Prelude to Disaster [1982/Chernobyl/Public]

(The Chernobyl Power Plant--at this time, known as the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station--is in full operation and provides Ukraine with 10% of all it's electricity. The plant was built with some serious design flaws, which the higher-ups in Russia were fully aware of, but turned a blind eye to. It is basically a time bomb just waiting to detonate. But that will not be for four more years; in the meantime, a partial core meltdown in Reactor No1 has put generation at a standstill until it can be rebuilt.)

The small-scale disaster had Sofia worried, to say the least. She knew that there were some things wrong with the plant's design (though, she was in the dark when it came to the full extent of it's flaws), but she didn't think they would merit an actual meltdown. It had been frightening, and the stressful past few weeks of cleanup were taking a toll on her. The Moskal soldiers and higher-ups had been pouring in to give her orders, instruct her how to conduct cleanup, perform extra inspections, tell her how to run a plant that they knew nothing about the workings of. This was nothing new. The system was stupid and flawed, and always would be.

But she had to hold her tongue and go along with it. They had the power to take everything away from her, when she'd worked so hard to get it in the first place. They could even take away Lidiya... Her younger sister, born solely for Sofia's sake. Pripyat was the closest family she had in the world.

Speaking of which, she wasn't allowed to tell Lidiya, or even her own people, about any of this. Only the scientists involved in the disaster and those involved in inspections and cleanup were permitted to know. It was ironic, in a way; Pripyat herself was kept a secret from the rest of Ukraine, despite having a considerably large population and being such a great place to live. Sofia was keeping a secret from a secret.

Standing just outside of Reactor No1, she watched crews bringing in the necessary construction materials, and the soldiers skulking around observing everything and making sure no one came in that wasn't supposed to be there, wondering tiredly who she would have to deal with today.

("Moskal"=derogatory term for Russians. :\ She is not fond of them, can you tell?)

((fffuuuu i so wanna crash this with Transi, but idk if that would be accurate enough :I All that area did was steel and weapons XD))

((Pffft, go ahead; he's a soldier, right? So it's not like it's stretching the truth that far. B) I'm not that hung up on accuracy, lol xD))

This had to be the greatest era of Cosim's life, despite the fact that he was quite froquently covered in soot from steel mills. It beat anything that had happened before to him by far. So, he had tried to become as Russianized as he could from the time he was picked up by the USSR. He got the beter half of the deal for it than his "brother" had, so there was no problem.

And he was constantly getting calls about more guns that needed producing to spread the ideals of his adopted fatherland, or, in this case, steel for construction. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened there, but he knew he had been there before. To check off boxes that he was told to check and overlook things he knew nothing about. He had heard it from his superiors as well as the little girl who apparently ran the place (who puts someone that young in charge of a plant anyways?). She was the only one he saw around most of the time, and by the looks of what he was briefed on today, she wasn't doing a very good job. Well, she was a child. He would stay beyond the hours he was supposed to, to talk with her and make sure she had the right ideals instilled in her mind. Plus, there weren't many children where he lived, and he still felt like a child himself, though he had grown exponentially under Russian watch.

So it was only natural that after he drove in the truck full of steel beams that he look for her. But she was nowhere to be seen. He felt himself become a little disappointed. Maybe she wasn't the boss around there.

She'd decided to go back inside the plant to check up on construction was going. Honestly, if there was no power to be generated, there wasn't a whole lot she could actually do around here. The Russians were the ones in charge when it came to repairing the damages; she was just kind of there to be there. It was her plant, so to stay home while other people (especially Moskals) were running around it would make her nervous.

Unfortunately, on her way back in, she didn't notice some of the construction materials lying in the grass, and ended up stepping right into them.

Gasping in surprise when her heel snapped cleanly off of her shoe, she lost balance and fell over forwards, just managing to break her fall by putting her hands in front of her. Disentangling her foot, she looked back to see what she had tripped over--a steel beam? Where...? She looked around and saw that, not too far off to her right, workers were taking similar beams from a truck bed and depositing them on the ground for later use. Probably so the person who brought them could leave without having to wait around for them to fetch the steel they needed.

And that was all fine and dandy, but she was close to tears in pain. Had she twisted her ankle? And this shoe was totally ruined--she'd have to go back home and get a different pair. With some effort, though, she forced herself to not cry--once upon a time, she would have, but these days, she had to be stronger, for her little sister's sake.

