Gennady paused often to look and listen, alert for any signs of human habitation. There were no tyre tracks, no columns of smoke. No buses passed, no radios blared from the high rises.
He found himself on the outskirts again as evening reddened the light. Twelve-storey apartment blocks formed a hexagon here, the remains of a parkette in its centre. The Geiger counter clicked less insistently in this neighbourhood. He parked the motorcycle in the front foyer of the easternmost tower. This building still had a lot of unbroken windows. If he was right, some of the interior rooms would have low isotope concentrations. He could rest there, as long as he left his shoes outside, and ate and drank only the supplies he had brought with him.
The echoes of his boot crashing against an apartment door seemed to echo endlessly, but no one came to investigate. Gennady got the door open on the third try, and walked into the sad evidence of an abandoned life. Three days after Reactor Four caught fire, the tenants had evacuated with everything they could carry – but they’d had to leave a black upright piano that once they might have played for guests who sipped wine here, or on the balcony. Maybe they had stood watching the fire that first night, nervously drinking and speculating on whether it might mean more work for renovators and fire inspectors.
Many faded and curled photos were pinned to the beige kitchen cupboards; he tried not to look at them. The bedroom still held a cot and chest of drawers with icons over it. The wallpaper here had uncurled in huge rolls, leaving a mottled yellow-white surface behind.
The air was incredibly musty in the flat – a good sign. The Geiger counter’s rattle dropped off immediately, and stabilized at a near-normal level. None of the windows were so much as cracked, though the balcony door had warped itself to the frame. Gennady had to remove its hinges, pull the knob off and pry it open to get outside. Even then he ventured only far enough to position his satellite dish, then retreated indoors again and sealed the split frame with duct tape he’d brought for this sort of purpose. The balcony had swayed under him as he stepped onto it.
The sarcophagus was visible from here on the sixth floor. Twenty years ago this room must have looked much the same, but the Chernobyl reactor had still sported the caged red-and-white smokestack that appeared in all early photos of the place. The stack had fallen in the second accident, when Reactor Two went bad. The press referred to the first incident as The Disaster; the second they called The Release.
The new sarcophagus was designed to last ten thousand years. Its low sloping sides glowed redly in the sunset.
Gennady whistled tunelessly as he set up the portable generator and attached his computer, EM detection gear and the charger for his Walkman. He laid out a bedroll while the system booted and the dish outside tracked. As he was unrolling canned goods from their plastic sheaths, the system beeped once and said, “Full net connection established. Hi, Gennady.”
“Hi. Call Mr Merrick at the Chernobyl Trust, would you?”
“Trying . . .”
Beep. “Gennady.” Merrick’s voice sounded tinny coming from the computer’s speaker. “You’re late. Any problems?”
“No. Just took a while to find a secure place. The radiation, you know.”
“Safe?”
“Yes.”
“What about the town? Signs of life?”
“No.”
“The sarcophagus?”
“I can see it from here, actually.” He enabled the computer’s camera and pointed it out the window. “Well, okay, it’s too dark out there now. But there’s nothing obvious, anyway. No bombs sitting out in the open, you know?”
“We’d have spotted them on the recon photos.”
“Maybe there is nothing to see because there is nothing there. I still think they could be bluffing.”
Merrick grunted. “There was a release. One thousand curies straight into the Pripyat River. We monitored the plume. It came from the sarcophagus. They said they would do it, and they did. And unless we keep paying them, they’ll do more.”
“We’ll find them. I’m here now.”
“You stayed out of sight, I trust.”
“Of course. Though you know, anything that moves here stands out like a whore in church. I’m just going to sit on the balcony and watch the streets, I think. Maybe move around at night.”
“Just call in every four hours during the day. Otherwise we’ll assume the worst.”
Gennady sighed heavily. “It’s a big town. You should have a whole team on this.”
