Chess' contract with the peacekeepers was coming to an end, and in the day
when the Second Middle-East war sprouted with nuclear mushrooms, his friend
from Norway and he left their unit on leave. Near Jerusalem the engine of their
bus started pinging, and Chess helped the driver with fixing it. That's what
kept his back turned to the flash and saved him from getting blinded.
But he got irradiated anyway, and spent a month in a UNESCO hospital, while
the German nanotechs were busy replacing his damaged tissues with substitutes.
Yet this turn of events might be called luck. Chess kept having dreams of making
it to the city just in time for the blast, for about a year. He saw the crater's
photos in the newspapers and the Net.
He came home right in the middle of the post-referendum fever. Not knowing what
was happening, he kept looking quizzically through the cab windows at the tricolors,
the red banners, the bonfires at the crossroads and the Feds' Mobile Battle
Stations with the turret gun-covers off. He asked the driver to turn the radio
on, and the cab was filled with sounds of an anthem, which had lost all meaning
two days before, with the advent of the total privatization era. Somebody's
charismatic voice was summoning the patriots to battle.
"It is a time for renewal... We shall pick up arms if need be... The time
has come... Decisive action! Choose your side!!!"
The driver started turning a knob - and static filled the air, with surprised
voices of the world's reporters breaking through it.
"... that the Heritage of the Ancestors has dubbed the New Slavonic Revolution.
Reports are arriving of clashes between the separatist supporters and the Federal
units. And now we..."
More static.
"'... Russia will be reborn! The time has come!' How do you like that,
Gregor?"
"Incredible! Are there any similarities with the Jihad? Tony, can you hear
me?"
"Well, the Heritage leaders have declared, that..."
After an hour and a half spent in a traffic jam, he paid the driver, got out
of the cab and immediately fell into some kind of a meeting. Men wearing moustaches
and Cossack hats shouted themselves hoarse about thousand years of tradition
and cursed the Protocol. Along the street there were billboards with bikini-clad
girls, inviting all to join the new sovereign state-bodies, their message booming
throughout the country over the previous two days. They were called quansoots
- Quasi-National Sovereign Territories.
Somebody's self-confident voice was thundering above the crowd.
"We're not against democracy and freedom. But what are we fed with instead
of that? Just the power of capital! Is money the sense of a human life? Were
we granted our intelligence by God and Nature just to forfeit the Sublime and
devote ourselves to the mundane?"
The roar of turbines came from nearby, and searchlights beamed down from the
darkened sky. Several assault air platforms were hovering above the road.
The menacing bulks of the MBS started pressing on the crowd. Somebody shot into
the air, and that triggered a chaotic firefight.
That's where Chess' instincts, still fresh after five years, kicked in, making
him pry an ancient "Degtiaryov" out of somebody's hands and hug the
asphalt.
When they shoot at you, you shoot back - sides don't matter in this case.
Chess and a crowd of New-Russians were locked up in a stadium for two days.
He'd been interrogated twice - but the questions they asked him were mostly
stupid. He'd been cursing his bad luck, though deep inside he knew everything
could have turned out much worse.
He was sure that they were going to release him pretty soon. But then news came
that patriots of the Heritage had parked an old Volkswagen at the Moscow Town
Hall's gates, but the car, instead of usual stuff, contained a stolen Ukrainian
warhead. The stadium was filled with presentiment of an imminent victory, yet
Chess felt quite miserable.
The lawyer was dressed conservatively, despite the intricate web of "tattoos"
covering his cheek - they were, in fact, microchips, decorated with little gemstones.
This must have been fashionable. There, outside.
"It's a pity, Anatoli, but your plea has been overruled. Half a million
dead in Moscow alone... The Federal Government cannot be lenient towards even
the… mmmm… insurgents-by-chance, the ones like you. The Protocol institute demands
blood. Same goes for many quansoots and corporations, the relatives of the dead..."
"Can't anything be done?"
The lawyer gave him a long look, the gems on his cheek gleaming in cold electric
light. "Why not… Would you agree to pass several more tests?"
"One has to pass an exam, to go to prison?"
"Ho-ho," the jacket-wearing man laughed falsely, "there are prisons
and prisons, you know..."
Later he had a talk with an elderly fed fitted with colonel's shoulder straps.
"An alternative, perhaps?"
The fed cast a sidelong look at the lawyer - he gave a look back. "Have
you ever heard of the Zone?" he asked.
"Who hasn't?"
"If you would like to decrease you sentence..."
"Decrease?"
"Dramatically," said the lawyer.
"Helping humanity in the process," added the fed.
Helping humanity… Restoring the nation… Mmm... "I'm all ears."
