LNH/HCC: Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #59 [HCC48]

[Saxon Brenton]

[LNH/HCC] Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #59  [HCC48]
   
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| |-|                           \  
| |-| []                        /                #59
| | | [] egion of               \           'The Dead Zone'
| | | []__ [] []   []  []       / (Part of High Concept Challenge #48) 
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes  \  
| | |      []\ ]   [ __ ]       /    written by and copyright 2014
| |-|      [] []   []  []       \           Saxon Brenton
| |-|___________________________/
| | 
| | 
| | 
| | Cover shows a twilight forest, with a glowing skeletal figure 
| | emerging from the trees.
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| | 
| | 
|_| 
   
   
[There is *no* Silver Age-style roster of characters in the form of 
a series of mug shots in little circles running down the side of the 
title page]
  
  
     Alexandry ran for his life.
     Around him late afternoon was falling, and soon it would be too 
dark to be running pell-mell through the forest.  The chances of 
colliding with something - whether a tree or a rotting piece of three 
decades old fence - would be too great.  Hah.  Even in full daylight 
there was the risk of tripping over something in the thick undergrowth, 
falling and breaking his leg.  But right here, right now, the young 
Ukrainian was panicked, and was grabbing as much distance as he could 
before trying to sneak around back towards one of the ruins and taking 
cover for the night.
     After fleeing for maybe half a kilometre the teenager began to 
tire.  He slowed, ducked behind a tree, and then risked taking a look 
back and then all around himself into the darkening woodlands.  He could 
hear no pursuers.  Even better in the gathering twilight, he could see 
no indication of the light from the literally burning-with-radioactive-
fire eyes of the... whatever they were. 
     Alexandry grinned.  A part of himself - probably the part hyped up 
with adrenalin - was enjoying this.  The other part told him he was 
stupid stupid stupid: crashing through the forest like that.  He could 
have attracted the attention of the security guards.
     But... wow.  That was just like in the video games.  Adventuring in 
the ruins around Chernobyl, sneaking around, fighting monsters, killing 
people and taking their stuff...
     Okay, okay, so in real life all it really meant was sneaking into 
the 300 kilometre Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl reactor, avoiding 
the guards, camping out for a few days, and taking selfies in the ruins 
so that you could post them online.
     He took out his geiger counter and checked for any suspiciously 
high rad counts (nothing that he could tell), and then his GPS to try 
and plot his location.  Let's see... he was somewhere to the west of 
Pripyat.  Absently Alexandry brought out a bottle of vodka and was about 
to take a swig... and then he remembered the stories about how vodka was 
supposed to help combat radiation.  It was ridiculous of course, but 
then so was the idea of nuclear zombies emerging from the depths of the 
Number 4 reactor.  Alexandry considered the flask, then screwed the lid 
back on and tucked it away.  You never knew.  Then he adjusted his 
backpack and started off to a rendezvous point.  He hoped the others 
were okay.
     Along the way he kept a careful eye out for any more monsters.  The 
evening forest normally didn't seem so sinister.  Alexandry knew it, had 
hiked through it and hid within it many times before.  The cover of 
darkness was the best time to sneak around to avoid the security guards. 
But the knowledge that there were real monsters out there... real honest-
to-goodness glowing nuclear zombies... That bit of information made the 
woods seem strange.  Almost as though it was a completely different world.
     Ha!  Talk about a whole 'nother world.  Ever since The Tragedy at 
the nuclear plant, and the Exclusion Zone being set up, the farmlands 
around Chernobyl were in the process of rapidly and aggressively 
reverting back to nature.  It was only a hundred kilometres from the 
capital of the Ukraine, but the place was now a forest nature reserve 
with a rebound in the amount of wildlife, and because of the fear of 
radiation civilization was too scared to encroach.  It may as well be on 
another planet.
     Alexandry worked his way to the remains of a small village, barely 
more than a few houses.  He could see no lights, but if anyone else had 
made it here they would be keeping their flashlights shielded.  He made 
a call like a night owl.  A few seconds later the call was repeated.  
Ha!  So he wasn't the first to arrive.  Quickly but quietly he made his 
way to the house that was the pre-arranged meeting place.  He knocked on 
the door.  "Guys?" he asked.  There was no answer.  He carefully looked 
inside, but there was no one about.  Disappointment stabbed him.  It must 
be a real night owl, after all.
     Oh well.  He moved inside, cleared out a space, and set about 
waiting.  He wondered who would be the next to arrive.  Boris?  Vassily? 
But as the night continued still no one turned up.  A prickle of paranoia 
