8th of May 2060
SSU HQ, Kyiv, Ukraine
Colonel Nikolaev along with an SSU agent and his adjutant, Makarov were heading towards Chernobyl special investigation unit (CSIU) building which was created to monitor and study the zone, but now it's nothing but some rooms with documents and other stuff which survived the World war three, they reached the security point, SSU agent cleared the access for them and then they went inside the building, the building had five floors which on the highest floor the CSIU chief's office was located, they went all the way up on an elevator to meet the old chief of CSIU General Mikhail Tarasov. The SSU agent knocked on the door.
"who is it?"
"G&K Official is here."
"oh, let them in."
Agent opens the door, first Colonel, then her adjutant entered the room while the agent closed the door and stayed outside.
"hello colonel, it's a long time since someone comes here besides people in this building, you are a god sent!"
"thank you, shall I with my assistant take a sit?"
"yes, of course, now where do we start?"
"well, we technically need all the helpful information when operating inside the zone."
"too bad most of the documents were destroyed, I am afraid that only we have a small fraction of them available."
"can you provide us with the information?"
"yes, most of the information is in the papers, I can give you access to our archives for the time being, and I can give you some pieces of advice since I was there."
"pardon, were you in the zone?"
"yes, I was a captain way back in two thousand twelve, young but a hardened military stalker…"
"Stalker? I am really curious about it, who are they?"
"well, a stalker is a person who illegally enters the zone, or that was what the government said, a stalker is a hard man, seasoned mutant and artifact hunter, who puts his life in danger if necessary, who goes into hazardous adventures with bravery, and I tell you that these people are qualified to live in super harsh situations, ELID infected and smashers cannot stop these people because they've seen worse."
"and else, can you explain what are the anomalies, I can't still process how they work," Makarov asked, with his device in her hand, wanted to note and record everything useful.
"yes, anomalies are dead spots in the zone, I am not a scientist and I don't understand them too, but I was taught that if I approach them it might not end well, some will soak you inside themselves and make you explode with your body parts scattered anywhere, some will burn you, some will send high voltage electric bolts at you, if you saw them stay away at least 5 meters or even more.
if you are not certain about a place you can throw something into it, it will trigger if you send any objects at it."
Makarov recorded the information, the intel which was given to G&K only explained some basics and not even told the way to encounter it, these experiences will be helpful, probably some practices needed to increase the like hood of surviving in the zone. Colonel continued.
"how about the mutants?"
"oh the mutants, there is a long story about all mutants in the zone, and I don't know if there are newer ones after I came out of the zone, but there is something I need to tell you, none of the mutants in the zone are influenced nor contained collapse fluids, anything that happened to them was happened inside the zone."
Both commander and Makarov became more curious, because of the Belian island accident, collapse fluid started spreading all around the globe, how it couldn't affect the zone?
"how they weren't influenced by collapse fluid?"
"a good question, when I was a lieutenant, I was tasked to put measuring devices around the zone to find the amount of collapse radiation, and you know what happened?"
Both now stared at Tarasov, ready to hear everything, they become menacingly curious with more they hear, there would be a lot of stories in the zone to uncover besides the dangers.
"What happened?" both asked.
"the devices detected zero collapse fluid in the area, we did it a few more times in different parts of the zone, but the zone was clean, we couldn't understand what happened to the collapse fluid clouds which were crossing the zone, none of them affected the zone, we wondered why this unknown phenomenon couldn't clear the radiation inside the zone."
"if humanity understood this phenomenon many of our problems would be solved by now." Makarov said.
"yes, I know, on that time nobody cared about it much, the Ukrainian government was focusing too much on relic mines, damn they even wrote about the discoveries and innovation in technology every time in a weekly newspaper, this wonderful zone was seen as a radioactive wasteland that no government was interested in it, but thanks to ecologists, there was some attention mainly from individuals who heard about the zone and its hidden treasure, plus we didn't have world war three which made most of inhabitable!"
"Is there more info about the zone?"
"yes, the artifacts."
"artifacts? Like relics?" –Makarov
"no, these artifacts aren't relics, but rather a product of those anomalies, and let me tell you, those artifacts are super useful."
"What is the purpose of artifacts?"
