15th month of my service in the fog, Gods know what year.
They hum, as if electricity still flows through them. Where do they come from? There’s always more of them. I start climbing. I attach my harness to the cold steel. I climb. I climb. Meter after meter. Slowly. It gives me a lot of time to think. I think about them. I think about what they are. I reach the top. The cables hang. I take the bolt cutters from my belt and cut them. They fall. They disappear in the fog. I put the tool back. From my bag I take the cutting torch and my mask. Two heavy bottles with oxygen and fuel for the torch are strapped to my back. I turn the valve and light the torch. Steel beams fall. I move down. Methodically. Cutting pieces of the pylon. I reach the bottom. My comrades are loading the steel and cables onto a truck. I throw my equipment into an off road car parked nearby. I open the door and sit in the passenger seat, breathing deeply. Altyn approaches me.
-”I hate climbing those things. It’s as if they are alive.”
He nods. We both know what I mean. Everyone knows. Nobody wants to talk about it.
-”Anyways, they are finishing loading the truck, we can leave soon.”
He walks away. I take a final deep breath and exhale slowly. I close the door. A few minutes pass. Salty walks towards the car. He gets in the driver’s seat. He’s silent. Like always. He starts the car. We drive back. In silence. The truck follows us. The lights of our car barely cut through the thick fog. I wrap my fingers around the short sword tucked between my seat and the center console. Maybe I won’t have to use it. Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. I see the searchlights. My muscles relax. My whole body hurts from being so tense. Two guards open the gate for us. We drive inside and park, the truck drives further, to the foundry. I can hear the hammers even from here. They are so loud. And the smell. The whole place smells of the foundry. Salty puts the car in park and gets out. I get out too. I take my equipment and walk to the Quartermaster’s barrack. In silence. I put my things in a crate and slide it to him. He checks if everything came back and gives me a nod. A nod. Everyone here just communicates with nods. We are all too tired to speak.
I walk to my barracks. Maybe I’ll get some sleep. The fog makes it hard to sleep. It gives people bad ideas in their heads. Bad thoughts. I hope they’ll rotate me somewhere else soon. Month after month I hope for that, they never do. Nobody wants to work in the fog. They need people. I don’t remember the last time someone left this place. People keep coming and dying, nobody leaves.
Some hours of surprisingly deep sleep. Not much nightmares. Still more than I’d like.
-”Sveta, get up, time to go.”- Altyn shakes me. I open my eyes.
-”The scouts found something interesting, that’s all I know, we gotta go.”
I sit on the bed and rub my eyes. I put on my shoes and follow him to the Quartermaster. A swear escapes when I see my crate. A whole hazmat suit. The pylons are bad enough, whatever the scouts found is tenfold worse. We take the equipment. I swear again. There’s an armoured vest in there. The walk to the car feels like a walk to an electric chair. The drive is long. It gives me a lot to time to imagine our destination. Always something new, always something more dangerous. Just me and Altyn. An envelope in my lap. I still haven’t opened it. I’m too scared to open it. I’ll wait until I have no choice but to open it.
-”What do you think it is?"- I ask him.
He doesn't respond for some minutes. His face is stone cold, but I can tell he is thinking.
-"Do you remember the observatory?"
-"Don't even mention that."
I shiver. I do remember the observatory, everyone remembers the observatory.
-"They gave us the same stuff back then, and they also sent a small team. Sure, there were four people, but it was a small team considering the size of that thing."- His voice shaky. It was months ago, but it still feels like it happened just yesterday.
I look out of the side window. My forehead pressed against the cold glass.
-"I pray it won't be anywhere close to that."- I whisper.
I close my eyes and exhale slowly. I shake my head. Praying has never helped. I remember that poor bastard was praying when they got him. At the observatory. He was praying so loudly you would think Gods would have answered if just to stop that dreadful noise. We came back with one man and three souls less.
We arrive. We put on our suits. We strap the swords to our belts. We check our flashlights. We check each other's life support systems.
-”It’s time. Do it.”
