//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Remnant Shadows // by Merchent343 //------------------------------// Present There were some days where Valera wondered why he bothered getting up. Every single morning (or as close as he could find to one in a cave system), he had contemplated simply wandering off and falling off a cliff. It would have been unnoticeable, and the only people - beings, he corrected himself - who would have missed him would have been a Merc and a transforming pony-bug. This was one of those days. "I fucking hate you, Stepa!" Valera yelled as he leaned around the corner, firing three rounds from his TRs-301 at one of the military STALKERs down the cave hallway. The man flopped to the ground in a heap as the 5.56mm bullets shattered the faceplate on his suit, killing him. Valera went back behind the wall just as a barrage of bullets passed through the space he had just vacated. "Why the fuck are you blaming me, you asshole!" The Merc replied as they traded fire with the Ukrainian Military troops just down the corridor. "Why? Oh, I don't know. It might just be because you're the one who dragged me along with you into this!" Valera replied, huddling behind the outcropping of rock that happened to be the only barrier between the bullets and himself, and he didn't trust the Kevlar panels that covered his SEVA suit to protect him against a rifle round. Slowly, Valera went over the morning in his mind, wondering how he had gotten himself roped in this situation. Twenty minutes earlier... Valera stared blankly at the booklet in his hands. After fighting his way around the closest thing to Hell itself, he shouldn't be having second thoughts about opening a book. But here he was, staring at it with no small amount of hesitation. He supposed the reason for it was a reluctance to read the words of somebody now dead. Valera had 'liberated' the booklet from a dead guard on his last job: One of his particular habits was reading the PDAs of his dead opponents, something that he did to remind himself of the cost of what he did. So why was he waiting? Sighing, he set the small book down on an alcove above his bed, alongside much of his equipment. "Stepa, does selling your work for money ever get easier?" Valera asked the Merc, who turned around from loading a magazine to look at him. "No." Stepa replied, the message short but to the point. Valera sighed again, wondering what he was going to do today. His thought was answered moments later, as a Changeling rushed into the room. "Queen Chrysalis requests your presence. Now!" The Changeling quickly blurted out. "It's an emergency." "Wonderfully convenient." Valera dryly noted as he and Stepa quickly hopped up, working to don their armor as quickly as they could. "Right as I have nothing to do, another crisis seems to pop up." "Life is such." Stepa noted as both of them finished securing their SEVA suits. "Still, it's bullshit." Valera noted as he put his helmet over his head, switching his radio on before continuing. "I just wish I could have a day off for once. I have spent months working to get away from the Zone, and it is not fair that the same dangers have come around to find me again." Stepa had no reply, so Valera quickly finished by grabbing his TRs-301 and his Chaser-13 shotgun. Most of the ammo for each was already strapped to bullet- and anomaly-resistant pouches on his suit, so he didn't have to worry about grabbing each individual magazine for his rifle every time he needed it. Looking over at the Merc, Valera could see that he had grabbed his GP-37 and finished putting his suit on. They were ready. Valera turned towards the Changeling. "Lead the way." "There is a problem." The strange bug-like 'Changeling' named Chrysalis said as the STALKER and the Merc entered. "So I have gathered." Valera stated dryly. "What is it?" "More of your kind have entered the caves." Chrysalis hissed. "They have killed half a dozen sentries, and are holding one of the entrances. We believe they are waiting for something, and you are the best ones to combat them." "We'll do it." Stepa quickly replied before Valera could. "Good. You know the entrance: It is the one you used." Chrysalis said. "Come back when you are finished." "Yeah, yeah." Stepa replied as he and Valera turned around. "Who do you think it is?" The STALKER whispered. "I think we'll find out when we get there, Valera." The Merc replied. Present Valera's train of thought cut off as another burst of gunfire erupted. Rounds flew past his makeshift cover, to impact on some cave wall far down the tunnel. "Stepa, any ideas?" Valera asked over the radio. His Merc friend, who was huddled behind a similar rock outcropping, shook his head. "None at the moment." Stepa replied. "They didn't exactly train me for this type of situation." "STALKERs, come out!" A voice over the radio said as the gunfire died down. "Your situation is hopeless!" "Pishov ty [Fuck you]!" Valera yelled back in Ukrainian. The gunfire quickly resumed. "Damn it all. I'm going to use a grenade, Stepa." "Do it!" The Merc replied. Valera pulled out one of his F1 grenades, took the pin out, flipped off the safety lever, and tossed it around the corner. *boom* Both Valera and Stepa stepped out from behind cover, scanning for targets. A three-round burst from Valera's TRs-301 lanced out, piercing the thin Kevlar covering that the first soldier had. Moments later, Stepa fired his rifle, blowing a hole through the helmet of a second. The third and final one was still getting up from the grenade blast when Valera kicked him in the chest, knocking the soldier down. The STALKER was on him in seconds, Valera's foot holding him down. By the time he finally put two and two together, Valera had already unclipped his sidearm, a well-maintained SIP-t. "Stepa, what do I do with this poor bastard?" Valera asked over the radio, motioning towards the downed soldier. "Just let him go." The Merc replied, scanning the area for more targets. "You don't need to kill everything you meet, after all." Valera grunted, lifting his foot off of the soldier before looking down at him and muttering a single word. "Run." And run he did, the Ukrainian Army soldier