"I don't know how you did it, but make sure you don't touch 'em," Strelok warned, inching his way forward. Easier said than done, though. Those bubbles were freaking everywhere.
"Hold on," Konrad yelped, pulling back at the last second. "That one's moving."
A Teleportation Artifact swung right by him.
If he weren't careful, he'd jump right into another, trying to avoid the first.
And with so many of them all over the place—
'Your magic would be pretty useful right about now, wouldn't it,' the parallel brain noted.
He'd never stop rubbing salt into the injury, ever.
But could he even dispel these things without getting yanked away to who-knows-where?
'We'll never find out 'coz you've no balls,' the voice claimed. 'Sorry, I meant mana, of course.'
That bastard.
"Eyes peeled," Strelok grunted, a few paces already ahead of him. "This one's also going 'round and 'round. But at least they move in a predictable pattern. And I can see them well."
Yeah. Imagine if they were still invisible?
This place was crazy.
And the farther they inched their way, the longer it seemed to be going on.
"You think these anomalies are random, too?" Konrad muttered, avoiding another collision by a hair's breadth. "Or they tried to create an impenetrable barrier around the CNPP?"
"I'll make sure to ask those bastards before I gut the last one of them," the Stalker rasped.
As if they had any idea what to expect beyond this field.
Humans? Aliens?
People reincarnated from somewhere else?
Lucifer himself?!
Okay, at least he could rule out that last one, since Maou Midori had banished him from Earth.
But his puppets could still be around, given that Strelok and he were both—
"Freeze," the Stalker barked, and Konrad knew better than to ask why. "Monolith."
He would have dropped to the ground to hide in the grass, but—
Yeah. There was no space between those bubbles.
But he spotted them in the darkness, too. Soldiers in white, beyond the entire field. They patrolled the outer perimeter of the Power Plant—still far, but not outside of firing range.
"So they do have guards," Konrad whispered, trying to disappear in plain sight.
As if these thousands upon thousands of bubbles weren't enough to keep everyone away.
Hold on. Could they see them, too?!
'Nope. I won't let them,' the voice inside his head claimed. The first comforting thing he had said in a while. 'But if the elite shows up with mental protection, I'm out.'
"Let's keep going, then," Strelok grunted, making it obvious that he had heard the brain, too.
Fucking nerves of steel.
"How far until the other side?" Konrad moaned, trying to suck in his stomach to avoid collision.
It felt like they'd been doing this for ages.
Traveling miles and miles in this Teleportation Labyrinth, but—
'With that, you have cleared the third line. About a hundred more to go.'
Fuck. Now's been the only time he'd forgive a nice lie, but no.
This place was insane.
"There," the Stalker pointed ahead. "It seems like there's a small gap between them. Like a trail."
"Or like a trap," Konrad noted, squeezing past another moving Anomaly. "After all this, I'm a bit skeptical of anything that looks easy. Why would they leave a clear path like that?"
Especially if this thing was still—at the very core—random.
"Look at the guards," Strelok grunted. "They must have been going in and out, too."
Fair. But he had a hunch they didn't have to play the same game as they had been doing.
'It'd be logical to have a special Teleportation Bubble set up. One that gets them where they need to be,' the parallel brain offered. 'But it's impossible to know where these might send us.'
Yeah. They were Teleportation Anomalies, after all.
But now that he thought about it, why did they even bother?
Why teleport people when they could've blown 'em up or zap them, like the other Anomalies?
They still had to be at least somewhat random.
But if they created the entire Zone, and all this weirdness inside—
They might have been able to reverse-engineer at least a few things.
'You should leave the thinking to me,' the voice scoffed. 'And focus on not getting yanked away.'
Right. They had finally reached that suspicious little path between the bubbles, but—
He'd better pay attention to what was right in front of him.
"More guards," Strelok warned, dropping to the ground.
Now they had the space for it, but—
'Shit. They've Psyonic Shields,' the parallel brain moaned. 'You get down, too. I'll have to, uh—'
He didn't finish, but he didn't have to.
Konrad could tell at a glance what he had done—or rather undone.
All those menacing bubbles around them disappeared.
No. Of course, not the Anomalies themselves, but they could no longer see them.
Moving now would have been a death sentence. And if those Bubbles started moving instead—
"Wait until they pass," the Stalker whispered, head pressed into the overgrown grass. "And pray they wouldn't have thermal vision."
Yikes. Konrad couldn't even see that far, but the thought of those guys spotting them—
No. Wait. Hold on.
Wouldn't the Anomalies' heat signatures mess with whatever they have? And talk about the grass: now that he had taken a better look, he could still see those Bubbles.
The blades had never grown beyond the edges, as if someone had cut them with a sharp tool.
'Yeah, it helps spot some of the static ones, doesn't it?' the parallel brain's voice echoed. 'But wait until they pass, and I'll make the whole thing visible again, okay?'
Ugh. Not that Konrad wanted to take his chances.
All he did was observe.
"Fuck. They stopped," Strelok grunted, though, and he completely missed that. "Are they looking this way? I can't tell."
And of course, Konrad couldn't either.
But he did see the Stalker pull his AK out, and—
"You serious?" he protested in a whisper. "Your bullets would teleport away, too."
And who knew where they would end up?
What if they shot themselves in the back?
"Fair," the man grunted, but still clutched his gun. "Looks like they're smoking."
And they indeed were.
Two soldiers covered in winter camo, wearing some bulky armor and armed to the teeth
And they would only chill outside and smoke—right in front of them, of all places.
It was the most nerve-wracking two minutes until they finished. And then they'd only stomp out their cigarettes and walk back the way they came. Ugh.
Smoking kills. Passive smoking, too.
But this time, it was the heart attack from watching them do it that almost did Konrad in.
"Okay, let's go," Strelok grunted, seeming unaffected. "Make them visible again."
'Try, please?' the parallel brain scoffed.
But the field of translucent white Bubbles reappeared around them, anyway.
And something changed.
The path they had seen earlier was gone. A wall of Anomalies blocked their path now, and—
"Fuck. Don't move," the Stalker warned. "Don't even lift your head."
That wall existed not only in front of them.
It was also behind, and—yeah. Right above him as well.
Shit.
'So about your ability to dispel these—'
Yeah. He could have if he got his magic back. But right now?
Konrad could only shudder.