Chapter Text
Valeriya rolled out of her bed as the phone blared through the stale air of her apartment like a warning siren. Her cat, snuggled up beside her, made a sound of protest as she rose from the mattress.
”Mommy will be right back,” Valeriya said, voice groggy with sleep, leaning down to kiss her pet’s darling little forehead before she adjusted her camisole, where it had slipped off of her shoulder.
She traipsed to the hallway and lifted the receiver to her face.
“Hello?”
There was not an immediate reply, though she could hear someone on the other end. Valeriya scrunched her brow. “Hello?” She repeated.
”Professor Legasov?”
”Yes.”
Another pause.
”Legasov, the First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy?” The voice inquired, sharply.
”Yes, I am she, who am I speaking with?”
The caller seemed to shift and rustle. Valeriya kept her sigh away from the speaker. It wasn’t the first time she’d had an interaction like this over the phone, but it never got any less tedious.
”Boris Shcherbina. Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers,” there was a breath; “and head of the Bureau for Fuel and Energy.” The voice seemed unsure whether to sound gruff and official, or friendly. Valeriya knew, peripherally, who Shcherbina was, and knew that it was a very foreboding honor to have him call her directly. “An honor to speak to you, comrade,” she said, and pinched the phone between her face and her shoulder as she pulled her sleep-frizzy hair into a ponytail with the hairband she kept around her wrist.
“There’s… Hmhm… Been an accident, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant, and the government has set up a commission— Your name is on the list.” Shcherbina spoke disjointedly, as if the prepared order of words didn’t quite come out right.
Valeriya wasn’t given a moment to comprehend. The utterance of the word “accident” made her stomach drop, and she hurried to speak; “How bad is it?” She kept her voice soft.
Shcherbina took a moment to reply.
“No cause for alarm. There was a fire, they put it out. An explosion in the system control tank, you see,” Shcherbina said, but Valeriya was used to correcting others midsentence, lest she never got the chance to after:
”Control system tank, yes I see. Is the core unharmed? Is there contamination, and if so, how many roentgen?” She asked. Shcherbina made a sound. Perhaps it was of annoyance.
“Bryukhanov, the plant manager, he says it’s only 3.6 roentgen per hour.”
Valeriya’s eyes widened. She turned, back to the wall, and a million thoughts raced through her mind.
”That’s enough to warrant an evacuation,” she said, but Shcherbina quickly cut in.
”That is up to the commission to decide, Professor. I understand you’re an expert on RBMK reactors, correct?”
”Yes, well, I—“
”That’s why you’ve been appointed. We have a meeting at two this afternoon and you’re expected to answer technical questions when necessary.”
”Two? But that’s five hours from now, shouldn’t we—“
”Please, no need, Professor. You understand that you are not appointed to suggest policy?”
Valeriya grit her teeth together. The gently patronizing tone was like nails on a chalkboard.
”Yes. Of course.”
”Excellent. One of my assistants will give you further details. Goodbye.”
The line clicked, and Valeriya groaned aloud as she slammed the phone back down.
“Can you believe this, Marie?” She said, looking down at her cat, who was looping between her legs with her tail straight up in the air.
With a sigh, Valeriya crammed herself into her closet-sized bathroom, and took her shower.
Five hours was plenty of time to worry herself sick. She tried to distract herself, so she didn’t spiral with every possible, terrible scenario, when she had no details to work off of. It was lunacy to assume anything at all. She loosely curled her hair, swiped on a coat of lipstick, and rustled around in a drawer for her pearly clip-on earrings. She’d grown complacent at the institute and came in with no makeup on, wearing her frumpiest sweaters, but when it came to government business, she knew it was wisest to polish the pyrite, for once. Otherwise, they'd barely notice her existence.
Briefly, she considered whether or not to try to cover up the chemical burn scars. But it was a step too far. She put down the powdered brush, frowning at herself in the mirror. She refused to be ashamed. They’d see she was hands-on.
She shrugged on a blue blazer and skirt set, and put out food for Marie.
When she got in her car and began to drive, desiring to be there well before the appointed time, her car phone rang. Being part of Kurchatov’s senior staff, and a party member, it was a practical necessity to have one, in case a minister desired to speak to her urgently. There had, however, been a lot of hawing when it came to installing it, and her colleagues had seethed with envy the moment it was brought up. She accepted the call.
A young man was on the other end. He gave her directions to the locale and mentioned who else would be present. Valeriya was cowed, hearing familiar names brought up that she had not expected to ever meet. Gorbachev himself, included. She clutched the steering wheel. She could hold her own.
