Worst Case Scenario

Joss rides with Carla to go talk with R.J. On the way, they reminisce about high school. Joss recalls her high school boyfriend, with whom she had a relationship for many years; the boy was Ethan. She recalls later leaving Ethan and Waketa to pursue her career ambitions, but in Washington, DC, she found that no one ever took her seriously or cared about places like Waketa, so she returned to do what she could for the town.

Now, they arrive at R.J.’s, and after an initial altercation, Joss explains their situation to him. He listens quietly and then refuses to help, stating that although he fought in the military, he was later given no help by the government when his business failed. He has been surviving on his own, and now, he is adamant that he won’t risk his own safety for people who never helped him.

Joss thanks him and tells him that she understands. She gives him iodide pills that will help with radiation exposure. As they turn to leave, he tells them that they can take his welding gear, even though it is old and he is not sure if it will help them.

The helicopter arrives and flies over the bridge. A man exits the helicopter, dangling from a cable, and the chopper swings him closer to the van. However, the wind from the helicopter feeds the flames, which shoot up into the air and force the helicopter to pull away. Dani watches as they make several attempts to rescue Connor, but each time, the fire blocks their efforts. On the last try, the man’s clothes catch fire. The helicopter flies upriver and then puts the man into the river to extinguish the flames. Dani and her colleagues receive word that the helicopter won’t try again. Dani is enraged as she realizes that this was their last hope to save the boy.

As Carla and Joss ride back to the plant, they call Ethan to tell him that they have the gear but that R.J. wouldn’t come. When they hang up, Joss asks Carla what her plan is. Carla wants to stay in town to help the community while Joss goes back to the plant alone. Carla pulls into town and sees that the parking lot of United Grace Church is overflowing. The Carter Valley Elementary School bus is also there. Carla stops in the middle of the road and gets out.

At the plant, everyone debates who is going to go into the water to weld. Steve insists on going, pointing out that the others all have young children. He insists that he will not sacrifice them when they are no more qualified than he is. Ethan also tries to argue, but Steve shuts him down.

At the church, Carla is shocked by all the people who have gathered and all the supplies that they have. Principal Gazdecki thanks her profusely for going with Marion; because of their transmissions, the town now has the information it needs. Because of the blocked roads, they have been using the river to evacuate. People from the nearby town of Bloomfield are sending all kinds of boats, and most students and their parents have been evacuated. In the meantime, people are using CB radios to coordinate community efforts to counter the crisis.

Steve talks with Matt about his plan to perform the underwater welding, but Matt does not really respond, and Steve realizes how distant their relationship has become. When he goes to leave, Matt mentions their habit of fishing together—something that Steve has completely forgotten that they used to do before Claire got sick. Matt says that Steve promised to teach him. As he looks at his son, Steve realizes that “the person that grief and loss had tried so hard to destroy” is still in there (177). He promises himself that he will fix their relationship.

President Dawson watches on TV monitors as chaos plays out across the country. Markets drop, banks limit withdrawals, and Canada and Mexico close off their borders to Americans. People everywhere frantically purchase emergency supplies and household items. Meanwhile, Joss briefs the Dawson on the latest, and he feels disbelief at their plan to send Steve into the pool to weld with no training.

Joss thinks of how little help the president is as he sits safely in his bunker while Waketa is left to deal with the situation on its own. Even so, she is proud of how well her community is responding.

Dani sits by the bridge, staring out at Connor in the van. She is at a loss for how to help him but continues to brainstorm ideas. Levon joins her. He confesses that Carla lost another baby last week when she was 11 weeks pregnant; it is her third miscarriage. Dani comforts him.

Dani hears someone on the CB radio announce that the highway is being cleared. She realizes that the speaker is her father, Marion. The other firefighters tell her that he has been distributing crucial information to the town; without him, no one would have any idea what is happening. Dani exclaims that, with Marion’s help, she now knows how to help Connor.

Steve goes into the pool. He was given instructions by a Navy diving team and welders, yet he feels incredibly ill-equipped for the job. R.J.’s wetsuit is old and ill fitting, and there is no air tank; instead, they have rigged him with a firefighter’s oxygen tank, which they had to secure to his suit with electrical tape.

A crane operator lowers a sheet of aluminum into the pool. Steve guides it to cover the damage and begins welding, instructing one of his firefighters—George—on when to turn the electricity on and off to avoid potentially electrocuting himself when he changes position. He makes good progress and is proud of his efforts to secure the aluminum to the side of the tank. As he works, he notices that pieces of his suit are beginning to fall off, exposing his leg. He quells his panic by telling himself that the suit is just old and is not being affected by radiation.

Just as he is about to start his last weld, he sees a string of electrical tape out of the corner of his eye and realizes that he could lose his oxygen at any moment. He tells George to turn on the electrical power and then begins his last weld. However, before he can finish, he feels his oxygen supply cut off. As he completes the weld, he begins to panic, desperately swimming to the surface with the electricity still on. Outside the pool, George realizes that something is wrong. He looks into the pool and sees Steve’s body sinking toward the radioactive rods at the bottom of the pool.

George desperately pulls on the line attached to Steve. Several firefighters in hazmat gear come into the room and try to help George, but they soon realize that they cannot pull Steve up. The crane operator begins to move the crane but cannot get a visual on Steve’s body.