I nod. Slowly I ripe the envelope open. There’s a grainy photo, some drawings, and a description. I show him the pictures and read the description.
-”Assignment: salvage, who would have thought… Target: item shown on the photograph, any other items of interest that the salvage team might find. Proceed with caution, environmental danger described as very high. Detected dangerous radiation levels, detected dangerous atmosphere, possible fog people presence.”
Before us stands a long building that seems to go underground after maybe a hundred meters, with airtight steel doors ripped out of the hinges. I shiver. I don't even want to think what might have done that to those doors. For a moment I feel relief. It's not a massive, ominous thing like the observatory, but then I imagine what might lie underground and dread washes over me.
We look at each other. We nod. I slide the briefing into my bag and we enter. Our flashlights barely light the dark halls. They are much bigger than they look to be from the outside. I hate it. I hate it so much. Words can’t describe how much I hate it.
We go deeper. The halls are flooded. Water to our knees. The building just appeared. Everything inside looks old. A metal shelf in the middle. A lone cardboard box. Soaked. I open it carefully. A bunch of light bulbs. Packed separately. Altyn puts them in the massive backpack I’m wearing. We continue. Weird noises all around. Water. Air. Humming. This humming. Always the humming. Another lone shelf. Doors on both sides of the room. Someone is knocking. We ignore the knocking. We can’t listen to the knocking. On the shelf boxes. Full of light bulbs. We take them. We continue. More shelves, more light bulbs, more doors.
Finally we hear the faint beeping. It’s like a light at the end of the tunnel. We want to go faster. We can’t go faster. It’s not safe to go faster. Grueling walk. Minutes stretch out into days. We see it. The scout drone. A rough construction. Thrown together from junk and scrap. Barely functional. Functional enough. Altyn takes the drone and throws it on top of the pile of light bulbs in my backpack. We stare at the thing. We know that this is it. Yet I take out the photo. We look at it. Neither of us wants to touch it. Our geiger counters are going crazy. We can’t stop looking. It calls to us. I turn first. I run. I shouldn’t be running. Altyn runs after me. I start hyperventilating. The knocking gets louder. Oh, the whispers. I hate the whispers. I can’t pay attention to them. I can’t. I run. The water makes it hard. The halls stretch before me. I feel like I’m never going to reach the end. There is a turn. There was no turn when we came in. I turn. A wall. Altyn catches up to me.
-”No, No, No! Fuck this! Fuck this! To hell with this!”- I fall to my knees. My legs don’t work anymore. Altyn grabs me so I don’t fall into the murky water. He holds me up. He says nothing. He is thinking the same thing I am thinking. To hell with this. The whispers. The whispers. Now there’s knocking all around. No doors. No doors. No path. No exit. I turn around. There is no turn. I force my legs to work. I get up. I drag Altyn. We don’t run. We walk. We can’t run. Not in here. I see light. I see light. I can’t run. My mind is telling me to run. I can’t listen to it. I can’t pay any attention to anything in here. We exit this hell. We make it. Our car is there. I run to the car. I throw the backpack into the trunk. I strip the heavy vest. I strip the heavy suit. I run. Away from the car. I fall into the cold grass. Fog around me. I thrash around on the ground. I scream. The whispers.
-”Sveta, Sveta!”- Altyn grabs me and pulls me in. His face milimeters from mine -”Sveta, I know, I know, oh my, I know, you know I know, Sveta, we are alive, we are alive, Sveta, we are alive!”
I start laughing. The laugh turns into a cry. We both cry. We both know.
Two guards open the gate for us. We park. We walk to the Quartermaster. He raises his eyebrows. We shake our heads. He nods. Back in the barracks. I see someone new. Vadim is gone. There’s someone new. I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. I take off my boots. I fall onto the bed. Sleep comes fast. It’s bad sleep. The whispers. The knocking. Vadim’s corpse standing up. Smiling. Talking to us. Happier than ever. I don’t want to know. I hope it was only a dream. The new person wakes me up.
-”Sveta. Are you Sveta? We have to go.”
