Viktoriya and Dimitri were led through the gate to the once-abandoned army base that was now Freedom Headquarters. The Freedom soldiers on the base, who were normally seen milling around, smoking and chatting among themselves, seemed to be on high alert today. "Must be all the recent fighting with Duty" Viktoriya thought. Their captors took them to what looked like the main administration building, past a pair of guards at the door, then downstairs to the basement. The basement seemed to consist of mostly storage rooms, but there was one iron-barred jail cell. The pair had their packs taken off and their pockets searched, before being shoved into the cell. Already in the room was a lone man, stripped to his underclothes. Viktoriya recognized him immediately from the picture of the Duty prisoner they were supposed to be exchanging. When he saw Viktoriya and Dimitri he laughed under his breath.
"Wow, I'm surprised you guys survived. The way I heard those Freedom guys talking about it the plan sounded like it was going to be a bloodbath. I'm Nikolic, by the way, Warrant Officer."
"I'm Viktoriya, he's Dimitri."
"And rank?"
"None, we're Stalkers."
"I- they actually believed that whole 'using Stalkers' play? Christ, who was in charge of the operation."
"Pasternack. Or at least he's the one who hired us to make the swap."
"Well, he's gonna be getting a mouthful when I get out of here. If I ever do, for that matter. I apologize on behalf of the rest of Duty for getting you two into this mess."
"Hey, we survived. That's more than most Stalkers can say when a job goes bad. Anyway, I can't imagine they've got much reason to keep us here for too long." Viktoriya sighed, and looked around the room. It was bare except for a single bed against the wall. "I hope they let us have our bedrolls back. Is there anything to do to pass the time?"
"Well I've got a book you can read" Nikolic replied.
"Is it 'Roadside Picnic'?"
"It- yeah."
"Of course it is. I'll pass, thanks; I've already read it."
They were waiting for hours before three Freedom soldiers visited them (according to Viktoriya's watch it was a quarter past nine at the time). The first two were young men (both looked younger than Dimitri). One was carrying their bedrolls and a metal lunch box; the other just had an AK rifle. The third was a middle-aged man with hardened features and a prominent, bushy moustache; definitely a commissioned officer. He spoke to them in gruff, simple terms. "Alright, you two Stalkers are charged with aiding and abetting an enemy of Freedom. Ordinarily you would be released after one week's imprisonment. But, because of the heavy fighting of late and the risk that you'll return to the enemy with more aid or sensitive information we're going to hold you here indefinitely. We'll free you when we see fit, but I wouldn't be holding your breath. Once you're free you may do as you wish, but if you're caught aiding an enemy of Freedom again you'll face a firing squad." The younger soldier opened the door and handed them the bedrolls and the lunchbox, while the other kept his rifle trained on them to prevent anyone from trying to escape. The three soldiers then turned to leave, not giving anyone a chance to speak up.
Dimitri, who hadn't been able to keep still from nervousness the whole time they were in the cell, was distraught by the news. He yelled "No, wait! You can't! There must be something we can do to get out early?"
The officer, frustrated, turned around. "Well, if you like I can arrange a firing squad for you now. Otherwise, no. Now shut up; most lone Stalkers would think living with free food and board a pretty good deal."
Dimitri shut his mouth and stepped away from the iron bars. He waited a moment to make sure the soldiers were gone, and then turned to Viktoriya, who was sitting on the ground against the wall of the cell. "You can get us out of here, right?" he whispered to her.
"Um, no. The walls are solid concrete and the base outside is swarming with soldiers. I know I've been doing nothing but saving your ass for the last two days, but this is outside of my abilities." Viktoriya opened the lunchbox to find that it was full of dry bread and sliced diet sausage, and lost her appetite.
"Come on, there must be something you can do. We can't afford to sit here; we need to get to the plant in the next week! Can't you pick the lock with a bobby pin, or something?"
