At the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a teenage hacker boy named Jesse is caught trying to steal dynamite. His uncle bails him out, and a workman teaches him how to operate a forklift. That night, an animal appears at the repository's mess hall and kills everyone but Jesse. When communications from the repository cease, a group of technicians and scientists are called on to investigate. The facility, once a uranium mine, laboratory, and refinery, has become a classified government facility. The investigators find the place deserted; three go to the control room to try to reboot the computer system, while the other three form a search party. They locate Jesse, catatonic and in a state of shock.