Balázs Pataki - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Northern Passage

“Truly outstanding,” Hartman says. “The guy who wrote it must have know a thing our two about that war. This song could be so much our own!”

“He did and it could.”

“And those Bandits, all singing it as if they’d understand!”

Tarasov shrugs. “Maybe they do understand, if they refer to the Zone with the we’re leaving part.”

“I’m with the Top, for once,” Pete says, though his for once sounds as if he had to force himself into saying it. “It’s beautiful… and the chorus, all that robust C major, it is… so fitting.”

“Don’t tell me you had a Fender Stratocaster once,” Tarasov says wrinkling his forehead.

“Hell no, but — great song, anyway.”

The Top appears slightly confused. “Yes, I can hardly wait to be back to our Zone. But I don’t really know what to do once we’re there—oh damn that song. I no longer know what to do about the scavengers, even if they are Bandits. I was so sure about them being just scum. Now… I just don’t know any longer.”

Tarasov turns back to face the window. By now the Jupiter Area, with all the derelict railroads and industrial buildings appears below like a scenery for model trains. To their right, another Mi-26 hovers over the dilapidated cement factory, and the third one should be about to take off from the helipads. Their own helicopter proceeds to the north, passing by the Stalker refuge of Yanov Station where abandoned trains still rust away on the tracks overgrown with grass. Then, as the helicopter turns to the west, they fly over the low hills where only heaps of rubble and brick chimneys mark the place of a village that had to be buried for the high amount of radiation it received back in 1986. The glowing anomalies among the ruins appear threatening even from far above. Then their flight continues to the west, giving a wide berth to the CNPP that looms on the far horizon.

“Yes, I’m leaving,” he murmurs to himself.

The Top notices his feelings and gives him a pat on the back. “Mikhailo, if you dare get sentimental now—I’ll throw you out of this helo!”

Tarasov is not in the mood to appreciate Hartman’s rude but well-meant remark. “You wouldn’t dare, Top… you just wouldn’t dare.”

He feels like heaving a long, sad sigh, eventually keeping it inside and only mentally sighing when he turns his head away from the Exclusion Zone where, mixed with dull rain, the first snow begins to fall from an overcast sky.

“Strelok, yes… I met many remarkable men in the Zone. Ashot is so funny and Yar like a wise, old brother. Major Tarasov, that mean bully. You ever met him? No? Never mind… No one was like Strelok, though.”

Mac sounds pensive as she removes the sight cover from her F2000 assault rifle as the first step of field maintenance.

“He always used to say, you’re a girl after all as if I couldn’t kill anything just like him till I had enough ammo. I hated him for that…”

“You mean he was patronizing you?”

With the barrel and optical part assembly now open, Mac begins to clean the moving parts with an oilcloth.

“Not exactly. I don’t know how to put it, actually.” She takes off the butt plate and removes the hammer assembly from the receiver part. “Partly patronizing, yes… but I wouldn’t call him chivalrous. I don’t know—he liked us making love the hard way.” The hammer makes a faint click as she releases it. She adds a few drops of weapon oil from a plastic flask onto the spring and carefully wipes it with the cloth piece. “At that time I was still a rookie with long fingernails. I used to dig my nails in his back but he just smiled, liking the violence of it—as if he wanted to assure himself that he could bear the pain.”

She starts to reassemble the weapon.

“If half of what I heard about his exploits is true, Strelok had no reason to prove that.”

“Yes, in the beginning… later on he became violent to me. First I thought, it’s because that usual Ukrainian macho thing. But it always came out of the blue, you know, one moment kind and gentle, the next one slapping my face and pulling my hair.”

“Uh-hum.”

Having finished maintenance, Mac reloads the rifle with a 30-round STANAG magazine.

“And so was his behavior too. I didn’t know any longer who I was with—the old Zone hand who has seen it all or a psychopath.”

Ahuizotl gives a shrug. “Maybe one thing doesn’t go without the other.”

“That’s what I thought, but then there are men like Uncle Yar. He is also a Zone legend but always calm, always radiating such a sense of safety. Or Shrink.”

“None of them have been through what Strelok has.”

“True. And I couldn’t help him. Jesus, brother, you have no idea how guilty I feel over leaving him…”

“Yeah. Guess it must have been tough on you.”

“It was tough love, yes. When I saw him for the last time, I asked him if there would be a way to start things over. Outside the Zone if necessary, far away from all that shit that kept torturing his soul. He said never.”

“Don’t forget where you were,” the sniper says getting on his feet. “I’ll have a look outside but will be right back.”

“Bored of me, huh?”

The jackal lying lazily at Mac’s feet emits a yelp.

“Oh, Billy my boy… at least you never get tired of listening to me, do you?”

Ahuizotl doesn’t reply but heaves a long sigh when he raises his binoculars to survey the rocky valley. The sun has already set, turning the western horizon dark purple yet no stars are visible in the black sky. Scanning the land to the south, he realizes why the darkness is so gloomy.

“We have a dust storm approaching!”

Mac appears from the cave and takes the binocs. Though she has seen and survived many dust storms before, she gives a yell of surprise when she sees what is looming on the southern horizon.

“Oh my God!”

Still far away yet darkening the skies, a wave of radioactive dust and sand stretches out on the horizon. It dwarves the hills as it approaches and the two Stalkers watch it like fishermen would watch a tsunami thundering towards their boat on the open sea. The wall of sand moving towards them must be several hundred meters high. Thunder flashes in the giant wave that’s stirred up by an energy beyond human understanding.

Ahuizotl gabs Mac’s arm. “Back to the cave!” he yells. “Quickly!”

But before he can follow her into the relative safety, something catches his eye in the valley below.

“Look! Headlamps!”

A gale heralds the oncoming dust storm. Mac has to hold on the sniper’s shoulder as she looks in the direction where he is pointing.

A dozen men in heavy combat gear are approaching. They can’t see the dust storm from the bottom of the valley, but must have noticed the sudden gale because they attempt to find shelter.

“Goddammit!” Ahuizotl screams. “It’s a Tribe patrol! The last thing we’re needing now! Come, let’s hide before they see us!”

Mac is already flashing the red light on her torch. “Tribe or not, we must help them!”

“Are you out of your mind? They shoot Stalkers on sight!”

In her excitement, Mac cusses in her mother tongue. “¡Por Dios! They are humans like us, hermano! We must help them!”

“Fuck them! Let’s hide, now!”

By now the Tribals have noticed Mac’s light signals and start running up the hill to the cave, where Mac frantically waves the red flashlight.

“Here! Over here!”

Her voice is carried away by the gale that already swirls up dust and sand at their feet. The radiation meters start crackling. Mac spits dust and quickly pulls the exoskeleton’s hazmat mask over her face. The shapes of the fighters climbing up the hill appear like ghosts in the greenish dim of the NVGs. As if having closed her eyes after looking into strong light, her sight is flickering with millions of tiny stars. She knows it’s photons illuminated by the growing radioactivity.