Viktoriya was becoming irritated now. "First of all, does it look like I use fucking bobby pins?" She ran her fingers through her short, messy hair to prove that there were none. "Secondly, if you wanna walk out there and get shot to hell by every fucking Freedom soldier in the zone then you can go ahead! But I'm going to be sitting right here. To hell with your job and your stupid parts if it means getting us both killed because you were too fidgety to sit still and wait a couple of weeks."
"I told you, I need those parts within the week. Otherwise the whole job is a failure, and I might as well turn around and head home. And you-" He hesitated a moment before continuing: "And you'll never find out what happened to your father. Don't you care about what happened to him?"
Viktoriya stood up, walked over to Dimitri and punched him in the chin. A bolt of pain shot up her arm and centered itself on her bullet wound, but she ignored it. Dimitri put his hand over his face and backed into the corner. She was thinking about giving him another, but Nikolic, the Duty soldier, stood up and held her back before she had a chance. "How dare you. HOW FUCKING DARE YOU! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BRING HIM INTO THIS!" She was shaking with rage now. "THAT MAN ABANDONED ME AND MY MOTHER SO HE COULD PRANCE AROUND A NUCLEAR FUCKING WASTELAND, AND NOW I'M STUCK HERE PICKING UP THE PIECES AFTER HIM! HE CAN GET FUCKED. YOU CAN GET FUCKED. THE WHOLE FUCKING ZONE CAN GET FUCKED!" She shook herself free of Nikolic's grip and collapsed onto the bed, silent.
After a few minutes Viktoriya sat up on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that; I'm just so sick and tired of this whole place. Honestly, if you want my advice, just turn around and head home. Don't pay any mind to what your science buddies say about the equipment or the plant; they can send someone else. Whatever bloody experiment they're doing isn't as important as you getting out of here alive. Just leave the zone and don't look back."
Dimitri sat down on the bed beside Viktoriya. "There's something I need to tell you" he said, pushing the words through the discomfort of his injured jaw. "I'm not going to the power plant to look for equipment." She gave him a puzzled look with red, puffy eyes, but allowed him to continue. "My science team has been monitoring the inner zone for years now, using equipment we paid Stalkers to place as close to the brain scorcher as they could get. There's a certain type of energy, a specific radioactive activity that emanates from the plant. We believe this is causing the zone to expand."
Nikolic spoke up then. "We already knew that. Duty have been telling everyone the zone is expanding for years."
"Yeah, it's been expanding at a steady, but fortunately slow rate since the zone first appeared. But now it's different. The energy levels have been rising over the past few months, hundreds of times greater than usual. Usually when the latent energy builds up too high there's an emission, or a 'blowout' as the Stalkers apparently call it. This releases the latent energy and brings it down to a more stable level. But there hasn't been an emission for months now."
Viktoriya and Nikolic both nodded in agreement. There hadn't been a blowout for some time.
"The energy has to go eventually, and when it does we think it's going to be the second Chernobyl incident all over again. I'm talking the zone doubling in size in the blink of an eye. The zone will engulf whole cities, and there will be too many deaths to count. The reason I'm going to the nuclear plant is to find whatever is generating the zone's energy and destroy it. With any luck, doing that will cause the whole zone to become de-energized and collapse in on itself."
Viktoriya had calmed down now, and was listening intently to Dimitri. "Why didn't you tell the government, or the military? Why did you hire me to get you to the plant by myself?"
"The military didn't believe us. They didn't believe that we could get past the brain scorcher and they didn't believe that another incident was possible. They didn't want to risk men getting me to the centre of the zone on what they thought was a wild goose chase." Dimitri shook his head. "We only had enough materials to make two of the protective suits, and no time to get any more, so the only way to do it was to send one scientist and hire one Stalker."
"But why did you keep this from me?" Viktoriya asked. "Why make up the story about needing parts?"