He heard a dull thud behind him and the clang of something hitting metal, but he was too busy making sure things went where they were supposed to while keeping an eye out for the girl. What was her name? Lidiya? His thoughts were interrupted when he had to interject into a worker welding something the wrong way. Did any of these people care if the whole place came apart someday?

After he'd had his say (but it didn't look like they would change anything, he would get back to them later) he turned around to see a short woman face first in the grass. How long ago had she hit the ground? Wasn't he talking to the contractors for a good 2 minutes? Was she unconscious? When he heard faint noises that seemed like she was holding in tears, he realized he should stop thinking and actually help.

Skirting around for a good 30 seconds trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation, eventually deciding that getting the shoe off that was hooked in the holes in the beam would be a good idea.

"Don't move, I'm trying to help you," He assured, unbuckling the shoe and getting it off as gently as he could. The tiniest feet he'd ever seen. Well, he was only used to his feet, which had just stopped growing and had settled into size 13. ...He had been staring at her shoe too long, and mumbled a few hurried apologies, even if she probably had no idea what he had been doing. He just didn't get out much.

Putting his hands under her arms, he pulled her to her feet, watching to see if the shoeless foot was damaged at all. "You should watch where you're..." Well. A face like that wasn't the normal kind he'd see at a plant full of smart people. "...going."

Someone was helping her, oh thank go--the shoe came off, and she cried out in pain, a tiny sound, when a stabbing jolt shot through her ankle. Something was definitely wrong with it. Hopefully nothing serious; the last thing she needed right now was a foot injury. But...what was taking so long? Had he just taken her shoe off and walked off? Wow, thanks for the help. It wasn't until he started mumbling apologies (What for? What was he doing?) that she realized he was still there.

He lifted her to her feet, and she murmured, "Thank you, I--" She cut herself off when she looked up. It wasn't because he was handsome (and he was, undeniably) that she stopped short, it was that he was a soldier. She hated soldiers. The soldiers who were sent out here were not the regular kind, they were the favorites. The ones the government could trust. Useless, mindless pawns of the communist regime who wouldn't know how to write their own names on the inspection forms if Tikhonov didn't tell them how to spell it. ...In her opinion, anyways. Either way, she wasn't keen on getting help from one of them.

She was about to curtly give her thanks and send him on his way, but the second her unclad, stockinged foot touched ground, it was all she could do to grasp his forearms for support, gasping in pain. She wasn't accustomed to being injured.

"No thanks needed, just doing my civil duty." He reassured with a smile. That is, until he mirrored her expression as her foot touched the ground. Ouch. There was definitely something wrong there.

He thought about his options. "Where do you need to go? Where did you come from?" It wasn't like he could lean down that far for her to lean on him. And the last thing he wanted was to make someone who was possibly at a higher rank than him saying he picked her up and made her uncomfortable. He had to settle on the middle ground. Still holding onto her arm to steady her, he crouched on the ground, his back to her. "Hop on," He laughed apologetically. "The way I see it, it's my fault you tripped, I should take care of it."

Maybe now he was a mindless grunt, but he had big dreams. And he had no idea of it, but he didnt believe in the corruption that came with this type of government. He had no idea it was happening all throughout the ranks.

Another thought occurred to him, now that he had a captive answer. "Have you seen a little girl around? Her name's Lidiya."

Deliberating at first, but seeing no other option, she lowered herself onto his back, already desperately wishing this had never happened. Straddling her legs around him (which caused her pencil skirt to hike up, oh god), arms wrapped around his neck, she tried and failed not to lean against him so much that her...assets were pressed against his back. Talk about a compromising position. Her face turned red as she questioned how this could possibly be worse.

Hiding her face in his back so she couldn't see if people were staring, her voice came out muffled through the cloth, "I'm Chernobyl; I run this plant. I live close by, in town." Well, part of the time, she lived in town, with Pripyat. The other part, she went back home to her own city. It wasn't just her sister she had to take care of, after all.

Speak of the devil... "What do you want with Lilenchka?" She asked immediately, ever the overly-protective older sibling (and for good reason; who would be happy to hear that an adult male communist soldier was looking for their kid sister?), and then, to add some authority to her defensiveness, "She's my little sister."

She didn't tell him where he was supposed to go, so he just made a bee-line for the nearest edifice, trying to ignore what was a bad method of transportation on his part. His job came first, women came second. Or at least, he tried to coach himself like a mantra.

Pripyat didn't run the plant? ... News to him. But now he felt extremely embarrassed; she was higher up than him. "Oh! I thought it was Lidiya... Or at least she told me so." And to both their discomfort, "I really do apologize-- I'll put you down as soon as I can."

