more difficult than trying to get an ordinary job.) He mentioned a couple of items Lenore had said would impress them, a job he'd worked on which required detailed design specifications and an elective course he'd taken in his senior year. Both items were already in his resume, but Lenore said it wouldn't hurt to mention them a second time. As it turned out, the two items Lenore thought important were the main reasons they'd invited him for the interview.
One of the last questions they asked was whether he'd mind going out on the floor of the power plant. He wasn't sure what they were getting at. He knew the plant was where the nuclear reactors were located, but not why would this make a difference. "No," he said, "I wouldn't mind. Sounds like it would be interesting."
"Maybe I should explain," his future boss added, "the reason I'm asking is that if you go out on the plant floor, you have to wear a film badge to measure radioactive exposure. You're not afraid of radioactivity are you?"
(Of course I'm afraid, Poul thought. Anybody with any sense would be afraid. That's why it's so crazy the government let Edison build a nuclear power plant at San Onofre in the first place.) "I guess it goes with the territory," Poul replied nonchalantly. "I mean this is a nuclear power plant."
"More than that," said the oldest of the three men, a tall moon-faced man with thinning hair to whom the others seemed to defer, "Radioactivity is something you should be very afraid of and very careful around. We all are. We take a lot of extra precautions and procedures that will seem dumb to you at first. After a while, you'll realize we do them so that a material that is very dangerous becomes safe to work around."
"Have you ever been exposed to radioactivity before?" Jack Pruitt, his future boss asked.
"I've had a chest x-ray."
"Follow the rules," continued the older man, "and you'll get less exposure to radioactivity here than you did when you got your chest x-rayed."
"Of course," Jack put in, "If you don't follow the rules, then poof.
"Just joking." he added quickly when he saw the look of horror on Poul's face. "We know you're professional enough to learn the rules and follow them. What I want to know is whether you are willing to take the risk. It's not much of a risk, but it's there."
(These guys are crazy. Everyone knows it costs one year of your life for every month you work at a nuclear power plant. Poul didn't let his knowledge show on his face; well, he tried not to.) "It could happen on the outside, too," Poul said.
"You'd better believe it," the older man replied. "A mistake here could mess up most of Southern California."
"Would you want to work in a nuclear power plant?" Jack Pruitt repeated.
"It'd be a challenge." Poul said; "Yes, I'd like to work here. I think I could make a contribution." This was it then; he’d done all he could. They would hire him or they wouldn’t.
"Then you probably will work here." Jack Pruitt grinned as he walked Poul to the door of the building. Jack's face, melancholy in repose, fairly beamed when he smiled. "I've got to submit some paperwork, boy, has this place got paperwork, and I've got to get my boss' signature—you saw he was off on vacation this week, but I think we'll be making you an offer."
"Well thank you," Poul said and shook the extended hand.
"Thank you for driving down all this way."
Two weeks later, Mary-Ella called Poul with the job offer. They discussed the offer inside the commune; everyone agreed it was still the best way to get inside San Onofre, to get to where he could put his hands on the controls, and he phoned in his acceptance. Now the rest was up to him.
Chapter 3
Poul didn't make the mistake this time of stopping at the wrong guard gate, but drove on past the State Park to the plant, where the twin domes they called the "Dolly Partons" rose next to the shore. Just short of the second gate, he turned into the visitors lot and parked outside the concrete visitors building where he'd parked the month before.
The door was locked. The sign on the door read, "Badge facility closed. Relocated to Mesa site". I blew it, Poul thought as he returned to his car; he’d been late for the interview and now he’d be late again on his first day on a new job. This change in buildings was the second thing Poul learned about the San Onofre nuclear power plant: nothing ever remained the same. Today, you would be working in building 48, section J-2, tomorrow you would be assigned to building 50, and in between you'd have changed desks and job titles a half dozen times without, his new office mate assured him later that day, "ever receiving a corresponding increase in pay."
Later, Poul would realize that the maps the group had given him, the half dozen handwritten drawings painstakingly collected over a period of months and carefully labeled with the most direct routes to the reactor, were probably in error, too. All Poul was aware of then was that he was late, that he had to, must make a good impression on his first day, and that it was starting out all wrong.
He drove swiftly back the way he'd come, just under the speed limit, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his tension revealed in the white around the knuckles. Still, he found the building where he'd had his job interview easily enough, and a space in the parking lot, finally, near where he'd been forced to park the day of the interview. His watch said he was more or less on time, time enough to notice how calm and peaceful his surroundings were, how the only tension was inside him.