"We thought no Stalkers would want to help us if we told them we were going to be destroying their way of life. If I'd known about Duty earlier I might have reconsidered that. But if we're going to be stuck here for weeks then it doesn't matter, anyway."
"Ugh, this job just gets better and better" Viktoriya thought for a while, and then said "We'll have to wait until tomorrow night. I can either bribe the guard or snatch his keys when he brings us dinner. Then we just have to grab our gear and sneak out."
"You didn't think it was that easy half an hour ago."
"If I'd known we would be saving thousands of people instead of just fetching you some toys I probably would have been on board with escaping earlier. Anyway, there's nothing we can do now. Hopefully the zone doesn't explode between now and tomorrow evening."
Nikolic, who had been silent for most of their conversation, spoke up. "Hey, when you guys escape I'm coming with you. Us Dutyers have been fighting for years trying to do what you're doing, and I want to help in every way I can."
"We appreciate the offer" Viktoriya said, "but like he said, there's only enough protective equipment to get two people past the brain scorcher."
"You'll need help getting through the Red Forest. I'll go with you as far as I can, then circle back around to Duty."
"Okay. Can never have too many rifles."
Viktoriya and Dimitri unfurled their bedrolls while Nikolic took the bed and tried to get to sleep. But they were only laying down for about an hour when someone roused them by knocking on the iron bars of the door. It was a Freedom soldier, carrying the group's weapons and backpacks.
"Hey you two" he whispered. "We heard what happened with you guys getting captured and locked up, and we really don't think it's cool. A lot of us Freedomers started out as lone Stalkers, and Stalkers look out for each other. You shouldn't be locked up and left to rot like this just because you were on the bum end of a bad job." He pulled out a key and unlocked the door, opening it as slowly as he could to stop it creaking. "I'll get the three of you out of the base and to the road south. Take your equipment and follow me."
"Wait, you're letting me go too?" Nikolic asked?
"Well, yeah. If I just leave you here and the morning guard comes around to find two prisoners missing they're gonna question you. And then you'll tell them I did it to get a bonus of some kind. Here, you can wear this:" he threw a Freedom uniform at the Duty soldier, who started dressing immediately. "Once he's ready we'll get going."
"Just one thing" Viktoriya whispered at him. "We're not going south. We're going north."
"North? To the forest? Why on earth are you going there?"
Before Dimitri could answer Viktoriya said "I'm escorting him to the plant to look for some special science equipment. We've got a way to get past the brain scorcher." Dimitri and Nikolic both nodded in agreement, understanding that a Freedom soldier wouldn't be happy with the idea of them destroying the zone.
The Freedomer seemed convinced by the lie. "Alright, cool. Can I come with you? I've always wanted to see what's at the plant."
"There's only enough protective gear to get the two of us past the scorcher. But there's definitely an artifact in it for you if you can help us through the Red Forest."
"Alright, sounds good. I've got some buddies who can cover for me. The name's Vasiliy, by the way. Now let's get moving before someone hears us." The group made their final weapons preparations and exited the jail cell.
Vasiliy led the group upstairs out of the building and onto the Freedom base. It was a bright, moonlit night, but fortunately there weren't any patrols around to spot them. Vasiliy took them to the eastern perimeter wall of the base, on the far side from the main entrance, and then south about fifty metres before stopping.
"Okay, we can get outside here. Everyone make sure your gear is strapped on tight."
The wall looked solid to Viktoriya, but when she looked up she saw that the barbed wire running over the top had come apart and left them a nice wide gap to climb over.
"I'll boost you three over then run around to meet you. I've got friends on the guard at the front gate who will let me through without any questions."
Vasiliy stood at the base of the wall and boosted Viktoriya over first. Once she'd landed she immediately stepped out of the way, raised her rifle and began scanning the woods for potential dangers. She heard Dimitri land behind her, and then Nikolic. They were waiting for about 10 minutes before Vasiliy appeared from the south and started leading them to the north.
