Anatomies of Fault

The lives we make
never seem to ever get us
anywhere but dead.
Soundgarden, 1994

I did it to myself, Clara thought, then added: I did it to all of us.

She walked with a slow, unsteady gait through waves of nausea. Relentless glare from the midday sun heated up the gravel road and irritated the lesions that had begun to appear on her spare, underfed body. Her muscles ached, exposed shoulders red and bumpy like burnt orange peels, back sore from months of confined subsistence in an emergency shelter pod.

Clara stopped for a breath, wanting to tear off the sweat-soaked blouse and shorts that clung to her skin and stung her open sores. Hunger haunted every exertion, her insides burning up calories she was no longer able to replace, but the thought of her last meal caused a gag reflex, an unthinkable stew James had forced her to eat.

Aaron’s last wish, he’d said. Why waste it?

Insect logic.

It was the same logic she’d embraced when turning down Reznik’s bid to pilot the fusion project. She could still remember pressuring Sam to support her as lead, Pravenda’s darling CFO who had vehemently opposed the project from its inception: “These opportunities are so rare, Sam. Why waste one? If we continue the trials we can save our bottom line and maybe our future, too. But we need a strong hand steering the ship.”

Hundreds dead and worse to come.

She forced the thought out.

I have to get home. Maya could be waiting.

But the chances were a hundred to one.

The gun rested against her lower spine—two bullets left.

As she continued along the rural road in a fever drift, her mind returned again and again to the days leading up to the catastrophe. She was desperate to recall an overlooked word or hidden context that could justify the choices she’d made. But this time, the truth wasn’t open to opinion.

***

The test series had been planned meticulously and results from initial review of the process returned as “optimal with no reason for concern.”

The lab had been stocked with rations for one month under the assumption there would be no more than a few dozen staff present for the duration of the trials. They planned to seal the facility twenty-four hours before the first test began. The only hitch that held them back, delayed arrival of new parts for the coolant’s power supply, had been resolved. Delivery was expected within days. Hien said she’d work out a solution so they could wait for the specialist from EngSoc, who would install the upgrade in a jiffy. They anticipated the pioneer test taking place within two weeks. No problem.

But the engineer never arrived. Passage to the town was obstructed by unexpected snowfall, a blizzard that held up transport for miles. Clara made the call to continue with the test cycle, based on her belief that Hien’s solution would hold. No consultations were made.

And now there was no going back.

Containment was breached at 04:07 when the coolant power went offline. Initial assessment called it a “glitch in the system”—an understatement from sweaty contractors. She knew better.

Massive system failure followed.

She and the other department heads didn’t gather to debate next steps. They fled to the ESV pods immediately. They did not issue a public warning—self-preservation was the executive protocol. After all, she’d argued later, half of the Pravenda oversight team were there, many of them thought leaders and the company’s last hope. Their collective survival was paramount.

When siren alarms were triggered it was too late to save the rest. Clara knew it, but no one else understood the magnitude of the threat.

Workers who provided facilities support went off leash when word spread that there wasn’t enough time to get out of town. Instead of seeking escape, most of them called their families then dug in on the premises, breaking into senior offices and security checkpoints, desperate for shelter from the imminent disaster.

They truly believed pressurized doors could protect them from radioactive particles.

Initial escalation occurred at 04:47 when outdated contingency measures failed, followed by three more blasts within minutes of each other.

Thirty-two people were trapped when crisis response locked down the lab. An alloy lining of lead and tungsten blocked particle penetration of the ESVs, but the rest of the facility was a sealed coffin for the staff who huddled frightened and alone, mostly administrators, guards, and custodians, though some had brought family members and some had brought friends.

None of them survived.

***

The ESVs had been purchased from a German conglomerate then shipped to the island two years earlier to ensure the company brain fund would survive in the event of active hazards. State of the art, they weren’t spacious but had been designed to provide a measure of comfort as well as safety for up to three individuals per pod. Each had a built-in residency with comms unit, and in addition to utilities there was enough power to use the cathode television, which came with an assortment of corporate betamax films—mostly training videos and sponsorship promos, which had irritated Clara to no end.

After weeks of desperate bickering and continual radio wave scans, and as their rations became scarce, she knew there would be no evacuation. Only silence from the brass. They had probably decided to cut her and the entire project loose.

In the face of rising panic she tried to keep spirits up, yet knew that none of the others were listening and she also knew why—they remembered who had made the call to continue with the trials.

Even so, Aaron had taken pity on her and after several weeks remarked: “You’re only human, Clara; we all make mistakes.” A deluded response to the scale of the disaster. She’d resented his compassion, not only because it was a confirmation of her own failures, but because he was the weakest link. A dull, relentless compliance manager with no appreciation for risk. Clara had never wanted the complications of Aaron Sark in the first place… being forced to share a pod with him was either karma or someone’s idea of a sick joke.

She remembered feeling terrible after he passed. And then thinking, he couldn’t handle the pressure.

Communication between pods had become rare by the arrival of a wet spring, nearly three months after the breach. The ESVs weren’t made for longterm habitation, power was a looming problem and some of the survivors had begun to suffer hives and bouts of nausea. Mutual distrust had sown dissent as fear pervaded all forms of debate. They became monocultures, isolated, survival above all else.

