RADIATION REBELLION

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Submitted Date 10/30/2018
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 As Edward climbed into his cot in the bunker, he desperately wished he could skip next week. On Monday they would be sending three people out into the fallout from the nuclear power plant melt down that occurred one year ago. Six counties had been devastated, eradicated according to the outside sources. The one hundred and three people left working in the underground bunker were the only survivors for hundreds of miles. When six of them tried to leave six months ago there was swift in house justice. They couldn’t take the chance on opening those 36” thick lead doors. Over the last year they had been working to provide a biological protection from the radiation sickness that would quickly result if anyone stepped outside.

Was it fate, luck, karma, or just irony that a nuclear power plant malfunctioned so close to the research facility where Edward and the others were working to try to combat the side effects of radiation therapy on cancer patients. How much harder had they been working to try to save their own lives over the last three years? There was a philosophical question for you. The three “volunteers” heading outside on Monday were not scientists, there was a cook, an administrative assistant, and a janitor. There was a community meeting where the dire straits of their situation was discussed. Food was running low. Fortunately part of their research team was military and shortly before the meltdown a huge shipment of MRE’s was mistakenly routed to their facility so they had been able to survive as long as they had by rationing. More luck, Edward thought. He felt guilty about these three going out there. Most people in the group had spent days before the community meeting extolling their importance to the community. The doctors who cared for the sick, the researchers who were working to save them, the mechanics that kept clean air moving through the filters and kept the generators running all made sure the group knew how important they were to the survival of the community. When it came time to vote for volunteers, there was very little contest as to who would go.

Edward closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He was physically exhausted from sleepless nights running tests and the incredible amount of blood taken from him and every other resident of the bunker to get baselines before the release. Doc, which is what they called Sharon, the only resident psychiatrist, had given him something to help him sleep because she knew how the responsibility was weighing on Edward. She told him to use it sparingly because there wasn’t much on hand, but he felt like he needed to rest tonight. So he swallowed two of the pills and stared at the ceiling. Within minutes Edward was out cold.

“Wake up. Wake up!” Edward heard an urgent whisper at his ear. Oh god, had he overslept on the day the volunteers were heading out to see if they could survive the radiation? Edward felt like he had to peel his eyes open. His lids were so heavy and felt rusty, like he imagined the tin man’s joints felt in “The Wizard of Oz.” There were hands on his arm, shaking him.

The voice again, desperate, “please wake up!”

Sunlight, blue skies; he was so foggy. That couldn’t be right. A face came into view. A slim woman with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, he didn’t recognize her. That couldn’t be right either. He knew everyone in the compound. Was he dreaming, maybe…had to be. The sunlight was blinding. Why was he so cold?

“I need you to sit up right now! We have to go! Edward, do you understand me?” then she pinched him on the arm, hard.

No, definitely not a dream. The small woman was pulling him to a sitting position. He took in his full surroundings for a moment. He appeared to be in a glass dome. Sunlight, blue skies and clouds were all around him. Wait, clouds. What?

He finally spoke to the woman. “What is going on? Where am I? Who are you?” his voice was very rough and scratchy, he didn’t sound like himself.

“Fan-fucking-tastic. You are coherent. Look, the correct question is: when are you? I don’t have time to explain right now. But you have to trust me. It has been 100 years since you were last awake. I need you to put your feet on the floor and put this on.” She handed him what appeared to be some sort of military uniform, but not like any he’d seen before. And it looked way too big. Then it took him a moment to realize he was naked.

“This isn’t going to fit me. 100 years. I don’t understand.” Monitors began to beep urgently.

“I will explain later, I promise. But if I don’t get you out of here now 75% of earth’s population will be dead by tomorrow morning. The uniform will fit you, just step into it. I’m Ava, by the way.” To his left there were two tubes, almost like the extreme water slides at his favorite childhood water park. One started flashing with red light and a voice softly informed them that there was a jam in vertical transporter two.

Edward put his feet over the edge of what he now realized was a hospital bed. As he stepped into the oversized military looking jumpsuit, it conformed to his body. As he stared down at it Ava stifled a giggle, “modern technology, the good kind.”

Ava ushered Edward towards vertical transporter one. He wasn’t sure why he was going along with this woman he didn’t know but he definitely felt like there was danger in this room and since he had no idea where he was, his only choice really was to follow her.

“It’s a good thing you haven’t had solid food for a hundred years. Vertical transport from this height makes most people sick. Hang on.” They stepped into the tube and Ava commanded ‘ground level’. The transporter spoke back to her.

“Unrest at ground level. Do you mean sky level one?”

“Ground level”, Ava repeated. A video suddenly hovered in the air in front of them. The scene was horrific. Dirty, malnourished people huddled in shacks. Soldiers with weapons unlike anything Edward had seen before. Why would they want to go there, and where was that?