I stand up and put my boots on. I go with them. They have a hood on. Our usual, grey fatigues and a hood. Torn from some other piece of clothing, stuck on their head. Like a head on a scarecrow. Altyn and two other people I don’t recognise are waiting by the truck. One of them hands me the briefing. She introduces herself as Elbe. More pylons. I hate them, but now they feel like a blessing. I overheard the other girl being called Mira. They must be new. May Gods help them. Me and the new guy get in the car. Altyn with the two women get in two separate trucks. We leave the outpost.
-”What do they call you?”- I hazard a question.
-”Hornet? Why? You sting without warning?”- I let out a small laugh. He scoffs.
-”No, because I strike hard.”- There’s a hint of hurt in his voice.
-”Sure buddy. We all do.”
He doesn’t respond this time. The rest of the journey is silent.
We stand by the pylon. I have my gear on.
-”Tell me, Sveta, I heard you and that other guy fucked up yesterday.”- Says hornet. Clearly trying to start something.
-”What is it to you?”
-”I just want to know if people I work with are reliable.”
-”If you saw what we saw you would be singing a different song.”
I start the climb. I think. About the whispers. About the knocking. About what we saw. We failed our assignment. It doesn’t matter. We are alive. Nobody cares much about it. They all know. I’m near the top. I freeze. Not a pylon. Not a pylon. The unmistakable shape of an antenna looms above me. I climb the final ladder. I step onto the platform. I stare at it with awe. It hums. The hum is so warm. It welcomes me. It pulls me in. I reach out. I want to touch it. It wants to touch me. It wants us to talk. Oh, I love it, I love this divine hum, I love this divine warmth! Oh, how long have I waited for this! How long have I waited without knowing I was waiting! I can almost see the Elysian Fields! Just a bit more, just touch it once, and I will never know pain again! I fall. I hit my head on the cold steel platform. Someone holds me down. I scream. I try to break free. I watch them break the box open and pull out all its angelic innards. I punch. I stand up. I fall down. I see black.
Altyn walks into the barracks. I’m still in a daze. I see he has a bruise on his face. I raise my eyebrows. He nods. He leaves. Soon a woman in a dirty white coat comes in. She gestures for me to come with her. I put my boots on. I follow her. We sit in her office. It’s quite neat for the local standards.
-”What’s the today’s date?”- She asks, looking at me from behind those thick glasses.
She nods and writes something down on her clipboard.
-”What’s your name?”
I close my eyes and rub my forehead.
-”What do you remember from your last assignment?”
I exhale and look at the ceiling.
-”We got in the car, we drove for an hour, I climbed the… pylon. Then it cuts off. I think I… I...”- I swallow. My eyes dart around the room. -”No, no, wait, I climbed the pylon and I saw the… the antenna. And then… fuck, then I reached out to touch it. That’s it.”
I look back at her. She’s nodding. She writes something down. Maybe this is it. Maybe they’ll relieve me because they think I went crazy. One can hope.
-”Right,”- She clears her throat -”do you hear any voices? Is anything calling to you? Are you seeing anything that shouldn’t be there?”
I shake my head. She writes.
-”Do you have any thoughts about hurting yourself or taking your own life?”
I shake my head again. Sometimes I do. That’s unimportant. Nothing to do with what I saw.
-”Okay, that will be all. If anything changes please report it to me ASAP.”
I nod. I get up. I walk outside. The foundry is so loud. And it smells so strong. I can’t even say the smell is bad. It is just strong. It’s everywhere. I walk to the barracks. I see hornet. With that ridiculous hood. I don’t even look at him. He’s going to start shit if I acknowledge his existence. I make to the barracks without incident. I sit on the bed. I close my eyes. I try to remember anything more. It comes back. The warm glow. The warm hum. I inhale sharply and deeply, my head falls back. I open my eyes wide. I shake. Stop. Stop. I can’t. I can’t think about it. I can’t. I hyperventilate. I fall back and hit my head on the steel wall behind my bed. The pain so distant. Warm. Glow. Hum. Reach out. Touch it. So close to touching it. So close to being one with it. I scream. I thrash around the bed. I don’t want those thoughts. People look at me. I don’t care. I bang my head on the steel wall. Someone grabs me. Pulls me off the bed. There’s shouting. Muffled voices. Someone shouts my name. I see faces. I’m still screaming.
