The Commander of The Founders: Book Three

Chapter Seven: The Ring Part 2.3

Emori's eyes softened at the mention of his mother. She got the feeling that his mother did not stop cooking because of natural causes.

The pair slowly caught up to Raven, who was waiting for them outside of a sealed door. This thick metal door had a wheel knob in the middle of it. The metal plaque above the handle had "NUCLEAR REACTOR" chiseled into it. The name, Jacapo Sinclair, was engraved in a separate plaque below the first.

Raven clapped her hands and grinned. "Alright, folks, be prepared to be amazed!"

With a roll of his eyes, Murphy watched Raven spin the wheel to the left and yank the thick door forward. The hinges creaked as the door was swung open and dragged across the floor. Inside the doorway, the room was completely dark except for the large blue fluorescence glow in the back. Raven shuffled into the room making the automatic lights click and flicker on.

Emori, in a daze, stumbled forward staring at the intricate elements of the room. Once Murphy stepped in behind Emori, Raven pulled the door closed.

The large space of a room was divided in two. The trio stood inside the small sectioned-off room that was sealed off with glass walls and two sets of containment doors. A row of arched desks were in front of them; the desks were black with touch screen surfaces and thin curved monitors in front of them. A matching set of black chairs were tucked in underneath the desks. A rack of yellow and white radiation suits were hung up on the wall to the right of them. A shelf with helmets was above the rack. Portable oxygen tanks and masks lined the wall beside the suits.

Through the glass, the nuclear reactor core could be seen. It was in four compartments. The base of it was a large and thick circular tank that held twelve control rods and cooling water. The next part was a half sphere about the third of the size of the tank. A large tube was welded into the top of the half sphere and connected to an upside down half sphere on the ceiling. Indented lines that resembled computer circuitry designed the outside of the half spheres. Six three dimensional fish fins connected to the bottom of the half spheres and the surfaces they were welded into. The fluorescence glow came from circuitry designs and the tube, shrouding the room in a constant blue aura. Bundles of thick wired tubes connected to the half sphere in the ceiling and spanned across the whole ceiling.

Several other machines, storage, and regulatory systems were strategically put throughout the room.

Raven moved toward the computer monitors and quickly double tabled on the screens with her pointer and middle finger. The screens whirled to life and their displays lit up. Diagrams of the built-in mechanisms of the reactor core and other machines popped up on the screens. Thermostats and other meters that measured things such as steam pressure faded up. Diagrams and control screens illustrating the power source and its division flashed on. The quiet buzz of the computers slowly filled the ambience of the room.

Scooching into the middle seat of the arched desks, she sat her bag down at her feet. Emori hunched over the back of the chair at Raven's right shoulder. Her inquisitive eyes gleamed with interest and wonder.

"What do all of these things mean?" Emori whispered in a hushed voice meant for secretive conversation; something in the atmosphere of the room encouraged her to talk quietly out of respect for the machines.

"Well for one," Raven said as she lifted her finger to hover underneath the thermostat of the reactor core. "It's telling me that we aren't going to die." She turned and smiled at Emori as if her joke was in any way funny. "So that's a good thing in my book."

"But what specifically is it saying?" Emori pressed onward.

Raven raised her eyebrow at the inquiring grounder. "Are you actually interested in all this stuff?"