"Do you believe any of this crap?" Konrad asked.
And it felt like this wasn't the first time he had this question.
Dmitry noticed it, too, smirking to himself.
"I mean, the Soviets did have some whacky stuff. The Duga, for one, is real and is nearby, too."
"The what?" Konrad froze, scratching his head.
The Captain sighed, pointing far ahead.
With the weather so clear and the sun already high in the sky, it was easy to spot what it was.
A huge antenna complex in the distance, off to the right of where they were heading now.
"W-what the hell is that thing?!" Konrad scowled, his breath hanging in the cold air.
The sheer size of it stunned him.
"The Duga," the Captain repeated. "An early-warning radar to catch missile launches from the other end of the planet. And many, many rumors existed about it throughout its days."
"I see. One of them being that it'll scorch the brain of anyone going too close," he mumbled.
Dmitry nodded.
"The Brain Scorcher," he said. "Sounds silly, but I don't know. After your show yesterday, I'm tempted to believe anything they said. Like, magic exists as well. Plus, why'd they lie to us?"
Why indeed?
If anything, Yuri was way too thankful and friendly to mess with them.
Konrad's performance seemed to amaze the leader, even though he didn't remember it.
"But if we discount magic, radiation, and all," he tried. "Would it be possible to fry someone's brain? With radio waves alone. To control them, or turn them into zombies?"
Could his Isekai Microwave do that?!
The Captain lowered his AK and chuckled.
"Never read Cold War stories with sleeper agents and brainwashing?" he asked, fiddling with his rear sight. "The tech might as well exist. But how'd it end up here is another question."
Yeah. And why?
Who paid for all those relay antennas? Or benefited from them?
What was their purpose?
And also, if Strelok wasn't the one creating the Zone, what did he have to do with it?
"See, if you weren't in such a hurry this morning, you could have asked Yuri about this," the Captain pointed out. "If nothing else, they seemed to have had some entertaining theories."
Entertaining. Not the word he had in mind.
Konrad narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge his friend's expression.
"You're enjoying this," he concluded in the end. "Didn't you want to rush back to your post?"
They both had places to be, after all.
No matter how well they were doing in this surreal nightmare so far.
"Look," Dmitry said, slowing his steps. "I love my country and want to fight for it. Wouldn't mind dying, either. But when I stumble upon a secret like this, hidden from me all this time?!"
Yeah. He got it.
This was like running into the dumbest conspiracy theory and finding it to be true.
Or, rather, to be much worse than the wildest rumors he had heard about it so far.
And where was the logic in the Zone?
Why did it even exist?
Who made it? Or who kept it running?
If Lucifer wasn't involved in it—no, he had to be.
"Anyway, you want your Strelok, I want the truth," the Captain summarised. "It's as serious for me as it is for you. But don't you get this thrill as we uncover more and more secrets?"
"Thrill?" Konrad repeated, his steps faltering. "You mean dread?!"
It seemed like they weren't built the same after all.
But that was part of why Konrad wasn't still in Kyiv trying to find the coldest clue.
Instead, he sorted through the information they had gathered yesterday.
"Which reminds me," he changed the topic. "Tell me if I've got anything wrong. But. The way I understand it, we're facing a broadcast system that prevents us from reaching the center."
"That's what I gathered," the Captain nodded. "The Brain Scorcher."
"Because monsters and anomalies weren't enough to keep people away from the CNPP."
"I'd say it's the opposite," Dmitry smirked. "As there are no artifacts without anomalies."
"Yeah, but everything else I can explain with magic," Konrad noted. "The anomalies could be accidental or random, too. But this Brain Scorcher? This thing is deliberate. Man-made. So—"
"Who and why?" his friend asked. "Yeah, that's what I want to find out, too."
And that's why they headed towards this 100 Rads Bar, already at the first light in the morning.
How far was it still?
They must have been walking for—
"These distances bother me, though," the Captain said out of the blue. "Like, look at that huge antenna. It could reach the other side of Earth, but they needed relays to cover the Zone?"
Right. If it were in sight, it should have been able to affect them, too.
"Different wavelengths, I guess?" Konrad shrugged. "I'm more curious how Strelok got past it."
Because every time they got an explanation, it only raised more questions.
Not that it would be anything new to him. But it was still annoying.
"Immunity? You say he's a special cookie. Or found a gap. Underground?" Dmitry kept guessing.
And yeah, those were all possibilities.
But as long as they didn't know the exact one, they couldn't follow him.
Not into the heart of the Zone, right on the edge of winter.
And as if his thoughts affected the weather, the sky in the distance changed.
It turned deep red.
Then that odd feeling hit him.
Ba-dong.
"S-something's happening," Konrad whispered, right as their PDAs started beeping.
"I don't see anything," Dmitry said, checking his device.
The old merchant's voice filled the speakers through a bunch of static.
"Attention, Stalkers. An emission is imminent. Find cover immediately. I repeat—"
"Emission?" Konrad muttered, a headache already forming. "That Blowout thing he mentioned earlier? What does even count as a cover when it comes to that?!"
The Captain froze, too, but for a different reason.
"Um. I don't know, but—what's happening with the forest?"
He raised his gun, and Konrad followed his gaze along the barrel.
His eyes found it only after he could feel the ground shaking.
Animals. Mutated or not, all running.
They formed a huge swarm.
Rodents, blind dogs, even boars. Everything.
And as the emergency message repeated, they all trampled their way towards them.
"How far is the 100 Rads Bar?!" Konrad demanded, scrambling to grab his gun, too.
"A hundred yards to the next friendly checkpoint," Dmitry yelled. "And another mile from that."
No. The checkpoint had to do then. Did it have safe cover?
And could they run a hundred yards before that swarm caught up with them?!
"Which way?! I can't see shit," Konrad grunted, spinning around.
Ruins left and right, no extra life-forms showing up on his proximity radar.
"Behind that tree line," the Captain claimed, already running. "Might've already pulled back."
"As long as they had somewhere to pull back nearby," Konrad panted, struggling to keep up.
The Spark artifacts.
Not that he had them, but he knew how they worked now.
"No cover behind us, so there's only forward," he shouted, casting the spell on both himself and his friend. "This'll keep us going. But we won't outrun that crazy swarm."
Nor would they outrun the storm.
Because all around them, all hell broke loose in the Zone.