On that day it was heavily raining. The calm sound of raindrops hitting the ground and splashing in seemingly endless muddy puddles was echoing throughout the zone. It gave the dangerous place a somewhat cozy feel to it. In the distance stalkers sheltered themselves from the rain in what seemed to be an old and abandoned warehouse. Sitting around a lit barrel they were drinking, feasting and playing depressing tunes on the worst guitar known to man. These sorrowful, yet still beautiful melodies were being intercepted by a loud shouting in the distance.
"Show me your papers! Did you go deaf ?" The Duty guard screamed near the entrance gate while the not so well looking stalker was calmly standing in front of him. He had his Dragunov rifle with a leather strip attached to it resting on his shoulder right next to his backpack. However he didn't show any sign of hostility towards the guard or neither he intended to show him his papers, mostly because he didn't exactly have them. The poor looking stalker in rough shape knew that it would cause only more troubles if he tried to admit it, both for him and the duty camp.
"Listen..." he calmly muttered underneath his gas mask which was covered in small drops of rain. "Let me pass and there will be no complications, I just want to get something to drink at the 100 rads and that's all." He said trying to sound calm, but at this point he was truly getting irritated by the new guard duty assigned to this post. He knew duty had to change the guards for newbies considering the ones that guarded this place beforehand were lying behind him somewhere in the muddy trenches, either pierced on spikes or shredded to pieces by pseudo dogs.
"Shame…" he thought to himself. "Old Vasil would let me pass right through for a small pack of cigs. Damn... Gonna miss the old man."
He was brought right back to reality by the guard pointing his rifle at him. "So what will it be !?" The guard barked right back at him. The stalker caught a glance of how the guards hands were shaking, probably his first time dealing with a loner or perhaps even a first time being close to shooting somebody. An invisible slight smirk has appeared on his face covered with a gas mask from the sheer thought of this.
"Easy there buddy…" Said the stalker reaching into his pocket underneath his soaked trench coat and pulling out a few rubbles which he waved in the air for the guards to see. "How about this… After your shift , you and your friends here go buy some drinks and we can talk about my papers at 100 rads. What do you say bud ?"
The guard didn't say anything… Didn't even look into his eyes through the mask. He simply lowered his military issued kalashnikov rifle and grabbed the soaked money from his hand. He quickly stood aside and started slightly, but visibly enough budging his weapon towards the camp for him to understand that he was free to pass.
The Stalker didn't waste a word. He firmly grabbed the leather strip to which was his rifle attached to and walked right in without even a slight look at the other guards. In very confident fashion he made it through the entrance corridor and as countless times before, right as he was about to enter the duty command zone, a place where they recruited new members, he took a sharp turn to left leading to 100 rads to annoy the guard assigned to their HQ watchtower. He loved annoying duty this way, knowing they can't harm him as a loner because it would only lead to less loners signing up to duty.
As he was walking through a big white building guarded by a single duty guard who was drinking on a platform near the roof, he remembered just how much he hated the building he had to walk through to get to the bar. All rusty with that weird metal smell floating around. It reminded him of his old life and his former self which he truly despised. It made every trip to 100 rads even more painful than it was.
After he finally escaped the duty grounds he was greeted by a loner with a warm yet distant wave across the street. He waved back not knowing the loner, but such is life in the zone. You have to be as friendly as you can, whenever you can. One can never know who just might come to their rescue after being left for dead.
After the tiered stalker reached his destination at last he was greeted with another free stalker doing security checks of customers to keep the establishment peaceful. "Hey! Look at who it is! Long time no see Havran. How have you been?" The security guy enthusiastically starts a conversation with the stalker in front of the metallic fence separating them, but doesn't receive any reply. He proceeds to open the safe box behind him and throws a yellow stained paper with a number on it to Havran. "You know the drill Havran, no weapons in 100 rads, hand me over your rifle and pistol. You can trust me, I'll keep them safe for you while you are visiting our humble bar." He smiles through his baklava and opens up a small window in the fence. Havran without a word, slowly hands over his Dragunov rifle and TT-93 pistol through it. " Thanks Sascha." He mutters and gently grabs the piece of paper from the wooden platform."Don't fuck up my sights." Havran says with his back now turned to Sasha, heading towards the bars doorstep.
