Hacky's Stash

4:29 AM

22nd May 2012

It was one of those bitter cold nights, Flash glanced at his analogue watch. He pressed the "light" button, the watch shone forty-one minutes past two in the morning in bright neon blue. The stalker rubbed his shoulder arms and dragged his ass slightly closer to the corroded barrel that held the fire. It was his shift to stay awake for a couple of hours, feeling somewhat envious towards his colleagues snoozing under their imaginary blankets, or outdated newspapers from the 1980's.

He looked over at his rescued prisoner, asleep, and still recovering from the injuries. It was the sound of the gunshot that alerted loners, the shot that was directed to Poker, who escaped the unexpected gunfight by crawling his way to safety. Flash spotted the dispute on the veranda with his Vintar BC, at first the thought of rescuing some poor sod was blocked by hesitation and pure common sense, but as what they all say, logic defines reason, but reason is what makes him human.

He held out his PDA, checking his messages.

You have 1 unread message.

That caught the stalker's attention, it read out:

"

Date: Fri May 21 at 6:23 PM

Flash, come to the bar, got a client. Pays well. But he's asleep, you might want to talk to him in the morning."

He grinned, and placed his Vintar BC across his shoulder and nudged Seriy at the tip of his boot.

"Hey I'm going, it's your turn. Oi, wake up you bastard."

Seriy mumbled and shoved his foot away, and with that the sniper took off without another word.

6:47 AM

22nd May 2012

The ordeal that Crow endured seemed like a wacky dream that would never happen in a million years. As he just woke up feeling groggy, drowsy and barely conscious, what seem like a dream slowly and wickedly turn into a real-life nightmare as he became more and more aware of his current situation. Three of his close friends, lives lost in just a matter of minutes, except him. He felt the pain of betrayal, digging his palm deep within the flesh with his dirty fingernails. He wanted to kill Shev, put a bullet in his head, then hunt the remaining bandits, kill Evgen and...

Ah what's the fucking use? Crow thought, and punched the wall in dismay.

"You're awake," greeted Seriy, who came to check on the rescued hostage.

Crow didn't say anything, he examined the wounds on his left leg. All stitched and bandaged.

"To tell you to truth, we weren't gonna save yah." Seriy said, relaxing his back against the wall.

"Then why am I here?" Crow replied monotonously with a blank stare.

"Because Flash is a sad excuse for a white knight. He's the one that saved your sorry ass."

"Where is he?"

"Hundred Rads," Seriy tilted his head, "What? You're gonna thank him, tell him you owe him him your debt? Don't bother."

Crow kept quiet, he observed the other loners with some loot and spare weaponry essentials from the bodies of bandits that were piled up outside the station with nothing left except their bandit jackets and trench coats. The ex-mercenary stood up, and looked over an AK-47 just laying there on the dirty floor.

"Mind if I?" Crow asked.

"Knock yourself out," Seriy said, "Where you heading now?"

Crow checked the clip of the AK-47, slid it inside, reload, turned the safety on and slung it across his back.

"I'm going to find him. It's the only thing I can do now."

Meanwhile the Hundred Rads, Flash gulped down a nice cold refreshing bottle of water. In just a blink of an eye, the bottle was empty.

"You don't drink do you?" Hacky asked curiously.

"Alcohol makes me stupid. Makes everyone stupid." Flash replied, ordering another bottle.

Hacky smiled, finally, he got hold of a man adequately competent to do his mission, and hopefully, work with him throughout this whole quest with Roksana. The barkeep told him that Flash was infamous for his numerous feats in the zone, so does any other professional stalkers, but what made him unique is that his humbleness and his services were borderline within Hacky's budget.

"So what do you want old man?" Flash began, pull his hood back, revealing the stalker his dark and filthy ginger hair.

"Not too long ago, I left some of my valuables inside a burrow under a Baikushev's Pine tree stump in Dark Valley." Hacky extrapolated.

"A Baisku-what?"

"A Baiskuche- never mind, I'll send you the coordinates from my PDA. Speaking of which, inside the burrow there is an old E-TEN Glofiish DX900 PDA. If you managed to give it to me undamaged or if it's still working, you can have the rest of my stuff."

Flash accidentally snorted some cool water at the end of his nose, leaving him a terrible water-in-nose aftermath.

"Not much of a good stash I say!" Flash joked, still recovering by twitching his nose and wiping his tears from his eyes.

"You mean a Wind of Freedom suit, a Guardian of Freedom, a LR-300 and a RPK-74 not worthy enough for a bloke like yah?"

Flash retorted with a wry chuckle. "Including the money right?"

"Including the money," Hacky assured the loner, "and of course, you just need one armor and one assault rifle right?"

"True...anyways, is that it?"

Hacky eyes widened. "Yep, what? Do you expect something more? Something extravagant?"

"Well yeah, I mean, you can hire any sucker for this shit right?"

"Ahahaha," Hacky laughed softly, "Let me tell you something boy, I mean since you've been here for like what? Eight months?"

"Eight months and nine days." corrected Flash.

"Whatever, I've been in the zone a year and six months longer than you been and here's what I learned. One, anything can happen in the zone, any-fucking-thing. Second, I know you did some 'serious' shit here but that only been in the Garbage and Cordon. Third, how would you like to go on a magical quest for something that is worth wealth way beyond your silly little imagination?"

Flash thought about it for a moment, the bar was peacefully quiet in the early morning because no one was there except Hacky and Flash, stalkers would usually go out to hunt, sleeping or suffering a huge hangover.

It was the perfect place for Hacky, Barkeep would usually be cooped up in his kitchen washing dishes and beer mugs, leaving them to have their little private discussion.

Until now...

"Knew I'd found you here!" Tolik greeted, "morning!"

Hacky grumbled under his breath, "Ugh..."

Before Hacky could introduce the two of them, Flash stood up and shook the novice's hand.

"Morning stalker, I'm Flash, pleasure to meet your acquaintance."

"I'm Tolik, had a great sleep last night, you a friend of Hacky?"

"Actually we just met," interrupted the veteran stalker. "Tolik, this man here is gonna help me, well not to say help but I'm paying him to get my stash at the Dark Valley."

Tolik nodded, "I see,"

"I would go there myself," Hacky continued, "but all I have is this baby gun and if I die out here now, god knows what would happen to poor little Roksana. Speaking of which, where is that little puppy?"

"Oh she's still sleeping,"

"So this girl you say, is she with you guys?" wondered Flash.

"Ah she is, sooner or later you'll meet her." Hacky said. "and by the way Tolik, would you like to join Flash to retrieve my stuff? I mean I know Roksana is taking quite a liking towards you, she needs more friends in a place like this. And maybe on your way, Flash can teach you a trick or two."

"Am I getting paid?" asked Tolik, his hopes raised.

"Ahahahaaha no."

"Fine, when do we start?

Flash patted on the loner's shoulder, "The sooner the better mah boy!"