Janek Woźniak has been on the run for… a while. Things have been a bit muddled since the ambush outside Warsaw that claimed the rest of his uncle’s merchant convoy. The Polish teenager isn’t really thinking of much beyond his next meal and a safe place to sleep when he stumbles across a bridge and into a small town on the south bank of a big river.
The place is under the protection of foreign soldiers. It takes Janek a day or two to parse that it really is protection, not “protection.” The troops are East Germans, and enough of them speak functional Polish to smooth their integration into the local population.
It’s Janek’s third or fourth day in the town when something clouding his brain burns away. He’s sitting in the one local roadhouse, enjoying the sensations of being clean, well-fed, and warm. There’s an excited stir as people start crowding into the dining room. Then four of the East Germans push their way in, carrying a couple of car batteries, a couple of rolls of wire, and a few prewar electronic devices of some sort. There’s a flurry of setup activity. One of the soldiers looks at something strapped to his wrist, then kneels almost reverently before the central contraption and does some things to it.
From everywhere in the room, there’s a crackle. A hiss. The crowd stills expectantly.
Then – music.
Janek’s eyes sting and dim. He can still hear the piano, but there’s a thunderous surf-roar in his ears. The room tilts sideways for a moment. A rough but not unkind hand shoves him upright in his seat. He clutches the table, fighting for stability.
The music fades away. The crowd holds its breath. Then:
“This is Radio Free Ponikla and that was Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto 2, going out to you, Dad. Next up, for all our listeners, a reminder that you’re not alone – and a reminder to our friends in the east, as well.”
As Rachmaninoff gives way to Twisted Sister, Janek pushes himself up from his seat. He staggers toward the nearest soldier, who’s headbanging in a stiff and tentative sort of way. “Where?”
“Where what?” the German replies.
Janek gestures toward the device – no, the radio, he realizes as memory heaves itself upright and shakes off the dust of a dead world. “The broadcast.” The word tastes strange, but he pushes on. “Where is he? Where is Ponikla?”
Suspicion flickers across the soldier’s face before he suppresses it. “West… somewhere. Why? Relax. Enjoy the show. He’ll be on for an hour.”
“Alexei can talk for more than an hour,” Janek mutters, remembering the scrawny, long-haired kid who rode with Uncle Borys’ convoy and worked magic with the trucks’ engines for a summer… sometime between the bombs and now.
The DJ hasn’t given his name on their air yet. The soldier catches that and his eyebrows go up. “You know Alexei?”
The East Germans are oddly protective of their allies – especially Alexei, a fellow Ossi whose freedom and lack of discipline they clearly envy (though they’ll be damned before they admit it in front of their commander). They won’t give Janek directions to this Ponikla, but they point him toward a city in the general area that’s becoming something of a trade center. Janek does a few quick deals in town, picking up essential supplies and a couple of things that might be of value to a guy running a radio station. Then, not without a twinge of reluctance at leaving shelter, he hits the road.
It’s a two-day hike from the riverside town to Opoczno. Janek approaches on a gravel road that isn’t seeing much maintenance or traffic lately. Just inside the city’s fringe, he runs into a guard post. The militia troops on duty are polite but attentive. They confiscate Janek’s submachine gun and frag grenade, but leave him his smoke grenade and straight razor. The heavier hardware goes into a storage locker. In return, Janek gets a padlock key on a leather strap, and directions to the essential traveler’s services and the market square. He shoulders his pack and heads deeper into the city, looking for a familiar – and hopefully friendly – face.
Janek is a new PC, replacing Magda after her retirement from active adventuring. This post is a bit of context for his on-screen introduction in the sessions we just played.
The East Germans are, of course, Von Bahr’s Irregulars at Bialobrzegi.