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Prologue

PROLOGUE

The Foreman knew these generators better than he knew his own face—every scuff mark, every chipped paint fleck, every subtle vibration. He’d spent two decades on these floors, kneeling with a wrench in hand or scanning a gauge by flashlight at 3 A.M. Over the years, he’d memorized their moods. If someone told him Number Three ran half a degree hot, he’d nod and say, “Always has.” Mention Number Two’s pressure gauge sticking, and he’d smile like you’d quoted his own birthday. Yesterday’s inspection had felt almost ceremonial. Clipboard in hand, he’d found nothing out of place. Not one scratch out of line, not one reading off-kilter. After twenty years, a perfect score—a small miracle in a world that rarely dealt in perfection.

He stood there now, glancing over gauges that still insisted everything was fine. Fuel steady, exhaust normal, core temps humming at textbook values. The thorium plant, touted as humanity’s great leap forward, had gleamed under the sun, promising cleaner energy and fewer nightmares. He allowed himself a half-smile, thinking of the ozone scent drifting through the corridors. That smell made him think of home—his wife, Sarah, hunched over her own lab work, the kids darting around the driveway with their shoelaces perpetually untied. Back then, life had felt so much simpler, before the responsibility of managing next-gen nuclear tech weighed on his shoulders like an invisible yoke.

Up above, the containment dome stood proud, a giant concrete guardian with steel bones. He often admired how it seemed to say, “Nothing gets through here. Trust me.” Every hallway in the facility was lined with backup systems and manual overrides, each piece engineered from decades of painful lessons learned. It all seemed unbreakable, as if they’d finally outsmarted disaster.

Then came that sound. A quiet, high-pitched whine creeping into his ears like a mosquito in a dark bedroom. It didn’t match anything in the operational manual, and he knew the rhythms intimately. He tried to wave it off—maybe a trick of acoustics or just his overactive imagination. But the noise sharpened, turning into a growl that set his teeth on edge. Inside the control room, the technicians squinted at their screens as if searching for a ghost. The Foreman stepped out into the Texas heat, sweat popping on his forehead. Indicators glowed green like smug little liars.

And then the world tore apart.

He never saw the explosion coming, not even a whisper of warning. One moment, he was upright. The next, the ground introduced itself to his skull with cruel enthusiasm. WHAM! The impact snatched the breath right out of his lungs. For a moment, he didn’t know up from down. Ears ringing, eyes watering, he forced himself to look up. Reactor Three belched black smoke into a blue sky, a vision so wrong his mind refused to process it. Thorium reactors shouldn’t fail like this. They couldn’t. He tried to piece it together—perfect inspections, stable readings—now all meaningless.

He rose to unsteady feet, tasting iron and smoke on his tongue. The odor made his stomach clench. The emergency procedures rattled through his head like a half-forgotten prayer: check survivors, secure the site, control what you can. His body moved on autopilot, instincts taking charge where logic failed. Flames danced over twisted steel, sparks popped like gunfire. The safety systems, once his pride, slept through the crisis.

He barreled toward the main building. Fuel lines spilled flaming arcs of liquid, broken beams glowed dull red. He wondered, Where’s the fire suppression? Where’s the automated lockdown? Every corridor he entered was a cruel joke now, a blueprint turned lie. His boots crunched over glass and twisted metal, moving by muscle memory alone. The route to the safety room had been burned into his brain from countless drills. He took what used to be a hallway, now a graveyard of caved-in supports. When he hit dead ends, he improvised, crawling over debris like some frantic animal.

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A human moan cut through the chaos. He found a lead scientist—the accent and sharp wit of a well-educated East Coaster, always wearing a half-smile—now pinned under rubble, blood painting his lab coat. The man’s cracked lips parted: “Run… contaminated… just go…” His voice barely rose above the inferno’s roar. The Foreman ignored the plea. With a grunt, he shoved twisted metal aside, his back screaming in protest. Not leaving anyone behind. He dragged the scientist out, each movement a small war with gravity and pain.

