Viktoriya put her ear to the wall of the dark, dusty shed she'd taken temporary refuge in. There were dogs outside. She hated dealing with dogs; they were always either too quick and too far away or they were right on top of you and tearing out your jugular. She took a quick inventory of everything she had to help her out of her predicament, doing her best to keep her movements and breathing as minimal as possible in the hopes the dogs would forget about her and leave. 'Well I've got my watch, my boots and my clothes. One Browning HPSS-1m, with 3 rounds left. One AKM-74/2 rifle, with no rounds remaining and a busted scope. One combat knife. One bullet wound, right arm, packed with gauze. A backpack full artifacts, one bottle of anti-rad pills, one flashlight and one flare gun. A wallet with 2000 rubles. No food. No bandages. No luck. Outstanding.'

Viktoriya looked at her watch, straining to make out the hands in the inky blackness of her shelter. It was about 10:45pm. The doors to her home at Sidrovich's hotel locked at 11, and a night outside in her current condition could mean losing her arm. She put her ear to the wall again. She could still hear the dogs, but only faintly. They'd dispersed at least, a lot quicker than she'd expected them to. 'It's barely 100m to Sid's, and I doubt I'm going to get a better chance than this.' Viktoriya stood up and started slowly edging the door open; her Browning pointed at the gap in the doorway in case any of the dogs heard a creak and decided to investigate.

Viktoriya stepped out into the open field dotted with small hills and sparse trees, Browning still held by her injured right arm. It was a clear night, with a large moon, so she was able to see where she was going without resorting to her flashlight (which would just attract the dogs to her). She unsheathed her knife with her left hand and held it up under her right, so that her healthy arm was supporting the other one holding her gun. The knife would require more strength to use properly if a dog got close enough to her, which is why it got the healthy arm. Cautiously she started walking towards Sid's. She didn't have eyes on the building, but Viktoriya knew it was just over the small hill about 20 metres in front of her (she'd taken this route many times before). Darting her eyes around and straining her ears for any signs of the dogs, she walked up to the top of the low hill, crouching just before the peak. From there she could see why the dogs had left so quickly.

About 25 metres in front of her, and fortunately with its back turned, Viktoriya saw a boar. It looked to be about as tall as she was, could outrun her any day of the week and had tusks long enough for her to tap-dance on. 'All that radiation did them a world of good' she thought. It was standing between her and the outer perimeter of the abandoned military base that was Sidrovich's place and it didn't appear to intend on moving any time soon. 'Even if I had 100 bullets for my Browning I wouldn't have a chance of taking that thing down before it bowled me over' she thought, not allowing herself to panic just yet. 'I could fire off that flare, but no-one will see it and come after me before the boar clocks it and-' there it was: she had a plan.

Moving as quickly as she could without alerting the boar, Viktoriya re-holstered her Browning and took out her flare gun. She loaded it and raised it to her eye level, looking for a target. 'It needs to go through the boar's field of vision, or this isn't going to work. The dim moonlight made it difficult for her to see very far, but she could make out a large bush, about 10 metres ahead of the boar at her 2 o'clock, that would serve.

Viktoriya slowly crouch-walked to her left, keeping a wide arc around the boar until the bush was directly in front of her, and the boar was a bit to the left of that. She would be in the boar's field of vision now, and had to avoid making any sudden movements. Calmly, she sheathed her knife and raised the flare gun with both hands. The shot she wanted to make would've been called impossible even if she hadn't a bullet wound in one arm, but she was out of time and options now. Viktoriya regulated her breathing, took aim above the bush to compensate for the drop off and squeezed the trigger. The flare hissed from the gun and shot forwards, landing right in the middle of the target and igniting it with a somewhat unimpressive 'phwoosh.' Fortunately it hadn't rained in a while and the flames were able to spread quickly, creating a moderately large flame.

