Day of the Moron

In the tense summer of 1968, an engineer named Scott Melroy is tasked with installing a fully cybernetic control system at a new breeder‑reactor plant on Long Island. Surrounded by endless procedural wrangling and the lingering memory of near‑catastrophes, he spends his days tracing relay logic while hunting for a mysterious ninth way the reactor could go critical. His sleepless calculations are haunted by the knowledge that even the most elaborate safeguards might be undone by a single, determined saboteur.

The arrival of Dr. Doris Rives, a sharp‑tongued psychologist deputizing for a missing colleague, adds an uneasy human element to the high‑tech environment. As she settles into Melroy’s cramped office, the two exchange wry banter, each aware that an “emotional moron”—someone whose impulses outrun reason—could turn the plant’s immense power into a weapon. Together they must navigate bureaucracy, fear of Soviet attack, and the creeping dread that the reactor’s very design may contain a flaw no one has yet imagined.