A quick look in the mirror at his hair—I could use a comb, he thought—and he took the stairs of the building two at a time relying on instinct to guide his steps. On the second floor he panicked. Left? Right? He was uncertain what to do.
"Can I help you?" a warm voice said, somewhere at the level of his waist. A short, very short girl looked up at him with a glance as warm as the voice. "I'm looking for Jack Pruitt," Poul said; "I'm a new employee, my name is Anders, Poul Anders."
"Well, howdy, Poul, I'm Peter. Jack's down this way, turn left when the aisle dead-ends at the wall, and go about three-quarters of the way down. Or should I telephone him to come get you?"
"No thanks," Poul said smiling, "I'll track him down. Thanks."
He got a warm smile from the girl in reply, the kind that says, "I like you, hope you like me". The girl watched him as he walked off down the aisle. She likes me, he thought, although probably everyone was watching him, that's the way it was when you were new on a job.
"I see you've still got the suit," Jack, his new boss greeted him.
Poul tried to look modest. "I thought maybe the first couple of days, I should wear it, until people get to know me, you know how it is."
"We're pretty informal around here. Not much can surprise us,” his boss answered with a barely hidden grin.
"Yes," Poul replied, panicking. The suit was already beginning to feel uncomfortable. The shirt collar seemed tight and he still wasn't certain about the tie; Lenore had been asleep when he picked it out that morning.
"I've got you a desk," Jack said. "They're pretty rare around here. I've got us an appointment with Ron G—he's my boss, at nine. I couldn't get one with John, he's Ron's boss and the boss of pretty much everyone you see on this floor, but he said just keep coming by and he'll find a free moment. I see you met Peter, his secretary."
"Peter?"
"Yeah. She's got a boy's name. Doesn't look much like a boy, though."
"No, not at all," Poul admitted, remembering the girl's full bosom. "Short though."
"Is she ever. And you probably saw her in those four-inch spike heels she wears. She's the only one around here who makes me look tall. Except for Roxie," he added playfully, gesturing toward a new arrival.
Poul turned to look at the petite older woman who had just joined them. Roxie wore a strange mixture of styles that might have made sense in the sixties. Her makeup had been applied lavishly, a brunette base that divided the face into plates, a spot of rouge on each cheek, and long eyelashes like those worn by Vampira, a local TV personality.
"Roxie's our secretary," Jack said, "I was going to introduce you two a little later. She'll fix you up with all the supplies you need, phone lists and that sort of thing. She's our numero uno."
"You'd better believe it," Roxie said, "And I'm taller than you Jack Pruitt, see." Roxie lined herself up back to back with Poul's boss and did her best despite the flat soft shoes she was wearing to stand as tall and as straight as she could. Jack, too, had momentarily tucked in his paunch to stand straight and erect. This height competition was serious stuff.
"I think Jack's a tad taller," Poul said diplomatically. Jack grinned; Roxie merely hrumped and said, "You men all stick together" as she walked away.
"Roxie's pretty lively," his new boss said. "We all have a good time kidding with her."
She looks sick, Poul thought, as if a cancer or an ulcer were gnawing away inside her.
"I didn't know she was sick," Jack said.
Oh boy, Poul thought, he must have spoken his thoughts out loud. He often did when he was nervous. "I won't make much of a saboteur," he'd told Lenore when she brought up the idea of his taking a job at San Onofre. "You'll do fine," she'd said.
Jack showed Poul to his desk and he spent the next fifteen minutes or so going through its drawers. "The last guy left a lot of personal stuff behind," Poul remarked to the blond twenty-five year old he shared his new cubicle with. The blond had come in a few moments after Jack left, but had slipped into his chair and fired up his computer without a word to Poul.
"Yeah," the blond said. "Well, the last guy left in kind of a hurry. In fact, I think he was fired.
"My name's Jim," the blond added, "And you must be the new guy."
"Poul Anders, Jim," Poul said.
"Yeah, you got that right. You must have met a lot of Jim's since you got here. Jim's and Jack's and Bob's. Must be hard to keep them all straight."
"And Peter," Poul added.
"Can't forget Peter," Jim said. "If you're lucky, you can even dream about her a little at night. Don't let your wife catch on. You married, Poul?"
Poul shook his head.
"Plenty of action here. Sometimes, I wish I wasn't married. Glad I am, though. Keeps my mind free for my other interest."
