The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 15

The thought of entering another Zone of Exclusion — another radioactive ghost town — might have made someone with Bobby’s experiences anxious. To Bobby’s own surprise, it didn’t. From the moment the old man had told them where they were going, a strange fascination gripped him. How would the two radioactive ghost towns compare? Would he see signs that reminded him of Chornobyl, or would it be completely different? The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t wait to get there.

The old man left in his truck. Nadia, Johnny, and Bobby followed Dr. Nakamura into the back of the van. He closed the door and handed out shortwave radios with earpieces. They were very cool, something the KGB would have used in the old days when they were tailing suspected spies. Then the doctor showed them how to wear their respirators. Technology had improved. They made the old rubber gas masks Bobby had found piled high in an abandoned Chornobyl classroom look like alien body parts. Vented cups and mouthpieces fit snugly over his nose and mouth. At first they felt a little claustrophobic, but adrenaline washed away the sensation.

Once they were comfortable with the respirators, Dr. Nakamura told them to take them off for the next leg of the trip. Nadia sat in the front in the passenger seat. Johnny and Bobby sat in the second row of seats. Dr. Nakamura guided the van back onto the main road and headed further east toward the coast of Japan.

“We have a half-hour drive to the checkpoint at the Exclusion Zone. I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up myself but I had to get this van. And I couldn’t have you show up at the Global Medical building. That’s why I had to ask my father for a favor. I had to have him drive you out here. We had you go out the back door at the inn straight into the truck just in case someone was following you. Per Genesis II’s request.”

“I presume the checkpoint is guarded,” Nadia said.

“Yes.”

“Will the guards ask us for ID?” Johnny said.

“They know me, and I usually have someone with me. There’s a slight risk because there are three of you this time, but I don’t think it will be a problem.”

“I could pose as a journalist if that would help,” Nadia said. “I’ve done it twice before with good success.”

“No,” Dr. Nakamura said. “That would not help. That would not help at all.”

“You make it sound like it might actually put us at risk.”

“It would accomplish the opposite of what you are hoping. It would make you extremely unpopular and draw immediate attention to you.”

Nadia appeared shocked. “Why?”

“Because the earthquake and tsunami changed perceptions of foreign media forever. The only reliable sources of information were social media. Facebook. Twitter. Elder generations who didn’t know what the words meant grew to rely on them for timely, accurate, and objective updates. The foreign press was all about headlines. It made the disaster sound worse than it actually was. It painted a hopeless situation. Made it sound as though the apocalypse was arriving. Japan was already communing and rebuilding while the rest of the world was still watching a train wreck.”

“Good to know,” Nadia said. “My primary alter ego is worthless in Japan.”

“If they ask, I’ll tell them you’re volunteers. If they see your faces they might ask questions because the volunteers are mostly college students. So when we are two minutes away, I will ask you to put your breathing equipment back on. It will hide your faces. The guards won’t ask you to take it off. They don’t know who’s been exposed to radiation. They don’t want any contact with you. So we should be okay.”

“I don’t understand something,” Bobby said.

Nakamura raised his eyebrows and tilted his ear toward the back seat.

“If there are no people in the Zone of Exclusion, why would anyone need a doctor? How could anyone need treatment or medical supplies, when there’s no one to treat?”

“Officially,” Dr. Nakamura said, “there are no people living in the Zone of Exclusion. But unofficially…”

Just like Chornobyl, Bobby thought. “There are squatters.”

Dr. Nakamura frowned. “Squatters?”

“People who’ve come back to live in their homes even though they’re not supposed to,” Bobby said.

“Yes. The woman we are visiting today does not have long to live. She insisted she wants to spend her final days in her own home. The government allowed her to go back, but kept it quiet so they did not set a bad example for other people who are not seriously ill and simply want to return. I help take care of the woman.”

“You and who else?” Nadia said.

“Another doctor alternates days with me. And there are a few volunteers who take turns staying with her overnight. Last night, it was a certain volunteer you want to meet.”

Soon they would know if there was a complete formula. Soon Bobby’s curiosity would be satisfied regarding the second boy’s identity. Was he Japanese, Ukrainian, or something entirely different?

They stopped at a gas stand along the way to use the restrooms. Two minutes before arriving at the checkpoint, they put on their respirators. A series of red and white cones appeared on the road ahead. Six men dressed in black coats and pants milled around a mobile home. One of them marched into the middle of the street and lowered a red flag. It contained three Japanese characters. The word “Stop” was written in English below them.

