Tarasov reaches into his body armor’s breast pocket and shows his father’s photograph to the Captain.
“I am one of yours! You see that? That is me! Kunduz, 1988! Look at it!”
The old man looks at the picture, then at Tarasov. His eyes open wide.
“Yes… that is you, Sergeant. So someone did survive! I knew it! The whole column couldn’t all have been lost… it could not have been that everyone died…”
For a moment, Tarasov’s mind blackens out. He closes his eyes, falling into a vortex of memories where time, dates and history have no meaning, turning his heartbeat into stormy waves of emotions that threaten to drag him down into dark depths where he would lose his mind, the desire for revenge being the only straw he can hold on to. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself back where he was, stranded in reality — a reality he needs to bend if he wants to keep his sanity.
“Captain, our shoulder flashes have been changed but you should still recognize a major’s star,” Tarasov says, pointing at the small patch on his armor indicating his rank. “I am a major now and outrank you, Captain Ivanov. We did not forget you and your column. Never… Now I am here to bring you home.” He swallows hard and releases his grip. “You must come with us. This is an order!”
A shadow of doubt visits the Captain’s face. “Is Brezhnev really gone?”
“Really.” Tarasov puts his visor on to hide his eyes.
“And he can’t rest in peace from the noise of all the bummers and whores in high heels walking on Red Square,” Ilchenko says, gritting his teeth. “Major… for God’s sake, bring him back to his wits!”
“Captain Ivanov, I gave you an order. Come, we go home.”
“But I cannot go home.”
“Whatever you mean by that can be settled. For now, you will guide us to the factory. I will not repeat my order.”
“No… not everything can be settled. But I will bring… guide you there, yes. I will guide you and take orders from you, if you will do something for me.”
“We have no time for more side missions, sir!” Ilchenko is almost shouting at Tarasov. “If he wants to send you to Kandahar to fetch his lost rifle or to Kabul to find his Party membership card — I beg you to say no!”
“Not now, young man, not now. After I have guided you to the factory. Please. Will you do something for me, Major?”
“What more could I do for you than getting you out of here?”
“It will not need much time.”
“All right. I will, if it can be done quickly. We have a mission to complete, Captain, and I guess you want to get to a safe place as soon as possible too.”
“Thank you! Good! Davay uhodim!”
“Where?”
“You don’t want to get to the factory?”
“Oh… of course. Are you sure that you can…”
“I am. I can.” He takes his heavy staff and starts walking up the hill. “What are you waiting for, komandir?”
After a few hours of walking, Tarasov looks at the old man through different eyes. Maybe it’s the reduction of a human body to bones, sinew and muscles that keeps him moving quickly, or just the freedom of movement he has compared to the three companions who carry their heavy kit and weapons, but at times they have had a hard time keeping up with the pace of their new guide. He leads them through crevasses and over ridges on a path they would have never found by themselves. Squirrel occasionally stops to record their progress in his PDA.
“This new path will make me rich, man… I will be the only guide who knows a way to the factory!”
“I doubt that too many Stalkers would come here,” Ilchenko says, breathing heavily from their recent ascent through a narrow ravine. He stops and wipes sweat from his face.
“You couldn’t be more wrong about the factory, man. Rumor says there’s more artifacts than used condoms in a Kiev night club.”
“Mention night clubs one more time and I’ll just shoot you. Mention cold beer, and I’ll shoot you twice.”
“I wouldn’t care about you shooting me a hundred times if I had a Heartstone.”
“What’s a Heartstone?”
“A very rare artifact. Stalkers say it boosts one’s health like nothing else… just telling you because they’re supposed to be found around here. Sell one to Bonesetter back at Bagram and you’ll be filthy rich. Sell it in the Big Land, and you’ll get dirty filthy rich. Or keep it and it will make you live for a hundred years.” Squirrel scratches his head. “Pity there’s no artifact that would make you dirty filthy rich and live for a hundred years.”
“I’m not sure I want to live for a hundred years. Live fast, die pretty is my philosophy.”
“You’ll have a problem with dying pretty, Ilch.”
“It’s not far now,” the Captain says, standing on the ridge while Tarasov and his companions are still climbing up a narrow crevasse in the hillside.
“What do you mean by ‘not far’?” Tarasov asks him, nervously looking at his watch as he toils up the last few meters. “The day will soon be over.”
“About three hundred meters, Major.”
The Captain points forward as Tarasov at last reaches the ridge. Panting heavily, leaning with his hands against his knees to give his back a minute of rest, he looks in the direction that is shown. Just a few minutes march ahead of them stands a high wall made of concrete slabs. Beyond the wall, the auspicious buildings of a ruined industrial site loom. But what he sees between them and the factory fills him with frustration.
Breathing heavily, Ilchenko and Squirrel finally catch up with them.
“That’s great,” the Stalker says looking at the factory. “We could have just stayed at Hellgate. Shit!”
On the open rocky ground between them and the factory, deadly anomalies sizzle. They slowly move and burst out in fountains of fire when contracting, as if they were trying to deny any path leading through.
“And now?” Tarasov asks.
“And now we go to into the lair. Vperyod, to the factory!”
Carefully keeping a safe distance from the anomaly field, they follow the Captain to a low knoll covered with thorny bushes. At one point he stops, reaches into the bushes and moves the thorny branches aside. A large hole lies beyond, big enough for a man to climb inside.
“Here lives old kravasos.”
“Only one bloodsucker, then?
“And his family.”
A nasty curse is all that comes to Tarasov’s mind.
“All right… we rest here for a few minutes. Ilchenko, Squirrel — weapon check.”
“Yes, we better rest now,” the Captain says. “I will show you the way.”
Tarasov notices that the Captain’s speech is improving. Maybe if I talk to him more, he will fully regain his speech, he thinks. Maybe his memory too.
“But you have no weapons, no armor, no light. Nothing at all, Captain.”
“My staff never runs out of bullets. It also keeps the bloodsucker away.”
“How do you keep a bloodsucker at bay with a wooden staff? By beating it, or what?”
“You will see.”
“And what is this?” Tarasov asks taking the note book from his vest pocket. He ponders through the pages. It is full of neat handwriting and, to his surprise, even a few drawings appear among the notes.
“Oh, you took it… you can keep it. I don’t understand. It’s about a country called ‘Zone’. I found it a few days ago at an abandoned campsite.”
What Tarasov finds in the notebook pages surprises him. Several pages with notes and text about the old and the new Zones, mutants, probably of those its owner encountered here. Judged by the first entries, written in very bad Russian, the book’s owner must be very young, a kid even, who liked playing video games.