"What's that, Jim?" Poul was hooked now. He really liked his new office mate. He liked his new boss, too. He liked everyone he'd met so far.
"Money." Jim said, "I'm really interested in money."
Chapter 4.
Jim told Poul all about his plans since getting out of the Navy: Working in the San Onofre power plant, then going to night school. Jim had a way of making the events in his life sound slightly ridiculous and a great deal of fun. He'd graduated in engineering the previous spring and now was working on his M.B.A. He'd been buying property, too. He'd bought an old house in a run-down area of Oceanside, fixed it up, sold it, and was using the profits to buy two more. "You own two houses?" Poul asked incredulous—Jim was four, perhaps five years younger than he was. "Yes and No," Jim confessed, "House prices were going up, now they’re going down. I may end up with none.”
Then Jim left, jamming a white hard hat with the Southern California Edison emblem onto his head, and grinning mysteriously. "I'm going down to the plant," he said, "Someone's got a complaint. Someone always does."
At least Jim had something to do. Poul had spent the morning getting writing pads and pencils from the cupboard and sharpening the pencils. He'd turned on his computer and typed, "Now is the time for all good wo-men," two or three times for practice. Then he'd looked through the computer files the previous occupant had created. Poul wasn't snooping, really; his search was just a way of passing the time.
Most of the files were in coded format and resulted in a series of happy faces and beeps when Poul tried to display them; some were spreadsheets full of figures. The few that were actual text were not the dull memos he expected. One file with the cryptic label "Phil.101" was all about some guy who couldn't get a date—the author of the memo presumably—and went on for screen after screen of explanation of what was wrong with the world.
I know what's wrong with the world, Poul thought. We are. We come into a world that is clean and pure. Then we dump sewage in its rivers and nondegradable plastic in its oceans. We make holes in the Earth to capture its oil and minerals, fill its air with pollutants, and kill fish and birds with what we spill. We create chemicals to kill weeds and kill the cats and dogs instead. We make bombs to kill men and destroy everything that lives above and below the ground. And when we don't know what to do with the bombs, we wall them up inside a nuclear power plant waiting for a disaster to set them free.
About ten, Jack Pruitt, Poul's boss, came by. He looked harried, something Poul hadn't noticed before. One end of Jack's shirt collar was standing up and Poul had to resist the temptation to tuck it down again. "Sorry," Jack said, "Ron G cancelled our nine o'clock and now he's got me working on a rush job. I'll get back to you. But first I've got to pack up all this stuff that Capwell left behind." He began to go through the drawers of Poul's desk emptying their contents into the boxes he'd assembled. "Any of this stuff yours?" he asked.
"Just the pads and pencils."
"Well, you can keep those, and you'll need these too," he said, handing Poul a stack of manila folders and some metal binders. "You'll need a folder for each of our projects—I'll show you later how to put one together." And then as quickly as he'd come, Jack was gone again, leaving three brown boxes piled high with junk as the only sign he'd been there.
"Trash?" a quavering female voice inquired. A custodian in a blue uniform had wheeled a cart up next to Poul's desk. The woman's teeth were tobacco stained and she had some kind of wart on her nose, but the smile made her beautiful. You are one of the people we're trying to help, Poul thought. "Don't take those boxes."
"I won't," replied the woman, "They won't let us. Just the trash."
"Don't got no trash," Poul said.
"Tomorrow maybe."
"It's a date."
"Married," she said.
Poul wrinkled his nose inquisitively.
"I'm married." she explained, "Can't go on dates. Got a sister, though. She works in the cafeteria."
"I'd like to meet her." Poul said with a smile.
"She's mighty particular. I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks," Poul said, meaning it. He'd enjoyed the interruption. Then he was alone again with his pencils and his pads, the three cardboard boxes, and a new trash bag that the woman with the wart had insisted on supplying. Nothing that would provide a meaningful way to pass the time. He played with a pencil, tapping an intricate rhythm on the desk. He studied his fingernails. He went over the phone list Roxie had given him trying to associate the names with the people he'd met that morning. Jack had taken him around the floor once, introducing Poul to his immediate coworkers and to anyone else Jack thought he might need to know later. But Poul didn't have much success remembering which name went with which face.