The guard walked around toward the driver’s side. He scanned the car’s interior. The other guards stopped chatting. They stood by the mobile home and watched. Bobby was surprised they weren’t carrying rifles. In Ukraine, the guards at the Zone carried rifles. But these guards wore black coats that fell between their hips and knees. Bobby guessed they had weapons concealed beneath them. Maybe that was the Japanese way. In Ukraine, everything was in your face. Success, failure, honor, corruption. Even guns. From what he’d read in his guidebook on the plane, the Japanese liked to keep a civil face, and keep their emotions hidden beneath the surface. Apparently they liked to keep their guns hidden as well.

A truck rolled up to the checkpoint from the opposite side. It was headed out of the Zone. The driver and his passenger wore blue hazmat suits. The guard took one look at it and waved it through.

Dr. Nakamura rolled down his window. He exchanged some rapid-fire dialogue with the guard. There was some nodding, smiling, and pleasant-sounding conversation. It was clear by their exchange the guard and Dr. Nakamura knew each other.

The guard glanced in the back of the van. He gave Johnny, Nadia, and Bobby a quick once-over and let them through. They drove past the other guards along the main road. A cityscape awaited them ahead.

“Welcome to the city of Okuda,” Dr. Nakamura said. “Welcome to the Zone of Exclusion.”

The words fascinated Bobby. He’d never imagined they’d be spoken anywhere but in Pripyat. But now here he was, in another Zone. Another nuclear ghost town. It was as remarkable to him that human beings had allowed such an accident to happen. Didn’t anyone pay attention to what happened in Chornobyl? Didn’t people understand that what could go wrong with nuclear power would eventually go wrong, no matter how small the odds?

No, he thought. And they still didn’t. Not even after Fukushima. No one wanted to understand. People were lazy. They didn’t like to change. It cost too much money and effort.

They approached the town. The road resembled a hastily constructed jigsaw puzzle. Appliances lay scattered along a patch of land. Bobby couldn’t count all the rice cookers. They must have been washed away by the wave. Refrigerators, televisions, and microwave ovens. He had once scavenged the junkyards of Chornobyl for anything that could be sold on the black market. The refrigerators would have motors. Some of the microwaves might still work. Plenty to scavenge here. Plenty of money for the making.

They drove into town. Empty shops, homes, and restaurants packed block after block. Some had been reduced to rubble. Many were partially damaged, with blown-out windows and caved-in roofs. Others stood untouched and abandoned. Electric wires ran along the side of the street, still in place high along poles. Traffic lights blinked yellow at intersections.

The scene mesmerized Bobby. The town dwarfed Pripyat, made it look like a college campus that had been overtaken by the wilderness. This was a twenty-first-century city turned ghost town. Pripyat was so overgrown one didn’t expect to see humans. Here one held his breath expecting someone to step out of a door any minute. But no one did. To Bobby, Okuda cast an eerier spell than Pripyat. It was a modern town in a wealthy country, which made its emptiness all the more stark and remarkable.

They came across eight folding chairs lined up in the middle of the street. One of the chairs had been kicked over. The rest looked as though they were waiting for their owners to come out of the nearby coffee shop with cups of green tea. Dr. Nakamura drove onto the sidewalk to pass them. The chairs had been left by people who’d waited until the last second, Bobby thought. People who didn’t want to leave their properties regardless of the risks, and were forced to evacuate by the government. There had been plenty of those in Chornobyl, too.

And then there were the animals. Cats sat in windows by themselves, or prowled the alleys in groups. A dog dug through a garbage can. A pair of cows stood at an intersection beneath a red traffic light. They looked lost and hopeless. They refused to move until Dr. Nakamura sounded his horn. Two blocks further up the road, a horse ran around the corner and disappeared.

They turned right. A sign said they were headed toward the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

“The power plant was built too close to the sea,” Dr. Nakamura said. “The tsunami flooded the generators that provide the power to the pumps. The pumps that sent cooling waters to the reactors. When the pumps failed, the only thing that would have prevented the reactors from melting down was seawater. But the government hesitated because the seawater would ruin the reactors, which were very expensive to build. By the time they changed their minds and flooded the reactors with seawater, three reactors had full meltdown.”

“Government men,” Bobby said. “Never trust government men.”

“I wouldn’t have said this before the nuclear disaster,” Dr. Nakamura said. “But you may be right. The situation in Fukushima today is far worse than the outside world knows. In a few minutes, I will show you. Once you have seen with your eyes, all will be clear. Then we will meet with Genesis II.”