Havran entered a small cozy room decorated with brick walls painted white and posters all over them. Wooden floor of the room was cracking with each step he took. Havran made his way through a small crowd blocking the way to the bar and accidentally made one of the men spill their drink, it was probably cheap vodka anyways. All he heard afterwards was someone yelling at him in what seemed to be Ukrainian, it was probably a small party of local bandits letting off steam here. He didn't understand all of it, his Ukrainian was a bit rusty after all, but he got the general picture of what the small figured man with a golf hat was trying to say. Mostly because of the extensive vulgar vocabulary he used while screaming at him.
Havran froze a few steps from the bar. He waited calmly for the man to stop screaming, once he did Havran could feel a hand grabbing his shoulder. He quickly reacted, his reflexes got sharper, he started analyzing his surroundings. His immediate reaction was grabbing the hand holding him and with enough force lifting the gopnik and slinging him over his back. Havran wasn't used to hand to hand combat to that extent so his plan didn't work as he expected. Gopnik managed to stay on his feet, even though only a few seconds ago he was flying in the air and got almost smashed onto the ground.
Havran now was facing his opponent face to face with his fists raised, waited for the first attack to dodge so he could counter it. His fast reflexes caught a glimpse of a movement in gopnik's right hand. "Probably going for a hook." Havran thought at first. In a split of a second he perfectly dodged gopnik's right hook only to be met with his left hand landing a clear hit. Havran let out a quite yet menacing growl after the punch. There was some more shouting in Ukrainian, but he was too focused on fighting to comprehend what it meant. Knowing his plan A of playing it with counter attacks didn't work he switched his strategy. As his old time friend Vasil always said, "the best defense is offense." With these words in mind Havran rushed the small gopnik in a blink of an eye and landed a few solid hits. His opponent stumbled and fell to the ground making a loud thud noise that shook the whole room. Havran didn't hesitate and jumped on him landing one hit after another. At this point, there was a big crowd of all kinds of people, stalkers, duty members, bandits, heck there might have been even some mercs amongst them. They all united in this match and threw all of their ideologies away just for a simple reason of primal and brutal urge for battle and spilled blood. Havran couldn't finish the poor gopnik because right after he landed his third hit on the powerless soul a loud scream could be heard. "Enough!"
Those words came from behind the counter, an old almost bald man with a fat beer stomach was resting against it. He was wearing jeans paired with a brown sweater and a leather jacket on top of it. He was the trader at 100 rads, Anton himself. He was looking down at Havran and the gopnik on the ground and slowly shaking his head. "No fucking fighting! No fighting... in my bar! Understood?! Now get your arses out of the ground and be glad I won't kick you out for smashing me chair." He said in a distinctive Irish accent.
There were many stories about Anton and how he came to run a bar inside the zone. One of most believable was that he was part of the IRS organisation and didn't exactly get along with the higher ups for his anarchist nature, so with authorities on his tale, as well as IRS… You probably get the picture, he fled the country and found a safe haven in the heart of the zone, where he is now making a fortune selling cheap alcohol, food and military goods to local stalkers, mercs, bandits and whoever or whatever else is willing to pay for it. He also happened to be the go-to man for well-paid jobs around this part of the zone and that was especially fortune for Havran.
Havran got up from the ground and spat out blood onto the ground. His face was messed up, but it was nothing serious, he has lived through worse at least. He sat down at the bar and with all his strength left he raised a hand to get Anton's attention, who was polishing glasses behind the counter. "Towel… Can-can I get a towel and some water?" He said still disoriented from the hit straight to the face he had received from the gopnik a few minutes ago.
Anton's eyes went from the glass he was holding to a beaten up Havran sitting on the bar chair. "Is that the only thing your majesty wishes ?" Anton sarcastically replied with small laughter following it.
Havran pulled out his PDA from his trench coat and with a grin on his face replied. "Well, there actually is one more thing."