Chapter 3
Dark Valley
"Stop right there, Stalker", a voice called out from behind the rocks.
Looking carefully, he could see the barrels of rifles, and the barest outlines of silhouettes, all around the rocks that he was staring down. He was surrounded. At the very least, Freedom was prepared to fight him.
He carefully lowered his rifle to the ground, keeping his hands up as he did. He was not about to get gunned down in the Dark Valley, not when he could get slaughtered in the Shadowlands instead. As soon as his rifle touched the ground, he dropped it, and began his ascent to his full height.
"That's it, nice and slow", the voice from behind the rocks said. "Leo, go see who that is!"
Someone popped their body around the rocks, and his face immediately lit up.
"Hey", Leo said jubilantly, "it's Roach's friend!"
"Guns down, then", the voice behind the rock shouted.
All around, the barrels lowered, and fourteen Freedom fighters came out from behind the rocks, smiling, laughing, and immediately setting into each other with jokes. Alexsi dropped his hands, and stooped to pick up his rifle, slinging it over his shoulder. He was quickly approached by two of the Freedomers.
"Follow us, man", one of the Freedomers said. "We'll take you to Uncle Yar's hanger, then we can all burn a little green!"
"Sounds good to me", Alexsi affirmed. "Lead the way."
The journey to the hanger was not an arduous one, but it was long and boring. No mutants attempted to attack them as they navigated past anomalies and fences. Uncle Yar's Hanger was a welcome sight after such a long journey.
Alexsi was beginning to get suspicious of his good luck, if he could call it that. As a matter of fact, he was about to start questioning that luck, when a dull ache began sounding in his back. Alexsi made a slight "Oof" sound, and one of the Freedomers noticed.
"Hey, you alright, man", he asked.
"Think I took a round", Alexsi admitted. "Could you make sure it's not fatal?"
The Hippy nodded, and went around to his back.
"Oh, man, you weren't kidding! Straight through the backpack, too!"
Great, so now he needed to patch up his backpack. It was made specifically to be waterproof, and that wax seal did very little when it had a bullet hole through it. Alexsi sighed, and rolled the backpack off of his shoulders.
"How's the armor", he asked.
The Hippy unvelcroed his plate carrier, and looked inside.
"What's this, a steel plate?"
"How is it?"
"You've got a smaller, flimsier thing in front of that, it seems to have done the trick."
"Good. Wrap me back up."
The Hippy did just that, and grabbed his bag, putting it back up on his shoulders. As the plate carrier rubbed up against him, the pain returned. It must have been a nasty bruise. Alexsi went into his meds, and dug out some ibuprofen, swallowing two pills without water.
Rolling up to the gate, they were pretty quickly waved in by the gate guards. Security wasn't exactly tight. It was so lax, in fact, that after a quick discussion, he was able to go right up to the base commander. Sure, he was Roach's friend, but still.
"So... Alexsi, right?"
"That's right."
"Kostyan, as a refresher. I'm not all that good with names. Got a new contact for us? Someone who can supply flamethrowers, I hope. We don't need too many, but an oddly large amount of zombies are coming through the Shadowlands recently, and we have no quick way to dispose of the bodies. They stick around long enough, and they start spreading disease."
"No, unfortunately."
"Ah, rats. Well, have you got more launchers? The Strella's took care of our Army chopper problem, but occasionally Duty gets their hands on an exoskeleton, and they're hard to kill without anything less than direct rocket fire."
"I'm just passing through."
Kostyan raised an eyebrow at that.
"Passing... through?"
"Yes."
"Passing through how? To where, for that matter? The only thing you could pass through here is the Shadowlands, or the Darkscape, both of which are death sentences, since Sin owns the Darkscape and no one owns the Shadowlands!"
"I have to get to the Red Forest."
Kostyan raised his other eyebrow.
"Why?"
"A Stalker there knows how to find a certain artefact."
"I wasn't aware that you and Roach were running artefacts like that."
"Roach is trapped in a spacial anomaly. I need the artefact to release him."
Kostyan paused. Slowly, he nodded. He dragged a gloved hand across his brow, then nodded again.
"Roach is quite important to us, too", Kostyan said. He nodded again, continuing, "We were putting together a kill team to put down whatever was driving the zombies towards us. We were planning on setting out in a few days, but I'll let them know that they will be heading out tomorrow, and that they will be taking one extra with them."
Alexsi considered this new information. He was making good progress, getting through three major areas in relatively little time. He was slightly injured, very tired, and if he waited until tomorrow, he would have a whole team to go with him into the Shadowlands. A little less time, for a lot more protection.
It was just a day, and it was going to be dark in a few hours anyway. This was one of those breaks that he needed to take. This was absolutely beneficial.
