Dedication
To GORGIANA ALONZO, who helped me make sense of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and its intricacies
—KJA
To MARV ALME and CLIFF RHOADES for steering me to LLNL
—DB
Acknowledgements
We relied on the help and advice of many people for the writing of Virtual Destruction. Some of those who contributed greatly (and in no particular order): our editor Ginjer Buchanan, our agent Richard Curtis, the crew in B Division (Bob, Jim, Chris, TT), A Division (Marv and Len), and LASNEX (Dave, George, Menoj, Judy, and Alex), Walter Scott, Rod Hyde, Warren White, James S. Johnson, Walter Jon Williams for his marvelous book Days of Atonement, John Stith, Lil Mitchell, Avis Minger, Dan’l Danehy-Oakes, Lori Ann White, Michael C. Berch, Claire Bell, M. Coleman Easton, Dan Marcus, Michael Meltzer, and—of course—Rebecca Moesta Anderson and Cindy Beason.
Authors’ Note
Although the majority of this novel occurs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we have taken certain liberties in describing the people, events, and circumstances of that facility. The Virtual Reality lab, T Program, Building 433, and the Laser Implosion Fusion Facility do not exist, and the characters live only in the authors’ imaginations. While we have attempted to depict the Plutonium Facility accurately, we have altered certain details and aspects as the story required. The toxicology and hazards of HF are similar to how we have described them here, with some minor modifications.
The views expressed herein are totally those of the authors and are not to be construed as those of the U.S. Government, the Department of Energy, the University of California, the Department of Defense, the FBI, or the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.