Zulu Bravo
New Member
- Csatlakozás
- 2011.01.28.
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Gondoltam, időről időre megosztok Veletek pár oldalt a készülő angol nyelvű könyvből. Kezdjük az elején 
ha valakinek van türelme végigolvasni, ötleteket-tanácsokat örömmel fogadok.
Ez még egy viszonylag nyers verzió, még csiszolni kell rajta.
Condor One
“I love this job, major. Where else would I get a gunship flight over the Zone, sponsored by taxpayers’ money?”
Mikhailo Tarasov doesn’t return the young lieutenant’s grin. He spent the last minutes looking out to the Swamp, the part of the Zone he loves most. Seen through the tiny windows of their Mi-24, call sign Hotel X-Ray, it looks peaceful like a national park: golden brown fields of reed bowing in the wind, the low September sun reflecting in the waterways, the wooden dome of the abandoned church peering out of a shred of mist, anomaly fields on the Zone’s edge glowing with eerie green and blue. Tarasov is happy that the altitude spares him the details: the Geiger counter’s constant clicking, the rotten stench, the sight of the half-decomposed corpses fallen to mutants, radioactivity and anomalies.
“Save your high spirits for the underground, lieutenant”, he replies.
But his subordinate seems to be in a talkative mood.
“How came this mess today? That hellhole under Agroprom was supposed to be sealed off ages ago, wasn’t it?”
‘The briefing said, some stalkers dug it up to get into Strelok’s chamber. We’re going in to seal it again, this time for good.’
‘This is why we’re taking a technician with a welding torch?’
‘No! He’s with us to weld your bloody mouth shut.’ Tarasov frowns. ‘Did you drink too much vodka last night and slept through the briefing, Ivanchuck? We go in. Seal the steel gates in the tunnels. We get out. That’s all.’
‘Piece of cake, sir!’
Tarasov can’t see his eyes under the dark protective eyeglasses but he’s sure the lieutenant is not just swaggering. He looks at the two other troopers sitting silently on the opposite bench. Kolesnik and Shumenko are veterans by Zone standards, having been posted to the Cordon base six month ago. Like most of Tarasov’s soldiers they were worn out, using their mouth only to complain about meager rations and their desire to get out of the Zone. After all, he thinks, Ivanchuck’s attitude might still help him to survive… unless it gets him killed.
Suddenly there’s a cracking noise in his intercom.
‘Two minutes to touchdown. I have a visual on Fortress One.’
‘All right boys, here we go again”, says Tarasov. ‘Check your gear and ammo. Finger off the trigger until you’re on the ground.’
He detaches the ammo clip from his silenced SA Avalanche marksman rifle, pushes the top round down to make sure no round is stuck inside and reloads the weapon.
‘One to touchdown’, sounds the pilot in the intercom. ‘Landing zone is clear.’
‘At last this time we don’t land in the middle of an anomaly field’, says Ivanchuck optimistically.
‘And I hope you bite your tongue off on landing, lieutenant…’
Tarasov landed more times with a helicopter than he could count but still can’t shake off the slight sickness from the sudden descend. He grabs his weapon, unlocks the safety belt and opens the hatch. Giving each man an encouraging pat on the shoulder while they exit the helicopter, he waits until everyone is out. He signals to the pilots and follows his soldiers. The gunship immediately takes to the air and sets out on a circling path over the abandoned buildings to keep an eye on the environment. Even so, its turbine engines are still too loud for Tarasov to address the other squad leader without shouting.
‘Any developments, Sergeant Nabokov?’
‘We saw a pack of blind dogs not far from here but the helicopter’s noise scared them away.’
‘Good! Save you ammo, just in case something nasty gets out of this hole. Are the stalkers still inside?’
‘I am standing by with Fortress One since zero-six-hundred. No one has left through here, sir, and Fortress Two before us didn’t report any contacts either.’
‘Good. Fry anything that tries to get outside. Kovalsky, move your ass over here!’
The technician – a haggard civilian, usually tending to the vehicles at the base and now looking helpless in the bulletproof vest he wears for the first time – has fear written all over his face. Tarasov gives him his Makarov.
“You know how to use this?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, but…”, Kovalsky points at Tarasov’s Avalanche, “couldn’t I have a machine gun like that?”
“Should it happen that you a bigger weapon, you can pick up any of our rifles because it means we’ll be dead.”
With his squad following behind, Tarasov walks to the tunnel entrance, a round opening like a sewage cover.
‘Kovalsky, on me. I’ll be at point. Kolesnik, Shumenko, you cover our flank. Ivanchuck, you look out for our six. Our mission is simple: we go in, seal the shaft to Strelok’s hideout, and get out.’
‘Rules of engagement, sir?’
‘Shoot up everything that moves but watch out for ricochets – those tunnels are narrow. Any questions?’
‘If we find any anomalies, can we keep and sell them?’
‘I could have bet you’d come up with some bullshit, lieutenant. You know very well that Sidorovich left the Zone months ago. Anything else?’
‘Major, sir!’
‘Spill the beans, Shumenko.’
‘Askin’ for permission to take a leak before we go in, sir.’
‘Do it quickly and make sure you don’t put your dick into an anomaly.”
‘Shumenko’s dick needs not fear any anomalies on the ground’ says Kolesnik, the other sergeant. The lieutenant is quick to reply.
‘He’s only pissing to let the pseudodogs know his territory!’
Tarasov sighs, but he has given up cutting such casual tones long ago. And even if this squad was improvised just an hour ago upon an urgent request from the Agroprom area commander, at least he could count on them should things go wrong. Tarasov knows this could happen. His men know it too. At least they aren’t moaning, he thinks. And Kolesnik’s joke wasn’t that bad for a man who’s about descending into a mutant-infested tunnel system where anything that can move will move in to kill him.
‘Feeling much better, sir.’
‘All right… now that Shumenko finished marking his territory, let’s move. Switch to breathing system. Check your night vision and intercom.’
‘Ivanchuck here. Always ready.’
‘Kolesnik ready’.
‘Shumenko here. Locked and loaded.’
‘Err… I mean, do I also have to say something?’
‘Can you see and breath, Kovalsky?’
‘Yes, major.’
‘Keep it that way. All squad – follow me!'
Before Tarasov descends into the narrow shaft leading to the tunnels, he switches the channel on his radio. ‘Cordon Base, this is Condor One. We're moving in. Over and out.’
Taking the lead, Tarasov climbs down through the narrow shaft. As soon as he arrives at the bottom of the ladder, he kneels and assumes a firing position.
‘Clear. Move down.’
His comrades descend one by one. Tarasov can hear their panting. With his left hand, he signals them to proceed. At shoulder height, spikes stand out of the concrete wall, making it difficult to move close to the wall which would be the best defense against anything that hides ahead of them in the next room to their right. The tunnel reeks of rot, damp and corrosion. Above, a lonely red light flashes and casts its eerie light to the walls, like the reminder of a long-forgotten alarm when these catacombs were still part of a secret laboratory. All is quiet but the shrieking noise of the blinking flashlight and moisture dropping from the ceiling.
Suddenly, something moves on the ground with a noise that sounds like a thunder.
‘Sorry, major’ whispers Kovalsky, ‘I stumbled on something.’
‘Damn! Why don’t you just shout here we come, stalkers?’
‘I’m sorry, sir!’
‘Shut up, Kovalsky’ comes Ivanchuck’s voice.
Tarasov’s fear proves right. He hears the sound of steps. Raising his left fist, he orders the others to stop and aims his weapon. A shadow moves into the red dot sight of his Avalanche. Without hesitation, he releases the trigger. Two short, suppressed bursts. As the red light above flashes for a second in its direction, a human silhouette emerges from the darkness. Tarasov hears the man gasping. He doesn’t fall, just staggers. Tarasov pulls the trigger again. The man emits a shout, intended as a swearing but ending in a gasp of pain. His rifle fires a burst into the ground as death spasms his fingers. At last he fells. Two seconds have passed since he appeared, maybe three.
Staying in cover, Tarasov peeks inside. The room is dimly lit by a faint emergency light. A think concrete colums block his view, but he senses no movement. He gives a signal to Kolesnik on his left.
‘You see that red fuel drum? Let’s see what’s inside.’
The sergeant removes a frag grenade from his belt, pulls the safety, waits for a few seconds, then throws it in the shown direction. In the moment the grenade lands, someone inside shouts cover! but is silenced by the detonation. After a split second a much louder detonation follows as the fuel drum explodes into a blinding ball of fire. Tarasov hears the noise of metal shreds whizzing through the air, mixed with desperate screams. He shouts, ‘Go, go, go!’ and jumps down the stairs into the room. His Geiger counter starts ticking like mad. Two bodies lie on the ground but Tarasov ignores them as he scans the next room, once an elevator station, for further targets. His night vision is too week to light up the corners and he doesn’t want to switch on his headlight – he would turn himself into an illuminated target for any stalker practicing headshots.
‘All clear’, he says, ‘let’s move on.’
But Kovalsky, who is in the catacombs for the first time, stands in front of two huge tanks, which might contain God knows which kind of poison or worse, staring at the glowing green substance beneath them. It moves, looking like boiling green water in slow-motion. He is about to touch it when Ivanchuck pulls him back.
‘That’s a Fruit Punch, idiot. An anomaly. One step closer and the acid will consume your dick in a second.’
‘There’s more of that shit here in the underground than mushrooms in a forest’, Kolesnik remarks.
‘I see hostiles!’
Shumenko doesn’t wait for Tarasov’s order and releases a long burst into the elevator chamber. Now it’s the major’s turn to throw a grenade. Another deafening explosion. This time, the enemy keeps firing. The lieutenant leaps forward, firing his AKSU assault rifle. Silence. Tarasov points to the round chamber in front of them, with a massive pillar in the middle.
‘Ivanchuck, you and Kolesnik to the left. Shumenko, on me. Kovalsky, you stay behind me.’
Slowly and with weapons ready, they enter the chamber. Below their feet, rusty iron graters cover corroded pipes, disappearing into the ground. A lever stands in the middle, its turning wheel fallen off. Above them, the metal tubes of a ventilation system follow the curve of the walls, here and there lacking a few cover pieces.
‘Lads, keep your eye on those open tubes‘, Tarasov warns his squad with a whisper, ‘I don’t want any stray storks jumping on your head.’
‘All clear. Coming through.’ Tarasov lowers his Avalanche when he sees the lieutenant appearing from the other side. In front of them, there is a staircase leading to the level below.
‘Shall we?’, Ivanchuck asks. Tarasov shakes his head.
