Chapter VIII: Wandering the Wasteland

 Diary of Lance Corporal Dimka Torodov, day 9

I woke up inside a Duty medbay. Aspirin came to check in on me not soon after, and De Luca was with him. They explained that the wounds inflicted on me by Skull had been severe, but not mortally so. De Luca had gone to look for me, painfully slowly because of his own wounds, and managed to drag me to the Duty outpost with difficulty so that they in turn could drag me to Aspirin.

• You really went in there to save me?, I asked De Luca, surprised.

• You're my subo... comrade here too, I look after those. Besides, you saved my ass once, I save yours now, that way I won't have to be in debt to your sorry ass, De Luca said sternly.

• I see. Well, Doc, how long till I can get out of this bunk? My ass is itching like crazy, you sure there's no fleas here?

• Fleas or not, you're not leaving until tomorrow. Skull got you pretty bad, although you did do his entire squad in. Voronin is pretty impressed even, although don't expect him to tell you that, Aspirin explained.

• Cheers Doc, and De Luca too, guess we're even now, I muttered, and my taciturn UNISG nodded.

Rest of the day was a blur. I was under heavy influence from meds. Aspirin had given me some box to hold nearby, claiming it to heal me through the power of an artefact. The medic officer laughed as I made a puzzled face, but grew serious when he understood that I genuinely had no idea what it was. He opened the box, revealing an orb that glowed in colours far too bright to come from a natural source. It looked like a sea urchin of sorts, floating above ground. Aspirin closed the box, explaining that while stored in the module it would not cause radiation, but outside it, it would cause radiation sickness and even death quickly.

• Where do these come from? And how, if it is so deadly, can it heal me?, I asked.

• Man, you're really green, aren't you? Why did you even come to the Zone if you don't know what an artefact is?, Aspirin asked in return, bit suspiciously.

• Uh, I always wanted to be like those American cowboys, running ahead of the frontier. When I heard that the Zone was the new frontier of the world, I just had to come here to experience it myself, I answered, somewhat truthfully actually.

• I see. Typical loner. Well, anyway, artefacts are created in the anomalies. Some say they can be generated by biomatter transforming inside them, some say they are generated from the energy released and absorbed by anomalies during psi-storms and emissions. Either way, if you wish to learn more I'd recommend asking the eggheads, I'm a medic, not a scientist, Aspirin finally explained, scoffing at the word loner.

• Thank you. And these things, they're valuable?

• Why do you think most of the outcasts and military aged rejects are out here digging hillsides and wandering in areas that most likely will make them sterile or worse? Their prices are sky high outside the Zone, but even inside this place the ecologists pay well for them. Still, of course they should all be used for research, but man is a slave to greed, the medic finished, sighing.

• I see. Thank you for the in-depth explanation. I think I'll take a nap now. Wake me up when I can leave, I said, falling back into medically-infused slumber.

The next day I woke up and got myself geared up after feeling much better. I would get all sorts of hell from Hernandez for losing this many days while wounded or helping random stalkers, but I did not care too much. What was he going to do, call an UN helicopter to pick me up so I can be prosecuted in military court? This place could not be understood by traditional intel, we needed to learn from the locals. De Luca disagreed, he was of the opinion that the locals were nothing more than illegals, looking to abuse the area, probably from all sorts of scum of the society. I couldn't be bothered to argue with him.

While I gathered my strength, I and De Luca did some really easy jobs for Barkeep. Hunting wild dogs outside of Rostok, delivering a few packages to Butcher, helping Duty find one of their lost soldiers at Garbage. The guy was dead already, but I took his PDA and pistol. Duty was beginning to trust me. De Luca berated me a lot for it, but soon shut up as we managed to buy some better gear and grub for our empty bellies. De Luca even got himself a LC suit painted in loner colours and a respirator, still keeping his frankly wholly inadequate beanie. I kept my Voyager suit, but the incident with Skull had left a sour taste in my mouth and I did not want to rely on its "armour" for protection. De Luca and I now had a grudging respect for each other, we still treated each other like shit but it was no longer toxically hostile. During our hike back to Rostok, I decided to adress an issue that had bothered me however.

• So De Luca, now that you're blending in a lot better, I recommend you take a nickname that conceals your identity better. De Luca isn't one of the top ten most common Ukrainian surnames, as far as I know. Where are you from, anyway?

• Spain, from Sevilla. If you even know where that is. But yes, I think I should get a new name while working under cover. My given name is Sebastiano, so something related to that but more Slavic?

• Sevka? I know a lot of guys who have that as a nickname here.

• It'll do for now. But Torodov, we really need to get moving. Dead City is waiting, and unless we get that data to the Major, we'll soon be outplayed by the SSU, "Sevka" replied, tinge of concern in his usually monotone voice.

• I agree. I've been making a route on my PDA, and it seems like the best route is through the Army Warehouses.