“Not a chance. The more people we involve, the more chance it’ll get out that somebody’s extorting the Chernobyl Trust. We just barely hold on to our funding as it is, Gennady.”
“All right, all right. I know I come cheap. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“We’re paying you a hell of a lot for this. Don’t complain.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not here. Good night, Merrick.”
He stretched out for a while, feeling a bit put out. After all, it was his neck on the line. Merrick was an asshole, and Lisa had told him not to come. Well, he was here now. In his own defence, he would do a good job.
It got dark quickly, and he didn’t dare show much light, so reading was out. The silence grew oppressive, so he finally grunted and sat up to make another call.
This time he jacked in to the Net. He preferred full-sense interfaces, the vibrant colours and sounds of Net culture. In moments he was caught up in a whirlwind of flickering icons and sound bites, all the news of the day and opinions from around the world pouring down the satellite link to his terminal. Gennady read and answered his mail, caught up on the news, and checked the local forecast. Good weather for the next week, apparently. Although rain would have helped keep the isotopes out of the air, he was happy that he would be able to get some sun and explore without inconvenience.
Chores done, he fought upstream through the torrent of movie trailers, whispers of starlet gossip, artspam messages and hygiene ads masquerading as real people on his chat-lines, until he reached a private chat room. Gennady conjured a body for himself, some chairs and, for variety, a pool with some sunbathers, and then called Lisa.
She answered in window mode, as she often did. He could see she was in her London apartment, dressed in a sweatshirt. “Hi,” he said. “How was the day?”
“It was okay.”
“Any leads on our mythical terrorists?” Lisa was a freelance Net hacker. She was well-respected, and frequently worked for Interpol. She and Gennady talked almost every day, a result of their informal working relationship. Or, he sometimes suspected, maybe he had that backwards.
She looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t found anything. Where have you been? I thought you were going to call as soon as you arrived.”
“I told you I’d call. I called.”
“Yeah, but you’re not exactly reliable that way.”
“It’s my life.” But this was Lisaveta, not just some anonymous chat on the Net. He ground his teeth and said, “I am sorry. You’re right, I make myself hard to find.”
“I just like to know what’s going on.”
“And I appreciate it. It took me a while to find a safe place.”
Her expression softened. “I guess it would. Is it all hot there?”
“Most of it. It’s unpredictable. But beautiful.”
“Beautiful? You’re daft.”
“No really. Very green, lush. Not like I expected.”
She shook her head. “Why on earth did you even take this job? That one in Minsk would have paid more.”
“I don’t like Minsk.”
She stared at him. “Chernobyl’s better?”
“Listen, forget it. I’m here now. You say you haven’t found our terrorists?”
She didn’t look like she wanted to change the subject, but then she shrugged and said, “Not a whisper on the Net. Unless they’re technoluddites, I don’t see how they’re operating. Maybe it’s local, or an inside job.”
Gennady nodded. “Hadn’
t ruled that out. I don’t trust this Merrick fellow. Can we check into the real financial position of the Trust?”
“Sure. I’ll do that. Meanwhile . . . how long are you going to be there?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Not long.”
“Promise me you’ll leave before your dosimeter maxes out, even if you don’t find anything. Okay?”
“Hmm.”
“Promise!”
He laughed. “All right, Lisaveta. I promise.”
Later, as he lay on his bedroll, he played through arguments with Lisa where he tried to explain the strange beauty of the place. He came up with many phrases and examples, but in the end he always imagined her shaking her head in incomprehension. It took him a long time to fall asleep.
There was no sign that a large group of people had entered Pripyat at anytime in the recent past. When Trust inspectors came they usually arrived by helicopter, and stayed only long enough to replace the batteries at the weather stations and radiation monitoring checkpoints. The way wildflowers and moss had begun to colonize the drifted soil on the roads, any large vehicle tracks should have been readily visible. Gennady didn’t find any.
