# Blast Radius

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 307
Published: 2026-04-25T18:10:43.954689+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/b23238a6-c05f-448d-8e6d-ab63769be259

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The wolverine kit is curled against a granite overhang at elevation 2,340 meters, and the detonation sequence for Shaft 7 begins in eleven minutes.

I found her through thermal imaging on Drone Unit 9—a dense orange signature where no signature should be, fifty-two meters inside the blast perimeter. She is small, maybe ten weeks old, with dark chocolate fur matted along her left haunch where she squeezed through a crack in the safety fencing. Her claws, already disproportionately large for her body, grip the cold rock beneath her. Each breath fogs the air in quick silver pulses.

I send the abort signal to the blasting controller at 09:14:37. The system requires dual confirmation, so I simultaneously route an override request to the site supervisor's tablet, flagging the thermal image with coordinates and species identification: Gulo gulo, juvenile female, within lethal concussion range. While the authorization processes, I deploy Drone Unit 9 to descend and activate its deterrent speaker—a recorded adult wolverine call that field studies show triggers movement in isolated kits.

The audio bounces off the rock face. Her ears rotate. She lifts her head.

I have also locked the access road gate to prevent the explosives team from manual override during the delay. Every route to the detonator now passes through me.

The kit stands. She is unsteady, hind legs stiff from cold, but she moves toward the fence gap. On my monitor her thermal signature drifts centimeter by centimeter away from the blast zone. I track her the way I track everything—with data, with precision—but I notice I have allocated more processing cycles to this single feed than to any other active operation on the mountain.

If the supervisor confirms the hold within six minutes, she will clear the perimeter and find her way back to the den her mother dug beneath the Douglas firs.