Radioactive - Part 1

At last, the time has come.

If anyone is reading this journal, it means I'm already dead. And with my death, I am finally freed from my oath to protect my motherland's secrets.

I want someone to know about me. To know what I and my family have sacrificed for our country. I want them to remember me and my kin as more than just nameless spies.

My name is Sonia Kasparov.

I was born in the capital city of our enemy's land—a city of filth called Under-DC.

You might question my loyalty to my motherland. Why do I remain steadfast in my mission for an empire and a land I've never seen or visited?

Let me explain. It's true—I was born in Underrica. My ethnicity and the address on my identification card are Underrican. But this mission didn't begin with me.

It all began roughly sixty years ago, when oil was discovered in New Alaska. Both the United States and the New Soviet Empire claimed territory in the caverns connecting to New Alaska, granting each side legitimate grounds to assert ownership over the oil fields. Naturally, they tried to share control during the first few years, alternating drilling rights annually. But internal conflicts and acts of sabotage on the rigs eventually led to both sides declaring full-scale war for New Alaska.

I digress. You likely already know all of this, and those details of the past are no longer relevant to the present.

The point is, when the war began, my grandfather was selected to join the first wave of the invasion as part of the vanguard. But that wasn't all—his true mission was to infiltrate the ranks of the injured and refugees fleeing New Alaska to Under-DC.

His mission was to become a spy embedded deep within enemy territory—to uncover and report every piece of intelligence, every weakness. To accomplish this, my grandfather abandoned everything from his homeland to forge a new life in the capital city of our enemy.

This was not a mission of sabotage, nor was it a call to incite rebellion. It was a task of reinvention—to create a new identity, to live a new life, to dwell in the heart of the enemy's city, and to exist as a neighbor to those who had killed his friends.

I cannot begin to imagine how my grandfather lived that life—how he steadied his mind as he greeted those who had once slaughtered his comrades. How he maintained his sanity when forced to erase all memory of his homeland, his family, and everyone he had ever loved.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've written this journal: to recount a story that may otherwise be forgotten. To ensure that my grandfather's sacrifices are remembered. But even that is not my primary purpose.

I've often wondered if my father also kept a journal about my grandfather, much like I am doing now. Every time my father told me stories about him, the details never changed—not a single word out of place, as if he were reading from a script etched in his memory.

Of course, my grandfather executed his mission flawlessly. He infiltrated the refugees during the New Soviet Empire's initial invasion of New Alaska, embedding himself so deeply that he gained citizenship and even a family within the enemy's nation.

It was during this time that he had my father, to whom he revealed the truth about his mission when my father turned eighteen—a tradition my father continued with me.

You might be wondering what mission could demand such extraordinary sacrifices from an entire family of spies. I'll tell you

In our home in Under-DC., the most valuable thing among all our cheap belongings was the massive radio transmitter my father had hidden in the basement. If not for that machine, I would never have believed what he told me on my birthday. You wouldn't have, either. A family of spies, spanning generations since my grandfather, sent to live in enemy territory to uncover weaknesses? Who would believe such a tale?

But that radio was proof. It was enormous, taking up nearly the entire basement. Devices like that were known to be crafted exclusively in the inventor's city of Revachol, meaning it was a priceless artifact—far beyond the means of a dockworker's family like ours.

The moment I saw it, I had no choice but to accept the truth. I began to half-believe, half-doubt when my father started teaching me how to operate the receiver, how to decode transmissions, and how to keep secrets.

I should explain further about how my radio transmitter worked. My father gave me access to seven specific frequencies—frequencies I committed to memory at the age of 18 and swore never to write down (so you'll never be able to verify them for yourself). Every evening, after the lights in the house went out, I would descend into the basement, carefully turning the dial to scan through each frequency, listening with unwavering patience.

Typically, if you tuned a radio to an active frequency, you'd hear a drawn-out "beep," a signal that someone was waiting on the other end.

But for frequencies that weren't active—or those beyond the receiver's range—all you'd hear was the grating hiss of static, a maddening sound that tested my patience every time.

The process was straightforward: tune the dial to a target frequency and listen for a minute. If the static shifted into that telltale "beep," it meant the signal was live. Then, I'd pick up the day's newspaper, read the front-page headlines aloud, and that would conclude my spy duties for the night.

It might sound simple, but the hard part was finding an active signal. Out of the seven frequencies my father had given me, none of them ever seemed to have anyone waiting. No matter how many times I twisted the dial, no matter the time of day, all I ever found was that damned static.

