Nights in Tarkov City were, more often than not, quiet events. Aside from the occasional short burst of gunfire off in the distance, or the scurrying of rats in the alleyways, one rarely expected to hear much of anything once the sun had set.
In part, this was because most of the remaining residents of the city would hole up and rest, often behind thick walls, rows of razor wire, and boobytraps of varying quality. However, even those brave few who did venture out after dark had vested interest in remaining quiet. Noise was likely to bring badly unwanted attention to yourself after all, and one could never be sure who or what may be just up the street or hiding in a nearby building. It was not too unusual for groups of men to pass by each other at night without any interaction at all, choosing to ignore each other's presence.
That night though, if one were near the shore and listened carefully, an engine's echoing howl could be heard as a small white boat skipped across the waves not far from the coast.
M16's body lurched as the speedboat crashed down into a wave, bracing against the side of the craft as great plumes of unpleasant smelling seawater splashed over her. She had long since given up on staying dry, resigned to her fate as a cold wet mop of a person. This was not a fate she was alone in however, as Justin and one of his ex-USEC buddies were both likewise huddled by the aft end of the boat and completely soaked as well. The two men were huddled together, clinging to one another while shivering and sharing a smoke while she watched from the mirroring corner.
The helmsman was driving like an absolute madman, and hadn't let off the throttle once since they'd left the docks. She couldn't see much of him, and he'd not spoken since they'd departed, but both her and the man's companions' pleas to slow down had all fallen on deaf ears.
She could only hope this journey would not last much longer.
Off in the distance she could see a sea of twinkling lights. Tarkov had a twin city across the bay, Norvinsk, which had seemingly been spared the fate of its twin. The smaller, moving patches of lights she assumed were ships in the distance, and she was surprised by how much traffic there was just a few miles from where they were. Justin had briefly talked about a run in with a destroyer while she'd been interrogating him, so she wondered if that ship may be among them. A distant, nearly invisible jailer penning them in.
The boat crashed down another wave, sending the occupants up a few inches into the air before crashing back down to the deck. 16 felt a growing urge to once again complain to the helmsman, but before she could she felt the tone of the engine shift.
The boat rapidly lost speed, and began taking a gentle curve towards the dark coastline. Its engine winding down from roar to a low rumbling gurgle.
Up ahead a series of long, tall sheds extended out over the water with docks holding rows upon rows of boats underneath. At the end of one of these docks stood a figure, and as they approached a small red light flashed out briefly from him.
Thermals yielded a better view. The man on the dock was tall and wide, with a pistol in a holster on his thigh, but didn't appear to be hostile. He was holding a small flashlight that he clicked on and off, probably as a guide light for them as they came into dock.
The helmsman navigated the boat over towards the waiting man, and managed to get the craft to twist around just before they bumped into the dock so as to have the side brush up against it.
16 got to her feet first, figuring she knew what to do next and snagging a coiled rope on the boat's aft, tossing it towards the awaiting man who caught it and began to tie them down.
"Took you long enough," he muttered to them. His voice was deep, but smooth, and seemed to be trying to chide them.
"ugh, busy night Ted," Justin said as he tried to stand on two shaking legs, "Cold."
"Yeah, no thanks to Ivan's driving," the second man on the boat scoffed, helping Justin stay on his feet.
"Eh, Better than being dead, no?" the helmsman replied from the prow of the boat where he was tying that end to the dock. He was Russian based on the accent.
"Right. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be one too many of you," the man on the docks, Ted, said. He flashed the red light onto 16's face, briefly causing her to squint before she could adjust to the light.
"Yeah, preddy lil thing. Guess Justin here has some game after all," the man helping Justin said, smacking the wounded man on the back.
"What's your name," Ted asked her, "Why're you here?"
"Anna. Convenience."
"Convenience? I take it from Justin's condition you all weren't able to leave cleanly right?"
"Da," Ivan said simply as he made his way back along the boat towards them, "Army."
Ted shut off the light, "Understood. Alright Anna, In that case you're free to go."
M16 dutifully stepped off the dock to do just that when Justin cleared his throat. It sounded like the injuries were still bothering him from his voice, but despite them he stumbled off the boat and over towards Ted.
"Boss, actually. Think we could let her have a bunk for the night? She kinda saved my ass."
Ted turned to her, "I'm not in favor of letting a stranger bunk with us."
"Eye for an eye boss. She had plenty of chances to kill me if that was her goal."
16 pursed her lips. She didn't particularly care to stay with these four, but she was a long way from home. Dead reckoning told her they'd gone a few miles from the health resort area, and so were likely somewhere near the city center. She could use the rest before making the journey back, and perhaps if she did stay, and it wasn't a trap, she could convince one of them to take her somewhere a little closer to home with the boat.
The big man, Ted, prompted her with a questioning gaze, "Does she want to?"
"Steal a rack for the night, or kill him?" She asked coyly.
"How bout both."
"Sure, if you're offering, and only if he keeps trying to hit on me."
"Heyyyy," Justin whined halfheartedly.
"Alright, sure. We have a few spare rooms."
Her body was a mess of cuts, bruises and grime, with pock marks from shrapnel, bullets and general wear and tear that in some cases dated back well before even Paldiski. There was barely a square inch of her not covered in dirt, grime, or damage.
The men's hideout had turned out to be an old luxury villa near the dockyard. Once upon a time it'd probably been the playhouse for some rich playboy, and was well equipped for all kinds of activities. She'd been surprised to learn that they not only had power here, but hot running water. Apparently the prior owner had gone to great lengths to not be on the city's grid, and they were reaping the benefits.