He was prepared for barbed wire and machine-guns on the guard towers, but this
prison looked more like a research center. Barracks were the only buildings
standing inside a high fence with sensors of some kind attached to its poles.
"There's nowhere to run from here," a guard in the bus told him. "There's
a wall five kilometers from here, and it's got an automatic defense system.
Nobody's going to warn you with anything like 'Stop, or I'll shoot!'"
"Name?" Moustache again, like the ones those Cossacks had. No banners
and hymns, though. The colors here were strange somehow. And the smells. As
for the sky - he tried not to look at it.
Moustache. Ragged wide trousers and a leather cuirass with applique pockets.
"Name!"
"Anatoli Cheskin."
"...Chessking..." the man wrote something down.
"Checkin."
"I said it's Chessking, and that's the way it's going to be! You got a
problem with that? No?! In that case - go to the barracks!!! Go, go, go! Are
you all dead already or what, you apes!?"
The guards at the gate burst out laughing. A gust of wind coming out of the
Forest brought dust and new, alien smells.
He threw up at the barracks's wall.
Lance, the old man, looked like a mouse - but his eyes looked like gun barrels.
Two bouncers standing by his side compensated for his lack of size.
"What did you do?"
"I used to be a sniper with the peacekeepers."
The old man smiled. "That's nice. Means you are patient. If you were any
good, that is." He shrugged his shoulders. "You'll join the first
three with Rogovski. If you come out alive - I'll give you a weapon. But for
now a stick will do just fine. Did you get me, Chessking?"
"I'm Cheskin."
"Who cares, anyway …"
He'd been trained by the best of the best. "Don't touch that root. It spits
with some kind of shit. You don't feel it at first, but in a couple of hours
you go blind." The root looked like a giant rib.
"And what's that?"
"Hush! What did I tell you about pointing fingers! Somebody lives there.
I don't know who - and I don't care. There's a hollow behind that web - and
it is filled with Clay. Have you heard about that stuff? That's a nice pool
of Clay. The little bastards it makes are quite harmless. Our smarties are ecstatic
about them. They say those things have an unusual DNA." Rogovsky smelled
the air and resumed his speech. "But it's been cleared yesterday. The Zone
doesn't like the greedy ones. One has to be patient."
The other "Oaks" - avant-garde suicide runners - could be seen nearby.
Every "specialist" had at least ten of those for distracting creatures
of the Zone from him and carrying the goods back to the base. Most of the "Oaks"
were armed just like Chess - nobody liked the idea of giving real weapons to
the convicts.
"Stand back," said Rogovski, "the Old man told me to look after
you, but you keep charging forward. There are Oaks to do that. That's their
job - to disturb the wasps' nests. Your job is to stay close and learn."
The Forest here was totally unlike any other forest. There were purple fir-trees
and little spiked bushes, the colors of which Chess wouldn't even know how to
name.
"It's no private research sector here," the specialist resumed, "no
fancy gadgets. Just the head. Even the weapons…" Rogovski shook his head
and gave the holstered "spitter" a negating slap. "It's a simple
toy. Only filled with acid instead of water".
"Sure, most of ours have guns stashed in the Forest, but don't tell anyone.
At least one of the members of any large group is surely a sneak. One report
- and you'll go straight to the zone, and not the one with capital Z."
They reached a small clearing with air flickering above a Spot, and a pine with
two crosses carved onto its bark. "Shit, I forgot your name again."
"Cheskin... Chessking..."
"Chess, that is. All right..."
"Hey, what's that?"
"That, my dear, is the Zombie you heard about so many times."
"Need any help, my son?"
"Thank you, padre." He looked through the window. A banner with the
words "Positive thinking does miracles" was gently swaying in the
wind near the entrance to the stalkers' barracks.
Machineguns and banners. Yeah... "No, I don't need anything."
"I heard many good things about you."
"Really? From who?"
Padre looked confused. "It doesn't matter... But I think you are too reclusive,
you prefer going to the Zone alone. That's dangerous, after all..." What
did he mean?
"You mean to teach me to walk through the Zone?!"
"No way, Anatoli! It's just that your mental health worries me."
I think you intentionally locked your problems inside. Perhaps, it has something
to do with your being a Russian?
"Padre, as they say in Odessa - go buy a herring and fuck its brains out,
and leave my brain alone."
Padre clasped his hands. "That's just what I was saying - you are too reclusive!"
Not just anyone could get here.
The Feds were afraid of letting the entrepreneur stalkers into the Zone, which
they knew like their own pockets. Regular cons were not trusted enough. The
only feasible candidates for the stalkers' positions were ex-employees of federal
agencies, the military, and policemen from still standing states and big quansoots
like Toshiba or McDonalds.