-”Let me go! Let me go! I have to go back! I have to touch it! I have to be one with it!”
Strong arms hold me down. I feel a prick in my arm. I stop screaming. I inhale sharply. I feel warmth spread through my body. I go limp. I see black again.
My head is pounding. It feels like someone is trying to twist my head off my neck. My vision blurs. I can hear my blood pumping in my ears. Everything sounds muffled. All I can gather is that I’m in the infirmary. I pass out again.
Someone shakes me. I wake up. My eyelids so heavy. My mouth dry. I can’t close my mouth. It’s moving on its own. They sit me up on the bed. I’m swaying. I see the outpost commander, Argon, walks in. He stands by the side of the bed and sighs. I slowly turn my head towards him. My eyes half closed.
-”What should I do with you?”
-”If I let you go on another salvage operation, how do I know you won’t freak out again?”
I try to smile. Only one side of my mouth moves. I shrug.
-”The shrink thinks you are just overwhelmed.” - He scoffs and spits on the floor. – “I’ve been out there and I know what this is. You saw something. We all see something sooner or later.”
I shrug. There’s some drool dripping onto my shirt.
-”You are one of the best guys we have. I hate to see you in this state. Rest for now. We’ll see where this goes.”
He turns around and leaves. I lie back down. I stare at the ceiling. Whatever they gave me to calm me down is strong. I can’t form a single coherent thought. Someone sets a tray with food on the bedside table. I guess I’ll eat it tomorrow. Tomorrow comes fast. I drift through time. Almost unaware of my physical body or the world around me. I manage to take a few bites. Still can’t think.
I’m not sure if I enjoy this state or not. At least I am not bothered by having nothing to do. I spend the next three days in this bed before I can form a coherent thought. A nurse comes into the room with another tray of food.
-”When will they let me out?”- I whisper. My throat coarse. I start coughing.
-”I’ll let the commander know you woke up.” – She says quickly and leaves.
I keep coughing. My lungs burn. I taste blood. It feels like my throat is getting shredded by razors. Before I manage to stop coughing Argon comes. He waits for me to gather myself. I take a sip of water and look at him.
-”Are you good to go?”
-”Maybe.” - I whisper.
-”Sveta. Are you good to go? Or do you still want to… touch it, like you screamed back in the barracks?”
-”I’m good. I don’t want to touch anything.” - My voice slowly returns.
Me, Hornet and Altyn. Standing around a red flag stuck in the ground. Altyn is setting up a ground penetrating radar. Me and hornet are holding shovels. He finishes quickly. He’s done it a few dozen times by now. He waves for us to come closer. We look at the screen. I nod. Hornet looks confused.
-“It’s three meters deep, about a meter southeast from the flag. You gotta learn this stuff fast, there's not time for explanations when we are in the field.” – I say.
I take another, smaller, flag from my bag and guided by Altyn’s hand gestures I place it right above the target.
-"Tell me Sveta, you go crazy often?"- Hornet tries to start shit again.
I don't respond. I give Altyn a look. He smiles and nods. I grab a spray paint can and, again, guided by his gestures I draw the perimeter. Altyn shows me a thumbs up and also grabs a shovel. We start digging. The fog is less dense today than usual. The forest around is silent. So are we. We dig. A shovel after shovel. Long, grueling work. Tired, we reach the top of the target. Altyn goes back to the radar and adjusts it. We move out of the way.
- “It’s about sixty by fifty centimeters. Maybe a meter tall.”
He comes back to the hole. We continue digging. Hornet stops abruptly.
- “You hear that?” – He speaks. A bit too loud for here.
