Александр Конторович - Predator - Escape from Tarkov

To barter with this supposed rival, Mr. Ogryzko gave me two syringes filled with morphine. The same or similar can be found in certain special first-aid kits. Apart from being a powerful analgesic, it’s a substance that’s in high demand amongst drug addicts. Considering that those were the people who used to make up a significant part of the rival’s former client base, there was every chance that this particular product would rouse considerable interest in him. And that, of course, would give me a better chance of getting close to him. I was also given some other goods that might be of interest to a broader range of shoppers.

The last peaceful night in my basement.

So, who have you become? Not so long ago you were just a normal, utterly unremarkable system administrator. You did your job, put right other people’s mistakes, chased the girls a little, and considered yourself a fully operational human being. But what about now? Instead of the keyboard I’m accustomed to, there’s a twelve-gauge shotgun in my hands, and instead of the mouse I knew down to the tiniest scratch on it, now I’ve got a heavy pistol with a silencer. That’s quite some administrator, very much part of the system. Anyway, it’s time for bed. Tomorrow morning I’ll be leaving these already familiar surroundings, my second home. Will I come back? Who knows? But I’ll do my very best.

My travelling method of moving from one hiding place to another demonstrated its worth within the first couple of hours. I managed in good time to notice shadows flashing on the other side of the road. Slipping back round the corner completely automatically, I take the safety catch off my shotgun. I look around. There’s a doorway nearby.

As a result of gutting other people’s flats, I now have a well-developed ability to open front doors. Certainly, you can just knock them down with your shoulder, but then your shoulder’s going to ache for several days after. You may be able to smash the lock with a good hard kick, too. As long as you don’t mind hopping round on your other foot for a while. You can also shoot out the lock with a shotgun, and that’s probably the most effective method, unless you consider it a problem that you’ll attract the attention of everyone in the area. Some of them will come running to loot the flat, and others will be after the shotgun you’ve just used to open it. For obvious reasons, neither scenario is particularly desirable.

However, while I was looking round the garage at my old place, I found a fascinating gadget. It looked something like a pair of scissors with a jackscrew fixed between the two blades for some reason. Maybe it comes in useful for fixing cars, I’ve no idea. I’m not an expert, so I really can’t say. But I do know that if you put the handles of the scissors between a door and its frame, the jackscrew can be worked quietly and quiet effectively. The panels of the door come away from the frame, and no locks are able to stop them. True, it’s a process that takes some time. Sometimes you need to give a helping hand with a collapsible crowbar. (To be more exact, it’s actually screwed together from several parts). However, it’s worth it for the result.

Right now, for example, having climbed to the third floor, I silently break the front door of one of the flats. A flat with windows that look out on the street I’m interested in. Once inside, hiding behind the curtains, I watch what’s going on below. What’s going on is that a fair-sized bunch of guys in uniform are knocking over a Tarbank security van. As they lack any special equipment, the process is heavy going and accompanied by a typical stream of obscenities. To give the unknown group due credit, they have remembered to place lookouts. I can see two, but it seems reasonable to assume that they aren’t the only ones on guard. In which case I made the right decision not to try crossing this street two or three hundred metres from the van. Bullets make short work of that sort of distance, as I’m sure you know. Their efforts to get inside the van are meanwhile reaching their logical conclusion. There’s a new volley of swearing, followed by an extended shriek of metal. The swearing immediately ceases, and the crowd of men in camouflage spreads out along the street, taking up positions around the nearby buildings and entryways. A minute passes, then another, and then two men appear from inside the van carrying heavy canvas sacks. The two of them and the whole camouflaged crew disappear rapidly round the corner, gathering their sentries on the way.

Ah, well, they’re certainly not the gang I’m looking for. On the other hand, wherever they go will be peaceful for a while. Either they’ll get rid of anyone waiting in ambush along the way, or the ambushers will sensibly move out of their path to avoid catching a stray bullet. I get myself together fairly sharply, and follow in the tracks of the camouflaged group. It’s a peculiar tactic, admittedly, but right now I’ve got nothing better.

Unfortunately, our paths diverge quite quickly. They turn off to the left, while my path lies straight ahead. It’s there, in the region of the old household services centre, that the guy I’m looking for lives.

To tell the truth, after I’d been entrusted this job and clarified a few details, I took heart a little. The reason why is that among my acquaintances there used to be one particular interesting character. Mishka Dronov, despite his remarkable talents as a programmer, was also a near hopeless drug addict. There was nothing he hadn’t tried. It all started with relatively harmless plant-based substances, but then his repertoire expanded to include all sorts of harder drugs, among them the notorious crystal meth and other such horrors. He had tried to give up more than once, but he could never last more than a week. Various doctors had declared Mishka a hopeless case, he’d lost his job, and only a few old friends would occasionally throw some particularly complicated coding tasks his way. When that happened, a transformation would take place, and before us once again would stand the old Mishka. He was the master, a first-class specialist for whom there was no such thing as an insoluble problem. Unfortunately, however, the master only ever appeared for a very short while. Having finished the job and taken the money, he’d immediately be running after his next fix.

He was the man I wanted to visit. If Mishka didn’t know all the places in town where drugs were sold, then nobody did. I only had about a kilometre to go before I reached him, but unfortunately night was falling around me and I had to decide what I was going to do – try to find Mishka despite the dark, or find a secluded spot to lie up in. Prudence got the upper hand in the end, and I found myself climbing the stairs in yet another block of flats to bust open another door with my “scissors”. I’ll sleep, have a bite to eat, and continue my search at dawn.

It’s never easy to get a good night’s sleep in a new place, and this flat was no exception to the rule. Although I found a big soft couch to spread out on, my sleep was nonetheless shallow and jerky. As soon as I nodded off, another resounding shot would ring out on the street. Then for a couple of hours it was relatively quiet, but just before dawn someone gave out a baleful scream as if they were slowly being cut in pieces. Quiet possibly they were. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.

Out of habit, I hide behind the curtains and take a look at the street. Yup, the guy who was screaming clearly had his reasons. There he is, look, hanging over the fence round some building. Not just hanging, as it turns out, he’s clearly been impaled on one of the fence’s iron poles. Some unknown “pranksters” had lifted the unfortunate fellow up and brought his back down with all their strength onto the iron spike. The guy must have died an agonizing death – the poles of the fence were covered in something dark that must have been his blood.