“Not bad. Start smoking and soon you can pronounce the most important word like we Ukrainians do. Khui. From your throat. By the way, how do you say it in Spanish?”
“Pija, and something inside me says you’re a pijudo. Anyway, I eventually made my way to the Wish Granter and asked it, ‘unsex me now’…”
“Good God.”
“…and what did it do to me? I saw a bright flash and after a second my G36 and Stalker suit were gone and I was standing there in this exoskeleton with an FN2000 on my shoulder, and later I realized that all my hair was gone!”
“It’s growing back, don’t worry.”
“I’m not talking about a bad hair day, you moron. Imagine — I couldn’t take off that damned exo! I was imprisoned into it! I made my way back to Yar because he was the closest mechanic to the CNPP. It took him two days to get the suit off me without totally destroying it, because it’s a pretty good suit after all. Then I stayed with him because I kinda liked him… he got me out of that suit and of course saw what I couldn’t hide, but he was cool enough to keep it to himself. Now don’t give me such a jealous look — Yar could be my father! He actually tried to act like one… kind of.”
“He is quite fond of you indeed. So, when Yar moved his business to this new Zone you went with him, but left him nonetheless when you got bored.”
“That’s correct. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I am — I can’t stay put in the same place for too long. It’s got me into a lot of trouble. Yar is cool, but listening to his monologues about optical image enhancements and titanium rod replacements and soft trigger mechanisms all day long… it’s hardly exciting after a while.”
“I’d disagree. But anyway, why did you pick such an English-sounding name if you’re from Argentina?”
“If you’d ever read something apart from weapon manuals, you’d get it by yourself. My real name is Elisabeth. Well, almost. I always wanted to go through a sort of Lady Macbeth transformation — getting rid of my weakness, or better: of my quality to be interpreted by others as weak and soft, something to be patronized, just because… Anyway, Beth — Mac — Macbeth. Ti ponish?”
“Yes, I understand. Let’s hope Ilchenko doesn’t find out about this.”
“How would he?” Mac shrugs. “He’s an idiot.”
“He studied literature before he… never mind, my point is that he’s smarter than he seems.”
“If that’s what Ilchenko is like when he’s awake, I’d hate to be in his dreams.”
“That’s just the way he is. I don’t want you to walk hand in hand and pluck flowers on the way back to Bagram… there aren’t too many flowers here anyway… but—”
“Forget it. I want to go to the Panjir Valley and check out that Stalker paradise.”
“Why do you make my life so difficult?” Tarasov sighs. “I asked you nicely. Let’s do it the hard way then… Probably your sophisticated female perception has already made you realize that those Stalkers, and of course Ilchenko, are not much short of killing for pussy. It could be their first fuck in months and the last of their lives, so they would probably jump at the opportunity. All I’d need to do is to tell them what you are.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Aghast, Mac steps away from Tarasov.
“Yes I would. All the more because there’s a thing like chain of command, if you follow my meaning… and I haven’t been laid for a long time.”
“You really are a jerk, you know that?”
“Hey, what happened to ‘cool enough guy’? Sorry to disappoint you. And I don’t know about Snorkbait, but he’s probably more smart than to take on four horny men, all armed to the teeth, to protect an arrogant bitch like you!” Amused by the fear and anger dancing in Mac’s eyes, Tarasov gives her a grin as he continues. “Your only hope is that Squirrel will be too stoned to join the show. But then, I don’t know… three men, four men, does it make any difference?”
“Shit!”
“We’re all deep in it. So, will you come and see Yar or not?”
For a minute, Mac bites her lower lip. Then she slowly sighs before responding. “The deal with Yar was just to take me back to Bagram, not about making me stay there. Is that correct?”
Tarasov nods. Mac sighs again, this time in submission. “Okay, you win. I’ll pay Yar a visit — but only if you promise me to never, never ever tell anyone about my secret.”
“We have a deal.”
Mac mumbles something in Spanish that sounds like a very obscene curse.
“You are free to bitch at me if you want,” Tarasov says with a shrug, “but I appreciate that you don’t make my life any harder, Beth.”
For a minute, she examines her dirty fingernails, then fixes Tarasov with a piercing stare. “I lied to you… actually, I liked your compliments. It’s been a while since anyone called me beautiful… I guess you did read my diary.”
“Parts of it.”
“Can’t blame you — I’d do the same. That’s why I kept writing about a few things in my language. Not much… but important things. I had a lover back in the old Zone. His name was Strelok.”
Now it’s Tarasov who almost recoils with surprise.
“The Marked One? The mysterious ‘S.’ — it was him?”
“Yeah. It was love…. tough love. He loved me through hurting me. On the outside, he was guiding me. Educating even. But he lost his wits to the Zone… the Old Zone. He took pleasure in my pain, and I took the same pleasure in being hurt by him because, for me, he was the Zone. How I am now is his work. Did you ever meet Strelok?”
“Never,” Tarasov says, avoiding her sad gaze.
