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

“Strelok?” Tarasov asks wiping rain water from his face.

“I hope you didn’t expect Sidorovich,” Strelok replies with a grin. They shake hands and embrace each other. “That’s Guide over here. Without him we’d never made it here in time.”

“Thank you, Strelok. I thought they really screwed me this time,” Tarasov thankfully says and bows his head towards Guide. “Guide? The legendary man himself? Most Stalkers think you don’t even exist!”

“That’s correct,” Guide says, smirking. “Because I do not exist for most Stalkers.”

“You guys know anything about Nooria? The girl they captured together with me?”

“Let me think,” Strelok says. “I heard some rumors that she was to be interrogated, raped, abused and her baby aborted—”

Tarasov grasps Strelok’s shoulders and shakes him hard.

“What?!”

“—but then she killed the female agent trying to do all these things to her, left your buddy Maksimenko shackled naked to a radiator, killed two SBU guards and then a pimp on Volodymyrska, made her way to a gangsters’ club where she hooked up with Sultan and tried to set one of his prostitutes free but found her ear next day in a package that Sultan’s henchman gave her when she dumped her on the edge of Zaton—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“—where I literally stumbled into her. So, we made our way to Noah’s Ark when an emission hit. Bottom line—she cured me out of my chronic headache!”

“Are you high? Spending too much time with Freedomers or what?”

“Indeed, it was high time for me to get free. Because thanks to your witch, I am no longer anyone’s errand boy!”

“Will you at least tell me where she is?”

“I am here!”

Tarasov spins on his heels and almost falls over when a joyful Nooria appears from the rain shelter and throws herself into his arms.

“I had to tell you her story to see if I believe it myself, you know,” Strelok and Guide exchange a grin. Seeing that the couple’s emotional reunion is not going to end soon by itself, Strelok impatiently continues. “Hey, love birds! That’s already more romance than the Zone has ever seen. Come, we have important things to discuss!”

“Let’s move to the Rookie Village,” Guide suggests.

Tarasov is still embracing Nooria who cuddles against his chest. The rain on her face blends with tears. He pats her back, gives her another kiss and turns to the Stalkers.

“No. The Rookie Village is the first place where the grunts would start looking for me. It’s the Swamps where we go. My companions are still waiting for me there, or so I hope.”

“You know about the tunnel in the hill, south of the village?”

“Sure. Hopefully it’s not blocked.”

“It isn’t,” remarks Guide.

“There’s something we need to talk about at last.” Strelok looks up to the dark sky. “Damn rain… let’s get under that canvas.”

The canvas keeps the rain outside of the tiny shelter but doesn’t protect from the chilly wind. Strelok looks towards the base and risks lighting a campfire from a small pile of firewood. Initially, the damp wood doesn’t burn but after the Stalker has wasted half a box of matches, the flames slowly begin to emanate soothing warmth. All three of them move closely around the weak fire.

“Have some havchik ,” Strelok says opening a can of ‘tourist’s breakfast’. Tarasov gladly accepts it. “Nu, delo bylo tak…”

“Better in English,” Tarasov says, ”so that Nooria can understand you.”

“I’ll try to keep it short. You know, I used to do jobs for the SBU from time to time—Nooria will tell you why I was depending on them. Kruchelnikov ordered Maksimenko to bag you.”

“Colonel Kruchelnikov? Now I realize what deep shit we’ve been in. That man is a monster.”

“And Maksimenko his shrewd minion. He made me send you a message to lure you back to the Zone. Then they wanted to bag you when you contacted me.”

“It worked out after all, just the other way round.”

“What the bastards didn’t know was that I wanted to talk to you anyway. Did you get my first message as well? Good.” Strelok reaches into his rucksack and fishes out a bottle of vodka. Tarasov gladly takes a swig. He is about to give the bottle back to Strelok when Nooria grabs at it.

“Do you mind if I drink a little?” she asks.

“Of course not.”

Nooria quaffs, coughs and grimaces, but then gives a satisfied sigh and cuddles back against Tarasov.

“Since when do you drink?” he asks with surprise.

“Pertsovka reminds me of a friend.”

Before Strelok puts the bottle away, he too takes a swig. “Cheers! Now let me finish my story before we all get drunk. Two years ago, when I opened up the X-18 vault, I found documents describing how and when the secret labs were established here. To cut a long story short: when the USSR realized that the Afghan war could not be won by conventional warfare, Soviet scientists began to develop psychotropic weapons.”

“I should have guessed,” Tarasov wearily says.

“The first laboratory was located in the Panjir Valley. According to the documents I found, the scientists made some progress but the USSR gave it up before they could had have completed their research. Their lab had to be evacuated. Guess who was in charge of the evacuation—a lieutenant from the GRU, Soviet military intelligence, called Kruchelnikov.”

“I’m not surprised. When I first heard Stalkers gossiping about the New Zone in Afghanistan, I thought they had too much vodka at the 100 Rads. Once I knew it better, I realized that the two Zones are not only similar but also connected by a thousand things. Among them the shadows of the USSR.”

“Until it lasted, that is. In the chaos around 1990 nobody cared about the scientists’ research, but they decided to keep on experimenting—” Strelok stops for a moment to sneeze. “Damn! My suit protects me from radiation, biohazard and even small-caliber bullets but can’t hold off a little flu! God, right when my nose is in shambles!”

“What happened to your nose, anyway?”

“Uhm… I head-butted a Monolith fighter while he still had his gas mask on… Right, Nooria?”

Nooria smiles and gives him an allowing nod.

“Anyway, the secret experiments were financed after the USSR had collapsed. The biggest part came from government funds, originally paid to support research in the Agroprom. The guy in charge, a certain Petr Strizh, channeled the funds to procure all kinds of high-tech gadgets for the researchers.”

“I know that part already,” Tarasov says. “It was Captain Maksimenko who investigated it.”

“Misha, Misha… it’s a shame that two of the best men the military ever had in the Zone are now enemies.”

“Now we’re beyond simply being enemies,” Tarasov grimly says.

“I can imagine. So, when I had a glance at the documents I found in that hellhole, I removed the parts dealing with Lab X-1 and hid them. The pages I kept tell everything—where the first lab was built, who was running it, what they were researching and how.”

“Not a new method to produce more toys for the USSR’s five year plan, I guess.”

“You bet—it was about some weird gas or electromagnetic radiation or whatever. I’m no scientist to understand. The mastermind was a certain Professor Chubko. He describes in the X-18 documents how he got the idea. When the Americans began to equip the dushmans with Stinger missiles, the head designer of the Mi-24 gunships visited Bagram to get fresh ideas from the pilots. They did a little demonstration for him, performing amazing stunts with their helicopters like spinning them around their vertical axles—something that the gunships were not supposed to be capable of. It didn’t help the helicopters in the end, but Chubko got inspired: if machines can be brought over the edge, so could human beings…”