began to weight on Alexandry.  What if they'd been caught and killed, and 
no one was going to turn up?  What if they'd been caught and killed and 
turned into nuclear zombies, and were even now on their way here to get 
him as well!?
     He told himself he was being silly, but even so he began making 
plans to ship out just before dawn tomorrow and slip back out under the 
barb wire fence at the edge of the Exclusion Zone.  He checked his 
watch.  He'd barely been waiting two hours.  He stood up and went to 
the window, staring moodily out into the forest.  It was going to be a 
long night.
     From the window he noticed a strange glow in the sky.  He stared at 
it for a second, wondering what it could be.  That direction was... 
south-east, wasn't it?  A quick check of the GPS confirmed this.  Yeah, 
south-east.  But there was nothing it that direction but... Oh.  The 
Sarcophagus.
     Alexandry scooped his stuff into his backpack and shouldered it, 
then ducked out of the building.  Making his way as quickly and quietly 
as he could, he began to work his way through the night time forest.  
He had a bad feeling about this.  He wanted to get out of here as soon 
as possible.
     Yet he was also curious.  A reflexive gamer instinct to know what 
was going on, perhaps.  So as he was moving away towards the fence of 
the Exclusion Zone, he also took the time to climb as small hill that 
would give him a view of the city of Pripyat to the east and Chernobyl 
to the south-east.
     Sound carried well at night.  In the distance he could hear 
gunfire.  Alexandry half expected that the nuclear zombies were fighting 
with the security guards.  Argh!  Well, of *course* they would be 
fighting.  Stupid of him!  This wasn't a video game, where the wandering 
monsters were programmed to leave each other alone and only go after 
the player characters.
     He had to get out of here.  If nothing else, the guards would call 
in reinforcements, and soon the place would be crawling with hostiles of 
all sorts.  If the nuclear zombies didn't get him, the guards might 
capture him.  Hell, somebody might even get shot in the confusion.  
     There was a rumble from the south.  Then, like some sort of CGI 
effect, the entire Chernobyl nuclear complex came into view above the 
tree line as the building lifted itself up on two legs, reshaping itself 
into something of a cross between a building and a human form and began 
striding across the countryside, it's crude features resembling enough 
of a face to be able to tell that it was looking about for something.
     Blue Screen of Death, man!  Alexandry just *stared* at the 
spectacle before him.  Then he pinched himself.  Was he sure this 
wasn't a video game?
     Screw this.  If the guards had any sense they'd be calling in an 
air strike.  He had to get out of here.  Anyone else with sense - the 
other surviving stalkers, any guards down on the ground - would be 
bugging out as well.  He turned to leave, and that's when the two 
nuclear zombies caught him.  He struggled and screamed curses at them, 
but it did no good.  He even managed to get his flask of vodka out and 
try to splash it over them, like holy water, but he fumbled his throw 
and the alcohol spilt without touching either of them.
     They grasped Alexandry and picked him up, and then started running 
back towards the huge Chernobyl golem.  They were fast.  Maybe they 
could have run all the way, or maybe not.  As it happened they were met 
by a flatbed truck, where a number of other nuclear zombies had two of 
the zone guards captive, grasping their prisoners tight in lieu of 
anything like handcuffs or rope or plastic zip ties.  Alexandry's 
captors jumped in the back of the truck, carrying Alexandry along with 
them and seemingly oblivious to the bumps and bruising they caused by 
the rough treatment.  Then there was a breakneck drive to meet with the 
ambulatory nuclear complex that caused even more bumps as they were all 
thrown about by the speed combined with the poor condition of what 
remained of the roads.
     Alexandry was seeing stars when they arrived.  The Chernobyl golem 
towered above them, it's legs stretching up perhaps a hundred metres 
above them.  It stretched out a limb that, because it had a flat palm-
like surface could maybe have been called a hand.  The truck drove onto 
that hand, and was then grasped not-quite-so-gently as 'fingers' 
wrapped around it to hold it steady as it was lifted up to the level of 
the building proper.  Once there the nuclear zombies leapt from the 
truck, still holding their struggling prisoners.
     Into the building they were carried.  One of the guards was yelling, 
"Sh!t! Sh!t!  They're gonna take us into the reactor!"  Maybe this was 
panic-fuelled speculation, or maybe he recognised the interior 
architecture as they passed through it, but as it turned out he was 
correct.
     The reactor room had changed.  It seemed to have opened up like a 
vast bubble, with organic-looking pipes and conduits wrapped around 
the walls and floor and ceiling.  Down towards the bottom of this area 
Alexandry could make out larger misshapen lumps, and despite the fact 
that these too were moving as if they were pumping organs a curiously 