We agreed on that route, and soon arrived to Rostok, passing the gate guards and Captain Gavrilenko, who asked if I wanted to exterminate some more bandits. I declined the offer. We sold what little loot we had gathered in Garbage, which was a meager amount as the area had been mostly empty. Spent some of our remaining cash on supplies and ammunition, and I paid a small fee to Aspirin for taking so good care of me while I was incapacitated, the man did not ask for much. Definitely raised the profile of Dutyers in my books. Sevka and I left for Army Warehouses as the sun was beginning to set, it would be far easier to slip into Dead City in the dark. I hoped that no new horrors would have made their home into the village I had met the monster earlier, but well, you can never be sure of such things here.

We took things slow once inside Army Warehouses. Scavenged some ad hoc outposts on top of the hills, avoided anomalies, searched a few potential stash locations. It all got us a few rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition in terrible condition, few stale pieces of bread and dried-out, black meat and a few notebooks with markings of a strange, bulbous-headed mutant. Next to it was written "I saw it in my dreams. It haunts me wherever I go. I don't know why, but it seems to draw me to the hills. If you see this, please make sure I am throughly dead. I don't want to join the walking corpses". I showed it to Sevka, who shuddered.

• I understand why those Duty guys want to see this place burn a little better now, De Luca muttered.

• You and me both pal. Still, there is something special about this place, I answered, gazing at the horizon.

• I agree. Which is why it needs to be brought under strict UN control. These outlaws are not the best people to have poking at it.

• I guess. But isn't it kinda weird how the organization of this mission is built as? We didn't know that we were part of the same mission until I saw your UNISG uniform. This organization could be real easy to infiltrate.

• That's for the big bosses to figure out. Let's just carry out the mission we were given.

I nodded and we descended into the village. Earlier I had been so traumatized by the octopus-monster attack that I had not searched the village as meticulously. Now with another pair of eyes keeping my back covered, we checked every nook and cranny, capturing armour plates, fabrics, weapon parts, goods and even some cash. It was not worth much, but it told the tales of many battles and skirmishes that had taken place in this abandoned ghost town. There were even corpses of former combatants littered here and there as gruesome reminders of the deadliness of this place. I checked their pockets, they couldn't use their things any longer, but none of them had more than a bolt or some loose coins to their name.

Sevka looked at me going through their pockets with disgust, but I simply shrugged. You make do with what you can here, there are no rules or morals to this place. At least so I felt. This did not mean that I would kill everyone in cold blood, but it did mean that I wasn't going to leave behind a decent gun or some coins due to some moral feeling of doubt. We didn't talk about it, simply kept going. There was a rotting old shed further down the road, and a fire, if you could call it that. Somebody had lit a plank on fire and it burned slowly, illuminating its surroundings in the enroaching dusk. Near an old ZAZ car, a sight I recognized from my childhood in Bulgaria, there was a big construction block with dirt inside it. I could see an electric anomaly pulsate on it, but something glimmered on top of the block and I just had to see what it was.

I closed in, marking the boundaries of the anomaly with bolts. De Luca watched me intently, seeing me throw bolt after bolt, some triggering the energy surge, some harmlessly bouncing off the grass. His squadleader had clearly not known of this trick, as the corporal shook visibly the first time I triggered the anomaly. After around five minutes of cautious steps and bolt tossing, I got to the edge of the crate. I looked on top of it. There, the source of the shining presented itself. A backpack, worn by the weather and damp from the recently melted snow. One of its strips had a piece of metal that had reflected the light of the campfire. I opened it, and inside I found a suit in the blue and grey colours of mercenaries. It had a visor helmet, similar to the ones I had seen Duty and some loners wear, and while it was in rough condition, it could be of use later.

I showed it to Sevka, who was more interested in how I had avoided getting fried by the anomaly. I explained the basics to him, then turned back to the suit. A magnificent creation it was, clearly built for long excursions into the Zone. I was no expert in the crafting of suits, as evident by my rather poor choice of the Voyager suit, but even I could tell that this thing was worth keeping. I rolled it up again, and placed it into my backpack. Perhaps the mercs could fix it up. Sevka meanwhile had checked the cottage nearby, and came out with a underfolder TOZ shotgun. He wasn't too impressed with it, but did fold it and place it onto his belt. Perhaps it could save his arse one day, he explained. I gave him some of my 20-gauge ammunition for it.

We soon arrived to the nearby outpost, which according to my navigational skills and the PDA map was supposed to be the one leading to Dead City. A squad of mercenaries halted us, saying that even though loners and mercs had formed an alliance, we were not allowed into the city without recommendation from the Syndicate. I told them the secret password and showed our UNISG patches, and the mercenary commander nodded and let us in. Curiously, there was one female mercenary among them, and only then did I realize that she was the first of her sex to be present here. With the mercenary permission, we entered a pipeline leading to their secret base, for me the first time since Garbage to be known by my real identity. It had taken me more than a week to get here, but now the mission could truly begin. But I was no longer sure if it was the right thing to do.