Chapter 44:
Talia was in the lead as the little group clambered back through the blast door and out into the cool evening. Though they'd found a few corpses, there had been no sign of the radioactive mutants left over from the Last War. Breath steaming in the cool night air, the witch's expression was pensive.
"I can bring in some power sources," Nadia declared. "We'll run cables down into the bunker. Most of what we saw was heavily shielded against EMP..." "Imp," burbled Olga?
"Electromagnetic Pulse," Katsumi muttered. "It's a side-effect of a nuclear weapon blast. It burns out electronics..." Glancing over her shoulder, the kitsune murmured, "if it was fried, this would've all been for nothing..."
"We've been working around such things for a couple centuries," Nadia chuckled. "I can scavenge data off the computers. It helps that everything would've been written in Russian." "Kvazdia, here, has a secret technique that can help," Talia chuckled.
Her niece glared at her. Seeing that expression, the witch solemnly declared, "Baba Yaga has declared common cause with the Tsar, Kvazdia. I expect all of my people to help in the hunt for the deadly things that time forgot."
The younger woman's face went red hot, and she glanced away. In a small voice, she said, "the dead are thick in there..."
"I know, dear," Talia murmured, "but it will help us to know combinations and passwords. A lot of the papers that would've been in there are dust now. We need to hear from the authors, in their own words..." Nodding, Kvazdia sighed, "da."
The little group strolled back down the hill towards their campsite, chattering away about the success of the day and the things they'd seen. Baba Yaga was crooning a tune in her haunting voice, and the Nine-Tailed Fox was crowded close to her, murmuring and whispering about things that mattered to them.
Seeing Kvazdia's expression, Betty remarked, "they go back a long way, Kvazdia. Don't you have close friends you've known since your youth?" Olga retorted, "it's not a side of Dear Leader that we usually see, Ms. Foreigner..."
Chuckling, Betty admitted, "I've gotten the rough side of her tongue a couple of times myself."
She was still shaking her head and chuckling, when suddenly Katsumi stopped and toppled over. One moment, they were all having a laugh at Baba Yaga's expense. The next, the tall Asian woman was laying on the ground, writhing as if she was having a fit.
Brushing past a paralyzed Betty, Olga knelt at the strange woman's side. Almost before she'd settled there, she was sliding off her belt. Jamming it between the kitsune's sharp teeth, she declared, "need to keep her from biting her own damned tongue off until this stops. Kvazdia... Get back to the camp. We might need materials for a stretcher."
As the younger woman tore off down the trail, Olga glanced up, saying, "you know her, Talia Igorovich. Has she ever had a fit like this before?" "No," Talia replied. "Never."
The rusalka's pale face told the tale. She was very worried, and that worried Betty.
"C-could it be something related to her change," Betty stammered. "That's a good question, Betty," Nadia burbled, as she strode forward.
Squatting beside her, the cyborg woman murmured, "zero-point energy... It's... Something's draining zero-point energy through her body..." Glancing up, the curvy cyborg muttered, "I can see what's happening, but I don't understand it..."
"That zero-point whatever...," Talia burbled, "the thing you're seeing... Someone's trying to tear her soul out of her..."
Betty's eyes got big as plates, as she babbled, "the pact stone..." Those words had Baba Yaga's undivided attention. Stepping past her friend, the witch got in Betty's face.
Before she could say a word, Betty declared, "there's a boulder... It's laced with weaves and things I don't understand. It's sitting in the little village that she took charge of... the one where those fiends were cooking up that virus. It's the symbol of the pact she made..."
"Where is it," Talia demanded? "Where is it now? That village is gone. Finn flattened the whole thing..." Judging by her expression and the urgency in her voice, Talia now knew exactly what was afflicting her friend.
"It's in the west," Betty replied, "on King's Island. Finn gave the villagers a prime piece of land on the shore of the island. He... he gave Katsumi the land, so she'd have a place near to Bill."
Frowning, the curvy woman murmured, "there's a man there... A man named Cao Bambang. He used to harass Kat... trying to woo her, I guess."
Turning towards the trail once more, the witch growled, "Olga! Nadia! Get her back to the plane..." "Where're you going," Nadia demanded?! "To King's Island," Talia muttered. Betty shuddered. She was going to teleport.