genre: Sci-Fi Thriller
Once the shining hope for cheap, abundant nuclear energy, SHARC – the Seismic Hyper Atomic Research Complex – stands ominous and crumbling on the windswept Atlantic coast.
Of the five people now working there, only Ambrose, the director, and Reg, the chief engineer really know what’s going on.
Ambrose Van Der Blok is close to the answer to the world’s energy problems or so he believes. But SHARC is about to be shut down. He is a desperate man about to become dangerous as he formulates a reckless plan to be carried out by the robots who now operate most of the plant.
Reg Underwood, reserved and demoralized, has his own secret. He wants to retire but he has been hiding his unusual orphaned grandson, Gabriel, in the complex in the belief that the authorities will institutionalize him. Until the accidental arrival of reluctant intern Paul Patterson, Gabriel’s only friend is a broken controller robot.
Meanwhile, for consulting PR executive Olivia Blanchard SHARC is her last chance to break through the glass ceiling and she is determined to help Ambrose even as she locks horns with admin assistant Alice Hepburn, an undercover reporter chasing a career-changing story.
The countdown begins as Paul discovers that radiation is leaking into the sea, leading him to a secret world of robots, illegal plutonium, unauthorized experiments, and cover-ups. Then after a plutonium storage tunnel collapses it turns from a race to save Gabriel from being trapped underground to a choice between saving one boy or preventing a nuclear disaster worse than Fukushima or Chernobyl.