Me and Altyn stop too. We hear it. Faint whispering. I gently put down the shovel. And wrap my fingers around my sword. I see them. I see shadows at the edge of the fog. Two of them. I see a banner waving.
- “We have to bail.” – Altyn whispers and quickly starts packing the radar. I take our shovels and rush to the car. I throw them in the back. Hornet has his sword drawn already.
- “Hornet, don’t do it, don’t you fucking dare do it.”
He does it. He takes a fighting stance. He slowly walks towards them. They are coming at him. Driven by Gods know what. Two of them. Armed and armored. Dirty, scratched, dented steel plates. Shining helmets. The banner pristine.
- “Hornet, you fucking bastard, come to the car.”
He doesn’t respond. Altyn is already in the driver’s seat and trying to start the old bitch. It starts. It always does. I’m between the car and Hornet. My body tells me to run and leave that poor fool to die. My mind tells me to get him and drag him back to the car with force if I have to. They are about to clash. I start running. I grab hornet by the straps of his vest. I yank him back. He drops his sword and screams at me to let him go. I drag him to the car. He is kicking and screaming, trying to pry my fingers away. I don’t let go. Thank Gods they are so slow. We are by the car. I raise him up and slam him into the side of it. I grab him by the throat. I stare him deep into his eyes. I tear that ridiculous hood off of his head.
- “Get in the fucking car or I will kill you myself.”
He falls silent. He stops fighting. He stares at me like I’m the scariest thing he’s ever seen. I know I’m not. I heard what he went through. I heard where he was. But he’s here now. There are different rules here.
-"I don't fucking care how good you are with the sword, this isn't about how good you are at fighting, they fight dirty, they make you think bad things." - I'm screaming at him. I don't care about the approaching fog people. I know how slow they are, I still have time to chew him out. His face turns angry, but there's still a hint of that fear remaining. He dares to speak.
-"There's two of them! Two! I could have taken them!"
I squeeze his throat harder. He gasps for air and tries to pry my hands off.
-"No! You couldn't have taken them! They would have taken you! Gods know where! Get this into your head! And don't ever again say I'm unreliable, you've been here, what, two days? Less? You know nothing. You know less that a newborn baby."
I let him go. He falls to the ground and takes deep, laboured breaths. I give him some time to gather himself, then tell him to get in the car.
He crawls into the back seat. I jump inside the car and slam the door. Altyn starts driving. The drive back is silent. My leg is jumping the whole time. When we make it back I jump out of the car before it fully stops and quickly walk to the Quartermaster. I return my gear.
-”The Hornet guy?”- He asks, checking if everything came back.
I nod. I go to the barracks to calm down. Takes me about twenty minutes.
Altyn is with me. We give each other knowing looks. Then we go to the mess hall. Hornet is already there. I see him talking to a group of newcomers. They are gathered around him like flies around a pile of shit. I try to ignore him. Some words reach my ears. I leave the line and walk towards him. He notices me and stops talking. He turns to me, raises his hands and moves back. I grab him by the throat. I throw him on the table. The group of newcomers stares at the scene. I jump onto the table and sit on his chest. I hold his hands down. My teeth are clenched. I’m breathing heavy.
-”I was just telling them-”
I punch him. His head flies sideways.
-”I heard what you were telling them! I heard it! You are a fucking liability! That’s what you are! You aren’t some brave warrior who was interrupted by a coward! You are a liability!”
He tries speaking again. I punch him again. He groans. I punch again. Then again. A trickle of blood flows from the corner of his mouth. I get off of him. I look at the newcomers. They move back. I get back in the line. Altyn nods. We get our food, it's some sort of slop again. I don't even want to know where this stuff comes from. Me and Altyn sit in the far corner of the hall. Nobody sits close to us. They know. They give us space.
-"Where do people like him come from? Do they make them in a factory? Gods, he just doesn't get it. What will it take for him to get it? I remember my first time seeing those things. Sure, I wanted to fight them too, but someone told me not to and I listened. I listened because I knew I didn't know shit about how things work here. But him? A fucking soldier. So what? They don't get fog people in the trenches."
