Chernobyl’s Fantastic Four Went Missing

April 26, 1986—Reactor 4 at Chernobyl explodes. While the world fights radiation fires, four unidentified bodies are discovered beneath the core, still breathing. Soviet commanders divert them to a black-site high in the Carpathian Mountains. Researchers code-name the project “Volia”—Freedom—because the subjects are anything but free. \n\nMichael Reid absorbs ionizing energy and releases it as incandescent plasma. Sarah Quinn slips through concrete as if it were mist. David Brooks bonds with metal until it becomes living armor. Emma Blake’s voice shatters matter itself, so they weld a steel muzzle over her mouth. Electric shock collars link all four—one disobedience drops them all. \n\nFor six years they’re prodded, weaponized, erased from every record. Then 1992: the Soviet Union collapses. Cameras blink. A plasma flash l ...