“Then you do not understand what it means to find another human being who resembles everything about what the Zone means — a new reason for staying alive. For me, it was love. Finding such a love and losing it is worse than your heart being ripped out by a mutant’s claws. I do hope, Major, that one day you will find such love, so that you understand what I was talking about.”
“I do understand what you mean. Now we better take a few logs from this hut to feed the fire, otherwise the others might think we’ve got lost.”
She ushers a long, tired sigh. “No, you don’t understand… one needs to hack your alpha male ego down to size, but I’m not up to that. All right… let’s get back to testosterone wrapped up in niceties. If I’m a woman and you’re a man, that means you carry the wood. Let’s get moving.”
06:17:58 AFT
At sunrise, Tarasov watches the two Stalkers and Ilchenko walking ahead towards Bagram. Mac has the Captain’s staff over her shoulder, occasionally swinging off towards Billy who tries to grab it with its teeth. Snorkbait and Ilchenko walk at her side, their weapons cradled. All three seem to be in a good mood and Tarasov cannot shake off a niggling feeling of jealousy.
“From Cordon to the Wish Granter, from the Old Zone to the New, from Bagram to that place that’s supposed to be a Stalker’s paradise… Will some people never stop chasing dreams?” he asks Squirrel, pensively.
“See… to me, that’s what being a Stalker is all about. Why, you don’t have any dreams left to dream?”
“My dream is to find a place which I would never want to leave again.”
“Now look at that! Who would have thought that you have a free Stalker’s heart beating under that dirty armored suit… Will we also go to the Panjir Valley, then?”
Squirrel’s question hauls the major back to reality. He shakes his head. “Maybe another time… Let’s get back to Bagram for supplies. Then we go to Ghorband.”
“Cool, man,” Squirrel says. “You gonna make me rich. This trip already cost you a fortune, you know that?”
Encrypted digital VOP transmission. Central Afghanistan, 29 September 2014, 08:44:13 AFT
#We did not get the shipment. The transport was ambushed.#
#What the hell are you talking about?#
#Your little games are annoying. You were supposed to maintain order in your area.#
&nb
sp; #I’m so sorry about this. I could almost cry. Boo-hoo! And now listen to me you bastards. It’s not my fucking problem if your incompetent monkeys got whacked. I delivered your stuff. The rest was up to you.#
#Negative… #
#Negative, positive, negative…could you speak like a human being instead of a robot for once?#
#Negative. We learned that you failed to get rid of the outsider. We are through with you. You have been warned.#
#Don’t think you can scare me, you slit-eyed little monkey.#
#[static noise]#
Seek and Destroy
Wilderness, 1 October 2014, 18:10:14 AFT
The New Zone does have her beauty, the major thinks as he scans the landscape through the state of the art scope on his newly-upgraded Vintorez rifle.
Evening is approaching and Tarasov is standing on the top of a hill overlooking the road in the meandering valley. Not far from him, Squirrel is trying to lure a decent chord from his harmonica, without much success.
Since leaving Bagram an hour before daylight, they had been advancing cautiously, sneaking from point to point, scanning the towering mountains for enemies and keeping an eye over the gloomy forest in the valley beneath the snowy peaks.
Abandoned villages and war debris offered more than enough cover, and they have passed many Soviet wrecks: tanks with their turrets blown off, BTRs with ripped open hulls… A defaced, bullet-riddled memorial that might once have marked the location of a successful break-through or the death of a high-ranking officer that had served as a rest stop while they had eaten their ration-pack lunch.
In the afternoon, he had observed a pack of jackals as they finishing off a deer. Saving the defenseless mutant had been a good opportunity for Tarasov to test the abilities of his upgraded weapon, and he’d managed to shoot the pack leader from a safe distance without the mutant even realizing what had hit it. It had been hard not to laugh as the death of their alpha sent the rest of the pack into a leaderless sprawl and Tarasov had been more than satisfied with the smooth handling and accuracy of his silenced rifle, though he hoped that he would never get into a situation requiring the use of his other reward — a shiny black Glock-18 pistol with automatic fire mode and extended magazine. He’d had enough of underground tunnels and close-quarter fighting, at least for a while.
Caves, appearing as dark dots among the rocks, had tempted them to seek refuge and rest, but they had toiled up the road to this hill, and now the valley stretched out beneath his feet. The sun, slowly sinking behind the peaks, paints the white ridges a fiery red and sends the valley into gloomy oblivion for the night.
Turning westwards, a tiny orange point appears in the scope. A drop of rain blurs his view and Tarasov wipes it off. As he walks down the hill and waves to Squirrel to follow him, the rain begins to cascade down, covering up the magnificent sunset with a curtain of grey clouds.
Deep in the valley to the west, a campfire shimmers.
Ghorband, Stalker base, 19:51:08 AFT
“Stoi! Lower your weapons!”
Signaling his peaceful intentions, Tarasov halts his steps. He shoulders his rifle and waves to the heavily armed Stalker guarding a road block. Beyond the low wall of sand bags, a fire blazes in what was once a tank’s engine compartment. The flames cast a flickering light onto the massive, strike-marked mud walls nearby. Raindrops sizzle as they meet the flames. Another Stalker is watching them from the hatch of the wreck, his long-barreled shotgun ready to fire.
