"How do they keep on coming?" Strelok grumbled, stealing peeks from his hiding spot. "And they're not arriving one by one via teleportation, either. They're marching in."
Meaning, there had to be a clear path somewhere, wide enough to let a freaking tank through.
Because, yes.
Despite them doing their best not to let the enemy spot them or their bubbles—
That tank and some of those large, wheeled vehicles from Prypjat were here now, too.
And so, so many of those winter-camo Monolith soldiers.
After Konrad had risked everything to get out of that sticky situation—
'Oh, come on, stop moaning,' the parallel brain snapped. 'Believe it or not, I kept the worst of them away. And meanwhile saved your friend Dmitry's life, too. But all you do is—'
"You did what?!" Konrad whispered, freezing midway towards that huge Dome.
They were past that Teleportation Field now, but they did not get out of there unscathed.
He had to beat his own fears, the dizziness, and stay clear of every bubble before—
No. None of that was important now.
"What happened to Dmitry?" he asked, and Strelok stopped behind a gnarled tree to listen, too.
'Not much,' the voice claimed. But the tone suggested he'd drop the humblest brags in the history of humble brags, ever. 'The usual. Taking care of the toughest mutants from afar.'
As if that told Konrad anything about what actually happened.
"Cut to the chase," he grunted. "If you weren't aware, we're not on a roadside picnic here."
No. They were about to infiltrate the strangest military, or research, or whatever complex. One, swarming with armed guards, anomalies, and radiation. So, so much radiation.
And yes, the parallel brain's help was essential in getting this far, but that attitude?
It didn't improve whatsoever.
Fine. I took over a Controller and exploded it from the inside, all the way from here. Which was what? Like three miles to the south? No big deal now, with my extended range.'
Yeah. And this was why Konrad was not fond of the idea of letting this thing have any mana.
As if it weren't already terrifying enough.
But this still did not clear things up.
"Did a Controller attack the Captain and those soldiers on their way back?" Strelok asked, too, dropping behind some radioactive machinery for cover. Not that it bothered him.
With his Bubble, he could have sat on the Elephant's Foot and still be fine.
Which came in handy, because despite the brand-new Dome to protect from it—
This place was overloading all their sensors at once.
'A Controller?' the brain scoffed. And now Konrad knew it wasn't only bragging to him but to the veteran Stalker, too. 'It wasn't any Controller, but the first one to escape that lab.'
A shudder. He said he already sorted it out, right?
'Remember all that blood and no corpses near the entrance?'
He did. In fact, the image was too vivid right now.
So a Controller roamed the area with a huge zombie army, and Dmitry ran straight into them?
'No worries. Once I exploded that mutant from the inside, the zombies fell into a coma, too.'
"You did what?!" Konrad whisper-shouted, crawling through the overgrown grass.
'Figured a violent solution would be both fastest and safest here,' the voice boomed. 'And since I had someone to act as my beacon—well, his Psy Dampener caused some trouble, but—'
"The Controller had a dampener?" he scowled, stopping for another moment.
The voice would only laugh at that, and he was sure Strelok had heard it, too.
'Not the Controller,' the brain explained, sounding rather giddy. 'Captain Bandera. I had to ask for his own permission to bypass it, and then project my powers out of him to—'
Nope. This was way too much for him to handle right now.
Konrad didn't even say anything, only holding up a hand, and—
'As I said, the danger is gone. I even influenced their tense atmosphere so they won't start killing each other for, um. Other reasons.'
"W-what?!"
So he didn't even tell him everything yet?
No. He said they were safe. He'd ask for the details later, but right now—
They had to work on their own issues.
"Looks like that tank had finally parked. It's covering the main approach to the CNPP."
Yes, and those wheeled vehicles fell back into a tight formation behind it, too.
It was like a tight roadblock that could fire at everything approaching it.
And given the sparse entrances into that thing—
Actually, where did all those soldiers go?
How did they even enter that dome, where and why?
'See, this is why you're in desperate need of me,' the parallel brain snickered. 'You can't even understand what's right in front of you, and missed all the traces of Teleportation, too.'
"Huh? What?"
This time, he wasn't even playing dumb. It all went over his head.
There was a Teleportation Field all over the CNPP, but they were far beyond that by now, and—
'There is no entrance into that Dome,' the voice claimed. 'Not an official, or should I say, natural one, at least. But there are a few bubbles that can get you inside, or—'
Somewhere else altogether.
Now that Konrad had strained both his eyes and his senses, he had finally noticed it, too.
About five Teleportation Anomalies between the roadblock and the Dome. And while he couldn't see it, he could feel a soldier disappear in one right then and there.
"So they do use them to travel, but—it's for the different sections of the CNPP?"
'From what I could gather, they meant it as a secret entrance inside, but it didn't work out as planned. Now it's kinda random, goes all over the place, and got out of control in the end.'
So they were man-made Anomalies, after all?
But who had this much power to create them?!
Dispelling them already took a tremendous amount of energy.
Making them, whether they worked as they should or not, must have been even worse.
'They didn't create them all,' the voice explained. 'The ones beyond the perimeter do seem to be natural and unplanned. If you can call something like a Blowout a natural occurrence.'
"Nothing in this Zone was ever natural," Strelok grunted. "But if you know how those work—"
'Yeah, yeah, relax. I'll get you inside,' the parallel brain promised. 'It's quite a maze they had created, though, and not even most of the Monolith knows where each one goes.'
Plus, there was that teenie-tiny issue of that roadblock in front of those Bubbles.
Konrad would have had no chance to fight a tank right now.
The tainted mana of this place made everything a thousand times more difficult, and—
'You're focusing on the wrong things again,' the voice snapped him out of those spiraling thoughts. 'Why fight when you can turn invisible and walk right past them?'
"Wouldn't it fail if they have Psy Protection?" Konrad grumbled.
The tank's barrel had already pointed almost towards them.
But those wheeled vehicles had turrets, too, covering the entrance from every angle.
'Did you forget?' the brain scoffed. 'My Psyonic Energies and your magic do not work the same.'