Looking into the long wall of mirrors within the women's restroom, she barely recognized herself. The tangle of ashy white hair, bleached from its old dark brown, still looked wrong on her even after all this time. The rest of her didn't look that much more familiar anymore either, reality proving dissonant of the image she still had of herself.
16 carefully turned on the spot, inspecting by sight and touch the various injuries across her back and torso.
She was nominally waterproof, and her diagnostics were claiming that there'd been no punctures that'd threaten that, but it paid to be sure. Dying via shower was a less than appealing way to go.
Once satisfied that she wouldn't short out, she began rifling through the various cabinets and drawers in the room for any soaps, hair products or body wash that remained. Soon she had accumulated a small horde of travel sized bottles, and carried over a few to the nearest shower.
The shower was a bit old, but still hinted at luxury beyond what she was familiar with. It featured large walls of frosted glass, bordered by brushed silver metals and dark tiling that matched the cool toned industrial stylings of the rest of the room. She placed the bottles to one side, and reached out to the handle before pausing just a little ways from it.
Her eye fixed on the ring still wrapped around her finger.
Carefully, she stepped out of the shower stall and made her way back to her clothing and backpack. She gently worked the ring off her finger, and set it down atop her bundled clothes before heading back to the stall.
Initially she'd intended to only linger for a few moments, rinse, scrub, rinse and be done. But the warm water hitting her skin suddenly caused the seconds to stretch into minutes.
When she finally did recall the will to shut the shower off, it had been nearly half an hour. Likewise she took her time brushing out her hair and wrapping it up into a towel to dry. She took time dressing, forgoing her heavy outer layers and packing away everything that she wasn't wearing neatly into her heavy backpack.
Quietly, she wondered what it'd take to set up a shower in the bunker.
Last, she slipped her ring back on, opening and closing her palm experimentally as she stared at the little object for a moment.
After slipping it back on, 16 stepped out of the bathroom and out into the common area of the villa. The interior was two tiered, with sleeping quarters on an upper floor that looked down upon the lower area where the kitchen, entertainment areas, and restrooms were. The lower floor was quite large, about the size of an olympic swimming pool, while the upper was little more than half a dozen bedrooms and a walkway overlooking the lower floor. It would have been quite the luxurious location, were it not for the dozens of weapons, ammo boxes, and other signs of life in Tarkov scattered around the large room.
The men were scattered around the lower floor, Ted and Ivan unpacking gear on the far side of the room while Justin's wounds were treated by their fourth. They all operated by red light, normal white lights being a poor idea if one wished to live through the night in this town.
16 quietly made her way past them all, catching a few of their eyes but managing to escape any conversations as she made her way upstairs.
Her room was the one nestled furthest back on one side which they had previously been using as a storage room for ammunition. Earlier, Ted had been kind enough to clear out a fair bit of space for her, and had offered her a storage box for the loot she'd acquired earlier in the day.
16 stepped inside, curling her feet on the short haired carpet and tossing her bag and heavier clothing to one side. It was a simple room, reminding her of a hotel room with a few soulless pieces of art on the walls and a neutral gray color scheme, but it was cozy enough. Shutting the door behind her, she stepped around the large queen sized bed, and peeked through the curtains that covered the large, almost wall sized window on the far side.
Through it she caught a good view of the dark city skyline of Tarkov. A few scant lights glimmered amongst the distant, shadowy monoliths of skyscrapers, just enough to form outlines of the buildings against the dark night sky.
16 shut the curtains again, the large window more a source of insecurity than comfort; after all it would do nothing to stop a bullet. Though she supposed it was an escape option should her hosts try something.
16 snagged her rifle, propping it up against the bed, before diving into the cool, fluffy sheets. They were high quality, she had to admit. Far better than she'd had in years. Laying in the large bed brought back memories of better days, and she felt compelled to twist the ring off her finger again, staring at the little band.
Suddenly the door squeaked open, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. Gripping her ring in one hand, her other snaked under the sheets towards her rifle nearby.
"You're married?" asked a voice, staying her hand.
16 craned her head to see Ted standing in the door to her room, leaning against the frame. 16 quickly slipped the ring back on and sat up enough to see him comfortably. Her other hand still ready to snatch her weapon.
"Something like that," she muttered.
"Same," the man replied, raising his hand to show his own ring, "Your's know you're here?"
She shook her head, "I doubt it."
The man nodded, "Probably best, right? I know mine's worried sick."
"You were USEC right? Did you know what was gonna happen?"
The man sighed, "Not really. Wouldn't have signed that contract if I did."
"I see… Well I'm sorry about your wife, but did you need something?"
"Me? Nah I'm just seeing how you're doing. You're settling in okay?"
The man seemed to be trying to be friendlier than he'd been earlier, and without his gear and in better light she could see that though muscle bound and tall, he had softer features.
"Yeah I'm fine. Used to worse conditions than this."
"Haha I bet."
"You guys got lucky with this place."
Ted shrugged, smiling faintly, "Don't deny it. Though to be fair, I did know the former owner."
"Friend of yours?"
"He was a company man, important enough to get out well ahead of this shit show starting."
"Of course he did," she growled, mildly angry at this man she'd never met.
"Yeah, fucking prick," Ted nodded, agreeing with the sentiment, " Well if you need anything just ask. No promises we can provide, but we'll try."
"Thanks."
Ted turned to leave, but stopped himself to turn back, "Oh, I should say I'm sorry if Justin was bothering you. I spoke with the boys, they all promise not to disturb you, but if you have any problems don't hesitate to come to me."
She nodded, understanding. With that he shut the door.
The moment her internal clock ticked over to 0500, M16's eye peeled open. The sun cast dim rays through the cracks in the shades, giving just enough light to see without Night Vision.
