The Unknown

xxi.

"Eat. You'll feel better," Van insisted, pushing a tray of food into my lap. I wanted to hurl it across the room in frustration, but it looked far too appetizing to my empty, growling stomach. I picked up a fork and dug in with a resentful glare in his direction.

They'd provided me with a hunk of bread, a colorful salad, and some sort of noodle dish. My tongue didn't particularly register the individual flavors; my mind was too focused on the euphoria of satiating my extreme hunger, regardless of what the food tasted like.

"You're not just a lab tech, are you?" I asked between furious bites. "You won't leave me alone."

Van didn't respond, continuing to fiddle with the heart monitor machine at my side.

I stopped chewing. "What if I refuse?"

He looked up now, confused. "Refuse what?"

"To eat."

He eyed me, his face inscrutable. "Don't be ridiculous. You're malnourished. You must be hungry."

"That's not the point. I don't want to be here, and you people won't let me—"

He interrupted me with a heavy sigh. "If you decide to starve yourself as some sort of...protest, we have other ways to feed you, like a nasogastric tube if necessar—"

"So you want to keep me alive and healthy, then. For what?" 

He looked uncomfortable that I'd managed to deduce this from his words—that he'd revealed it without meaning to. He hesitated, then replied, "Yes. We do."

"Then please, would you stop the mental torture? What's the end goal of keeping us here?" I pleaded. "Don't I have a right to know? It's my life."

"You're remarkably persistent, you know that?" He buried his face in his hands and went silent for a long moment. 

Then he inhaled sharply and spoke, "Okay, I can't answer your questions, but I will tell you something you might find interesting." He bit at his lip as if he wasn't sure he should tell me whatever he was about to say. 

"Do you know the real history of our society—why the government keeps everyone quarantined behind city walls?" he asked gazing into my eyes.

I blinked a few times, processing his question and sudden change of heart. "I didn't think there was a reason...beyond being authoritarian assholes who want to keep everyone under their surveillance and control."

"There's more to it than that," he said, smiling now. "Not that you're wrong."

"Actually," I paused as my brain worked to unearth ancient memories from my childhood,  "I remember my parents warning me that it was dangerous out there. But they would never answer when I asked why."

He nodded, then began, "The government has tried to bury this story, but it's been passed down by the older generations who lived it." His eyes focused far away. I stared at him expectantly.

"More than a century ago, there was a devastating war. Like most wars, it was a selfish, useless conflict over power, wealth, and resources." He took a deep, shaky breath. "Our opposition invented a new weapon, far more deadly than anything before it. Similar to the atomic bombs of the twentieth century, they unleashed radiation. 

"But these new weapons—called vapor bombs—actually did little structural damage; instead, they released unfathomable amounts of radiation over vast distances. The radiation is highly lethal, and its rate of decay is very slow. It's an invisible, insidious killer. In this case, our entire continent was rendered a radioactive wasteland, with massive swaths of land uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Millions of people died. And, unsurprisingly, we lost the war.

"The Cities were built in the least affected places, but even so, they had to remove meters of topsoil for it to be safe. To this day, all drinking water must be thoroughly purified." Van continued in a serious tone, "And this is where it comes back to you. The enigma of you and your friends. You all survived out there for more than three years. You planted food in the soil, drank the water, and constantly breathed the air—all of it highly contaminated. You should all be dead."

I shuddered unwillingly. The room was silent for a minute as I struggled to digest this overwhelming new information. It answered questions I never knew I had, but it simultaneously created countless new, unanswered ones.

"What about Doc?" I broke the thundering silence with an unsteady voice. "He lived with us too."

"Very perceptive. Doc's test results just came back. He's riddled with cancer," Van said plainly. "It's honestly a miracle he survived this long. The area you settled did measure below average microsieverts per hour—it wasn't the hardest hit."

"Riddled with cancer?" I repeated in disbelief.

"Yes. You all, however, are perfectly healthy," he said. "Well, of course, there are some striking abnormalities in your cells, but none of them appear to be cancerous," he amended.

When I spoke again, my voice came out in a hollow whisper. "What about the soldiers they sent to take us?" I thought of Matt and how much I was indebted to him for freeing Kyle.

"The government doesn't care about pawns as insignificant and disposable as soldiers." He eyed my suddenly somber expression with obvious confusion, then added, "They were only exposed for a few days. They'll most likely be fine." 

Van yawned, stretched his arms above his head, then relaxed into his chair. Apparently, storytime was over. With a lanky arm, he plucked a clipboard and pen from the table beside him. "How's your head? Any pain?"

I was about to make a fuss about cooperating with his questioning, but I decided against it. He'd just given me a lot of information that he didn't have to. Though I hadn't forgotten about everything terrible that he was complicit in, from drugging and shocking me to slicing out a chunk of my brain. "It's fine," I replied curtly. 

He abruptly shined a flashlight into my left eye. Instantly, I was launched into the memory of being blinded by sunlight as I emerged from the hatch to meet my current fate. I winced away from the glaring light.

Van quickly lowered his hand, his eyes full of concern. "Did that hurt? I'm s—"

"No, no, just...remembering," I murmured, returning to reality.

Van nodded slowly and jotted something on his clipboard. Then he shone the light into my other eye. He said, "Pupillary response looks good. You're recovering well."

I took a breath and raised my eyes to meet his. "What happens next?"

His lips parted, but it took a moment for any words to come out. "I don't know, Tess." His voice sounded oddly strained. "A government committee will decide what to do with you. It's out of your control and mine, so please, don't worry about it. Just rest." 

He arose and swiftly crossed the room. For a moment, I began to question whether this niceness was all an act—some sort of ploy to get me to trust him. There was a genuine honesty in his eyes, but I wasn't sure I should allow it to convince me of anything.

"You have to let me see Doc again," I said, making him pause in the doorframe.

He didn't turn around, but I saw him nod slowly. "I'll see what I can do."

He left, swinging the door shut behind him. 

For the first time, I was alone in my very own prison cell while entirely unintoxicated—a terrifying combination.