‘Watch the stairs. Keep your eyes peeled, lieutenant. I want to check out those bodies.’
Now that the area is cleared of enemies, and the only exit under watch, Tarasov switches off his night vision and turns on the headlight. He steps to the stalker shot by the lieutenant.
‘Good marksmanship, Ivanchuck…’ he says, making sure the two sergeants hear it well enough, ‘but hey, whom do we have here?’
The corps lying in the light circle before him is wearing a tactical helmet with an integrated gas mask, its tube attached to his dark blue body armor’s breathing system. His bulletproof vest was pierced by five armor-piercing rounds from Ivanchuck’s AKSU. Even in his death, the victim holds his outdated, but still deadly G3 assault rifle.
‘Shumenko, take over the guard. Lieutenant, come over here.’ Tarasov points at the corpse. ‘This was no stalker. He was a mercenary.’ The lieutenant nods and kneels down to remove the gas mask from the corpse. ‘You better don’t. I’d rather not see his face.’
‘And if it was a pretty woman, sir?’
‘You’re one of a sick bastard, lieutenant’, Tarasov says with a snorting laugh, ‘but to make it sure, check if you find a lipstick on the body… but better find something else that the intel guys could use.’
‘Yes, sir. If I find a lipstick, can I keep it? My girlfriend…’
‘Oh shut the fuck up. Make it quick.’
Tarasov checks out the other bodies. They all wear the same gear, meaning they indeed belonged to the mysterious mercenaries who sometimes appear in the Zone. But unlike stalkers, they not only hunt for artifacts but sometimes humans as well. It might be a stalker carrying an artifact too special or not delivering one he was supposed to deliver. Being far better equipped and trained than ordinary stalkers, they also cause headaches to the army when they appear close to the strictly no-go areas around the secret laboratories. His search is futile – one body was blown to pieces by the exploding fuel drum, and on the other he only found two first-aid kits. He must have been the medic, but his bandages are now in Tarasov’s rucksack.
‘Nothing, sir’, Ivanchuck reports, ‘but a can of luncheon meat.’
No surprise, Tarasov thinks. After all, no mercenary would be stupid enough to carry his mission orders neatly written down on paper. Unless their leader perhaps, who might be lurking somewhere on the below level, waiting to shoot them as soon they descend the stairway.
‘All right. All on me. Let’s go down.’
Below the light of emergency lights is gone. The ground is dotted with bubbling green anomalies, illuminating the tunnel with green glow. Now Tarasov can hear their noise: their sizzle sounds like a chorus of monsters in the darkness, as if communicating with each other in a deep, foreboding whisper. His Geiger counter ticks like mad.
‘Turn off headlights’, he orders. Night vision wouldn’t help them among the confusing light of the anomalies. An emergency light shows their direction. Tarasov can only hope that if there are any enemies here, they will make a clear silhouette against its dim light.
‘Stick to the wall. Skirt that shit’, he says, directed more to Kovalsky than his experienced men.
He looks down for a second as he steps over a fallen pipe. Immediately, he feels a steel fist hitting his chest. Only now does he hear the rifle shot. He wobbles to the wall, with his hand instinctively touching the spot where he was hit. Shumenko fires a long burst, Kolesnik’s rifle joining the fire.
‘Shit,’ somebody shouts, ‘he came out of nowhere!’,.
‘Major, are you hit?’
‘I’m… fine, lieutenant’, Tarasov replies as he stands up with a groan. ‘Thanks to God for bullet armor and our friends not using AP ammo… let’s get moving!’
They pass a lonely petroleum lighter. Their shooter must have been guarding the exit of the tunnel, which leads into the big research hall. As they enter it, they see huge metal containers behind a dilapidated iron fence and more pipelines disappearing into nowhere through wholes in the concrete walls. Another red emergency flashlight casts its maddening light. Through cracks and wholes, air moves with a deep howl.
They have to cross the wide shadow of a concrete pillar. Tarasov reaches to his helmet to switch on his headlight. The shrieking noise of the turning red light hurts his ears like a dentist’s drill but what makes his blood curl is the howl from the darkness.
‘Headlamps,’ he barks, ‘fire forward, fire all you have!’
He tosses the technician to the ground and throws himself down too, biting his tongue, ignoring the sharp pain and frantically firing towards the pair of glowing eyes reflecting the light of their headlamps, getting closer at inhuman speed. The howl turns into a beastly rattle, no matter the fire from the three suppressed assault rifles. Tarasov runs out of ammo but as he desperately reaches for a spare clip the rattle ceases and with a loud hump, something heavy falls to the ground.
‘Damn’, he hears the lieutenant’s voice, ‘this was a close shave.’
Tarasov stands up. In the light circle ahead of him, a humanoid figure lies. It has arms and legs, longer than human, but the biggest difference between the creature and a human is the bunch of tentacles, still squirming like snakes, ending in a blood-smeared hole on its head where the mouth should be. Shumenko steps closer and before reloading his weapon, he empties the rest of his ammo into the dead mutant’s head.
‘Wh-what was that?’ Kovalsky’s whole body is shaking.
“A bloodsucker’, Tarasov replies reloading his rifle, ’and a male one, judged by what’s left of it… mama is probably waiting for him to come home with fresh meat. Usually they stick together, so let’s keep our eyes open…’
‘I… I refuse to go on… I just can’t,’ the technician stammers. He is close to cry. ‘I want to get out of here!...’
‘Pull yourself together, Kovalsky’, Tarasov says and offers him his hand, ‘get up, for God’s sake.’
‘No!’
The major looks at the two sergeants. They step to the whamming technician and pull him up to his feet. Without any emotions on his face, Tarasov points his rifle at Kovalsky’s head. ‘Let’s go.’ But the technician only shakes his head in fear.
‘All right, we’ll get your gear and leave you here’ Tarasov lowers his weapon and aims now at Kovalsky’s groin, ‘but first I shoot you in your dick. Mama bloodsucker will be pissed off when papa doesn’t return, and they can smell blood from a kilometer away.’
Kovalsky looks at Ivanchuck, who nods in approval. Then he reluctantly gets his backpack.
Without losing more words, Tarasov moves on with the squad behind. He is nervous about every dark corner but no other mutant is in sight, or maybe it’s them who are not in the mutant’s sight. Soon, a corridor branches off to the left. Tarasov knows: it’s one of the long tunnels running between the two Agroprom facilities. They have to turn right, but would be exposed to their left flank. If they throw a grenade to clear their way, anyone waiting for them in ambush would know they come. He signals the men to stop, peeks out to the left, and gives a sign to Ivanchuck to proceed. As he turns to the right, he sees the stationary beam of a headlight. The mercenary didn’t see them yet. Tarasov aims carefully. His shots hit his targets body armor but have no killing effect. By the time he could fire another shot, the mercenary disappears. “Damn,” he swears as he already hears barking commands ahead.
‘Kolesnik, drop a frag! Twenty meters ahead.’
The grenade fells a little short, but hits the mercenary just in the moment when he is reckless enough to peer out from his cover. His weapon fixed at the door where more enemies might hide, Tarasov rushes forward. A silhouette appears in the visor, with its head right behind the scope’s red dot. He fires. ‘Left! Watch your left!’, he shouts. He takes another grenade and throws it through the door. It was too quick. One second after the detonation, another enemy pops out from around the corner. Tarasov’s rifle falls silent after one shot. He ducks for cover to reload. An AKSU bells over his head.
‘He’s down’, Kolesnik says.
They wait for a minute. Only wind howls in the tunnels, with the occasional rummaging noise from the long-forgotten levels deep below. Maybe a room collapsed. Maybe a bloodsucker is fighting for his life with a pack of snorks, partial invisibility against ten meter long jumps and knife-sharp teeth. Maybe it’s the soldiers’ fear echoing in their mind.
Stepping over a dead enemy, his head and chest dreadfully blasted by the frag grenade, Tarasov moves his squad into a room. From there, another corridor opens to the left. A few steps further down, a round ventilation shaft opens into the wall. Wooden crates stand below, as if used as stairs to get access to it. Once it housed a ventilator and the trunks of the iron grater that once covered it are still lying on the ground. Now a man could comfortably crawl into the opening. There’s even a metal ladder leading up the shaft.
‘Welcome to Strelok’s hideout, Kovalsky’, he says and pats the technician on the shoulder, ‘you made it. Now it’s time for your big appearance.’
‘Thanks to God’, the technician sighs with relief, ‘so, what am I supposed to do?’
‘Remove that metal ladder. Use its parts as a grid to prevent anyone from climbing in.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing inside, sir?’
‘I don’t mind giving you a little tour… we all deserve a few minutes rest anyway.’ Tarasov turns to the soldiers. ‘Keep your guard up until I show our newcomer friend around, will you? Watch that corridor, that will be our exit rout and it’s full of garbage for cover, so keep your eyes peeled and all. Kovalsky, follow me.’
Strelok once told him that the chamber was booby-trapped and he can’t shake off an uneasy feeling as they climb up the ladder. Cautiously, he peeks inside, and seeing there’s no danger waiting for them, he jumps into a small chamber.
‘What is this place?’ the technician asks. Tarasov sits down on an empty ammunition crate, scanning the walls with his headlamp. They are covered with stalker graffiti, short messages with their crazy call signs and nicknames.
Voronin, I'll get you yet. Lukas.
Nimble, when do you deliver my rifle?
Wolf came, saw and sucked major cock.
Maps of the Oasis for sale. Flint.
Save for a few crates and other junk, the chamber is empty. Someone even removed the improvised map table that used to be here for ages, even when Tarasov first entered the underground two years ago.
‘You ever heard about the noosphere, Kovalsky?’
‘Never, major.’
‘Well… according to some scientists, Earth is surrounded by a special informational field, including all humans with its conductive abilities… they call it the noosphere. After the 1986 incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, secret laboratories were set up in the exclusion zone. The eggheads wanted to adjust the noosphere, removing cruelty, greed and other bad things from the planet… including the word “no” from women's vocabulary.’ Kovalsky chuckles. Tarasov doesn’t mention the development of secret weapons and psychic tests using captured stalkers as guinea-pigs. The technician is not supposed to know everything. ‘They soon realized that individuals are unable to affect the noosphere. Something more powerful was needed. So they created the C-Consciousness.
‘C-Consciousness?’
‘The bodies of seven volunteers were placed in some sort of stasis tubes, and their minds were connected into a single super consciousness. The scientists believed that they could now affect the noosphere. Of course, shit happened. In 2006, the experiments caused a rift in the noosphere, or at least that's how we know it. The result was another incident, which looked as if all of the nuclear energy from the original incident had suddenly been released. Anomalous forms of energy were created, some breaking the laws of physics… like the Fruit Punch, that green goo you almost stepped into. Animals underwent mutations and gained incredible abilities.
