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run things now. Tell them we’re shutting the reactors down now!”
    Orin typed commands on his keyboard and punched the ENTER button.
    “Didn’t you hear me?” Favor asked when nothing changed.
    “Sure thing, Barney,” said Orin, his eyes frantically scanning the gauges. “But there’s no response.”
    Josh cupped his hand over the mouth of the telephone. “Central Iowa wants to know why they aren’t getting the standard three-hour notice so they can pull juice from elsewhere.”
    “Tell them we’ll call back,” Favor said. “Orin, give it the command again. Josh, check the temperature. And turn off the damn Klaxon and lights!”
    Favor had moved so he could monitor the key indicators, his soft drink unopened and unnoticed in his hand. The noise stopped and the red lights were extinguished. Several workers from other sections had filed into the room, but they stood well back, watching nervously.
    “The temperature’s spiking, Barney. I’ve never seen it this high,” Josh said. “The turbines are screaming.”
    The men heard a high-pitched whistle. “What’s that?” Orin said, his face now chalk white.
    “Oh, shit,” Favor muttered. “We’re venting coolant. The water’s turned to steam. Orin, shut the fucker off!”
    “I’ve given it the command four times, Barney. Nothing’s happening! Don’t blame me.”
    Though a nuclear reactor is complicated, in one aspect it’s quite simple. Left alone, uranium runs into an uncontrolled chain reaction. But it’s not left alone. Control rods are inserted in a regular pattern through it. They absorb neutrons and have the power to turn the core cold. The plant is heated simply by raising the rods. All that is necessary to regulate heat, or shut the plant down, for that matter, is to lower the rods.
    But the computers were refusing to do just that.
    Favor flashed back to a key meeting held during the overhaul. The systems analyst who’d installed the computers and multiple backups had just explained to the company’s operations director and his deputy that nothing could go wrong. “This system is utterly foolproof.”
    The deputy had learned forward and said, “Nothing’s foolproof. We’re dealing with a nuclear power plant. What if all your fancy systems go wrong?”
    “That can’t happen, sir. Not if you follow directions and update the software.”
    “Of course it can happen. Where’s the fail-safe?”
    “I don’t understand.” The systems analyst had looked genuinely perplexed.
    “If it all goes to hell and we’re facing a meltdown and don’t want those boys to be stuck telling some computer what to do, how do we pull the plug ourselves?”
    “I assure you—”
    “There isn’t one, in other words,” the deputy said to his boss. “They want us to trust the computers to do it.” He fixed his gaze on the analyst. “We need a mechanical switch to crash this plant, if it comes to that.”
    The director had agreed, and at a cost in excess of $1 million, a fail-safe had been installed. Both the director and his deputy had been forced out the following year for spending too much money on the overhaul, but the safety system had remained in place.
    “Josh, Orin, come with me,” Barney said now, before running to the far wall and two large red handles, much like those of a fire alarm. Above them was written MECHANICAL SHUTDOWN. USE ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY .
    “Josh, yank that one.” Barney grabbed the first and pulled. The handle refused to budge. Josh tried his, with the same result. “Orin, give me a hand,” Barney shouted. The Klaxon and the pulsating red lights resumed. Some of the workers who’d been watching bolted from the room, making their way to exits.
    “We’re in overload, Barney,” Orin shouted as he wrapped his hand around half of the lever while Favor took the other. “On three. One, two, three!” The men pulled. Slowly, the handle moved. It stopped some five inches out. Applying leverage to it, they forced the red