Inoctium was the name of the compound that
they had invented in the lab. It had many properties that a normal human would
have deemed incredible and many of those who had been involved in the project
thought exactly that. Many had wanted to leave the project before it was
finalized but that wasn’t possible, as no one wanted any leaks or stolen
information. It was obvious that any foreign power, anyone to be honest, would
love to have their hands on such a potentially disastrous little element. So
very few knew about its existence and another handful thought it was just an
urban legend and that no one would be so stupid to create something so
incredibly dangerous, although good in every way too.
Only a small amount had been created but what
had amazed the creators was what that small quantity could do. It was an
alchemist’s dream as it had the capacity of transforming anything into
platinum, one of the most expensive metals in the world. It could also be used
to manipulate magnetic fields so many objects had been created around it to
transform the world, as we know it. But of course, all of those objects, like
flying devices and many military weapons, had not come out to the world yet.
The committee that had approved tests to create the compound, finally decided
to cancel the whole thing altogether and ordered the inoctium to be destroyed
in the act and not a single thread of evidence to be left around. The reactions
were varied but it wasn’t like they could say anything to prevent it.
Nevertheless, the destruction never took
place. And that was simply because the inoctium behave almost as if it was a
living creature, a very strong and resilient creature. It couldn’t be
destroyed. They tried every single corrosive agent, viruses, alloys, even small
bombs but nothing seemed to do anything to it. The only real difference they
detected was that the amount of inoctium had somehow grown larger. The
committee, after hearing the results of the attempts to kill the thing, decided
to keep it away from every single human forever. It was sent to a nuclear waste
disposal facility, where the deepest chamber had been redesigned to contain
even the largest explosion. The inoctium was placed there, under several locks,
security and around several amounts of nuclear waste.
Its creators never forgot about it. They felt
it was their baby, their proudest moment as scientists. But they knew it was
dangerous so they never spoke about the inoctium, ever again. The files that
had been created around it had all been destroyed and their lab was dismantled.
Thirty years passed and no one dared to go back to those dark times. That was
until the day Yucca mountain, the place were the inoctium rested, exploded in a
massive way. A whole was opened in the desert and some small towns were in the
way; the earthquake that was generated wiped them out. It was the biggest
disaster involving anything nuclear and scientists couldn’t explain what
happened.
But
the creators of the inoctium, a group of only six people, knew exactly what had
happened. They had warned the government against burying the compound in a
place were other chemicals and elements were kept but no one heard then and no
heard after the explosion, mainly because only a handful of government
officials knew about inoctium and they were all close to retirement. The
president didn’t believe a word that he heard, thinking that if such a powerful
thing existed, the past governments would have used to finally impose the
country on the world. Maybe that was what he would have done but it wasn’t what
had happened. The team knew that the explosion had a cause but no one would
believe them.
Two of them, who had married and had children,
decided to try and recreate the process that had created the inoctium but they
failed horribly, dying in another explosion, less massive but also a tragedy.
Only the two of them died, so the other four members of the team knew what had
happened. They insisted on talking to the president, they wanted to explain to
him how it all worked for him to understand but he just wouldn’t listen. Word
had it that he was trying to blame the explosion on some terrorist group or
another country, so he could get a hand on their resources. This president was
not like the other who hid their intentions; he didn’t care for those who were
ashamed of what had to be done, according to him.
The team reunited with other experts and
tried for them to understand what was going on and how they should prevent
anyone from mishandling what was left of the compound on the site of the explosion.
If the wrong person got there first or if someone mishandled the inoctium,
something even more awful could happen. The scientific community was much more
receptive than the government, mainly because the four remaining members of the
team had time to explain how they had created the compound and what were its
properties. By doing so they were going against the law and against every
single paper they had to sign the day the inoctium project was shut down. But
lives had been lost and they couldn’t afford to allow more to happen.
Nevertheless, the scientific community was
very divided. Some, like the government, thought the four scientists were
insane old people that needed to be in a retirement home and not talking to
anyone about science. Others believe some parts but the properties of the
inoctium were the thing that put them in high doubt. And other believed them,
mainly because they had worked on similar projects before that had ended in
failure. Despite that, they felt it was possible to do what they had tried to
do back then. So the team got some support and tried again to contact the
government, with no more success than before. It was announced, a few days
after, that the country had concluded the explosion to be a terrorist attack.
For the members of the team, it was a tragedy
when they saw the images of tanks and planes attacking some country on the
other side of the world. The government had declared them guilty of harboring
terrorists and claimed that they should be brought to justice. What was obvious
after a few days though, was the fact that every suspect they found was killed.
No one was apprehended. In a few days that nation had fallen and occupation
began, like it had happened before elsewhere. Of course, every single company
prepared their luggage and landed in the destroyed country to set up business,
weather it was security related or minerals related. Anyway, the world had lost
another piece and scientists weren’t closer to prove anything.
So
they decided to disobey in the most visible way possible: they would get the
proper equipment and then travel to Nevada, were the explosion had taken place,
to illegally enter the site and see for themselves if the inoctium had been
destroyed or not. Many fellow scientists helped them prepare and get the
equipment and it took them only a week to be prepared and leave for the desert.
They had brought weapons too because this time they weren’t going to be just
scientist but also madmen, even if there was a women among them. When they got
to Nevada, they started doing vigilance on the site, which was very heavily
guarded. Fortunately, they were able to get a military drone from one of its
makers and used it.
The drone discovered that the site was not
only a whole on the ground as it had been portrayed in the media. The truth was
that they had built several building around the explosion site and the crater
created had been covered by a white fabric, which looked like plastic, or
something like it. They didn’t get to see or know more as the drone was shot
down and by the military, who were the ones guarding the place. The scientists
had controlled it remotely so no one knew it had been them watching but they
decided to head for Las Vegas, to think about their next step. The news had
changed their headlines from “Patriotic war” to “Our heroes triumphed” showing
military man “guarding” the streets of a ravaged town.
The team knew they just couldn’t get into the
site as no one would allow them to and another drone would be even more
dangerous, because then they would really be in the eye of the storm. They
didn’t know what to do, what to think of it all. Because of them, because of
what they had done so many years ago, people were dying every day. That fake
war and the explosion were a symptoms of a cancer that had to be taken out. And
although the government was also another disease, it was preferable to deal
with the inoctium first. They planned to seek help from the opposition to the
president and to the war and try to get international help from scientists around
the world, willing to speak on their behalf.
But when the war on the other side of the
world expanded and spilled onto other countries, the scientists were rendered
mute. Because on one morning in august, people around the world got to see the
most incredible and most horrible thing in the world: the military had used the
inoctium against other. They had seized it and created weaponry with it.
Easily, the world started to crumble and people, for the first few seconds,
were all without a voice. They couldn’t believe they were seeing the end of
their world on their TV and computer screens. And many wouldn’t get to see the
real end, further ahead.