‘Like the bloodsuckers?’
‘No, I don’t like bloodsuckers…' Tarasov's pun is less funny than intended but he wants to cheer up the disheartened technician. 'Mutants were one reason why we cordoned off the area. Some people still managed to sneak into the Zone, though, looking for small, anomalous formations called artifacts. Those things can be sold for fat sums in the outside world. Preventing this is our job, at least on paper… the state wants to have monopoly on the trade.'
‘Are there such things here?’
‘There might be, but we’re here for a different reason. Anyway, the C-Consciousness became self-aware and subordinated those who were conducting the experiment. They were assigned to tasks that the C-Consciousness needed to carry out. Their first task was to create the legend of the Wish Granter. It was meant to lure and brainwash people, giving the C-Consciousness new agents. The C-Consciousness ordered a network of psi-fields to be set up, consisting of a type of psionic energy that could melt a human brain in seconds, but when tuned correctly, it could allow the minds of creatures to be controlled. Stalkers called this the Brain Scorcher. It brainwashed enough people to create its own army. They called themselves the Monolith and served the C-Consciousness, believing it was an alien crystal capable of granting any wish. But only for those who served it, of course.'
‘Was it true?’
‘The hell it was. It was up to a stalker called Strelok to end all this mess. In 2012, he disabled the Brain Scorcher, opening up a path to the center of the Zone. Strelok, knowing that the Wish Granter was a sham, fought his way to the reactor sarcophagus deep inside the NPCC and infiltrated the lab housing the C-Consciousness. It attempted to recruit Strelok but failed. Strelok destroyed the stasis tubes, which contained the bodies of the C-Consciousness… a decision that still haunts him. But the Zone did not disappear… and we try to contain it ever since.’ Tarasov takes a sip of water from his canteen. ‘Anyway, this chamber was the hideout of Strelok and his buddies. By now you probably understand that Strelok is the hero of all stalkers. They come here to prove they’ve got what it takes to be a stalker, or look for stuff from Strelok that the hundred others before them might have overseen. Or maybe a secret note that leads them to some hidden stash full of artifacts. Two weeks ago, the son of some big fish in Kiev died during an attempt. We were ordered to make the place inaccessible.’
‘I understand.’
‘No, you don’t. In a few days someone will blast the way open again, just to leave another stupid graffiti on the walls. What we do here makes no difference… it’s an uphill battle all the time.’
‘The guys in the base told me something about factions called Freedom and Duty, too.’
‘Some bleeding hearts believed the Zone should be open to study for the whole world. Of course their clan, Freedom as they called themselves, was sponsored by Western governments. They wanted to have their share of artifacts and all. Our own government was not sure itself what to do, but some hardliners set up a militia to help the army keeping mutants and artifact smugglers at bay. That was Duty. They still fight their petty war in the Dark Valley and around the Jupiter factory… although it’s mostly personal now. Both the Westerners and our government created a weapon that backfired. But that’s enough Zone lore for today. Come, let’s get this job done.’
‘Yes, major. But tell me… I mean, I’m sorry for snapping after that thing attacked us… but you were kidding when you pointed your gun at me, weren’t you?’
Tarasov stands up and pats off the dust from his leggings. ‘That’s not a gun’, he says, ‘it is called an assault rifle.’
Before climbing back to the tunnel, Tarasov takes a frag grenade, removes the safety pin, and carefully places the device under a piece of wood ripped from a crate. It will probably not prevent any stalkers from entering the chamber except the first and unluckiest, but at least he has an excuse to report back that the place is booby-trapped.
Now Kovalsky starts working with quick, accurate movements. In a few minutes, the ladder lies in pieces. He takes the longer parts and welds them to the iron trunks. When he switches off the blue light of his welding torch, the shaft is barred by a strong new grid.
‘Good job’, Tarasov sends an approving look to Kovalsky, ‘and now let’s get the hell out of here. Squad, on me!’
After twenty meters, another chamber opens to their left. On Tarasov’s sign, Ivanchuck moves over and keeps his weapon aimed into the room until the others pass by. Then he assumes his place on the rear, keeping a cautious eye on the far end of the tunnel where they fixed the grid. Tarasov likes him more and more. The young lieutenant seems to be a daredevil with his constant jokes and gung-ho attitude, but his actions prove him level-headed and well trained. He also knows that Ivanchuck was posted to the Zone from Lvov for punishment after he broke the jaw of a warrant officer who bullied his recruits. Once back to the base, I’ll have to write a recommendation to promote him. I could cast him into a good senior officer.
But now Tarasov has other concerns. Two Fruit Punch anomalies lie ahead. Judged by the distance between them, they could pass through safely.
‘Form a line. Watch your steps’, he orders his men.
‘There’s something in that anomaly, sir’.
Tarasov takes his detector device and turns towards the anomaly. Shumenko’s eyes might have been misled by wishful thinking but the detector proves him right. The display lights up and indicates a small green dot, just a meter away. Cautiously stepping closer, he investigates the substance. The sergeant was right – a tiny object levitates an inch above the anomaly, like in the state of weightlessness.
He cautiously picks it up, avoiding any contact with the acidic substance beneath. It would burn through his protective gloves in a moment. ‘Look at this little fellow’, he says as if talking about a puppie, ‘Hello, Kolobok!’
Holding it, Tarasov feels his skin become tougher and less sensitive. The artifact looks like a round hedgehog with crystals protruding from its dark green core. It weighs as much as half dozen medikits, but a person keeping it close to his body would never have to worry about running out of bandages. The artifact’s coagulating effects would heal any open wound in a minute. Luckily, judged by the Geiger counter’s consistent ticking it’s not the highly radioactive variety.
‘Major…’, says the sergeant, ‘with all due respect, but I saw it first.’
‘Duly noted,’ Tarasov replies, as he carefully lets the artifact slide into a container on his armored suit. ‘Ever heard about chain of command?’
The sergeant seems disgruntled but Tarasov ignores him. It would be fair to divide the price with his men if he decides to sell the artifact. The scientists in Yantar pay generous amounts, but that would mean a long trip to their field laboratory. In any case, first they need to get out from the underground. The squad slowly proceeds between the anomalies towards the tunnel end, where an opening in the wall leads into a staircase.
‘Up we go’, Tarasov says. But as soon as he climbs up the first stairs, he sees even more anomalies ahead. He signals a stop and takes a pistol clip from his vest. Back in Pripyat, he learned from Strelok how to use bolts and screw-nuts to determine the size of an anomaly. His own device is more elegant. The spring inside the clip pushes the shells upwards and he only has to send them into the anomaly with his thumb. He doesn’t need wasting all shells this time. As they land in the sizzling substance, they immediately dissolve with a sharp, hissing sound.
‘No way through this shit’, he says with frustration,’ damn, I had a feeling that we won’t get out so easily.’
‘Maybe we can neutralize the anomaly if we ask Shumenko to piss into it.’
‘Ha, ha, ha, lieutenant’, replies the sergeant with faked laugh, ‘if you want to know, ever since I visited that bitch you talked about, my piss is so burning I could blast a hole into the wall with it.’
‘Did you at least manage to blast her hole?’
‘Both of you, shut the fuck up’, Tarasov orders. ‘No time to relax yet. We’ve to backtrack the way we came.’
‘Shit’, Ivanchuck swears. Tarasov turns toward him with a big grin.
‘You still like this job, lieutenant?’
‘I do, sir… I just took the liberty to mention that I dislike visiting places I’ve already been to.’
‘That’s the spirit. Now, if we are lucky, our mercenary friends tried to retreat and ran directly into Fortress One. If not… we kick more ass. Let’s move out.’
Either because they killed everyone on their way before or the mercenaries were indeed ambushed when trying to leave the catacombs, the squad makes its way back into the laboratory undisturbed. Kovalsky carefully skirts the dead bloodsucker, its lifeless eyes still glowing as if it could jump up any second. As he passes it by, Kolesnik shots it again.
‘Just to make sure, sir,’
‘Move your ass, Kolesnik.’ Tarasov get’s nervous. Any mission gets the most dangerous when almost over. Men tend to lose patience and caution. In a minute, they are back to the first tunnel they traversed, with the ladder leading up to the shaft and out of the catacombs. He notices the lieutenant has his headlamp switched on. Damn, he thinks, does he want to get a headshot in the last moment? The mercenaries are not stupid, they might be waiting in the darkness to let Tarasov’s squad exit and emerge when the soldiers have left. They still don’t know that after they leave, Kolevsky has to finish their mission by welding the exit shut.
‘Switch off your headlamp, lieutenant.’
‘Yes, major… it’s just that the night vision already makes my eyes pop from their sockets… and now this headache…’
Tarasov suddenly also feels pain creeping into his skull.
‘What is that?’, asks Kovalsky and steps forward, probably emboldened by the close exit shaft. Before Tarasov can order him back he hears a faint, sharp noise, rapidly strengthening into a deep howl.
‘Controller!’, screams Shumenko in horror, ‘Oh my god!’
A loud bang-bang hits Tarasov’s brain. It’s not transmitted through his ears – the sound is already inside his head, as if his brain was about exploding. But it’s Ivanchuck who fells to his knees as Kovalsky strikes his pistol and shoots the lieutenant in the face.
‘Shoot’, screams Tarasov desperately. Bullets whizz towards the dark end of the tunnel. He curses himself for not having a shotgun or at least an AKSU – the small ammo clip of his Avalanche will not be enough for this kill. Realizing the controller didn’t see him yet because he still has some willpower of his own, he smashes forward. It’s not fair, flashes through his painful mind, so close to the end, it’s just not fair. He sees the silhouette of the monster against the red flashes of the last emergeny light. Having finished off Tarasov’s soldiers, now it tries to take hold of his mind. But desperation and rage steel his muscles and in two seconds, he reaches the mutant. It towers above him with his humanoid mass of brawny flesh. Tarasov empties the whole clip into its head. The controller tries to step back. He senses it’s aggression vanish, as if he himself had adsorbed it while he smashes the mutant’s head again and again with his rifle butt until the weapon breaks. Suddenly the tight, fiery ring that gripped his skull receeds then disappears. The bang-bang is gone. In the sudden silence, his panting sounds deafening.
Tarasov feels blood flowing from his ears. He switches on his headlamp and sees Kolesnik getting up from the ground, groaning. Then Shumenko rises, holding his head as if still in pain. Kovalsky kneels above Ivanchuck’s body. He has torn the gas mask off his face. From his eyes, still maddened by horror, tears are flowing.
