In 2038, a plant in Idaho that had been penalized for literally hundreds of violations and was on Sarah and Marla’s list of “Ten Most Irresponsibly Run Nuclear Facilities in the U.S.”—which they kept posted in the right-hand margin of the GreenWave Web site at all times — suffered a core meltdown that resulted in the deaths of six employees plus significant injuries to sixty-seven others, and rendered the surrounding area uninhabitable for a radius of thirteen miles. The owner of the plant, a slash-and-burn investor who’d visited the site only once, hung himself in his Santa Barbara townhouse two days later.
Following the Idaho incident, public sentiment toward nuclear energy fell to historic lows, and the pro-nuke lobby found itself persona non grata around Washington’s power corridors. No politician interested in getting reelected would touch the subject, and no investor would pledge a dime. GreenWave further leveraged the tragedy to convince congressional leaders to channel funding toward a variety of experimental methods of fallout sanitization. Additional funding came from private sources — including a huge endowment from the Andrew M. Corwin Foundation. Some of the world’s most noted physicists offered their time and talents free of charge, and the scientific community as a whole enthusiastically praised the initiative. A breakthrough finally came in late 2045, when a multinational team from California and Sweden discovered a way to dramatically curtail the decay rate using a combination of synthesized-isotope bombardment, magnetic waves, and cryogenic freezing. It was a slow and costly procedure, but the final results were thorough and definitive. The technical mumbo jumbo aside, the public was able to grasp the basic concept — all areas rendered uninhabitable by radiation could now be cleaned up completely.
Marla and Sarah were sitting in Martin’s Tavern on Wisconsin Avenue, watching a Nationals game and sharing a bottle of white wine when they received cellphone calls just seconds apart informing them that they had won the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Sarah’s hair was still mostly chestnut brown, the gray having penetrated surprisingly little. She’d let it grow long since retiring the previous year and usually kept it in a ponytail. She also never remarried. Work had been her life partner since Emilio’s passing, and she had no regrets about it.
As the limo rolled along, she was not surprised to see that the tetrapods, now moved off the road and onto the shoulders, had become stained and pitted in the four decades since she’d been here. She noticed a single rusted-steel whisker sticking out of one barrier’s broken arm. The roadway was smooth; the divots caused by the concrete barricades had been filled in at some point.
They passed the town’s utilities department; ivy covered the walls and windows and weeds had sprouted through cracks in the pavement. A generator chugged away near one of the open bay doors, sprouting a heavy-gauge extension cord that ran into the building. Signs of days gone by and days to come.
They drove through the southern residential grid, past once-proud homes that now sported dangling gutters, waist-high lawns, and furry coatings of mold. Buildings with red X’s spray-painted on the front doors had been declared uninhabitable and would be razed. A few had survived in relatively good condition, particularly those made of brick. Some lawns had recently been mowed, and one had so many cars parked in its long driveway that Sarah got the impression a party was going on.
Main Street was still ghostly. Decades of frost and thaw had unzipped the pavement in countless places, and vines crawled across every storefront. Some sidewalk slabs rose at sharp angles, lifted by the trunks of now-mature trees that had taken root through the years. Off to one side, Sarah spotted the antique-but-functional stoplight that had once hung at the intersection by the community theater, the glass lenses either shattered or altogether gone.
As they passed the municipal building that bore her father’s name, she noticed the driver’s eyes shift to her own in the rearview mirror. Checking on me, she thought. She had become too good at concealing her emotions to let anything show in public, even on a day like today, when her feelings were roiling.
The refurbished park came into view. It was an oasis in every way — new landscaping, new walkways, new fixtures, new pavilion. Under the bright blue sky and boundless sunshine, it would be easy to look at this bit of paradise and disregard the devastation that lay just a few hundred yards away in any direction.
When the limo rumbled to a stop behind the temporary reviewing stand, Sarah stepped out and briefly embraced Marla, who was waiting for her. The former journalist was still fit and trim, though she wore glasses now, and her hair, which she kept very short, had gone fully gray.
Their embrace was only perfunctory, as they saw each other several times a week and connected by phone or text every day. When Marla announced her from the podium fifteen minutes later, the applause continued without pause for almost fifteen minutes. Sarah recognized few faces, but the sight of those who were familiar — those who had resolved to come back to Silver Lake and try to make it their home once again — nearly caused her granite resolve to crumble.
Once everyone was reseated, Marla stepped to the microphone again.
“Friends, I am so very pleased to be here with you today, for this is a very special day indeed. As you all know, today marks the official reopening of the town of Silver Lake. It is a moment that has taken us decades to reach, and a moment that many thought would never come. The road back has been long and difficult, fraught with challenges and spotted with tears.
“This place is not merely another park in another American town, but rather the symbolic first piece to the larger puzzle that will become our new community. In gratitude to one of the heroes who fell during the unspeakable tragedy that threatened to eradicate Silver Lake all those years ago, it is my great honor to announce that this is now the Andrew Michael Corwin Memorial Park.”
The audience responded with another riotous ovation, this one nearly as long as the first.
“As many of you know,” Marla went on. “Andrew Corwin sacrificed his life in order to bring that crisis to a halt. And as you probably also know, he gave me information that enabled me and others to expose many of the corrupt people and dangerous practices in his industry, to the benefit of the general public.”
She removed a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of her blazer and carefully unfolded it. It was still crisp after more than four decades.
“This is the letter Andrew handed me on the day of the accident, before he walked off to his death. Some of you may remember that I posted it online, word for word, at the end of that unforgettable day. But I think it’s important for everyone, and especially important for the young people present, who will soon be making the decisions that shape this world in the years ahead, to hear what he wrote.
Dear Marla,
No words can express the sorrow I feel for the events that have unfolded on this day, or the suffering that will no doubt occur in the weeks, months, and years to follow. As Leo Corwin’s son, I have lived in the shadow of nuclear power for as long as I can remember — and I always feared that something ugly would step out of that shadow. Now, that nightmare has become reality. Part of me can hardly believe it, yet a larger part is not surprised at all.