"Okay, we're gonna cut through the woods and around the barricade, and after we're past we'll still keep to the woods to try and dodge any Monolith patrols. We'll move in a tight group, since that'll help scare off any dogs we might come across."
"What about boars?" Nikolic asked.
"They stay out of the thickest parts of the forest; they're too big to move through them properly."
"Wait" Dimitri said, "who's Monolith?"
"We don't know a lot about them, except that they're religious fanatics who shoot on sight anyone who isn't them, and they can move freely through the brain scorcher. They've got some crazy tech too; I got this rifle off one of their dead the last time they attack the barricade." He held up his rifle to show them, but in the low light the Viktoriya couldn't make out what model it was exactly.
"What? That doesn't make any sense. How could they possibly just walk through the brain scorcher?"
"You're not from around here, are you?" Vasiliy replied. "This is the zone, kid. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense."
"I suppose that's true" Dimitri conceded.
After a few hours of walking they found themselves in the Red Forest. It lived up to its name, characterized by the red needles on the trees that had died in the aftermath of the first Chernobyl disaster. The air here was cloaked with a strange, greenish haze, and the area contained scattered pockets of lethal radiation. Vasiliy led them around the radiation using a Geiger counter he had brought with him, but progression through the forest was painfully slow. Dawn had just broken when they came to a small clearing in the trees. They were still well away from any roads, so they decided to take a short break before continuing on to the brain scorcher.
In the morning light Viktoriya could now see what rifle Vasiliy was using; it was a VLA Special Assault Rifle, used by the Russian Spetsnaz. It was a good weapon for their current situation, as it was silenced, but it suffered at long ranges.
"Hey," she said to Vasiliy, "mind if I borrow your rifle for a second? My friend here needs to learn how to use one if we're going to have any chance of winning a fight against a group of Monolith soldiers."
"What? How has he made it this far in the zone without using a rifle?"
"He's had me to save his ass, is how" Viktoriya responded.
"Hey, I have this too" Dimitri said, holding out his Makarov pistol.
"Huh, same as mine" Vasiliy said, holding out his own Makarov. "So I guess that story about the Stalker in the exchange trying to fire his rifle with the safety on was true after all. Anyway, go ahead; just try to keep the noise down. We've done well to avoid Monolith so far, and I'd really like that to continue." Viktoriya took the rifle and showed Dimitri the basics of aiming using a scope and correct firing stance. He picked up the information quickly enough, it seemed. He had a few practice shots into the trunk of a large tree on the far edge of the clearing, and didn't have any problems with jerking the trigger or anticipating recoil. He already knew how to fire a handgun, so that made sense.
Once they had rested a bit they resumed their expedition north through the Red Forest. Everyone was feeling tired now, since nobody had slept the entire previous night, but there was nothing for them to do but push onwards. They managed to avoid any encounters, except for a couple of dogs Vasiliy shot with remarkable speed and accuracy. But after another hour of walking the forest became too thick with trees, anomalies and radiation pockets for them to continue, so they had to leave the trees and move onto the road.
"Alright" Vasiliy said. "Now that we're on the road it'll be faster going, but we need to be more careful. We'll spread out into a ten-metre diamond formation. Viktoriya, you've got a scope so you can take point for now. Nikolic and Dimitri in the centre, and I'll bring up the rear. If you see a person: shoot them; there's no-one out here except us and Monolith. Is that okay with everyone?"
Nobody raised any objection to the proposed formation, though Nikolic seemed to be a bit taken aback by Vasiliy's eagerness to give out orders. Viktoriya took the Geiger counter from Vasiliy, and then everyone assumed their positions and moved out. "This guy seems like an experienced soldier" Viktoriya thought, "so why is he only a Freedom grunt?"