‘I didn’t… I didn’t want…’
‘No.’ Tarasov wishes to sound reassuringly but his voice is hoarse and trembling. He takes the Makarov from the technician. ‘You’ve been… controlled.’
He looks at the lieutenant’s corpse. Of all the wounds a bullet can afflict, he most hates the sight of a headshot. It’s bad enough to realize how thin the layers of muscles, body tissues and skin are that make the difference between a pile of organs and a human form. But a face, distorted into a dreadful yawn by a last traction of the muscles and the scattered brain protruding from the cracked skull, still emanating body warmth into the chilly air, is something different. Tarasov feels the urge to retch but pulls himself together. Kolesnik is weaker. He leans against the wall and throws up. Only Shumenko stands on his feet, expecting Tarasov to say something. The major clears his throw.
‘Sergeant, take this’, he says, reaching to his waist and handing the artifact over.
‘I’m fine, sir… but could use an aspirin.’
‘As we all do… take it anyway. Tomorrow, you’ll take a patrol to Yantar.’
‘I understand, sir', the sergeant quietly replies, 'I’ll send the lieutenant’s share to his family.’
Tarasov nods. Together they help Kovalsky to his feet. Kolesnik joins them, his armor darkened by stains of vomit. Tarasov steps to the ladder and reaches for his radio transmitter.
‘Fortress One, this is Condor One. Mission accomplished. We are at the shaft entrance, below you. Send down a harness… Over.’
‘Shall Hotel X-Ray come down and prepare for medevac? Over.’
‘Negative, Fortress One. We have a KIA. Over.
‘Copy and willco, Condor One. Over and out.’
By the time the lifting harness is lowered from above, Tarasov has already attached a gas mask to Ivanchuck’s face – no need for the other soldiers to see a comrade like that. Carefully, they fasten the harness around the corpse. Shumenko pulls the rope twice, and Lieutenant Vasiliy Ivanchuck’s body sets out on its journey to a cemetery somewhere in the far Lugansk region.
When Tarasov finally emerges from the shaft, his knees tremble to such an extent that he must sit down in the grass. He is the kind of soldiers who don’t worry too much before a mission and keep a cool head thorough, but once danger is over, all the fear and excitement their mind kept at bay during stress unloads in a heavy, almost nauseating wave. Leaning his back against a tree, he watches Kovalsky welding the shaft entry shut. The technician’s spirits are obviously lifted by being back to the surface in one piece, and the sense of security given by the heavily armed soldiers around the perimeter.
Sergeant Nabokov offers him a cigarette. Tarasov can’t refuse it.
‘Was it bad?’, Nabokov asks exhaling the smoke. Tarasov doesn’t reply immediately. He removes his blood-smeared gloves and watches his fingers tremble.
‘I’ll need a new rifle’, he says. Nabokov doesn’t bother him with more questions.
As the Mi-24 descends to take the squads back to their base, Tarasov notices a soldier from Nabokov’s next to a command vehicle. A bulky device in its rear tells it’s the liaison car of Fortress One, no longer needed here with the mission being over. He calls Nabokov on the intercom.
‘Sergeant, do you mind if I borrow your UAZ? I could use a little time on my own.’
‘Suit yourself, major. There’s a spare AKSU inside, just in case.’
‘Thanks. See you at Cordon.’
One by one, the soldiers climb into the helicopter’s passenger compartment. Then the gunship pulls up and passing over the ruins, disappears to the south east.
The noise of the receding helicopter makes everything appear even quieter. The only trace of their activity is the sealed shaft and a few empty cigarette boxes, trampled into pulp by heavy soldiers’ boots. Fifteen or twenty meters below, Ivanchuck’s blood might still be warm in the dust and dirt. Tarasov looks at his black Seiko watch. It's hard to believe that only forty minutes have passed since they descended into the underground.
He wants to relax his nerves before returning to the base. Probably he will spend the rest of the day doing paperwork, and the thought makes him feel dumpy. He starts the engine. Driving along the tree-lined road, basking in the cool but still honey-colored autumn light, the Zone seems like paradise after the underground. Occasionally he skirts the occasional wrack of a Zaporozhets or a Kamaz truck, rusting away on the roadside since Chernobyl.
He sees no living soul around. To clean the rotten smell of the underground and stinging gunpowder residue off his nostrils, he stops the UAZ and takes deep breaths from the air outside. Atop the hills, radioactivity would kill him in minutes but here in the low valley he can risk this simple pleasure.
He looks around, back to the forking road to Agroprom, and forward to the Garbage area where Chernobyl’s highly radioactive remains lie buried. All is quiet. Once more, Tarasov realizes that it’s not just mutants and other phenomena that make the Zone eerie. It would still be beautiful for a wilderness, if one disregards of the abandoned vehicles and tanks, the dilapidated farms and ruined industrial buildings. It’s the silence. No birds ever sing, only ravens croak. No critter moves in the bushes, only mutants roam. Whatever noise the wind is bringing from afar, it’s about death: a rifle burst. A mutant’s growl. A human scream. And occasionally the roaring thunder of an emission approaching from the center of the Zone, painting the sky in deep purple, lighting it up with lightings, engulfing everything with darkness before bursting out in a gigantic display of flame-like rifts in the sky that resemble northern light. It would be a spectacular sight in all its dreadfulness, if it weren’t lethal to stay in the open and watch it. During the two years he had spent here, Tarasov not only learned how to survive in the Zone. He also learned how to love it - although he loved the Zone more when there were still secrets to explore. Sometimes he wished the Zone was even bigger, but wasn’t sure anymore if this was his own desire or that of the Zone. No protective suit, no armor could prevent the power of the Zone from creeping into his mind. His daily fear, his short moments of joy over a mission well done, his grief over fallen comrades, the mysteries he witnessed formed an ever-growing layer around his mind, and in the blood pumped into his veins, there was more and more of the Zone with each beat of his heart.
He drives on. Weather changes quickly in the Zone and by the time Tarasov reaches the train station with the abandoned engines on the rusting railway tracks, a slow rain sets in. He looks around cautiously. Not long ago this was a gathering place for bandits who hunted stalkers for their money, loot and artifacts. But now, even if they are some hiding along the road, they know better than attacking an army vehicle driven by an officer inside. Bandits are big mouths but do know their place in the Zone’s food chain. They might also remember the fate of Father Valerian, the stalker leader who once dared to capture an officer. It was one of Tarasov’s first tasks as military stalker to hunt him down, and he gladly accomplished it in the depths of the gloomy Red Forest. After he learned a thing or two about the officer, though, he wished he had never felt Father Valerian’s vodka breath when he approached him from behind, moving to thrust his combat knife deep into the stalker’s throat.
‘Condor One, this is Cordon Base’, comes through the radio, ‘do you copy?’
‘This is Condor One. Did Hotel X-Ray arrive? Over.’
‘Positive. Colonel Degtyarev is also here. He was pissed off to see the helicopter returning without you. Over.’
‘Tell him I'm on my way. Also, tell him that I needed… no, just tell him I'll be there in ten. Over and out.’
‘Roger. Cordon Base out.’
Tarasov feels as if suddenly a stone weighed down his stomach. Ever since they first met a year ago in Pripyat during the aftermath of a mission that went awfully wrong, he knew Degtyarev as one of the few officers not tainted by corruption. They became friends since then, as far as a USS agent and a paratrooper officer could be friends among the rivalry between security services and military. He often joined Tarasov on his patrols deep into the Zone. Nothing ties men closer than the memory of nights spent together in lonely look-outs, fighting off mutants until daybreak came. Tarasov also knew that his service considered Degtyarev more of a stalker than an agent, just like his fellow officers took himself for an oddball because he didn't partake of their pleasures: bullying the lower ranks and shooting stalkers for sport with Dragunov sniper rifles. Being respected on the surface, but considered eccentrics by their own comrades was another thing they had in common. For a moment it occurs to him that Degtyarev might have arrived for another foray, but he doubts his own optimism. His friend, now made a colonel despite his own wishes, appeared less and less frequently at the Cordon. Besides, there wasn’t much left to explore in the Zone. They’ve been to every territory, explored every cave, bunker and catacomb, and Tarasov couldn’t blame the colonel for finding the exclusion zone around the CNPP smaller and smaller after each raid.
But the radio message made him concerned. If he’s pissed off for not seeing me right away, it must be official business. Otherwise he'd told Tarasov to hook up with him somewhere else, like the 100 Rads bar or the Skadovsk in Zaton.
As he passes by the abandoned dairy farm, once a stalker outpost before most of the loners moved to Zaton or Yanov station from where Pripyat could be more safely accessed, Major Khaletsky comes to his mind again. It was in these ramshackle buildings where the stalkers kept him captive. Although one reason why he dislikes stalkers is the shameful way they rooted the army squad sent to Khaletsky’s rescue, he can’t shake off a certain feeling of regret. Tarasov often thought how much better it would have been if the stalkers had just finished the major off, instead of letting him escape. Probably Khaletsky bribed them too, just like he bribed his way out of the Zone and up the career ladder right to the rank of major-general. Once in a while, Tarasov also made a little money from selling artifacts. But he never would have used army patrols to hunt down stalkers for looting their corpses like Khaletsky did, or even hiring bandits to do the dirty work for him.
He reaches a hill. The road branches off to the abandoned village where most stalkers arrive after sneaking past the army patrols into the Zone. Tarasov and his men had taken it a dozen times before, but being stretched thin as they were they had to abandon it every time. In a few days the stalkers where always back. However, their orders to shoot stalkers on sight no longer apply here. In exchange the army keeps a much tighter grip around the once-secret laboratories in Yantar, the Dark Valley and beyond. It was one of the few things Degtyarev achieved to make life in the Zone just a little more peaceful, although Tarasov always suspected that Sidorovich might have also put in a word with the generals. After all, he made good living from the artifacts that stalkers collected. Tarasov approved of this measure for another reason too: now he could use his few military stalkers for more reasonable missions than hunting down trespassers.
He stops the car and without getting out, waves to the guard in the village entrance. The stalker, obviously a rookie judged by his pathetic leather jacket and outdated gas mask on his hip, runs up to him.
‘Hey, stalker! Put your shooter away’, Tarasov says darting a scornful look towards the stalker’s puny shotgun, ‘Still no news about Sidorovich?’
‘No. His bunker is locked. But if you have artifacts, I could…’
Without listening him out, Tarasov drives on. The base is close now. It’s time to signal his arrival before a trigger-happy soldier makes a mistake.
