<em>One, two, three, four.... one, two, three, four....</em><br/><br/>Aleksei stepped in time to the beat of the noise the reactor nearby made.  It was his sole companion inside of the power plant, and the only source of noise that, to him, was not disturbing.  He made a game of dancing to to the reactor's softly humming song, which wafted through the many protective layers of material to where he waltzed now.  With the judicious application of a very highly contrived imagination... he perceived the dull, monotonous thrumming as beautiful music.<br/><br/>Food and drink were simple enough to find here; the power plant, somewhat less well-known than other power facilities due to the degree of controversy placing a reactor inside of a metropolis could cause, was well-stocked in the event an emergency should occur and evacuation was not possible right away.  There were redundant blast doors, a more than adequate number of panic rooms, and emergency supplies to last a full crew of personnel for a week or longer.<br/><br/>Of course, there was not even a skeleton crew here anymore.  There was only Aleksei, and his siren companion, the reactor.  He had been here for a very long time, running on emergency power ever since what he perceived as all hell breaking loose outside.  He had kept careful track of the days in a large three-ring binder full of paper, and had gone through more than one pen in the process of writing in it.  Despite the advent of paperless communications within the power plant, the glory of having an office job is knowing where all the office supplies are.<br/><br/>His initial, panicked flight to the relative safety of the power plant had been only the beginning of a new brand of suffering for Aleksei, one the likes of which he had never had to endure; isolation.  He had learned to cope with the cold in his youth, and hunger all throughout his life, but within the secure walls of the reactor's cradle, neither of these were a challenge.  The fact that no one else was here with him, however, was.  He had tried a dozen things to pass the time pleasantly, until the signal he had been waiting for since he arrived in New York would arrive... he played computer games, he sang songs while listening to music, he exercised, he wrote in his journal.  As the weeks wore on, however, the boredom and isolation challenged his mind, and he found himself forced to try strange and new things such as painting - on the walls, with packages of ketchup and mayonaise.  He talked with the reactor at the computer terminal, imagining its subtle changes in readings to be a form of conversation with him.  He fancied the reactor a strange and beautiful woman, eventually perceiving her song to which he now danced.<br/><br/>He knew the time for war would soon be upon them, however, so he turned his mind to take the proactive approach to the situation.  There were not proper weapons within the power plant, at least not where he was; the armory for security was in a separate building in the facility.  While it was heavily guarded and fortified, said guards and fortifications made it a tremendous target.  It had long since been ransacked - first by the security forces who had legitimate access to it, and second, third, and forth by any number of scavengers that managed to overcome them in one fashion or another.  While the power plant was a target for the simple fact that it produced power, Aleksei had turned down the reactor's output to give the appearance of its having failed.  The ruse seemed to work, whether for the fact that the place appeared to be dormant, or the fact that it would be a difficult breach, or the fact that there were radiation signs all over the building.  It would only be a matter of time, however, before someone - or some<em>thing</em>- was curious and powerful enough to breach the reactor's walls.  He devised a way to weaponize lightbulbs, and created traps with tools and replacement parts.  The effectiveness of these devices was questionable to a sane man, but by Aleksei's estimation he had seen no such thing in months.<br/><br/>He glanced to the exit door, which was one of many he would have to open in order to step outside into what he hoped was the sunlight.  He had not been outside, or seen outside for a very long time.  Had everything settled down?  Was anyone else alive?  He frowned, turning back to the reactor.  He could always come back for her... but if everyone else was dead, he would simply have to know.  A glorious nation cannot rise again if all of its fair people lie in ashes.