Roxie Djabulla was Jack's secretary. Djabulla? The name didn't match the face at all. Peter Dykstra was the short but very attractive woman who sat near the front door. Jim Muller was his new office mate. Or would that be Jim Whithers? Poul checked the nameplate on the wall beside him: Jim Whithers. John Pruitt, that must be Jack; Dave Thomas, George Lee, and Ann someone were also in his group. Or should that be a Sara instead of an Ann?
Poul always had difficulty meeting people. When he did meet someone in a forced introduction, he tended to tune them out in sheer self-protection, the way all of us absorb only a little at a time of any scene that is new to us. Unfortunately for Poul, whether people liked him or disliked him usually depended on that first contact. Too often, they mistook his shyness for indifference. The few who met the real Poul thought him a warm and genuine person, and tended to include him automatically in their plans.
"Do you like me?" he'd asked Lenore once, after they'd been sleeping together for several weeks.
"You're a good person," she'd replied, "You're part of a movement."
"But do you like me?"
About noon, Roxie came by and asked him if he was going to lunch. Poul told her he usually skipped lunch and went running instead. "That's what I do," said Roxie, "Only I walk. Half a mile. All I meant, though, is that if you want to leave the building, you have to get a site badge."
"A site badge," Poul repeated slowly as if he were hard of hearing; he'd been doing a lot of repeating that first day, echoing what people told him, not sure he really understood. (The guard at the gate was just the first obstacle, he thought, people would be checking his badge wherever he went. Lenore and the others had no idea of the obstacles he was confronting.)
"You probably should have got a site badge the first thing this morning. Somebody should have told you. Jack or somebody. I guess they forgot. Maybe I should have told you. Anyway, now you know. Just go over to Security and fill out the forms. And do it quick if you want lunch."
Poul looked at his watch. "I suppose Security is closed from twelve to one."
"Something like that. Or they may go to lunch from eleven to twelve. If you're lucky."
Security, "the new home of the visitor registration center," was closed from 11:30-12:30. Poul used the interval to walk to and from the parking lot to his car. The undulating terrain in the background reminded him of the green and brown hills in the opening sequence in M.A.S.H when the helicopters come over the rise and the doctors and nurses dash out to meet them. Reinforcing this image, two helicopters from the nearby Marine base at Camp Pendleton appeared against the sky, one behind the other. They hovered for a moment near a line of dust on the horizon that followed a series of military vehicles plodding wearily through the dirt.
Suddenly, Poul had a vision: he heard the sound of a far-off explosion, not the pop-pop of artillery, but the sound a building makes when it explodes from within, the roar of escaping gas, the crack of expanding concrete followed by the thud of crumbling masonry. He heard screams, the wawawa of ambulance sirens, people hollering in Russian. As if his retinas were a silver-nitrate film, sensitive to radiation, he began to record little flashes of light from the landscape, the final signs of an uncontrollable nuclear reaction.
Then all was silent, the sights and sounds of Chernobyl gone, and Poul was alone again, the smell of wild licorice in his nostrils, looking out across the Camp Pendleton range.
"Pretty desolate up here on the Mesa," a voice, Jim's voice spoke in his ear. Poul jumped. Jim had changed into Yuppie biker's gear, helmet, tight fitting plastic pants, and a shirt with vertical stripes. The bicycle, tall to match Jim's frame, seemed to have a tower of gears protruding from its side. Jim, red-faced and sweating, was obviously inbound to work after his ride. "You bike?" he puffed.
"I've got a bicycle. Not as fancy as yours."
"Bring it along, we'll go out tomorrow." The smile faded from Jim's face. "Where's your badge?" he asked abruptly.
"My badge," Poul repeated panicking.
"You're supposed to be wearing a badge."
"I, I, I was waiting for security. They're closed for lunch."
Jim looked at him carefully as if scrutinizing an impostor; then he grinned, "Better wait inside our office. If somebody who doesn't know you sees you, they'll get all excited.
"Don't panic," Jim added forestalling an explanation, "I didn't mean to come down on you that hard. In fact, we're pretty laid back up here on the Mesa. But they'll get you for sure if you don't wear your badge down below in the plant. Wait till you get your red badge, then you'll really see what security is."
Poul nodded, though he didn't know at all what Jim was talking about. Site badge? red badge? Stomach churning, Poul tried not to let the panic show on his face. It was so easy to make a mistake here.
"A site badge is just something to wave at the guard at the gate." Jim laughed. "A red badge means you can get into the reactor area, if you have a work order, that is. Here, I'll walk you down to Security. They'll let you know the eleven million things you've got to do. Oh, and drink plenty of coffee this afternoon."
