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Deeseus Tork should not have been able to witness the afternoon shadows extending past where he stood in the trampled snow. This was taking too long.

No. He could not permit himself to think that way. This had to be done right the first attempt. Every measurable particle of residual health contamination from the Baragronn region power plant had to be sent to an alternate reality, just as he promised his newest technological masterpiece would do. He glanced to the side. The crowd of company officials, politicians, and local citizens that willingly cramped themselves behind the protective transparent wall, were expecting exactly that level of perfection from him. Again.

He would have been wiser to keep his words to himself this time.

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Deeseus Tork should not have been able to witness the afternoon shadows extending past where he stood in the trampled snow. This was taking too long.

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This didn't make sense on the first pass. At first I was thinking that he shouldn't have been able to witness them because something physical should have been preventing him (a wall, blindfolds, cows etc).

The second sentence really covers what the first sentence is trying to say. You might want to start with that and see if you can incorporate the snow/character name through some other method.

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No. He could not permit himself to think that way. This had to be done right the first attempt. Every measurable particle of residual health contamination from the Baragronn region power plant had to be sent to an alternate reality, just as he promised his newest technological masterpiece would do.

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This is a big chunk of back-story. Does all this need to be explained at this point? Should the story start farther back in time where all of this can be incorporated into the story?

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He glanced to the side. The crowd of company officials, politicians, and local citizens that willingly cramped themselves behind the protective transparent wall, were expecting exactly that level of perfection from him. Again.

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He would have been wiser to keep his words to himself this time.

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This time? Again? Is this part two of a story and I missed the first one? That's usually how I feel with a story starts with those words.

Overall I think it is well written and interesting and just needs a bit of cleanup. My only real concern is that large amount of back story. To me it indicates that the story may not be starting at the right point in time.

I'd like to see what the main character is doing right now, or at the very least, what his machine is doing, what kind of readings he's getting from it, if he's wearing a radiation suit and how it feels, details like that. A comment from someone in the group that's watching might be in order.

The premise is good and I like where you started it. I think just a little more showing instead of telling should do the job to give this start the punch you want.

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Deeseus Tork should not have been able to witness the afternoon shadows extending past where he stood in the trampled snow. This was taking too long.
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The name is intriguing, but I'm confused as to the character's problem. What is he trying to solve? Was he in danger witnessing the afternoon shadows? Is the technology going to fail and kill him and all the political witnesses.

I think the most gripping part to start with is:

"Every measurable particle of contamination from the Baragronn region power plant has to be sent to an alternate reality."
Deeseus Tork promised...

Then you can get into what he promised all these people. After that talk about the failure or success or unexpected surprise. I think with a little mining and rearranging of what you've already written below and it will be a strong beginning.

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No. He could not permit himself to think that way. This had to be done right the first attempt. Every measurable particle of residual health contamination from the Baragronn region power plant had to be sent to an alternate reality, just as he promised his newest technological masterpiece would do. He glanced to the side. The crowd of company officials, politicians, and local citizens that willingly cramped themselves behind the protective transparent wall, were expecting exactly that level of perfection from him. Again.
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He would have been wiser to keep his words to himself this time.
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I'm not sure what the final sentence means. You may want to rewrite it differently once you do the rearranging of the paragraph above it.

Of course, this is only my opinion. I hope it helps.

--Sue

I thought this was interesting.

Some of the things that bothered other readers (the back story, the last line) didn't bother me. (I don't like infodumps, but this was telling us what the MC was thinking, so I thought it was okay)

However, I was confused by the first line (even though it makes perfect sense). Like halogen, I thought the point was that there was some reason it should be physically impossible to see the shadows. On second reading I understood, but perhaps that line is prone to leading people down the wrong line of thought.

Also, the line halogen accused of having too much backstory : "Every measurable particle of residual health contamination..." was, in my opinion, too long and clunky (thought again, the substance of it was fine with me).

S!
S!...C!