‘Cordon Base, this is Condor One. Rolling in.’
‘We have a visual on you, Condor One. Welcome home.’
ha valakinek van türelme végigolvasni, ötleteket-tanácsokat örömmel fogadok.Ez még egy viszonylag nyers verzió, még csiszolni kell rajta.
Condor One
“I love this job, major. Where else would I get a gunship flight over the Zone, sponsored by taxpayers’ money?”
Mikhailo Tarasov doesn’t return the young lieutenant’s grin. He spent the last minutes looking out to the Swamp, the part of the Zone he loves most. Seen through the tiny windows of their Mi-24, call sign Hotel X-Ray, it looks peaceful like a national park: golden brown fields of reed bowing in the wind, the low September sun reflecting in the waterways, the wooden dome of the abandoned church peering out of a shred of mist, anomaly fields on the Zone’s edge glowing with eerie green and blue. Tarasov is happy that the altitude spares him the details: the Geiger counter’s constant clicking, the rotten stench, the sight of the half-decomposed corpses fallen to mutants, radioactivity and anomalies.
“Save your high spirits for the underground, lieutenant”, he replies.
But his subordinate seems to be in a talkative mood.
“How came this mess today? That hellhole under Agroprom was supposed to be sealed off ages ago, wasn’t it?”
‘The briefing said, some stalkers dug it up to get into Strelok’s chamber. We’re going in to seal it again, this time for good.’
‘This is why we’re taking a technician with a welding torch?’
‘No! He’s with us to weld your bloody mouth shut.’ Tarasov frowns. ‘Did you drink too much vodka last night and slept through the briefing, Ivanchuck? We go in. Seal the steel gates in the tunnels. We get out. That’s all.’
‘Piece of cake, sir!’
Tarasov can’t see his eyes under the dark protective eyeglasses but he’s sure the lieutenant is not just swaggering. He looks at the two other troopers sitting silently on the opposite bench. Kolesnik and Shumenko are veterans by Zone standards, having been posted to the Cordon base six month ago. Like most of Tarasov’s soldiers they were worn out, using their mouth only to complain about meager rations and their desire to get out of the Zone. After all, he thinks, Ivanchuck’s attitude might still help him to survive… unless it gets him killed.
Suddenly there’s a cracking noise in his intercom.
‘Two minutes to touchdown. I have a visual on Fortress One.’
‘All right boys, here we go again”, says Tarasov. ‘Check your gear and ammo. Finger off the trigger until you’re on the ground.’
He detaches the ammo clip from his silenced SA Avalanche marksman rifle, pushes the top round down to make sure no round is stuck inside and reloads the weapon.
‘One to touchdown’, sounds the pilot in the intercom. ‘Landing zone is clear.’
‘At last this time we don’t land in the middle of an anomaly field’, says Ivanchuck optimistically.
‘And I hope you bite your tongue off on landing, lieutenant…’
Tarasov landed more times with a helicopter than he could count but still can’t shake off the slight sickness from the sudden descend. He grabs his weapon, unlocks the safety belt and opens the hatch. Giving each man an encouraging pat on the shoulder while they exit the helicopter, he waits until everyone is out. He signals to the pilots and follows his soldiers. The gunship immediately takes to the air and sets out on a circling path over the abandoned buildings to keep an eye on the environment. Even so, its turbine engines are still too loud for Tarasov to address the other squad leader without shouting.
‘Any developments, Sergeant Nabokov?’
‘We saw a pack of blind dogs not far from here but the helicopter’s noise scared them away.’
‘Good! Save you ammo, just in case something nasty gets out of this hole. Are the stalkers still inside?’
‘I am standing by with Fortress One since zero-six-hundred. No one has left through here, sir, and Fortress Two before us didn’t report any contacts either.’
‘Good. Fry anything that tries to get outside. Kovalsky, move your ass over here!’
The technician – a haggard civilian, usually tending to the vehicles at the base and now looking helpless in the bulletproof vest he wears for the first time – has fear written all over his face. Tarasov gives him his Makarov.
“You know how to use this?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, but…”, Kovalsky points at Tarasov’s Avalanche, “couldn’t I have a machine gun like that?”
“Should it happen that you a bigger weapon, you can pick up any of our rifles because it means we’ll be dead.”
With his squad following behind, Tarasov walks to the tunnel entrance, a round opening like a sewage cover.
‘Kovalsky, on me. I’ll be at point. Kolesnik, Shumenko, you cover our flank. Ivanchuck, you look out for our six. Our mission is simple: we go in, seal the shaft to Strelok’s hideout, and get out.’
‘Rules of engagement, sir?’
‘Shoot up everything that moves but watch out for ricochets – those tunnels are narrow. Any questions?’
‘If we find any anomalies, can we keep and sell them?’
‘I could have bet you’d come up with some bullshit, lieutenant. You know very well that Sidorovich left the Zone months ago. Anything else?’
‘Major, sir!’
‘Spill the beans, Shumenko.’
‘Askin’ for permission to take a leak before we go in, sir.’
‘Do it quickly and make sure you don’t put your dick into an anomaly.”
‘Shumenko’s dick needs not fear any anomalies on the ground’ says Kolesnik, the other sergeant. The lieutenant is quick to reply.
‘He’s only pissing to let the pseudodogs know his territory!’
Tarasov sighs, but he has given up cutting such casual tones long ago. And even if this squad was improvised just an hour ago upon an urgent request from the Agroprom area commander, at least he could count on them should things go wrong. Tarasov knows this could happen. His men know it too. At least they aren’t moaning, he thinks. And Kolesnik’s joke wasn’t that bad for a man who’s about descending into a mutant-infested tunnel system where anything that can move will move in to kill him.
‘Feeling much better, sir.’
‘All right… now that Shumenko finished marking his territory, let’s move. Switch to breathing system. Check your night vision and intercom.’
‘Ivanchuck here. Always ready.’
‘Kolesnik ready’.
‘Shumenko here. Locked and loaded.’
‘Err… I mean, do I also have to say something?’
‘Can you see and breath, Kovalsky?’
‘Yes, major.’
‘Keep it that way. All squad – follow me!'
Before Tarasov descends into the narrow shaft leading to the tunnels, he switches the channel on his radio. ‘Cordon Base, this is Condor One. We're moving in. Over and out.’
Taking the lead, Tarasov climbs down through the narrow shaft. As soon as he arrives at the bottom of the ladder, he kneels and assumes a firing position.
‘Clear. Move down.’
His comrades descend one by one. Tarasov can hear their panting. With his left hand, he signals them to proceed. At shoulder height, spikes stand out of the concrete wall, making it difficult to move close to the wall which would be the best defense against anything that hides ahead of them in the next room to their right. The tunnel reeks of rot, damp and corrosion. Above, a lonely red light flashes and casts its eerie light to the walls, like the reminder of a long-forgotten alarm when these catacombs were still part of a secret laboratory. All is quiet but the shrieking noise of the blinking flashlight and moisture dropping from the ceiling.
Suddenly, something moves on the ground with a noise that sounds like a thunder.
‘Sorry, major’ whispers Kovalsky, ‘I stumbled on something.’
‘Damn! Why don’t you just shout here we come, stalkers?’
‘I’m sorry, sir!’
‘Shut up, Kovalsky’ comes Ivanchuck’s voice.
Tarasov’s fear proves right. He hears the sound of steps. Raising his left fist, he orders the others to stop and aims his weapon. A shadow moves into the red dot sight of his Avalanche. Without hesitation, he releases the trigger. Two short, suppressed bursts. As the red light above flashes for a second in its direction, a human silhouette emerges from the darkness. Tarasov hears the man gasping. He doesn’t fall, just staggers. Tarasov pulls the trigger again. The man emits a shout, intended as a swearing but ending in a gasp of pain. His rifle fires a burst into the ground as death spasms his fingers. At last he fells. Two seconds have passed since he appeared, maybe three.
Staying in cover, Tarasov peeks inside. The room is dimly lit by a faint emergency light. A think concrete colums block his view, but he senses no movement. He gives a signal to Kolesnik on his left.
‘You see that red fuel drum? Let’s see what’s inside.’
The sergeant removes a frag grenade from his belt, pulls the safety, waits for a few seconds, then throws it in the shown direction. In the moment the grenade lands, someone inside shouts cover! but is silenced by the detonation. After a split second a much louder detonation follows as the fuel drum explodes into a blinding ball of fire. Tarasov hears the noise of metal shreds whizzing through the air, mixed with desperate screams. He shouts, ‘Go, go, go!’ and jumps down the stairs into the room. His Geiger counter starts ticking like mad. Two bodies lie on the ground but Tarasov ignores them as he scans the next room, once an elevator station, for further targets. His night vision is too week to light up the corners and he doesn’t want to switch on his headlight – he would turn himself into an illuminated target for any stalker practicing headshots.
‘All clear’, he says, ‘let’s move on.’
But Kovalsky, who is in the catacombs for the first time, stands in front of two huge tanks, which might contain God knows which kind of poison or worse, staring at the glowing green substance beneath them. It moves, looking like boiling green water in slow-motion. He is about to touch it when Ivanchuck pulls him back.
‘That’s a Fruit Punch, idiot. An anomaly. One step closer and the acid will consume your dick in a second.’
‘There’s more of that shit here in the underground than mushrooms in a forest’, Kolesnik remarks.
‘I see hostiles!’
Shumenko doesn’t wait for Tarasov’s order and releases a long burst into the elevator chamber. Now it’s the major’s turn to throw a grenade. Another deafening explosion. This time, the enemy keeps firing. The lieutenant leaps forward, firing his AKSU assault rifle. Silence. Tarasov points to the round chamber in front of them, with a massive pillar in the middle.
‘Ivanchuck, you and Kolesnik to the left. Shumenko, on me. Kovalsky, you stay behind me.’
Slowly and with weapons ready, they enter the chamber. Below their feet, rusty iron graters cover corroded pipes, disappearing into the ground. A lever stands in the middle, its turning wheel fallen off. Above them, the metal tubes of a ventilation system follow the curve of the walls, here and there lacking a few cover pieces.
‘Lads, keep your eye on those open tubes‘, Tarasov warns his squad with a whisper, ‘I don’t want any stray storks jumping on your head.’
‘All clear. Coming through.’ Tarasov lowers his Avalanche when he sees the lieutenant appearing from the other side. In front of them, there is a staircase leading to the level below.
‘Shall we?’, Ivanchuck asks. Tarasov shakes his head.
‘Watch the stairs. Keep your eyes peeled, lieutenant. I want to check out those bodies.’