They walked for another half an hour without incident, until Viktoriya noticed something moving on the road up ahead. She stopped and held up a closed fist to signal the others to stop too. Dimitri didn't recognize the signal and walked an extra couple of steps before he noticed that the others had stopped. Through the scope of her rifle Viktoriya saw a pair of figures, standing guard on either side of the road. They were a good 200 metres away, and didn't appear to have noticed the group approaching through the haze of the forest. Just behind where they were standing was a T-intersection, at which they needed to turn right to reach the brain scorcher.
About twenty metres ahead of them was a truck that had turned on its side across the road, so Viktoriya signaled the others to move up and take cover behind it. They crawled towards the truck to avoid being detected by the soldiers, and once they were all safely hidden behind it Viktoriya explained the situation in a low whisper.
Vasiliy went to the right edge of the truck and used his scope to get a look at the situation himself. He then went to the other side and had a look from there. "Okay" he said, "the woods here are too thick for us to cut through, but we should be able to take these guys out without raising any alarms. Viktoriya, you and I will take up position on either side of the truck. I'll take the one on the left; you'll take the one on the right. I'll count us in, and we both fire on three. Are you confident you can make the shot?"
The dull ache in Viktoriya's injured arm and her tired, heavy eyes became obvious in that moment, but she pushed them out of her mind. "Not a problem" she said, and took up a kneeling firing position on the right side of the truck. She looked through the scope, regulated her breathing until it was slow and steady, and gave Vasiliy the thumbs up.
Vasiliy counted them in. "One…Two…Three!" Viktoriya fired on three, but before she'd even squeezed the trigger she knew it would miss. Sure enough, the bullet sailed clean overhead of the enemy. They must have heard the shot and seen their friend drop, because they immediately started running back down the road. Viktoriya was about to shoot at him again, but before she got the chance she heard the soft crack of a silenced rifle, and the soldier dropped dead. Vasiliy walked back around the side of the truck. "Good thing I got him or we would be in deep shit right about now" he said. "We don't know how long it's gonna take their friends to find them, so we need to move out quickly. I'll take point again; Viktoriya, you take the rear."
Viktoriya was embarrassed that she'd missed what should have been an easy shot so she sheepishly agreed and handed back the Geiger counter. "A still target at 200m. I should have at least hit the body, if not the head" she thought. They took up walking again at a faster pace, and made it to the intersection and down the road to Pripyat without encountering any more soldiers.
After they turned at the intersection they walked for about a kilometre, until a Dimitri's abckpack started beeping. "Hold on" he said to the others. He took off his pack, opened it, and pulled out the strange remote control Viktoriya had seen the day she met him (which felt a lot longer ago than the three days it had actually been). He studied the display on the screen for a moment, and then pressed a button to stop the beeping noise. "We're approaching the brain scorcher now; it's not safe to continue past here without protection."
The group came in to shake hands and say their goodbyes before parting ways. Viktoriya and Dimitri gave thanks to Vasiliy and Nikolic, who both wished them well in their journey to the power plant. "So how are you getting through the scorcher, anyway?" Vasiliy asked.
Dimitri took the two protective suits out of his pack, camo-painted full body things (like a radiation suit) with a clear plastic face-window, to show Vasiliy. "My team at the lab in Kiev developed these suits. They're basically the same as ordinary rad suits, but with far greater protection" he said to Vasiliy, and handed one to Viktoriya.
She was a little confused. "What about the whole 'calibrating them to specific frequencies' thing using that remote control?"
"Oh, yeah I made that up. I thought if you knew you could just run through the scorcher with my help you would just take the suit and run off to go treasure hunting."
Viktoriya was a little offended, but she admitted that it was a smart idea to keep that from her.
"Oh," Dimitri added, "you'll want to take your coat off first. These things get surprisingly hot."
"We'll wait here while you get ready" Vasiliy said. "We wouldn't want you to get caught with your pants down, so to speak." Everyone laughed a little at the joke, and Viktoriya put down her rifle and undid her holster to start getting changed.