"Just like how there are different anomalies, there are different artifacts, like for example, Gravi artifact is a gravitational artifact which is mainly used to lessen the pressure off the stalkers and allow them to carry more stuff with them, with a bad side effect of them being radioactive."
"and?"
"and there is bubble artifact, the bubble is an anomalous plant formed in chemical anomalies, which absorbs radiation, stalkers usually have anti-radiation artifacts like these when they go to an adventure in the zone, then there is a flash artifact, flash artifact moderately protects the wielder from electro anomalies and it can also produce a lot of electricity even though it's an anti-electron artifact."
They were dumbfounded by this explanation, these artifacts could certainly help humans to recover faster from all the damage, and this treasure remained silent for no reason.
"Can you please show me an artifact if you have one?"
"yes." General Tarasov went to his lock then opened it, he brought out a lead-steel box then opened it, and he took a plantlike object which looked like a pond plant leaf then put it in the commander's hand.
"This is the rare bubble artifact, this allowed me to do operations in the radiated parts of the zone, and it's still fresh as it was when I found it."
this was truly a rare artifact; Makarov was trying to process this while Moskvin's mind was devoted to understanding this artifact.
"so this will protect people in radiated areas?!"
"yes, if you have the right equipment and have one bubble you can operate in moderately radiated areas, if you have three you can go to red zones, walk for hours, return and age for more than eighty years! and if you have five, you can effectively reside in the Chernobyl power plant!"
Makarov and Moskvin show zero expression but deep into their minds, their jaws were dropped to the floor from what they saw and heard.
"Thanks, don't you want it?"
"no my friend, even though you seem to be aging, you still need that because you are going inside the zone, my time of being a Stalker is over."
And Tarasov gives the metal-lead box to Moskvin.
"and be careful, zone is still a dangerous place."
"noted sir, is what about the rest of the intel?"
"I will scan them and send them to you, plus I will record my experience from the zone so you will have more knowledge when you enter the zone."
"Thanks general, we have still six minutes, if there is another important thing, we can stay and listen." –Makarov
"wait…"
General Tarasov thought for a second and he remembered something he should've told in the beginning.
"operation fairway…"
"operation… fairway…?" Makarov said what she heard from the general, from the tune of the General it was an important matter and also pretty sad for the general.
"yes lady, when I was a captain, me along with colonel Kowalski, my Commanding officer, with a lot of special operatives conducted operation fairway, which to be honest claimed many lives, with five full MIL MI-35s designated Stingray one to five with emission protection system, we went to attack the Chernobyl power plant and cease the zone's existence, but that didn't work out, from our initial forty members, only about eight members survived."
"I am sorry to hear that."-Moskvin
"no you don't need to, those memories are from about fifty years ago and it's a long time passed since then, we and the surviving members expect one co-pilot which was in Yanov with the scientists and the only one to survive the crash of the stingray 4 helicopter on the Jupiter planet, and the rest of us was stranded in outskirts of Pripyat to fight the fanatic monolith fighters."
"Monolith? Who are they, why did they attack you?"-Makarov
"Monolith, oh boy imagine if you combine the toughness of an ELID infected person with a well-trained guerilla, they are severely brainwashed and they only get command from the guy who brainwashed them, we didn't know who controlled them, but there were antennas around the zone which sent psychic energy to control the brain of those humans according to our scientists of that time."
"wait, you say the humans were remotely controlled by someone else?" both were shocked to hear that, Makarov always thought of enemies that could hack her neural cloud and use her for their advantage, and now she heard that humans now have the same weakness, it was getting confusing and worrying for Moskvin too, as he didn't know how to deal with it.
The agent came in and looked towards the commander and his assistant, they knew what that meant so they stood up.
"Thanks, I hope we can hear about your experiences."
"I'll try to remember anything I can to help you, good luck comrade colonel!"
"good luck General."
Then they went out of the room and went straight towards the entrance of the SSU, the agent glanced at both commander and Makarov as he wanted to say something.
"the vehicle is ready, have a good journey."
Moskvin replied, "I hope you have a nice day, good luck."
They entered the car, and they went to 279B Verkhovnoi Rady Boulevard in Kiev, where the G&K headquarters was located.