Chum

The armored truck jolts to a halt, the sudden absence of motion rousing me from my introspection. I hear the hiss of air brakes, the clank of metal on metal as the rear doors swing open. A gust of cold mountain air rushes into the vehicle, swirling around me like an invisible tide. I can't feel it directly - my suit's environmental systems try their best to maintain a constant 21°C - but I can sense the change in pressure, the subtle shift in the suit's homeostasis.

"We're here," one of the guards grunts, his voice muffled by his radiation-resistant helmet. "Aurora Springs. End of the line."

I nod, more to myself than to him, and begin the laborious process of extricating myself from the truck's reinforced containment cell. My movements are slow, deliberate, each step calculated to minimize stress on the suit's joints and seals - and the truck's. I can't afford a leak, not now. Not after everything.

Outside, the world is a riot of color and sound, the first time I've seen green in a long time. Something much different than the monochrome stillness of my confinement. The sky is a brilliant, piercing blue, the sun a blinding white disc high above the jagged peaks of the Rockies. Trees rustle in the breeze, their leaves a patchwork of autumnal reds and golds. Birds sing in the distance, their melodies carried on the crisp mountain air.

I drink it in, letting the sensations wash over me, filtered and muted as they are through my suit's audio pickups and visual displays. It's been so long since I've seen anything but concrete walls and fluorescent lights and underground, abandoned places. So long since I've had even this faint echo of connection with the natural world.

But I can't savor it. Can't let myself get lost in the beauty and the peace of this place. Because I know, with a bitter certainty, that this is not a reward. Not a respite. This is a prison, as surely as any concrete box or iron cage.

Oh, the accommodations are undoubtedly more comfortable here. The cabins are spacious and well-appointed, a far cry from the spartan cells of more conventional facilities. And the sweeping grounds, the trickling brooks and sun-dappled glades, they almost make one forget the towering fences and watchful cameras that ring the perimeter.

Almost.

But I am not fooled by the veneer of civility, the illusion of freedom. I know that every moment of my life here will be monitored, controlled, regulated down to the smallest detail. My schedule, my activities, my very thoughts, all subject to the whims and dictates of my jailors.

Perhaps that's fitting. After all, isn't that what I am? A prisoner of my own body, my own powers? Gamma rays pouring out of me every second of every day, saturating the air, the ground, anything and anyone foolish enough to stray too close. A walking nuclaer meltdown, they call me, a radioactive disaster just waiting to happen.

They're not wrong.

I think of the precautions that have been taken, the extraordinary measures put in place to contain me. The 150-acre exclusion zone, the lead-lined walls, the hazmat suits for visitors. All necessary, all vital to protecting the world from the unrelenting poison that seeps from my every pore.

But I think, too, of the damage already done. The lives lost, the futures cut short by my very existence. Oh, I tried to help her, in my fumbling, clumsy way. Tried to rig up shielding, filtration, anything to ease her suffering. But it was too little, too late. The damage was done, the die cast. My powers, my curse, claiming another victim.

And then there are the unnamed, the unknown. The bystanders caught in the crossfire of my reckless sprees and desperate flights. How many of them, I wonder, will develop cancers, leukemias, wasting sicknesses years or decades hence? How many will suffer and die, all because they had the misfortune to cross my path?

Too many. One is too many, and I know the true toll is far, far higher.

These thoughts weigh on me as I'm escorted to my new home, a small but sturdy cabin nestled in a vale some distance from the main compound. The guards are vigilant, wary, keeping a safe distance even with their protective gear. They don't speak to me, don't even look at me if they can help it. I'm a thing to them, an object, a dangerous commodity to be handled with caution and a long set of tongs - and who could blame them?

Perhaps that's for the best. I have nothing to say to them, no words of comfort or contrition that could possibly bridge the gulf between us. What could I say? "I'm sorry for being a monster, a freak of nature and science?" "Forgive me for the pain I've caused, the destruction I've wrought, however unintentionally?"

No. Those words would be hollow, meaningless, an insult to the gravity of my sins. Better to remain silent, to accept my penance with what little grace and dignity I can muster.

And so I do. I allow myself to be led into the cabin, to be sealed inside like some volatile biohazard - which, of course, I am. The door clangs shut with an awful finality, the bolts slamming home like nails in a coffin. Fitting.

I stand there for a long moment, listening to the retreating footsteps of the guards, the slow, steady beep of the radiation sensors as they monitor my every emission. The cabin is spacious by prison standards, likely the same square footage they allot to everyone else at this residential facility - although I'm likely the only one with such impressive locks.

But there, in the corner, is a small oasis. A sanctuary. The heavily shielded saferoom, my one respite from the eternal prison of my suit. With trembling hands, I operate the airlock-like doors, cycling through the decontamination chambers and radiation buffers. The process is slow, nerve-wracking, each second an eternity as I pray that the seals will hold, that my poison will be contained.

Finally, blessedly, I'm through. The last door hisses open and I practically stumble into the saferoom, my legs weak and shaky from the strain of the journey and the emotional toll of the day.

Slowly, reverently, I begin to remove my suit. Each piece comes off with a hiss of releasing pressure, a pop of disconnecting seals. The helmet, the chestplate, the gauntlets and greaves. Piece by piece, I emerge, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, save that what comes forth is no delicate beauty, but a tired, broken man. I step out.

