I stood on top of a hill to my west lay an active field of gravitational anomalies. The only real sign of danger in the anomalous region were the holes and trenchs that carved strange shapes in the landscape. A building once lay in the middle of that region, sheets of metal and giders were strewn about, and some of the girders were planted in the gound like oversized fence posts. It was my third day of observations so far I failed to gather any significant data about the region. Despite all the efforts of the zone-s scientists a lot of zone phenomenon remained unexplained, the data I have taken from this region on the first and second day of my observations remained more or less constant with all previous research into gravitational anomalies. I was hoping to observe something that only a few stalkers have seen the legendary shift in an anomalous region, since they were timed to blowouts few people would be in a position to observe them. A blowout has been brewing for the past three days, most of my field staff and our stalker mercenaries are busy literaly digging themselves and our equipment in back at the base camp. In the distance I saw a brief flicker of lightning and a deep rumble. Popel, the leader of my stalker mercenaries climbed into the dugout next to me. ?Okay I have set up the last of the cameras and the gravity interferometer is functioning.

As Popel spoke he rested his AK against the dirt wall of the dugout and closed the tin flap that served as the door. ?I really hope this thing is stable, because if it collapses we won-t be able to did ourselves out in a hurry¦ I looked out of the narrow slit between the roof of the dugout and the ground. The lightning and thunder began to get a bit more intense and the colour was starting to fade in the corners of my vision. ?Blowout is imminent,¦ I said putting on my blackout goggles and continuing to stare through the vision slit at the anomalous region. I Heard Popel huddle into one of the corners brace himself, we were extremely close to the centre of the blowout, well outside the minimum safe distance in fact. Though the unoffical stalker record said the closest a man could get to the epicentre of a blowout was eight hundred meters, granted the man who had set this record is now permenantly colour blind, deaf and now in a wheelchair. Our distance from the epicentre was about 1.5 kilometres and it would be on the other side of a shallow incline shielding us from the most violent effects. The real prize from being here would be watching the changes in the anomalous region that seemed to only happen when a blowout occured.

With one final deep rumble in the distance the blowout raced out in all directions. The pressure wave hit us first, I held onto the lip of the dugout and continued to watch, violently the blowout was dissipating energy causing arcs of lightning and seemingly random areas appeared to warp and bend, the ground heaved and an earth shattering roar nearly knocked me out. My focus shifted back to the gravitational anomaly field, one of the rooted girders began to bend and twist as if it was no more than a piece of twine, a powerful gravitational anomaly was moving over this girder. The unnatural contoring ended as the anomaly moved on, leaving the girder bent in an impossible angle. As the smaller anomalies moved they gathered up material bending and twisting it in a display that clearly mapped out the shape of the anomaly as if you were looking at it with an anomaly visor. By now my vision was completely greyed out, the world looked like it had became a black and white movie. By now the most violent effects of the blowout subsided but the less dangerous warping effects continued. It was widely belived that these warping effects were the product of gravitational anomalies being formed, but why they were deposited around the zone in areas no where near a blowout remained a mystery.

I am Professor Brenden Lawrence, formerly of the Harvard Physics faculty. When the 2008 accident at Chernobyl triggered the formation of the zone, the faculty was flooded with sketchy reports of new physical and biological phenomenon were now occuring within the zone. At first the Russians were the only ones collecting data, but they refused to share it with the rest of the world. When the first reports of well armed freelancers venturing into the zone started to circulate in the world media an international team of rogue scientist conspired to build two basecamps for expeditions into the zone. Two sites were chosen, they were named simply Site A and Site B.

The nucleus of Site A largly consisted of scientists from Russia and other breakaway republics, however the world-s research and educational institutions provided most of the personel who left their well paid jobs in order to investigate the zone. Funding for the camps has been non-existent and they pay for themselves by selling artifacts on the black market. The early days of construction were bad. We lost many mercenaries and scientist to the zones new wildlife. Controllers would sneak past the sentries and into the construction camps while everybody was sleeping, take control of several people then leave. This happened with alarming regularity until we finished the first of the psychotropic fields that could nullify a Controller-s telepathic ability. Once the other defences at Site A had been completed most of the scientists remained well within the psychotropic field working in ad hoc laboratories and sending out stalkers take readings and recover artifacts, typically stalkers amature and experienced alike view scientists as liabilities with money to spend. When a stalker is contracted by a scientist to go into the zone to take readings or recover unique artifacts many scientist especially the ones that are new to the zone underestimate the dangers of the zone and inadvertedly send stalkers to their deaths. Some scientists are particulary draconian in their methods, they will deliberatley place large rewards on recovering certain artifacts. Then they withold the actual dangers a stalker has to face when undertaking a mission, they do this to lure large amounts of amature stalkers to extremely dangerous objectives in the hope that one will be lucky enough to recover it. Most experienced stalkers become good at -reading between the lines- when accepting contracts from questionable scientists. However some scientist manage to earn the respect of stalkers because of their willingness to venture into the zone themselves and expose themselves to the dangers stalkers have to face regularly. Most of these respected scientists were members of the advanced party that assisted in building Site A. Some even became stalkers themselves.

