Written by Cecil Disharoon
Synopsis:
4 a.m.
A helicopter drops a three meter, 254 kilogram robot into the typhoon-driven waters below. Aboard a small water craft, an engineer watches monitors depicting the robot’s destination: Fukushima Dai-ichi, the nuclear power plant. Another monitor depicts the filtration system of the plant, which the engineer describes as the robot’s entry point. A massive earthquake and tsunami, rivaling that of eleven years before, has shattered the flaming plant facilities. Another monitor depicts the multi-building layout of the plant. Other monitors, according to the sea craft pilot, indicate “Danger Bot” is all systems go.
Danger Bot leaps out of the filtration system pool, then walks through a flaming building. The nine-foot tall droid hunches down, places its hands together to form, with its thumbs and forefingers, a diamond-shape, which it holds at chest level, before tumbling forward. Its roll transports the droid across the floor quickly. Alerted by multiple-monitoring, the droid raises its arm and falls to the side, like a para-trooper’s landing, onto firmer remaining remnants of the smouldering floor---avoiding a collapsing floor.
The heli-copter co-pilot talks about the layout of the control room. The sea craft pilot, referred to as Gorou by the engineer, relates the radiation count. The droid opens a thigh compartment for a replacement battery, intended to restore the plant’s emergency power and withdraw the fission rods, which are over-heating without the plant’s water supply.
The archway of the control room entrance suddenly crumbles, as a new quake tremor rattles the entire building.
Danger Bot cradles the falling entrance; the helicopter pilot declares relief, as the emergency response team will need a path clear of debris to follow later. Unfortunately, the replacement battery is crushed. The control panel, meanwhile, calls for a manual over-ride. In its bracing position, Danger Bot’s waldos cannot reach the replacement battery back-up. The fission process reaches critical stage.
Danger Bot speaks aloud: there is only one thing to do. From his station aboard the sea craft, Gorou protests; Danger Bot assures him the over-ride codes that close the robot’s head can, in turn, be over-ridden. Swiftly, a young woman (referred to as “Kacy” by the copter pilot) springs forth from the deconstructed, retracted head of Danger Bot. She detaches an exo-skeleton motor drive battery from her droid, and darts for the control panel. As the building continues to shake, she listens to instructions for the battery container, which she manually replaces. She photographically recalls her study of the sequence to separate the rods, coached by the copter co-pilot, called “Paynter” by the pilot, who he refers to as “sis” while she circles the whirly-bird overhead. Kacey succeeds in re-establishing the emergency power, diverting fission with a flood of cooling waters into the rod chambers.
Further flooding breaks into the chambers. Feeling sick already from the radiation exposure, Kacey resolves to reflect the courage of the Fukushima Fifty, the engineers who risked their lives eleven years before. She returns to Danger Bot. Once inside, she executes a colossal lift, forcing the broken edifice away from the passage outside the control room. The engineer, Ernest Maxwell, cheers as he watches her weld a reinforcement brace to keep up the ceiling. She then leaves through the plant filtration, then pilots Danger Bot out to sea. She receives a distress signal from the sea craft; the tsunami waves force it out to sea. So, the danger does not end---but when the darkest hour cries for a savior, there is Danger Bot.
5:42 am
Copyright 2011 Cecil Disharoon, Jr.
Meanwhile, our remaining t-shirts are available at Convention Special Price, for $12 each plus $3.00 for shipping & handling.
(The characters seem to have their own relationships and a bit of history, with other story ideas knocking around already. I wanted to do this realistic science fiction concept that might actually make a difference in the world: my 21st Century "Superman." Gorou is actually competes with Kacey as the pilot of Danger Bot, designed by her grandfather Michio Hatsumi and his father, Icharu Estsuko. It's an artificial intelligence that learns from its human pilots. Still hammering out script!)
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