Chapter Forty - Science Man

"So, you're a big fancy science man, right?" Crystal asked.

They'd been walking together for over two hours already, and for a while the walk had gone quiet. The mercenaries with Raivis seemed to know about anomalies more than he did, and were more cautious than the scientist himself. Not to say that he wasn't. He had removed several items and hooked them to his coat on little straps clearly designed for them. A radio, the rod of a geiger counter, and a small device that seemed to measure the static electricity in the air.

It allowed him to warn them of some anomalies long before they were even close. The rest they had to see for themselves to avoid. With the mercenaries acting as well-trained eyes and ears and pathfinders, and Raivis looking for clues, they were navigating the area with relative ease.

"I suppose I am," he said. "I came here to obtain my doctorate. There are so many new findings in and around the Zone that you can't walk a kilometre without stumbling over dissertation material."

"Oh, so you're a Doctor of... Zoneology?" Crystal asked.

He laughed. "I want to be. I became quite distracted once I arrived here, however. There's so much to research, so much to categorise and study and just... observe. I've found that I can't focus on any one anomaly, I need to sample all of them. Of course, I take images when I can, other readings as well, and I document those for the ESACZR. My notes and data have featured in several papers, you know?"

"That's impressive," Crystal said. She glanced back, and Alice caught a glimmer in her eye, that spark of intelligence that happened in those moments where Crystal was about to be more perceptive than usual. "So, what's the consensus?"

"The consensus?" Raivis asked.

Even Vasilisa turned to listen in some more. "Yeah, the consensus," Crystal said. "There's a whole community of scientists looking into the Zone, right? They've got to agree on something, some of the time about all of this... thisness?"

"I suppose," Raivis said. He hummed, rubbing at his chin. "There are several prevalent theories, of course, but nothing that anyone has been able to prove with any amount of concreteness."

"Can you give us some examples?" Alice asked.

"Oh, certainly. Doctor Wade, about...three years ago now, conducted a longitudinal study of the Zone's outer region. That is the area about one hundred to one hundred and fifty kilometres away from the approximate centre of the Zone. He and his team marked the location of every anomaly they discovered."

"Okay," Crystal said. "What did they find?"

The six of them were slowly walking along the highway, but the area they were in was starting to become a little busier. More homes, more shops, and those that were here were larger. They were encroaching into a suburban area.

"Well, his findings took a while to reveal a pattern. Take into account that every Storm changes the landscape quite a bit, and such a wide, dangerous area, even one far enough from the centre of the Zone that anomalies aren't as prevalent, takes time to scout."

"Got it," Crystal said.

Raivis, they were discovering, had a gift for explaining things from oblique angles with many tangents. "In any case, Doctor Wade discovered that there is a pattern to the movement of the anomalies in the area. Some are fixed, of course, but those that aren't? They move with every storm. Clockwise, even, the same direction as the spin to the Storm's winds."

"Do they move by exactly thirty degrees?" Alice asked.

Raivis blinked, then adjusted his glasses. "Um, yes. You've read his paper?"

"No," Alice said. "It's just obvious."

"It is?"

She nodded, but didn't explain more, even with Raivis staring at her. She noticed Crystal frowning, then wiggling her hands in the air at about thirty degree increments. When she went full circle, she made a small 'Ah' of understanding. "That would fit with Fracture's way of doing things."

"I'm afraid that I'm out of the loop," Raivis said.

"Magic often falls back on symbology," Alice said. "Some more than others. Fractured Time's magic rarely interferes with geometry, but when it does, it often relies on circles with thirty-degree cuts."

Raivis hummed, taking that in, but clearly not certain. He doubted their claims about magic, which... she supposed was only fair.

"So, that was interesting, but that didn't answer my question," Crystal said. "What's the consensus about the Zone?"

"Well, obviously any consensus reached now will undoubtedly be very flawed. But I think there are two camps with regards to explaining the Zone via science."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Via science?" Vasilisa asked.

"Well, others explain the Zone through faith or religion or... magic." He very pointedly didn't look in Alice or Crystal's direction at that last.

"Oh," Vasilisa said.

"Anyway, the two current schools of thought are quite different but nonetheless interesting. The first is the one I subscribe to."

"And that is?" Alice asked.

"The... perfect answer consensus. That there is an explanation for all of this, that the physics-defying phenomena of the Zone have an answer that can be slotted into our greater understanding of science. After all, science has faced observable phenomena that we can't understand before. Things that seem to break physics."

"Small things," Crystal said.

"Indeed! The microscopic world, on the very microscopic scale, often acts and reacts in ways that don't mesh perfectly with our current understanding of physics. But, as observable reality, we know these things to be true, so it's our understanding that is either flawed or incomplete."

"That's a non-answer of a consensus," Alice said.

Raivis shook his head. "No, I'd rather think it's the best answer of a consensus. Admitting that there are things we don't yet know and don't yet understand is fundamental to being a good scientist."

"I guess it's a fair enough answer, but it's really not as impressive as I'd imagined," Crystal said.

Raivis laughed. "I suppose not. You might like this one, then. It's... not a majority consensus, in fact, quite the opposite. It's an opinion held by a minority."

"Is it aliens?" Crystal asked.

"No! Surprisingly. The USSR has fantastic radar array in this area, as did most countries to the west of here, most of them pointed this way. For... reasons. Anyway, no one detected anything anomalous before the first storm. No sightings of strange flying ships or little green men."

Crystal laughed. "Aliens aren't green. They're grey!"

Raivis laughed along with her. "Yes, well, in any case the second large consensus is held by a minority, but they're vocal. The idea is called the broken noosphere."

Alice felt her spine straightening.

"The what?" Crystal asked.

"It's an older idea, from some time before the second great war. The idea is that there are... spheres that exist. The Earth is one, and the topmost layer is the biosphere, the place where all things live. And above that, a sphere of thought where all ideas exist. It, of course, is as silly and defunct an idea as Agartha the Akashic Records."

"But at least one of those is real," Crystal said. "No? I'm pretty sure we fought a kaiju about it, or was it a weird secret cult of bad guys? Wait! A cult that wanted to bring a kaiju to Earth?" She turned and looked at Alice who shrugged. They'd faced all sorts of things over the years. It was hard to keep track of which one came from where.

Raivis chuckled. "It does get a bit confusing, doesn't it? But the broken noosphere theory suggests that the Zone is a rupture in this sphere of thought, a place where ideas and reality get tangled and clash. It's a bit like how dreams can sometimes feel so real, but on a much larger, more dangerous scale."

Crystal nodded slowly. "So, basically, we're walking through a bad dream made real?"

"Something like that," Raivis said. "It's a fascinating idea, but proving it? That's a whole other challenge. Not to mention that most scientists, myself included, dismiss it as... well, hogwash."

One of the mercenaries, who had been quiet so far, suddenly raised his hand. "Hold up."

The group halted, instinctively reaching for their weapons. Alice strained her ears, trying to catch what had alerted him. For a moment, there was nothing but the rustling of leaves in the breeze.

Then she heard it—a faint, distant sound. A low, guttural growl, followed by a series of chuffing sounds, almost barks but not quite.

"Dogs," Vasilisa whispered, her voice tense.

"Wild dogs?" Alice asked.

"In the Zone? Wild dogs can be a little dangerous. But there are things, warped by the Zone into... new things that really shouldn't be alive sometimes," Raivis said.

His mercenaries got their arms ready, and even Raivis pulled out a handgun. The tension mounted as they looked around. They were just off the highway, on a smaller, more residential street with apartment complexes on either side of them, broken windows and hauntingly dark homes.

The barking increased, then something howled, and Alice felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

***