Read Fallout for Free Online

interrupted. He’d heard all the same arguments coming from his own mouth when he was talking to Derek, but the man had changed his mind. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but time is of the essence here. Get the computers online and then get out of the way so Mr. Marshall and I can do what needs to be done.”
    “Hey!” one of the supply personnel shouted. “What am I supposed to do with this dog food?”
    “I’ll take it,” Sambit said, leaving Tucker to make his own way inside. “I know a very hungry pup who will be very happy to see it.” He took the huge bag from the soldier, who looked about fifteen and scared out of his mind. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s not enough radiation out here to hurt you.”
    “It’s not that,” the soldier admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like what we flew over to get here. There’s nothing left.”
    “Not right now,” Sambit agreed, “but people will come back and rebuild. We’ll get the power back on here. The utility companies will get the lines restrung, and the people will come back. It’ll just take time.”
    “I hope so,” the soldier said. “Thank you for what you’re doing here.”
    Sambit shook his head. “I’m just doing my part.”
    Hefting the dog food, he went back inside, leaving the soldiers to finish unloading the supplies. The new additions to the crew could help carry supplies in as well. He had more important things to do, like making friends with the man he had just decided would be his partner for the rest of the time they were here. “Derek?” Sambit called, walking into the break room. “I have Fido’s food.”
    “The supplies arrived?”
    “They’re outside unloading,” Sambit said, setting the carton down. “Why don’t you feed Fido first, and then we can go see what the suit from the NRC has managed to get done on the computers. I can tell already he’s going to be a pain.”
    “I thought you wanted help from the NRC,” Derek said.
    Sambit chuckled. “No, I wanted the passwords from the NRC. We proved what we could do earlier today. I don’t need any more convincing.”
    “Well, color me surprised,” Derek said. He opened the bag of dog food and poured some out for Fido, petting the dog’s head as he encouraged the dog to eat. Sambit stroked the silky ears as well.
    “Is Number Five ready for another trip into the reactor?” Sambit asked.
    “It should be close to fully recharged by now,” Derek replied. “We only used an hour or so of its battery life. How big of a pain in the ass is this suit going to be?”
    “I’m sure you can handle him,” Sambit said, quite confident Tucker would be no match for Derek’s sarcastic wit. “At the moment, nobody knows what’s going on in the plant as well as we do, so we have that in our favor, and we also know where the problem spots are as far as blocked corridors, and since we have the earlier readings, we can see if there’s been any change if we go back to an area we went through before. I’m not sure even the plant manager could do more right now than we can. Tucker certainly can’t.”
    “What else do we need to do?” Derek asked as he unplugged Number Five and guided the robot toward the door.
    “It’ll depend on what we find when we look at the computers,” Sambit said. “It could be the HPCI pumps did their job and all we’ll need to do is examine the reactor vessel and primary containment system to make sure they weren’t damaged by the storm. Or it could be we’ll still have heat and pressure issues in the core, at which point we’ll have to make some repairs, although we might be able to do some of that remotely if the systems are functioning.”
    “I’ll leave that to you,” Derek said. “You tell me where to send my robot, and I’ll get it there.”
    “I know you will,” Sambit said as they headed back to the main bank of computers. Sambit saw the look of surprise on Derek’s face, but now wasn’t the time to explain