By now the sky was starting to darken. In the deeper regions of the zone the Dwaves actually left their basements and caves at night, if nothing ventured into their traps the previous day. As we neared the camp we saw a thin plume of black smoke rise the air. I turned to look at Popel, with a grim look on his face he nodded. We both broke into a jog, as he moved Popel unslung his AK and held it at the ready, following his lead I drew my Desert Eagle and flipped the safty catch off. From the direction of the camp a burst of gunfire, echoed through the forest, the gunfire sounded again then slience. As I weaved around a tree I abruptly stopped, leaning against a tree five metres in front of me was a dwarf peering into the distance. In the open its poor sight was a severe handicap, but if that thing had been a few more metres closer I would have been dead. The dwarf turned around to look at me, without thinking I raised my pistol and fired. The recoil of the .357 round nearly caused me to drop the weapon, but the shot was right on target. The dwarf-s head exploded into a bloody mess then the limp body crumpled into a heap at the foot of the tree. A few metres to my left another dwarf appeared, this one was running away from the camp. I dropped to one knee trained my pistol on it, but it just kept running past me stangly another dwarf was following it, soon they faded into the darkness. About ten my right I heard the sharp report of Popel-s AK, I strained to see him in the darkness, he was only visible for a brief second as the muzzle flash from his AK illuminated him. He was firing into the forest, in the direction of retreating dwarves.

As we entered the camp we saw the bodies of dwarves scattered in between the edge of the camp and the woods, when we reached the camp itself it was a scene terrible of carnage. Tents hung on their aluminium frames in tatters and the truck that carried the bulk of their equipment had been overturned. The remaining stalkers that were guarding the basecamp slowly raised themselves out of their foxholes as they noticed us approaching. A young stalker emerged from behind the overturned truck and ran towards Popel, just as he reached him the yong stalker spoke to Popel in Russian. As he spoke Popel nodded soberly then turned to me, ?Seven of my stalkers are dead and another three are wounded, one of them critically.¦ Popel paused bracing himself, ?four of your collegues are dead, the other two are badly wounded and it is most likey that one of them won-t last the trip back to Site A. We have issued an SOS but we have had only one response from a lone stalker who can get a couple of the critically wounded back to Site A, he should be here in a few minutes.¦ I said nothing just started at the ground, Popel continued. ?Morley, Hiro, Fletcher and Larson are dead, though Reynolds and Chan are alive. Chan was mauled but he can walk, Dr Reynolds on the other hand is critically wounded and it is most likley she will not make it back to Site A even if we had left the moment that attack stopped.¦ I looked around trying hard not to look into Popel-s eyes, scattered around the camp lay the corpse of the dead stalkers. Some of the surviving stalkers were on grave detail carefully draping green cloth over the corpse where they lay.

I finally turned to face Popel his eyes had a look of genuine sympathy in them, finally I spoke ?what about our transport?¦ A little of spark returned to Popel-s eyes ?the truck was knocked over by the blowout through we can recover it, otherwise all of the vehicles are in good condition.¦ I looked down at the rubber boots on my radiation suit trying to collect myself. Finally I managed to regain my composure, ?get this lone stalker on the radio and tell him that I will pay him ten thousand roubles if my friend and your stalker make it to Site A alive. Make sure our wounded are comfortable but don-t neglect the perimiter, and have any men you can spare help me load the vehicles. Once the wounded are on their way we-ll form a convoy and start for Site A ourselves.¦ Popel nodded and turned to his two luietenants, he beckoned them over then addressed each one individualy in Russian. When Popel finished they all broke off and started going about their tasks, I went to the portable storm shelter that doubled as our field laboratory and started packing the lab equipment. As I did this I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.