One of the firefighters jumps into the pool, locates Steve, and gives directions to the crane operator. Slowly, they use the crane to pull Steve back to the surface. Steve is unresponsive.

In the control room, Joss, Ethan, and the others watch helplessly as Steve is pulled from the pool. Ethan simultaneously wonders if Steve is dead and if the plan worked. He asks for confirmation on whether the water level is rising, but it is too early to tell. He grows angry, slamming his fists on the desk and swearing. Joss tries to calm him down, but he yells at her. Ethan finally calms down and abruptly leaves the room.

In the pool room, the men frantically perform CPR on Steve. They strip off all his clothes and wash his bare skin, attempting to clean off any surface radiation they can. Someone throws his clothing into the hallway along with the steadily beeping dosimeter.

Ethan looks out the window at the power plant, seeing the people working tirelessly to save others. When Joss comes up behind him, he begins to talk about his family. He tells her that he and his wife have a secret code and that he knows she would have followed his warning and evacuated when he texted her earlier. He tells Joss that he texted her before even starting his duty to save the plant, acknowledging that his “instinct” was to save his family first. She assures him that he is only human and that she would have done the same, but Ethan isn’t so sure that she would.

Ethan reflects that their relationship failed because he wanted a family, while she wanted to devote her life to her career. When she moved to Washington, DC, he decided to stay behind. He thinks that “just living” doesn’t make someone a “coward” or “selfish”; not everyone needs to save the world. He tells Joss that the world needs people like her, but she responds that the world is only “worth” saving if it holds people that they love. Their conversation is interrupted by one of the engineers, who tells them that they now have their first readings on the water level.

All around the world, people stop to listen as President Dawson gives an address about the situation at the plant. In town, Carla and Mr. Gazdecki are on the school bus, transporting civilians out of town for evacuation, when they hear Marion speaking over the radio. He informs them that President Dawson is addressing the nation and reporting that the leak in the plant’s pool is fixed.

Back at the plant, Steve lies in a bed, his skin covered in red blotches. As he regains consciousness, George tells him what happened. Steve also learns that due to radiation exposure, he has a year to live at most and possibly as little as a month.

Matt comes into Steve’s room and asks if his father is going to die. Steve confirms this. He tells Matt that he spent the last of his time with Claire denying the gravity of her diagnosis and trying to find a cure for her; at the time, he stolidly refused to believe that she would die. Now, he wants to spend the rest of his time with Matt, enjoying what is left of his life. As Matt tries not to cry, he tells his dad that they need to fix his fishing pole. Steve promises that they will, and Matt climbs into bed with him “like the little boy he still very much” is (216).

At the bridge, R.J. shows up with a tow truck, answering Marion’s call for help over the CB radio. R.J. backs the truck up against the bridge and then extends the boom with a hook on it. Levon helps hook Dani up to it. They then extend the arm out toward the van until Dani is just a few feet away. Terrified, she talks with Connor, telling him that he is Batman and she is Robin but that she needs his help. All the firefighters look on as the arm is fully extended. She is still a few feet short, but Connor is too terrified to move.

As Dani dangles from the cable—30 feet above the Mississippi River—she slowly begins to swing herself toward the van. Levon tries to get her to stop but realizes that she will not listen. As she moves, the bridge begins to creak, and the firefighters realize that the stability of the bridge is now in question. In the truck, R.J. gives Dani a bit more slack and then strategically raises her up at the correct time so that she can reach the van. After two tries, she manages to grab on and pull herself inside.

She talks with Connor, trying to get him to come to her. However, when he slowly begins to move, the bridge groans again, and the van shifts. She realizes that they don’t have much time, so she unhooks herself from the harness and goes to him. Just as she grabs him, the bridge breaks, sending them, the van, the plane’s wing, and the bulk of the bridge into the river below.

As the van sinks toward the bottom of the river, Dani tries to suppress her panic as she loses all sense of direction. The van fills with water as she holds her breath. She then feels the van sinking until it finally hits the river’s bottom. She orients herself and finds a bubble of air in the van. She pulls Connor up, and the two gasp for air.

Joss walks around the plant, measuring radiation with a Geiger counter and marking a red “X” on anything that is radioactive. Now that the crisis has been averted, she thinks about the massive clean-up efforts that will be required. Thankfully, much of the debris is not radioactive, so she does her best to mark the hot spots.

She finds the tail of the plane, with the last few rows of seating still intact. She sees debris everywhere—clothing, cell phones, personal belongings—but none of it is radioactive, so she keeps walking. When she approaches the window of the plane, the Geiger counter goes off, and the dial swings to its highest point. She looks around and re-checks, trying to find the exact source. When she looks in the window, she realizes that the plane is flooded with radioactive water.

Joss rushes back to the control room and spreads the blueprints for the buildings out on the desk. The others watch as she searches the blueprints. Finally, she tells them that the tail ruptured the main waterline, sending radioactive water from the reactors into the building’s water. More importantly, the water has been pouring out and flooding the plant’s basement. Eventually, the water will flood the generators, shutting off the power and causing the pumps that cool Reactor Two to fail. When that happens, Reactor Two will overheat, causing a meltdown.

Everyone begins calculating how long they have before this happens. They realize that there is less than half an hour before the generators fail.