She intended to leave early, hopefully convince or bribe one of the men to take her a bit closer to the reserve, but failing that she wanted to head out soon.
After tidying up her hair and putting on some proper clothes, 16 crept out into the main room, carefully scanning the space and identifying two occupants already present. Ted was by the kitchen preparing coffee. The other was the Russian, Ivan, hunched over a desktop computer and staring at a scrolling command window.
Quietly, she descended the stairs leading down into the main room, catching Ted's eye as she did who offered a polite nod in her direction. 16 returned the gesture and took up a seat at the kitchen bar as the man continued preparing the coffee machine.
"Goodmorning," He greeted offhandedly, "Sleep well?"
"Yes," she replied truthfully. It'd been the best in quite some time.
"Planning to head out soon?"
"Also yes. "
"Mmm," The man nodded, "Well, I do just wanna say thanks. I wasn't quite aware of Justin's situation, but it seems you really did save his life. Hunter says he probably wouldn't have made it off the docks without you."
"Hunter?"
"Ah our fourth, he was on the boat with you four last night. He's been watching Justin most of the night, and says he should be back on his feet later today."
"I just did what I could."
"Well dressing him and sticking him with that propital did a lot from what I heard. After that a bunk is really the least we can do."
She nodded, filing that last comment away for a little later, "You guys seem close. Even with him," she nodded towards Ivan, still hunched over his computer. She wasn't entirely sure he'd blinked since she'd come down.
"It pays to have people you can trust these days."
"I suppose. Was he BEAR?"
The man nodded, "Left to rot, like the rest of us."
"What is he doing?" she asked, increasingly curious as the man began to furiously type at the keyboard, muttering something under his breath that she couldn't make out as he did.
"We found a company drive yesterday, Hunter and I. He's trying to see what's on it."
"He's good with computers?"
"More than the rest of us are."
She pursed her lips, thinking.
"Ya know, if you want, I can take a crack at it," she offered.
It was an opportunity to further the debt here, she told herself. Better odds at a ride home. Plus who knows what could be on this drive, possibly something valuable she could exchange down the line.
"If you think you can get in, be my guest, though you should know he's been at this for hours. It's very well encrypted."
She had to actively suppress a smirk at the notion. Her EW suite was older by her standards, but by the standards of this year she was lightyears ahead of the cutting edge.
16 hopped off her bar chair, and strode across the room to the russian, who on getting closer she could tell was uttering a near endless string of curses as he wrote a script on the computer shell window.
"Excuse me," she began in russian, "May I try?"
Ivan appeared to have been snapped from a trance, reeling at the sound of her voice to stare bug eyed at her. The man had dark rings under each bloodshot eye, with a sense of slight derangement coming from him as he stared.
"You speak Russian?" Ted asked from across the room.
"Da," she said aloud.
"Be my guest," Ivan muttered in his native tongue, kicking his office chair away from the desk and rolling halfway across the room.
16 watched in amusement as he rolled over towards the kitchen, and then leapt up from the chair towards the bar stool she'd just left before collapsing on the granite countertop. Ted busily began to pour him a cup of coffee.
Turning back to the computer, she looked down to the tower resting on the floor, and spied the flash drive in question jutting out from its side. It was a light steel gray, with the Terra Group logo engraved on the side. 16 gently lowered a hand to rub up against it, checking for an RFID sensor in the drive itself, though she was disappointed to find no such thing.
Instead, she sought and found the computer's wireless connection, and through this connected through into the computer itself. Physically she made a small show of acting as though she were typing something, while digitally she infiltrated the computer's system before brushing up against the drive's firewall.
It was password encoded, with at least a 16 digit code to enter. By the standards of 2016 this was a very well encrypted device, with several layers of security to prevent multiple forms of attack.
By her standards though, it was rather cute. She decided not to get too fancy with it, and effectively slammed the front door with the full weight of her EW suite. The poor drive's firewall, not at all designed to withstand the type and magnitude of the attack she unleashed, relented almost instantly.
On screen, she double clicked the relevant folder that contained the now cracked open flashdrive's information. At the same time, she quickly scanned the contents for malware, before downloading it all to her internal drive.
"Got it," she announced, not even ten minutes after starting. In reality, it had taken her less than a second to crack, but she did need to maintain appearances. She figured that ten minutes, though fast by human standards, was at least somewhat believable. She could've acted a while longer, but she didn't want to waste the next half an hour or more staring at a screen, acting like she was doing something.
"Already?" Both men said in unison, albeit in two different languages. They both appeared over her shoulders, staring at the screen as she opened the various folders within.
16 had already gone through it all internally, though was finding most of the contents meaningless. Series of numbers code words that meant very little to her, as well as a few 'readmes' which were so jock full of jargon as to be unintelligible.
"How did you get in so quickly?" Ivan asked in russian.
"There's a vulnerability in the firewall," she answered, sort of truthfully. The vulnerability would be nigh impossible to exploit with the technology the man could use, but it did exist.
"What is this?" Ted asked, bending over to peer at the screen.
"You tell me," she answered, stepping aside to let him peruse it on his own terms.
As the two men began to dig through the data, she snuck over towards the kitchen and poured her own cup of coffee. There was no cream that she could find, but was satisfied to sip the brew black.
"This is a company stash!" Ted announced, "Oh shit it's still sealed too, oh this could be good. Ivan, could you grab Justin and Hunter? I think they'll wanna see this."
The russian, after taking a long sip from his coffee, set his steaming mug onto the table and began jogging up towards the rooms where the two other men were presumably sleeping.
"Stash? Is this a Terra Group thing?" she asked, making her way back over with her own mug in hand.
