The halls of the lower levels were mildly tilted, as if something big had shifted everything off it's axis. The more they traveled the more they could tell it wasn't set up much like their school at all. Some rooms were the same. Cerebro and the Danger Room were in the same place, but power wasn't running to either. There were big dark open spaces with little use to them. It was in the War Room however that they found a single little light flickering on a console deep in the corner.
"There."
Waya told Rhydian, seeing it before her rat had a chance to seek it out through the walls.
George stepped out behind Waya, remaining a little way back, scanned the area. it just... looked dead. He'd moved around earlier, only slightly, not far, but still he knew how deserted this place was.
George's sensors could tell there was power, but there wasn't much of it.
"Bingo."
Rhydian said with a smile and approached the computer console cautiously. It would be wonderful to spring a trap at the one thing they needed to find in the whole complex, wouldn't it? "Looks intact..." He said as he looked the machine over.
"The power is low... but you might be able to interact with the console and bring up some information."
George said as they walked along.
"I don't think anyone lives here."
Penelope said, "Mind if I look topside? You know... and observe for myself instead of trying to find some computer." She didn't mean to be a bother, but they were shuffling around in the basement. They were in another dimension! She wanted to see what the world looked like.
"Be my guest."
Rhydian told her as he woke up the computer. "Go pop your head up there and let us know if there's any radiation up there. Maybe the ozone's been burned clean through and there's no atmosphere?" He rolled his eyes as he hunkered down before the screen, patiently waiting for it to wake from hibernation. "Or you wait a moment and we'll see if the sensors still function in this place."
Waya just crossed her arms and waited. "We'll get up there." She told Penelope. "We don't wanna open a door and get our heads blown off by a sentry turret. Be patient."
"Fine..." Penelope huffed, "And have you ever taken a space class? If there was no ozone, we'd be dead right now and I would kill Eliza for not having checked something like that."
"Ozone is the layer between the world and the sun. There are many OTHER layers between the world and space, it is simply that the Ozone layer is the one which blokes out most kinds of harmful radiation Penelope."
George said softly, almost with a sigh "If the world was missing an Ozone layer you wouldn't know it until you stepped outside and roasted in the radioactive sun." He looked at Rhydian and nodded, waiting for him to do his stuff.
Rhydian cracked his knuckles and practically attacked the keyboard when the computer finally woke up. It almost seemed like a relic, having a keyboard and all...
"If we were going to roast from the sun, we would have already."
Penelope argued, "And it would have been your fault too."
"Would you stop talking I feel my secondary brain attempting to kill itself to rid me of your stupidity."
George said flatly to Penelope, raising the one hand he had and pointing the international sign for "shush" at her. "Look for any details of what happened here," he told Rhydian "Any news of X-men coming to this world as well."
"SHUT UP!"
Waya snapped at both of them while George was trying to give Rhydian ideas on what to look for. "You. Come with me." She grabbed Penelope's uniform by the shoulder. "You," She was pointing at George. "Stop being a pretentious dick." She shoved Penelope forward, pointing toward the door.
"Oh god- here it comes."
Pen rolled her eyes as she was shoved forward. However, she left the room without much other protest. It would take some time before she could really be a team player...but she had to start somewhere.
Waya shoved Penelope outside into
the dilapidated lower level halls
Sometime later, Waya and
Penelope returned. Pen looked a bit calmer, her arms crossed in front of her chest submissively.
Waya came up behind Rhydian and put her hand on the back of his chair. "How's it coming?" She asked.
Rhydian leaned his head back and sighed. "I've basically just got a news archive, for the most part... For starters, everything in here's in Russian. As far as I can tell, Russia won the Cold War." He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes. "Biggest news? Good thing you stopped Pen from going topside."
"The war escalated?"
George asked carefully, cocking his head to one side. "That is going to impede our progress somewhat."
"
Escalated is putting it rather mildly, George. The Soviet Union put an end the United States in the late winter of 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin."
Rhydian explained.
"Rhydian- can you stop beating around the bush. What the fuck does it look like up there?"
Penelope asked, trying to hold back her irritation. She failed.
Rhydian sent his fingers dancing about the keyboard and pulled up an aftermath photo on the screen. "This." He leaned back, gesturing for them all to take in the image. "Wide-spread ruin. Desolation. We're talking full on Nuclear Winter."
"Meaning, chances are, if they wound up here, they're probably dead."
Waya said. "When did this happen, Rhydian and is it the whole planet?"
Rhydian turned back towards the console and typed away. "The last entry from
anywhere is from 1987... Reports are rather unclear as to how it happened, but all nuclear weapons were activated. The last entry is essentially a goodbye letter, to everyone."
"Some parts of humanity might have survived."
George said instantly "Even with the detonation of every nuclear weapon in the world, some parts might not be touched... though life would be difficult..."