She’d repeated such a mantra to herself, filling up the ashtray by the sofa in the hallway, when she received Shcherbina’s report.
A report that, if written by anyone with a paragraph's worth of knowledge about nuclear reactors, would've shut down half the union.
Beyond her horror, she was aghast at the carelessness that permeated the pages. As the scope of the situation dawned on her, she felt utterly hopeless at the idea that her superior was this incompetent!
“Professor?”
Valeriya’s head shot up. She straightened her skirt, and hurried into the meeting room.
As soon as she entered, you could hear a pin drop. All eyes were on her. She gazed fitfully between the people in assembly, recognizing some faces, but not others. One man, with thick glasses and a ghoulish presence, she had no recollection of at all. The lone other woman present seemed like she hadn't spoken a word in decades, the way her mouth looked sewn shut. Then, she glanced aside; a tall man, white-haired, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst them all. He made eye contact with her, then gestured to an empty chair.
It must’ve been Shcherbina.
Valeriya quickly sat down, and the meeting immediately proceeded.
Valeriya had sat through some truly tedious and vapid meetings at Kurchatov, but this, this was baffling. She waited a moment too long, and suddenly, all the chairs began scraping backwards;
”No,” she exclaimed, voice blunt and level, as she smacked her palm against the table; she may as well have sprouted horns, the way everyone stared at her in disbelief. Shcherbina was glaring at her. He was apparently the one who was responsible for her behavior.
“We can’t adjourn,” she added, and flipped through the report.
She pointed out the graphite, what must have been the graphite—
A man spoke up. Valeriya looked, and her stomach soured. It was Slavsky, minister of Medium Machine Building, the Kurchatov Institute’s conjoined sibling, and a thorn in her side ever since she had the displeasure of dealing with him.
”This is baseless! We have to listen to this because she was the only one available?” He said, and Gorbachev lifted a hand to quiet him.
“Comrade Slavsky,” Gorbachev warned, but his gaze did not soften as it landed upon Valeriya.
“I do not hear any facts from you, Professor Legasov. I only hear emotionally charged statements,” he said, and Valeriya felt the color drain from her face. She’d been loyal to Gorbachev for years, and now, meeting him, she was scolded like a child in school.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hurrying to make it right. “I apologize. Please, allow me to express my concern— with salience, and careful consideration of the evidence we have at our disposal,” she explained, slowly. The gathering did not seem swayed. However, after more back and forths and various mumblings, Gorbachev, perhaps eager to silence a possible dissident, were he to simply let Valeriya walk out, made a decision.
"Boris," he stated, and Shcherbina looked at him like a dog being disciplined. "You're going to Chernobyl. You'll take a look at the reactor, personally."
Despite all the optimists gathered, there came a strange, thick hush at those words. Shcherbina didn't seem as affected as the rest. Maybe his belief in the plant manager's story was genuine. If not, Valeriya had to assume the man was a dimwit.
"...And you will be joined by Professor Legasov," Gorbachev added, which did seem to affect Shcherbina.
"Comrade general secretary," he blurted out, reaching across the table for emphasis; "I must disagree—"
"Do you know how a nuclear reactor works?" Gorbachev asked.
"No, but— To send a woman into an active disaster zone," Boris replied, and he almost sounded sincerely concerned about that matter, but Valeriya held no grace for that kind of chivalrous poppycock. She firmed her face to express her disdain towards the sentiment.
“You’re too old fashioned for your own good, Boris. Besides, we've already been reassured by our trusted comrades that the situation is not a disaster.” This was Gorbachev's final say on the matter. Boris fell back against his chair, defeated.
Valeriya, she had to admit to herself, had been too caught up in the relief of being allowed to assess the damage herself to fully consider her new situation. She looked carefully over at Shcherbina, but, to her relief, he did not return the gesture. He seemed very occupied by his own head, and they were the last to stand and leave the room.
She was situated between two soldiers. Boris sat across from her, in his executive's seat, petulantly looking out the window like a boy assigned to be her partner during a school project, as the thrum of the helicopter shook the cabin. Valeriya awkwardly chewed on her cuticles, a force of habit, before she remembered she'd varnished her nails, and quickly withdrew her hand to assess the damage. There were a few chips. But, who cared? They were on their way to the reactor site. She'd have to remove the varnish as soon as she could. It'd leech up radiation like a sponge.