"Mmm," Ted nodded, "Company must've been preparing for this shit for a long time. I only know a little, but apparently there's safehouses and equipment stashes throughout the city."
"What's in 'em?"
"Could be anything. Guns, food, fuel."
She raised the brow over her good eye, "Hard to believe something like that wouldn't have already been looted."
"Well. You do need a certain key to access it, and there are… measures to prevent unauthorized access."
"And you have a key?"
"Well…" he began, but just then the door upstairs flung open, and the three men shuffled back out into the main area. Ivan seemed a little annoyed, probably due to being made to fetch the ex-USECs after having worked for hours, while the other two seemed more groggy than anything else.
Justin shot her a smirk on seeing her however, which she returned with a scowl that did nothing to diminish his spirits as he limped down the stairs.
"Actually. I have an idea for that," Ted said, turning back to face her directly.
She gave him a questioning look, "What?"
"You got in this drive easily enough. Think you could get into this too?"
16 pursed her lips, "Maybe. Depends. Do you know how the keycards work? RFID, Mag strip?"
"You swipe them," he replied, miming the motion with his hand.
"Ehhh, maybe in that case. Couldn't promise anything. But, even then, what's in it for me?"
"Share of the contents." Ted offered, "one fifth approximately. We can haggle over who gets what exactly when we recover it."
She nodded. Based on his reaction, this stash may have something properly valuable she could sue, or at least sell. Perhaps something she wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.
"Alright," she said, crossing her arms, "And you have an idea on how to get there?"
"I do. Hey, Justin! You still have that metro map?"
"Ehhh, yeah boss hold up," the wounded man said, wincing as he made his way over.
Justin limped over towards a small stack of papers on the far side of the room while Hunter and Ivan joined them, each peering at the screen intently.
Soon enough Justin retrieved a rolled up paper about the size of a poster, and quickly moved over to hand it to Ted. The latter then unfurled it, revealing a large map of Tarkov cities metro lines laid atop a surprisingly detailed depiction of the city from above.
"Okay, so this thing says it's around the city center. Around here I'd say," he announced, pointing towards a specific intersection along a few major roads.
"That's rough territory," Hunter commented, "Heard of some bad dudes around there."
16 herself had actually been not too far from the area in question when the fighting had started, only a few blocks away in fact, but she had to imagine things had changed since. In fact she had probably seen the early stages of what it'd become, with gangs forming and strongholds beginning to appear as protection from the ongoing fighting between the PMCs and army.
"Me too," Ted agreed, "but getting this stash could really turn things around for us. Seriously."
"So how do we get to it?" Ivan asked, crossing his arms.
Ted pointed to a metro line, one running up a road that led to the intersection where the stash was, "The metro's long since shut down. If we take the tunnel from this station…" he pointed to one near the coastline, which 16 imagined was near their location, "...all the way up, we can get past most of the bad guys without being spotted. If we time it so it's nightfall when we exit, bad guys up top will have a tough time spotting us."
Nearly fifteen hours later, 16 was fourth in line of a column moving along empty, trash filled suburban streets. Above them the sun was beginning to once again set, though it would not do so completely for another hour or so.
According to her companions, the area around their hideouts was largely devoid of bandits or major PMC groups. Seeing as the part of the city they were in was largely made up of old rotten luxury homes, which despite looking rather nice would be unsuitable for any kind of defense due to the massive windows and open concepts that were apparently popular among the rich of Tarkov, she supposed that made some sense.
Their first objective wasn't far, a mere kilometer from the hideout, and they reached it in good time. 16 taking in one last look at the world above cast in golden orange as the sun neared the distant horizon.
The metro station looked unassuming from above, marked unassumingly by a few signs by the stairwells entrances. However, only a few steps down them a wave of nauseating scents hit them all.
The humans stumbled to a halt in near unison, holding their noses as sickly sweat, rancid smell emanated from below. 16, a bit more hardened from the effects, stepped through the group without a word, setting her jaw as she braced for what she knew she'd find below.
The sight within brought back unpleasant memories. Memories of Tallinn. Heaps of bodies scattered throughout the station, tattered, rotten corpses that barely resembled humans anymore, with ghastly sunken flesh the color of soot and colorful clothing hanging off them in rags. They looked like they'd been desperate to escape, running in all directions from the main entrance, clawing at the walls, piling around doors to restrooms or service exits, and many dozens piled en masse atop the tracks.
Almost all of them were civilians. Only a few armed men were near the entrance, and she noticed something odd about them. They were wearing PMK gas masks, or one was at least as the other had died with it still clutched in his hand.
"Hold up," she muttered, causing the four men to halt in place, "Let me check something real quick."
16 quickly scanned the area, flipping between various sensors as she tried to get a better idea of the situation. She crossed over to the tracks, mindful not to disturb any bodies, and peered over the edge of the platform. Other than the bodies, she noticed a few pools of liquid between the track ties.
16 narrowed her eye, her suspicions growing. She reached down and dipped a finger into the pool, catching just a little bit on the tip before placing it on her tongue. Her systems detected trace amounts of isopropyl methylphosphonic acid in the water.
"Sarin." she barked, "don't touch the bodies, don't move."
Glancing back, she saw all four men still as statues, staring at her through the dark.
"You're sure?" Ted asked.
"Positive. Most of it has probably decomposed, but if there's any still airborne it'll be along the tracks."
"How can you tell?"
"This isn't my first time dealing with this stuff."
"Masks?" Justin asked.
"Unless you brought MOPP suits too they won't make a difference," Hunter interjected, "that shit'll burn you alive."
"You said it's probably decomposed though right? Enough to pass safely?" Ted looked to 16.