"What for?" Poul said, though it was only one of the many questions he wanted to ask Jim. Red badges, work orders, the whole thing was a lot more complicated than any of the group had imagined.
"You'll find out."
"But...?" But Jim was gone.
Security was a set of computer terminals with a good-looking girl behind each one. Poul remembered the stacked brunette and the short blond with long hair from the day of his job interview. But they didn't really remember him or see him as they fed the information he gave them into the terminals. He had three new forms to complete and sign. None of the questions were tricky except for one, "Have you ever been arrested?" in place of the "Have you ever been convicted?" which they'd had on the original application. Yes, he'd been arrested, a couple of times in fact, in demonstrations in college, but he'd never been convicted, or if he had it was one of those deals where they destroyed the records after a couple of years. He thought about lying on the form, but put down the truth when he saw the girls would also be taking his fingerprints.
They'd gone over potential problems with security back at the house. Seven times. Lenore had laughed off his fears. "You've never been convicted. You've never even been arrested, not for anything serious. And you've got a good job record. Fair anyway. After all, you were laid off at your last job. Your job record is the main reason you'll be able to get inside the plant while none of us could."
The brunette took his fingerprints, her large imposing breasts just inches from his hands, breasts as big or bigger as any he'd ever fantasized. He didn't see any rings, but this was no time to be asking for a date, not when she was flinging his fingers down on the ink pad as if he were some kind of crazed junky animal, not when she could look down on his security form and see he'd been arrested twice. He wondered how he could get to meet her. Maybe he'd flirt first with the skinny blond who looked a lot more attainable.
The blond took his picture in color with a Polaroid camera, and made him sign a half dozen releases. "You're agreeing we can search you and your car anytime you come on the site, is that OK?"
"Is the search to keep me from taking out radioactive materials?" Poul asked.
"Drugs," was the reply. "You're not allowed to have alcohol either."
"Not even beer?"
"After work," the blond said, "Don't drink at lunch. Don't drink if you think you'll be called in to the plant. And don't ever do drugs."
Now is my chance to ask her out, Poul thought, but the blond had slipped away to make up his badge. Besides, he still had his arrest record to worry about.
"I'm all though?" he said questioning, when she came back.
"Not quite." She handed him his badge and showing him how to wear it with the photo showing. "You'll have to go through a drug screen. Make sure you get plenty of liquids before you go in for testing this afternoon."
"Can I eat first?"
"If you're very, very quick. Oops, it's already one. You'll have to get your food out of a vending machine. The cafeteria is closed. Isn't it closed, Lorraine?" she called out to the other girl.
"I don't eat lunch anyway," Poul said, hoping to attract the brunette Lorraine's attention, but the girl wasn't listening.
MORNING REPORT
Unit 1. Mode 1. Reactor power 39%. Turbine Power (gross MW) 156. Cumulative Gross Generation (billion KWH) 45.16. Continuous days of operation 2. Chemistry, Normal. Telephone notifications to the NRC - None.
Problems/Highlights At 1526, completed AFW flow test at 20% power satisfactory. At 0230, completed post-refueling physics testing at 30% power.
Chapter 5.
Poul's second day on the job was very much like his first. Again, he had to leave the house in Santa Monica well before dawn, sneaking out over Lenore's prostrate form and showering in water that was not quite warm enough. Again he wore his suit, taking pride in the way he picked out and knotted a dark blue woven tie. The screaming and shouting of the night before seemed amusing to him now. Raymond and Thor had kept asking Poul what he'd done so far, and he’d kept telling them the obvious: you don't do anything your first day on a new job.
He’d held back something else, something he'd learned from Jim the day before, something he'd not wanted to admit even to himself. He wouldn't be getting in to see the reactor the next day. He would not even have a permanent site badge till the end of the week. Before he could visit the reactor, his boss would have to submit his application for a red badge, followed by a week of red badge training and a second security check. And perhaps they might require a third and even a fourth security check after that. It would be several months before he could complete his mission.
Despite the early hour, heavy traffic clogged the freeway south. Stop and go, stop and go, with only the patter of an early morning d.j. for company. Still, he was ten minutes early for work. Parked on the offramp overlooking the surfers at Trestle Beach, he tried to use the ten minutes to regain a sense of purpose. The sky was gray and slightly overcast, but the sea was as clear and green and calming as ever.
He would have to find a place to live nearby.
