Misha didn't like the rain. Not because of preference or some foolish superstition, but because it made it harder for him to see his targets.
Misha 'Min' Menkov was a quiet, balanced man. Some would say he was too quiet, but he was no different from any other Stalkers in that matter. When he was drunk, drugged, reeling, laughing or fistfighting other people, everything was fine. When he was quiet, people were about to die.
It just happened that he had a lot of people to kill. Which he was about to do now.
The Dragunov SVD he had chosen for this particular job was propped up on a dead tree's thicker branch. A dark green ghillie-suit concealed his silhouette from prying eyes and his own eye was staring unwaveringly through the high-powered scope.
Next to him was Karl, clad in a similar getup, a monocular mounted on a tripod before him. He was his spotter for this mission. Well... he was always with him.
Weirdly enough, people tended to take the long way around them when meeting them because of Misha. Not because of the natural born killer made in Austria. Karl was a man with issues. A caring and thinking man at his core, but a machine in a firefight. Misha however, had no doubt that the Austrian would someday end himself if the zone didn't take him first.
Misha had met him a few months ago, when he was still part of the Ecologist's security detail. He and his protegés had been ambushed by Monolith forces, who opposite to the roving gangs of bandits, were an actual fighting force.
No one of his charge had survived the onslaught and as he had sat there, behind a concrete block he had used as cover, bleeding and waiting for one of the grey-garbed bastards to come around and finish him, he had heard his knight in shining armor come to his aid.
Slaughter the enemy was more fitting.
Clad in the typical light green that a lot of Stalkers preferred when choosing their protective equipment, the man had cautiously rounded the corner. The unwieldy PKM tightly gripped and splotches of blood on his clothes, Misha had thought him to be just another thug. You don't survive the zone without taking a few preemptive potshots.
But his handgun was swatted to the side and his temple was punched. He had been out in a matter of seconds.
When Misha awoke, his wounds were gone and he realized that he must have been brought to either Rostok or one of the back rooms of Dead City's mercenary base. Dim light shone from a door that was half ajar and a look out of the window suggested that he was at least on the third floor.
Probably Dead City then, but okay. Instead of pseudogiants and bloodsuckers, these guys had to deal with a seemingly endless stream of bandits that came from all around. Why they attacked Dead City, Misha never found out. He didn't know if Karl knew, but even though he had learned to trust the Austrian, he knew he had many secrets.
Karl had at some point sworn that he would never again shoot first in a fight. This effectively meant, that he would dictate targets for Misha's SVD to take out. Hypocrisy if someone had asked Misha, which no one did. All that mattered was that the man called Petrov would not live to see the night fall.
"I got him." Misha almost whispered from under his ghillie-hood. Both of them looked like swamp monsters from a 60s horror movie from up close. 250 Meters away, they were invisible, especially in the rain.
"Don't shoot." Karl answered calmly, his eye pressed to the monocular's eyepiece and his gloved hands stabilising from each side. "There's an anomaly in your line of fire. See?"
Musha strained his eyes and saw a slight distortion in the air and raindrops being vaporised by an unknown force. A bullet might have passed through, but it would never stay on course.
"He's moving." Karl muttered again. "Wait till he sits down at the fire. Maybe you will get him and his gopnik with one shot."
"Only if he leans forward." Misha got ready. His finger hovered above the trigger, the safety already off.
"He will. I bet he is going for the cigs on the cabledrum."
"How much?"
"Box of hydrashocks."
"And if I win?"
"Pack of my Lucky's. Watch him."
The man sat down, gesticulating at his soldier next to him to do the same, which he did. They started talking and soon the goon's hand wandered to his breastpocket.
"You better get those Lucky's out." Misha whispered jokingly, though his voice didn't betray any humour. Any emotion at all. Karl just hissed. His eye was glued to the monocular.
"Then get them. Line of fire's free."
Min just smiled as his finger snaked it's way from the triggerguard to the trigger itself. The two of them might be friends, but Karl was rationing his own cigarettes rigorously and by doing that, he also rationed the ones Misha was able to "borrow" from him. A whole pack for himself... hmmmmm.
Petrow signed a 'no' to his guard and leaned forward to pick up his own pack. His head was now directly lined up with his soldier's throat as he fiddled with the pack of cigarettes.
Misha groaned out of frustration and squeezed the trigger.
Now Misha and Karl liked to think of themselves as professionals. Not like the rabid dogs that made the bandit factions, not like the raving lunatics that were Monolith, not even like the obsessed fanatics of Duty. They tried to keep out of any of these politics for a reason and that was why they were loners. They, like most others, regretted ever coming to the zone, ever falling for it's false promise of riches and treasure, the strange rumor of the wish granter. If they were better people, they would have left. If they were better people, they wouldn't be here.