Now that the area is cleared of enemies, and the only exit under watch, Tarasov switches off his night vision and turns on the headlight. He steps to the stalker shot by the lieutenant.
‘Good marksmanship, Ivanchuck…’ he says, making sure the two sergeants hear it well enough, ‘but hey, whom do we have here?’
The corps lying in the light circle before him is wearing a tactical helmet with an integrated gas mask, its tube attached to his dark blue body armor’s breathing system. His bulletproof vest was pierced by five armor-piercing rounds from Ivanchuck’s AKSU. Even in his death, the victim holds his outdated, but still deadly G3 assault rifle.
‘Shumenko, take over the guard. Lieutenant, come over here.’ Tarasov points at the corpse. ‘This was no stalker. He was a mercenary.’ The lieutenant nods and kneels down to remove the gas mask from the corpse. ‘You better don’t. I’d rather not see his face.’
‘And if it was a pretty woman, sir?’
‘You’re one of a sick bastard, lieutenant’, Tarasov says with a snorting laugh, ‘but to make it sure, check if you find a lipstick on the body… but better find something else that the intel guys could use.’
‘Yes, sir. If I find a lipstick, can I keep it? My girlfriend…’
‘Oh shut the fuck up. Make it quick.’
Tarasov checks out the other bodies. They all wear the same gear, meaning they indeed belonged to the mysterious mercenaries who sometimes appear in the Zone. But unlike stalkers, they not only hunt for artifacts but sometimes humans as well. It might be a stalker carrying an artifact too special or not delivering one he was supposed to deliver. Being far better equipped and trained than ordinary stalkers, they also cause headaches to the army when they appear close to the strictly no-go areas around the secret laboratories. His search is futile – one body was blown to pieces by the exploding fuel drum, and on the other he only found two first-aid kits. He must have been the medic, but his bandages are now in Tarasov’s rucksack.
‘Nothing, sir’, Ivanchuck reports, ‘but a can of luncheon meat.’
No surprise, Tarasov thinks. After all, no mercenary would be stupid enough to carry his mission orders neatly written down on paper. Unless their leader perhaps, who might be lurking somewhere on the below level, waiting to shoot them as soon they descend the stairway.
‘All right. All on me. Let’s go down.’
Below the light of emergency lights is gone. The ground is dotted with bubbling green anomalies, illuminating the tunnel with green glow. Now Tarasov can hear their noise: their sizzle sounds like a chorus of monsters in the darkness, as if communicating with each other in a deep, foreboding whisper. His Geiger counter ticks like mad.
‘Turn off headlights’, he orders. Night vision wouldn’t help them among the confusing light of the anomalies. An emergency light shows their direction. Tarasov can only hope that if there are any enemies here, they will make a clear silhouette against its dim light.
‘Stick to the wall. Skirt that shit’, he says, directed more to Kovalsky than his experienced men.
He looks down for a second as he steps over a fallen pipe. Immediately, he feels a steel fist hitting his chest. Only now does he hear the rifle shot. He wobbles to the wall, with his hand instinctively touching the spot where he was hit. Shumenko fires a long burst, Kolesnik’s rifle joining the fire.
‘Shit,’ somebody shouts, ‘he came out of nowhere!’,.
‘Major, are you hit?’
‘I’m… fine, lieutenant’, Tarasov replies as he stands up with a groan. ‘Thanks to God for bullet armor and our friends not using AP ammo… let’s get moving!’
They pass a lonely petroleum lighter. Their shooter must have been guarding the exit of the tunnel, which leads into the big research hall. As they enter it, they see huge metal containers behind a dilapidated iron fence and more pipelines disappearing into nowhere through wholes in the concrete walls. Another red emergency flashlight casts its maddening light. Through cracks and wholes, air moves with a deep howl.
They have to cross the wide shadow of a concrete pillar. Tarasov reaches to his helmet to switch on his headlight. The shrieking noise of the turning red light hurts his ears like a dentist’s drill but what makes his blood curl is the howl from the darkness.
‘Headlamps,’ he barks, ‘fire forward, fire all you have!’
He tosses the technician to the ground and throws himself down too, biting his tongue, ignoring the sharp pain and frantically firing towards the pair of glowing eyes reflecting the light of their headlamps, getting closer at inhuman speed. The howl turns into a beastly rattle, no matter the fire from the three suppressed assault rifles. Tarasov runs out of ammo but as he desperately reaches for a spare clip the rattle ceases and with a loud hump, something heavy falls to the ground.
‘Damn’, he hears the lieutenant’s voice, ‘this was a close shave.’
Tarasov stands up. In the light circle ahead of him, a humanoid figure lies. It has arms and legs, longer than human, but the biggest difference between the creature and a human is the bunch of tentacles, still squirming like snakes, ending in a blood-smeared hole on its head where the mouth should be. Shumenko steps closer and before reloading his weapon, he empties the rest of his ammo into the dead mutant’s head.
‘Wh-what was that?’ Kovalsky’s whole body is shaking.
“A bloodsucker’, Tarasov replies reloading his rifle, ’and a male one, judged by what’s left of it… mama is probably waiting for him to come home with fresh meat. Usually they stick together, so let’s keep our eyes open…’
‘I… I refuse to go on… I just can’t,’ the technician stammers. He is close to cry. ‘I want to get out of here!...’
‘Pull yourself together, Kovalsky’, Tarasov says and offers him his hand, ‘get up, for God’s sake.’
‘No!’
The major looks at the two sergeants. They step to the whamming technician and pull him up to his feet. Without any emotions on his face, Tarasov points his rifle at Kovalsky’s head. ‘Let’s go.’ But the technician only shakes his head in fear.
‘All right, we’ll get your gear and leave you here’ Tarasov lowers his weapon and aims now at Kovalsky’s groin, ‘but first I shoot you in your dick. Mama bloodsucker will be pissed off when papa doesn’t return, and they can smell blood from a kilometer away.’
Kovalsky looks at Ivanchuck, who nods in approval. Then he reluctantly gets his backpack.
Without losing more words, Tarasov moves on with the squad behind. He is nervous about every dark corner but no other mutant is in sight, or maybe it’s them who are not in the mutant’s sight. Soon, a corridor branches off to the left. Tarasov knows: it’s one of the long tunnels running between the two Agroprom facilities. They have to turn right, but would be exposed to their left flank. If they throw a grenade to clear their way, anyone waiting for them in ambush would know they come. He signals the men to stop, peeks out to the left, and gives a sign to Ivanchuck to proceed. As he turns to the right, he sees the stationary beam of a headlight. The mercenary didn’t see them yet. Tarasov aims carefully. His shots hit his targets body armor but have no killing effect. By the time he could fire another shot, the mercenary disappears. “Damn,” he swears as he already hears barking commands ahead.
‘Kolesnik, drop a frag! Twenty meters ahead.’
The grenade fells a little short, but hits the mercenary just in the moment when he is reckless enough to peer out from his cover. His weapon fixed at the door where more enemies might hide, Tarasov rushes forward. A silhouette appears in the visor, with its head right behind the scope’s red dot. He fires. ‘Left! Watch your left!’, he shouts. He takes another grenade and throws it through the door. It was too quick. One second after the detonation, another enemy pops out from around the corner. Tarasov’s rifle falls silent after one shot. He ducks for cover to reload. An AKSU bells over his head.
‘He’s down’, Kolesnik says.
They wait for a minute. Only wind howls in the tunnels, with the occasional rummaging noise from the long-forgotten levels deep below. Maybe a room collapsed. Maybe a bloodsucker is fighting for his life with a pack of snorks, partial invisibility against ten meter long jumps and knife-sharp teeth. Maybe it’s the soldiers’ fear echoing in their mind.
Stepping over a dead enemy, his head and chest dreadfully blasted by the frag grenade, Tarasov moves his squad into a room. From there, another corridor opens to the left. A few steps further down, a round ventilation shaft opens into the wall. Wooden crates stand below, as if used as stairs to get access to it. Once it housed a ventilator and the trunks of the iron grater that once covered it are still lying on the ground. Now a man could comfortably crawl into the opening. There’s even a metal ladder leading up the shaft.
‘Welcome to Strelok’s hideout, Kovalsky’, he says and pats the technician on the shoulder, ‘you made it. Now it’s time for your big appearance.’
‘Thanks to God’, the technician sighs with relief, ‘so, what am I supposed to do?’
‘Remove that metal ladder. Use its parts as a grid to prevent anyone from climbing in.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing inside, sir?’
‘I don’t mind giving you a little tour… we all deserve a few minutes rest anyway.’ Tarasov turns to the soldiers. ‘Keep your guard up until I show our newcomer friend around, will you? Watch that corridor, that will be our exit rout and it’s full of garbage for cover, so keep your eyes peeled and all. Kovalsky, follow me.’
Strelok once told him that the chamber was booby-trapped and he can’t shake off an uneasy feeling as they climb up the ladder. Cautiously, he peeks inside, and seeing there’s no danger waiting for them, he jumps into a small chamber.
‘What is this place?’ the technician asks. Tarasov sits down on an empty ammunition crate, scanning the walls with his headlamp. They are covered with stalker graffiti, short messages with their crazy call signs and nicknames.
Voronin, I'll get you yet. Lukas.
Nimble, when do you deliver my rifle?
Wolf came, saw and sucked major cock.
Maps of the Oasis for sale. Flint.
Save for a few crates and other junk, the chamber is empty. Someone even removed the improvised map table that used to be here for ages, even when Tarasov first entered the underground two years ago.
‘You ever heard about the noosphere, Kovalsky?’
‘Never, major.’
‘Well… according to some scientists, Earth is surrounded by a special informational field, including all humans with its conductive abilities… they call it the noosphere. After the 1986 incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, secret laboratories were set up in the exclusion zone. The eggheads wanted to adjust the noosphere, removing cruelty, greed and other bad things from the planet… including the word “no” from women's vocabulary.’ Kovalsky chuckles. Tarasov doesn’t mention the development of secret weapons and psychic tests using captured stalkers as guinea-pigs. The technician is not supposed to know everything. ‘They soon realized that individuals are unable to affect the noosphere. Something more powerful was needed. So they created the C-Consciousness.
‘C-Consciousness?’
‘The bodies of seven volunteers were placed in some sort of stasis tubes, and their minds were connected into a single super consciousness. The scientists believed that they could now affect the noosphere. Of course, shit happened. In 2006, the experiments caused a rift in the noosphere, or at least that's how we know it. The result was another incident, which looked as if all of the nuclear energy from the original incident had suddenly been released. Anomalous forms of energy were created, some breaking the laws of physics… like the Fruit Punch, that green goo you almost stepped into. Animals underwent mutations and gained incredible abilities.