Poul had not been alone on the off ramp and when 7:55 came, four cars moved as one from the roadside and down the hill toward the guard gate. Once through, they split and went their separate ways with Poul continuing on and up to the mesa.
"Good morning, Peter."
Peter looked up and smiled. "Hi Poul."
Jack too was already at his desk. "Hi Jack."
"Good morning, Poul."
Jim was already in the cubicle he shared with Poul; they exchanged greetings and talked about the examination Jim had the previous evening in his banking class. Jim thought he'd got an A. They talked about dogs. Jim was raising cockapoos; he thought the money would soon be pouring in, though like the houses he’d invested in, he hadn’t seen any so far. Poul preferred an Irish setter or a Golden retriever, but the house he shared in Santa Monica had no place to keep one in.
"Get a house down here then."
"I can't afford a house."
"You can't afford not to have a house. Do you know how much you're paying in taxes?"
Poul was almost disappointed when Jim's phone rang, for then Poul had only his pencils and his phone lists for company.
About nine, Jack dropped by Poul's desk, but it was only to leave a set of heavy manuals, with the admonition that Poul could read them or not as he chose.
"You want a bite of doughnut?" Roxie asked half an hour later. Her plain dress of the day before had been exchanged for a white sailor suit with a huge bow at the collar. "Sure." Roxie held out a half-eaten doughnut a few inches from his mouth. He snapped at it. "My God," she said, "I meant you could have a bite, not the whole thing." "Thmks," he said, his mouth full of doughnut.
About ten, he walked out to the parking lot. He opened, and then shut the door of his car as if to convince some onlooker that he'd come out for a definite purpose, before turning to gaze at the far-off green hills.
The job was so boring. The day he'd received the job offer from San Onofre, he'd visualized himself at work in the semidarkness, flashlight between his teeth, rewiring the reactor. Instead, he was cooped up with three-dozen others on the second floor of a reconverted warehouse, staring at the walls, listening to the sounds of chairs shifting in adjoining cubicles, the click of keys at half a dozen terminals.
At eleven, he walked out to the parking lot a second time.
When he returned, the only way he could find to pass the time was to look through the manuals Jack had given him. These were of two kinds. The first told him how to get the most out of Word Perfect or Lotus or some other computer program. They might have made sense if he'd actually had something he needed to do. The other manuals showed him how to write procedures and specifications for the development of still other software. These seemed to be the work of someone else with time on his or her hands and a compulsive need to label successive paragraphs 4.18.3.e and 4.18.3.f.
Had it been like this in his last job at Missiles and Space? Probably. All his jobs had been pretty much the same. None had ever really had a long-range goal.
Lunchtime was even worse. Poul didn't eat lunch—he wanted to stay trim—but his nostrils were constantly assaulted by the aroma-laden plates of those who did. He wished for the hundredth time that he had a project—something to keep him busy—it didn't have to have anything to do with the reactor, just something to do so he wouldn't feel so useless.
Again, he walked out to the parking lot. He could usually count on one or two half-eaten candy bars stashed in the glove compartment of his car. He struck pay dirt under the passenger seat finally and munched on some dried out Reese's Pieces as he walked slowly around the building and out toward the hillside that overlooked the guard gate. From the top of the hill, he could see the freeway, a piece of it, but not the ocean. Roxie joined him on the walk back. She was with Sarah, another of his coworkers. Sarah was younger than he, but married and maternal; slightly overweight; she was doing her “half-mile", she said. Their so-called walk for exercise was slower than Poul walked even when fatigued, but he accommodated himself to their strides. "Are you married, Poul?" Roxie asked.
"No."
"I didn't think so."
"Why do you say that?"
"You've got your shirt buttoned wrong." Both the women laughed.
The afternoon was little different from the morning. He found a pamphlet Personnel had sent him and read, "the steel-reinforced concrete buildings that house the reactors can withstand a 25-foot tsunami (tidal wave)" when he was interrupted by Jack and a technician pushing a cart. "We're going to change your telephone," Jack said, "All the phones are changing over."
The technician, a girl, wore a bright red sweater and tight jeans. She was thin, almost emaciated, a runner's body, with the lined face of an Aztec mask. The sweater was formfitting and Poul was all too aware of her presence. The girl went calmly and carefully about her job, but clearly she was watching him as he was watching her.