"If there is any life left it'd have to be people who survived in bomb shelter. But they would have had to have stocked for decades. Hell, centuries even. George,"
Waya turned to George. "Calculate the probability of the X-Men winding up in a place safe enough that they didn't fall over dead two minutes after getting here."
"Well this was fun. How about we go back then?"
Penelope asked, rather not wanting to get cancer from over exposure to radiation.
"We're safe enough down here. So long as the seal has not been broken on this facility."
Rhydian explained, trying to settle Penelope.
"Gee thanks."
Penelope frowned, not convinced at all. This place was trashed. Of course the 'seal' was broken. Heck, the "water" they were standing in could most likely be littered with radiation and who knows what kind of chemicals.
"This place is safe. If it was not, I would have noticed the radiation when I first came in."
George said softly "The water is most likely from a connected water tank that is used for emergencies. If the power shorted when it was open, it no doubt would flood the area like this. As for calculations of your parents survival after arriving here, there are factors in place that make it almost impossible to achieve an entirely accurate calculation... But with William in their party when they arrived, as Junior demonstrated, unstable and possibly dangerous energy sources... their survival would be around six percent."
"Not very good odds... But given the lack of bodies down here, I'd wager they didn't come here."
Rhydian said with a shrug. It made sense to him, that if they
had shown up here, and been exposed to those levels of radiation...th
ere would have been bodies.
"It is not the best odds, I am sorry." George said gently as he ran them again, seeing if he had any other result. The problem was that this world was a complete unknown. What was he MEANT to say? They were in a world where he wasn't even sure if the sky was the same color.
"Then there's nothing here for us." Waya said. "We regroup, go back home and dial again."
"Should I copy the files? There might be something worth looking into here..." Rhydian said with a shrug. That was a long stretch, the machine was ancient, for all he knew, the records might even be just as old. They had no way of telling if this dimension was on the same temporal plane as theirs.
"Go for it." Waya said. "There might be something worth looking into later."
With her go ahead, Rhydian took a drive from his belt. He located the computer's port and started to take the files.
"You guys aren't even a little curious?" Penelope asked, pointing upwards.
"Not if we're going to choke to death on ash." Waya said.
"Well I'm curious." Penelope said and took a few steps towards the exit. At least where the exit had been in the old place. She only figured the layout was close to similar. "I'll hold my breath."
There was a moment of silence, then George said gently "If she's determined to go, I should go with her, in case she starts dying the moment she leaves. Or should I restrain her?" Either were an option, but he was asking Waya.
"Go for it." Waya said. "There might be something worth looking into later."
Penelope smiled and began hurrying down the hallway, determined to get out of this muck.
"Wait up. Approach this carefully Penelope." George said gently as he followed after her, wondering exactly at what point she'd just die by doing something ridiculous.
"Yeah?" Penelope grabbed her arm around George's, using it to tug him faster. "Hurry up!" They made it up the stairs and to the ground floor, "You first-" Pen added, putting herself behind him and pushing him in front of her.
George was having none of this. Penelope suddenly found herself being physically picked up from the floor, George holding onto her clothes, dangling her in his grip. "Stop." he said gently, standing in front of the door "We need to check if opening this door will kill you and everyone downstairs. I am sturdy, you are not. So allow me to run my scans and try not to get everyone killed."
"Knock it off, George!" Penelope squirmed in his grasp. "Just do your damn scans and stop wasting time."
"Do you not understand what is waiting for us beyond that door?" George asked as he scanned the door, having been doing them since he said he was going to "Do you think nuclear winter is just a mild distraction? If it is severe enough your flesh could peel from your bones the moment I opened the door."
"That's why you were going first, dumbass!" Penelope snapped and controlled energy outward from her body, ripping herself out of his arms. She dropped down, staggered a moment, then said, "If I'll die, no I won't look... but for fuck sake we are in another dimension and the aftermath of global war is right outside. I want to see the damn thing! God damnit you're a buzzkill."
George remained silent. Fine. He finished his scans, the outside had just enough radiation poisoning to be unhealthy in big enough doses. "Five minutes." he said, reaching out for the door "Five minutes, and then you have to come back, or you will be sterile. I am not joking." He shook his head, moving to open the door for her. He dug his fingers into the crack of the door, carefully releasing the oxygen seal. There was a sudden suction as the recycled air rushed out, replaced by the smell of outside. It stank of death, and dust, and a burning sensation in the air, that would have made George cough his lungs up if he'd had any. He processed smells, he didn't really experience them... so it was all the worse for Penelope.
Penelope blanched and coughed, placing her hand in front of her mouth. She held her breath as best she could and fumbled forward from the suction.
