Strelok, Guide and Chasme stood over a hill that overlooked the road to the junkyards. A cacophony of low rumbles, buzzing and humming came from below them, the light mist that floated under the mild morning sun making visible the dozens of anomalies on that treacherous part of the way between the bar area and the junkyards. Chasme looked down the road in disgust:

"I just hate this place."

"You have every reason to. Many stalkers have met their demise here." Guide didn't even search for stones; stalkers coming and going always used them to mark the anomalies. He was carefully surveying the land below him, already mapping a way in his mind through the many hazards.

A brilliant light glittered in the haze, rolling and bouncing as the anomalies around repelled it. Chasme pulled out his binoculars:

"An artifact... and a very shiny one at that." He did not delude himself with the idea of collecting that prize. The haze all around it was completely distorted; anyone greedy enough to make a run for it would not have time enough to regret his mistake. Strelok stepped forward and looked attentively:

"Looks like a Night Star from here."

"Whew... someone's gonna turn into ketchup today." Chasme instantly regretted his joke. "Sorry."

"Nevermind, you're right. There's nothing a body can do if a moron's born just too stupid." His mood was getting worse by the minute. Guide noticed this but said nothing.

"Follow me. Step where I step and you'll be fine." The elderly baldman started walking down the hill, Strelok and Chasme behind him. The former soldier felt the hairs on the back of his head stand and his heart beat faster. Fear whipped through him. Running through that gauntlet with two of the most famed stalkers in the Zone didn't ease him. He couldn't see Strelok's or Guide's faces, but he did not need it to feel their concentration: the old man led them taking exactly six steps, stopping, crouching, grabbing a tiny chunk of dirt, tossing it ahead, and seeing what happened. Whenever the chunk was turned into dust by a thundering shockwave or into cinders by some invisible force, Guide would turn left or right and repeat the process.

They had covered two thirds of the deadly maze when the sounds of gunfire erupted from the other side of the gate, two hundred meters ahead of them. Instantly Guide and Chasme dropped to the ground and removed the safeties on their weapons; Strelok, impeded by his cumbersome armor, crouched instead. Carefully he took aim, determined to blow off the head of the first sucker who dared to shoot at them; the gate was open, but no Duty guards were on their side. Through his scope he saw the flash of more gunfire, the sound reaching them scarcely afterwards. He opened a pouch in his belt and produced a radio:

"Duty outpost, this is the Marked One. I am with two fellow stalkers on the anomaly field north of your position. I am hearing gunfire. What is going on? Over." The speaker on his radio replied:

"Marked One? Is that you? Thank God! Hurry up outta that field! We're under attack by a horde of mutants coming from the Dark Valley! We need all the help we can get!"

"Again? Shit, almost seems like someone's busy breeding them. Hold on, we're coming. Over and out." He put the radio back on its pouch, and switched his Vintorez for a Benelli shotgun. Guide and Chasme followed suit immediately.

"Trouble?" The former soldier asked.

"Muties attacking the Duty post." Guide needed no further encouragement. Again he set off through the field, waiting, probing, watching and moving out again. Less than five minutes later, they had left behind the last of the anomaly field and its deadly bait. Chasme shot a last glance towards the brilliant orb and turned his attention back to the gate. The sounds of a raging battle came from the other side.

Strelok went through the gate first; immediately Chasme and Guide heard the blast of his shotgun and the deep snarl of something very large and very angry. The old man sped forward:

"Bloodsucker!" he yelled atop his lungs. Chasme remembered what Strelok had said barely an hour ago, took a deep breath, and went through as well, just in time to see the Marked One, less than four meters away from him, duck and roll to avoid the lunge of a shadowy bulk.

Automatically he aimed his shotgun and fired. A cloud of pulverized blood appeared floating in midair, half a meter from Strelok. The shadow turned to face this last attacker; two small white orbs looked down on him. The stench of stale blood and bestial muscle paralyzed him. Without warning, the two eyes sped forward and a ghostly clawed hand lunged for his neck. The impact left him without breath, but had the side effect of knocking him out of his fright. Amidst his desperation he somehow recalled Strelok's tale, and pulled out his knife as he tried to fight off the bloodsucker's relentless grasp.

