Twenty Seven

Her mum was first to speak. “Lisa? What’s the matter dear?”

She’s gone from my mind,” said Holly.

“Mine too,” I said. “Link up and let’s see if we can reach her.”

Holly and I linked together. “Lisa? Lisa? Can you hear us?” I ‘shouted’. Holly joined in and we ‘shouted’ again.

“It’s no good, she’s not here. What now?”

“Merge. Make Angel appear, Lisa is part of her, she must be here somewhere.”

The merge was difficult. Holly and I managed with little problem but Lisa wasn’t with us. Still, the partial merge Holly and I achieved was strong enough to locate Lisa. She was in a strange place, all control panels and flashing lights. It seemed incredibly chaotic until I realised I was seeing it from three viewpoints at once.

It’s impossible to describe what Holly and I did, but we enfolded poor Lisa and pulled her in with us. Angel took over.

Almost at once the chaos all around resolved itself into three component parts. I realised what this was. The Lisa-me had been - was still having - a Precog. Since the Precog had been intended for me rather than the Lisa-me alone, her mind had been overwhelmed somewhat and she’d ‘shut down’ to protect herself. I had no such problem.

I recognised some of the scenes I was seeing. This was the Selafield plant, the same one we’d been to some months ago. There was an emergency in progress, that much was obvious. What wasn’t obvious was just what that emergency was. I concentrated on observing, knowing that I couldn’t do anything at this point.

There seemed to be a fire, and a series of explosions. Then the building shook violently, everything turned red, then yellow, then finally white. Slowly the white faded into the more familiar scene of Lisa’s kitchen. Her parents were sitting across from me, both as white as sheets.

Seeing I was obviously back with them, Lisa’s dad asked, “What’s happened? What’s happened to her?”

I spoke through the Holly-me. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’ve just had another Precog. I’m Angel by the way.”

Mr. and Mrs. Chandler were still looking at Lisa, understandable really. The Lisa-me took over speaking for me. “I’m fine really. Hang on a second while I untangle myself.” I smiled. For some reason this seemed to shock the Chandlers a little bit.

I let the merge collapse, became three girls again instead of one. I saw Lisa slump slightly in her chair. I quickly put my arms round her.

“I’m ok. Really. Thanks girls.”

“Don’t thank us,” grinned Holly. “Angel is your main girl. She sorted you out.”

While I cuddled Lisa, Mr. Chandler asked, “So you were Angel?”

“At the end there, yes,” said Holly. “Could you tell? You looked a bit shocked at one point.”

“It was when all three of you smiled the same smile at exactly the same time,” said Mrs. Chandler. “Spooky is the only word.” She grinned.

Lisa pulled herself together. “Got a problem I think. That was Selafield, you agree?” she said, looking from Holly to me and back.

“Err, yes. If I read what Angel saw correctly, there’s going to be a rather large bang,” said Holly.

“I thought that couldn’t happen,” I said.

“It can’t,” said Holly. “Under normal circumstances anyway. These may not be normal circumstances.”

“Million pound question,” I said. “When?”

“Can’t tell,” said Lisa. Holly nodded her agreement.

Lisa’s dad had gone white again. “Might be today. It was on the news while Lisa was trying to get you out of bed. She wasn’t paying attention, but I was. There’s a fire. At the Selafield plant. News report said it wasn’t dangerous. Your Precog says differently.”

“What d’we do?” I asked.

“We go there,” said Lisa, in a voice that said, ‘don’t argue, just do it’. I ‘felt’ her mind switch to Director mode.

Holly was ahead of all us just a little bit. “We teleport to that control room, where we were last time. Then we can see what’s going on and see if we can help.

Lisa made a decision. “We go as Angel. Sorry Mum, Dad. We’ll be careful, I promise.”

Her dad just said quietly, “Do what you need to do. But come back to us, you hear?”

“We will Dad.” Then she turned to Holly and me. “Merge to Angel. We’re going to Selafield.” Despite the possibly desperate circumstances, she grinned. “They’ll have to put up with us in normal clothes.”

Then there was no more time for independent thought. We linked, then let the link progress into a full merge.

I ‘reached out’ to the control room in the Selafield plant away across the other side of the Pennines and the Lake District. There was a large enough empty space for us to appear in. I stood up. No point appearing in a sitting position. I ‘told’ myself to be there instead of here. Once again, ‘there’ became ‘here’ - and I was in the Selafield control room.

The very first thing I was aware of was the sound of a scream. Holly-me turned to find a woman behind us, eyes wide, fist in mouth, fetched up against a wall. This was the source of the scream. She’d obviously seen us just appear in front of her.

There were several more people in the room, one of whom was the chap I knew simply as Mac. He remembered me.