Outside, he laid the man down on scorched earth. Behind them, the plant he’d once praised as foolproof was devouring itself in flame and smoke. Sirens wailed in the distance—professional responders, maybe, looking like ghostly astronauts in their suits. The Foreman collapsed onto his knees, coughing, lungs raw. He caught fragments of voices, strained commands, the crunch of boots on broken ground. He’d never felt so helpless.

Later, they stuck him in a decontamination chamber. White walls, humming machines, fluorescent lights that buzzed too loud. A doctor approached, her accent carrying a subtle Caribbean lilt that added warmth to her calm, clinical tone. She scanned him, the Geiger counter clicking faster than a panicked heartbeat. “We’re gonna start your treatment now,” she said, voice muffled behind protective gear. “But I won’t lie: your exposure’s way too high.” She seemed too kind for this moment, her eyes conveying regret that no pill could erase what the radiation had done. “Only you and Dr. Singh got out,” she added softly, a note of sadness for the countless others who did not.

Alone again, the Foreman flicked on the TV. The same images blinked on every channel: a plume of smoke rising like a toxic flower, reporters trying to make sense of it. Numbers of the dead and missing climbed relentlessly. The footage cut between aerial shots and grim-faced experts who argued causes, pointing fingers at faulty code, human negligence, or sabotage. Meanwhile, the Foreman’s mind replayed yesterday’s perfect inspection. No hints. No warnings. He wanted to scream, to shatter the silence of this cold, sterile room with a howl of rage or despair. But he just stared at the screen, numb.

Memories ambushed him: Carlos, a stout Texan who always wore a faded Rangers cap and knew every valve by touch. Sarah with her smile and homemade cookies, the laughter echoing down the corridors. Another engineer, a shy kid from Mumbai who once said, “If I make these generators sing, I’m living the dream.” Now all gone, their existence reduced to ash and sorrow. He felt like someone had ripped out a piece of his soul and left a gaping hole.

A sudden pounding against the viewing window jolted him. The scientist he’d saved, now burned and shaking, looked desperate. The rulebook screamed, DO NOT OPEN, but the Foreman reached out and did it anyway. Compassion trumped protocol for once.

Singh stumbled in, his voice scraping at the Foreman’s ears: “Warn them—Alex Hartman—must know.” He shoved a crumpled note into the Foreman’s hand, gasping about sequences, odds, something fundamentally wrong. Before he could say more, guards rushed in. Their uniforms crisp, faces expressionless, they spoke in curt orders that brooked no argument. One guard, a tall figure with a clipped Midwestern accent, snatched the note as if confiscating contraband. “We'll take it from here,” he barked, all business, no warmth. “Back to your chamber, now.” The guards moved like a single organism, rifles at textbook angles. Something in their stance - that rigid, over-practiced positioning - betrayed more than standard containment protocol. Their knuckles whitened against metal as that paper disappeared into the team leader's vest. Whatever intel it held, these men knew enough to be scared.

The scientist struggled, coughing out a final warning, voice cracking into something half-scream, half-whisper. “Wrong to trust them… the sequence... temporary…” His words broke against the guard’s shoulder as they dragged him away. The Foreman stood rooted, fists clenched. The door hissed shut, sealing him again in a world of quiet and unanswered questions.

He slumped to the floor. Outside, the sun hung in a hazy sky tinted by drifting fallout. He imagined its rays filtering through contaminated air, painting the land in sick hues. This was supposed to be a beacon, he thought, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. Instead, it had become a tomb, and he was left holding fragments of a puzzle no one wanted solved.

His heart thumped in his ears, a steady drumbeat against the silence. He closed his eyes, trying not to picture the old corridors, the jokes in the break room, the pride he’d felt just a day ago. All of it gone. He exhaled, long and slow, and waited for something—anything—to make sense. But it didn’t. It might never.

A dreaded period—the Cascade, they’d call it—had begun.

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