Freedom

Chapter 42

So apparently there are anomalies everywhere – but not all anomalies are created equal. They seem to come in all sizes and flavors – like the real common ones that throw things in the air, or the electric ones, you know – but then there are these big ones. Typically considered good artifact hunting grounds, they're some of the Zone's main landmarks, and people even give them names. Weird names. Maybe they're less weird if you're Russian or Ukrainian. I'm not.

Well, the good news was that it was a beautiful day and there was no evident danger. The bad news that this gigantic anomaly was not supposed to be here. I took Velvet at her word when she said that; though she also claimed not to have much experience with this territory. I figured she was as credible as anybody, and she was adamant that this thing did not belong.

She wouldn't swear that something like this was unprecedented, but she was convinced that when the Zone made changes, it made them with more subtlety. No working maps. Huge, jarring changes. Even a rookie like me could see where this was going.

It was a brave new Zone out there. The unwritten and fluid rules of the Zone that stalkers lived by – it looked they were getting revised. Or maybe just thrown out the window.

Just like my plans for the day.

"Got your detector?"

Uh oh. But I wasn't going to lie about it – I'd gone ahead and picked one up when I re-stocked. "Yeah," I sighed. If she picked up on my lack of enthusiasm, she didn't show it. I understood the situation – here was a brand-new anomaly, and maybe we were the first to stumble upon it. Of course the smart thing to do was to check for artifacts – but I just didn't like the idea of getting any closer. If I have to deal with something dangerous, I want it to be something I can understand on some level. Nobody understands anomalies. That makes them, at least to me, even scarier than mutants.

But I followed Velvet down into the valley, and we picked our way closer to the crater. She went left and I went right, detector in one hand, Geiger counter in the other.

Hunting for artifacts is tedious, but not boring, because you have to watch your step. I made it all the way around the rim without getting any viable readings. Either there was nothing here, or someone had already poached the place clean. Can you poach artifacts? I guess not. Anyway, Velvet was near a particularly intense anomaly, and I correctly guessed that she'd found something.

She didn't want to get close, because the anomaly put her hand on pins and needles when she reached for it.

"It's getting better," she said, flexing her hand. "I'm getting feeling back."

Curious, I extended my own right hand. I didn't feel anything amiss. I took a step closer. Velvet looked on with interest, but I was ignoring her, and concentrating on my footing – the last thing you want to do in that situation is slip and fall. I was close. I leaned down and reached into the fluctuating light. I came out with a couple of what looked to me like marbles. Made of actual marble – black with white streaks. I stepped back and swept my Geiger counter over them. They seemed safe enough.

"I've never seen this before," Velvet said, and she took a step closer – then immediately backed up.

"What?"

"I can still feel it. You can't?"

"I feel normal."

She looked puzzled, but shook her head. "I've never even heard of something like this. You hold onto it. That's a small fortune."

I looked down at the marbles. "You think so?"

She nodded.

"Whatever." I put them in my pocket. "Can we go?"

Artifacts – generally found around anomalies, they're usually small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Some stalkers use them as good luck charms, and claim they help them deal with the Zone. I don't think anyone takes that seriously. No – but highly anomalous material has enormous value to scientists, and the market value of these artifacts is staggering if you can hang onto them long enough to find a buyer on the outside.

Velvet didn't ask why I was able to reach into the anomaly, and that was just as well. I didn't have an answer for her. It was my right hand, obviously – but it wasn't like I could explain. I wanted to take off my glove and look, but I wasn't going to do that in front of her.

So we started walking again. The forest was getting bigger and darker on the horizon.

I don't know what a Ukrainian forest is supposed to look like. I don't know what an irradiated Ukrainian forest is supposed to look like, either. But it wouldn't look like this.

Towering trees, thick with sickly-looking vegetation. Low-slung creepers, and very little sunlight. Everything is damp, and the air is thick with the smell of decay. Mushrooms the size of footstools, and fungus that probably has a mind of its own. I know the whole forest isn't like that, but this was the frontier closest to the channel.

We'd barely entered the shadow of the Forest – but already the sounds of the open air were muted and distant. The Forest, and whatever anomalous field made it so critically different from the rest of the Zone, had us now.

Everyone knows about the Red Forest – but not from experience. Second only to the Center, the Forest is the most sought-after, and the most dangerous location in the perimeter.

As long as people have been paying attention, there has been a small, but dedicated cadre of stalkers in the Forest. We don't know too much about them. I think Freedom used to have a hand in it, but Velvet was too busy running her rookie camp to know anything about that.

The Forest is too deadly for scientists. Too much trouble for the Military. Too dangerous for Duty. Only the most infamous bandits will risk hiding beyond the tree line – and those that try are rarely seen again, not that bandits have a very long life expectancy to begin with.

We were just a few steps in, and already I'd come closer and deeper than most stalkers ever would. When you need to get to the other side of the Forest, you don't go through, you go around. Everyone knows that.

We could hear movement in the underbrush. There was an unnatural rustling in the trees above. There were no crows. Crows were too smart to come here.

But here was Velvet, and with a guy she neither knew nor trusted.

It was then that I realized there was something wrong with her. She was smart – smart, and careful. She had to know that doing this, coming here – especially with me – was tactically unsound on every possible level. I knew she could trust me, but she didn't. And even if she did, two against the Forest? Who were we kidding? Before it had seemed crazy – but in a detached kind of way. Now we were here, and I could see just how far out of our depth we were.

Why? Why would she knowingly put herself in danger this way? Actually – how could I ask that? When I'd lost it before – even when I'd so quickly and foolishly signed up to fight in the pit I'd been doing the same thing.

I knew she had baggage – you didn't have to be a detective to see that much – but this was pushing it.

I watched her walk. She just kept going. Fearless.

No one's fearless in the Red Forest. Even my right hand couldn't fully suppress my anxiety. I didn't know why Velvet was so determined to get herself into trouble, but I did know that I wasn't going to find out by asking.

This was a bad idea. I knew it. She knew it.

I came to up on a stone floor. My weapons were gone. So was my armor. I was wearing – I was wearing something else. I got up to see myself in the light coming through the doorway. Ragged clothes underneath a baggy black bandit coat. I didn't want to be seen in that. I shrugged out of it, feeling a sharp chill – but even as disoriented as I was, I knew being mistaken for a bandit was more dangerous than the cold.

I left the room. The corridor was open to the air – and I was on a high floor. Below lay a ruined street, on the other side of which was another of the enormous tenement buildings that you see in an around Pripyat.

I looked left, then right. There was a corner down there, and presumably stairs. I headed that way. I didn't know how I'd gotten here, but I had to take my bearings. I didn't get the chance. A figure in black armor came rushing out of the stairwell, gun raised.

He wasn't a big guy, but he knew what he was doing. He was too close for the gun, and a combat knife flashed out. I blocked and parried, then spun and drove my heel squarely into his abdomen. He reeled backward, tripping over his own feet and going down the stairs. I rushed to the top, only to see him at the bottom, lying still. The angle of the head left no ambiguity about the state of his neck.

Detached by my shock, I stared for several long moments, regaining my breath. Everything was quiet. The body didn't move. At length, I went down, and knelt to pull off the mask. Death certainly hadn't made Velvet any less beautiful.