16 stared down the dark subway tunnel, "Maybe. But it's heavier than air. We could hit a trapped pocket, and it won't end well if we do."
"Boss," Hunter said, carefully picking his way through the corpses towards Ted, "We should go around, find another way."
"If we go on the surface, we'll be spotted and shot. You don't know the kinda shit running around up there. There's worse than BEARs or scavs."
16 didn't disagree. Sarin had no effect on her, other than making future maintenance a bit hazardous for any humans performing it. Were she alone she wouldn't hesitate.
"Boss, I'm telling you. If we hit a pocket, or a fucking puddle even, that's it. Game over. We won't even know what hit us till it's too late."
"There's nothing we can do? Even with masks?"
"I-" Hunter began.
"I brought this," Ivan jutted in. All heads turned to the russian, holding a rectangular device with an antenna on one end in his hand.
"Gas analyzer?" Ted asked, then turning to Hunter, "Would that let us know if there's a pocket?"
"Can I see it?" 16 called in russian to Ivan, who tossed the gas analyzer to her from across the platform. 16 caught the device and began turning it over, studying the device. It was simple, old even by the standards of this day, but kneeling down into the tracks again, she saw the display begin shifting. It displayed a very minute amount of the deadly gas, and a much larger proportion of its decomposites, present in the air near the tracks.
"It'll work," She announced, "The air is safe here enough, but it isn't all gone."
"Doesn't mean it'll be enough. Air can shift, or there could be flooding further down that'll be soaked with it," Hunter continued.
"Masks should help, and we'll avoid the puddles," Ted replied, "Is there any treatment if we are exposed?"
"Shit," Hunter sighed, "A Perfotoran and eTg together might stabilize moderate exposures. It'll be hell to pay on ya, but ya might live. Beyond that, we ain't got the right antidotes, and even if we did you're dead in less than thirty if you catch a lung full."
"Minutes?" Justin asked, his voice sounding like he already knew the answer but didn't want to believe it.
"Seconds."
"Jesus…"
All eyes turned towards Ted. The man was deep in thought, mulling over their options. It wasn't lost on her how much they all looked up to him, even now with their fates contingent on this choice. She wondered how they'd all come to have that faith in him.
"The metro's still the safest," he announced, "get your masks on, and try to cover as much skin as you can."
Hunter looked distraught, but he didn't protest further. Instead the man dutifully put on his mask and began tucking in his clothing and zipping his jacket tight. Justin pulled out a roll of duct tape from his pack, and after sealing up the clothing around his wrists, neck, and ankles as best he could he began to pass the roll around.
16, realizing she'd need to keep up appearances, slowly made her way back across the platform towards where the two dead RUAF soldiers had fallen. She pulled one of the PMK masks off them, and made a small show of dusting off the masks and checking the filter before pulling it over her head. Shortly after the tape was passed to her, and she dutifully sealed her clothing as well as she could.
"Can I have that?" Hunter asked, pointing to the gas analyzer still in her hand. His voice was muffled by the mask now on his face.
"Let me keep it," she answered, "safer I lead than you."
The man withdrew his hand, "Okay. You know how to handle yourself around this stuff right?"
She nodded.
"There a story behind that?"
Sadly, there was more than one. Sarin was an effective agent in countering ELID outbreaks, and its relative impotence against dolls made it especially effective in handling such occasions. She'd served more than once in cleanup operations after successful containments involving the stuff, and had seen the toll it took. She wondered sometimes whether the gas did more damage than the disease ever did.
She let out a muffled sigh through the mask, "Not a pleasant one."
Hunter nodded, understanding, and gave way to her as she passed back over the platform to the tracks. She checked again that the analyzer was active, before hopping down onto the rails. Behind her, Ted lit the flashlight on his weapon and began illuminating the path forward into the dark tunnel.
The tracks were littered with obstacles, from innocuous seeming puddles of water to further mounds of dead. More and more dead appeared with each step, emerging from the dark in twos and threes. By her count there must've been at least three hundred that she'd seen, all rotten and long past recognizable, but it was sickening to witness all the same.
She could hear the heavy breathing of the four men behind her growing more distressed as they found more and more. Some bodies clung to railing, others clawed along the ground or walls in desperation, while some clung to each other in dark corners, praying not to be found.
"Who could've done this?"
It was the question she was sure was on all their minds, but it was Justin who gave voice to it. 16 couldn't help but compare to her own experience in another metro station from weeks prior. The timing of decay roughly lined up with when she was attacked there, but there were no corpses of any PMCs, no real signs of battle at all beyond the dead.
"I have heard of USECs attacking Metros," Ivan said, a bit hesitant.
"I heard of BEARs doin the same," Hunter grumbled in reply.
"Stow it you two," Ted barked, "Air okay so far Anna?"
She glanced at the analyzer again, "About the same. No pockets so far. Low PPM, we could get away without masks here."
"Don't," Hunter jumped in.
"Right, better safe than sorry," Ted said in a calm voice. 16 wondered if anything rattled the man. "Just let us know if that changes."
16 raised a thumbs up over her shoulder before carrying on along the track.
About a hundred meters from the track, the bodies stopped appearing. It was rather sudden, from a large group of ten or so to nothing at all that the flashlight could find. She noticed a small door to the side of the tunnel, likely a service access point, was open.
The Sarin PPM had gone down to almost nothing by this point, but she said nothing about it for a while longer.
Eventually, after dozens of minutes since leaving the platform, an object loomed through the murk. A long pill shaped train, with rust streaks bleeding through its blue and red paint. There was no sign of a driver or any recent activity.