The boar instinctively ran towards the sudden commotion but, when it reached the fire, turned 90 degrees and ran away from it. Exactly as Viktoriya had hoped. 'Okay, need to move quickly now' she thought to herself, dropping the empty flare gun and taking out her knife and Browning again. Viktoriya figured she had about five minutes to get inside Sid's, considering how long it took her to crawl up the hill, pick her move and take the shot. She stood up, but not completely, and started at a low-run towards Sid's building. In what she thought an absolute miracle, she made it to the building and stepped in the door without incident, holstering her gun and her knife as she did.

Viktoriya breathed a sigh of relief as she entered the open lobby of Sidrovich's building, filled with fellow Stalkers chatting amongst themselves, smoking and gambling. There was a time, before she came to the zone, when she would walk into a place like this and find men climbing over each other to buy her a drink. However, years of Stalking had hardened her facial features and granted her a reputation as someone not to be messed with. She wasn't complaining; she had more important things to worry about than whether the boys liked her or not.

Sid's building was once part of a small military base near the Agropom research institute, but when the military moved out Sidrovich moved in and set it up as a makeshift Stalker hotel. As long as you could pay a (relatively) small rent, and you didn't deliberately cause any trouble, this was the safest place a Stalker could be in the entire zone. The place was owned and run by a man named Sidrovich, who was also the resident trader. He would buy almost anything from you, and had almost anything to sell. He also managed Stalker contracts, for when anyone needed to hire a Stalker to do some dirty work. 'Why on earth did I become a Stalker when I could have opened a hotel?' Viktoriya thought to herself.

Now that the adrenaline of the boar incident had worn off the pain crept back into her arm, reminding Viktoriya that she needed medical attention. 'The artifacts will have to wait; right now I need to go see Yevhen.' Yevhen was the resident doctor at Sid's. He charged a lot, but was lenient to her because he and her father had been friends prior to the second incident at the reactor, when her father disappeared. Viktoriya paid him full price when she could, though, and this was one of those times. She walked up to his office on the second floor and knocked on the door.

After a pause a short man, aged, bespectacled and balding, opened the door. At first Yevhen seemed disgruntled that someone had come knocking so late (officially he closed an hour before lockdown), but as soon as he realized who it was at the door his expression changed: first to happiness, then to concern when he saw the wound in her arm, still stuffed with dirty gauze. 'Viktoriya! Come in, come in. We must get that seen to immediately.' That was the way Yevhen was: business first, pleasantries second. He dragged her over to his examination bench (by her good arm, fortunately) and sat her down, then immediately started to work removing the gauze and investigating the damage. 'Well, I've seen worse, but this isn't something to be taken lightly. It's only a graze, but it's a deep one. Anyway, I'll clean it up.

Yevhen started pulling away the dirty gauze, then soaked a cloth in some sort of horrible-smelling medical liquid and dabbed the wound with it. It stung like hell, but Viktoriya gritted her teeth and sat through it. Once that was done he ran over to his cupboard, grabbed some more equipment, and then rushed back over to her and started applying fresh gauze and wrapping her arm in bandages. 'See, that wasn't so bad. I must say, you handled that better than most of the men I get in here.' Viktoriya couldn't help but smile at that. 'So anyway' Yevhen continued, 'tell me how this all happened.'

'I heard tell of a stash of artifacts, not far outside Duty. But by the time I got there some bandits had beaten me to it. There were only three, and I had the drop on them, but I guess one of them got a lucky shot off. I got them back though, and I got the artifacts.'

'Good. You'll need those to pay me' Yevhen said with a smirk. Viktoriya raised an eyebrow at him. 'I'm only kidding, dear! We're practically family; you know you don't need to pay me if you can't afford it.' Viktoriya knew that was true, but only partly. Yevhen's tell was that if he ever joked about needing the money it meant he actually did need the money. She picked up her backpack, fished out her last 2000 Rubles and put them in Yevhen's hand before he could object.

'Thank you, dear. Now, you can have one drink tonight to help with the pain, but drink plenty of water too. Oh, and one more thing…' Yevhen said as he ran back over to his supply closet, and then returned with a roll of clear plastic wrap. 'Wrap your arm up with that when you go in the shower, to stop the bandages from getting wet. Come back to me tomorrow and I'll change the bandages for you. And get at least a few days rest before you go off stalking again.'

