Hyper

Chapter 28 – It’s out of control and I’m not gonna get it back.

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Cafeteria]

Charlie knew it would take only five or ten minutes of the vortech diverter being set at zero to make the argon scrubber overheat. He covered his mic with his hand and shot a concerned glance at Jack. “We can’t let him adjust that diverter to zero. It’ll shut down the scrubber and our ass will be hanging wide open.”

Jack covered his mic and replied, “I heard McCormick say he was gonna blow this place sky high, which doesn’t sound good to me. What does this scrubber do?”

Charlie shot back his answer. “The scrubber filters the crap outta the hydrogen we suck in from space. Without that scrubber, debris will get sucked into the compressor. If the compressor loads up, the process goes outta spec. If we don’t correct it, the compressor pressure will continue to increase and we run the risk of an explosion.”

Jack was wide eyed as he swallowed hard. “So we all die?”

Charlie nodded. “Uh huh.”

“So how do we stop him?”

Charlie raised one hand to stop Jack from talking and removed his other hand from his mic to answer McCormick. “An explosion? Possibly. But it would probably take days to get to that point.”

McCormick answered back in a droll voice. “I don’t know about that, Charlie. Days seems to be rather exaggerated. I was estimating more like…say…fifteen to twenty minutes.”

Charlie screamed into the mic. “You load up that compressor, we’re all dead.” He clenched his teeth and pointed his index finger. “And that means you too.”

McCormick laughed. “What, you don’t think I know that?” He huffed. “But knowing that you and your little wife suffocated in lifeless space would be, oh so worth it. No more pies. No more huggy bear, kissy face. No more happy home.” There was a pause, then McCormick sneered, “You people are pathetic. You fuckin’ disgust me.”

Charlie’s mind raced to figure out some way to stop McCormick from loading up D.D.315’s compressor and a mental laundry list appeared.

They could run to the control room and try to catch McCormick, but by the time they got there he most likely would already be gone. Charlie could totally shut down the condensing process but it would take hours to spin down the plant and they only had minutes. His next idea seemed to be the most logical: they could run to the argon scrubber and prevent McCormick from adjusting its vortech diverter to zero. Charlie knew if he was going to save D.D.315 and all of their lives, there was going to be a confrontation with McCormick and there was just no way around it.

Charlie ripped his communicator from his head and threw it to the floor. He motioned to Jack to do the same. “We gotta stop him or we’re all dead.” Charlie started to direct Jack toward the doors. “The only way to save this place… is to prevent him from adjusting that vortech diverter.”

Jack glanced at Charlie. “How do we do that?” He turned forward and ran side by side with Charlie.

“We get there before he does and put him down. It’ll take us five or six minutes and it’ll take McCormick about the same amount of time to get there from the control room.”

“If we can get there before he does, we can set up an ambush.” Jack picked up the pace a little.

Charlie nodded as the two men ran toward the doors and flipped the deadbolt. “Exactly.”

The two men flew through the cafeteria doors in a dead run, heading out into the production facility. The sounds of the plant immediately stung Charlie’s ears as there was no time to put on his ear muffs or any other safety equipment. He led the way with his side arm drawn, Jack following right behind him. The moist air of the plant seemed to smell more foul than normal and the roar of the compressor sounded as if he had stuck his head inside of the diesel cab of a freight train.

But Charlie wasn’t worried about wearing safety equipment or even the permanent damage the noise might do to his ears. All that Charlie thought about was Linda and saving her life. He wondered what she might be doing right now. He guessed she was probably doing laundry or watching something on the entertainment center, completely unaware that she was in danger.

As the two men bounded down the metal grating through the plant, a relief valve popped open and shot a cloud of white steam into their path. They continued through the mist unimpeded and ran another fifty yards to where the argon scrubber was located.

The argon scrubber was a massive piece of machinery. A single hydrogen line fed the metal monster while space debris was filtered by the scrubbing circuit inside. Charlie’s eyes shot across the machine, trying to locate the vortech diverter.

He found it and he ran to the diverter to check the gauge. Jack guarded their perimeter and provided cover. Charlie wiped beads of condensation mixed with hydrogen soot from the face of the gauge and checked the reading. They were too late. McCormick had already been there and set the diverter to zero. Charlie knew the argon scrubber would have time to recover if he immediately reset the diverter, so he reached for the hand crank to make the adjustment.