Altyn swirls his spoon in the slop as he listens to me ramble.
-"By the looks of it he might be good under pressure at least."- He ventures a guess and put a spoonful of the goop in his mouth. He frowns.
-"This shit tastes like the foundry."
I laugh. I try it too. It does taste like that. Everything here tastes and smells like the foundry. I wonder what do they even do there? I see the salvage we gather be taken there and I see sealed crates leave. I always thought they make weapons and equipment there, but there's this weird secrecy around it. Doesn't matter much to me anyways.
Back on the outside. Hornet is keeping his distance. It’s me, him, Elbe, Mira. Another retrieval inside a building. This time we don’t even know what we are looking for exactly. At least it’s not irradiated. I lead. Elbe is at the back. Behind me Mira. Hornet is third. We are going down. A staircase. Made of steel. Our footsteps reverberate down the deep shaft.
-"Why do we only get swords? I know guns are expensive but we are doing dangerous work here, right? I'd think guns would come in handy." - Elbe asks quietly.
-"Being loud here doesn't end well. And you can't run here. Remember that. Two main rules. Be quiet and don't run."
After maybe ten minutes we reach the bottom. A long corridor. I slowly move forward. There are open rooms on both sides. I turn into the first one and tell Elbe to keep watch. Some sort of a hospital. I think it’s a hospital. Looks like one. We gather whatever looks usable. Some electronics, some tools, some substances. The second room is the same. So are the dozen next rooms. I walk into the fifteenth room. I freeze. Mira and Hornet follow. Mira lets out a muted scream. I can tell Hornet is shaking by the light of his flashlight moving all around the walls and ceiling. There is a person sitting on the bed. Their legs dangling slowly. They turn to us.
-”Come, sit with me. It’s nice here.”
I slowly back away. Don’t listen. Don’t listen. Hornet is frozen in place. He is in fact shaking. Mira drops her flashlight and runs out. I curse. I walk out of the room and yell after her.
-”Don’t run! Mira! Please!”
She keeps running. Elbe peeks into the room and quickly backs away. Her face is pale. She is staring at me with those big, hazel eyes. I look back at Mira. She didn’t listen. She is still running. Hornet manages to stumble out of the room and also looks at Mira. She disappears. I start walking. As fast as I can. But not running. No running here. When we make it back to the bottom of the staircase. There is another door there. Leading to another long corridor. I see Mira standing there. I only look at her for a moment. I start the climb up this damn staircase.
-”That’s not her. That’s not her. Don’t even begin to think that it is her.”
I hope they listen. At least they follow. We make it back up. I look at Hornet and Elbe. Hornet is still shaking. Elbe is crouched by the car, sobbing. I walk up to her and kneel. I put my hand on her shoulder and squeeze it gently.
-”It will be fine. It will be perfectly fine. Just don’t think about what you heard or saw. Get it out of your mind as fast as you can. Get any ideas that are appearing now out of your mind. Ignore them. Don’t listen to them. It’s worse than death.”
She looks at me. She nods. I don’t move. She reminds me of my sister. She reminds me of how she was hunched over on that stool in the corner of that room on that day. How she was crying. How she looked at me when I reassured her. I just hope I won’t have to be carrying Elbe in my arms, begging her to stay awake. Begging her not to leave me. Hornet gets in the car. Silently. I get up. So does Elbe. I get in the driver’s seat. She gets in the back seat with Hornet. Nobody wants to sit where Mira sat. I wish I got to know her more. Now I have to forget she ever existed.
Two guards open the gate for us. I take my equipment to the Quartermaster. He raises his eyebrows. I shake my head, then nod. He nods back. I walk to Argon’s office to give back my report. When I walk out, I see doctors running to the barracks. I run there too. Everyone is gathered there. I push through the crowd. The doctors are just walking out of the closet at the end of the hall. I slowly make my way fearing the worst. I don’t see the worst. Hornet is hanging there. At least we won’t have to scrub blood from the floor and walls this time.