detached part of his mind wondered if some of these might be some of 
the lava-like remains of melted reactor core from the original 
catastrophe.  
     The nuclear zombies took them to parts of a wall where nicotine 
yellow, blister-like bubbles had formed in the H.R. Giger-esque 
architecture.  In some of those blisters Alexandry could see other 
guards, and some of his stalker group.  They seemed to be unconscious 
(or dead) and slumped in their prisons.  Many of them had their hair 
falling out.  Then Alexandry and his two fellow captives were dumped 
inside blisters of their own.
     The youngster felt hot.  Well, of course he did; obviously the first 
indication of radiation poisoning.  But whereas the others weakly pushed 
against the semi-transparent before falling unconscious, Alexandry was 
hyped up and anxious to escape.  He glanced around the huge enclosure 
at the heart of the walking building, looking for something that might 
be of use.
     As he peered about, he became aware of the approaching jet fighters. 
Say what?   But it was true: he could see them coming, somehow, through 
the walls and out at a distance.  They were still quite some way away, 
but approaching fast.  He felt another surge of panic.  He had to get 
out.  
     He pounded against the walls of his prison, and they broke quite 
easily.  He scrambled out.  Nuclear zombies moved to intercept him, but 
fast as they were he was faster, and he threw them about, and into one 
another, and when it became clear that they were continually getting up 
and charging at him, he simply mashed them into the wall until they 
were greasy stains.
     "Guys, we've got to get out of here!" he yelled, and started 
ripping open the blisters holding the other people.  The other stalkers 
were first, but then he released the zone guards as well.  Most of them 
were unconscious, and the remainder were very weak, barely able to move. 
They seemed to still have pulses, however.
     He hefted a group of them over his shoulder, four to a load, and 
made his way out to where the trucks had been arriving.  Maybe... maybe 
he could sneak down on one of those giant hands just as it was reaching 
down to pick up another incoming truck of prisoners.  Yeah.  Maybe that 
would work....
     The fighter jets arrived.  Their missiles exploded against the 
Chernobyl golem, sending bits of masonry flying.  The platform started 
to tilt.  Alexandry tried to keep his balance, flailed about to also 
keep a grip of the guys heaped over his shoulders, and it was almost a 
minute before he realised he was flying.
     Well, this was cool.  Not to mention useful.  He zipped over and 
grabbed a truck that was rolling off towards the edge of the building. 
He stowed the unconscious men in the back, then carried the truck back 
towards the entrance to the reactor.  The entrance was too small to 
actually allow the truck inside, but that was okay.  Alexandry simply 
wedged the truck in one spot so it wouldn't go anywhere, then flew 
inside and collected the rest of the unconscious captives.  That done, 
he prised the truck free, then flew it off into the night sky several 
hundred metres above the Ukrainian forest.
     Behind him some more missiles struck the ambulatory nuclear 
complex, taking out it's legs.  It slowly toppled over with an awful 
prolonged fall.  It's multiple arms flailed about, trying to grab at 
the ground and brace the building to absorb some of the impact - but 
the arms were two thin and spindly compared the load bearing thickness 
of the building's legs.  The complex hit the ground and shattered, 
sending bits of radioactive architecture flying across kilometres of 
forest.
     Alexandry watched, curiously, then turned back to his task of 
flying the truck to a safe place where he could get medical attention 
for the others.
     
     
======== 
     
Authors notes:
     Written for the fourty-eighth High Concept Challenge, "A whole 
'nuther country".  Based on an online article I read about the geek 
subculture of stalkers who sneak into the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
     Considering how many recent HCC events I've was planning to 
participate in, but never got around to actually completing (including 
ones that I nominating the topics for) I thought I should get post 
something.  But even then I ended up making it complicated for myself. 
I was honestly planning on having the nuclear zombies ambush Alexandry 
at the village, at which point he would get proverbially bitten by a 
radioactive origin and gain superpowers.  But then I thought: nah, 
that conforms to storytelling expectations, so I deliberately went for 
something unexpected.  He still got powers, but the story took the 
long way around.  Meanwhile, notwithstanding the initial planning I did 
last night in bed with Alexandry running about in the woods, this has 
been written in under 12 hours - which kind of explains why it's run 
off in strange directions and then been tied off so quickly.
    
    
    
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Saxon Brenton   University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxonbrenton at uts.edu.au     saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3