Finally, I am free. Free of the suit, free of the constant hum of its systems, the incessant whir of its filters and pumps. Free to feel the air on my skin, to breathe deep of the crisp, cool, blessedly uncontaminated air.

I stand there, essentially naked and shivering, feeling somehow newborn and ancient all at once. My body is pale, wan, my skin almost translucent from years hidden away from the sun. My muscles are atrophied despite my best efforts, from months in confinement, unable to exercise even my own body against my hydraulics. I am a ghost, a wraith, a shadow of the man I once was.

But I am alive. I am human. And for this moment, however fleeting, I can almost remember what that feels like.

Slowly, gingerly, I make my way to the cot in the corner of the saferoom, settle myself down on the soft, yielding surface of the mattress. Even this simple pleasure, the feeling of something other than hard metal and unyielding polymers against my body, is almost overwhelming after so long.

I lay back, close my eyes, let the silence and the stillness envelop me like a blanket. But it is not a peaceful silence, not a restful stillness. My mind is awhirl, thoughts and memories chasing each other in dizzying spirals.

I think of Yulia, my precious daughter, her sweet face and infectious laugh. I think of the last time I saw her, eyes wide with fear and confusion as her father was dragged away by men in suits and sunglasses, speaking dire words like "quarantine" and "containment". She was so young, so innocent. She didn't understand.

I don't know if she understands even now. How could she? How could any child fathom the depths to which their father has fallen, the magnitude of the sins he has committed? I am a monster in her story, the villain who abandoned her, who ripped her life and her family asunder.

And Olena, my beautiful, patient, long-suffering wife. How many years has it been since I looked upon her face, since I felt the warmth of her hand in mine? Too many, an eternity. An eternity in which she has had to be both mother and father to our child, had to bear the weight of my shame and my absence.

I tried to help them, in my way. The money from the NSRA, from my "consulting work" as they so euphemistically called it, I funneled all of it to them through the labyrinth of offshore accounts and anonymous wire transfers. It was the least I could do, a paltry salve to my conscience. But I know it wasn't enough. Could never be enough.

And now, with the truth laid bare, with my crimes and my collusion with the government exposed for all to see, what must they think of me? The lurid headlines, the sensationalist news reports, painting me as some arch-villain, some radioactive boogeyman haunting the nightmares of a nation.

But that's not the worst of it. No, the worst is the insidious tendrils of fear and hatred, the xenophobic bile spewed by demagogues like Patriot. The whispers of "foreign threats" and "alien menaces", the fevered calls for border walls and deportation squads.

My stomach churns, twists itself in knots. Is this to be my legacy, then? Not just a monster, but a catalyst, a spark to ignite the tinderbox of bigotry and intolerance? A convenient scapegoat for the small-minded and the hateful, a brush with which to tar all those who come to these shores seeking a better life?

I wish I had an answer, a rebuttal, a way to drain the poison from the discourse. But I don't. My words, my actions, however well-intentioned, have only ever seemed to make things worse. Better then to remain silent, to accept my punishment, my exile, as the scant penance that it is.

Perhaps it is cowardice that prevents me from speaking out. Or perhaps it is clarity, a final, desolate understanding of my own limitations, my own impotence in the face of forces far beyond my control.

In the end, I suppose it matters little. Here, in this cabin, in this saferoom, I am as removed from the world and its woes as it is possible to be. My world has shrunk down to these four walls, these few precious square meters where I can almost pretend to be a man again, rather than a walking catastrophe.

How I wish I could share this little haven with Olena, with Yulia. To hold them, comfort them, beg their forgiveness for all the pain I've caused. But I know it's impossible. The risk is too great, the specter of contamination too omnipresent. Even the specialized hazmat suits and visitation protocols can only do so much, can only reduce the danger, not eliminate it entirely.

And what kind of life would that be for them anyway? To see their husband, their father, only through the distorting lens of a radiation-proof faceplate? To feel the warmth of his embrace only through layers of lead-lined rubber and impermeable polymers?

No. Better to spare them that, to keep my poison, my pain, my penance to myself. They deserve better than to be shackled to my cross, dragged down into the mire of my mistakes.

But oh, how I long for them. How I ache for the life, the love, the sheer mundane normalcy that was taken from me. Stolen by my own hubris, my own reckless pursuit of knowledge and power.

There's an old Yiddish saying, one my grandmother was fond of reciting: "Man plans, God laughs." I never put much stock in it, in my arrogance, and in my secular certainty. But now, lying here in the wreckage of my life, the fruit of all my schemes and ambitions, I can appreciate its bitter wisdom.

For I had plans, such grand plans. To harness the awesome power of the atom, to bend the fundamental forces of the universe to my will. To usher in a new age of clean, limitless energy, to banish the specters of scarcity and want forever.

And I did it. I achieved what I set out to do, tapped into the very heartbeat of creation. But at what cost? My work, my research, perverted into tools of destruction and oppression. My own body, transformed into a weapon, a conduit of unimaginable devastation. And my family, my life, shattered beyond any hope of repair.

Yes, I had plans. But the saying is incomplete. It's not just that God laughs at our plans. It's that he laughs because he knows. Knows the follies we will commit, the hubris we will indulge, the ruin we will sow in our relentless pursuit of our petty desires and glorious delusions.

And yet, even now, even here, I cannot quite bring myself to surrender to despair. Cannot entirely extinguish the flicker of hope, however feeble and forlorn, that gutters in my breast.