The frigid cold, it worse than outside, the air's hurting their lungs, but Cyrus pushed them through the long hallway with different tubing on the walls, some small, some large, leading into different areas of the plant, and painted in a soft grey light. On one of the pipes, there's Cyrillic etching on it, which Boris translated as water leading from a reservoir into the reactors.
"How long do you think it'll remain radioactive?" Lila genuinely asked him how long the reactors and in extension, the Ruins would've remained radioactive, to which Boris muttered numbers to himself before giving her an estimate.
He hedged at least (maybe longer depending of the impact in affected areas) almost five hundred years or more before there's any chance the radioactive isotopes would've lessened or outright depleted.
By then, the mutated creatures that roamed the area would've evolved beyond what they know them as now, still abominations, but perhaps lessened by the breeding of the strongest survivors.
For humans, maybe not so much, but Boris' isn't going to doom and gloom the group with a belief of what'll happen once they're all dead.
He's pragmatic and knew that there's a small chance that humans might've survived that long, but whether they'll have two hearts, three heads, who knows, the future's so far out, they can't even begin to think about the future when they're barely surviving the present.
As it stands, they're beating the odds than those before them, when those before them didn't know anything about their new world, their deaths and knowledge passed onto their children and their children's children.
Boris didn't survive this long to have his mind cluttered with fears that haven't affected him personally. Unless its got teeth, claws, a taste for human, he's unconcerned for the most part.
Vodka, well, he's hoping for a brighter future than their grim present. He yearned that they're not wasting their time, that there'll be a sense of normalcy in the distant future, maybe not like what they considered as normal now, but at least a chance they won't fade away from memory like the etched shadows on building walls from the unfortunate souls caught in the bombs, having become nothing more than background noises.
He's heard of humanity coming back from a plague that nearly killed an entire country, an illness that swallowed children whole defeated by the tenacity of people working together finding a cure, there's potential they'll have their second wind in life, a deserving chance, maybe others don't see it as such, but Vodka didn't come this far to despair.
May he drink and sing, yes, but Vodka isn't about to give up like many before him did. Neither his grandfather, his father gave up, it won't change with him.
Stupidly optimistic on his part, but Vodka valued it over the doom that weighed heavy on people, now.
Artyom, the quietest of the bunch, his story, he only said this once, but he came from a different part of the Ruins, towards the border, where he and his camp made their home in a subway line.
He went with his original group looking for supplies all the time, doing everything they're capable finding supplies, and it's as much a living like other camps, but this all changed when he and his group went on another trip.
Through the darkness of the tunnels, out of the manhole, on the street, they're out in the open. Only thing they heard's the wail of the cold air that passed by.
Going through routes and straggling for possible supply cache, they lucked out, finding supplies buried underneath debris, likely stowed by another camp, but they couldn't negotiate trade.
Grabbed as much as they're able with the group of four men before they went back home with their loot.
Something should've alerted them when they didn't hear anyone coming out from the camp after they returned through the threshold, but they pressed forward, and returned to their camp, finding it destroyed, ravaged.
Everything in tatters, bodies lying everywhere, death in the air, and not a living soul in sight.
Hours after they left, something happened somewhere deeper in the tunnels, hordes of insects, unseen by anyone, chased after the rats that fled in terror, they fled until they clashed with the camp trying to fend them off, but it was too late, the swarm got them, got them all, no survivors. None.
Artyom's group dissolved, unable to handle the loss of their camp, the bloodshed, and he's forced out into the topside on his own until Cyrus found and recruited him, brought him back to Camp Prime.
The trauma, perhaps still affects him to this day, but he hadn't said a word about what happened to his camp, only to Cyrus, but that's it.
Don't know what became the others, maybe they found new camps, maybe they formed their own, maybe they just died out in the open like many before them.
Only thing he's got left of his old camp's his pin that he kept stowed away with his collection, afraid of losing that, too.
His belief in humanity's survival soured heavily, that he doesn't care what happens to them. They die, they die. They live, they live. He's surviving by the day, his mind playing back the scene of discovering the remains of the people he knew in life, stripped flesh from bone, their mouths permanently in a scream.
Cyrus, he's older than the men, he seen many dead before his own eyes, watched close friends dragged into the nests of rats, torn apart by dogs, flown off by the flying beasts, disappeared without a trace, and having seen death personally, maybe it's his stubbornness because he survived longer than those before him or maybe someone up there still liked him. Maybe wanted him to survive for their amusement, but he survived regardless, and he's not slowing down despite him aging by the year.
To him, he doesn't know what the future holds for humans, if there's any, all he knows that in time, it'll be his turn to join the others in their hellish afterlife.
Until then, he's doing what he can for Mink and Camp Prime.
While they're walking through the long hallway of pipes with their Geiger counters slowly ticking up, Theodore reached out to the TARDIS, hoping it's still active, and heard the familiar voice in his mind. Al asked where he and Lila went and he told him that they're in the power plant, now, and he warned Al that something's going on with Cyrus, whispers. Something's luring him and they can't do anything without risking him hurting himself or them.