On getting closer, 16 peered up through the front window. There were a pair of shadows slumped further within, but otherwise it was empty. Moving around the side and onto the adjacent set of tracks, she got a better look. The windows were all sealed, and the bodies within were visibly less decayed than many of the others they'd seen prior. They were both dressed in formal business attire, with one carrying a briefcase between its legs.
"Poor bastards," Ted commented.
"What happened to them?" Justin wondered aloud.
"No idea…" 16 said.
She glanced around the area a little more, but there were no more clues. So, after a little longer, they moved on. Not long after the train the tracks began moving downwards at a slight decline, prompting her to pay attention to the analyzer a little closer.
"We should be coming up on another station soon," Ted announced.
As if prompted, a small shape on the ground appeared from the murk. The form of a man on the ground, dead, with a pistol in hand and a backpack lying scattered nearby as if he'd tumbled head over heels before death. The area he was in was a slump in the ground, noticeably lower than the tracks or earth around. With a small pool of water at the basin.
"Hold," she said, moving up to investigate.
The dead man was notably fresher than the corpses before had been, with skin still a yellowish green and not so much bloating that facial features couldn't be made out. 16 carefully lowered the analyzer into the slump, and was grimly rewarded with a huge spike in PPM of Sarin Gas.
She pulled back, and glanced around the tunnel. The metro tracks hadn't fully gone with the earth into the slump, instead they were raised into the air a ways, with the outer tracks well above the lip of the slump.
16 began prodding the air with the analyzer, checking the available paths across.
"Stay on the outer tracks. Move slow, and be careful," she advised the group. To emphasize, she carefully tip-toed along the outer tracks around the slump, before hopping the last few feet to the far side and turning back. She beckoned the men to follow with a wave.
Ted was the first to follow. The big man teetered on the thin rail, his balance never a sure thing with each step, but he managed to cross and join her on the far side. Ivan followed after, able to navigate far more nimbly, with Justin hot on his heels. The latter's injury seemingly no longer bothering him.
Last was Hunter, taking it slow across and eyeing the slump and the body within nervously. Not eager to join the dead man she didn't doubt.
Still, he made it safely, and their trek continued. The next station was not far after that point, and was almost entirely deserted. 16 noticed the Sarin PPM drop off completely, now below the analyzer's ability to detect, and just as they arrived at the platform, she peeled her mask off and took a breath of the relatively fresh air.
She was far more capable of detecting gas than the old analyzer, and even she found no trace of the gas in the air.
"Safe?" Ted asked.
"I'll keep an eye on it, but I believe so."
Justin eagerly tore his mask off at the news, with Ted and the others following after. All four men's faces were drenched in sweat.
As the four men recovered and stowed their masks, 16 glanced around the platform they were now at. Unlike the previous, this one was devoid of any signs of life. From the walls to the entry stairs and tracks beneath her feet, there was no sign of any recent habitation.
At least, that was her assumption until she looked up.
The ceiling of the place was covered in a mess of strange markings, like little lightning bolts scattered everywhere, and at the center of the room was a large circle marked with more of the little symbols along its outer edge and a small cross at the center.
There was no apparent order to the mess, nor any meaning she could decipher. She couldn't even fathom why someone had taken the effort to mark the ceiling so thoroughly, as it was at least twenty feet off the floor.
"The fuck…?" Justin exclaimed as he danced his flashlight along the roof, moving from symbol to symbol.
Ivan, Hunter, and Justin all seemed to be sharing her reaction of mixed confusion and curiosity, but she also noticed Ted was reacting differently. He seemed concerned, not taking time to study the symbols and instead was scanning the area around them.
"Do you know what this means?" She asked him.
Ted didn't look at her to respond, instead simply saying, "It means we shouldn't be here."
16's eye narrowed. "Care to explain?"
"Not now."
16 nodded. Ted had given her no reason to doubt his assessments so far, so she was willing to accept that for the moment. She quickly finished packing her makeshift MOPP gear and began to scan the platform alongside the man while the other three finished up.
Once done, she began moving further along the track, but was pushed back in the column by Ted taking the lead. The big man pressing forward a few paces into the dark.
16 shot a questioning glance back at the others, who could only offer shrugs in reply.
She supposed it didn't really matter. Rather than worrying about terrain or gas, the man taking the lead let her ease up on power usage and just focus on following the leader. Her batteries were still not quite up to their old efficiencies, and she wasn't coming into this adventure on a full charge either, so being conservative was a good idea.
Not to mention that he'd probably be able to ID whatever danger was making him so wary far sooner than she would, as he hopefully knew what to look for.
They carried on like this for several kilometers, marching through the dark, damp tunnels. They'd side step broken down trains and carefully avoid the few bodies they did find. Every now and then they'd hear some strange skittering in the dark, or what sounded like echoes of others traveling in the distance, but nothing alive ever appeared through the murk. Occasionally they'd pass through old stations, some with bodies, some empty, some showing more recent signs of habitation, but like the tunnels they found no life.
Despite all the fighting and evacuations, Tarkov itself was still very much alive above ground. She'd seen the roaming bands of scavs and gangs, the camps and bases, even the military convoys or PMCs squads roaming the land above. Down here, there was nothing.
Nothing but the sounds of tripping water and their steps echoing against the walls, the smell of mildew and earth, and the endless dark.
There was very little chatter among them as they walked, the idle conversations between them that'd gone on almost uninterrupted above ground absent. 16 was starting to miss them.
Eventually, another station loomed in the dark, the white tile walls and concrete flooring seeming to glow. Ted led them out of the tunnel, and after a quick scan of the room, hopped up onto the platform.
"This is our stop," he announced.