But they were here and they remained here for two relatively simple reasons. First, the whole zone had been quarantined by Spetznas and the ukrainian military, second, money.
False the promises of plentiful artifacts may have been, but these artifacts were actually there. They existed. But their retrieval was often dangerous and once you had one in your possession, the chance of a stray bullet pulverizing your skull rose significantly.
The other way to become rich in a lawless wasteland was far less complicated. Gunrunning.
Stalkers, soldiers and even scientists were eager to pay for a new and improved shooting stick. A relatively well preserved AK74 brought about a month of food, drink and shelter back in. Digging up a weapons cache or even an armory made you a wealthy man, back in the real world. If you knew who to sell it to.
Misha and Karl had a secret way of preventing the government, Duty, Freedom, Ecologists and Clear Sky to shoot at them. For one they were excellently lethal together and then, they knew where to find weapons and munitions.
A ukrainian infantryman was of course expected to report his defunct weapon to their quartermaster, get yelled at by their CO, maybe demoted when possible and be ordered to a month's worth of cleaning the latrines with their uniform. This happened almost regardless of rank, so the purchase of a new weapon from a local and trusted source was a regular, if just frowned upon occurence.
Where the weapons came from, no one asked, but of course there were speculations. The two might have found a secret armory in one of the labs and bunkers, they scavenged and refurbished malfunktioning weapons and so on. But the majority of the zone's weapons, were tightly held in the hands of the men and women that walked the landscape.
Someone who knew this, also knew where the majority of Misha's and Karl's weapons came from.
Right now, they realized their opportunity. Just seconds after Petrov had lit his last cigarette and his soldier had experienced his last bit of human kindness from his superior.
Misha kept firing.
Karl started to move. His Saiga-12 barked and another man, the fifth by now, was flung back by the force of the shotgun blast.
One tried to flank the Austrian, but was stopped dead in his tracks as more pellets blew chunks out of the rotting concrete around him and forced him back to cover. Just to pull a grenade from it's pouch. He had just pulled the pin as a sniper round shattered his sternum, leaving the grenade to sit and cook on his lifeless body.
The cacophony of gunfire was over when the fragmentation grenade detonated, cutting off a warning scream from one of Petrov's men.
Misha sat still, trying to hear through the rain, any footsteps that tried to close in on him undetected. Karl to had dropped down into the grass, becoming invisible. They were stones and they waited.
The comfort of a group in hostile land was not so much the possibility to carry more equipment or to provide social interaction, but the ability to have people perform specialised tasks. Lead, support, technicians, medics and guards. Sure the two had the element of surprise, but someone must have been ordered to keep watch, to oversee the area and report anything suspicious. A sniper most ideally.
Misha blew a strand of blonde hair away from his face as his eyes searched frantically for any movement, any suspicious outline. Even though Karl had offered him time and time again to cut his hair with the scissors he used himself to keep his black hair short and choppy, Misha had opted to tie them back in a ponytail. Most of the time this was alright. Now that a strand had become loose and dangled in front of his left eye, it became a problem.
Tge sharp report of a weapon echeoed through the enclosed valley and Misha's search became more urgent. He knew that Karl was in front of him, but he couldn't see if he was the one who had given off the shot or if he had been the one who was shot. He let out a sigh of relief as an armored body slumped from behind a pillar, a now useless Mosin Nagant rifle clattering on the concrete beside him.
His radio gave off three short static bursts. Their own little code for "check in", which he answered accordingly with a single burst for "alright". Karl reciprocated in kind and emerged from the high grass. They were monsters in a land of monsters. Right now they looked the part too.
When Misha had reached the site of their attack, Karl had already begun looting the bodies. One bandit lay on his back, vest open and pouches and pockets empty. Something came flying and Misha deftly caught the packet of Marlboro out of the air. He grinned at his partner who had already begun to plunder the next dead man.
In the end their haul was pretty good. They had found a few pump-action-shotguns, a few AKs and some relatively well preserved pistols which they could all sell. Karl had found a working artifact-scanner too. An older model, but still capable of fetching a good price. Other things, they kept for themselves. Tools, food, medical aids and some of the ammunition would stay with them. You don't sell what keeps you alive, not until your stomach has mutated enough that you can digest rubels.
When they were fully done, the sun was setting. Both of them had by now slipped their ghillie suits off and hung them in a relatively dry spot, next to the reignited fire. The rain was getting worse. They would stay here for tonight. Misha stood guard as Karl sat down on his helmet to take off his clothes. Misha too wanted to change again soon, but as long as they were this far from Rostok, they had to be careful with taking off their heavy armor.
The metallic clicks of Karl resealing his combatsuit and taking up his gun again made Mish turn. He needed to take a piss and he was sure that the scratch on his foot was slowly catching an infection.
