The scientists of Bartorstown have been working on a long-term project with an Artificial Intelligence, Clementine, aimed at creating a forcefield that would eradicate the splitting of atoms, preventing future misuse of nuclear technology. They feed Clementine equations in the hope of creating the ultimate equation to produce the forcefield. Len is shocked to find that Bartorstown relies on nuclear power, conflicting firmly with his religious beliefs that the devilish nuclear power which annihilated society should be abstained from entirely. The community's rationalisation that sooner or later, others would unlock the lost secrets of nuclear technology and that it would be better to be preventive does not sit well with Len and his religious upbringing. Len's vision of Bartorstown is broken at last when Clementine is revealed to be maliciously sentient, and has withheld the ultimate truth as to whether the nuclear forcefield was ever possible, rendering the work of Bartorstown through the ages obsolete and void.