Charlie gasped at what he saw. McCormick had manually set the vortech diverter to zero and then removed the hand crank. The only way Charlie would be able to adjust the diverter back to its normal setting was to find the crank or improvise and use a wrench or a pair of channel locks and directly rotate the diverter’s valve stud.

As Charlie frantically searched the area around the scrubber looking for the hand crank, it shuddered as it began to overheat. Both men’s eyes popped wide open and shot quick glances across the machinery as they realized what was happening. A second later, the argon scrubber’s overload protection tripped and the massive machine began to coast to a stop. A klaxon sounded and a recorded message from the plant control system repeatedly echoed from above.

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

Charlie ran toward the overheat reset button, hoping he could restart the scrubber. A red flashing light above the button indicated the machine was in a cool down mode. Charlie pressed the reset button but nothing happened. He wildly punched it again and again, but still nothing happened. The red light continued to flash and the enormous piece of machinery did not restart.

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

Jack cupped his palms to the sides of his mouth and screamed toward Charlie, “What’s wrong? Why won’t it restart?”

Charlie screamed back, the klaxon overhead burning his unprotected ears, “It won’t reset until it’s cooled down.”

“How long is that gonna take?”

“Couple minutes?” Charlie erratically moved his feet in place, continuing to press the button. “I don’t know. This has never happened before.”

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

Charlie’s hands trembled as he continued to press the button. Then he noticed the sound coming from the hydrogen compressor change pitch. The constant hum and the vibration under his feet became erratic. Contamination from space had already made its way into the compressor and it was starting to overload.

“Shit! It’s already fuckin’ loading up!”

Charlie turned back to the rest button and continued to frantically pound it, hoping to restart the scrubber. “Come on.” Sweat poured down his forehead and ran into his eyes as oxygen rushed in and out of his lungs.

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

After the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth attempt, the red flashing light turned green and the argon scrubber spun to life. Charlie yelled, “Holy shit!” exhaled a sigh of relief, looked at Jack, and pumped his fisted hands above his head.

Jack lowered his weapon and watched Charlie celebrate. “He got it? He got it! Yep, he got it!” Then he jumped into the air, punching his right fist in his own excited celebration.

With the scrubber up and running, Charlie’s eyes lit up as he felt a bit of hope. The compressor vibration vanished and it returned to its normal smooth operation. But he realized that if he didn’t reset the vortech diverter to at least ten percent, the scrubber would overheat again in a few minutes. He searched the area for something he could use to adjust the hand crank.

Nothing. I got fuckin’ nothing to crank on this damn valve stud!”

As Charlie continued to search, the argon scrubber tripped on overheat again and spun to a stop. Without the filtering effect of the argon scrubber, the hydrogen compressor screamed as it loaded up again.

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

Jack looked at Charlie and his face dropped. “It tripped again?” His head darted back and forth as his eyes tried to take in everything that was happening.

“Attention. Attention. Argon scrubber has overloaded and requires immediate attention.”

The grate below the men shook as they tried to keep their balance. Realizing the scrubber had tripped again, Charlie tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and yelled.

“Plan A is not working!”

Charlie realized what was about to happen. There was no way to stop it. The hydrogen condensing process was about to go completely out of spec and wasn’t going to recover. The klaxon overhead screamed again as the system tried to save itself and began to dump out of spec product back into space.

The contaminated product roared through the system as Charlie covered his ears and tried to concoct a plan B as the compressor vibration continued to increase.

It’s out of control. I’m not gonna get it back. It’s gonna explode and I can’t stop it. Gotta figure out some way to minimize the damage and save our lives.

As Charlie stood there as all hell broke loose, he crouched with his hands over his ears. Then an idea shot into his mind. His eyes opened wide as he processed the thought and concocted a plan.

The emergency main relief valve. If I can open it, it won’t prevent the compressor from exploding but it might direct enough of the blast out of the exhaust ports and minimize the damage to the depot’s hull.

If the depot’s hull was fractured by the explosion, its Earth-like atmosphere would be vented into space. Once the atmosphere escaped, it would only take a few seconds for every human on the depot to suffocate.

Charlie screamed at Jack as he flew by him in a dead run, his work boots clomping on the metal grate. “I can’t stop it…it’s gonna explode.”

Jack stood motionless as his mouth fell open and all the color drained from his face.

“But I got an idea. Come on!” Charlie glanced back at Jack and then turned forward and pointed. “Follow me!”