The scientists there were also unusual. They belonged to a strange species of
scientist, attracted to the unknown, strange and dangerous.
A couple of times he took them to the Zone. He liked the smarties' behavior
- usually they kept silent and didn't prevent him from feeling what he called
the Zone's "breath". When he asked them about something, they gave
answers willingly.
"Hey, Chess!" The Crookedarm called out for him. The guy was one of
his barracks's specialists. A butcher - one of those who sent dozens of their
Oaks out to die. They used to say that he once was a mercenary somewhere out
in Central Africa. The habit worked out there was noticeable. "The Old
Man said you'd be helping me."
"No way."
"What?!"
"I'll never be anybody's Oak or a helper anymore. I work alone."
"The Old Man said..."
"I work alone. Just me and the Zone. Can't you believe that?"
The Crookedarm laughed. "I can. You're crazy, bro!"
Zone was his life now. In the Forest he felt that he was real. This was his
home. He couldn't even imagine another way of existence, and perceived his entire
life as a prelude to the stalker's career. He knew he was not the only one to
think this way. There were civilians at the base - the ones who had already
spent their detention period here, but could not break their attachment to the
Zone.
He never looked that far into the future. In the world of Spots, Devil's fog,
blind dogs and no-wolves everybody tried living for today. A day-dreamer was
almost sure to be crushed by an unnoticed trap or cornered by a gang of Zombies.
He knew one thing for sure: there was no escape from the Zone for him.
It was Rogovski who managed to talk him onto going with Saad.
Chess didn't like the Jihs since the war, though Saad in particular, hadn't
participated. On the contrary, he was one of those who embraced the new order
and helped the Temporary Occupation Force with pumping cheap oil to the West.
His own greed betrayed him - and that was what brought him here.
Saad was majoring in "pearls". "He smells it like a male dog
smells a bitch" they used to say in the barracks. And Saad's nose took
them through the Glass Wood to the Emerald City. Saad said that during his last
trip he smelled a huge colony here, but his group had almost died out, and he
did not want to wait till the Old Man finds him another company. That's why
he asked for a guide to the "Wizard of Oz".
The Emerald City is not green at all, as one might think. It simply consists
of several huge electric power line posts melted together and resembling a city
from a distance. But there's a real yellow-brick road leading to it from the
Forest - it's made of this-and-that-carbon-something-cocktail. In short - glass
sand.
Yellow like sun.
That's how they walked into that fairy-tale.
He stood at the bunker door and looked at the raging storm. Visibility was minimal,
but one could see the swollen river and falling trees behind the curtain of
rain. Water carried blocks of mud, broken tree branches and other trash past
their concrete island.
"Close that door," groaned Saad from behind, "it'll get damp
in here..."
He raised his eyes towards the lead-gray clouds, took a step forward and faced
the rain. The water hit him like a soft wet fist, immediately soaking his cloak
and sending cold streams running down his back. He snorted and entered the bunker's
mossy coolness. Then he closed the armor-plated door behind him.
There was a bonfire burning inside, consuming remnants of old furniture with
Federal Service marks on its leatherette. Uneasy caustic fire dimly illuminated
the pale, cracked plaster, outdated posters and graffiti covering the walls.
A noticeable stench of shit hung in the air.
"Is it raining?" asked the Jih from behind the fire.
"Sure it's raining..."
There was a crack of thunder, followed with that eerie howl.
The toothed ones didn't lose them…
When the Federal Forces entered the Zone for the first time, one MBS patrol
got stranded and had to break camp for one night in an abandoned house. In the
middle of the night the drunken soldiers of the company were awoken up by a
howl.
"What the hell was that?" asked the commander.
"It's wolves…" one of the soldiers answered, taking a gun and exiting
the door.
In a couple of minutes he came back, pale like a dead man.
"Those are no wolves…", he kept saying, "definitely not wolves".
That, at least, is the legend.
They met the no-wolves accidentally.
The place looked quite harmless. They met a couple of innocent-looking walking
Zombies. Apparently there was no one controlling them, so they moved like sleepwalkers.
Some guys in the barracks used to call those dancers. Not everybody, of course
- most of the stalkers leave humor out of the Zone's borders. Death does not
like jokes.
They could have shot the Zombies, but Chess tried not to shoot in the Forest
without real need. One simply can't know what might trigger the Chase, when
the whole Forest throws all the shit it has in stock at you.
So they went calmly.
And suddenly they bumped into a nest.
Apparently, the Pack went hunting, and only a regular guard protected the black
hole in the ground. A sphere, maybe.
