CEL-X Subject #256.
Name: Robin Lang
Age: 39
Qualities: Irradiated, Bioluminescent
DPA (Damage Potential Assessment) Rating: Mild
Log #1
I’m told there’s honor in my work. That I am “a crucial part of the restorative cycle”. Just the same as a vulture peels a carcass off the street, I use my unfortunate gift for its silver lining. There are various sites in the world in which I am the only human being capable of entering without serious physiological damage. It’s become my responsibility to help make these sites habitable once again. It’s nice to feel important, but no one dreams of being the vulture.
I was born in Ṃajeḷ in 1941 on the Enewetak Atoll. My earliest memories were spent in the water with the bright fish and coral just beneath the surface. At night, I would sneak out to float amongst a sea of cosmos. I had no fear of isolation, and I was comfortable in the dark. Soon enough, this would change.
Green men came ashore armed with guns, U.S. military, and among them were scientists who came to experiment. My mother told me to stay inside, but I couldn’t. They began to give us notices, then bribes. Eventually, threats. The community held out as long as they could, but it became too much. Once they knew what was coming, they didn’t have any other choice. Our home was to be annihilated. I didn’t understand, at the time. I was four years old when all the remaining islanders were forcibly removed, including my mother. I could hear her cry out for me from the boat as it began to drift. I laid motionless beneath a pile of brush until dusk. I crept out to eat cereal under candlelight before returning to my hideaway. Within a few days, I was completely alone. The green men had gone away on their last vessel. I drifted out into the water just as a plane passed high above me.
The first impact flung my body into the sky. I was unconscious, surely, but I have faint memories of seeing my world get blown away beneath me. Plunging back into the water, I felt myself cauterize in a boiling heap enveloping molten bone. I was a mutilated corpse floating amongst the repeatedly desecrated waves. Ten years passed while I was out; forty-three tests were conducted just overhead. Day in and day out. All I remember is the moments of heat that reignited whatever semblance of nerves I had left, giving way to delusions of my mother’s warm embrace.
I’m told my skin gave me away, down in the depths of the central lagoon of Enewetak. What began as a gleam of light mistaken for a refracted sunbeam became an apparent, lime-green glow from the seafloor. I was excavated like a fossil, kept preserved in the bedrock that the edges of my form had bonded with on a molecular level. Three of the men involved in the process later suffered from severe skin diseases, mutations, and death.
“Must have been some nap”, says Mike. He wants to ask me about it again. The self-proclaimed “light of my life”, he’s my closest connection to outside my container. I try to not think of it as a cell.
“People would be dying to meet you if they weren’t dying when they met you.”
“At least I’d leave an impression. You and me get the same amount of action, and I’m a green, glowing skeleton.” I could see his mustache curl up as his hearty laugh distorted through the intercom. He’s got a good sense of humor, good enough to help maintain mine.
Thule Base, Greenland. A coastal air and space base off the northwestern coast of Qaanaaq. It’s the US’s northernmost base, less than 1k miles from the North Pole. Nuclear tests conducted within the Arctic Circle are based out of Thule. That’s why it became a pretty big problem when a minor nuclear warhead was compromised. My assignment, locate any sensitive documentation or intelligence (physical or electronic), investigate the scene, and attempt to write up a picture of the events leading up to failure.
I imagine it would feel a bit chilly, being unclothed in the icy northern reaches of Greenland. But you can’t deny the view I got. Getting lifted via chopper in my container has its perks, as long as you’re not afraid of heights. I’m transported via light lead, a material that offers the same radioactive resilience as lead while also extremely light and clear like a plastic. Seeing the endless miles of trees, rock, and ice surrounding me makes me feel like an alien invader crashing down onto an unknown planet. I often am.
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