Then, another deafening thunder, and the nightmarish visage was blown off him. The beast roared in anger and frustration and jumped back on its feet. Again, it hurled itself towards him; Chasme barely managed to keep his almost overpowering panic in check and sidestepped, the creature brushing him aside. He rolled on the ground, straightened up, brought his shotgun to bear, and fired again. The back of the bloodsucker's head disappeared in a bloody explosion. It gurgled in agony, fell flat-faced, and died.

A cold grasp in his left shoulder helped him stand; he whirled and saw Strelok's masked face. He thanked him with a raised thumb and looked around for other targets: he could make at least four other spectral shapes fighting the guards, over a dozen dogs and the gray forms of at least two pseudodogs. "Into the train car!" Guide yelled. "Go!"

The Dutyers heard him too and made a dash for it. Guide entered first; the small windows lit up with the flash of a shotgun being fired inside. He again appeared in the doorway and crouched there; he blasted a nearby dog's side into mincemeat and shouted them to hurry. Chasme hurried towards him, his heart racing in his chest. He heard the Marked One behind him fire several shots with his shotgun in quick succession; he turned his head over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Strelok reaching for his sidearm in the moment a bloodied pseudodog crashed into him; he turned around, hoping the exoskeleton to be as resilient as it seemed to be, and fired on it. Pellets sprayed both the mutant and the stalker. The pseudodog yowled in pain, a leg almost torn out by the blast. Strelok put his sidearm under its throat and blood exploded in the air a split second later. He kicked the corpse away from him and ran towards Chasme and the train car.

"We're even now," he said as the Marked One dashed past him.

"Hell no, you didn't get a buckshot shower." Chasme laughed and covered his retreat inside the car, which the Dutyers and Guide were using as a bunker to snipe the mutants. The battle quickly turned into a massacre. One of the remaining bloodsuckers made a suicidal charge against the doorway and was blown to pieces, while the dogs were picked off one by one as they ran around the car in circles. A good five minutes later, the guard post was strewn with mutant corpses. A few cheered in triumph.

The Duty warrant officer, a stalker who went by the alias of Dagger, slung his PKM on his shoulder and sighed with relief. "Not a moment too soon, eh, Marked One?" he said, turning towards him. His eyes went over his black exoskeleton in awe. "Some of the loot from Pripyat?"

"Sort of. What the hell happened here?"

Dagger vaguely pointed towards the Dark Valley.

"This is the fifth such wave we've got since the Brain Scorcher went down. It gets worse each time." He went over his companions with a quick look: "Any of you got injured? One of the 'suckers almost got you," he said to Chasme.

"Don't worry, I'll survive." He was still shaken by the experience, but a glow was slowly filling him; he had fought one of the Zone's most dreaded dangers and had survived it. "What about your guys?"

"Only a few wounded, thank God... we were ready this time." That they were, Guide noted; they all sported machine guns or heavy-duty shotguns.

"Is it getting that serious?"

The guards started walking out of the train car. Dagger led them to the small campfire; he opened a barrel, revealing a cache of beverages. "Take your pick," he offered. "Bullet took a team and left to scout the Valley... that was at dawn. We've been getting radio reports of his progress. Last thing he said was that he'd probably have to retreat to the cordon. Swarms of mutants there."

Chasme gladly took a soda. Guide settled for some cold water. Strelok took his helmet off and sat by the fire, a bottle of vodka in his hands. Dagger and a few of his fellow Dutyers followed suit.

"Figure this," the officer said. "Packs of bloodsuckers and pseudodogs run around and the fleshes have kicked the loners out of the pig farm. The 'suckers and the dogs hunt them, but only to feed... they don't just kill them for fun like they used to do before. It's like someone flipped a freakin' switch on them."

"What about the criminals lairing in the unfinished building?" Guide asked. He took a long sip of water.

"Still hiding there, Bullet said. They have dug up tight in there. He hasn't had a close look yet, but we told him to steer clear of the place. Bandits would love to nail one of us and we're not interested in giving them the chance."

"Hey Marked One," one of the Dutyers asked, "you been to the center of the Zone?"

"And to the Wish Granter?" another one said.

Chasme shot a discreet glance towards his comrade, remembering how he had reacted to his own question. Strelok thirstily guzzled his vodka before replying:

"Yeah. It's hell in there." He went on to describe the chaos that had erupted at Pripyat, and then his exploration of the plant: "Damn Monolith bastards crowd the plant like the roaches they are. The military is obsessed with reclaiming the place... the moment I arrived, they were fighting the lunatics. I don't think they will, not any time soon at least. These lunatics have rigged the place with traps and minefields and God knows what else. About that Wish Granter..." Chasme held his breath in excitement, like Dagger and the rest of the Dutyers circling the fire; Guide looked up at Strelok, knowing what was coming, and playing along. "Other than a shitload of rads, there's nothing there. The whole story is a load of crap. Prolly dreamed up by some moron who ran too close to Yantar or the Scorcher if you ask me."

