S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort s-1

by Balazs Pataki

  “If so, maybe one day they’ll evolve into human beings.”

  “I hope you can keep your philosophical attitude when the jackals bite off your hands first to prevent you from shooting them, or a bloodsucker sneaks up behind you instead of running up with a roar that can be heard from afar.”

  “Gospodi. Are they learning?”

  “Maybe, but at least they don’t use weapons… yet.”

  Tarasov can’t explain why, but Degtyarev’s last words sound strangely sinister to him. Knowing how secretive the agent can be, he doesn’t bother to ask Degtyarev.

  “Now, about anomalies: their presence is confirmed. Artifacts as well. We are still evaluating the scientists’ early reports. I’m uploading now the most important info to your PDA. You will have ample time to study the rest during your flight to Termez.”

  “I hope it will be you coordinating this mission, Alex?”

  “I’ll be in contact as Kilo One until you reach Afghan airspace.” Degtyarev clears his throat. “From then, Colonel Kuznetsov will take over tactical coordination.”

  “Oh no! That bastard Khaletskiy’s drinking buddy? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Tarasov’s voice trembles with sudden anger. “When I took over this base after Operation Fairway, it was a complete mess. Kuznetsov and Khaletskiy degraded our base into a pig sty!”

  “I hear you but—”

  “Listen Alex, I swallowed my pride when I saw them buying a career with artifacts looted from dead Stalkers. But being led by such an asshole in an unknown and hostile territory… Call sign Whiskey, eh? Why not Bravo for bastard?”

  Degtyarev bites his lips. “Once on the ground, you’ll be practically free to do as you see fit. Just say ‘yes, sir’ a lot.”

  “Please, don’t tell me Khaletskiy is involved in this too. If so, I’ll go and join the Stalkers right away.”

  “Last time I met him was a year ago. I don’t know where he is, actually. Maybe they made him a military attaché in Mongolia or something like that,” Degtyarev shrugs. “I couldn’t care less about him.”

  “The farther away he is the better.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  “About the Stalkers… what are our rules of engagement?”

  “For the time being, you are not to engage anyone you encounter. If possible, bypass them. Smile, make friends and gather information if you can. That’s what you’ve got the money for. But you have explicit permission to return fire if attacked. Anything else you want to know?”

  “I’ll go through the details and contact you if necessary.”

  “Good. Let’s finish that vodka. Na zdarovye… za udachi!”

  “Like I give a damn about your luck,” Tarasov replies, sending the last shot down his throat.

  Degtyarev raises his glass, laughing. Their habitual toast upon departure, always seeming rude to others, evokes the memory of raids long ago.

  “I almost forgot to give you Strelok’s regards.”

  “Does he know his old hideout has become a tourist attraction?”

  “I’m not sure if that old wolf would approve of that,” Degtyarev says while he stands up and closes his laptop. “All right then. Clean yourself up and get your gear. You’ll have the night for leave, so the sooner we get back to Kiev the better for you.”

  “Wait a minute, Alex… you didn’t even tell me when the mission starts.”

  Degtyarev gives him an impish grin. “I thought that was obvious. Now!”

  Non-encrypted voice transmission between Central Afghanistan and Kiev, 19 September 2014, 17:52:01 Afghanistan Time/AFT

  #Kilo One, this is Renegade calling. Do you copy?#

  #[static]#

  #Kilo One, this is Renegade calling. Do you copy?#

  #Kilo One to Renegade, we copy you loud and clear. Proceed with transmission, over.#

  #Renegade to Kilo One. I have approached their base as close as I could. The listening device is in position. The source is in range. Stand by for voice transmission.#

  #Kilo One to Renegade. Standing by.#

  #[static]#

  #Sir, I have just debriefed Lieutenant Bauer. #

  #I hope she made it back safely. That area is crawling with mutants. I would have crushed Bauer’s skull with my own hands if he allowed her to be harmed. He was supposed to protect her with his life. No swag is worth such a risk, no matter what she needs them for. #