taking off towards the entrance of the cave. With the man's rifle lying on the ground and his pistol in Valera's hands, the STALKER knew he would not be a threat. "Come on, let's see what we can find on the bodies." Stepa said, already kneeling over one of them. Valera simply shrugged, reaching down to search through the pouches of the soldier next to him. By the time he felt he had finished, he had acquired two of the Army-designed First Aid Kits, four tins of meat, an AKM-74/2U with 240 rounds of 5.45mm BP ammunition, as well as two clips of .45ACP for the SIP. Valera noticed that the second body appeared to be lying on top of something. Rolling the body over, he grabbed a bag that it appeared the soldier had been holding on to. The STALKER opened the top, reaching his hand in to search for the contents. The first thing he pulled out was a package with eight small rolls of gauze bandages, which he quickly pocketed. The second objects his hands found just happened to be a pair of RDG-5 grenades, which Valera gingerly attached to his belt. The final object in the pad, though, surprised him. His gloved hands pulled out a single PDA, which Valera swiftly activated out of curiosity. His jaw dropped as he saw the contents. It was one of the newest military models, something that no STALKER could ever afford. It had dozens of documents full of clear-classified information, ranging from hundreds of military stash locations scattered around the Zone, all the way to contacts with various arms dealers in Rostok that even the Bartender could not have known of. All of that would have been useless, however, had it not been for the information that it did possess in this new world, ranging from a few buried caches of supplies and weapons out in the desert, to information on the anomaly that had sent them here. From the information that the PDA contained, there were a grand total of 48 STALKERs of various factions that had been taken by the anomaly thus far, and three teams with four soldiers each that had stumbled into it by accident. This happened to be one of those teams. Valera quickly scanned over the data from the anomaly. From what the pad had recorded, it expanded and contracted on a daily basis, never going farther than a hundred meters from the center. However, it had produced almost twenty different artifacts as of the writing, and while most STALKERs - and the Military - were beginning a rush towards Pripyat, quite a few had chosen to try their luck with harvesting the artifacts contained within the anomaly. This, of course, had led to dozens of skirmishes between Duty, Freedom, the Military, multiple Mercenary groups, and plenty of STALKERs over the anomaly itself. Valera shook his head, turning off and pocketing the PDA. The information on it was invaluable, and it was definitely something that he would be downloading to his own PDA later. "Are you done, Valera?" He heard Stepa ask impatiently. "Yes, I am done." The STALKER replied. "Let's get back to the bug lady." At the end of it all, Valera and Stepa had both been handed thirty of the 100-bit pieces for their work. Both of them had swiftly retired to their room: Valera to go over the PDA, and the Merc to fuss over the two AC-96/2 rifles he had taken. As he finally stripped the last of the armor off, Valera sighed, falling onto his bed and taking out the PDA he had taken. Turning it on, he picked up where he had left off, starting on the military files contained inside. To his frustration, a box prompting him for a password appeared. Over the next few minutes, he tried several obvious combinations, ranging from numbers to the names of military units. Finally, he sighed and entered 'Password' as the password. Access Granted Welcome, Lieutenant Maksym Valera's hand swiftly met his face as he groaned, silently cursing the sheer stupidity and unoriginality that some people happened to possess. A new screen came up, with several subjects given in list form. The Zone: Basic Information Supply Locations/Maps Contacts/Safe Areas Messages NEW: Northern Rostok Anomaly Valera tapped his finger on the last one, and quickly found himself inundated with dozens of briefing sheets, scientific papers, and data charts. He quickly exited most of them, narrowing down the amount of information to just a few small summary documents. From the data within, the Anomaly itself was giving off an immense amount of gravitational readings, as if it contained a near-infinite mass at the center, while at the same time no effects were shown from this outside of the anomaly itself. Scientific trackers, like the special bolts that Valera had thrown into it, still sent out readings, but the results given were completely random, quite a lot like static on a television screen. The area of the anomaly itself fluctuated regularly, growing and shrinking in no discernible pattern. Seeing that he would learn nothing of use, Valera exited out of this section and tapped on 'Supply Locations/Maps' and then on 'Maps'. Several icons popped up, ranging from 'Anomaly Locations' to 'Lab X-17'. Valera scrolled down with a flick of his finger, and tapped the one labeled 'Unknown Location'. Immediately, a large map popped up, starting at a location almost forty kilometers to the west, and ending at the entrance to the cave. A location marked 'Arrival' had an area ten kilometers in diameter around it mapped, with a .5km-wide path leading from it to the ending point. Scattered around the explored area were at least eight stash locations, as well as several markers labeled with the tag 'Battle with ________'. In short, this PDA was a virtual gold mine. Valera used a short cord to establish a connection between his PDA and the new one, beginning a download of all the data contained within: More than ten gigabytes of high-grade military information. At the same time, he combined the mapping data from that PDA with his, noting that they had appeared to the south-west of him, and that he had gone along a track almost parallel to them. Finally, after several minutes, the information finished transferring, and Valera felt it was time to alert his friend. "Stepa." He said after a moment. "You need to see this..."