Atomic

Confusion is there very first thing Nick feels upon opening his eyes. He was walking, he should still be walking, so why isn’t he?

Something doesn’t feel right, something feels heavy, like something is weighing down on top of him. So he pushes whatever it is up with his hands, and wiggles himself free, then lets go of whatever he has just had to push, and rolls over, out of the way before whatever that was can do it to him again.

School. He needs to get to school. So he sits up, looking at the scene around him in confusion. He’s on the floor, but he isn’t aware of how he got there. There is a truck on it’s side next to him, crushing the two bollards that stood where the edge of the path Meets the road.

Again, he doesn’t understand why, but he is soaking wet, and his clothes are very obviously caked in blood. He looks from side to side, the sudden brightness near blinding him, so he raises his hand to shield his eyes and then places a hand on his head. When he removes it, he finds yet more blood.

Suddenly he feels two pairs of hands on him, lifting him from the floor. His eyes can’t focus, he just feels himself being dragged along somewhere, and his clothes being ripped from him. The next thing he knows he is being showered down, and then towel dried off.

He says nothing as his body is checked over, and remains oddly calm considering the ordeal he is going through, the not knowing what is happening. But then perhaps that is why he is able to remain calm, because his brain can’t yet register what is going on. The whole thing feels strange, like some strange dream that feels real. It’s only after he is dressed into loose fitting grey cotton clothing that his eyes finally focus, and he looks around to see he is inside a square tent of sorts, being led over to a gurney.

“Lie down.” A soft female voice tells him, and without saying a word, without any argument, he does. The people around him allow him to lie on his side before they cover him with a blanket, and pull straps over him.

Nick begins to shiver now, realising that something of great magnitude has happened to him. He remembers getting himself out from underneath that truck now. A truck fell on top of him, he should be dead. But he isn’t, he’s here, and seemingly without any injuries, yet there was blood, so how is it that he is okay?

Once again he sees the crash scene as he’s taken out of the tent. The truck is still very much on it’s side, and there are people in hazmat suits all around, in fact he notices how the people wheeling the gurney he is led on are also wearing masks over their faces. So why isn’t he?

The ambulance they take him to is jet black, completely unmarked. Inside it is just like any other ambulance, and as soon as the door is shut, the two people with him remove the masks from their faces.

One of the people is a woman who looks to be in her late thirties or early forties. She has black hair that is tied up in a ponytail, and bright blue eyes framed by black rimmed glasses. She wears a black boiler suit, with a badge clipped to the left breast pocket. Nick reads it clearly, NNSA and CIA Science and Medical Agent Jodie Sweeney. The other person in the back of the ambulance with them is a tall man, with fair hair and blue eyes. He also wears a black boiler suit with a badge clipped to the left breast pocket. NNSA and CIA Agent Dylan Fairbanks.

CIA? Nick thinks to himself. What on Earth has he gotten himself into?

“Am I a prisoner?” Nick blurts out as he looks around, taking in his small yet clinical surroundings. There are various cabinets, monitors, kits and boards attached to the walls. From one of the cabinets, the woman pulls out an elasticated band with a slide buckle on it, and secures it around Nick’s left upper arm extremely tightly.

“Not a prisoner.” She tells him as she works. “Just a patient.”

She takes hold of Nick’s left arm gently, extending it and pressing his inner elbow. Next she inserts a needle and withdraws seven vials of what should be blood, but instead of red blood, the liquid filling the vials is just purple. She keeps the tourniquet on as she presses his forearm, looking for another vein, and then pushes another needle in, inserting a canula and fixing it in place with a clear sticky patch, and then removes the tourniquet.

“What’s that for?” Nick asks, but doesn’t get an answer. He looks to the man then, and notices him taking down notes. “Hey, what are you writing? What’s going on?”

Before Nick can get an answer, his entire body goes rigid, his eyes roll back, and he loses consciousness.

Immediately the man springs up from his seat, and the woman turns around. Both of them give their full attention to Nick, and hurriedly release the straps over him as his body begins to jerk involuntarily.

“Are you timing?” The woman asks as she keeps Nick led on his side, and tilts his head forward.

“Yeah.” The man replies as he keeps an eye on his watch.

“Two minutes.” He announces a few long seconds later.

“Three minutes.” He announces again.

Just under another minute later, the seizure subsides, and Nick regains control of his limbs, bringing his arms and legs up to curl into the foetal position. He blinks rapidly a few times, and coughs a little, taking some much needed deep breaths before tears flood his eyes and begin to put down his cheeks.

“Okay Nick, it’s okay. We’re here, we got you.” The woman tells him.

“Was that the HX896?” The man asks.

“Almost certainly.” The woman replies. “His medical records state nothing about Epilepsy or non epileptic seizures.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Nick stammers a few moments later, and then relaxes back to how he was before.

“You’re okay Nick we’re going to help you okay?” The man tells him. The teen just nods now, and lies still on the gurney for the rest of the journey.

When the ambulance stops moving, and the back doors are opened, the gurney Nick lies on is pulled out, revealing to Nick that they are in fact at an airfield, where an unmarked plane waits for them.

“Where are my parents?” Nick asks weakly.

“I’m afraid you can’t see them anymore Nick.” The man tells him as they board the plane, and the gurney is wheeled in, and locked into place beside one of the walls.

“Nick, my name is Dylan Fairbanks.” The man introduces himself. “I’m a special agent with the NNSA and the CIA of the United States. This is Jodie Sweeney, she’s a doctor, also working for both the NNSA and CIA.”

“What happened to me?” Nick asks now, watching as the plane’s door is closed, and realising that something huge has gone on. He doesn’t get his answer straight away though, as the orders are given to sit down and prepare for take off.