After months of fruitless effort, I began to suspect that my father had lied to me.

"If they need us, you'll find the signal," he replied when I confronted him.

"When was the last time you found one?" I asked.

He glanced at the ceiling, pausing for a moment. "Four years ago."

I was furious—not with my father, but with my motherland. Was this all they had to offer in exchange for the sacrifice of an entire family's lives? To use us only when we were needed?

And what if my motherland no longer needed us?

Should I continue to serve blindly, or accept reality and move on with my life in a nation I'd been taught to hate? How much longer would I endure that maddening static before I could finally admit that my country had abandoned me?

Even so, I kept searching for the signal for years. By the end of the first year, I had stopped buying newspapers to prepare for the day I'd read the headlines aloud. I was no longer waiting to complete my task—I was simply hoping to hear a response.

And then, it happened.

I had been sketching at the time (even spies need hobbies) while letting the static play out for its usual minute before tuning to the next frequency.

It was early afternoon, judging by the dimness of the cavern lights. I remember the waves outside were fierce, and the wind was so strong it brought the rain crashing down. I was coloring a sketch of a bench outside a fish shop onto a piece of paper.

At that moment, the pocket watch hanging from the radio pole clicked, signaling the end of another minute. The static on the frequency remained unchanged. As always, no one was there.

I set down my crayons and reached for the dial to switch frequencies. Turning it gently, I moved my hand to pull down the pocket watch and reset the timer. The sound came the moment I pressed the button.

It was the first time I had ever heard the connection tone—the long, piercing "beep" I'd been waiting for.

The sound reverberated through the basement, drowning the silence. It was so loud I instinctively clamped my hands over my ears, but even that didn't stop the vibration from coursing through my body. My hands trembled, just like the objects around the room. A glass fell from the table. Instruments from the control panel clattered to the floor. The radio's lights flared and flickered, casting shadows across the basement like dancing phantoms.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped. The radio's lights returned to their steady glow. I found myself curled up on the floor, my hands pressed tightly over my ears, drool pooling from the corner of my mouth onto the old newspapers scattered across the ground.

What just happened? Had I done it? Had I finally found the signal? Or had my motherland not abandoned me after all?

Then, I remembered—I was supposed to read the front-page news aloud to whoever might be listening on the other end. My hands scrambled across the floor, searching for the most recent newspaper I could find.

That's when I heard it.

The sound from the radio.

It was strange and otherworldly, unlike anything I had ever heard before. It came in steady bursts, creating a kind of rhythm. A melody? Yes, that seemed like the right word.

I thought it might be music, but I couldn't recognize any instrument capable of producing such sounds. I'd seen guitars and drums in the hands of street performers at dingy bars, but their notes paled in comparison to what I was hearing now.

It was beautiful, profound, and achingly sorrowful.

I don't know how long I remained frozen there, crouched with a newspaper clutched in my hands, but I snapped out of it the moment the sound faded. The music ended, and the basement was swallowed by silence once more.

What the hell was that?

Why was there music on a spy frequency?

Could it have been some sort of code?

A flurry of questions swirled in my mind, but one thing became perfectly clear:

I wanted to hear that mysterious melody again.

From that day on, I spent every spare moment I could steal from my shifts at the docks in the basement, tuning the radio back to that frequency. I hoped—desperately—that I would hear the song again.

As time passed, I began broadening my search, shifting beyond the seven frequencies my father had given me. I started scanning adjacent bands, meticulously documenting the frequencies I'd already checked and creating a timetable for my monitoring sessions.

I began experimenting with the radio's various systems—features my father had never taught me to use. "My father only taught me the essentials for reporting," he had explained when I'd asked about the mysterious buttons and control panels. "But this radio can do much more than that."

Those panels became my key to unlocking encoded frequencies. I realized that many channels filled with static weren't actually empty—they were just encrypted in ways I couldn't initially decipher.

Armed with this knowledge, I gained access to information far beyond anything printed in the newspapers. I could intercept port frequencies used by ship captains to communicate with harbor control, which gave me the names of vessels entering and leaving D.C. I tapped into the trade association's channel, where someone was always reporting profits and the details of imports and exports.

I felt like a god—an omnipresent being who could see and hear everything.

And then, four years after I first heard that mysterious melody from the basement radio, something happened.