"Dave," she called out suddenly. Dave, a weightlifter type with a scholar's face Poul had met the previous day, stopped in the aisle behind him. "Marie," Dave said in reply and, thankfully, after a few minutes of chitchat, walked on again. Poul wished the girl had called out his own name, "Poul," as if she knew and cared about him. She probably didn't even know his name. He wondered if Marie lived nearby—she was very attractive, and whether she lived north or south of the plant. He hadn't found a room yet, and it might as well be in a place near her. It would be a place near her. Maybe, he would meet her accidentally after work. They'd start talking and he'd walk back with Marie to her home. If she were single. She must be single. Or was she married? And now she was gone and his new push-button phone wired up and ready to use and he hadn't even checked out her ring finger.
"Do you know a Mary Jo?" he asked when Jim returned from the plant, almost before Jim had a chance to remove his hard hat and sit down.
"Mary Jo?"
"Could be Mary Ann or something like that. I think she's Hispanic. She installs telephones."
"Installs telephones?"
"You don't know her then," Poul said dismayed. "Well that's the way the cookie crumbles. She's pretty good looking!" Poul finished, having gone from ecstasy to despair and back without Jim once having said a word.
"I know a Marie," Jim said slowly as if he'd been thinking all the time Poul had been speaking. "She's a telephone installer."
"That's her. She's the one!"
"Well what about her?"
"What's she like? Is she single? What does she like to do?"
"She could be single, though I know she's got a kid, and she likes to run."
"Run! I run."
"I hope you run better than you bike. When are you bringing in your bike? All I hear are promises."
"Tomorrow. No, maybe on the weekend."
"Sorry, I just don't believe you."
"Did I hear the word run?" Jack Pruitt poked his head into the cubicle. "If you don't mind running, Poul, I may just have you run down to the plant. I have something for you to do."
"Let's do it," Poul said, jumping up quickly the way a bright eager dog will jump up after a day spent cooped indoors waiting for its master.
"Not so fast," Jack said, smiling. "I've still got to get approval. But at least you can come down to my office and talk about it."
"Have a good time," cried Jim, "I'll give Marie your love."
"Thanks," Poul said. I'm excited, Poul thought. I don't care what this project is about; I'm going to enjoy it.
"Met Marie did you?" Jack said as they sat down at the table in his office. "She's one of our telephone installers. That's right, I should have introduced you. Meant to. Too much on my mind. I see you introduced yourself."
"Not exactly," Poul began, but he cut himself off, knowing there were certain things you didn't discuss with your boss.
"Marie's an interesting girl," Jack said. Poul looked up expectantly though as Jack had begun to shuffle and arrange the papers on his desk, it was not immediately clear he intended to pursue the topic. "Marie's a runner, a marathoner. I think she's even won one or two medals, placed second, something like that.
"She had a terrible marriage, or so I've heard. And started running to work through the pain. She just kept running and running even when the need was gone.
"Sometimes, I think I . . ." Jack paused and patted the bulge at his middle. He chuckled. "We've all got our own ways of easing the pain." For a moment his sad brown eyes made direct contact with Poul's own. Then first he and then Poul looked away.
Is he having trouble with his own marriage, Poul wondered? And why did he tell me? Poul was shocked by the sudden transition. He knew that he ought to feel something for Jack, compassion, sympathy, but all he felt was relief that Marie was not attached and that his own fantasies might become real.
Jack stared into space as if trying to organize his thoughts. His lips moved silently as he read through some internal chart. "I'm not sure where to start talking to you about this project," he said to Poul, finally. "Let me draw you a diagram."
A half hour and a dozen diagrams later, Poul thought he was beginning to understand what Jack wanted him to do. The steady stream of people that had come to see Jack while he and Jack were talking hadn't helped Poul's concentration, nor had the telephone that had rung almost continuously. Once while Jack was talking on the phone with one of the managers, Poul thought he saw Marie walk by, but the rest of the time his mind was focused on the diagrams that Jack kept sketching. Their meeting broke up when Roxie walked in with an armload of documents for Jack to sign.
"Maybe I'd better go?" Poul said. Jack only raised his eyebrows, which was a sign that maybe Poul better had. But Poul hadn't done more than push back his chair when Roxie interrupted him. "Not so fast. I've got some stuff for you to sign too, Poul. No, don't just stand there. Jack won't get the stuff I need done if you hang around. I'll come to your office."
"Thanks Roxie," he said sarcastically when she showed up at his cubicle a few moments later. "I really enjoy working for you."