'I can change the bandages just fine by myself. And I'm going to be bored out of my mind after a few days in this place' Viktoriya replied.

'Well I'm afraid that's too bad. I can lend you a book to read.'

'I've read all of your books three times over. Anyway, I'll figure something out. Thanks for your help'

'It was my pleasure dear. Ta-ta' Yevhen said as Viktoriya was walking out the door.

Viktoriya looked at her watch. 11:38pm. Sidrovich would have closed up for the night by now. Not that it mattered, the artifacts weren't going anywhere. She walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, where her room was. It was a small room, but by no means a bad one. She had a bed, a footlocker for her belongings, a desk with a wooden chair and her own en-suite bathroom (she presumed that this would have previously been an officer's quarters). There was also a reinforced lock on the door to stop anyone from trying to steal her things (although no-one would dare, since that would get you kicked out of here pretty easily). Her room was in the interior of the building, so there was no window, but the windows were all boarded up anyway to protect against blowouts.

Viktoriya unlocked the door, entered the room and went to her desk. Inside the drawer was a small bottle of painkillers. She opened it up, saw that there was only one left and swallowed it without water. She then immediately flopped back down on the bed. 'I had no idea I was this exhausted' she thought out loud. She laid there for a while but, while the painkiller seemed to be having some effect, the ache in her arm was strong enough to stop her from being able to sleep. 'I need a shower anyway' she thought.

After she'd showered and gotten the dirt out of her hair (she always kept it cut short to make that job easier) Viktoriya opened up her foot locker and retrieved a bottle of vodka and a glass. She usually saved her good vodka for special occasions, but she was too tired to go downstairs for a drink. She poured herself a single measure of vodka, drank it, had a mouthful of water from her canteen to chase it up, then poured another measure and drank that one too.

Viktoriya then went back to her foot locker and pulled out the one luxury item she'd brought with her to the zone, her MP3 player. She turned it on, put the earphones in and laid back down on the bed, scrolling through her music collection to find something that suited her mood while the warmth of the vodka slowly seeped through her veins and relaxed her muscles. She eventually decided she felt like listening to some metal (she felt the heavy sounds had a certain mental catharsis about them, which she liked after a hard day). She turned the music on, put her earphones in and stretched out on the bed, finally feeling calm and relaxed.

The next day, after she'd changed her bandages and had a quick breakfast of dry bread, sausage and cold instant coffee (the usual fare for Stalkers) Viktoriya went to see Sidrovich with her haul of artifacts from the previous day. She hadn't bothered to look through them to see what they were actually worth, but haggling with Sid was rarely worth the time. He was a nice enough man, and he ran a good business, but there was always something about him that unnerved her.

Viktoriya walked up to the counter of Sidrovich's trading post, set into the wall of the large common area on the ground floor. The common area was nothing fancy, just tables and chairs for Stalkers to drink, smoke and gamble at. It also served as an unofficial bar, since Sidrovich had plenty of vodka to sell. You had to get it before he closed at night, though.

Sidrovich gave Viktoriya the slightest little smile when he saw her approach. 'Good morning, miss' he said with a slightly annoyed expression, like she'd interrupted some important piece of work that he was doing (though he'd clearly just been sitting there not doing anything at all). He was short, dumpy old man with plenty of fat around the face and neck to match his sizeable beer gut. 'Looks like you've brought something to trade' he added, hungrily eyeing off the bag slung over her shoulder.

Viktoriya upended the bag on Sidrovich's counter, letting the bulky artifacts tumble out unceremoniously. They were heavy, but not likely to break; whatever magic the zone used to create them made them hard as diamonds (the way Sidrovich was looking at them they might as well be diamonds). 'Have a look' Viktoriya said. 'You'll know what they're worth, I suppose.'