‘Like the bloodsuckers?’
‘No, I don’t like bloodsuckers…' Tarasov's pun is less funny than intended but he wants to cheer up the disheartened technician. 'Mutants were one reason why we cordoned off the area. Some people still managed to sneak into the Zone, though, looking for small, anomalous formations called artifacts. Those things can be sold for fat sums in the outside world. Preventing this is our job, at least on paper… the state wants to have monopoly on the trade.'
‘Are there such things here?’
‘There might be, but we’re here for a different reason. Anyway, the C-Consciousness became self-aware and subordinated those who were conducting the experiment. They were assigned to tasks that the C-Consciousness needed to carry out. Their first task was to create the legend of the Wish Granter. It was meant to lure and brainwash people, giving the C-Consciousness new agents. The C-Consciousness ordered a network of psi-fields to be set up, consisting of a type of psionic energy that could melt a human brain in seconds, but when tuned correctly, it could allow the minds of creatures to be controlled. Stalkers called this the Brain Scorcher. It brainwashed enough people to create its own army. They called themselves the Monolith and served the C-Consciousness, believing it was an alien crystal capable of granting any wish. But only for those who served it, of course.'
‘Was it true?’
‘The hell it was. It was up to a stalker called Strelok to end all this mess. In 2012, he disabled the Brain Scorcher, opening up a path to the center of the Zone. Strelok, knowing that the Wish Granter was a sham, fought his way to the reactor sarcophagus deep inside the NPCC and infiltrated the lab housing the C-Consciousness. It attempted to recruit Strelok but failed. Strelok destroyed the stasis tubes, which contained the bodies of the C-Consciousness… a decision that still haunts him. But the Zone did not disappear… and we try to contain it ever since.’ Tarasov takes a sip of water from his canteen. ‘Anyway, this chamber was the hideout of Strelok and his buddies. By now you probably understand that Strelok is the hero of all stalkers. They come here to prove they’ve got what it takes to be a stalker, or look for stuff from Strelok that the hundred others before them might have overseen. Or maybe a secret note that leads them to some hidden stash full of artifacts. Two weeks ago, the son of some big fish in Kiev died during an attempt. We were ordered to make the place inaccessible.’
‘I understand.’
‘No, you don’t. In a few days someone will blast the way open again, just to leave another stupid graffiti on the walls. What we do here makes no difference… it’s an uphill battle all the time.’
‘The guys in the base told me something about factions called Freedom and Duty, too.’
‘Some bleeding hearts believed the Zone should be open to study for the whole world. Of course their clan, Freedom as they called themselves, was sponsored by Western governments. They wanted to have their share of artifacts and all. Our own government was not sure itself what to do, but some hardliners set up a militia to help the army keeping mutants and artifact smugglers at bay. That was Duty. They still fight their petty war in the Dark Valley and around the Jupiter factory… although it’s mostly personal now. Both the Westerners and our government created a weapon that backfired. But that’s enough Zone lore for today. Come, let’s get this job done.’
‘Yes, major. But tell me… I mean, I’m sorry for snapping after that thing attacked us… but you were kidding when you pointed your gun at me, weren’t you?’
Tarasov stands up and pats off the dust from his leggings. ‘That’s not a gun’, he says, ‘it is called an assault rifle.’
Before climbing back to the tunnel, Tarasov takes a frag grenade, removes the safety pin, and carefully places the device under a piece of wood ripped from a crate. It will probably not prevent any stalkers from entering the chamber except the first and unluckiest, but at least he has an excuse to report back that the place is booby-trapped.
Now Kovalsky starts working with quick, accurate movements. In a few minutes, the ladder lies in pieces. He takes the longer parts and welds them to the iron trunks. When he switches off the blue light of his welding torch, the shaft is barred by a strong new grid.
‘Good job’, Tarasov sends an approving look to Kovalsky, ‘and now let’s get the hell out of here. Squad, on me!’
After twenty meters, another chamber opens to their left. On Tarasov’s sign, Ivanchuck moves over and keeps his weapon aimed into the room until the others pass by. Then he assumes his place on the rear, keeping a cautious eye on the far end of the tunnel where they fixed the grid. Tarasov likes him more and more. The young lieutenant seems to be a daredevil with his constant jokes and gung-ho attitude, but his actions prove him level-headed and well trained. He also knows that Ivanchuck was posted to the Zone from Lvov for punishment after he broke the jaw of a warrant officer who bullied his recruits. Once back to the base, I’ll have to write a recommendation to promote him. I could cast him into a good senior officer.
But now Tarasov has other concerns. Two Fruit Punch anomalies lie ahead. Judged by the distance between them, they could pass through safely.
‘Form a line. Watch your steps’, he orders his men.
‘There’s something in that anomaly, sir’.
Tarasov takes his detector device and turns towards the anomaly. Shumenko’s eyes might have been misled by wishful thinking but the detector proves him right. The display lights up and indicates a small green dot, just a meter away. Cautiously stepping closer, he investigates the substance. The sergeant was right – a tiny object levitates an inch above the anomaly, like in the state of weightlessness.
He cautiously picks it up, avoiding any contact with the acidic substance beneath. It would burn through his protective gloves in a moment. ‘Look at this little fellow’, he says as if talking about a puppie, ‘Hello, Kolobok!’
Holding it, Tarasov feels his skin become tougher and less sensitive. The artifact looks like a round hedgehog with crystals protruding from its dark green core. It weighs as much as half dozen medikits, but a person keeping it close to his body would never have to worry about running out of bandages. The artifact’s coagulating effects would heal any open wound in a minute. Luckily, judged by the Geiger counter’s consistent ticking it’s not the highly radioactive variety.
‘Major…’, says the sergeant, ‘with all due respect, but I saw it first.’
‘Duly noted,’ Tarasov replies, as he carefully lets the artifact slide into a container on his armored suit. ‘Ever heard about chain of command?’
The sergeant seems disgruntled but Tarasov ignores him. It would be fair to divide the price with his men if he decides to sell the artifact. The scientists in Yantar pay generous amounts, but that would mean a long trip to their field laboratory. In any case, first they need to get out from the underground. The squad slowly proceeds between the anomalies towards the tunnel end, where an opening in the wall leads into a staircase.
‘Up we go’, Tarasov says. But as soon as he climbs up the first stairs, he sees even more anomalies ahead. He signals a stop and takes a pistol clip from his vest. Back in Pripyat, he learned from Strelok how to use bolts and screw-nuts to determine the size of an anomaly. His own device is more elegant. The spring inside the clip pushes the shells upwards and he only has to send them into the anomaly with his thumb. He doesn’t need wasting all shells this time. As they land in the sizzling substance, they immediately dissolve with a sharp, hissing sound.
‘No way through this shit’, he says with frustration,’ damn, I had a feeling that we won’t get out so easily.’
‘Maybe we can neutralize the anomaly if we ask Shumenko to piss into it.’
‘Ha, ha, ha, lieutenant’, replies the sergeant with faked laugh, ‘if you want to know, ever since I visited that bitch you talked about, my piss is so burning I could blast a hole into the wall with it.’
‘Did you at least manage to blast her hole?’
‘Both of you, shut the fuck up’, Tarasov orders. ‘No time to relax yet. We’ve to backtrack the way we came.’
‘Shit’, Ivanchuck swears. Tarasov turns toward him with a big grin.
‘You still like this job, lieutenant?’
‘I do, sir… I just took the liberty to mention that I dislike visiting places I’ve already been to.’
‘That’s the spirit. Now, if we are lucky, our mercenary friends tried to retreat and ran directly into Fortress One. If not… we kick more ass. Let’s move out.’
Either because they killed everyone on their way before or the mercenaries were indeed ambushed when trying to leave the catacombs, the squad makes its way back into the laboratory undisturbed. Kovalsky carefully skirts the dead bloodsucker, its lifeless eyes still glowing as if it could jump up any second. As he passes it by, Kolesnik shots it again.
‘Just to make sure, sir,’
‘Move your ass, Kolesnik.’ Tarasov get’s nervous. Any mission gets the most dangerous when almost over. Men tend to lose patience and caution. In a minute, they are back to the first tunnel they traversed, with the ladder leading up to the shaft and out of the catacombs. He notices the lieutenant has his headlamp switched on. Damn, he thinks, does he want to get a headshot in the last moment? The mercenaries are not stupid, they might be waiting in the darkness to let Tarasov’s squad exit and emerge when the soldiers have left. They still don’t know that after they leave, Kolevsky has to finish their mission by welding the exit shut.
‘Switch off your headlamp, lieutenant.’
‘Yes, major… it’s just that the night vision already makes my eyes pop from their sockets… and now this headache…’
Tarasov suddenly also feels pain creeping into his skull.
‘What is that?’, asks Kovalsky and steps forward, probably emboldened by the close exit shaft. Before Tarasov can order him back he hears a faint, sharp noise, rapidly strengthening into a deep howl.
‘Controller!’, screams Shumenko in horror, ‘Oh my god!’
A loud bang-bang hits Tarasov’s brain. It’s not transmitted through his ears – the sound is already inside his head, as if his brain was about exploding. But it’s Ivanchuck who fells to his knees as Kovalsky strikes his pistol and shoots the lieutenant in the face.
‘Shoot’, screams Tarasov desperately. Bullets whizz towards the dark end of the tunnel. He curses himself for not having a shotgun or at least an AKSU – the small ammo clip of his Avalanche will not be enough for this kill. Realizing the controller didn’t see him yet because he still has some willpower of his own, he smashes forward. It’s not fair, flashes through his painful mind, so close to the end, it’s just not fair. He sees the silhouette of the monster against the red flashes of the last emergeny light. Having finished off Tarasov’s soldiers, now it tries to take hold of his mind. But desperation and rage steel his muscles and in two seconds, he reaches the mutant. It towers above him with his humanoid mass of brawny flesh. Tarasov empties the whole clip into its head. The controller tries to step back. He senses it’s aggression vanish, as if he himself had adsorbed it while he smashes the mutant’s head again and again with his rifle butt until the weapon breaks. Suddenly the tight, fiery ring that gripped his skull receeds then disappears. The bang-bang is gone. In the sudden silence, his panting sounds deafening.
Tarasov feels blood flowing from his ears. He switches on his headlamp and sees Kolesnik getting up from the ground, groaning. Then Shumenko rises, holding his head as if still in pain. Kovalsky kneels above Ivanchuck’s body. He has torn the gas mask off his face. From his eyes, still maddened by horror, tears are flowing.