He had walked into a cafeteria and restaurant for the workers and their families. Great, they would have ice. As he looked for a chair to sit her in, he replied, a little nervous from her harsh defensiveness. "I pass through here alot. We're friends, I guess." Then a nervous laugh, "Nothing bad, I swear." Finally he found an empty chair and pulled it out, crouching again so she could drop right into it.

Cosim turned to face her, and dug around in his jacket pockets for a moment. Out came a small flower, a shiny coin, and some used crayons-- gifts a child might give to another child from a man who never had one of his own. Placing them on the table beside her, he tapped the table and asked, "When you see her, can you give her these? She told me she wanted what I found where I travel."

And with no other explanation, he rushed into the kitchen to grab ice, coming back with some in a plastic bag and paper towels. He was no stranger to getting injured with no one to help, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"Of course she doesn't, she's a child. She just tells people she does," she replied, tone clearly indicating that she was questioning his intelligence. Lidiya was smart for her age, but she wasn't smart enough to be running a nuclear power plant on her own. What kind of idiot would believe that? ...Although, the little girl did have a history of tricking some into believing things along those lines. Never something of this magnitude before, though. He was a whole new level of stupid.

She didn't say anything once he set her down, but she couldn't help but remain suspicious. True, all of the workers at the plant and the people of the town, young and old, loved Pripyat. But Sofia normally instructed her not to talk with soldiers. So what did she do? Went and befriended one right behind her back. That little girl was too curious for her own good, sometimes.

When he set down the strange and simple, yet somewhat touching gifts, she looked down at them in something like puzzlement. Picking up the flower by the stem, she was about to ask him where he'd gotten it from and why he was going to the trouble for her sister, but he was already gone.

Still looking at the little blossom by the time he returned, she looked up at him, startled out of her daydreaming (she'd been thinking about what the petals would look like after being submersed in liquid nitrogen--so beautiful), the mistrust momentarily gone from her expression. What was all that stuff for? Was he going to try and fix her ankle himself? Well, she hoped he knew what he was doing.

Cosim pulled up a chair next to her and laughed slightly. "Well she's smarter than me, she should be in charge of something."

Gently he pulled her leg up over his knee. "You have to keep it elevated..." On second thought, he pulled up another chair and sat her foot on it, placing the towel over it, then molding the bag of ice around it. "I don't think it's broken... But it'll hurt for a while."

He was about to object to her holding the flower, it was for Pripyat, after all. But he guessed it didnt matter, he didn't promise her a flower. "You can keep that if you want." He finally said. "I don't know if she likes flowers anyway."

At this point in time he had no notion of mistrust, or of deception at all. This life was his saving grace, and he would sell his soul to live like this forever. He only hoped it would last. If not, he didn't know what he would do.

Realizing he forgot, he put out his hand. "Cosim Zahorchak-- steel and artillery." Even the words brought an innocently happy smile to his face.

She had to blink back tears at the initial sting when the weight of the ice bag rested on her injury. But the pain quickly began to ease up, and she rubbed her eyes hastily so that it wasn't apparent that she was about to cry. ...It still was, anyways. It was strange; something like near-starvation, she could handle (and had, not too long ago), but when she got hurt, it was almost agony. She was a cautious person by nature, so for her, wounds were few and far inbetween.

For the most part, she'd been occupying herself with the flower to keep her mind off of the pain, but she quickly set it aside when he said she could have it. "No...I was just looking." She was already indebted to this person, she realized with an inward grimace, so no need to add onto it.

Coincidentally, this current lifestyle was her saving grace as well. The decades leading up to the construction of the plant had been some dark times, to say the least. Having lost the vast majority of her population, and being so poor, it had seemed like a light from heaven had shined down on her when she'd been given this opportunity and new lifestyle. And Pripyat, on top of it. But unlike him, it didn't make her as outwardly cheerful as she felt inside. A lot of things were working against her: she was a woman and Ukrainian, with no power to say 'no' to the Russians should they decide to take everything away. She had to toughen up, or risk getting taken advantage of.

When he held out his hand, she regarded it with some real suspicion before lightly grasping it and replying, "Sofia. ...Rostislavivna." She wondered why he didn't introduce himself with his patronymic. Maybe he just didn't have a father, or something.