  #She is fine, sir. I wouldn’t worry about her. #

  #You don’t need to sing her praises. We all know what she is capable of.#

  # It’s us that I’m worried about, sir. Bauer’s scouts report that the diggers have made more progress.#

  #You have been with me there… in the depths. You, my most senior warrior, should know that the intruders will never get deep enough. Not even with the help of their new friends.#

  #The danger is… #

  # Acceptable.#

  # Do you want us to remain inactive? The men are eager to strike.#

  # Let the idiots clean up the mess they’ve made. We will remain inactive.#

  # Inactive, sir? That’s hardly worthy of us.#

  #It’s not just inactivity… it’s masterly inactivity. Let them dig and let them fail…or do you doubt the power of the Spirit?#

  #With all due respect, sir: hell no!#

  #Let her come to me now. The horror… the pain… it will never end. I need her help, Top.#

  #[static]#

  #Kilo One to Renegade, we have too much noise, adjust transmission.#

  #Renegade to Kilo One. Relocating.#

  #Kilo One to Renegade. Continue transmission.#

  #No way, Kilo One. I’m lucky if I can make it out of here alive.#

  #Renegade, you have been paid for taking this risk.#

  #Not enough, Kilo One. Commencing exfil and moving to grid Sierra Papa. Shit! I see them coming. How could they have spotted me?#

  #Report back when you’ve reached a safe spot.#

  #I’m getting the hell out of here. Don’t know who you’ll send in as bait but he better be good. Renegade out.#

  #[static]#

  A Shellful of Memories

  Kiev, Rusanovka quarter, 18:02:31 EEST

  The old apartment blocks look depressingly gray in the heavy rain. A Lada Niva with the SBU crest on its doors drives along Davidova Street, its windscreen wipers fighting a losing battle with the thick raindrops. It stops in front of an apartment block. Tarasov, wearing a water-proof raincoat over his leave uniform and carrying a suitcase, gets out. He waves to the SBU driver and hurries towards the entrance where a lonely boy plays with a ball. The ball shoots out into the rain after an ill-directed kick. Tarasov skillfully kicks it back to him.

  “Thank you, officer,” the boy says catching the ball and curiously studying the medal ribbons on Tarasov’s uniform. “Do you fire real weapons in the army?”

  “We do.”

  “And did you ever kill someone?”

  “No.”

  “I guessed so,” the boy laughs. “My parents keep telling me that our army is no good.”

  He starts kicking his ball against the wall again. Tarasov hides his bitter smile and leaves the boy to his game. Stepping inside, he doesn’t mind the smell of garbage and pesticides. It was like that even back in his childhood. Just like the elevator, still operational after five decades without any apparent maintenance. A short, silver-haired woman opens the door, plumped up by age, with only her deep blue eyes telling of her former beauty.

  “Misha! What a surprise,” she cries out as she embraces Tarasov. He returns her hug.

  “Good to see you, mother.”

  “Please tell me you are on leave, sinok,” his mother says helping him out of his raincoat. “It’s been ages since I saw you last, my son.”

  “Five months and three weeks, to be exact.”

  “Yes. Are you well?”

  “I’m… normalno.”

  Throughout the trip from the air base, Tarasov had been trying to find the prope
r words to greet her with. His feelings were mixed: the grief and exhaustion of the last mission, the happiness and relief of being home again, the concern and anxiety about his new task — it is too much for him to put into a few words. Eventually, he says exactly what is on his mind.

  “Is there beer in the fridge?”

  His mother rushes into the kitchen. “I wasn’t expecting you. Why didn’t you call? I don’t have any decent food for you and you must be ravenous. Such a shame on me!” Tarasov takes off his shoes and makes himself comfortable in a chair in the living room. Only now does he start to realize that he is actually home. His mother arrives with a glass and a bottle of Obolon beer. “I still have a few galushki from yesterday… do you want some? Of course you do…”

  “Uh-hum,” replies Tarasov gulping the chilled, bitter drink. The rather ordinary Obolon tastes so good it’s as if he had never had beer before.

  “I see you were thirsty.” His mother looks down at him, radiating happiness. “Tell me, how are things in Zhitomir?”

  “Boring,” Tarasov replies, wiping the excess foam from his lips.

