Leading them away from the military base, Wilhelm and Edgar explain that they won't find anything of interest anyhow, trust them, they been going around looking through abandoned bases since this happened.
The military were thorough when they pulled out and the scavengers already pilfered what was left, all that remains are barebones of former bases.
Anything of value was already sold to the highest bidder.
"Vultures!" Edgar calls them.
Further curious, Paul questioned what happened, bringing up that everyone knows about the Chernobyl disaster, but Wilhelm tells him that "everyone and their mother" knows it.
There were some speculations over the years that the military grew interested in radioactivity, trying to curtail it, and see what they can do with it.
Never proven, nobody with a brain wanted to try their hand, of course that didn't stop brainless idiots.
"She was born here when the reactor fell," Edgar cryptically tells Paul.
Speaking up as she walked beside him, the sun brightening her ruby red hair, Taylor asks what Edgar meant, causing an audible groan by Wilhelm.
"This is her world. Her image. She is the Zone. They tried to kill her. But she fought back," Edgar epically personified the area they're in as a living entity.
Wilhelm made disparaging comments, but there was some credence to this as Paul inquired more about the Zone's capabilities.
Edgar gave him everything to draw the conclusion that it was the Zone that took away the TARDIS.
It's as though the Zone was its own universe with its own laws and physics that man barely understood.
Only.
The way Edgar's describing the Zone, she was a living entity, acutely aware of everything that goes on, and quite capable of turning irate when she wants, something Edgar warned that she can and has revolted against people who tried to contain or eradicate her.
That would explain the awful feeling Paul experienced.
The Zone read his mind, trying to see if he was a threat, or something else.
It can read minds, but telepaths are a different breed, it'd seem.
"Mind you, this idiot almost got eaten when I found him," Wilhelm referenced his and Edgar's chance meeting.
It happened six weeks ago to the letter, Wilhelm was scavenging as he usually did, here Edgar was, almost eaten by a dog with three heads.
"She brought you to me," Edgar swore that he wasn't in danger like Wilhelm described it.
The Zone purposely led Wilhelm to Edgar, so they'd meet.
She has a plan, Edgar swears.
"Sir, may I ask why?" Taylor inquires as she leans in.
His head turning towards her, Edgar says, "We are needed. You are too."
The Zone had a plan for the four and only she knew it.
"And what happens when that plan is said and done?" Paul questioned what the Zone planned to do with them when everything's said and done, but Edgar didn't have an answer, explaining that only the Zone knows.
He believed once they complete their tasks, she won't need them anymore.
Wilhelm gave credence, saying that since he found Edgar, he can't leave the Zone if he wanted.
Every path he knows by heart that should take him out of it's completely blocked off despite him traversing it not too long ago.
Safe areas now riddled with wild mutants and God only knows what else lurked in the thickets.
No phones worked; Wilhelm can't even get a call out to someone outside the Zone.
Something's physically keeping him here and until he does whatever they want he can't leave.
So, it'd appear Paul and Taylor share similar fates as the men.
"Where does… she wants us to go?" Taylor unsurely asks Edgar as her emerald eyes glimpsed the uniquely coloured foliage that had seemingly been altered to the point that she wasn't what they used to look like.
Unfortunately, Edgar couldn't tell her, he says that the Zone is guiding him as he speaks, but she won't tell him more, so they better stay together.
It would be best, anyhow, as he explained that because of countless intruders, the Zone had enacted traps and created different animals to deal with intrusions.
She's gifted enough to dot them in her world, but those blessed can see her traps.
"Like the energy on the road to the military base," Paul pointed behind him.
Affirming with a nod, Edgar's surprised that Paul can see them, but believes there's a reason.
Perhaps being part-Time Lord had some hand in it, but Paul needed to know everything going on in this world, that he had to play the part.
Though, no doubt the Zone knows that fact.
Presumably, she doesn't think he and Taylor are threats, else they'd certainly be dead, and they wouldn't have met Edgar and Wilhelm, though the Zone doing away with the TARDIS only meant that he and Taylor were trapped until the Zone says they can leave.
If they can leave.
There's a question what the Zone intended to do with them after the fact and if she's as wily as Edgar described her, there's a possibility of her attempting to keep them in perpetually.
Following Edgar and Wilhelm, the couple were stopped when Wilhelm noticed something in the grass.
Raising his rifle, Wilhelm cautiously approached it.
"Oh, poor sod," Wilhelm calls out a dead soldier.
Coming forward, the couple see the mangled remains.
"Dogs?" Paul asks.
Shaking his head, Wilhelm responds, "No, they don't leave bodies. Few 'em do. This one got caught by a mean shite with two heads. Those one you gotta watch yourself out here for. Dogs chew. These ones claw the shite out of you. Then chew you."
Having witnessed this firsthand, Wilhelm saw what these beasts can do to unprepared people.
Some think they're a result of the radioactivity in different zones or even some madman's laboratory experiments running wild.
Edgar confirmed that there been many people that come to the Zone, some with nefarious purposes, and all paid the price for their trespass.
"Oh yeah, I knew a group that went down to one of those underground labs and hadn't come back," Wilhelm mentioned how he knew a group of prospecting scientists teaming with ideas paying for passage into the Zone trying to find old Soviet labs that been left behind.