'That I do, little miss' Sidrovich said as he began examining each artifact individually, apparently taking note of their weight, colour and (slight) radioactivity. Viktoriya waited as he worked his way through them, completely absorbed in his task for a few minutes. When he was done he moved the artifacts to one side and spoke to her. 'All in all, I can give you 7000 rubles.'

It was less than Viktoriya had hoped for, but not by a lot. 'Deal' she replied, 'but I've got to get a few things from you first.'

'Of course dear. What are you looking for?'

Viktoriya produced a list from her trouser-pocket. 'I need a medkit; some extra bandages to go with it; whatever tinned food you have; 9-by-19mil bullets (about 30); 5.45-by-39mil bullets (as many as you have); a flare gun; and a PSO-1 Scope to replace my busted one.'

Sidrovich walked around his various shelves, fetching what she'd asked for. He laid out everything on the counter: A medkit, a roll of bandages, ten cans of food (none of it was labelled, but she was at least reasonably certain it wasn't dog food), the flare gun (loaded with a flare), two 20-round boxes of 9x19mm ammo, three 30-round boxes of 5.45x39mm ammo and the scope, which he had placed to one side. 'Now, all of this' Sidrovich said, motioning over everything except the scope, 'will cost you 3500 rubles. The scope is 5000. So unless you've got an extra 1500 rubles this isn't going to work.'

'Shit.' Viktoriya had to think for a moment. Not having the scope was a fairly large hindrance, but everything else was absolutely necessary. She had no bullets, no food and no medical supplies left after her last journey out. Her scope being broken had all but turned that trip into an overall loss for her. 'Okay, give me everything else, and the rest of what you owe me in cash. The scope will have to wait.' Sidrovich replaced the scope on the shelf with the other weapon modifications, then slid the rest of her gear over and counted out the remaining 3500 rubles. 'Maybe I can win the rest by playing some poker tonight' she thought as she loaded her backpack with the new supplies. The idea didn't stick for long, though; she wasn't good enough to win reliably and she might need the rest of the money later on, especially if she was going to be on bed rest for the next few days. She said thanks to Sidorovich and went to leave, but he stopped her before she could.

'Before you go I have a job you might be interested in. A most unusual one, perfect for an artifact hunter like yourself'

'That depends, is it close by and will it buy me a scope?' she replied, somewhat put off by the idea of hunting artifacts (considering how poorly her last mission doing that had gone).

'It's not close by at all, but it will buy you ten new scopes.'

That had her attention. 'Go on' she said.

'I've got a client, just came in yesterday. He says he's a scientist. He wants someone to escort him to the plant. He'll pay handsomely.'

'THE plant? As in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant?' Sidorovich nodded in affirmation. 'It can't be done' she continued. 'In case you've forgotten, the brain scorcher won't let you get within, what, a few kilometres of the place?'

'That's the unusual part. This guy says he's got a way to get past the scorcher. Apparently him and his friends are interested in some of the machinery at the plant, some special computer thing they can't find anywhere else, so they cooked up something to get them in past the scorcher. He just needs a Stalker to get him there without being killed, which is where you come in. The official pay is 10000 rubles, half now and half on completion. But, considering that you'll be the first person to get into the plant since the incident you'll get to stuff your pockets with artifacts on the way home. He wants to leave for the plant tomorrow, so if you want the job I suggest you start getting your things ready.'

The dull ache in Viktoriya's arm was telling her that it was a bad idea to be going out on such a large mission so soon after she'd been injured, but the thought of finally getting into the plant was just too tempting for her to pass up. 'Okay, I'll take it' she said, after a long pause. 'Where's the client? I'll get that deposit off him and come back for the scope.'

'He's at that table over there' Sidorovich said, pointing to a lone man sitting in the far corner of the room, reading a book. 'I'm sure you two will make fast friends.'