Suddenly, whilst she was staring at her nails, she could sense the blurry figure of Shcherbina turning to look at her, over the rim of her inch-thick glasses. She raised her head. His gaze was brooding and pursed up like a catfish. She stared back in a way that Shcherbina could, perhaps, sense that her thoughts were rather unflattering. He leant back, trying to look big again.
"You know, Professor, your combativeness won't do you much good in your career," he warned with a sagely wisdom, most definitely referring to her outburst in the meeting, one that, in hindsight, did make her toes curl. Valeriya knew she shouldn't be abrasive, but the least she could do was match his tone.
"How do you think I got to where I am now?" She asked, and Shcherbina looked at her, brows rising minutely, as if vaguely baffled by that kind of assertiveness.
"You're the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute," he said, pointedly, implying what would be tasteless to state outright.
"And you're the deputy chairman of the board of ministers."
Shcherbina didn't answer.
"How does a nuclear reactor work?" He instead decided to ask, and Valeriya mirrored his previous expression of subtle disbelief. He didn't seem very pleased with that reaction, but if he'd wanted to frighten her into compliance, he was doing an excellent job of restraining himself. What point was there to strongarming a woman, indeed?
"We could be at it for days, if I had to explain every—" She sighed, but Shcherbina tapped the table with his knuckles.
"Professor, I can grasp the outline if you'd only present it to me. I am not an idiot."
Valeriya decided not to push it. She fumbled for her pen, only to find she'd not placed it in her chest pocket as usual. Shcherbina presented his with a flourish and slid some paper towards her.
Valeriya had to compliment herself on her compression of the "outline", as Shcherbina put it, though she already knew that such a rough schematic would not be enough to grasp what was going on in Chernobyl, even if the report was correct, and it was "only" a fire.
That, however, did not turn out to be the case.
The gaping maw of the reactor, a burst, necrotic abscess, was spewing black smoke in a thick and opaque column. Valeriya stared, hardly comprehending what she was seeing. In all her career, spent only visualizing disaster based on lines of text and computations, this...
It was a nightmare.
"Get us over the core," Shcherbina said, with the confidence of a man who thought glass panes were all they needed to be shielded.
"Don't get any closer!" Valeriya shouted, and Shcherbina gave her a look that let her know she was on his last nerve. She didn't care. She looked pleadingly at him, despite her anger. "Boris, please,"
"Don't use my name!" He snapped, enough to make her reel. He twisted his neck towards the cockpit. "I'll have you shot if you do not fly over it, is that clear!?" He shouted, even louder, voice serrated like a knife, and the pilot kept glancing behind himself at them. Valeriya was mortified at Shcherbina's threat. She knew the pilot was hoping for her to win this argument. She climbed towards the cockpit entrance, pushing Shcherbina out of the way.
"If you fly over that reactor, tomorrow you'll be begging for that bullet!"
The pilot's throat bobbed with fear, and then, with a turn so sharp they'd probably have tumbled out into the air in a standard, open chopper, Valeriya skidded across the floor in her impractical footwear and collapsed into Shcherbina. She made a sound when she did so, her chest awkwardly brushing over his face and her thighs bracing hard against his legs, like when she'd almost end up in a stranger's lap when a busy train ground to a sudden halt.
Shcherbina's hands were gentle, awkwardly skimming over her waist, when he righted her up and away from him so she could tumble back into her seat. She did notice that. He was old-fashioned in the right way, in some instances. She adjusted her glasses, quickly drawing her hair back from its unruly state, and gathering herself.
They'd already gotten close enough for it to matter.
Boris' chest was heaving too.
"We understand you've been saying dangerous things."
Bryukhanov's voice was corrosive. He and Fomin's eyes were like drills. Valeriya, standing in the smoggy, grey field, knew she was out of her depth. Their soldier escorts stood by her like she could be blown away by a breeze. The wind bit straight through her pantyhose. She could be as factual as an encyclopedia, and these men would call her mad.
She was Cassandra, doomed to speak the truth and never be believed— But really, her situation was even worse. They did believe her. They just refused to admit it.
Shameful. Shameful. That's what they wanted her to be, ashamed. She was accepting her fate, hoping only that the incompetent duo would not get in the way of her work, when Shcherbina spoke up:
"Why did I see graphite on the roof?"
Valeriya's heart skipped a beat. Sweet, divine relief, a spring erupting from a rock. She could hate Shcherbina as much as she'd like, and she would post haste, but right now, she could kiss him, simply for the looks on Bryukhanov and Fomin's faces.
Seeing them walking away in arrest was bafflingly effective. She glanced at Shcherbina's towering form, and had to admit that his rashness had its upsides.