Given none of them ever turned up, again, then they've likely met their grisly ends with one of the Zone's creations.
Or the creations by man.
At one point, there'd been talks about the Soviet Union using the disaster to further their goals, though Wilhelm says the results of their experiments never left the labs.
Much.
"Trust me, I've seen the buggers more than once, they are far different than the hell beasts that roam here, if you think something looks funny, and I use that term loosely, you'd best tell me," Wilhelm warned Paul and Taylor that there's been problems with lab experiments escaping into the Zone periodically and causing havoc for everyone involved.
One of those was as big as an elephant and though typically it's rare seeing one of them, it can do a lot of damage, and is difficult killing due to the thick skin.
Though that's not the worst thing to come out of a lab.
Believe Wilhelm.
Edgar attested to Wilhelm's claim, that there were men bound and gagged, taken down to the labs to be experimented on, now they're no longer human in any sense.
However, Edgar says that the Zone will protect them, so long as they follow her wishes, something Wilhelm disagreed, pointing out that "she" almost sent Edgar to an early death.
Though Edgar claimed otherwise.
"You have an interesting faith in the Zone, sir," Taylor commented that Edgar had an undeniable belief in the Zone despite what others may say and he expressed that the Zone reached out to him for a reason.
On their journey through the Zone, there was no sign of wildlife or people, but that didn't mean there wasn't danger.
There'd be areas that Edgar and Paul naturally avoided, seeing the disturbances, while Wilhelm and Taylor followed closely behind.
To show them how dangerous the disturbances were, Edgar threw a lug nut tied to a piece of cloth towards where he and Paul see the disturbances.
The lug nut dropped instantly and as they carefully walked around; the trio sees the flattened lug nut.
Because of the military operations, the Zone created these disturbances, completely dotting the area, all lethal, all different in how they maim and kill, one that is referred to as hell's jelly.
It can look like normal puddles of water, sometimes iridescent, sometimes clear as the skies.
The only way anyone knows is if they stepped in what they think is water.
Though there'd been rare occasions that the hell's jelly doesn't take the form of visible liquid, so there was that to consider, too.
"One of my men thought he was stepping in a puddle; it took seconds for it to eat his feet. It took us seconds to amputate his legs," Edgar revealed the horrifying disturbance eating away at the man's legs like fire to paper, that they all had to act to save him from his fate.
He almost died from the shock due to the amputation and the blood loss, but they managed to haul him back to base, where he was put into a medical coma until they evacuated him from the Zone.
Edgar says it was the Zone warning them of what they were dealing with.
Oh, he forgot to mention that.
At one point Edgar worked with a team of hardened men from the army who came to the Zone to investigate missing people who gone into the Zone and haven't returned.
"And he went blind for his trouble," Wilhelm interjected.
That too.
Edgar didn't initially believe what was going on to be anything more than people getting hurt by the environment and the wildlife that sprouted after the evacuation until the experiences he endured.
He says that the Zone made him blind for a reason, though Wilhelm failed to believe him.
"And what say you, Wilhelm, what led you here?" Paul asked what led the seemingly bedeviled man to risk his life coming here and he explained to Paul that he was a simple man who came here to find what was his.
Of course, the vultures got to it, and now he can't leave on account of Edgar's insistence that the Zone won't let them.
"I used to live here, I had everything a man could want 'till they loused everything up," Wilhelm bitterly says as he explained why he risked his life coming here and inevitably became roped into whatever was going on.
Their conversations were halted when Edgar exclaimed something in Ukrainian.
Wilhelm glanced up as he shouted, "Get your arses to cover!"
Glancing up, Paul and Taylor see the sunny sky turn black with clouds, slowly moving into unusual formations, and a haunting droning noise that pierced the quiet ambiance.
Following Edgar, the trio hurried as the skies took an ominous turn.
Pointing his finger, Edgar alerted Wilhelm to a door hidden by vines.
Hurrying ahead, Wilhelm got to the door, struggling to open it, but couldn't because it was rusted.
Paul assisted him by using his natural strength, a good kick like his grandfather and uncles taught him.
Upon rushing inside, Wilhelm quickly closed the door.
In darkness they heard the unnatural sounds outside.
"What's going on?" Taylor asks Edgar and Wilhelm, fear in her emerald eyes as she felt the droning coming through the bunker's reinforced walls.
Both men explained the occasional storms that can swiftly happen in the Zone, Edgar attributing it to the Zone attacking invaders.
It is unwise to get caught in the storms, as there are dire consequences.
Wilhelm used his hands to show what happened when someone got caught in these storms.
Close to his face then away with a popping sound emitting from his half-closed mouth.
"We will be safe here," Edgar assured Taylor that because the bunker was reinforced, they won't have problems.
However.
He was quick to find a spot near the wall and warned Paul to do the same.
"Why?" Paul's angel eyes followed Edgar to his spot.
Edgar cryptically says, "You will see."
He proceeded to add that Paul won't be hurt, it's a side effect, can't be helped, best he can do was find somewhere safe in the Zone when the storms happen.
Paul got an idea when he heard loud booming noises in the distance, he felt becoming lightheaded so he quickly took his spot on the ground in the darkness, and falling unconscious on the floor alongside Edgar as the booming noises went overhead.