He nodded.
"Alright. We've got a highly trained team of twelve going in. You'll act as a redundant rifleman. Do you need a rifle?"
"I might need some more 5.45."
"Done. Go get some rest."
"If you have any extra mags-"
"Loaded and ready. Go to Uncle Yar's Hanger and unwind."
Alexsi nodded, and trudged off towards Uncle Yar's hanger. The first thing he received at the bar was a blunt and a Doctriska. He wolved down the whole sausage between tokes of the blunt, and when he was halfway done, he pointed to one of the water canteens behind Barman's head. Barman pulled it down without a word, and unscrewed the top so he could down it as fast as possible.
"You know, I knew a guy who knew where a Compass was."
Alexsi stopped mid-drink, and turned to give Barman his full attention.
"Yeah, he was a nice guy, everyone called him Fang. This was back when I was kind of a runner myself. He and his crew eventually moved on to more reputable channels, but they used me every now and then. One time, he bragged that he was able to slip through any anomaly, all because of an artefact he had picked up called a 'Compass'. He died a few years ago, not sure what happened to that artefact. Best guess? His team picked it up, or, one of the surviving members did, and if that's the case, you'll never find it."
Alexsi nodded, taking a large swig from his canteen, and hitting a large pull on his blunt.
"How did he die", Alexsi asked, "if he could navigate any anomaly?"
"You can navigate any anomaly", Barman said, "but you can't dodge a bullet. Some merc with a big ass scar on his face killed him. Now, I've tried to figure out who it was, but there's some confusion, because there are quite a few mercs with scars on their face, believe it or not! The only real lead I have is that sometime later, Fang's friend Ghost assassinated the leader of a group called Final Day. Maybe they had something to do with it, maybe not."
Alexsi nodded again, swallowing down the sausage he had tore in to.
"Do you know where he found his Compass?"
Barman shrugged, saying, "He wouldn't tell me. Although, if I had to wager a guess, the only hint he gave was that it wasn't easy, so maybe he had to step into a few anomalies to get it, eh?"
Alexsi finished the last of his sausage, sipping the water from his canteen.
"I can refill that once you've killed it", Barman told him. "But once you're set to leave, you need to give it back. We're in kind of short supply."
Normally, the thought of drinking from the same canteen that several other people had would have sickened him, but here in the Zone, there was little choice in the matter. Survival was at stake, and if you couldn't get past your squeamishness, you wouldn't survive. Besides, dirty hippies or not, even Freedom had a good grasp on Germ Theory, and Barman seemed to have plenty of soap by his sink.
Alexsi passed it over, and Barman put it under a tap, refilling it with fresh, cold water.
"It's not from the Zone", Barman reassured him, "Although you should know better than anyone that Roach hooked us up with a fresh water supplier some time ago."
As a matter of fact, he had had no clue up until now. This area of business was more Roach's expertise than anything, as he had done some black ops work for the DoD before coming to the Zone. As far as Alexsi knew, his job was to set up suppliers for "freedom movements", although by the way Roach had said that line, he was fairly certain that even he didn't really believe in the causes he was supplying. He would occasionally joke that he was the American answer to Victor Bout, which was about as much an answer to him as anything else Roach could have told him.
"Everyone pisses that we are aligned and doing trades with the Bandits, but it's because of Roach that we don't have to associate with those low lives anymore. And I say good riddance. I hope we can help you get Roach back quick."
Alexsi wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.
"So", Alexsi asked, "how did you know I was looking for a Compass?"
Barman smiled, saying, "Kostyan radioed ahead. Told me to tell you everything I know."
Alexsi nodded, offering his hand to shake. Barman took it, and gripped it firmly.
"Come back if you need more water, food, or high-class herb."
"Will do", Alexsi affirmed with a nod.
He picked his backpack back up, and marched into Uncle Yar's Hanger. He chose a place amid the group of Freedomers who were unwinding, and dropped his bag, curling up with it, with his head on it. He didn't bother shedding armor, and he certainly didn't bother shucking his rifle. Most in the Zone slept like this, even in a safe spot like the Hanger. Although, some still chose to shed the top layer, or at least take off their masks and helmets, especially in the Freedom camp, where discipline was lax. Enough were armed and armored to ward off any threats, and nobody went far from their gear, but he was not about to be lacking if trouble came around.
He thought he would have trouble, but he conked out quickly. He thankfully had no dreams, and when his mind thought again, he found himself awake, at the brink of twilight. Half of the other Hippies were up, and the dozen Hippies who were going into the Shadowlands were all among them, with their gear all ready to go. Most of them were performing weapon inspections, changing batteries in their weapon-mounted flashlights, making sure attachments were secure, topping off mags.