Better to burn it off.
Karl stood watch, his shotgun poised over his chest and the thermal-night-vision lenses of his armored mask tinting everything in an eerie palette of black, white and grey. The rain wasn't helping either and he had jerked more than once towards a movement that wasn't real.
That lazy ukrainian bastard was taking his time again. While that guy probably wanked himself off back there, Karl would have been able to take a shower, shave and repair the Sat-phone. His anger wasn't real though, he recognized. He and Misha were friends, so it must be allowed to be pissed at him for a moment.
"Stop jerking off and come back here!" He yelled into the small, windowless chamber where Misha was doing whatever the hell.
"You can help me finish!" Came a mocking reply, followed by: "Give me three minutes."
It took two for Karl to light a fire in a shielded spot of the ruined building and sit down to look through their loot. When his friend emerged from the chamber he just casually threw his old socks into the fire and sat down too.
"Rain is getting stronger." Karl exclaimed, poking around in the fire with a small wooden stick.
"You guard first. I had the first shift yesterday." He exclaimed softly and with a look in his eyes that betrayed a certain weariness. Misha knew better than to argue now over such a small detail. He would just make sure to be as shitty as pissible when he woke the man up for his own shift.
It didn't take long for the Austrian's breathing to become regular and ten or fifteen minutes later, Misha knew, the man was out cold. But he definitely haf been right, the rain had grown to a roaring storm that sent white streaks of light over the valley in which their ruins stood, followed by the loud cracking of thunder.
Leave...
Misha would have called this a heavy storm, back in his little apartment in Kiev, but not anymore. This storm was nothing. He had survived emissions, psi-storms that turned everyone either into mush or braindead zombies. This was not a heavy storm, just a nuisance because now that night had fallen and the water came down in strings, visibility was almost zero.
Had he not blinked when another bolt of lightning painted the grassy valley in front of him in that strange white light, had he not bowed his head to light a Marlboro, had he just been a bit more lucky tonight... everything would have been different. Misha would never know however.
The servo-powered arm that slung itself around his neck with inhuman strength, while almost crushing his right upper arm with it's hand, pressed all the air out of Mishas throat. He tried to scream, but his voice came out as just a weak gurgle, before the pain exploded around his throat. His left hand shot to the wound under his chin in a futile attempt to prevent the blood from flowing, but it was too late. He was losing consciousness.
He needed to wake Karl. Karl would be able to help him. So Misha's eyes tried to find the Austrian, his companion, his friend. His vision was hazy by now and even the pain was stopping to be so bothersome. It must have been a few seconds, but it felt like hours and every minute in these hours, it became more difficult to keep the head upright.
It's alright.
What a strange thought. But maybe true. Maybe it was alright to give up. His airpipe had been severed, as well as the artery in his neck. If there was anyone who deserved a bit of rest now, it was surely him. Other than that, it was almost impossible now for him to keep his eyes open. His vision was gone anyway, so why bother. And if he was about to close his eyes...
His head slumped forward and Misha collapsed. The same arms which had squeezed the life from him and put a blade in his throat, gently caught him and lowered him to the ground.
I take a look at his bloodsmeared body. Nine seconds. He had some fire in him still. Now to the other. He is curled up, one lower arm covering his neck and I have seen what he can do. What both could do. Either way I am not risking a fight. Killing someone silently with a knife is easy when you have immediate access to the weakpoints in their armor. Neck and armpits, but this man is covering both and I won't risk moving his arm.
The decision is not difficult however, with the rain and the constant backround noise. He was probably dead when the first bullet his his head, but I like to be sure, so I fire twice more.
It is weird, how some people live on and on and some just vanish. The two of them were a good team with a great reputation. The bandit Petrov was feared by a lot of people in the zone. All of them are dead now.
A pity, really. I think as I go through their stuff. I even feel a bit of guilt as I turn to the one who had been sleeping. What a laughable way to go, to be shot in your sleep, thrice in the brain. Not good, definitely not good.
Maybe, just maybe, they used to be good people. I just know for sure that they aren't anymore. There are no good people in the quarantined territories, not even among those who keep the zone from expanding. The zone houses just the unhinged, the ruthless, the immoral and the monsters. We tear each other apart.
If I had a heart, I would cry for them. I would cry for us if I was younger, if I had lived through less. But the zone is not just a place, not just somewhere.
It is a beast. A living meatgrinder. People go in and meat comes out the other side.