"Oh boy," Al winced as Theodore tells him their problem.
Theodore asks if he's able to get a pinpoint on what's inside the power plant, but the TARDIS said that it's hazy on the details because so much of the radar's picking up radiation. Trying his hardest, Al said that there's something at the basement level, where water's flowed into the reactors, it's not radiated, but if he doesn't know any better, on his scans, it's almost like it's moving.
"Organic?" Theodore asks him.
Al's silent for a minute before answering that he's not sure, he just knows there's multiple heartbeats.
It's as confusing for him as it is Theodore hearing this, but Al mentioned that the heartbeats moved in tandem with each other, like Theodore's two hearts, giving him the idea that it's one entity.
"Do you know what it is?" Theodore continued asking Al as he's trying his best with the little resources available to him and he said that he doesn't know for certain, other than it's organic, and from what he managed, looked like the source of the whispers.
He guessed that whatever's down there would've given Theodore nightmares for days on end, but he warned that they can't get too deep or else they'll meet it.
"How's it surviving down there?" Theodore inquired how the entity survived the constant radiation and Al couldn't answer him, only that it's the only organic on his scans except them.
Pressed for time, Al said that he'll get them out of there, but he needed time powering up via leaching off radiation that he's carefully extracting. Too much, he'll risk burning out coils, too little, he risks sinking.
"But can you get us out?" Theodore pressed him and Al answered back sharply with, "Kid, I promised your dad I'd take care of you munchkins, he'd kill me if I let you get hurt. Your brother, too."
Al said he'll work on his end, but help Theodore with his until then, and said that whatever's moving down there can't get out, so they have some way of warding it away as long as they don't get too close.
"I don't recommend explosions because you're likely to die horribly or exposed to enough radiation that we'll find you in Paris. My suggestion's setting it on fire, the threshold's deep enough that the fire won't jump, but I can't be sure that there's nothing down there that won't cause problems. Not to mention, you do risk breathing in the smoke possibly carrying radioactive isotopes, but you have your gas masks, so you shouldn't have any problems provided the filters don't give out. My warning, kiddo, whatever you use to torch it, you better buck it afterwards, I can't tell you what I already said," Al went on to tell Theodore what he's able to find with the limited resources available Nd he warned that whatever Theodore uses on the entity living in the basement, they better run as quickly they're capable, because whatever's down there isn't small by any means. Something big, grounded in the basement though it may be, Al couldn't be sure if it's capable of retaliating against Theodore, especially with hooks in Cyrus' mind.
Theodore asked what he's supposed to do for Cyrus and Al couldn't tell him much, only that it's possible for the man becoming enraged by the entity's influence and attack Theodore for the provocation and the entity attempting to assert full control over him.
"My suggestion's you knock him out, torch it, run like hell, and I'll come by once I'm topped off," Al gave his suggestion to Theodore how he should approach their situation.
With Cyrus influenced by the entity, Theodore's expecting the entity retaliating against him for torching it, and likely using Cyrus as a weapon. If he doesn't want the risk of it happening, Theodore needed to knock him out long enough for him to destroy the entity in the basement without the entity getting a chance.
How he planned to do it with the aid of the three men, that's on his part, but Al strongly suggested Theodore go through this carefully, maybe it didn't get to him before, but when pressed and injured, no doubt the entity in the basement's going to give Theodore a piece of its mind.
"What's an adventure without an injury?" Theodore wearily said before Al mentioning that it's possible the entity has reserves of mental power, enough it'll go to tow with him as a last resort, maybe stronger if it's on adrenaline.
With his options, Theodore mulled them over, and he let Al leave his mind, preparing to rescue them.
Theodore reached out to Lila and gave her a summary of what he and Al discussed, mentioning that he'll need to kill whatever's in the basement.
"If you can kill it," Lila wearily looked at him with her hidden chestnut eyes as she's unsure they're capable of killing it with mere incendiary solutions.
Maybe it can't attack them from where its situated, but it didn't last this long without having some idea in the event that there's something attacking it.
"What if it tries with the others, what then?" Lila then mentioned that there's an opportunity for the entity switching from Cyrus to the other men, in a bid to ward of Theodore's attempt, but he doesn't think it'll try that, it would've done it the moment they got close to the power plant.
It's only affecting Cyrus because his mind's palpable for the entity's uses, if Theodore had to guess, it's using him to lure them all to their deaths because it knows Cyrus leads them.
Whatever's down there knows they're there, but doesn't seem to know Theodore's telepathic, too, and Lila reminded him of his limits. Even if he's his father's child, he's got limits like everyone else, and if the entity's been down in the basement for a while, it's built up a mind.
"Help me find something flammable," Theodore tells Lila as she nods, she asked what he's planning, and he said that he'll have to do something incredibly stupid for them remotely having a chance at escaping the power plant with everyone intact.