The lone stalker was driving a customised UAZ it appeared that its rear passenger seats had been removed to make way for cargo space. One of Popel-s luietenants flagged the UAZ over to the ad hoc field hospital. Trying not to break into a run I walked over to where the UAZ was pulling up. For the first time I saw the extent of Dr Reynolds injuries, her skin was a pasty white, she just stared upwards every now and then blinking and her respiration was shallow. I looked down to try and find where she was injured. Her leg had been ripped off at the knee by a dwarf, the stump was wrapped in sever layers of surgical bandages, blood was slowly soaking through staining the bandages a deep crimson. Despite the medical care that the stalkers were giving her she was bordering on going into shock. I forced myself to turn to the wounded stalker, he was even worse of than Dr Reynolds was. Several layers of bandages were wrapped around his gut, and he did not appear to be breathing, even if that kid made it back to Site A it is unlikley he would live. Bitterley I watched as the two wounded were slid into NBC casulty bags and lifted into the back of the UAZ. Near the drivers door the luietenant in charge of the wounded was talking to this lone stalker in Russian. One of Popel stalkers who served as the expedition-s medic climbed into the back of the UAZ and signalled to the lueitenant, in response the lueitenant turned to the lone stalker and muttered something in Russian. The lueitenant then took a step back and the UAZ sped away and melting into the darkness.

Once all of the vehicles were loaded we left for Site A as planned. I was riding in Popels Moskvitch. The boot and roofrack were loaded with the corpses of the fallen stalkers and my friends. I stared out my window, my pistol resting in my hand, I scanned the area on my side of the road for mutants. With a thump Popel shifted gear, for a brief moment I looked forward, the Moskvitch-s headlights illuminated the rear of the lead vehicle. As I turned back to my window Popel spoke, ?I-m sorry about your collegues Brenden.¦ Not really caring I muttered ?What have you got to apologise for? We were at least five hundred metres away.¦ Popel paused then said ?Chan is blaming us for the dwaves breaching the perimiter, he keeps telling my men that he is going to convince you to withold our pay when we get back.¦ Chan was not in a state of shock like I was after the attack. Instead he directed his anger at our stalker escourt for not being able to defend the camp. I thought for a moment then said ?you and your men will still be paid the usual rate for a week of escourt duties, and you will get the bonus for the data and artifacts discovered. But of course I will withold the agreed bonus that you would have received if all of my collegues had made it out of there alive, sorry.¦ Popel nodded and said ?I understand, it-s a shame we could not establish a new record and I seriously thought we had a chance at it too.¦ I shook my head and said, ?what record would that be?¦ Popel smiled ?The longest expedition time without sustaining casulties, the current record holder is the Lvov weeklong expedition two years ago.¦ ?There is always next time,¦ I said.

Perhaps I should leave the zone now, I could go back home and continue working in the faculty. In a nice ordered laboratory, where everything obeys the laws of inertia, gravity, thermodynamics and so on. All of these are definates, known quantities measureable, easily understandable and completely logical. Yet I have devoted a tenth of my life to the zone, a place outside of logic where things that should not be exist. A truly chaotic system where the only definate fact is that you are alive and even that can change in an instant. When scientist come here they want to study it, understand it, disect it and mesure it. In other words try to derive an order from the apparent chaos. After spending ten years here I am no closer to finding that order than I was when I first arrived. It is not just me either, every Physicist, Biologist and Chemist who has set foot in the zone have made virtually no progress in trying to understand it. Yet stalkers, undereducated men from the the Russian Federation have a much greater understanding of it than we do, they know when and where things occur but they can-t explain it and most of them don-t care. Yet an intuition born from experience guides them through the anomalous regions and past the mutated creatures right into the heart of the zone. A few of them wear religious ikons and have a strange yet oddly believable explanation of the zone. They believe that the zone is a place of trials used to test the faithful. It is said that once a man worthy reaches the centre of the zone god will reveal himself to the one who manages to overcome the trials, of course few people actually entertain these beliefs. The bitter ex-military men from the former red army come simply to find some earn some income, they typically fall into two catagories. The first spend a week in the zone, realise how bad it is and leave. The second adapt to the conditions and survive and in the process make a moderate income from selling artifacts and research data to the highest bidder. Then there are the cowboys from all over the world, mainly from Western Europe, Russia-s urban areas, China, Japan and the USA. They typically die during their first few weeks. If they make it past this critical stage they may end up becoming proper stalkers, though most simply leave the zone forever scarred by their experiences.

The scientists who come to the zone are just a naОve as some of the stalkers. They come with an attitude that they are going to explain zone phenomenon, prove current theories and invent new ones. Luckily this illusion is shattered quickly. Some scientist who spend a long time in the zone loose their previously unshakable faith in the laws of physics and slowly become stalkers themselves, believing in their intuition rather than their logic. It is happening with me, when I encountered that dwarf instread of trying to capture it I killed it. I thought first for my own survival rather than the betterment of the field of life science.

That-s how you earn the respect of stalkers, you think of human lives first before research grants and scientific advances. Yet if I stay any longer I will loose my belief in science completely and become a fully-fledged stalker. That is why I am now crouching in some foilage, staring at a Russian military checkpoint, my remaining wordly possesions are on my back. Once the foot patrol returns to the guardhouse, I-ll try to make the crossing. Once I am outside the zone, it should be easy to return to my home, to return to the rational world.