Viktoriya had taken off her pack and her coat, and had just stepped into the legs of her protective suit when she heard the quiet, but still distinct crack of a silenced gunshot. She figured that Dimitri must have accidentally discharged his Makarov while getting changed. She turned to see what had happened, just in time to see Nikolic slump to the ground while Vasiliy turned to point his Makarov at her face. She panicked and took a step backwards, tripping and falling over the suit tangled at her feet while the bullet from Vasiliy's gun flew through the air above her head.
When Viktoriya landed she grabbed her Browning from its holster and aimed it at Vasiliy, who stepped behind Dimitri and grabbed him around the neck to use as a human shield. Viktoriya had her gun aimed at Vasiliy's head, but there was no way for her to fire without the risk of hitting Dimitri instead.
"What the fuck!? What are you doing?" Viktoriya asked, still seated.
"I heard everything you said last night about how the zone is going to expand, and how you were planning to stop it. Fuck that, let the zone expand. Let the whole world live like this; like real men! I'm surprised you expected anything different from a Freedom soldier."
"But then why did you free us? Why not just leave us there in the cell and let the expansion happen?"
"Well, when I overheard you talk about going through the brain scorcher I figured I could do a bit of treasure hunting. I get you three to help me through the Red Forest; I take your suits and stroll to the plant and back with a hefty haul of artifacts all to myself."
Dimitri called out: "Viktoriya-!"
"Shut up!" Vasiliy yelled in his ear, and put his gun to Dimitri's temple.
Dimitri kept going. "Viktoriya, you can get through to the plant yourself. You don't need me to do it. Don't let this asshole kill thousands of people just for my sake!"
"He's right you know" Viktoriya said. "A lot of innocent people are going to die if the next incident happens, and you're just going to let it happen. So you and your fucking Freedom buddies get to play around in a radioactive wasteland." Her arms were straining with the effort of holding the gun up, and her bullet wound has progressed from an annoying ache to stabbing needles of white-hot pain. But she fought through the pain, keeping her gun pointed at Vasiliy. "I thought bandits were the worst the zone had to offer, but I guess it's actually you."
"Maybe that's all true. But it's not like either of you are going to be telling anyone." Vasiliy snapped his gun away from Dimitri's head and pointed it at Viktoriya's. Dimitri drove his elbow backwards into Vasiliy's gut, causing him to lose grip and allowing Dimitri to duck down, just in time for both guns to go off.
Vasiliy was dead before he hit the ground, the bullet having hit him between his eyes. His body slumped over on top of itself only a few feet from where Nikolic's had done the same. Viktoriya fell back onto her elbows, gasping with relief. Dimitri stood up, looked at the dead body behind him, and began patting himself all over as if to confirm that he was still alive. Satisfied, he ran over to help Viktoriya back up, but his expression turned grim when he saw her.
It wasn't until then that Viktoriya felt a pain in her left side. She tried to sit up to have a look at it but the pain increase tenfold when she tried, causing her to fall back onto the ground. Dimitri was panicking now, and had rushed back to where his backpack was to grab something. Viktoriya felt around the sore area and found that the skin was extremely tender. When she brought her hand back up to her face it was covered in dark red blood.
Dimitri came back with an armful of what looked like various medical supplies. He took off his coat, laid it out on the ground, then dumped the supplies on top of it. He unscrewed the lid to Viktoriya's canteen and handed it to her. It took nearly all the strength her arm had to lift the canteen to her mouth and drink a mouthful of water, which tasted metallic. She nearly vomited it back up only a few seconds later when Dimitri began pulling up her shirt to get a better look at the wound. She winced in pain as he began putting something over the wound. He then rolled her onto her front and did something to the other side (an exit wound, she figured). He was saying things the whole time, but she only caught a few words, like "You'll be okay" and "Can't stay here." She knew she must have lost a lot of blood, because she felt completely outside of her own body as Dimitri zipped up her protective suit and helped her to her feet. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was a flash of warmth and a large apartment building.