Viktoriya collected her purchases, put them into her backpack and walked over to the man. He was absorbed in his book, and didn't see her approach. He was a young man. Younger than she was, at least. He was wearing what looked like good stalking gear; except that it was far too clean and not worn enough compared to what an experienced Stalker would be seen wearing. He looked tall and skinny, which suited his boy-ish facial features and short, messy brown hair. On his belt was a holster, containing a silenced Makarov pistol. On the floor by his side was a large, rather heavy looking backpack. 'Well, he looks like he might have his wits about him.' Viktoriya thought to herself.

Eventually the young man noticed her. He jumped in his chair just slightly, then regained himself and turned to address her. 'Hi, can I help you?' he asked, looking somewhat nervous.

'Sidorovich said you need someone to take you to the plant. I can do that.'

'I-uh-okay, great!' he stammered out. 'I'm Dimitri, by the way' he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.

'Viktoriya' she replied, accepting the handshake. 'This kid looks about as green as they get. He'll probably chicken out and bolt the instant bandits show up. Oh well, even if I don't get into the plant I'm getting easy cash from the mission' she thought to herself. She looked him up and down. "I'm guessing this is your first time in the zone?"

'Yeah' he replied. 'I work for a research lab in Kiev. There are machinery parts and radiation monitors inside that plant that don't exist anywhere else, and we need to get them.'

'And you're sure they'll work after all this time?'

'Even if they don't, once we have the parts we can recreate them. A lot of the tech used to build that plant was kept top secret, so we don't have access to any plans or blueprints or anything.'

'Okay. That's not really important to me. I just need to keep you alive. Now let's have a look at this gear.' Viktoriya picked up his backpack and started going through it, while Dimitri looked on in surprise. She started pulling things out (clothes, water, food) and taking note of them. She stopped when she came across what appeared to be two camo-painted radiation suits and a metal remote control with a small display screen on it. 'What's this stuff?' she asked him.

'That's what we need to get past the scorcher. We each put on the protective suit, while I use the remote to calibrate the protection to work against the brain scorcher's frequencies. Our research assistant near the scorcher says that the power and frequencies vary as you move through the scorcher, so unless I can match our suits to it using the remote we'll both fry.'

'Okay. Anyway, your gear seems mostly in order. You need more food and water, and only bring one spare set of clothes. Where's your spare ammo?'

'I have one more magazine in my pocket' he replied.

'Not enough. Go to Sidorovich and buy a box of bullets. Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.' Viktoriya gave him another look over, stopping when she saw that he was wearing jogging shoes. 'Are those seriously the shoes you're going to wear?'

'…Yeah? They're comfortable.'

Viktoriya shook her head. 'Those things will fall apart in half an hour out there. See these boots' she said, pointing to the boots she was wearing. 'These have lasted me five years. Go see if Sidorovich has any boots. Also, I need your deposit now.'

'Right, right' Dimitri said, pulling a folded envelope out of his jacket pocket. Viktoriya opened it and counted out the money. 5000 rubles, just as she'd expected.

'Okay, good. Go get your gear, then clean your gun and rest up for tomorrow. This place locks down from seven at night to five in the morning. Be here at five when the doors open, because that's when we're leaving. If we don't have any major problems we should be at the perimeter of the plant in 2 days.'

'Yep, okay' Dimitri said, then picked up his backpack and his book and left the room to go upstairs.

Viktoriya could see that he was nervous. 'So he should be' she thought as she was walking away. Now that the introductions were over Viktoriya had to get started on her preparations for the mission. She went back to Sidorovich, spent the 5000 ruble deposit on the replacement scope for her AKS, and then went back upstairs to her room. The first thing she did once she was in her room was cleaning her rifle and Browning. This was always the first thing Viktoriya did when she needed to plan out a mission. She found that the process of disassembling, cleaning and reassembling her weapons allowed her to think much more clearly, and the cleaning act itself was somewhat calming.

One she'd cleaned both weapons top to bottom she began packing the gear she would need for the mission. Two days' worth of food (she couldn't carry enough for the full trip, but she'd be able to stock up at either Freedom or Duty along the way); a change of clothes; extra socks and underwear (important to change regularly); her remaining loose bullets after she'd reloaded her magazines, three one-litre water bottles, her weapon cleaning kits, her bedroll and her medical supplies. Once she was satisfied that she had everything she needed she set her pack to one side, ready to go in the morning.