Nick quietens down now, and turns his head to look out of the window as the plane begins taxiing, and then eventually takes off.

All he can think as he feels the wheels leave the ground, is that just a few short hours ago, he was a normal sixteen year old, with GCSEs coming up. He was planning on studying health and social care at college, he was going to join the lifeboat. He had so many plans. Now he’s led propped up on a gurney, on a plane that’s taking him who knows where. He’s been told he can’t see his parents anymore. To top it all off, he’s surrounded by US agents, who were all wearing hazmat suits around him earlier.

“Nick.” He hears the woman’s soft voice, and turns his attention from the window to the two people now stood beside him.

“Nick you were hit by a truck this morning.” The man, Dylan, begins to tell him. “That truck was carrying a shipment of a highly explosive and extremely toxic nuclear chemical named HX896 that was due to be shipped to somewhere else, somewhere I can’t disclose.

When you were hit, the chemical spilled from the container. Now we can’t explain it but you somehow pushed that container off of you just enough to get out seemingly uninjured. Yet your blood was everywhere.”

“Nick when I took those samples from you in the ambulance, did you notice at all the colour of your blood?” The woman, Jodie, asks. Nick simply shakes his head.

With a deep, almost sorrow filled breath, Jodie goes over to a locker, and pulls out a vial of purple liquid, and then opens a refrigerated case, and pulls out a second vial of purple liquid.

“Nick this is HX896.” Jodie holds up the first vial as she begins to tell young Nick a horrifying truth. She then holds up the second vial. “This is one of the samples I took from you. I have tested it, this is 97% HX896, and 3% your blood. Nick we don’t know how you survived. There should have been no possibility of you surviving the accident. Not only that, but the HX896 has completely contaminated your blood stream to an extent where you have next to no blood left, just the chemical.”

“What are you saying?” Nick asks with furrowed brows and his mouth parted in fear of what he is about to be told. But he notices how Jodie holds her hand up to Dylan, ordering him to be quiet.

“Nick, when the chemical spilt this morning, it found a way into your blood stream, and has now become the blood in your veins.” Jodie begins in the most calm and tender voice she can muster. “However until we get to our facility in Nevada we can’t explain fully what has happened to you. We need to run more tests, we need to find out how and why this chemical is able to keep you alive-“

“You said it’s highly toxic and explosive.” Nick points out. “This stuff is inside me. Does that mean I’m, I’m a...”

Dylan and Jodie both look to each other, and Dylan steps forward to place a hand over Nick’s.

Nick doesn’t need his answer, he looks down to his trembling hands, and then curls up into a ball, crying openly.

“The human body has roughly 5.5 litres of blood. Yours has been replaced by HX896, the most explosive chemical known to man. A single explosion using 5.5 litres of HX896 can combust the entire planet. I’m so sorry kid.” Dylan explains and apologises. “Listen though, we’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to keep you alive, give you as normal a life as possible. As soon as we’ve stabilised the chemical inside of you and figured out all of the side effects of you absorbing it then we can work towards giving you some normality back.”

Nick doesn’t respond, he just remains curled up, crying in fear and grief. This morning he was a normal kid, now he’s a living, breathing weapon of mass destruction. He somehow slid out from under a truck, and he somehow healed. It’s not what he wanted to hear, not what he ever wanted to experience, not in a million years. Hollywood always makes it look amazing when something like this happens, but this isn’t amazing, this is terrifying and cruel.

“Nick if you don’t mind, I’m going to run a few tests while we’re in the air. The sooner we can get a handle on this the better.” Jodie comes to him and tells him again. He simply just nods, and allows her to attach pads and wires and monitors to his head, his chest, his hands, everything. He looks over at her workstation while she runs analysis on his blood samples.

For someone who is so terrified, he doesn’t move. But then what happens if he does move? Is he that dangerous that one wrong movement could end the world? He simply doesn’t know, and he certainly doesn’t want that weight on his shoulders.

Two hours pass. Nick still lies on his side, looking down at his hands, opening and closing them, looking at the veins he can see through his skin. They’ve changed colour, they used to just be faint blue lines, now they’re a very prominent purple. He repeats to himself in his head over and over ‘I’m a bomb, I’m a bomb.’

“Okay so I have one preliminary result.” Jodie declares, tearing Nick away from his thoughts. “Nick can you hold this for me please?”

Nick looks as she holds out a full tin can of beans.

“Now crush it.” She tells him, and without arguing he squeezes, but is unable to crush the full can.

“Okay so by the looks of it, you getting out of there this morning was a one off.” Jodie breaths a satisfied sigh as she speaks. She goes over to her laptop then, looking at the readings front Nick’s brain and chest activity.

“Oh my...” She begins but trails off. “Dylan.”

Dylan looks to her and goes over to her now, looking down at the monitor, and then over to Nick.

“Shit. Can we control this?” He asks Jodie.

She nods. “Well yes, but it can’t wait, if I don’t do something now and the chemical has a chance to carry on doing that then we could all be dead long before we even reach Nevada.”

“Dead?” Nick asks, “What’s going on?”

“Nick Doctor Sweeney needs to operate immediately.” Dylan tells him. “The chemical is developing inside your brain and is interacting with your nerves and brain functioning. If it, I want to say consumes but that might not be the best word.... if it isn’t brought under control immediately, there won’t be a world left.”

“Do whatever you have to do, just help me please!” Nick begs. “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”

Jodie doesn’t say another word, she just comes over with a canister, attaches a tube to it and hands it to Nick.

“Okay, Nick breath that normally. Let’s see if we can figure this thing out.” Dylan tells him, and Nick nods, breathing in the contents of the canister, until he is completely unconscious, giving Jodie the time she needs.