Apocalypse children - for worthallthis

[musicdied]

There's an alarm sounding somewhere in the compound, harsh and urgent and ignored, and somehow still less jarring than the occasional creak of metal. Beneath that, voices sound, quick and quiet and tense, the pitch entirely wrong for any technicians, any handlers, anyone who belongs in this room.

"...sure you did it right?"

"I entered the sequence exactly like I was supposed to!"

"Then why isn't it--"

The first voice cuts off at the hydraulic hiss of the cryo tube opening. The inrush of air brings with it the smell of smoke, and the acrid taste of heated metal, and the sound of nervous gasps and small feet on grated metal flooring.

Outside the cryo tube stands a group of girls, the oldest somewhere around twelve or thirteen, the youngest perhaps four, clinging tight to the leg of one of the older girls and peering at the tube with wide-eyed fascination.

The girl who positions herself at the front of the pack - and they are a pack, all but the smallest fierce-eyed and wary - doesn't look like the oldest, round-faced, blonde hair straggling loose from her braids, clothing and skin streaked with blood and a bruise darkening beneath one eye. She lifts her chin, and looks with bright defiance at the man she and her sisters have just pulled from the dreamless grip of cryo-stasis.

"Winter Soldier," she says in clear Russian, and despite her fierce air, there's something like hope in her voice. "Can you understand me?"

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[worthallthis]

Brother frowns, but then nods. It's a sound strategy, and they do need to know what to expect before the more vulnerable children reach it.

"Be careful," he says. "Do not be seen. And if you start to feel sick at all, come back to rest." He doesn't know if there will be any kind of radiation or dangerous dust kicked up, but better safe than dying, in this case.

Not that resting in the truck will do anyone much good if there's pervasive radiation. Not all of them can be Brother with his enhanced healing.

[musicdied]

"We will be careful," Yelena promises. It's not just a child's platitudes to a concerned adult. They're well-trained, and have long had it drilled into them that detection is death - if not at the hands of their targets, then at the hands of their masters.

It makes for a long day, slogging through ash-stained snow, advancing and circling back. It is, at least, also a quiet day, though that perhaps owes more to the remoteness of the location than the nature of any neighbours. It's late afternoon before a structure comes into view - an old, dilapidated farmstead, spotted and reported back by one of the scouting pairs.

[worthallthis]

Brother has Katya and Irena stay with the truck while Yelena takes him to the farm. He'll investigate for anyone living there, or anything living there in case wolves or bears took up residence, and Yelena can run back to the truck and the other girls if anything happens to him.

Not that he doesn't expect he can handle a bear or wolves. But having a contingency plan is always best. He prefers to have multiple, but in this case, there simply isn't need for anything too complicated.