One of the smarties once told him that the no-wolves are not separate beings,
but hive-beings, like the bees.
And they used to think together, like one brain.
Rogovsky told him about the typical "formations" of the no-wolves
in the very beginning - the star, the ring. And the protective sphere around
the nest.
He shot the sphere with the spitter and threw a Molotov cocktail into the hole.
There was no hope of getting the queen - but he could have at least burnt the
pups. And that very moment one of the no-wolves had reached Saad. It didn't
bite him - the Jih managed to neutralize the thing with his electric wand, but
then he stumbled and cut himself with a Black Thorn's "leaf".
Which broke inside his body.
That's what had happened...
"You should leave me here..."
He rocked his head in disapproval. Again... "Shut up, you Arab mug."
Saad gave an insulted snuffle.
A "leaf" in the body was bad news. The wound would heal up immediately,
but that was not any help.
The thing was extremely hard to get out of the body, and had a bad habit of
sprouting, and that meant...
He saw the so-called cacti a couple of times. Not an amusing sight.
The bunker looked like it was once used as a cache by some civilian stalkers
or maybe some Feds got caught here by something. In any case, the place was
full of rusty pieces of metal, every step bringing the tinkling of empty shells.
He scanned through the heap of garbage and gritted his teeth.
It's such a pity when there's a pack lurking about and you got so many good
weapons - and still can't do anything. There were some marine assault rifles,
a hand mortar, a six-barrel minigun and some flamers - but everything had broken
long ago.
"Do you think the bitches can get some Controllers here?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Is that going to change anything?"
They were, of course, lucky to come across that bunker. It could help them in
fighting the no-wolves off. If those attacked. And what if they simply blocked
them there? The pack could keep lurking around for weeks. Nobody was going to
come looking for them.
And if the no-wolves brought Controllers or something like that… In that case
the stalkers could do themselves a service by simply shooting themselves.
Those could be fought only on an open ground. Any building would be simply squished
or electrified by them.
The bunker seemed to have been one of the "temporary posts". Once
they had lots of those built in the Forest along the old roads. The Feds used
to keep patrols in those, and the first smarties from the long-gone Research
Agency kept their field equipment in the bunkers' lockers.
The posts proved to be totally useless.
He got up and stepped towards the door, opening it.
"What's up?"
"I simply can't stand it. It's like a cage..."
He thought of his rotten luck again. And about troubles which always saved him
from other troubles - usually, from much graver ones.
But it could hardly get any worse now …
"By the way, why didn't you leave me?"
"I'm so tired of your god damned questions..."
They stayed silent for a moment.
"It's good that we're going to die here", Saad said in a low voice.
"What's so good about that?"
"The sky is real here… Normal. It's alien in other parts of the Zone…"
The sky. Yes, the sky was important.
Of course, he didn't get the queen. Or else the pack wouldn't have chased them.
The no-wolves, if left to their own devices, are quite dumb and not very dangerous.
"Do you believe in something?" asked the Arab. "Huh, Chess?"
"I believe in myself," he answered.
The Arab took time to think it over. "Your belief will die together with
you."
"That wouldn't bother me then."
The bonfire crackled with the false leather of federal furniture. Outside it
kept raining. Chess thought of the wars he'd fought, of soldiers he had kept
in his rifle sights, of his stupid luck. He also thought of the Jerusalem blast
and his past life.
For some reason it all seemed to be far away and dim. Even the young Jih with
a "leaf" near his heart seemed like miles away.
Hardly had he ever felt this way. Alone with himself. Even the Zone had decided
to keep distance and grant him a minute of total loneliness.
He approached the open door and peeked outside. A huge tree drifted down the
river, tripping over, catching the shore-side bushes with its branches, plowing
the riverbed and setting yellow and gray clouds of silt and mud afloat.
One could sometimes see the crooked towers of the power line through the curtain
of rain.
Lightning flashes from behind…
Everything was so alien…
And then he saw some vague shadows take shape in this gray world of water and
wind. Somebody or something was approaching the bunker. The wolves started howling
again - their voices were more numerous now, and they sounded closer.
He had turned and approached his stuff left near the bonfire.
"What's out there?" the Jih asked, waking up.
Chess shrugged his shoulders. "Looks like its those Controllers of yours.
Or something like that." He inserted a new acid cartridge into the spitter
and strapped the gun to his shoulder. Then he picked up his home-made bombthrower
and faced the wounded specialist. "I feel like putting up a fight... Just
to observe the decencies..."
He smiled again, looking at the heap of rusty metal on the floor, his wounded
partner, writhing in pain, took a sip of barrack span from the canteen, and
stepped outside.