“Are you sure? This is ground level,” the disembodied voice of vertical transporter one asked.

“Yes. Proceed to ground level.” With that, they began to fall very quickly towards the ground. Edward felt his stomach rise into his chest like it would on a roller coaster. They were in a clear tube, all he could see was blue skies and clouds for a few minutes. Vertigo was setting in. Then, they passed through a ceiling of dark gray down into a smog so thick you could almost grab a handful. When they hit the ground Ava quickly stepped out and vomited outside the transport tube. Three men rushed towards them and Edward’s chest immediately constricted in fear. They were dressed like the soldiers in the video.

“We need to move now, they got tube two running again,” soldier #1, the tallest of the three, told them. Ava grabbed Edward’s hand and pulled him along behind soldier #1, while soldiers #2 and #3 ran behind and seemed to be guarding them. They passed three naked, dead, clean male bodies. Edward guessed his escorts had stolen their uniforms. The group of five darted into a dilapidated building and charged down crumbling stairs. There were tracks off to the right. They jumped down and over them off into a narrow hallway. This appeared to be an old subway. They wound through a maze of little tunnels like this that finally ended in a large steel door. Ava did a series of complicated knocks and then held up a photo to the small hole in the door.

“Let me see him,” came a voice from the other side. Soldier #2 shoved Edward in front of the peep hole in the door. Edward could hear an extensive series of bolts and locks being undone and then the door creaked open.

“Welcome, Edward. Thanks for coming to save the world.” A hunched old man greeted him and smiled at him. The smile had no joy behind it, just perhaps a sense of relief.

“What is going on!” Edward exclaimed, straining his voice to its limits.

“I will let Ava explain. I am tired and weak and this was her plan,” the old man stated.

And Ava began the story.

“One hundred and one years ago you and a group of people were led to believe you were trapped in a bunker because of a nuclear power plant melt down. Coincidentally, you all had been researching ways to combat radiation sickness in cancer patients. You all worked tirelessly for a year before your food supplies began to run low and you thought you had reached your goal and you could leave your underground prison. Most of that was a lie.

The truth is much more conspiratorial. You all were purposely put in that bunker to find a cure for the fallout from a nuclear bomb. With so many countries amassing weapons of mass destruction, the government decided the advantage would now be to be able to recover as a country, if one of those weapons was launched. There was no power plant meltdown. The government placed their best minds into a bunker with its most ardent and loyal military personnel and some people with genetic anomalies that had untapped potential. They evacuated 6 counties and then dropped a nuclear bomb and waited for you to find what they needed. It was no coincidence that you had enough food to last a year or that you had all the right people to keep your little civilization going for that time.

That last night you fell asleep with the help of the sleeping pills from Doctor Sharon Reynolds was the night you were taken and put into a cryogenic sleep. You were the one with the genetic anomaly that allowed your body to process radiation without it causing any damage. They needed to find a way to replicate that, to splice your DNA into others to create an immunity to radiation.

For the last one hundred years, the gap between classes had widened to include only two classes. The poor and starving or the rich and indulgent. The rich live up there, where you were, in the blue skies and sunshine. The rest of us live down here, in the pollution and filth.

We are the rebels. We have been planning an uprising and the elite got wind of it so they planned on dropping nuclear weapons on the whole planet. Genocide of the poor. After all, they could quickly recover, they had you and they had figured out how to splice your DNA into their own to make them immune to the radiation. So we took you. Freed you, actually, as you have only been a source to harvest DNA from. You see they haven’t perfected how to transfer that immunity into their offspring, so they needed you for every subsequent generation.”

Ava handed Edward a box of files. As he skimmed through it, he could see what she said was true. It was nauseating. What had they done to him?

“What do you say Edward Hallowell? Will you join our rebellion?”

Comments

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  • Miranda Fotia 5 years, 1 month ago

    Very good plot twist! I love a good conspiracy!

    • Kim Rammien 5 years ago

      Thank you! This is from a writing prompt "you go to sleep and wake up 100 years in the future". I love how writing prompts can spawn hugely different stories.

  • Nina Appasamy 5 years ago

    This is a really interesting story, and I would love to know what happens next. My only suggestion would be to go back over Edward's response to Ava when he first wakes up. It's up to you, as a writer, but I feel like his reaction is too mellow. He's so quick to believe Ava and to accept what she says, even when she just told him something that should have seemed impossible to him -- that he had slept for 100 years. Otherwise, I'm really intrigued by your story, and I can't wait to read more from you.

    • Kim Rammien 5 years ago

      I totally appreciate the feedback! I was trying to relay that he was groggy and really had no other option but to accept what she said, given his surroundings. Maybe I need to rework the details in that area to get that idea across better to my reader. This is the kind of information I was really hoping to gain from this website. I think as readers AND writers we can help each other be better. Thank you Nina for reading and commenting!!