Holly-me went over to the woman who’d screamed, while Lisa-me walked over to Mac.

“It’s ok,” I said to the woman. “I’m Angel. I was here before, when the Plant Room blew up. I’m here to help, it’ll be all right.”

The Lisa-me was talking to Mac. (The two conversations were simultaneous, but there’s a certain problem in the writing-down department. I’ll do my best. JK.) “Hello again Mac,” I said to him.

“Hello - Lisa, isn’t it? Where’ve you just come from? What are you doing here?”

“In a sense, yes, I’m Lisa.”

“In a sense?”

“Complicated Mac. Tell you after we’ve stopped the place going boom.”

“We’re not going to explode. It’s only a fire. Mostly under control now anyway.”

“I might know differently,” I said gently. “I’ve seen it, it’ll happen - unless we stop it.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Yes. Details later. For now, make like the White Queen, believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

While Lisa-me had been talking to Mac, and Holly-me had been calming the screaming woman, the Jody-me had been using Mac’s camera controls to look at the area where the fire was burning. Poor Mac had had his mind read and I was now fully capable of running all Mac’s stuff.

I could see the fire was on the first floor somewhere in the plant. It wasn’t obvious from the pictures exactly where. There were men in radiation suits still trying to bring the fire under control.

I thought about the Precog. That there’d been - was going to be - a nuclear explosion seemed reasonable, given the effects I’d seen. But what was going to cause it?

“What’s happening in the main control room or whatever you call it?” I asked Mac. At the same time I answered my own question by switching Mac’s big screen to show a picture of that very place. It all seemed calm enough.

“They’re fine in there, Not a problem. Hey, how did you do that Jody?” He’d noticed me working his control panel.

I turned to him. “Not Jody, Angel. Details later.”

“What’s above and below the fire?” I asked, as I shifted pictures on the monitor. Mac didn’t need to answer, the Director part of me already had the information I needed directly from him.

“Above is an automated fuel rod storage area, below is a part of an experimental reactor.”

I already knew that. What I also already knew was that the first floor area was storage for fuel rod casings, somewhat radioactive, hence the radiation suits the fire-fighters were wearing. Then the Scientist part of me put two and two together and got four hundred. There was no need for discussion, all three of us were me. But the conclusion I came to was no less chilling.

“Mac? Are those casings magnesium?”

“Magnesium alloy, yes.”

“What’s the combustion temperature?”

“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”

“We might have a problem. Who’d know how high the temperature’s got to be before they begin to burn? Cameras. Find him and point him out.”

“Him, there , look, in the control room. I’ll ring and ask.”

“There may be no time for that, Just hang on.” I teleported the Holly-me directly from the room we were in, to an empty space I could see on the monitor. Mac began to swear under his breath. There was no time to worry about that.

I ran across to the man Mac had pointed out. “Mac, up in the camera and pond control room says you’d know how hot the magnesium alloy fuel casings have to get before they burn.”

“What? Who the hell are you? Where’ve you come from? This is a secure area, how did you get through the door?”

“I didn’t come through the door. Answers please, before the whole place goes bang.”

“What?”

“Look. You know there’s a fire in the - spare casing storage area?” The pause was caused by the time taken for me to get that information directly from Mac. I don’t think anybody noticed. I went on. “We think that’s going to cause some sort of nuclear explosion.”

“Impossible!”

I decided to be patient. “What’s on the floor above?”

“Fuel rods.”

“And on the ground floor?”

“Experimental Plutonium breeder reactor number two.”

“What would happen if a large number of the fuel rods on the second floor fell all the way through to the reactor on the ground floor?”

The man was beginning to get slightly worried. “It’d depend on how many fuel rods and whether the reactor containment was damaged.”

Mac had been watching on his monitors. He seemed a bit concerned that the two parts of me still with him were just standing there not doing or saying anything. Understandable, I was talking to the man in the control room. Mac wasn’t to know that, not yet at any rate. “What the hell’s happening? How did Holly get down there so quickly?”

“Ssh, Mac. Don’t worry,” I said. “I teleported the Holly-me directly to the control room. I’m talking to the man you pointed out.”

“But you’re talking to me, not him.”

I sighed, or at least the Lisa-me did. “It’s complicated Mac, listen.”

While I was explaining about Angel to Mac, I was still trying to get some sense out of the guy in the control room. “Could we get a critical mass?”

Now he was really worried. “If the reactor containment is breached, yes, we could. Oh my God!” Then he pulled himself together. “But that can’t happen. The floors are solid reinforced concrete.”

“But if the magnesium ignites, it’ll burn hot enough to cut right through the concrete. Or if the burning is contained in any way, the resulting explosions might damage the floor and roof.”

“What are you saying? We’re all going to ...”