  “But what have you been doing there all the time?”

  “I told you many times before, mother. We’re a logistics division, repairing trucks.”

  “Couldn’t you at least come home more often? You are an officer after all.”

  “That’s why I can’t… you know how it goes. While the cat’s away, the mice will play.” Tarasov admits to himself that what he just said does actually fit his situation in the Zone.

  His mother turns to the TV. “I heard Baskov and Fedorova are getting married,” she says.

  “I don’t really care about celebrities, mother.”

  “But I do love their songs. By the way… will you meet Tanya while you are home?”

  “No. She wrote me one of those letters a few weeks ago.”

  “What letters?”

  “You know, mother,” Tarasov explains patiently, “a letter beginning with ‘my dearest’ and ending with ‘I hope we can still be friends’.”

  “Is that so?” His mother sounds disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear that. I took her for such a decent woman.”

  “Maybe she got impatient.”

  “My mother waited four years for your grandfather. I don’t understand…”

  “Girls are different nowadays. Tanya wrote she joined a dating site on the internet. Just for fun, of course. Then she hooked up with a dentist from London and fell in love with him. How romantic! Can I have another beer?”

  “Such a negodnitsa… I’m sure you will find another one.”

  “Why, you don’t keep them in the fridge?”

  “I meant another girl. You are still young, and have a safe job in the army,” his mother says as she follows him into the kitchen. “They do keep you safe, don’t they?”

  “Oh yes,” Tarasov reassuringly says and opens the fridge. “The only danger is of being bored to death.”

  “Mishka, my son…”

  “Where’s the bottle opener?”

  “On the table.” She eagerly gets it for him. “You know, when Fedorova and Baskov were on TV last night, I prayed for your happiness…”

  Tarasov cuts into her words. “Mother, I’m home for a single night and I have to leave early in the morning. Could you do me a favor and switch off that damned TV?”

  “The army is a bad influence on you… you were such a sweet boy before.” Shaking her head, his mother goes back to the living room and picks up the remote. “You never used to use such profanities.”

  Tarasov cannot resist laughing, but suddenly feels compassion for his mother living alone in a sea of concrete buildings, having only television and the neighbor’s gossip for company and above all else believing that her only son tends to trucks in a dull garrison.

  “Mother,” he says as softly as he can, “please, could I have some coffee?”

  “But of course, why…”

  Tarasov walks back to the living room and finishes his second beer. With the TV switched off, he can hear the rain rapping on the window. He steps to the big cupboard where his mother’s memories are neatly lined up in a china cabinet: cheap souvenirs from trade union holidays in the Crimea, faded postcards and other trinkets from the long-gone Soviet world that formed the backdrop to his parents’ lives.

  The exhilarating smell of freshly boiled coffee comes from the kitchen. Tarasov takes one of his mother’s cigarettes that lie on the table and lights it up. The smoke twists and curls on the window glass. Outside, beyond the grey curtain of rain and the canal, lies a park that stretches into the distance.

  This is how it must have been before.

  With Pripyat in his mind he feels the Zone creeping back into him. He wishes he could be back there now; he wishes Degtyarev hadn’t come today.

  “I love the bracelet you gave me for last Christmas,” he hears his mother saying from the kitchen. “The elevator was out of order last week and I had to climb the stairs, but imagine, my old joints didn’t hurt at all… That amulet seems to really work. Did you really get it from a UN observer from India?”

  A smile comes to Tarasov’s face. The bracelet has a piece from a Soul artifact inside.

  “I only wish it was a bit lighter, sinok… lead is not very elegant.”

  Too bad, mother. The thing emits radiation.

  “You better not tamper with it,” he shouts back. “It will lose its healing power if you remove it from the lead bracelet.”

  China jangles as his mother arrives from the kitchen, bringing with her the smell of freshly boiled coffee.

  “I didn’t make your coffee too strong,” she says. “If you need to leave early tomorrow, you better have a good night’s sleep. I switched on the heater in the bathroom. You’ll have hot water in twenty minutes. The galushki will be ready by then.”

  “Thank you. I love your galushki, you know.”

