Raven rummaged through a tool box as Murphy and Emori stood impatiently behind her. She was stuffing certain tools into a back bag that laid on the ground at her knees. With a scowl, Murphy tapped his foot on the tiled floor rapidly. Meanwhile, Emori peaked out around Murphy's shoulder to look at the black and red tool box. Having seen those tools before, her eyes wandered down the winding corridor behind them. Having seen technology before from Allie, she was stoked for the chance to see more.
Murphy groaned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Raven, what are you doing?"
Raven peered back at him with a piercing glare. "I'm packing my bag with tools that I might need when we visit the nuclear reactor."
"Visit the what?" Murphy gaped.
"The nuclear reactor. How did you think the Ring spun around the Ark?"
"Isn't a nuclear reactor nuclear? Why would we willingly go inside it?"
"Someone has to run maintenance." Raven turned back to her bag. Radiation detector. Wrench. Duct tape. Screw drivers. Flashlight. Rags. Pillars. Tape measure. Hammer. Screws. Nuts and bolts. Level. Knife. Thermometer. Gloves. Into the bag they all went. Rising to her feet, Raven pulled the zippers to each other, sealing the bag. Pops sounded as Raven placed the lid back on the plastic bin the tool boxes had been brought up in. She swung the straps over her shoulders and placed her hands on her hips. "Come on, gang. Let's get going."
"Why is it that you're always leading me to my death?" Murphy quipped.
Exasperated, Raven rolled her head back and groaned. "Oh, stop with your melodramatic whining."
Emori lightly skipped beside Murphy. "I don't know, John, I'm kinda excited to see this nuclear reactor." Skipping backwards, she smiled at him with her eyes sparkling from thrill.
"You would be," he muttered. He grabbed her hand softly. "But do you remember the last time we were around something nuclear? I almost had to blow you up."
Emori settled on her rocking feet and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. She pulled away and stared deeply into his worrisome eyes. "But you didn't." A small smirk spread across her lips.
Murphy rolled his eyes as he groaned again out of irritation.
"Come on, lovebirds! We don't got all day," Raven called from in front of them.
"I'm pretty sure all we have is time. Five years of it!" Murphy yelled back.
Emori slipped to his side as they walked aways behind Raven. The dazzling stars glowed outside of the windows. She smiled and then looked up at Murphy's face. "So, this is where you grew up?"
Murphy shook his head. "No. I grew up on another station. This station was reserved for those in charge."
"You don't talk much about your time in space."
"There's not much to say." One look at Emori and Murphy rolled his eyes as he breathily laughed. "What do you want to know?"
"I want to know where you grew up. Who you grew up with. What you did in space when you were a kid."
Murphy gulped. "Well, uh, I grew up in a station that we called Farm Station. It was where we grew our produce."
"So you were a ponisa (farmer)? Is that how you became such a good randzi (skilled cook)?"
Murphy placed a hand on the back of his cold neck. "No. When I lived in Farm Station, I was young. I didn't personally tend to any of the crops. I did cook for myself and my mother when she no longer could."
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?"
Emori straightened and nervously glanced at Murphy, who shrugged as a means to show his neutral feelings toward Emori's aspiration. A slight lift of the left corner of his lips made her stomach flip and gave her the encouragement she needed to answer Raven's question. She moved her eyes back to Raven's narrowed inquisitive eyes. She gulped, "yeah, I actually am." The more she talked the more her posture straightened and become stronger and more confident. "Since Allie, I've really wanted to understand the bitwago (interactions) of tek (technology)."
Humming, Raven nodded as she swung back around to face the screens. "This meter or graphic information source is showing the temperature inside the reactor core, which is the large tank under the glowing tube. The number is three hundred twenty five degrees celsius. The arrow in the meter is inside the green part. If it goes into the yellow or red, the core is overheating and we're in trouble."
"Hold on," Murphy blurted as he closed the gap between him and the girls. "Were you just hoping that the reactor wasn't already melted down?"
Raven glared at him. "It was a possibility that I had thought of."
"And you didn't think you should tell us before we went up in a ship?"
"Not really. It was either die from radiation on the ground or die from radiation on the Ring. And dying on the Ring was less of a certainty."
Grumbling reverberated out of Murphy's throat. "Oh, good."
Emori chuckled softly. "Just be happy that Raven even considered this crazy plan to begin with."
"Yeah. I know. I know."
Raven popped off her chair and nodded sharply. "This was all I needed to check. We shouldn't have to do maintenance soon since everything is automated. Since I bored you, why don't you pick where to go next, Murphy."
"Well, since I'm surrounded by tech lovers and I'm in a curious mood, let's go check on Earth Monitoring Station."
A large smile stretched across Raven's face as she rocked back and forth on her heels. "Awesome. Let's go, groupies!"
Raven twisted the wheel knob to the left and pushed the door open. She stood patiently and gestured with her palm up for the others to leave before her. After double checking to make sure the door properly sealed, Raven pranced after Murphy and Emori, gradually moving to the front of the group to lead them.
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Hey, guys. How are you all? I disappeared, didn't I? Phew, its been a busy few months. I'm a manager for 3 video projects right now and basically I compare it to being-on-call. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.
I still am offering my Amino community to voters and commenters. The easiest way to give my community's information to elligible individuals I am going to list your usernames below. If you are interested in the community (again the community comes with early access, special content, and behind the scenes content) please direct message me on wattpad and I will give you the invite.
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Thank you so much for voting on my series. The engagement is always fun to open the app up too. Thank you for your support, voters!
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NEXT UPDATE: DECEMBER 7