The Eye
October 26 2018
Today I have arrived in the rookie village. It had cost most of my cash to bribe the military guards at the cordon to permit me into the zone. I'd done some Zone adjacent work before, and had a chance to listen to some veterans. I didn't have much with me, just the essentials: cigs, first aid kit, my TOZ-34, sawn off to better fit in my pack, and my father's TT-33, complete with silencer. Since 2014, after leaving the Canadian Army, I'd been after some adventure, and left my mother in Alberta in 2016 and moved in with my Belorussian father. It was there, I got it into my head to go to Ukraine and the Zone.
In this 'village' I bought some supplies and chatted to the other rookies hanging about. The man they call Sid, offered me some work: find a man called Andryukha Cross, and more importantly the artifact he had. He had been part of a team of three stalkers that found the mysterious Eye artifact (and Sid had a good buyer lined up beyond the perimeter, some yank pharmaceutical corp), who then betrayed and killed the other members of the team at the Hanger in the Garbage before making good his escape. If I can return the Eye, and make good Sid's vengeance, I get the three men's cut to myself, as well as a little extra for my trouble. I wasn't sure what work to expect here, but a hitman makes sense enough, I've killed before. Plus, the money on offer here is crazy. This rock itself could be fetching several thousands of dollars.
I've made it to a farm, where I've bought some tins of tuna for lunch, to make sandwiches. A guy told me there had been some shooting to the North East, zombies or something. I saw one later that afternoon, dropped him with a shot to the head from my pistol. I don't believe in the undead, but he deserved any mercy I could offer him, and a round through the skull was all I could spare.
A bandit and I exchanged a few shots at range, mostly ineffective. I then pulled back and reengaged, killing him as he was walking back to his campfire. Not my man.
Arrived at the Hangar. Butcher said my man was seen heading East by one of his Duty pals that hung about the Hangar. He told me to head East from the Flea Market to Dark Valley, loads of bandits out that way. As I went to leave, the Hangar was attacked by Bandits, and I helped drive them off by holding a doorway and laying down some lead.
At the flea market, I've bought some ammo, to replace what I fired off in the crazy gunfight at the hangar.
I found my man. He was cooking on a fire at the polluted lake. Mag dumped him in the back. He had a VSS Vintorez, slightly scuffed, but it's mine now. Made it back to Hangar to rest briefly and check out my loot. He didn't make it easy. The polluted lake is a hard place to get to without being blasted with radiation, and I didn't have much in the way of protection, or long range shooting. Climbed across a fallen tree onto the island in the end, but still my geiger counter was clicking like mad. Still, the hard part is done, put on some tunes from the PDA and get back to Sid.
DETAINED AND SHOT BY CHECKPOINT IN CORDON
THIS DIARY IS MILITARY EVIDENCE
Colonel Victor Koval looked up from the little notebook, and replaced the picture of the family that had been marking the page in the diary. Major Vadim Obbizhysvit handed him another file.
"Here's what we know about the STALKER"
Browsing through the photos in the envelope, Victor saw a man face down in a pool of blood, his bag emptied out beside him, with the prize Vintorez lying above him.
"Canadian citizen", Vadim continued. "Combat vet with the Canadian army. Speaks Russian thanks to his Belorussian father. We've alerted the Belorussian and Canadian embassies, as per procedure, but don't expect anything in response."
"As per their procedures." muttered Victor. "Tell me, what's so special about this artifact? The diary mentions that Sid could be making thousands of USD out of this. Did he report this to us, or is he doing this behind our backs?"
"That's the thing, Victor." Vadim leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigarette. "We are probably missing out on quite a bit of cash if Sid is getting semi-regular contracts with big foreign corps. Maybe time to pay him a visit and remind him that he is still at our mercy."
"An audit, eh? Bah, when did this zone business get so bureaucratic? Gone are the days when men were men and we handled things properly. Sure, my wife likes the presents, but it's all too institutional for me."
"Oh come on Victor! I heard from the Colonel in 3rd Battalion that he made an extra 20,000USD on top of his salary last year. Between us we've barely scraped 10,000! Our year is coming up soon, and I want what that son of a bitch owes us. He's taken us for fools, you know."
"So what is it you want from me Vadim? Approve your punitive expedition into the zone? Then what? We've killed a bunch of tragic tourists who don't even take to stalking well, probably lose one or two of our own, so you can take a nice holiday to Monaco? Will you even go on this raid, or just send Captain Krasinski? I don't trust the trigger happy bastard as far as I can throw him. He'll spoil any chance we have of keeping our deal with Sid, probably by slotting him when he gets close to him."
Vadim ashes out his cigarette. "You know I can't go into the zone, sir: I'm medically unfit because of my dodgy knee. My wife's a doctor and she told me not to expose myself.."
"Ah yes." Victor interupted. "Well this is all well and good Vadim, but I won't authorise a mission unless you're willing to go. If that is all."
The conversation was at an end. Major Vadim Obbizhysvit stood, put his beret on, saluted, and limped out of the office. Victor turned back to the diary, pulled out the family photo, the young man with his parents on top of some Canadian mountain, who would never see him again.