  His mother sits down with a satisfied sigh and stirs the sugar in her coffee. “Why do you have to leave so early?”

  Returning her glance, Tarasov feels sadness and regret over the lies he has to tell her. But for once, he can tell the truth.

  “I have some unfinished business down there… in the south.”

  Then he switches on the TV so as to direct his mother’s attention to a Brazilian soap opera with Russian voice-over, before she can ask more questions that could only lead to him telling more lies. He joins her on the sofa and stares at the screen, sipping the hot coffee and trying to switch off his exhausted mind.

  Alejandro, eu não quero mais viver assim!

  Alekhandro, ja bolshe ne mogu tak zhit.

  Too many melodramatic exclamations sound from the TV. They are made even worse by the male speaker emotionlessly dubbing the actress’ theatrical sighs. Frustrated, Tarasov gets up, takes his suitcase and walks into his room, closing the door.

  He steps to the shelves, moving his fingers along the rows of books with a movement that is almost a caress. It occurs to him to take a book for the long flight but a half-empty bottle of vodka draws his attention. It still stands on the table, just as he left it when he was here almost half a year ago. He opens it and takes a swig. Tarasov looks around in the cramped room holding the memories of a life he has almost forgotten by now. In the corner a guitar stands, which he never learned how to play. He moves his fingers across the transparent plastic boxes holding his compact discs. To his surprise, they are not dusty — his mother must keep the room neat and clean, maybe waiting for the day when he comes back for good. Aside the big pile of old, yellowed issues of Guns Magazine, an outdated desktop computer stands on the table. Next to it, another plastic box holds more compact disks.

  Dammit, he thinks, I wouldn’t mind playing Doom for old times’ sake, if I wasn’t so tired. Or Baldur’s Gate…Degtyarev doesn’t know but that’s how I learned English — translating all those endless conversations with a dictionary. And Guns Magazine.

  A cartridge casing lies besides the keyboa
rd. Tarasov takes and studies it with a sad smile. It is all that remains of the first live cartridge he ever fired.

  It’s been a long way, old friend.

  Holding the olive-green shell in his hand, the boy’s words come to his mind. What he said about the army was exactly what he had felt when arriving at the Zone, three years ago, as a lieutenant. When he reported for duty, he had been hoping for an exciting and dangerous assignment. Khaletskiy, then still a major, ordered him to gather twenty bottles of vodka instead. When he’d set out to follow this order, bitching and grumbling under his breath, he still hadn’t known that it would take him a week and a trip all the way to the abandoned industrial site of Rostok, fighting off mutants and hostile Stalkers all the way, before eventually sneaking into the Stalker base disguised as a Stalker himself, wearing the light suit taken from a rookie’s corpse after the idiot was crazy enough to open fire on him. He had developed a liking for clandestine missions — there were enough corpses bearing a faction’s characteristic armor, from hand-made Stalker suits to Freedom’s more sophisticated body armor and the old OMON tactical suits worn by mercenaries. It was not the thrill of sneaking he liked but the relief of moving around freely, without unnecessary kills. He realized soon enough that the worst enemy was not the humans who tried to survive in the Zone, but the creatures who had once been human but hadn’t survived as such: zombified civilians, Stalkers and soldiers turned into mindless killing machines by the Brain Scorcher; controllers, like the one who made the weakest-minded member of his squad kill the lieutenant; burers — ugly, fat dwarves, creating anti-gravity fields that repelled bullets; snorks — jumping at their prey like predatory frogs and tearing them to pieces. Animal-like mutants, even if dreadful at first sight, were at least predictable.

  Luckily for him, he was away on another intelligence-gathering mission when die-hard Stalkers captured Major Khaletskiy and the Spetsnaz raid to free him turned into a disaster. Khaletskiy eventually escaped and Tarasov’s next mission was to eliminate the Stalker leader responsible for the military’s bloody nose. The assassination brought him a promotion — and the first doubts about who his real enemy was. What he already knew by then about Major Khaletskiy’s shady dealings, achieved through the blood of soldiers and Stalkers alike, caused the first cracks to appear in his hitherto unshakeable sense of duty.