I put my hand on his arm. “Not if I can help it. Now, original question, will the fire be hot enough to ignite the magnesium alloy?”

“It could be, if the fire’s been burning for long enough.”

“And your opinion?”

He sighed. “I’d have to say it’s a distinct possibility. What shall we do?”

“Where could we put the spare casings? Would a Radiation Pond do?”

“Yes, yes. If you can find an empty one.”

“No problem,” I grinned at him.

While Lisa-me was talking to Mac, and Holly-me was in the control room, Jody-me went across to the pond control desk.

“Which pond can we use?” I asked. “We need to shift the spare fuel rod casings.”

“D’you want the water out of it, like before?” he asked, obviously remembering the way we’d had to work last time.

“No,” I said. “The water will cool the casings, and the water we move to the fire will help there as well. Which one?”

“D7’s empty.”

“D7 it is then,” I grinned.

I turned to face me standing with Mac - just as the radio speaker connected to the radio’s in the radiation suits came to life.

“It’s going. It’s starting. One of the casings is burning!”

No time left. We had to act!

The first thing was to save the poor firemen. There was only one way, and I used it. I took the location of a safe area from Mac’s mind - and teleported the men into it.

Just in time as a section of the storage area containing a quantity of the casings slumped into a single pile - and exploded! Then rather a lot of things seemed to happen at once.

I began teleporting casings that weren’t already burning into the radiation pond. At the same time I ‘took hold’ of the racks of fuel rods on the floor above and ‘told’ them to stay just where they were please, as the floor below them crumbled away. As well as doing this, I erected a shield above the reactor containment on the floor below. As bits of floor and burning magnesium casings dropped through, they were deflected sideways just exactly as if they were bullets.

Just in case, I took the information about the experimental reactor from the mind of the man who knew all about it in the main control room, and Holly-me ran to the relevant panel and made sure the reactor was shut down, all the moderator rods were fully in.

As soon as I realised I couldn’t shift any more casings to the pond, I turned my attention to the fire itself. The man on pond control told me about another empty pond - not that he realised he’d done it. Water is tricky to teleport without a container of some kind. I had to learn to deal with it rather quickly. A couple or three tonnes of water dumped onto the fire dampened it’s enthusiasm a bit. Some of the water ran through the hole in the floor, but the shield just deflected it - conveniently onto the rubbish from the floor above, still burning merrily in a corner. A second application of pond water, and the fire was well and truly out. Just two more things to deal with.

There were a couple of men in the ground floor room with the reactor. Just in case, I teleported them to the camera and pond control room with us. Jody-me looked after them, while I was still ‘holding’ the racks of fuel rods.

“Where can I put’em, Mac? Is there room ... oh. Yes there is. You’ll need to do a bit of tiding up I’m afraid.” I ‘told’ the racks of fuel rods not to be anywhere near the hole in the floor, but to be over by the wall in a nice empty space I could see on the camera picture I’d just called up, and also that I could ‘see’ in my mind.

And that appeared to be that. No atomic explosion today.

“Mac?”

“Don’t tell me. Refueling. Cafeteria, right?”

I laughed. “You got it. I’m going to collapse the merge. Say goodbye to Angel, Mac.”

Mac looked startled, but dutifully said, “Goodby Angel. Does that mean Hello Lisa?”

I let the merge collapse before Lisa answered him. “Yep. Hello Mac. Plain old Lisa back again.”

Mac was nothing if not gallant. “Nothing plain about you Lisa, or those two friends of yours. Where’s Holly anyway?”

“I’m here Mac,” Holly laughed, having teleported herself from the main control room back to be with us. “Haven’t you been watching me on your system?”

“Hm. If I understand what Lisa - sorry - Angel told me, that wasn’t you down there, it was Angel. Although how Angel can be down there and here with me at the same time will take me a while to get my head round.”

“And don’t forget being over here as well,” I laughed , as I joined Lisa and Holly standing near Mac.

Lisa grinned at Mac. “Can you organise your cafeteria for us? If any of your people want to know what happened, send them there as well. We’ll hold court in the middle.”

Mac sighed.

“What’s the matter Mac?”

“It’s only been a few months since you fixed us up last time. I can see you’ve grown up a lot since then, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Lisa faced him with her head slightly on one side. “We know Angel comes across as much more mature than the three of us. Is that what you mean?”

“I suppose so. But even just talking to the three of you like this, I can see a change.”

“Thank you Mac,” said Lisa. “An outside opinion is always welcome. We try.”

This was all very well and good. But I had pressing problems to take care of. “Foooood!” I ‘said’, plaintively.

Holly topped that by sending a picture of a decidedly anorexic Holly looking very dejected.

Lisa laughed out loud, which startled poor Mac just a bit. “The troops are revolting. Or at least they will if I don’t organise something. There was talk of the cafeteria?”

