"How could this happen?!"
Waking up to that angry yelling wasn't the best thing in the world, especially in all that pain.
And that folding bed was uncomfortable, too.
But at least, he was no longer wearing that ridiculous orange space suit.
"The psy emissions got much stronger," Sakharov explained. So the first one to yell must have been Hermann. "Fifteen percent increase from before the Blowout, and then—"
"This says thirty. Thirty percent while you were out there?!" his colleague argued. "Impossible."
"The numbers are correct," the scientist noted, and Konrad could almost hear him shrug.
But they weren't in the living quarters. The voices came from inside the lab.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," Dmitry said, smirking, leaning against the doorframe. "You're an idiot."
Again. Why couldn't he wake up without insults or pain once?!
But credit where credit's due, the Captain must have saved his life.
"Thanks," Konrad mumbled, his throat hoarse. "Did you drag me all the way back?"
"Hermann helped," he noted, pushing himself off the wall. "How are you holding up?"
Yeah. How? After a question like that, he would have rolled his shoulders, twisted his torso to see how his body behaved. But now, even the thought of it caused him immense pain.
"Not well," he groaned, staying put in that uncomfortable bed. "They got me good."
"Yeah, they did. Should've put your vest underneath that hazmat suit."
Oh? So that's what it was? It still looked like a space skafander to him.
"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Konrad grunted, yelping from the slightest of movement.
This drew in another visitor.
"He's up?" Corporal Sokolov asked.
He only took off his helmet, his green suit still on, smudged with dirt and blood.
"Yeah, but he's in pain," Dmitry claimed before he did.
"No wonder." The former soldier noted, coming closer to inspect him. "You were bleeding a lot. We had to use three Slimes to keep it under control, then two Meat Chunks, but—"
"All the bullets are still inside you," the Captain finished it for him.
Yeah. He could tell.
"Why didn't you take 'em out?" Konrad moaned because even talking hurt.
The Corporal shook his head.
"It was too risky. I had no idea if you got any permanent injuries or if you'd even survive. Can you move? Is your spine intact? We have a handheld X-ray, but that's not enough."
"I'll try," he mumbled, but didn't want to. "Might need some vodka first, though."
"No booze for you," that merciless bastard of a Captain said. "Curling your toes is enough."
So he did.
They moved, but it didn't feel great.
"Good. So your spine is fine," Sokolov nodded. "And don't worry. We contacted both Sidorovich and the Barkeep and ordered some actual painkillers."
"A Stalker should be here with them soon," Dmitry added. "Then we can cut you open again."
"We?!" Konrad demanded, jolting his body.
That was even worse.
"Okay, fine, I'll only assist," the Captain clarified, looking offended. "Holding scapels and stuff."
"I counted twenty bullets in you so far," Sokolov noted. "It'll be a long operation. But the good thing is that most of them are pistol-caliber. You moved too fast with that machete for the rest."
"Yeah, he does that," Dmitry smirked, patting his shoulder.
That hurt, too.
"He's awake now?" Hermann asked from the entrance, with Sahkarov in tow. "You have my thanks for saving my retarded colleagues," he said with a curt bow.
And that was it. That was all the thanks he got.
"Now that we're all here, I want details," the scientist demanded. "These two said the emission changed in both amplitude and nature. Their dampener didn't work at first, but they woke up."
Ugh. Now they wanted him to talk as well?
"That's what it felt like, yeah," Konrad mumbled, struggling with speech. "Though, for me, my dampener or whatever didn't do much after the change, either."
"What dampener?" Hermann blinked, exchanging glances with the other two.
"What do you mean what?"
Konrad wanted to jump up and shout, but he had no strength.
"I put the finetuned dampeners in the green suits," Hermann stated. He stared down his colleagues. "You dressed him in the orange one. I thought you'd take him as a control sample."
Control sample?!
So he was a canari this whole time?
"Don't joke around," Sakharov waved him off. "Said you put the prototype in the orange one. I wouldn't have taken him without protection. No way he would have resisted those emissions."
Hermann shook his head.
"I said, I'll put the prototype in, once it's ready for testing. You know as well as I do that it's not."
They all exchanged glances, filled with everything from anger to disbelief.
The silence was long and awkward, lasting until three loud knocks on the airlock broke it.
"Ah," Sokolov jumped. "The painkillers must be here."
"Can't believe a human survived those psy emissions," Sakharov mumbled, leaving as well.
"Anyway, I must fine-tune the prototype and put it in the orange suit. Or—the black one, since the orange's ruined now," Hermann followed, pondering. "Multi-stage emissions, huh?"
"Some basic white noise might be able to help with that," the other scientist suggested.
Then, their voices died down.
"What Yuri called 'em?" Dmitry asked, watching them go. "Booksmart? Genius and idiot at once."
"Yeah, that about sounds right," Konrad mumbled.
He died and had been reborn during that short conversation.
But the real operation was only about to begin.
"Here we go," Sokolov entered again, pulling the cap off a syringe. "Captain, please grab me that bottle of chloroform and a rag. Once the painkiller kicks in, we'll knock him out."
"Wait, that's not how you do anesthesiology," Konrad complained, earning himself a scoff.
"You couldn't even tell the difference between euthanasia and anesthesiology yesterday."
Hmpf. Some vodka was also involved in that.
"Poor man has to cook with what he has," the Corporal noted, too, stabbing him with the syringe. Next to all that pain, he almost didn't notice it. "Tell me if you start to tingle."
Konrad nodded, but it was a bad idea. He was still hurt.
But he noticed someone walking past the door before Dmitry closed it.
The Stalker who brought the painkillers? He looked around fifty, with a receding hairline, but for how little he saw of him, he moved with purpose.
"I'll have to thank him later," Konrad mumbled, his fingertips already tingling.
"I'm sure he'll stick around," Sokolov said, drenching the rag in the chloroform. "But he's in the lab with Hermann now. They'll have a lot to talk about after this incident."
Huh? In the lab?
"Didn't they say no ordinary Stalker can enter?" Konrad asked, watching the rag approach.
"Well, I mean," the Corporal smirked. "Strelok is no ordinary Stalker. Now, take a deep breath."
Hmm? That name sounded familiar.
His brain was a bit slow now, with the chemical smell only making it worse.
"Wait. Strelok?" he was already slurring the words. "That Strelok?! I must talk to him. Now."
But his body didn't move.
His eyelids were heavy, and to top it all off, Sokolov pushed him down, too.
"Yeah, yeah, you will. Later. But first—I have a whole ammo dump to take out of you."
Konrad wanted to protest, remembering his mission, but—
He could only watch as the world went dark around him once again.