Fire and ice

9:27 a.m

K-Rad figured everyone in Petrol was dead by now, but he wanted to make sure. He opened his backpack and pulled out a gas mask and a helmet equipped with drop-down night-vision binoculars. He removed his regular night-vision goggles, put them in the backpack, and strapped on the cumbersome apparatus. As soon as he got it situated exactly the way he wanted it, he felt the overwhelming urge to take a piss. Figures, he thought.

He walked to the locker room. His kidneys were floating from all the Mountain Dew he’d drunk. When he finished urinating, he caught his own reflection in the mirror by the sink. With all the high-tech gadgetry on his head and the flak jacket on his chest, he looked like some sort of machine. That’s what he was. A machine. A killing machine. By the end of the day, he would be famous. Everyone in the world would know the name Kevin Radowski. Everyone in the world would know K-Rad.

The door to the Petrol room was protected by a pushbutton lock, but K-Rad knew the code. He’d worked at Nitko for twelve years. He knew all the codes to all the doors, even the ones he wasn’t supposed to have access to.

When the emergency lockdown had been initiated, the employees in Petrol had essentially been trapped in a toxic tomb. Of course, emergency lockdown was never supposed to happen with people still in the plant. Even if it did, and even if the power went out for some reason, emergency generators were supposed to kick in and keep the ventilation fans in Petrol pumping in fresh air.

But K-Rad had disabled the generators at a little after three o’clock that morning.

On the north side of Nitko’s property, nearly a quarter mile from the main building, stood an above-ground diesel tank the size of a boxcar. Nitko stored the fuel for use in the emergency generators, outdoor forklifts, and delivery trucks. The tank created a blind spot, and K-Rad had easily sliced his way through the fence with his bolt cutters. He knew from experience that the night shift took a long break at three a.m., and he knew from experience that the lame-ass roving security guard could always be found snoozing in his pickup at that time. At approximately 3:05, he filled two five-gallon cans with diesel fuel and then walked to the generators and cut the battery cables. Perfect. Oh, yes. By the end of the day, everyone in the world would know the name K-Rad.

He looked at his watch: 9:41. Still plenty of time for more fun. He punched in the code and opened the door to Petrol and walked in like he owned the place.