Chapter Eleven - Tricky

Alice really wanted to ask the man how he'd copied a trick that she didn't think anyone but Meagan could do. It wasn't just teleportation. There was a spacial aspect to it, but the magic, and its lingering... non-scent, suggested that it was far more temporal.

That was full-on one of Meagan's tricks. She loved appearing behind an enemy to surprise or annoy them in equal measure.

Alice wanted to know, but she couldn't just walk up to a stranger and ask, that would be--

"Hi!" Crystal said as she walked up to the stranger. "How did you do that?" she asked.

Alice held back a sigh before she walked up to stand behind and to Crystal's side. If she wasn't brave enough to ask herself, she could at least stand by while Crystal did the interrogating.

The man frowned, then wiped the back of a hand across his mouth. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, little miss," he replied.

"Oh, I meant that thing were you went 'wah!' and teleported from there to there," Crystal said.

"Just a trick of the light," he said.

"Hmm, no, I do light tricks. That wasn't that," Crystal argued.

Alice laid a hand on Crystal's shoulder. "We're looking for someone called Pavlo. Apparently he's stationed around here?" She gestured to the entrance of the Last Resort just behind the man. Was he the local equivalent of a bouncer?

The man looked between the two, then off to the drunk guy still stumbling away. "This isn't a place for nice young ladies," he replied.

"Everybody keeps telling us that," Crystal said. "It's like this whole city isn't suitable for young ladies or something."

He chuckled. "That's true enough," he said. "So maybe you should take one of the buses out of here, huh?"

"You know, the last world I was on was sexist too, but somehow it felt less derogatory than here," Crystal said. "Which is weird. In that last one, being physically stronger was, like, a pretty big bonus. Here they have guns."

"I don't think it's entirely cultural," Alice said. She'd seen some of the statues near the City Hall, there were figures of women there, often in prideful, powerful poses. And some of the advertising also seemed to be very... empowerment-friendly. "It could be a local issue."

The man chuckled. "Yeah, there's plenty of issues around here. What do you need Pavlo for?"

"We're going into an area that I think you're calling the Zone," Crystal said. "The Office of Zone Exploration didn't want to help, but we're going anyway."

"Foolish," he said. "Are you so desperate for money?"

"We're not," Crystal replied. "Not exactly rich, but we can make due. We're going to save a friend."

Something shifted in the man's eyes. They softened for a moment before going hard again. "It's not worth it," he said.

"I think almost anything is worth it to save someone you care about," Crystal replied.

He paused, then nodded. "Come on in, I'll introduce you to Pavlo. Keep your wits about you, and don't agree to anything he says. That man would have you selling your mother for three rubles and a compliment."

The man walked over to the Last Resort and opened the door for them. Alice was actually surprised as she entered the place. It didn't stink as much as she feared it would. Not that it was roses in there, but it was certainly better than she'd hoped. Cleaner too.

The floors had been swept, and while the walls looked a bit dirty along the bottoms, they weren't all that bad. The lighting helped, mostly because there was a lot of it.

The main room of the Last Resort was a pretty typical bar, it was past an L-shaped entranceway which forced them into an open space surrounded by half-walls that separated the entrance from a few dozen tables surrounded by chairs.

A counter ran along the far-end of the room, with a few patrons sitting on stools before it. There was more, deeper into the building. She could sense people further in, including some people who were asleep and having nightmares, but she had no idea how to get to those parts from the main room.

"It's bright," Crystal said.

It was. The room wasn't merely well-lit. The ceiling had metal rails running across it, and there were incandescent bulbs hanging from above every metre or so. Far, far more than what they'd need to keep a room of this size lit up. The different types of bulbs cast different shades of white across the room, but they all mixed together to make for a very bright space.

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"It keeps some people calmer, the lack of shadows," their guide said. "Come on, Pavlo's this way." He led them across the bar. Alice noticed that they weren't the only women, but the other two she saw were both waitresses, carrying trays with beers and broths to some of the tables. The patrons here were a mix of roughly dressed men, and locals that just looked like they were here for a drink and chat.

Their new pal brought them to the side, where he pulled a curtain off a wall and revealed a passage behind it. The wall looked like it had been crudely cut into to lead into another set of rooms. These were well-lit too. Alice was starting to wonder about their electrical bill.

This room was split into two, one part, the one they were in, was a narrow corridor, the other half looked like a storage space behind a wire-mesh fence. A larger man was sitting behind a desk, adjusting his spectacles as he read over what looked like a ledger.

"Pavlo," their guide said. "Found two birds squawking for you outside."

The older man looked up, then removed his reading glasses. "What kind of birds, Koschei?"

"That's not my name," the now-named Koschei said.

"You are what you are," Pavlo said with a dark chuckle. He stood, which made his knees crack, then ambled over to the mesh separating them. There was a small section that looked like it could be pulled aside to pass objects over. "You're looking for old man Pavlo?" he asked.

"Hello," Crystal said.

"Hello," Alice replied as well. She took the lead on this one. "We were told that you might be able to help us. We're going west."

"Into the Zone?"

"Maybe," Alice said. "At this point, it's probable, even. We don't want to walk in blind."

"There's little you can do not to walk into that place blind," Pavlo said. "But what you can do is rely on Pavlo to get you there and back in one piece. I have the best gear, the best contacts, and all the best friends!" He swept his arms wide and invitingly.

Crystal clapped. "Yay! We do like friends," she said.

Alice stepped in before Crystal could sell one of her kidneys. She noted Koschei hanging back to lean against a wall nearby, arms crossed. "We're looking for a few things to start. A map would be good. A history of what happened in this... Zone would be better. A guide would be best."

Pavlo's bushy eyebrows shot up. "Aiming big, are we? The Zone is a place where the brave become rich! The daring become famous!"

"And the unlucky become dead," Koschei added.

Pavlo grinned. "There's some small amount of risk, yes."

"What is the Zone?" Alice asked. "The name's not exactly descriptive. Is it a quarantine?"

Pavlo frowned for a moment. "You mean what is the Zone really? Beyond what the propagandists will tell you? That's a mystery that would be worth a fortune for anyone that could solve it. Some people say it's divine punishment. Others say that it's hell breaking into our world."

Alice snorted. She'd seen that happen, this wasn't it.

"Yes, that's a foolish one. Others say that it's where some aliens came down for a picnic and left their trash behind. I like that one, personally. But what it is and what it is are two different things."

"Uh, what's that mean?" Crystal asked.

"Do you know how a car works?" he asked. "Do you understand how a combustion engine functions, how to make one, how every part fits into place?"

"Yes," Crystal said confidently. Alice was certain she was right, even. Crystal was gifted when it came to mechanical things... It was a bright spark of intelligence in a sea of darkness.

That took some of the wind from Pavlo's sails. "Ah, well, most people don't, and it doesn't matter. You don't need to know for it to work. The Zone does its thing. I might not know why or how, but I know what works and what people need to survive it, and when they come back, why, old Pavlo is here to make those Stalkers very rich men... or women."

***