‘I didn’t… I didn’t want…’
‘No.’ Tarasov wishes to sound reassuringly but his voice is hoarse and trembling. He takes the Makarov from the technician. ‘You’ve been… controlled.’
He looks at the lieutenant’s corpse. Of all the wounds a bullet can afflict, he most hates the sight of a headshot. It’s bad enough to realize how thin the layers of muscles, body tissues and skin are that make the difference between a pile of organs and a human form. But a face, distorted into a dreadful yawn by a last traction of the muscles and the scattered brain protruding from the cracked skull, still emanating body warmth into the chilly air, is something different. Tarasov feels the urge to retch but pulls himself together. Kolesnik is weaker. He leans against the wall and throws up. Only Shumenko stands on his feet, expecting Tarasov to say something. The major clears his throw.
‘Sergeant, take this’, he says, reaching to his waist and handing the artifact over.
‘I’m fine, sir… but could use an aspirin.’
‘As we all do… take it anyway. Tomorrow, you’ll take a patrol to Yantar.’
‘I understand, sir', the sergeant quietly replies, 'I’ll send the lieutenant’s share to his family.’
Tarasov nods. Together they help Kovalsky to his feet. Kolesnik joins them, his armor darkened by stains of vomit. Tarasov steps to the ladder and reaches for his radio transmitter.
‘Fortress One, this is Condor One. Mission accomplished. We are at the shaft entrance, below you. Send down a harness… Over.’
‘Shall Hotel X-Ray come down and prepare for medevac? Over.’
‘Negative, Fortress One. We have a KIA. Over.
‘Copy and willco, Condor One. Over and out.’
By the time the lifting harness is lowered from above, Tarasov has already attached a gas mask to Ivanchuck’s face – no need for the other soldiers to see a comrade like that. Carefully, they fasten the harness around the corpse. Shumenko pulls the rope twice, and Lieutenant Vasiliy Ivanchuck’s body sets out on its journey to a cemetery somewhere in the far Lugansk region.
When Tarasov finally emerges from the shaft, his knees tremble to such an extent that he must sit down in the grass. He is the kind of soldiers who don’t worry too much before a mission and keep a cool head thorough, but once danger is over, all the fear and excitement their mind kept at bay during stress unloads in a heavy, almost nauseating wave. Leaning his back against a tree, he watches Kovalsky welding the shaft entry shut. The technician’s spirits are obviously lifted by being back to the surface in one piece, and the sense of security given by the heavily armed soldiers around the perimeter.
Sergeant Nabokov offers him a cigarette. Tarasov can’t refuse it.
‘Was it bad?’, Nabokov asks exhaling the smoke. Tarasov doesn’t reply immediately. He removes his blood-smeared gloves and watches his fingers tremble.
‘I’ll need a new rifle’, he says. Nabokov doesn’t bother him with more questions.
As the Mi-24 descends to take the squads back to their base, Tarasov notices a soldier from Nabokov’s next to a command vehicle. A bulky device in its rear tells it’s the liaison car of Fortress One, no longer needed here with the mission being over. He calls Nabokov on the intercom.
‘Sergeant, do you mind if I borrow your UAZ? I could use a little time on my own.’
‘Suit yourself, major. There’s a spare AKSU inside, just in case.’
‘Thanks. See you at Cordon.’
One by one, the soldiers climb into the helicopter’s passenger compartment. Then the gunship pulls up and passing over the ruins, disappears to the south east.
The noise of the receding helicopter makes everything appear even quieter. The only trace of their activity is the sealed shaft and a few empty cigarette boxes, trampled into pulp by heavy soldiers’ boots. Fifteen or twenty meters below, Ivanchuck’s blood might still be warm in the dust and dirt. Tarasov looks at his black Seiko watch. It's hard to believe that only forty minutes have passed since they descended into the underground.
He wants to relax his nerves before returning to the base. Probably he will spend the rest of the day doing paperwork, and the thought makes him feel dumpy. He starts the engine. Driving along the tree-lined road, basking in the cool but still honey-colored autumn light, the Zone seems like paradise after the underground. Occasionally he skirts the occasional wrack of a Zaporozhets or a Kamaz truck, rusting away on the roadside since Chernobyl.
He sees no living soul around. To clean the rotten smell of the underground and stinging gunpowder residue off his nostrils, he stops the UAZ and takes deep breaths from the air outside. Atop the hills, radioactivity would kill him in minutes but here in the low valley he can risk this simple pleasure.
He looks around, back to the forking road to Agroprom, and forward to the Garbage area where Chernobyl’s highly radioactive remains lie buried. All is quiet. Once more, Tarasov realizes that it’s not just mutants and other phenomena that make the Zone eerie. It would still be beautiful for a wilderness, if one disregards of the abandoned vehicles and tanks, the dilapidated farms and ruined industrial buildings. It’s the silence. No birds ever sing, only ravens croak. No critter moves in the bushes, only mutants roam. Whatever noise the wind is bringing from afar, it’s about death: a rifle burst. A mutant’s growl. A human scream. And occasionally the roaring thunder of an emission approaching from the center of the Zone, painting the sky in deep purple, lighting it up with lightings, engulfing everything with darkness before bursting out in a gigantic display of flame-like rifts in the sky that resemble northern light. It would be a spectacular sight in all its dreadfulness, if it weren’t lethal to stay in the open and watch it. During the two years he had spent here, Tarasov not only learned how to survive in the Zone. He also learned how to love it - although he loved the Zone more when there were still secrets to explore. Sometimes he wished the Zone was even bigger, but wasn’t sure anymore if this was his own desire or that of the Zone. No protective suit, no armor could prevent the power of the Zone from creeping into his mind. His daily fear, his short moments of joy over a mission well done, his grief over fallen comrades, the mysteries he witnessed formed an ever-growing layer around his mind, and in the blood pumped into his veins, there was more and more of the Zone with each beat of his heart.
He drives on. Weather changes quickly in the Zone and by the time Tarasov reaches the train station with the abandoned engines on the rusting railway tracks, a slow rain sets in. He looks around cautiously. Not long ago this was a gathering place for bandits who hunted stalkers for their money, loot and artifacts. But now, even if they are some hiding along the road, they know better than attacking an army vehicle driven by an officer inside. Bandits are big mouths but do know their place in the Zone’s food chain. They might also remember the fate of Father Valerian, the stalker leader who once dared to capture an officer. It was one of Tarasov’s first tasks as military stalker to hunt him down, and he gladly accomplished it in the depths of the gloomy Red Forest. After he learned a thing or two about the officer, though, he wished he had never felt Father Valerian’s vodka breath when he approached him from behind, moving to thrust his combat knife deep into the stalker’s throat.
‘Condor One, this is Cordon Base’, comes through the radio, ‘do you copy?’
‘This is Condor One. Did Hotel X-Ray arrive? Over.’
‘Positive. Colonel Degtyarev is also here. He was pissed off to see the helicopter returning without you. Over.’
‘Tell him I'm on my way. Also, tell him that I needed… no, just tell him I'll be there in ten. Over and out.’
‘Roger. Cordon Base out.’
Tarasov feels as if suddenly a stone weighed down his stomach. Ever since they first met a year ago in Pripyat during the aftermath of a mission that went awfully wrong, he knew Degtyarev as one of the few officers not tainted by corruption. They became friends since then, as far as a USS agent and a paratrooper officer could be friends among the rivalry between security services and military. He often joined Tarasov on his patrols deep into the Zone. Nothing ties men closer than the memory of nights spent together in lonely look-outs, fighting off mutants until daybreak came. Tarasov also knew that his service considered Degtyarev more of a stalker than an agent, just like his fellow officers took himself for an oddball because he didn't partake of their pleasures: bullying the lower ranks and shooting stalkers for sport with Dragunov sniper rifles. Being respected on the surface, but considered eccentrics by their own comrades was another thing they had in common. For a moment it occurs to him that Degtyarev might have arrived for another foray, but he doubts his own optimism. His friend, now made a colonel despite his own wishes, appeared less and less frequently at the Cordon. Besides, there wasn’t much left to explore in the Zone. They’ve been to every territory, explored every cave, bunker and catacomb, and Tarasov couldn’t blame the colonel for finding the exclusion zone around the CNPP smaller and smaller after each raid.
But the radio message made him concerned. If he’s pissed off for not seeing me right away, it must be official business. Otherwise he'd told Tarasov to hook up with him somewhere else, like the 100 Rads bar or the Skadovsk in Zaton.
As he passes by the abandoned dairy farm, once a stalker outpost before most of the loners moved to Zaton or Yanov station from where Pripyat could be more safely accessed, Major Khaletsky comes to his mind again. It was in these ramshackle buildings where the stalkers kept him captive. Although one reason why he dislikes stalkers is the shameful way they rooted the army squad sent to Khaletsky’s rescue, he can’t shake off a certain feeling of regret. Tarasov often thought how much better it would have been if the stalkers had just finished the major off, instead of letting him escape. Probably Khaletsky bribed them too, just like he bribed his way out of the Zone and up the career ladder right to the rank of major-general. Once in a while, Tarasov also made a little money from selling artifacts. But he never would have used army patrols to hunt down stalkers for looting their corpses like Khaletsky did, or even hiring bandits to do the dirty work for him.
He reaches a hill. The road branches off to the abandoned village where most stalkers arrive after sneaking past the army patrols into the Zone. Tarasov and his men had taken it a dozen times before, but being stretched thin as they were they had to abandon it every time. In a few days the stalkers where always back. However, their orders to shoot stalkers on sight no longer apply here. In exchange the army keeps a much tighter grip around the once-secret laboratories in Yantar, the Dark Valley and beyond. It was one of the few things Degtyarev achieved to make life in the Zone just a little more peaceful, although Tarasov always suspected that Sidorovich might have also put in a word with the generals. After all, he made good living from the artifacts that stalkers collected. Tarasov approved of this measure for another reason too: now he could use his few military stalkers for more reasonable missions than hunting down trespassers.
He stops the car and without getting out, waves to the guard in the village entrance. The stalker, obviously a rookie judged by his pathetic leather jacket and outdated gas mask on his hip, runs up to him.
‘Hey, stalker! Put your shooter away’, Tarasov says darting a scornful look towards the stalker’s puny shotgun, ‘Still no news about Sidorovich?’
‘No. His bunker is locked. But if you have artifacts, I could…’
Without listening him out, Tarasov drives on. The base is close now. It’s time to signal his arrival before a trigger-happy soldier makes a mistake.
‘Cordon Base, this is Condor One. Rolling in.’
‘We have a visual on you, Condor One. Welcome home.’