The Dutyers stared at him, disappointment or disbelief etched in their faces. Then, they started talking all at the same time:

"Back to artifact hunting, then-"

"Come on! That can't be-"

"Are you sure? You-"

"Oh, man! 'twas a lot of bullshit-"

"Gimme a fucking break!" Strelok shouted. The guards hushed immediately in surprise, again staring at him. Even those who were not by the fire turned their heads. "There's no Granter, so don't go fucking looking for it. The only thing you'll find there is a load of bullets with your name on them. If you think you're badass enough to go and find it where I didn't, it's your damn funeral." Again he guzzled his vodka. The rest of the stalkers fell silent, a good half of them still mired in disappointment, most of the rest with a resigned look, and the remaining few saying 'I knew it' with their eyes.

Dagger cautiously insisted:

"But I'm sure you found some interesting artifacts, at least." Guide immediately shot a searing glare his way; the Dutyer flinched, regret written all over him.

Strelok didn't notice any of that. He merely unzipped his artifact belt and tossed a spiky thing in Dagger's lap. The other stalkers crowded around: it seemed to be a fuzzy mass of thorns and spines like the Kolobok, but it shone with an eerie blue-green aura, occasionally producing small bursts of light; the air around it became warmer and tinged with ozone.

"Incredible... incredible," Dagger repeated, half to himself. His comrades were equally awed; Chasme's eyes were glued on it. He respectfully returned the artifact. Strelok put it back on his belt. "Never seen one of these before... have you named it?"

The Marked One shrugged. The guards expected him to say anything else, but he was not forthcoming. He emptied his bottle of vodka with no sign of inebriation at all and fastidiously threw it aside.

"Dagger, what have you heard about Seriy's group in the hangar?" Guide asked a bit awkwardly, wanting to divert attention from Strelok and to defuse the stifling mood that was building up.

"Um, yeah..." Dagger was still shocked by the Marked One's revelations. He sighed and shook his head. "Excuse me..." he said with a hesitant smile. "You know, when I had just came here... I had made up my mind about what I was going to ask the Wish Granter for if I ever got the chance... I had given up on that by now, but a tiny bit of me still believed on it."

Chasme clapped him on the shoulder. He had received the news with resignation, realizing he had, somehow, already pieced together subconsciously what Strelok had just said; there would be little reason for him to be still there if the Wish Granter had existed.

"Thank you didn't buy it outright and ended up as a zombie or mutant meal." Dagger snorted with amusement.

"Heh. That's true. Well..." he begun, now turning his mind to Guide's question. "Seriy's been holed up there. They've been fighting bandits coming from Agroprom for the past week. Damn scum... for each one you kill, three more make it to the Zone."

Strelok grabbed his helmet and slowly stood up. His joints creaked audibly.

"Then we'd better hurry there. We heard he needs help."

"You heard right."

In the brief silence that followed, Chasme caught the distinct howl of a jet engine flying very high above them and looked upwards. Puzzled, Guide looked at him, then he heard it too.

"What is it?" the Marked One asked.

"Aircraft. High above us," he replied as he scanned the partly clouded skies, looking for the plane. "That's strange. The military are scared shit of flying here."

"Why's that?" Dagger asked.

"I was in the army myself. A chopper pilot told me there are anomalies as high as ten miles up in the sky, and they are a hundred times more dangerous than those on the ground because the detectors they use have very short ranges. You only get a three or four second warning."

Something disappeared behind the curtain of clouds, and reappeared. He pulled out his binoculars:

"It's... a fighter. If I'm not wrong, a Sukhoi 27. I don't see any weapons... it's probably doing some recon." The stalkers looked at each other, wondering what this new development was about.

"It can freaking burn for all I care. Let's go." Strelok started walking down the road. "Thanks for the drink," he said to Dagger. "We'll be around. Radio us if mutants come again."

"Will do. Thanks for your help." For a split-second Chasme considered asking Dagger what had he heard about the meeting at the Bar, but thought better of it. He shook hands with him and set off after his companions.