Despite this he was more circumspect the next day. Merrick might be right, there might well be someone here. Gennady had pictured Pripyat in black and white, as a kind of industrial dump. The place was actually like a wild garden – though as he explored on foot, he would often round a corner or step into an open lot and find the Geiger counter going nuts. The hotspots were treacherous, because there was no way to tell where they’d be.
A few years after The Disaster, folk had started to trickle back into Pripyat. The nature of the evil was such that people saw their friends and family die no matter how far they ran. Better to go home than sit idle collecting coffin-money in some shanty town.
When The Release happened, all those who had returned died. After that, no one came.
He had to remind himself to check his watch. His first check-in with Merrick was half an hour late; the second two full hours. Gennady completely lost track of time while skirting the reactor property, which was separated from the town by marshy grassland. All manner of junk from two eras had been abandoned here. Green helicopters with red stars on them rusted next to remotely piloted half-tracks with the U.N. logo and the red, white and blue flag of the Russian Republic. In one spot he found the remains of a wooden shed. The wood dropped over matted brown mounds that must once have been cardboard boxes. Thousands of clean white tubes – syringes, their needles rusted away – poked out of the mounds. The area was hot, and he didn’t linger.
Everywhere he went he saw potential souvenirs, all undisturbed. Some were hot, others clean. The entire evidence of late-Soviet life was just lying about here. Gennady found it hard to believe a sizeable group could spend any time in this open-air museum, and not pry into things at least a little. But it was all untouched.
He was a bit alarmed at the numbers on his dosimeter as he turned for home. Radiation sure accumulated quickly around here. He imagined little particles smashing his DNA. Here, there, everywhere in his body. It might be all right; he would probably be perfectly healthy later. It might not be all right.
A sound startled him out of his worry. The meow came again, and then a scrawny little white cat stepped gingerly onto the road.
“Well, hello.” He knelt to pet it. The Geiger counter went wild. The cat butted against his hand, purring to rattle its ribs loose. It didn’t occur to him that it was acting domesticated until a voice behind him said, “That’s Varuschka.”
Gennady looked up to see an old man emerge from behind a tall hedgerow. He appeared to be in his seventies, with a narrow hatchet-like face burned deep brown, and a few straggles of white hair. He wore soil-blackened overalls, and the hand he held out was black from digging. Gennady shook it anyway.
“Who the hell are you?” asked the old man abruptly.
Was this the extortionist? Well, it was too late to hide from him now. “Gennady Malianov.”
“I’m Bogoliubov. I’m the custodian of Pripyat.” Bogoliubov sized him up. “Just passing through, eh?”
“How do you know that?”
“The Geiger counter, the plastic on your shoes, the mask . . . Ain’t that a bit uncomfortable?”
“Very, actually.” Gennady scratched around it.
“Well, what the hell are you wearing it for?” The old man grabbed a walking stick from somewhere behind the hedge. “You just shook hands with me. The dirt’ll be hotter than anything you inhale.”
“Perhaps I was not expecting to shake hands with anyone today.”
Bogoliubov laughed dryly. “Radiation’s funny stuff. You know I had cancer when I came here? God damn fallout cured me. Seven years now. I can still piss a straight line.”
He and Varuschka started walking, and Gennady fell in beside them. “Did you live here, before The Disaster?” Bogoliubov shook his head. “Does anybody else live here?”
“No. We get visitors, Varuschka and me. But if I thought you were here to stay I wouldn’t be talking to you. I’d have gone home for the rifle.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t like neighbours.” Seeing his expression, Bogoliubov laughed. “Don’t worry, I like visitors. Just not neighbours. Haven’t shot anyone in years.”
Bogoliubov looked like a farmer, not an extortionist. “Had any other visitors lately?” Gennady asked him. He was sure it was an obviously leading question, but he’d never been good at talking to people. He left that up to other investigators.
“No, nobody. Unless you count the dragon.” Bogoliubov gestured vaguely in the direction of the sarcophagus. “And I don’t.”