Dust swept in as George opened the door, pale, colourless dust that spilled across the floor in a weak attempt to claim this new place as its own. The world beyond seemed to be simply more of this, dust, worried up by the wind, stirred around the ruined building of the mansion. The walls of the old mansion were crumbled, broken, the occasional piece of glass catching the glaring sun, like an animal's teeth. Against one of the walls, far enough away for it to seem like a trick of the light, a shadow stood. There was no person attached to the shadow, just the charred black outline of a person unlucky enough to be painted against the wall. They could see outside from here, they could see for miles, and it was all the same, barren, stripped, the lush forest that once surrounded Xavier's mansion for Gifted children were looming dunes of dust and ash. The world was sepia outside, and the only noise they could pick up came from the others behind them. The world outside was dead.
Meanwhile
Waya leaned on the back of Rhydian's chair. "Do you sometimes ever feel like we've taken over Mom and Dad's job?" She asked him suddenly. It was often Kurt and Del's job to babysit. "Like we're the only reasonable adults and everyone else are just kids?"
"It's not like we asked for it." Rhydian said with a shrug. He looked over at her and smiled. "Couldn't've asked for a better co-sitter though."
Waya smiled, but she didn't say anything else. She still wasn't quite sure how to be around Rhydian just yet.
"Holy shit-" Penelope said and stood beside George. She kept her hands over her mouth, finding the awful dusted air of the outdoors thick with death and debris. Everything was so barren and in ruin and it was hard for her to even pick out something recognizable.
"There. The world is dust. Are you happy? This is what you wanted to see?" George said gently. The noise, the smallest noise, that escaped them seemed to have a strange and terrible effect. What else could have caused the crumbling brickwork to give a sickening cracking noise and collapse into the dust, a wall completely demolishing itself and throwing up a wall of choking dust as it disappeared beneath the remnants of this other world.
"Yes actually." Penelope said, "It doesn't fascinate you at all? When we leave here, we will have been the only people to have ever witness and survived something like this. Well- one person and one artificial intelligence to be more specific. Alright... close it up before I end up growing an ear on my arm."
"The world is dust. There's nothing to be fascinated by. It's all already happened, all of it." George shut the door as the dust began to try and enter again, slamming it closed so nothing could enter. "I do not experience awe like you do. All I saw out there was failure, the failure of organics to do anything but destroy themselves."
"I think it's still something worth seeing. It's called curiosity, George." Pen said and headed back. Maybe there are survivors... life always seems to find a way."
"In your own universe..." George pointed out as he began to walk back from the others, a soft whirring coming from him as he began to clean himself out "In this one... maybe life doesn't find a way."
"Ugh! Why did we have to get paired up with the world's most depressed robot?" Pen asked the air in front of her, waving her arms up in defeat.
"Hello," George said in response, waving at Waya and Rhydian as they got back to the others "Sorry that took a while."
"Satisfied?" Waya asked her.
Rhydian would've preferred if they had stayed gone just a little longer... He enjoyed the alone time he'd gotten to share with Waya, and she smiled...actually smiled because of something he'd said. Now that they were back though, it was time to get back to work. "Nothing out there but desolation, right?"
"More or less. Still kinda cool to see." Penelope said.
"Dust." George said with a little nod. That's all he needed to say really.
"Then we should get back to the others." Waya said. "Maybe Liz can find us another destination before we've wasted too much time."
"Another minute and I'll have everything." Rhydian stated, drumming his fingers on the keyboard as the final files transferred over.
Penelope stretched and fixed her hair a bit, waiting.
George paused, then frowned "When we arrive, we should find something for Junior to discharge into. It will not do us any good to have him explode in the lab."
"He ought to have some empty dump boxes at the lab, surely we didn't bring all of them with us." Rhydian suggested as he ejected his drive and placed it back along his belt. "Ready whenever you guys are."
"He's got a dump box on him and I've got several in my cashe." Waya said. "Just the one he carries was full. If he's going to absorb so much from the portal, it needs to be empty instead. We know that now."
They heard someone coming from the tunnel, from the ceiling. As the figure neared, Waya with her dark vision could see it was Maribel.
George had improved senses as well. Not night vision, until he switched his lights on, but he could still tell Maribel approached. "Is everything okay?" he asked, turning his head towards her.
Mari dropped down and landed on her feet with little bounce. 'We found a...broken version of Eliza's Dad. Are you finished here? You guys need to see this.'
"What do you mean by a broken version of her dad?" Rhydian asked curiously. Did he read the signs correctly?
'I have no language for this.' Maribel confessed and gestured for them to follow.
Waya's eyes squinted as she glazed Mari's mind for what she meant. "He's mentally unstable." She said. "Come on. Liz is gonna need us." She was the first to follow behind Mari, hurrying.
George didn't wait, he followed after Waya and Maribel. This was not good.
Rhydian got to his head and, as a creature of habit, pushed the chair back under the desk. He placed a hand on the computer and told it to shut down. He glanced at Pen and gestured for her to go ahead. "You wanted something interesting, didn't you?"
"I doubt it's better than seeing the end of the world." Penelope remarked, walking ahead.
"I suppose so." Rhydian said with a shrug and fell in behind her, bringing up the rear flank of their group, not that anything was going to sneak up behind them down here...
Stumble!