16 found a sign hanging above the main entrance by the long abandoned ticket office that read 'Primorsky ave. and Taranova St. Station.'. Primorsky was one of the main arteries running through the city, and Taranova as the cross street should put them just a few blocks from their destination.
"We don't want to follow the tracks above ground?" she asked. The tracks here went up to street level not far from this station, and went right past their destination.
"Too exposed," Ted replied, "One big entrance in the middle of the street. Exiting here is safer."
"If you say so."
The world above the metro was quite different now from the one they'd left hours prior. The sky was dark, the sun long gone, and the city had grown from one or two story houses to towering skyscrapers and blocky apartment buildings.
Their group slowly stepped up into this world, fanning out on exiting the stairway to quickly form a loose perimeter. After scanning the area for any signs they'd been seen, the men, with their NODs all down, formed a loose column formation.
Ivan and Justin led, the two men each equipped with a suppressor on their weapons, while 16, Ted, and Hunter with their louder weapons trailed. Other than the clinking of their gear, and the shuffling of their feet on the concrete, the night was quiet.
They were not alone however. In stark contrast to the metro she could see that plainly.
On thermals, she began picking up distant contacts. Little white flares of heat against the cold cityscape. Some far ahead down the streets, crossing the roads or making their own way along them, some peeking out from windows or rooftops, and some moving amongst the alleyways and sidestreets. A few she was sure were watching them, but none made any moves to harass them.
Quietly, she wondered who they were. Scavengers in most cases she suspected, ordinary citizens cut off and desperate. Hopefully that was all. She kept a watchful eye on the surroundings, tagging and monitoring everything. Waiting for a sign of danger as they went the last leg of the journey to their destination.
Soon, they rejoined the metro line as the rails burst up from below, rising up to now run along the surface as they approached the city center. The buildings around them were also growing in height, and the random contacts began to grow fewer in number.
"That's the place," Ted said, nodding towards a distant building ahead.
It was a wide, two story building that looked to have once been a car dealership, even branded with a logo still along the upper part of its exterior wall. However the current occupants had retrofitted it into a fortress. What had once been a long wall of windows for showing cars to passersby had been boarded up with sandbags, planks, and a few vehicles parked to form a wall of cover. The roof was lined with sandbags, and around both entrances long walls with guard towers had been erected.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"Positive. coordinates are accurate to 10 square meters, and they say it's in there."
"What do we do?" Ivan asked, "assault?"
"Let's scope this out first. Gather intel before trying anything."
For nearly an hour, they stalked the dealership. Splitting up at observation points in the various buildings surrounding the place, observing carefully from windows, behind bushes, or from within a few of the broken down trains along the main road.
16 set up on the third floor of an old apartment complex, having scaled up a broken elevator shaft to reach a perch able to peer into the compound. She settled into an old apartment, one that looked like it hadn't been entered since the evacuation. From the kitchen window she could see right over the wall and had a good view of the rooftop, able to see a few sandbag lined positions and mounted guns within.
"Anna, how's it look?" Ted's voice crackled over comms.
"Quiet. I've got eyes on MG positions and sniper nests, but only one bad guy."
"Tower near the front?"
The bandit, visible on her thermals, was set up in a small tower that overlooked the main road. Presumably Justin, in the office building nearby, and Ted himself in a train car along the road, could also both see him. He didn't appear to have NVGs or any kind of scope on his rifle, so it was unlikely the sentry could see them in return.
"Correct," she replied.
As she spoke, she peeled open a protein bar she'd found within the apartment cupboard. Her battery was draining a little quicker than she liked due to the trek over and sensor usage, so she was eager to take a chance to recharge a little.
"Understood."
"Boss," Hunter's voice then jutted, "We've also got one over here. He's movin around a bit though."
"Copy. I have a few possible contacts within the building itself that are moving. We can bet there'll be more asleep somewhere too."
"Could be quite the party," Justin commented.
"We'll need to clear the whole place first, as quietly as we can. Ivan, Hunter. Get ready to push your side. Sweep the East building and then meet us halfway. Anna, you and I will meet with Justin and the three of us will push in from the South. Once we all meet up, Justin and Anna will move to the stash while the rest of us sweep the West building."
"Exfil?" Hunter asked.
"Plan on the south side. Don't hesitate to pull back if there's more than a few of these guys in there, better to live than stick it out for too long. Good?"
A chorus of affirmatives replied on comms, and 16 began packing up her gear once more.
She didn't bother with leaving the way she'd come, instead she found an opening window, which after a little modification to its safety device she convinced it to open wide enough to fit her. She then slipped up and over the windowsill, and dropped deftly down the three stories to the soft grassy earth below.
After quickly scanning the area, making sure she'd not been seen, she quickly navigated around the bushes and fences between her and Justin's position, joining him and Ted within a small barbershop facing the nearest entrance to the dealership.
"Ready?" Ted asked the two of them, to which they both nodded.
"Go," he said, speaking into his headset at the same time.
At the word, the three of them sprang to life, emerging from the ruined building like phantoms in the night. As soon as he had the shot, Justin dropped the sentry in the tower with a single suppressed shot. The heavily muffled report would still alert anyone nearby, but the city at large wouldn't know they were on the move.
Justin led the way in, with 16 and Ted following single file with a few paces between each of them. Quickly they crossed the street and passed through the front gate, fanning out on entering the compound with weapons trained on each possible avenue of attack.
The inner area was a mess of clutter, with shipping containers, cars, and makeshift housing forming a maze of tight, blind corners and murderholes. Yet, no attacks came as they passed through into the inner section.
On the far end, 16 could hear the dulled reports of Ivan's suppressed Aks tapping. Three separate bursts, each with a few seconds interval that implied he was engaged with multiple targets.