In the end, each group was left to grapple with its own slow, inevitable, and painful decomposition.

The food didn’t last long but their humanity went first.

***

Now, in the late days of April, local biota were dead or in the final stages of blight, every living and inanimate thing caked with isotopes that had poisoned the water, the crops, the entire town. Passing through the market Clara saw hundreds of the deceased, many of them friends, their bodies unceremoniously left to rot like clumps of leaves before winter.

She knew that, in all likelihood, the rest of the island’s population would be gone before the dog days of summer. No one left, no escape. No cautionary tales once crisis management got involved.

God help them if the supply drop arrives without geigers.

After days of slow and painful steps toward her childhood home, Clara comprehended a growing sense of horror as the reality of the spreading fallout sunk in.

But she pushed on, refusing to give in to despair. Mistakes had been made, fair enough—she must have delegated too much. She wasn’t the only one involved. Middle-management had their own problems, and didn’t Hien deserve a portion of the blame?

Nevermind the board’s stubborn resistance, their “reservations” about cost. With Sam’s help they’d cut every corner until the funding package was barely sufficient to expand facilities and recruit personnel.

And what do you think they cut first? I told them not to hire contractors.

She’d even had second thoughts, but the alternate choice—cancelling fusion—wasn’t an option. Regulators had already begun steps to bypass Pravenda’s corporate shield, while her own legal and influence campaigns had failed to dissuade the committees. It was only a matter of time before most of their labs would have been shuttered. They needed a game change to weather the bad press and solicit investment.

Sam would have made the same damned choice.

But she knew she was trying to convince herself, and failing. He’d have understood the loss of jobs, the economic impact, corporate upheaval; but he would have picked Reznik. Given up the title and folded his hand. And probably had a new appointment with a raise by the end of the month. No shortage of opportunities for Sam.

We need a scientist for this project, he’d insisted. Not another suit.

But there was no going back.

***

Clara walked on in ruined shoes. Only the clouds and corruption moved with her.

Trudging along the island’s rural coastline, she was surprised to see the low country was mostly unchanged. Mists, weeping trees, red metal hulks on big wheels. Three months of stillness and silence—the birds were all dead or gone. She imagined she saw bodies in the fields but they were only mounds of dirt.

Through a fog of hunger and desperation she spotted a half-rotten crab apple in the bed of a nearby truck. Fighting ache in her muscles, she snatched up the gift then rested against a nearby cattle fence, thankful for the shade provided by its low tangles of ivy.

She bit viciously into the apple’s flesh, piercing her tongue with a fractured tooth; sour juices flooded her mouth and she coughed in spasms, whimpering. The fresh sore burned, aftershocks of pain that woke up long dormant receptors.

Clara thought about Maya in their farmhouse, the freckles on her neck as she stood in warm light that spilled through the kitchen’s porthole window, sipping at a mug of pear tea every morning. Lost in the smell of blossoms. Clara smiled as she tried not to think of the taste of rust in her mouth, remembering their first date, barbecue, holding Maya’s cut thumb, the paring knife in a chipped ceramic bowl, constellations of blood on the chopping board. A kid’s bandage, balloons and hearts… their first kiss after dinner, sour wine from sour grapes.

And then, later—dialysis and medication. But Clara’s mind worked around it. A person can only suffer so much heartache.

Two hours, maybe three more and the silhouette of their clapboard farmhouse would be visible on the horizon. She’d probably see the pond before dark.

Soon they’d be gone, together. No more regrets.

Eyes closed, she took another bite of the crab apple then thanked god for the years with Maya and began to cry. Her life was slipping away but if she could just get home, if she could say goodbye, maybe the end wouldn’t be so bad.

Suddenly, sticks cracked behind her. Clara froze; turning, she saw a figure approach and whispered, “Sam?”

She couldn’t believe it. They said he was among the first to die, that he hadn’t followed protocol or taken shelter. He probably tried to warn the others, she’d thought.

Sam had emerged from a dark thicket not far from where she sat, a tall and lean man with a mess of brown hair, wearing flannel and torn denim jeans and carefully holding a hunting rifle. The boardroom mystique was gone; no Oxxford suit, no polished shoes.

He stared at her a moment before speaking. She knew she looked like death.

“You did it to yourself, Clara.” His gruff voice cracked when he said her name. She could tell he wanted to say more, had probably rehearsed a whole sermon, but couldn’t continue.

He wasn’t trying to hide the rifle. Sam had always been direct. He was breathing heavily, jaw fixed tight. Wanted to say more. Couldn’t speak.

There was no contempt in his eyes as he came toward her and leveled the gun. Clara even thought she saw pity.

Most would consider it an act of kindness.

At that moment, she was resigned to whatever would come.

Then she thought of Maya, alone, maybe already gone. Maybe covered in sores, waiting for her to help, to put another bandage on her wound… and she was close… so damned close…

Sam was shaking. Clara looked at the apple but had lost her appetite. She watched it roll out of her hand into the barren field. She thought about the gun.

“It’s ok, Sam,” she said. “It’s ok. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry it had to be you.”

Sam nodded. No more words to give. He raised his rifle but couldn’t see, had to wipe his eyes, had to take another deep breath, and then—

Two shots were heard, ringing blasts picked up by the wind which carried them into oblivion.