“We seek no trouble,” the major says.
“What’s your business here?”
“Whatever it is, it’s not about standing here in the rain with two would-be Rambos pointing their shooters at us,” Squirrel impatiently says. ”Come on, Dima, I’ve tamed this soldier boy. We’re passing through and seek shelter for the night.”
“Squirrel! I didn’t recognize you. Get into the compound, brothers!”
Passing the wrecked, trackless tank, they arrive at the gate of a building surrounded by a high wall. More Stalkers guard the entrance.
“Come in! Don’t stand there,” one of them says, gesturing to him. A sign on the gate says ’NO WEAPONS BEYOND THIS POINT’ in English, apparently ignored by everyone.
There is a campfire inside, lit up in a fuel drum riddled with bullet-holes, that casts a dim light into the compound. Another wrecked vehicle that Tarasov recognizes as a US-made personnel carrier sits close by. A few Stalkers are sitting under what had been a veranda once upon a time, trying to find cover from the rain pouring through the holes like bullets from a machine gun. From the wilderness outside, jackals’ howls pierce the drumming sound of rain and Tarasov thinks that nothing in the world would tempt him to swap position with the guards walking along the walls. He notices that apart from the Stalkers hiding under the veranda, who look like rookies, most men wear better armor and heavier weapons than those in Bagram.
“Get me out of this hellhole,” a rookie Stalker groans. “I swear to God, I am done with artifacts and stashes and loot. I only want to get out of here!”
“Hey bro,” another one says, reaching out to Squirrel. “I’ll give you my shotgun and two medikits if you guide me back to Bagram!”
“Pull yourself together, man,” the guide snarls back, shaking the Stalker’s hand off.
“I can’t… not since I saw them taking Danylo away. I told him not to wear that damned dushman armor but he said it’s still better than a leather jacket… since then they must have ripped him to pieces!”
“What are you talking about?” Tarasov asks.
“The Tribe… they are close. I heard the bell and ran. I want to get out of here… If only someone could help me!”
“You heard the — what?”
“The bell of the Tribe! Those cannibals must have been out on a man hunt!”
Inside the building a few petroleum lights fight the shadows. Someone has improvised a table from a simple wooden board laid on two fuel drums. The Stalker standing at it, nursing a half-empty bottle of vodka, looks familiar.
“Skinner?” Tarasov asks, stepping closer. “Is that you?”
“Yep,” the renegade Dutier reluctantly replies.
“I’m glad you made it through here. How are you doing?”
“Spare me the bullshit, Major. A buddy of mine, Vaska, was supposed to return yesterday from a raid. Still no trace of him. ‘Nuff said… if you need company, talk to the Shrink. I’m not into gum-beating right now.”
Tarasov shrugs and turns towards the stout Stalker manning the bar. Seeing the major approaching, the barkeeper stops wiping the shot glasses and looks at him with smart, curious eyes.
“At last one who doesn’t smell like he’s shit his pants,” he says by way of greeting to the major. “Welcome to the Asylum, soldier. I’m Borys the Shrink.”
“Why do they call you a shrink?”
“Because I can heal your brains with vodka or your rifle with ammo. Seeing that you still have your wits, it’s obviously ammo that you need.”
“Ammo is not exactly my problem.”
“So you want to talk? Vodka, then. Here you go.”
The local vodka tastes purer and cooler than in Bagram, and Tarasov licks his lips as the spirit flows down his throat, creating pleasant warmth inside his body.
“That’s good stuff you have here. What is this place?”
“It used to be a fortress and then a prison, until some Western do-gooders turned it into an asylum. That was back before the nukes went off. Now it’s a fitting place for those who were crazy enough to go farther out and lucky enough to make it back.”
“Gone farther? I heard there’s a place called Shahr-i-Gholghola to the west…”
“That’s correct. About two or three days’ march from here.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.” The Shrink leans over the bar and lowers his voice. “That’s where Skinner’s buddy went… People say it was freaky enough before the Bush war began, after the Taliban blasted those bi
g Buddhas away, but recently…” The barkeeper cuts his sentence short. “This is no kindergarten here like Bagram. Frankly, sometimes I’m glad we have the Tribe between us and that place.”
“The Tribe? That’s why everyone’s so scared around here?”
“They aren’t scared, they just haven’t had enough to drink… anyhow, to answer your question: the Tribe is a bad enough neighbor but things got really weird recently. A few days ago, a Stalker appeared. He was gone for many days and we all presumed him dead, saying toasts to his memory and all, and then he came back. He was not happy to see us again, though… he opened fire on us. His own friends had to shoot him.”
Tarasov is too absorbed in the vodka’s calming effect to say anything compassionate. “Such is life in the… New Zone. Give me and my guide another shot.”
“Cheers! Wouldn’t be much of an event if killing him had been easy, but he kept standing up again and again like a freaking zombie. I had to apply the strongest remedy I know.”
“And that would be?”
“Emptying a full magazine of nine millimeter bullets into his brain.”
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort s-1 Page 24
