Freedom

Chapter 17

When I first decided to go to the Zone, I didn't give much thought to the changes I'd undergo when I got there. I thought ahead. I thought about ways to keep my mindset in the kind of place that would keep me alive. I tried to give myself every advantage. But what I didn't think about was that I would have to make decisions. I thought things would be different; there would be constant danger. Things would be moving too quickly; I would have to be constantly adapting – there would be no time to think about what I was doing.

So now I knew different. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was sprinting after a helicopter – I guess that tells you something about what I had in mind. If asked, I probably would have denied being the type to be interested in retribution – but that was because nobody'd ever done anything to me. It's easy to objectively say that revenge is wrong, but things stop being objective when somebody wrongs you. These guys had tried to get me killed. Why? For material gain. I guess that really upset me.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do if I caught up to them, which realistically, I should not have expected to do. A look back told me everyone was following. I hadn't meant to derail the mission, but I hadn't been thinking before, and I wasn't about to start. People who are thinking don't chase helicopters on foot.

Ahead, the chopper dipped out of sight. I pushed myself to run harder, though I knew I couldn't possibly make it in time. Gasping for breath, I crested a hill in time to see the chopper begin to rise from the valley below. It had already let its passengers off. I scowled.

"Another time," I said, watching it bank east.

Shots rang out, and I dropped to the tall grass. I'd been thinking about the chopper, not its occupants – it sounded like setting people up to be ambushed was a real racket for that helicopter crew. The others were there with me now, and I crawled forward to get a look at the valley. There were four figures near where the chopper had been – no, two. Two of them were falling to the grass, shot.

Then I saw the attackers – unmistakably bandits. Those ragged coats are easy to spot. A gray one, a brown one, and a green one, all packing shotguns. They were advancing on the two newcomers who were still standing. I squinted down at them. I had to be imagining it. Or maybe the Zone was playing tricks on my eyes.

"You gotta be kidding me," the Biker said, turning to the Velvet, who looked similarly taken aback. Okay, so I really saw what I thought I did. Velvet abruptly grew serious.

"Is it just the three?" she asked quietly. "Or do you see a spotter? Sagaris?"

"It's just them. If there was a fourth, he'd have come out by now."

"Get the brown and the gray. Mist, take the one in green. On three."

"What?"

"Shoot him."

"Just like that?"

She gave me a look, and I cringed. "On three," she said. Head spinning, I wormed my way into position beside Sagaris, lining up my AK. It was a longer shot than I was comfortable with, but there wasn't any good reason I couldn't make it. I had a couple of optics in my pack that would have been better suited for the job, but naturally, there was no time to get them out. I checked my safety.

"Relax," Sagaris said, closing his left eye.

"Three," Velvet said, peering through her binoculars.

I squeezed my trigger, then followed up with a couple more shots as the man was falling, just to be sure. He was too far out for me to be precise. Sagaris fired twice. We were both on target. The bandits went down without theatrics, though the shots echoed through the valley.

Velvet rose to a crouch, readying her MPL. "Okay. Biker, Sagaris – watch the perimeter. Someone might have heard that. Mist, cover me."

Sagaris and the Biker moved off in different directions. Velvet started down the hill, and I went after her. I'd forgotten all about the chopper. You know you've made some wrong turns in your life when five people have died in less than a minute – one of them at your hands – and you don't even think about it.

I wasn't thinking about the man I'd just shot. In fact, I hardly remembered shooting him. I let Velvet draw ahead of me; I knew what she was thinking. I readied my carbine but didn't raise it – I didn't want to spook anyone, and I seriously doubted Velvet was in any danger from these two. I stayed a few meters behind Velvet, but I was close enough to see the newcomers clearly.

My attention was, understandably, drawn first to the shorter of the two. It was her hair, which was violently purple. This was after I'd gotten over my initial shock at seeing not one, but two females in a place where the only females I knew of were Velvet and the prostitutes at some brothel the stalkers were always talking about. So anyway, purple hair – short, manageable, but purple. I'm not kidding. She had on a lot of makeup, especially eye shadow. I thought she looked pretty cute, but she also looked pretty young. She had on blue jeans and a hooded jacket that didn't look adequate.

The other woman, with whom Velvet was speaking, was taller. Her hair was long, and a refreshingly natural brown. She had pale skin and a pretty, but forgettable face. Forgettable – yet she seemed familiar. She had on a much more sensible coat, but the thing to note was that both of these young women were wearing civilian clothes.

I looked up to see the Biker standing on the far ridge, keeping careful watch to the east. Sagaris was doing likewise at the other end of the valley. I reached up and flicked on my ear piece.

"…you think?"

"Seems likely," the Biker replied. "Though why they would drop off Kevorich's girls here, I don't know."

"They don't look like they're going to Kevorich."

"I don't know. Sometimes they look pretty clueless when they come in here."

"How would you know?"

"Are you kidding? I used to do courier for the fat man."

"Did you really?"

"Yeah – but I found out he was using me to move heroin, so I shot him in the face."

"That was you?"

The Biker snorted. "Who did you think it was?"

"I don't know."

"Who's the fat man?" I asked quietly.

"He used to be the guy running Kevorich." Kevorich was, if you don't know, the Zone's notorious brothel, located in what amounts to the poor man's Rostov.

"And you killed him."

"It was justified."

"Who's in charge now?"

"Plastic," the Biker and Sagaris told me in unison, distaste in their voices.

I frowned. "Beg pardon?" But they were already talking about something else. I turned to look at the women. I wasn't sure what to make of them; the purple-haired one looked too young, and the other one didn't seem the type. But if they weren't prostitutes, what were they doing here? Okay – so that was a pretty incendiary thing to think, but I thought it. I mean – it's the Zone, you know? Had they gotten lost? No – that chopper was an exclusive Zone charter. They knew where they were going. Why?

There were five bodies on the ground. The two that weren't bandits caught my eye. They both wore sturdy, almost trendy outdoor clothing, and I saw Kevlar vests. They both had sophisticated-looking hunting rifles. Interesting.

Keeping an eye on the women, who were still in conversation – well, Velvet and the taller one were – I knelt and picked up one of the rifles. That was the first time I ever felt a material desire in the Zone. I'd noticed how Sagaris had effortlessly dropped two guys with two shots and nothing but irons. I'd learned how to shoot before coming here, but I could tell when I was outclassed. I thought that maybe with a weapon like this, I could have made the kill a little more cleanly. Like that guy in that movie said – the only man who could miss with this is the sucker with the bread to buy it.

I put the rifle back down; it didn't belong to me. I wasn't sure who it did belong to, but that wasn't the point.

I sighed and straightened, turning back toward the women. It looked like there was more to worry about than guns anyway. I had a bad feeling about this.