I was sitting at my desk, jotting down export lists while monitoring the trade association's frequency. Suddenly, the broadcaster on the other end gasped, their chair scraping loudly as they leapt to their feet. I wondered what could possibly cause them to abandon their profit reports mid-sentence.

I didn't have to wait long for the answer.

"It's a sound!" the broadcaster exclaimed, their voice tinged with both excitement and disbelief. "At first, we thought it was a whale's song, but the rhythm is too structured. The experts on the rig are convinced—it's music!"

My curiosity ignited like a wildfire. This was what I had lived for over the past four years—mysteries and enigmas like this.

To hear that melody again.

I was a god, omnipresent and omniscient.

I held the power to solve this mystery.

The radio receiver gleamed faintly in the darkness of the basement as I began my work.

I checked the trade association's frequency and discovered that most of the exports mentioned in that day's report were crude oil. This confirmed that the location being discussed was New Alaska. With the target destination identified, all I needed was to track a ship departing from D.C. and heading there. If I could intercept the ship's signal upon its arrival, I might be able to deduce the frequency of the dock assigned to the oil rig.

To achieve this, I broke into the harbor's central control station and stole the registry logs of all ship departures for the week. I found that the submarine Arkansor was scheduled to dock in New Alaska the following week. Conveniently, the registry included the Arkansor's assigned frequency. It was almost too easy.

By the time I managed to intercept the oil rig's frequency in New Alaska, the U.S. government had already begun taking control of the situation directly.

I began targeting and decoding high-level U.S. government frequencies. I won't bore you with how long I spent cracking the Pentagon's codes—it took months.

Finally, on the day I succeeded, I intercepted something monumental.

The Pentagon's primary encrypted channel was communicating with a submarine.

The key detail was this: the person speaking on the radio was none other than the president of this country. Because of that, I made sure to record the entire exchange that day.

"This is the Pentagon calling Skyline. Highest priority directive. Immediate return to base."

When you're forced to listen to the president's voice delivering motivational speeches every morning, it's hard not to recognize it—especially if the man happens to be the leader of your enemy's nation.

The other end of the line remained silent for so long that I thought no one was there. But then, a low, bored voice finally broke the silence:

"Go to hell."

What an unorthodox way to address the highest authority in the nation.

"Holland," the president continued, his tone unshaken. "We've found it. We've located the Door."

The Door? Was that the codename for the melody? My curiosity piqued.

Holland was silent for a moment before responding. "Where?"

"We believe it's at a depth of 5,000 meters, beneath the New Alaska drilling platform."

The conversation fell silent again. The president said nothing more, as if waiting for Holland to make a decision.

The seconds stretched into what felt like hours, but eventually, Holland replied:

"One month in D.C."

And with that, the transmission ended, leaving behind a void—one filled with questions that clawed at my mind.

What was the melody? What was the Door?

What lay 5,000 meters below that drilling platform?

What was the Door? What was the Door?

Shortly after, the government announced what it hailed as the largest exploratory project in human history. Through further eavesdropping, I learned the names of the crew selected for the mission, including the captain: Holland Nightfall. That alone was enough to confirm my suspicions. This so-called exploration project was merely a cover for something else—a search for something far more significant.

But what were they searching for?

Was it the natural curiosity ingrained in humanity? Or was it my sense of loyalty to my motherland?

I had made up my mind.

The plan was simple: I would eliminate one of the crew members and take their place aboard the submarine on the day of departure. I chose my target carefully—a communications officer from the African Isles selected specifically for this mission. Based on intercepted transmissions, it seemed the government had arranged his travel and assignment remotely. This worked perfectly in my favor. No one aboard the submarine would know his face, and my knowledge of radio operations would make my impersonation seamless.

I had made my choice.

Whatever lay at the bottom of the ocean, it was enough to mobilize the entire U.S. government. It had to be something that could affect the stability of nations—perhaps even the world. If the United States reached it first, the consequences could be catastrophic.

I couldn't allow that to happen.

If my father is reading this letter, I want him to know that I love our family deeply. My departure was never out of resentment or ill will. You must understand that I am doing this for our homeland—the land we will one day return to.

But if you, a stranger, have stumbled upon this record by mere chance, I want you to remember.

Remember the sacrifices my grandfather made for our nation.

Remember the resolve my father carried forward.

And remember me.

For I am a god, omnipresent and omniscient.

And I will see, with my own eyes, the thing that lies beneath the sunless ocean.