Fordow. Transmutation

31 Khordad 1404 — 1 Tir 1404 (June 21, 2025 — June 22, 2025)

The underground of Fordow vibrated. It wasn’t the trembling of the earth but a low-frequency hum of tension, the resonance of a thousand human fears locked in a concrete box beneath a layer of granite. Zahra stood on the gallery, looking down into the main hall where a mechanical ballet was unfolding.

Forklifts, yellow and clumsy like scarab beetles, scurried between rows of dismantled centrifuges. Men in hazmat suits moved with the unnatural, jerky speed of fast-forwarded film. They were loading containers—lead sarcophagi in which enriched uranium slumbered, the very genie they had released from the bottle and were now trying to stuff back in.

The air was dense, electrified. It smelled of ozone, sweat, and overheated metal. It was the smell of panic disciplined by protocol.

Zahra felt like the priestess of a cult hiding its idols on the last night before the end of the world. She checked markings, verified seal numbers, signed acts. Each signature was a small deal with her conscience. Save the uranium to save people from the uranium. A logical Möbius strip.

General Alavi emerged from the shadows like the phantom of the opera. He was without his tunic, in a shirt with rolled-up sleeves, looking not like a general but like a weary accountant balancing debits and credits before the firm went bankrupt.

“It is time for you to go, Dr. Mousavi,” he said, not raising his voice but cutting through the hum of the forklifts. “Rezai’s information has been confirmed. Russian satellites are detecting activity. The ‘birds’ are already in the air.”
“And you?” she asked, zipping up her laptop bag.
“I will stay for now. Need to purge the archives. Paper burns better than metal, but it’s harder to collect.”

Zahra looked at him. At his gray temples, at the deep wrinkles around his eyes. The man who had been the shadow behind the mirror of her life. The architect of her fears. If he perishes here, under a pile of concrete and secrets, will she regret it? Or will she feel relief, like a prisoner whose jailer died of a heart attack?

She didn’t know. Emotions, like isotopes, had decayed… Only trajectory calculations remained. Only physics.

“The children?” she asked.
“I was with them yesterday. It’s quiet in Abyaneh. Nasrin was chatting with some soldier, and Zeynab was baking bread with Mrs. Yezdi.”

Zahra immediately remembered the soldier from the checkpoint. It must have been him.

“Amirkhan?”
“On duty. Their office was bombed the night before last, but he was out. Alive. Coordinating the corridor for your convoy.”
“Good.”

Alavi handed her a folder.

“The destination coordinates are with the convoy commander. Base ‘Eagle’ in the Zagros Mountains. I need you to oversee the safety of the cargo on the road. And during unloading. You are the only one who understands what is inside these crates. To the soldiers, they are just heavy boxes. To you—critical mass.”

“I understand.”

She took the folder. Their fingers touched for a second. His hand was cold.

“Goodbye, Asadollah,” she said, calling him by his first name for the first time.
“Until we meet again, Zahra,” he replied. “In this life or the next.”

She exited through the airlock. The fresh air hit her face like a slap. The night was black and starless, as if the sky had draped itself in mourning crepe.

The convoy stood at the tunnel exit. Trucks covered with tarps, armored personnel carriers for escort. And at the very end, a gray-yellow UAZ Hunter she was to ride in.

She climbed into the front seat. The driver, a young lieutenant with a tense face, nodded to her.

“Ready, Doctor?”
“Let’s go.”

The car moved. Zahra watched in the side mirror as the tunnel mouth receded, looking like the maw of a monster. She thought about how she had spent a whole week underground. Seven days of creation in reverse. Seven days during which she tried to bury—or excavate?—the last twenty years of her life. Her career, her ambitions, her mistakes. All of it was now riding in the back of a truck, packed in lead.

They had driven a few hundred meters when the world cracked open.

First came the sound—not an explosion, but a whistle, a piercing, inhuman shriek of torn air, as if the sky were screaming in pain.

And then—the impact.

The ground jumped. The UAZ was tossed up like a toy on a trampoline. Zahra hit her head on the roof, teeth clacking together. The car skidded to a halt on the gravel.

She threw open the door and tumbled out.

Where the tunnel entrance had just been, a column was rising. It wasn’t a mushroom. It was a geyser. A pillar of dust, sand, and concrete shooting into the sky. GBU-57. The “Bunker Buster.” It entered the mountain like a syringe needle into a vein and injected death into the very heart of the complex.

The sound of the explosion arrived a second later—a dull, guttural thud that clogged the ears.

Zahra stood and watched. She saw the mountain settle, the rocks crumble into sand. Down there was Alavi. Down there were the archives. Down there was her lab. Her life. It was all over.

“Everyone intact?!” the convoy commander’s shout broke through the ringing in her ears.
“Yes! Cargo is normal!”
“Then move! Faster! The next one could land here!”

The lieutenant tugged at her sleeve.

“Doctor! In the car!”

She climbed back in. Her hands were shaking.

“Let’s go,” Zahra whispered.

The convoy surged forward, carrying Iran’s radioactive heart away from its grave.

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