“Can’t tell which way they went.” She droned lifelessly through the filter but somehow he could pick up on her dissatisfaction.
“Maybe they left footprints?” Sergio suggested, hearing his own voice slither out through his visor and appear as a wriggling stream of vapor. “It looks like the snow is fresh.”
Marco gave an agreeable nod and turned her head back to the plaza, this time scanning along the ground for tracks. An elated gasp confirmed the findings and she aimed her weapon at them to point out to Sergio the direction of travel – eastwards along Tverskaya Street.
There was a sparse flock of unidentifiable avian creatures flapping haphazardly across the limitless grey sky as they hesitantly exited the ornate building onto the sidewalk. The wide eight-lane avenue studded with rusted out skeletons of vehicles of all different shapes stretched onwards farther than Sergio could see. An endless row of strangely decorative buildings began across the plaza on both sides of the street and followed its gentle curves. The same rolling grey puffs of smoke filled the sky and obscured the probable sunset with its reddish tinge leaking into the rest of the canvas like spilled blood seeping into brackish water. The same whistling moan of the winds through the twisted remnants of tree trunks and jagged broken windows swirled around them. Everything was the same as it always was up here; dismal, lifeless.
Sergio scanned his eyes around in a full circle along the rooftops as he heard that same indescribable echo again, his stomach tightening as he expected to turn fast enough to come face to face with some monstrous creature that was just out of sight. Instead, only some gangly black birds took flight from the half-collapsed roof of the building behind them and Sergio let out a relieved breath. But something was still left where the birds had been roosting, only half the flock had gone? No, the shadowy shape was merging as Sergio took a step forward and tilted his head up to get a better view. The lumpy black silhouette was motionless, yet described the familiar shape of a man’s head and shoulders. Sergio stared hard for a long minute, trying not to blink until he couldn’t hold his eyelids apart any longer. When he looked back the shape had shifted, and suddenly it withdrew altogether, perhaps finally sensing that Sergio could see it. He blinked a few more times to make sure it was truly gone, and then immediately turned to see where Marco was.
Twenty paces onwards, she was slowly yet nimbly following in the bootprints of the Nationalist squad and didn’t seem to have even noticed that Sergio had paused just outside the doors. He looked up at the roof line once again but it was as vacant as all the other buildings seemed to be. Turning reluctantly, he rushed after Marco, trying to fit his own steps into the prints they were following just as she did. He thought that when he caught up he would tell her what he saw but at the same time he didn’t know exactly how to describe it. Could he even be sure that the figure, whatever it was, was even alive? It could very well have been a cloth or some other refuse being blown in the wind, or more of those birds just huddled together but it moved as one entity and with purpose. It had to be human; but what kind of human? Was there another detachment of Realm soldiers taking shifts watching the Verona exit as well as the hermetic lock? He wished he had taken a peek into the tavern as he passed to see if there were any more soldiers in there besides the three they were currently trailing after.
Suddenly a tiny and previously presumed inconsequential tidbit shot to the forefront of his memory and Sergio turned on his heel in one swift motion to look at the rooftop again in alarm. ‘A hooded figure’ just like in Marco’ vision after colliding with the anomaly, exactly as Sergio had imagined it when she had told him. Then, was it Sacco? But that was impossible; he certainly couldn’t have been on the surface for the entire time since… or could he? Maybe Sergio had been more correct in his wild assumptions that Sacco could have been transformed by the Dark Ones into something more like them. They didn’t choke on the atmosphere or decay from the inside out from the invisible particles of nuclear radiation like fragile humans did. If it was him, was he some kind of phantom? Stuck between the physical world and the afterlife like Khan had said about Heaven and Hell being atomized by the same warheads that ruined the whole city. Or could it even be a Dark One? The ghost of one? Weren’t they all dead?
“Sergio!” Marco hissed voicelessly through her respirator.
Sergio snapped back again and looked over at her, she had taken a knee behind an uprooted tree, and weak rays of light were sporadically poking out of the roots behind it and shifting, signaling a moving source. Without any further time to think, he bounded up to her and crouched down beside, and his instincts proved correct as the loud choking roar of a motor engine began to reach his muffled ears. The streams of scattered light soon angled away and then faded as the vehicle must have turned. Marco cautiously peered between a gap in the knotted roots to confirm the departure; patting her free hand at his shoulder to beckon him to come and see.
“That’s one of their transport trucks. There’s probably at least an Unteroffizer, could be Sokolov.” Marco spoke in a low voice because whispering was useless through the filters.
He slowly straightened up so he could see over the top of the trunk for himself. A lifted truck body covered in iron grates and strange padded panels was receding down the avenue at a slow ramble as it trundled over tree roots and other small obstacles. If he had any doubt as to its purpose, the stylized black and white logo of the Fourth Realm station banners was painted onto a piece of plywood tacked onto the very back.
“They aren’t going very fast, we should follow.” Marco gestured with her head and pulled the Vintorez up by her shoulder.
“What will you do if it is him?” Sergio grabbed at her arm before she had a chance to stand up, wanting more of a solid promise that she would restrain any more brash actions before they moved on again. Part of him was still thinking about Sacco when he asked but the original intention was about the possibility of running into Sokolov.
“I… I don’t think I’d know what to say to him right now. I just need to know if it’s true.” Marco dropped her eyes as she spelled out her thoughts, then looked back up and shook her head. “I won’t interfere with their business, I just have to see.”
That was confirmation enough for Sergio who nodded his acceptance and released his grasp. As they got back to their feet he felt the urge to search the rooftop again but there was nothing there anymore. He shook it off, trying to quiet down his interpretation of the vision the anomaly had supposedly bestowed on Marco. The chances of that figure even being a whole person was astronomical, let alone the probability of it being Sacco. Even if it was him, he couldn’t let it distract him or Marco from the task at hand; the Nationalist squad was driving onwards in an armored truck and they had to follow it to find out what exactly they were doing on the surface.
Chapter 28: Captured
Sara had initially taken the lead in navigating cautiously after the armored truck but before even a hundred meters had passed she had slowed her pace and drawn even with Sergio. He glanced over at her every few steps but she kept her eyes on the ground and didn’t try to speak to him. Maybe she was fearful about coming face to face with Sokolov but Sergio tried to remind himself that as intriguing as the possible conversation was, Marco had agreed not to intervene with the Nationalists and that Vera’s orders were to remain unseen.