"Clear," she heard him report on comms shortly after the final one.
16's group pressed into the inner section, between the two large buildings, and waited with weapons scanning for their companions to meet up. After about a minute, and no more shots, the two men emerged from the Eastern building's entrance.
"All good?" Ted asked as they approached.
Ivan nodded, "Two more were in a container near the entrance. They are dead.:
Ted nodded, "Alright. Proceed as planned."
With that, Ted, Hunter and Ivan split off to sweep the Western building, the men moving a little faster now. If there were more occupants, they'd know they were here now.
"Well, just us," Justin said, smiling beneath his nods.
16 rolled her eyes, "Eyes on the prize please."
"They are."
"I will shoot you."
"Hehehe, threaten me with a good time," Justin smarmed, "Come on, this a way."
Together they wove through the center of the base, each clearing the half dozen shipping containers that formed an interlocking series of platforms and rooms. Within many she could see bedrolls, storage spaces, food and personal items which suggested that many more should live here than they'd found.
It wasn't too long until they came upon their goal. The stash was yet another container, seemingly identical to the rest save that it was still shut and marked with a small Terra Group logo. She noted a few cut marks in its skin near one end, matching those a circular saw made when encountering metal too stubborn for it to cut.
There was a signal receiver she could connect with from within, which she quickly broke into, and on doing so found a lock and key system. For a moment she hoped this would be the key to open the container, but on matching the needed electronic key a small, otherwise indiscernible panel on the container swung open.
It revealed a card reader, which much to her disappointment offered no easy means of ingress.
Her EW kit required a connection with the system to function. Often this could be done wirelessly, via RFID done through a touch of her hand, or a hard wire connection through the port on the back of her neck. Swipe based card readers were a problem simply because she was not equipped to interface with them, as her designer hadn't bothered preparing her to deal with a system so outdated.
Still, this wasn't the end of the world. 16 pulled out her knife and began to rip and tear at the card reader's housing.
"Uhh, what are you doing?" Justin asked her, looking over his shoulder at her as he watched her back.
"Mind your business," she grumbled back.
After slicing through the sealant at the edges of the reader, 16 gripped the small device and yanked it out of the container, trailing a mess of wires that sprouted from a small, black box within. Much to her relief, most of the connections to this box, which she believed to be the chip controlling the locks, were via USB.
16 unslung her bag and retrieved her makeshift charging cable and a small plastic box. Making sure Justin wasn't looking, she reached up to her neck and plugged in the cable, before opening the container and attaching a USB adapter to the other end. From there, she ripped out the last connection of the card reader to it's control box, and quickly replaced it with her own cable.
The firewall, like that on the Flashdrive, was probably state of the art for the time. She was in within a few microseconds.
Instantly she froze the system, realizing with a small amount of muted horror that a five second countdown had been started on ripping out the card reader's cables. To what end she didn't know, but she couldn't imagine it was a good thing to let finish.
Next she found the electronic locks in the system, disabled them, and then put the whole system into shut down. Once it was dead, she ripped the cable out of the box and her neck, stuffing it back into her bag.
In total, it took her about twenty seconds.
Just as she finished up, Justin and her snapped their heads towards the west building, their attention grabbed by a series of suppressed shots from within. Five rounds, then quiet.
A moment later the air was split by at least half a dozen much, much louder shots. A mix of pistol and rifle calibers.
Justina and her met eyes briefly, a quiet exchange of anxious looks.
"Clear." She heard Ted announce on comms.
"Everyone okay?" Justin asked.
"Ivan took a hit to the plate, but he's fine. We're heading down, is the stash open?"
"We're in," 16 announced.
"Copy. Good work."
16 nodded to Justin, indicating towards the container.
"Gimme a hand."
The man nodded, and together they gripped the now unlocked door to the container, pulling back the heavy metal to reveal its contents. Once done, Justin flashed an IR light into it.
Everything was boxed up neatly in Terra Group labeled wooden crates, so it wasn't anything too impressive, but what did catch her eye were a number of small, rectangular devices with blinking red LEDs in the corners of the container.
"Oh shit," she muttered.
"Explosives?" Justin exclaimed, "jesus…"
"I guess Terra Group really didn't want people messing with this stuff."
"Are they active?"
16 quickly scanned each of them visually. They were plastic explosives, set off by a pin detonator wired into the container itself.
It was tough to say. There were no wireless transmitters connected to them, and she did suspect that the countdown she'd stopped before and these bombs weren't unconnected. However, unless she traced the wires to their source there was no way to be certain. The interior of the container was reinforced with steel paneling, and the wiring ran behind them, so that wasn't an option.
"Maybe," she said, stepping into the container, "I'll handle this, just watch my back."
She moved up to the nearest charge, reaching up and yanking the pin from it. She repeated this with each of the other bombs, and then proceeded to check the rest of the container for any sign of any more. She stumbled over boxes and squeezed through the narrow passages between a few, checking each corner and every other nook she could think of
"Okay, should be good!" She called once she was satisfied the charges were all disarmed, "lets see what we got."
NOTES:
Wow this one got Looooooooong. This was originally going to just be one chapter, but this lil storyline is now going to be split over two, and even then I was tempted to include even more. We'll get to see the rest of this loot run next time, and probably a few appearances from some Tarkov favorites too. Shout out Nano on the discord for the Metro idea, as you can probably tell lotsa of that game's DNA floating around here. Certainly one of my favorite games of all time, tho my search history is now a bit sus from researching Sarin. Shits spooky yall.
Story wise we're about halfway done here, if not a little more. I'm trying not to let this project get too out of hand, but I do want to tell a full story with it.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy, and I'll see ya next time :)