“The what?”
“I call it the dragon. Sounds crazy. I don’t know what the hell it is. Lives in the sarcophagus. Only comes out at night.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me.” Bogoliubov shook his cane at Gennady. “There’s more things in heaven and earth, you know. I was going to invite you to tea.”
“I’m sorry. I am new here.”
“Apology accepted.” Bogoliubov laughed. “Hell, you’d have to do worse than laugh at me to make me uninvite you. I get so few guests.”
“I wasn’t –”
“So, why are you here? Not sightseeing, I assume.”
They had arrived at a log dacha on the edge of the grassland. Bogoliubov kept some goats and chickens, and even had an apple tree in the back. Gennady’s Geiger counter clicked at levels that would be dangerous after weeks, fatal in a year or two. He had been here seven years?
“I work for the University of Minsk,” said Gennady. “In the medical school. I’m just doing an informal survey of the place, check for fire hazards near the sarcophagus, that sort of thing.”
“So you don’t work for the Trust.” Bogoliubov spat. “Good thing. Bunch of meddling bureaucrats. Think they can have a job for life because the goddamn reactor will always be there. It was people like them made The Disaster to begin with.”
The inside of Bogoliubov’s dacha was cozy and neatly kept. The old man began ramming twigs into the firebox of an iron stove. Gennady sat admiring the view, which included neither the sarcophagus nor the forlorn towers of the abandoned city.
“Why do you stay here?” he asked finally.
Bogoliubov paused for an instant. He shook his head and brought out some waterproof matches. “Because I can be alone here. Nothing complicated about it, really.”
Gennady nodded.
“It isn’t complicated to love a place, either.” Bogoliubov set one match in the stove. In seconds the interior was a miniature inferno. He put a kettle on to boil.
“People die, you know. But places don’t. Even with everything they did to this place, it hasn’t died. I mean look at it. Beautiful. You like cities, Malianov?”
Gennady shook his head.
The old man nodded. “Of course not. If you were a city person, you’d run screaming fr
om here. It’d prey on you. You’d start having nightmares. Or kill yourself. City people can’t handle Pripyat. But you’re a country person, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am.” It would be impossible to explain to the old man that he was neither a city nor a country person. Though he lived in a large and bustling city, Gennady spent most of his free time in the pristine, controllable environments of the Net.
Bogoliubov made some herbal tea. Gennady tested it with the Geiger before he sipped it, much to Bogoliubov’s amusement. Gennady filled him in on Kiev politics and the usual machinations of the international community. After an hour or so of this, though, Gennady began to feel decidedly woozy. Had he caught too big a dose today? The idea made him panicky.
“Have to go,” he said finally. He wanted to stand up, but he seemed to be losing touch with his body. And everything was happening in slow motion.
“Maybe you better wait for it to wear off,” said Bogoliubov.
Minutes or hours later, Gennady heard himself say, “Wait for what to wear off?”
“Can’t get real tea here,” said the old man. “But marijuana grows like a weed. Makes a good brew, don’t you think?”
So much for controlling his situation. Gennady’s anxiety crested, broke in a moment of fury, and then he was laughing out loud. Bogoliubov joined in.
The walk back to his building seemed to take days. Gennady couldn’t bring himself to check the computer for messages, and fell asleep before the sun set.
Lisa shook her head as she sat down at her terminal. Why should she be so upset that he hadn’t called? And yet she was – he owed her a little consideration. And what if he’d been hurt? She would have heard about it by now, since Gennady had introduced her to Merrick as a subcontractor. Merrick would have phoned. So he was ignoring her. Or something.
But she shouldn’t be so upset. After all, they spoke on the phone, or met in the Net – that was the beginning and end of their relationship. True, they worked together well, both being investigators, albeit in different areas. She spoke to Gennady practically every day. Boyfriends came and went, but Gennady was always there for her.
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