Alexsi stood up, throwing his backpack onto his back. He would swing by Barman to get breakfast with everyone else, and then swing by Kostyan to pick up his extra mags. Once that was done, the group would hopefully be ready to move out.
...
His backpack was now much heavier, with about fifteen magazines loaded with 5.45 in his bag, most of which were bakelite, all of which had 7n6. Kostyan didn't even make him pay for any of them, which was quite generous of him. Next was a hearty breakfast of "Zone Bacon", fried boar's rear, "Zone Eggs", scrambled eggs from God only knew where, which actually tasted petty good, "Zone Toast", which looked to be actual freshly baked bread soaked in animal fat, canned beans, black coffee with milk which again, only God knew where that mystery white liquid came from, some Polish beer, why they were serving beer in the morning was beyond him, and six tablets of chlorella, a plant-based anti-rad medication that tasted bland but left him quite full. Someone mentioned something about "shitting green", but hey, free anti-rad. The Hippies, it seemed, were eating pretty good.
Now, the squad was ready to go, plus him. They were being paraded out by their fellow Stalkers, marching straight into the Shadowlands to the sound of their brothers hooting and hollering, and raising their rifles above their heads. Spirits were high, with some of the squad even joining in on the merriment, hollering, skipping, raising their rifles above their heads like sand people, or all three. Alexsi allowed himself to hope that this trip would be one to remember, for all the right reasons.
Then the shooting started.
...
The wind was on his face, gently pushing his sweat off of his brow, and behind him, the roaring cacophony of celebrating men. He turned to look back at the Hippies behind them, some of them out of their armor and masks, with no rifles to be seen among them, other than the ones that were over their heads. Alexsi managed a small smile. He was going to save Roach, and he would look damn good doing it. This was all going to work out.
A muffled pop, and quickly, the celebrating died down. The Hippies who had had their rifles over their heads quickly shouldered them, scanning for targets. That sound had been oddly familiar to Alexsi, but he couldn't quite place where he had heard it.
He looked to his left to see one of the squad that he was marching out with clutching his stomach. Red liquid was spilling out from around his hand, and the man started groaning, eventually falling over. That sound suddenly became clear in his head.
It was a VSS.
Alexsi spun towards the forest, spraying a burst wildly into the trees. And suddenly, they erupted with gunfire. None of that gunfire carried the telltale muffling of a suppressor on it, however. The fire was all kinds, in all calibers, big, small, and a few telltale booms of shotguns.
Alexsi felt as if he had been punched in the chest by Alexander Potvekin, and he fell onto his back, with the wind whooshing out of his lungs. For a few agonizing seconds, he couldn't bring himself to fill his lungs back up with air, as if his diaphragm wouldn't respond to him. He choked, sputtered, and felt his mind losing touch with reality.
Somone grabbed the carry handle on his chest rig, and began yanking him back towards the Hangar. The way his rig was pulled up allowed him to inhale again, and clarity returned to his mind. He lifted his AK, and looked down the scope. There was a horde of zombies in his sights. For a moment, he was a bit confused, wondering how a horde of zombies could have snuck up on them, much less pulled off a surprise ambush. Then, he caught a flash behind them, of someone changing positions from one tree to another.
"Zombies", someone shouted, but Alexsi knew the truth.
He tried to draw in a ragged breath to call out who was really behind it all, but he found he could not do it. Instead, he drew up his rifle, and pasted a zombie's brains onto the tree behind him. His legs finally started to respond to him, and he reached his arm up, slapping the forearm of whoever was dragging him. The person let him go, and brought up his suppressed rifle, plinking zombie heads with precision accuracy. Alexsi got onto his knees, and looked around. His whole team was either flailing on the ground around him, or still. The only exception was whoever was dragging him.
He finally made his way up to his feet, and looked more intently at the bodies around him. Some of them had holes in their armor, some of which had ceramic plates. In a moment of clarity, he remembered that 9x39 could punch through traditional body armor like it was butter.
Alexsi turned, and tore for the Hangar. Inside the walls, he threw off his backpack, and ripped off his armor, pulling in air like he had never tasted it before. Kostyan ran up to him, Sig 556 rife in hand, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"It's not zombies", Alexsi croaked out.
"What", Kostyan asked, waving forward two men in heavy armor with RPG-7's on their shoulders, with bags of rockets on their backs.
"The zombies are a distraction", Alexsi said, coughing to move whatever was blocking his airway.
Kostyan looked up at his two sniper towers, only to find that there were no snipers in them any more. Kostyan grabbed Alexsi by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him to his feet.
"WHO?!"
"The Monolith", Alexsi told him. "It's the Monolith."