"Don't be sarcastic," she said. "And stop staring at my jugs."
"I wasn't staring," he said. But he had been; Roxie was braless under the bizarre sailor suit with the V-neck she was wearing and when she had bent over to put the letters for signature on Jack's desk, he had seen two small but well-formed breasts peeking over the big blue bow.
"Huh," she said leaning over him. "I think you're horny."
"Not so loud," he said in a whisper. For a saboteur trying to keep a low profile, he was certainly risking exposure.
"You're not denying it?" Roxie said, looking Poul straight in the eye. Her breath was like peaches.
"No, I'm not," he said.
"Hah." She stood up. "You like older women, don't you?" A smile crept over his face. "I'm not talking about me," she said vehemently, "And I'm not that old. But I've got a friend, Pat. You'll like her. She'll like you. You'll meet her when you go down to the plant on this project. I'll phone her and let her know you're coming."
"How did you know about the project? Jack only just told me. We haven't even got approval yet."
Roxie gave Poul a look that implied that his not knowing that she would know only made him that much more of an idiot.
"Has your friend Pat got a spare room?" he asked.
"How should I know?"
"I need some place to stay tonight. It takes me hours on the freeway to get back to Santa Monica."
"Well, you'll have to wait till tomorrow. Pat has probably already gone home. Comes in early."
"How about your place?"
"I'm married. Are you hard of hearing? Married. M-A-R-R..." Her voice rose in keeping with the intensity of her words.
"I just need a place to stay."
"Hah what a line. You're worse than my husband.
"Hey guys listen to this," she hollered to no one in particular; "this guy's so horny he's propositioning me in the aisles."
"Shh. Roxie. Can't you be a little discreet?"
"You're the one who propositioned me," she hollered.
This is madness, he thought, she's crazy. Poul reached quickly for the phone, hoping that Roxie might have the decency to shut up if he were making a phone call.
"Hello," Lenore answered.
"Poul," he said and then paused. What could he possibly report?
"Poul, have you been able to tap into the reactor's computer?"
"No, Lenore." He looked about him, shocked; had Lenore really said that about the computer to him over the telephone? The line could be bugged.
"No hassle," Lenore continued, "but people have been asking. Whatya doing down there? I miss you."
"Who's Lenore?" Roxie said from behind him.
"Yeah, well it's a long trip twice a day," Poul said into the phone. "Wait a minute," he added as Jack Pruitt entered the cubicle.
"Sorry for the interruption," Jack said. "Ron says he can meet with us now. Is that all right with you?" Poul looked at his watch. "I know it's after hours, but this is pretty much the only time Ron has got free."
"I'll be working overtime," Poul sung happily into the phone to Lenore, "On a project. I'll get back to you."
"Call me when you're through," she sang back. He hung up.
They walked in a group to Ron's office, Jack, Poul, and Dave, who had been waiting just outside the cubicle. "This is Poul," Jack said to Ron, "Poul Anders." Ron stood up behind his desk and extended his hand. He was a short stocky Puerto Rican, not at all what Poul had expected from Jack's description. The walls of his office were bare unlike the office walls of most of Poul's coworkers, which were covered with clippings and memos. Ron's desk was bare also except for a pad of yellow paper and a pencil; even the ubiquitous computer terminal had been shoved off to the side.
"I'm pleased to meet you Poul," Ron said, "I've ear a lot of good 'ings about you." Ron had a peculiar way of clipping his t's and d's so that the "heard" sounded like "ear," and the "things" like "ings." At first, Poul found him very hard to follow. "OK, Jack, this is your meetin', 'ell us what you wan' to do."
Jack launched into what appeared to be a well rehearsed sales pitch, "Well, basically, we want to go down to engineering and take a census of their programming needs. We know of several programs they want written—Dave here has a list, and we know there's a bunch more that need changes."
"Scrubbers," put in Dave.
"Scrubbers is one example. But really, and this is why we hired Poul, it's the programs we don't know about that are the most important. Has engineering been writing their own computer programs? Are these programs affecting the quality of the work we do? Have these programs been tested and certified? We've left those guys alone so long we're just operating in the dark."
Jack stopped, waiting for Ron's reaction. The others, Poul and Dave, also swiveled their attention, like spectators at a tennis match. Ron looked at the bare wall in back of him for several moments without speaking. At last, he kicked his chair through the full circle, put his hands on the desk, and looked at them, "ell me ow I jus'ify this census."