“All the more reason to turn this thing on, sabotage it, and blow every Rubberface in this region to kingdom come,” I reminded her.
“If they’re still dumb enough to fall for that,” Natalie groaned. “If their brains have really been evolving this rapidly, maybe they’re not as driven by their primal urges as they once were.”
“It doesn’t matter how much their brains have evolved,” I chuckled at the Scavenger. “We’re the most intelligent species on the planet, and I’d say we still succumbed to our primal urges back there on that beach.”
Natalie’s face blushed, but a smile spread across her face. “I suppose you’re right. If we somehow make it out of this alive, we’ll have to do that again.”
“Now, see?” I grinned. “If you come back to Dimension One with me, then we could do that whenever we want to… ”
“Focus on the mission,” the blonde woman resisted once more as she snapped back to reality. “We were talking about the Rubberfaces’ primal urges, not our own.”
“Right,” I noted, “well, I think this will still work. One, because even a developed brain cannot reject the body’s primal needs. I see that with pests all the time. Secondly, I think these guys are here for a reason. They obviously want the radiation this place gives off, and that tells me they’re still addicted to the stuff like it’s crack. If we turn it on, they will come.”
“Won’t that be playing right into their hands, though?” Natalie questioned. “That’s giving them exactly what they want.”
“Exactly,” I reminded her. “That’s where the sabotage comes into play. It’ll be the buffet of the Rubberfaces’ lives… for about a week or so. Then?”
I mimicked an explosion with my hands, complete with a raspberry-like “boom” sound.
“I remember your plan,” the Scavenger sighed, “I’m just starting to get worried it won’t work.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I shrugged. “We’ve come this far, so why give up now?”
Natalie stared off into the distance, and I could see a slight shimmer of fear in her eyes. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the stoic warrior forced it back down into the deepest pit of her very being.
“We have to figure out how to get inside,” she suggested. “Obviously, we can’t just walk through the front door.”
I scanned across the landscape and tried to figure out if there was any good way to get into the place.
The sunrise was just coming over the lake, and the whole scene was now lit up by a mixture of the natural and man-made lights.
Before us stood what looked like the smokestack of the plant, which itself was connected to a large, rectangular building made from concrete, and a few concrete-encased hallways sprang forth from the building like an octopus’ tentacles as they stretched out and connected with other, smaller rectangular structures.
All the way on the other side of the site were long metal buildings I assumed used to house large equipment and supplies. Meanwhile, the crumbled, broken-down remnants of the parking lot stretched out all the way to the east of the complex. Large chunks of asphalt were missing, and I could see from here there were several craters and other debris that could act as potential cover.
“Wait… ” Natalie pondered as she stared off into the distance. “That structure… It’s not a smoke stack.”
“What do you mean?” I questioned as I looked at the large cylindrical structure once more. “What else could it be?”
“I think that’s the reactor,” the Scavenger noted. “Look just beyond the buildings, even further north.”
I squinted at the other side of the nuclear plant site. To the north, the Forest of Fallout began again, and there was nothing but softly-glowing Radon Root as far as the eye could see.
Except… Wait…
I could just barely make out the silhouette of several large structures. They appeared to be tall cylindrical shapes lined up next to each other and held in place by another rectangular framework, and it was almost like looking at the world’s largest test tube holder.
“Are those… cooling towers?” I gasped.
“I think they are.” Natalie grinned. “And you know what that means, right?”
She stared at me with pure glee on her face, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I was supposed to respond.
“If I’m being honest?” I chuckled. “No.”
“Hunter, the more smoke stacks in a plant, the more power it produces,” she explained. “Which means this place gives off a shit ton of nuclear energy when it’s running. I don’t know what the voice in your head would say, but I think our chances of success just went through the roof.”
Finally, some good news. Natalie had been somewhat wishy-washy this entire journey, and to see her fully commit to the plan mentally was a massive relief.
“So, it’s going to be like a ten-course medieval feast when we ring that dinner bell,” I joked. “But we still need to get inside.”
“There must be a back door,” Natalie mused. “I’m not familiar with this place, but I’d imagine it’d be constructed similarly to the buildings in the Fallen Lands, no?”
Then it hit me. I had a resource that could tell us all of this information without so much as moving away from her desk.
Karla.
“I’m about to find out,” I said as I motioned for Natalie to hold our position. “Karla? Can you do me a favor?”
What do you need? the voice asked.
“See if you can find any information on the web about this plant we’re about to infiltrate,” I asked. “Dimension Nine-Fifty-One is a pretty close copy of our own, so surely this thing exists in Dimension One.”
I thought you’d never ask, Karla teased. According to this map, you’re at a place called “Palisades Nuclear Plant.” Apparently, it was built in the seventies and is currently set to close in a few years. At least, in our timeline, that is.
“So, you’re saying this place closed down before Doomsday?” I continued.
That is unclear, she admitted. We’re still not sure when Doomsday occurred in Dimension Nine-Fifty-One, so it could be an entirely different case there.
“Damn,” I grumbled. “Also, like… I don’t know that much about nuclear plant meltdowns, but I remember when Fukushima happened the news said it was really good the ocean was able to cool it down, so don’t they tend to build them on lakes or oceans or water in case there is a meltdown?”
Yes, Karla replied, but from the geological readouts I’m getting from your chip, it seems the water level has dropped drastically since this world has experienced the doomsday event. We should be able to get more time out of the meltdown. Can you ask her how long ago her event happened so I can confirm my calculations?
“Natalie, what was the last date you remember being mentioned?”
The blonde Scavenger seemed taken aback by the question. “Uh… the last time I got a date was back when I was about ten years old, when my parents told me it was the year two-thousand-and-twenty-five… ”
“And Doomsday happened when you were…?”
“It’s not polite to ask a woman her age, Hunter,” Natalie grumbled and put her hands on her hips. “But if you must know, Doomsday happened when I was three.”
Twenty-eighteen. Doomsday happened in twenty-eighteen in this timeline.
“Karla,” I announced, “Doomsday happened before the plant shut down. Which means this has to be one of the ones they turned off voluntarily after the bombs went off.”