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

“Hey, what’s that?”

“Yes… stop and check out that crate, you scum. It’s there for a reason…”

Though Nooria doesn’t understand Guide’s muted words, his slow breathing indicates that he is deeply concentrating.

“It’s empty.”

“Blyad! I was hoping for a Gauss rifle!”

“You think those just lie around here? In your wet dreams maybe!”

“Let’s—”

The bang of a rifle shot prevents the Bandit from finishing his sentence, followed almost immediately by a second shot. The muzzle echoes among the tall buildings but Nooria’s ears detect their source: up in the tower of the port building, a rifle barrel protrudes between two boards covering the window.

Kneeling behind a bush, Strelok fires his rifle too. A cry of pain follows his bursts.

“Patsani!”

“Bullseye, Strelok. Three down. One on the run… Damn! Lost sight of him. Moved behind the statue. Still armed.”

Strelok stays. He works the mode selection switch on his rifle, aims and fires a single shot.

“He’s down. Still alive. Be careful.”

Strelok acknowledges the warning. “Keep your eyes open.”

“Prinyal.”

With his weapon at ready, Strelok walks up to the wounded Bandit. He had left a trail of blood as he crawled behind the low platform that had once contained the fountain around the Prometheus statue, where he apparently hoped to be safe from the sniper in the tower and the rifleman in the bushes.

“Nu privet, patsan,” Strelok says for a greeting. “Any more of you cocksuckers around?”

“Net, net! Please, don’t kill me!”

Nooria studies the wounded man’s brown jacket that looks almost identical to the one she got from Sultan.

“He works for Sultan?” she asks.

“Ti s Sultanom, khuyesos?” translates Strelok so that the Bandit can understand the question.

“Da” is the man’s response. “Jack and Sultan will give you a reward if you help me!”

“Want to earn some money, Nooria?” Strelok asks. “Because—”

Nooria brusquely interrupts him. “I asked, is he with Sultan?”

“Yes, and he said that—”

Strelok’s mouth stays open in the middle of his sentence as he sees Nooria drawing her blade, stepping to the agonized Bandit and slashing his throat. He stares at her with utter astonishment, his lips still moving.

“—that Sultan will… oh, forget about it.”

“Others are dead?”

Strelok looks at the three bodies which lie nearby in still extending pools of blood.

“They look dead enough to me.”

Nooria steps over to the bodies and stabs each in the heart. Then she gracefully shakes the blood off her blade and sheaths it. “Now they look dead enough to me too.”

“Jopta,” Strelok mutters a word for surprise in Russian.

Nooria shrugs. “Easily amused, huh?”

“Guide,” Strelok says into his PDA, ”if you have seen what I’ve just seen, you better put on a gas mask with a polite and nice face painted on it. You wouldn’t want to offend her.”

“It’s a woman? Okhuyoshka!”

“She doesn’t speak Russian but you better watch your tongue anyway, lest you want her to cut it off.”

“I heard you. Come, I’m opening the trapdoor.”

The ruined pavilion of the river port might have once housed a café or restaurant, yet with the narrow windows facing the square, the two buttresses flanking the entrance and the slim tower above makes the adjacent building resemble a tiny fortress. At the end of a debris-covered corridor, a steep set of corroded metal stairs leads to an open platform overlooking the square and the brown, lifeless river behind the building. Through a ladder fixed to the wall, Strelok and Nooria climb up to a smaller platform where another ladder awaits. It leads to a hatch in the ceiling from where a round an jovial face looks down at them. To Nooria’s eyes, Guide—if this balding man in a Stalker suit is him—appears very different from Strelok with his cunning eyes and lean face.

“I am Guide. Nix English,” their host says with an apologizing smile as he helps Nooria up and into the chamber above. “Bye-bye!”

“Cut the crap, man,” Strelok tells him as he makes his way up. “Bye-bye is for poka anyway.”

“I know—I’m just embarrassed over seeing a woman here, that’s why I got confused!”

“Yeah, yeah. Glad you didn’t confuse us with the Bandits when firing that Dragunov,” Strelok says pointing to the sniper rifle standing in the corner. “Good to see you, brother!”

“It’s been a while, eh?”

While the two men embrace each other and exchange a kiss in very Russian fashion, Nooria looks around in Guide’s hideout. It is small for even a single occupant, and now with the three of them inside she can barely move without stepping on the bedroll on the ground or hitting against the wooden crate serving both as cupboard and table. Maps and documents cover it all over, flattened by several PDAs that look more sophisticated than those she has seen before. The windows are carefully boarded up, each having only a narrow hole through which the surrounding area can be observed and kept under fire if needed. She can’t imagine of any hideout in Pripyat having much to do with comfort, but even if there were, this tower was definitely chosen over comfort for its strategic location and suitability for defense.

As she tries to leave enough room for the two men, she accidentally kicks the rifle over. With a quick reflex she didn’t think the jovial Stalker capable of, Guide catches the Dragunov before it could fall on the concrete floor.

“Budte ostorozhna!”

“Careful with that,” Strelok translates and adds, “It’s the Lynx. A very special rifle.”

“I am sorry,” she replies curling her lips.

“Nichego, nichego,” Guide quickly replies with a reassuring smile. “Khotchite strelat?”

“No time for shooting lessons, brother ,” Strelok says. “We must get her to Cordon. Now.”

“She’s got any cash?”

“It’s me who’s asking you.”

“Strelok, you damn freeloader. I should have picked a hideout where not even you could find and pester me for a free trip!”

“That’s not even all. I need a way that runs close enough to Dark Valley. There’s something I must get from one of my stashes. Won’t take too long, I promise.”

“I don’t know.” Guide scratches the stubble on his chin. “Presuming that I’m willing to take you there, bad business as it is for me, there are paths in the Zone I don’t want others to know. Can she be trusted?”

“Yes. So, you mean there’s a shorter way than through the Radar, Warehouses, Rostok and the Garbage?”

“Tell me first why I’m supposed to help her. Hope she’s not pretending to love you while squeezing you for secrets… like my hideout for example?”

Strelok sighs with impatience. “Could you stop being paranoid? Please? Listen: the man who caught a bullet for me once is in trouble. He’s being held at Cordon Base. The SBU might be taking him to Kiev right as we speak. I must get him out. This is his wife, lover, girlfriend or whoever from the New Zone. She healed me out of my nightmares and now I’m doubly indebted to them. You get it now?”

“From the New Zone? Bozhe moi!”

“Yes, yes, she’s also a witch or something and survived a blow-out in the open.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Bottom line—I don’t want to let her down. Will you help or not?”

“A witch and killer?” Guide looks at Nooria with sheer respect. “If that’s how women are in the New Zone, maybe I should take a trip there!”