"Its okay," He assured, not catching on to any of the coldness she was casting onto him. "I would cry too if I twisted my ankle." He was no stranger to tears, from himself or anyone else. Only 30 years ago he fell asleep to the wails of the sick and doomed, many times to his own choking sobs. His hand automatically went to his wrist, the tattoo bearing his former identity still was difficult for him to see, even after all that time.

But that was all behind him. His life was better than he could have ever imagined, and though he supposed he wasn't supposed to say so, he believed in God again. He believed in everything; second chances, the good in the political system that was strangling the countries of the USSR, and the inert human capacity for infinite good. It didn't cross his mind that it would ever end-- but he wasn't sure what he would do if it did. Probably lose his mind.

"I can always get her another one," He insisted, picking the flower back up and depositing it in her hands. "If you run a place like this, I think you deserve a million of these."

He wasn't sure how science worked outside of metalworking. And he was sure he couldn't process it all if he tried. Maybe that was why Pripyat liked talking to him. In him there was a captive audience to the know-it-all sermons of a child.

Speaking of... "Uh... Would you happen to know where she is? Lidiya? She said she wanted to give me homework." He admitted, rather embarrassed. "And I don't really want to make her mad at me."

Well...if he wasn't going to cast judgment... She bit her lip silently as the tears welled up and spilled over, streaking down her face and causing her makeup to run. These days, she normally held it all in until she was alone--which was hard, given how much she would have cried, normally. The truth was that, no matter how hard she tried, she just wasn't a very strong person, on the inside.

Sniffling slightly, she stared down at the flower he gave her, as though confused as to what his intentions were.

"If you run a place like this, I think you deserve a million of these."

With something like wonderment, she looked up at him for a moment, face pink from crying, processing his words. But as quickly as the expression came, it left again, and she remembered that soldiers were not meant to be friendly to. Wiping her eyes, she answered, clearing her throat as she did, "Sh-she'll be here...soon. She's in school, right now." After class ended, the little girl would walk or bike up to the plant to see Sofia. The older sister would have liked to spend time with Lidiya at home (especially considering the plant was not much of a place for a little girl), but there was no other option, seeing as she had to work.

As much as he tried to be objective to it, he could not ignore the crying. Silently he pulled a hamdkerchief out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table next to her. He didn't carry it for himself, but it was important to be prepared. And if only one time the situation arose, it was good enough for him. Plus, it was monogrammed with his initials. It made him feel important where before he was nobody, then nothing more than a number. And now his name was even on a handkerchief.

Lidiya was in school? That explained the intelligence. "I wish I could have gone to school," He mused aloud, sensing the awkward silences hang in the air. In the meantime he cast a glance at his watch, wondering how long she would take. He had other places to deliver to, and to him lateness was unacceptable. But he wanted to stay and see Pripyat, give her the gifts, and then maybe he could go, if she didn't have plans of her own. Cosim tapped hos foot on the tile anxiously.

She didn't notice the handkerchief, being so focused on trying to wipe it all away with her sleeves--her nice white labcoat sleeves, which were now getting mascara stains all over them. But even if she had been paying attention, she might not have used it, anyways. She was so used to crying and just wiping her face with whatever. It was probably she who really needed to be carrying around a handkerchief.

Still preoccupied with her face, she responded, as though able to read his thoughts, "Lidiya is a bit exceptional for her age." She was raised by nuclear physicists, after all, and spent half of her life in the plant with them. And, admittedly, Sofia liked to think that, like herself, her sister just had a knack for science. It hadn't been until recently that Chernobyl had gotten her education, herself, and though it'd come easily to her, she couldn't believe that she'd spent all her life not knowing the workings of the universe. It was almost impossible to think back on that time, but she supposed she must have been like the fellow before her. She could see how Pripyat would cling to someone like him: she was a smart kid, but she was always surrounded by people smarter than her. The change must have been nice.

Well, sleeves could work too. Almost without thinking, he took back the handkerchief and opened the bag of ice. Soaking the handkerchief in the melted ice, he pulled her arms from her eyes and tried to wipe off her sleeves as best he could. He couldn't stand it when people wiped anything on their clothes. He never had clothes as nice as these, he wouldn't care to muss them up at all.

Equally as unthinking, he wiped her eyes with the unused part of the cloth with a nervous laugh. "I didn't know you were wearing makeup..." He knew nothing about women, really. Maybe makeup was why women always looked pretty. It made sense, but he could never tell. He placed the handkerchief back in her hands, just in case.

And that explained Pripyat's intelligence. "I figured that much." He said with a laugh.