The rain is loud against the lenses of my mask. I don't even remember leaving the valley and now I find myself on the street again. Garbage is a desolate place without a doubt and the sight of me is probably no improvement. But what would fit better into an irradiated wasteland than a shambling monstrosity of a man. A foul image of death, almost unrecognizable since the exo-sceleton enlarges my frame beyond that of a normal human. The rags covering the armor are drenched from the rain and more reminiscent of loose flesh than cloth and the gasmask's lenses hide my eyes rather effectively. I must admit, whenever I see my reflection in a shattered window or a puddle of water, it reminds me a lot of an oversized killer-insect... one with an AK.
I am hungry, but eating would mean taking off the mask and I can feel it in my gut. The storm coming ever closer. The emission. I need a place to stay the night.
It's the same, though a bit different every time. Sometime back it was not the dark void anymore that almost made me break in despair. Instead it became a plain office, complete with a desktop, fax and an outdated photocopier. The shadowy figure behind the desk is a she, though her image becomes clearer as I step closer.
"You again." It is almost an accusation. "I have recently greeted two young gentlemen. They too came from the Zone. You wouldn't have anything to do with that?"
I shift nervously. I feel caught, even though there is no reason for it. She doesn't judge me ananymore, she knows it doesn't matter. I swallow and prepare my voice to be used. It has been some time and it is rare that I speak.
"What happened?" I almost cringe at the sound of my own voice. It's hollow and sore. I think sometime earlier it has been deep and stronger. To her it doesn't matter.
"You lost consciousness after you took a dose of this nasty stuff. You know, these pills you take before the storms?"
I nod. Anabiotics.
"Right. Someone snuck up on you, under the overturned garbage can that you hid under and..." She adjusts her glasses and looks up at me. "... shot you in the head with a rifle. Pituful, really. Even by your standards"
Somehow it's embarrassing. The zone claims many like this, but I have a reputation to be different. It's kinda true.
"It's no use." She chirps and gets up from her chair. When she decides to show her true form, she is beautiful. One could easily mistake her for a gorgeous woman and fall for her, not knowing that she is something entirely different.
"You don't think you can go on, don't you?" I grunt and nod, unable to look into her grey eyes. I scrutinise the chair in front of the desk instead and wonder if it could handle the weight of me and the exoskeleton. Probably not. Her fingers grab my chin, just below the mask and suddenly it's not my choice anymore. I have to look at her.
Her touch is unforgiving, but gentle. "I am going to take that off." Her other hand is working the straps of my helmet and mask until both become loose enough for her to remove. My heart is pounding.
"Such a good face." She says softly as her fingertips brush against my cheek. "Such a shame you do what you do. There is no salvation here for you."
Her smile is sad, almost as if she is sorry for me. I fear I might start crying. I fear I can't. "Not here."
"Where?" I whisper. I know what she means. There is no one left to safe in the zone. They all are lost. Though there is hope for them in death, but not for me. I have played my hand and I lost. I miscalculated, chose the wrong opponents, made the wrong friends.
"A later time." She whispers back. Another life, another place. You saw what's coming."
"The zone will not be happy. You're stealing from it." Haven't spoken this much in months.
"This... abomination is stealing from me!" She hisses, but I remain where I am. I know it's anger, but I also know it's not for me. "I am just returning what is rightfully mine."
Her fingers are looped into the molle on my vest and she shakes me tenderly. "A life for a life! I will have a redeemed man where you stand now! Not..." She is gesturing towards me. "... this!"
She paces around the desk and draws a new sheet of paper from a stack on the side. A few seconds of hectic scribbling later and the page is filled. It's the usual procedure. She has not given up on me.
"Kneel!" She orders and I obey. My armor is heavy and I leave a small dent in the carped, while she retrieves the scythe. Knowing what comes next I take off a glove and offer my hand. A pronounced scar runs along the edge.
"Look at me." I lift my head and I see her. The skirt and blouse are gone and replaced with her signature black robe. Even though there is no wind in the room, the cloth seems to be moving on it's own. She is angry.
"That won't do this time." I retract my hand and listen to the something in my head that already knows what she wants. Yes blood, like every time. Sometimes more, she is a woman after all. But this time a bit from the hand is not enough. I turn my head to offer my neck and close my eyes. Not because of my fear, but because I want to show her that I trust her.
I didn't expect her lips on mine. I antianticipated cold steel, but my surprise is only short lived. The scythe follows shortly after and it's dark again.
When I open my eyes, the storm is over and I take a look at myself. Fortunately, I haven't hurt myself and I'm not puking blood. Seems like my body has accustomed to the anabiotics and permanent doses of radiation medicine. My head still feels funny however, or rather, it feels like it was runover by a Bagger 288 with spikes on it's treads and my stomach, even though not bleeding produces an equel experience as if having swallowed a handful of live wasps.
I feel around, still pretty much blind and deaf, but I feel the cold and the unique feeling of snow being crushed under my weight. This is not the zone.
A Stalker can feel it.
I can feel it.