Mac joined her in laugher, but shepherded us up to the cafeteria. Unlike the last time, nobody actually knew we were here, never mind the massed hoards watching us on the TV system. Mac settled us at a table and went to issue orders. Food appeared as Mac disappeared, probably to tell people just what the hell had happened here.

Slowly, men in suits began to turn up to sit with us. Lisa broke off eating from time to time, but only to insist that we wouldn’t say anything until all interested parties were present. “Don’t want to tell the same thing over and over,” she insisted.

Eventually the three of us had eaten enough, and enough people had congregated. Lisa judged the time was right. With Lisa fully engaged in Director mode, Holly and I were more than happy for her to speak for us.

“A little background,” she began. “You probably know we can do things other people can’t? We dug you out of the poo a few months ago.”

There was general nodding and a few smiles, so Lisa went on. “We’ve grown up a bit since then. We’ve discovered other things we can do, and we’ve got better at the stuff we were always able to do. From your point of view, the most important thing is our occasional ability to see into the future, to see what might happen. Premonitions, if you like. You don’t want to know what we saw that was apparently going to happen here, although most of you can probably guess.”

More nodding. “The use of words like ‘might happen’, and ‘apparently going to happen’ isn’t accidental. We’ve discovered that we can change what we foresee so that what we’ve seen doesn’t happen. This is what we’ve managed here.”

Inevitably there were questions. “Last time you said you couldn’t move people from place to place. You called it something. Tele-something?”

Lisa laughed. “Teleporting. We’ve discovered we can do that. We probably could have done it to the girls we rescued last time. But we weren’t sure then. Now we are. How are the men we shunted around?”

“Fine. Confused, but fine.”

“They’ll be ok,” grinned Lisa. “Cup of tea and a bun and they’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“But how do you do it?”

“We actually have no idea,” sighed Lisa. “When we find out, we let you know.”

The man Holly had been speaking to in the main control room had turned up as well. “I have a quite important question which I hope you can answer.”

“We’ll try,” grinned Lisa.

“How do you know how to work all our equipment? I was watching - Holly is it? She just ran to the correct panel and shut down the reactor. No messing about, no searching through controls to find the right one. I hear from Mac that one of you knows how to work his system as well.”

“Not only do I know how to run Mac’s gubbins, we all do. Same for the reactor panel in the control room, we all do. While the job was going on, we weren’t three girls, we were just one. Her name is Angel, and she’s more than the sum of the three of us. More important perhaps is the actual answer to your question. We read your minds.”

Lisa had to wait for almost a minute before the uproar caused by that statement diminished sufficiently for her to be heard.

“No, we don’t actually read minds. What happens is more a sort of transfer of information. The ‘how to’ bit comes across, not actual thoughts. Mac thinks all the time about how to work his equipment. If one of us or Angel needs to know how it works, the information is transferred - but not the stuff Mac is thinking about otherwise. Same for the reactor panel. The information was transferred from the man who’s expert at it.” She grinned. “Jody learned how to drive a car in about ten seconds just the other day.”

There was more muttering in the masses. Lisa ignored all that. “We need to go home. We left my mum and dad wondering what their poor daughter and her friends were going to do. Don’t forget that if we’d not succeeded, Selafield would be a radioactive hole in the ground by about now. See it from their point of view. We need to go home.”

Somebody who had to be one of the biggest big-wigs got to his feet and held out his hand. “You have our thanks, small token as that is considering what you’ve just done.”

Lisa stood and took his hand. Holly and I joined her, one on either side. “Oh, your thanks is sufficient - that and knowing we succeeded. Goodbye everybody. Don’t jump too high when we just disappear.”

While Lisa had been giving her speech, Holly and I had been ‘scouting’ our landing area in Lisa’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Chandler were still sitting in the kitchen. Holly ‘marked out’ a space for the three of us. As soon as Lisa was ready, we went.

We’d never know if the people at Selafield jumped when we vanished. Lisa’s mum and dad certainly did when we just appeared in front of them. Her mum jumped up and ran round the table to hug Lisa. Her dad just said, “Do we have a nuclear plant - or a hole in the ground?”

Holly laughed, but answered for Lisa who was still tangled up with her mum. “The first one, sir. It has the odd hole here and there but nothing to write home about.”

Lisa’s mum pulled herself together. “Do you need food?”

“No mum. We raided the Selafield staff cafeteria. Maybe a hot chocolate?”

The five of us sat round the kitchen table and related our latest adventure. I knew I’d have to tell it all again to my mum and dad, and then probably again to Beth at the lab. And then again to Mike. Mike, hm. Pull yourself together Jody. As I did that, I couldn’t help thinking what might happen to the three of us tomorrow, or the next day. And then there was the day after that ...