They flew low across the city, and Captain Mackeller stared down at the chaos below.
“What’s happening?” asked his copilot, his voice full of anxiety.
“They are trying to escape,” the Captain said, staring down at the mass panic.
The streets were gridlocked, the sidewalks jammed with people carrying what few
belongings they could hold.
“Where are they going?”
The Captain adjusted his microphone. “To the coast. There are ships waiting to
take them to China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia.”
“Why?” the copilot asked.
The Captain didn’t answer but instead banked the helicopter left and flew north
along the coast. The copilot watched the mass exodus all along the coast. Droves of
people headed toward the sea. He looked out over the ocean at the armada of fishing
boats, freighters, tankers, and yachts sailing away from the coast. Although the masses
were heading to the coast, there were no ships bound to land, and he knew the people
were being abandoned.
Moments later the Captain slowed the helicopter as they flew over Yokohama.
The scene below was horrifying. The streets were jammed with abandoned cars, and the
hordes of people moved like a wave toward the harbor. The docks were crammed, and the
boats overflowed with the fleeing. He watched one ship, a mound of bodies and limbs,
heel to the side and turn over, throwing the people into the water. “What’s happening?”
the copilot insisted, his eyes remaining pinned on the horror.
The Captain turned to the copilot. “It has happened,” he said acidly. “They were
warned and did nothing to prevent it. The international community knew but did nothing.
People protested, but the Japanese government hid it with a media blackout. Money and
greed took priority over the well-being of the people. The leadership has failed the
people.”
“What has happened?”
The Captain didn’t answer him and they continued across the bay to Tokyo.
What they saw in Tokyo sent an icy chill up both their spines. Millions of people were
swarming like ants to the harbor side, but the ships had left and were heading out to sea;
the people were trapped and there was no escape. The copilot noticed some movement in
the water and narrowed his eyes. At first, he didn’t believe it, but then the raw reality hit
him; people were swimming out to sea—thousands upon thousands of people trying to
swim away from the looming peril.
“What are they fleeing from?” the copilot asked.
The Captain ignored her question and pushed down on the controls. As they
flew north along the coast, the scene deteriorated quickly. At Oarai harbor, mayhem had
broken out, and thousands of people were fighting to board the few remaining boats.
They watched as the crowd surged forward, pushing the people at the front into the water.
Some people were trying to clamber up the sides of the boats. They watched a man slip
and get crushed between the dock and a boat. A mother holding her two daughters was
hurled over the side as the crowd surged forward again. The crew of one ship clubbed
people who were climbing over the side with iron bars, sending them plunging into the
sea.
“What is happening? Why is everyone trying to escape?”
The Captain was silent. He just pointed a finger to the north.
As they flew over Hitachi city, they noticed people staggering along the roads as
if they were drunk. They watched as one lady collapsed to her knees, her hands clasped
tightly around her head. The lady began to cough, and blood sprayed the sidewalk, and
then she crumpled onto her side. The copilot stared out the window paralyzed by what he
had witnessed.
“We will reach the destination in a few minutes,” the Captain said flatly.
Where? The copilot was about to ask, but now he knew where they were headed.
He looked down as they flew over Iwaki city. The streets were littered with the dead; no
one had survived. Tears came to his eyes, but he fought them back, replacing them with
thoughts of anger. They have killed them. Those few men at the top. Those irresponsible
money junkies.
The craft slowed and hovered. “There!” said the Captain, pointing to the Daiichi
nuclear power plant.
What the copilot saw made his blood run cold. The Number Four reactor
building had collapsed into a pile of rubble, and black smoke billowed from the debris.
“The fuel pool with the spent fuel rods,” he said.
The Captain nodded. “There was a 6.5 quake early this morning and the structure
collapsed.”
“Didn’t they know it could collapse?”
“Of course they did,” he replied.
“So why didn’t they do anything about it?”
“Greed,” the Captain said simply. “They knew if they told the public the real
story they wouldn’t be able to get the first two reactors restarted in Oi. They needed to get
them started as quickly as possible.”
“Why did they need to restart them so quickly?”
“A gateway,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“All fifty-four reactors were shut down after the nuclear accident. So if they
could restart the reactors, it would lead to more reactors being restarted. It would save the
nuclear industry.”
The copilot stared at the billowing smoke as anger welled within him. “I can’t
believe they let this happen. Japan has been destroyed.”
“Not just Japan,” the Captain said, staring down at the crippled plant. “The other
five reactors have rods in the spent fuel pools, but now the radiation level is so high that
no one can survive in the plant for more than a few minutes.” He paused letting his words
hang in the air for a moment. “The cooling systems for these pools will soon fail, and the
pools will boil dry, and then the rods will catch on fire.”
The copilot’s eyes went wide. “How far will it spread?”
“It will contaminate most of the Northern Hemisphere, making many countries
uninhabitable.”
The copilot sat there speechless.
Captain Mackeller’s eyes flickered open and it took him a few moments to realize
his surroundings. He sat up on his bunk and shook his head. He was on the USS Ronald
Reagan, a US aircraft carrier stationed in Tokyo, Japan. “Damn,” he cursed to himself.
“That’s the third time I’ve had that dream.”
“Are you OK?” asked his copilot from the bunk below.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just another bad dream.”
“Same one about the nuclear accident?”
“Yeah, same one,” he said, jumping off the bunk.
“You think it will happen?” asked the copilot sitting up.
Mackeller shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but I hope not.”
“Well…you were right about terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001
and the death of your copilot in Iraq two years ago.”
Mackeller ignored the comment and went to the washbasin. He looked at himself
in the mirror; dark blue eyes, eyes that were void of emotion—emotion that had been
drain from him like the blood that had been drained from the hundreds or even thousands,
he wasn’t sure any more, of Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians he had killed with his rockets.
His square hard face was scared on the right side by shrapnel—the same shrapnel that had
killed his copilot in Afghanistan.
“Do I survive in this dream?” asked the copilot.
Mackeller nodded.