Radioactive - Book 1: Birth 🪼

Forty-Eight

"Yeah...?"

"I lied. You are special. Very special actually."

I blink at him as he smiles sadly at me but it's hard to take him seriously with his swollen eyes and busted lip. So I laugh a little, hoping he's just joking.

"You're just trying scare me." I say with another laugh.

"I wish I was, but I'm not. You're something very special due to some very interesting things that make up who you are... Rupert, you have the ability to create anomalies."

I stare at him for a moment and make a face.

"Anemones?"

"I know you're trying to play coy but this is serious stuff, R. It means your life. Anomalies, singularities, irregular issues, whatever you want to name it. Your whole being has the ability to make anomalies in people."

"But... what do you mean?"

"Girvan, Nalak, others you may not even realize you've affected... things have happened because of you being there."

"I... I don't understand."

"And that's okay." he said with a weak smile. "You don't need to understand. The fact of the matter is that you are rare and that rarity makes you special and it makes you valuable. When Naives found out that you weren't just an RH- but you were a singularity? It made his rage boil and that's why he's treating me like this."

"But I don't understand what you mean by causing these anomalies. I mean, I know I helped make Nalak turn into an albino and all but I thought that was because I was an RH-?"

"Partly. Nalak's transformation happened too quickly, suddenly almost. The Altered are either born that way or made that way. If they are made due to outside forces, the transformation is slow and progressive. Nalak turned into a full albino almost overnight. That's not normal... It was because of you that it happened and then he got pregnant, something an albino shouldn't be able to do. You caused that, R."

"I got the book but all I found were these weird looking pendants." Matt says, walking over with two long chained necklaces with the strange looking pendants he was talking about.

"Good-"

We all turn at the sound of doors opening and closing loudly and we look back at Dad.

"Those pendants will keep you from being detected by the cameras. They release a certain chemical that blocks the sensor the cameras use to detect unauthorized Alters. It will help you a lot, R, when going back to Badlands."

"This stuff may keep us from being detected on the sensors but what about face to face encounters? If R's supposed to be a fugitive, then won't the police be doing inspections or something?"

"If you press the button on the pendant, it gives you something I call 'shadow face'. It uses the water molecules in the air to distort your features enough to look like someone else. It only works for ten minutes before it recharges. The chemical reacts to your Altered bodies and comes through the pendant and out. It will never run out."

"You created this for us?" I ask, looking at the weird pendants.

"I had a feeling something bad would happen and I knew that I had to keep you safe, both of you. You were the last of us, of me and your mother, and we couldn't just let you go... but now I have to. For you to survive, you have to leave me here and go back to the Badlands. I know it may not seem great and it's been so confusing for you, Ramey, but the Badlands is the safest place for you to be. The closer you are to danger the farther you are from harm and being nearer to the Badlands means they won't think to look there. You're running on barrowed time, boys. Put those on and head back. I'm so sorry you had to see what's happened and what's going on between us and the RDC. I never wanted this for you."