The packing was completed, but Viktoriya still needed to finish preparing her weapons. She attached the new scope to her AKS, and then took it downstairs and outside to the firing range so she could center it.

Viktoriya got in a prone firing position at the range (providing the most support for her rifle), loaded a magazine, set the rifle to single fire mode, took aim and fired three rounds. The rifle was resting against her right shoulder, so the recoil from each round sent a bolt of pain up her arm. Fortunately it wasn't so bad that she couldn't keep firing, but in an actual firefight (possibly lasting several hours) it might pose a problem. When she went to check the target she saw that the rifle was firing significantly too high, and just a bit too left. She adjusted the scope and fired again, this time spot on the center of the target.

With the rifle zeroed properly she stood up and tried firing it normally to test her aim. She squeezed off five rounds, but before she even checked the target she knew that they'd landed all over the place. With her injured arm she was having a lot more trouble supporting the rifle. This was bad news for Viktoriya. 'If I can't fire my rifle properly I'm going to get myself killed' she thought. But she'd already agreed to the job and, more importantly, spent the deposit, so it wasn't like she could just say sorry and back out. 'If I find good supported firing positions, and stick to my Browning as much as I can, I'll be fine.' She knew it was a poor excuse, but she didn't really have any choice.

After she was done test firing and zeroing her scope Viktoriya thought about going to see Yevhen for more painkillers, but decided against it. She knew what he would say if he knew she would be going out for a mission this large without letting her injury heal, and she didn't want him to worry about her. The painkillers weren't really necessary, and she'd gotten all the important medical supplies she needed from Sidrovich. No, it was best that Yevhen didn't know about the whole mission.

With that idea pushed aside and all her equipment organized and ready to go, Viktoriya went back to her room to chill out and get a full nights' sleep, important final pieces of the mental and physical preparation she would need to see her through the coming days.

Viktoriya woke up at 4:40 the next morning. She got dressed in her usual stalking gear plus a warm overcoat (the weather in the zone was warmer than the rest of the country, but even then it would still be freezing this time of the morning); collected her backpack, handgun and AK; and grabbed a few pieces of slightly stale bread to eat on her way down the stairs.

Dimitri, to his credit, was on time and waiting in the common area when Viktoriya got there. The room was empty except for the two of them and one guard standing by the door, armed with an AK similar to Viktoriya's. Dimitri was dressed much the same as she was (including a pair of boots this time, though they looked well worn), had his backpack with him and was wearing his Makarov in a holster on his belt. 'You're a bit early. That's good. Did you get everything I told you to?' she asked him.

'Y-yeah, I think so. More food, more water, a box of ammo, one set of clothes. And a pair of boots. Th-that was everything, wasn't it?' Dimitri replied, almost visibly shaking (despite his coat and the heated interior of the building). He looked more nervous than she'd seen him the previous day, but that was to be expected.

'He's probably never fired that Makarov. But still, he's done everything right so far, so he can't be that bad.' Viktoriya thought, again knowing that it wasn't true. Rookies like him were notoriously unpredictable, and rubbish in a firefight. If it came to blows Viktoriya had to accept that she would be all on her own, and her injured arm wasn't buffing her confidence there. 'Great, we've got one-half of a decent gunman going on an excursion to the most dangerous place in the zone. What could possibly go wrong?' But she was far beyond giving up now. Whatever the dangers ahead were, there was a strong possibility that this would be the once chance she would have to get close to, or possibly even inside, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. That was the one place in the whole zone she hadn't searched yet, and therefore the one place she needed to go.

Viktoriya checked her watch: it was right on 5am. She walked up to the guard by the door and showed him the watch, and he began unlocking the deadbolts on the door. Once it was open the two of them stepped outside, through the open gate and started making their way to the Garbage, which was the first area they had to cross on their way to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.