“You’ll have your base at a central location of the New Zone, Bruiser. Ever heard of Ghorband?” asks the half-mutant. The Bandit nods. “The Tribe won’t bother you if you don’t bother them, but you can raid Free Stalkers at your pleasure. There are anomaly fields rich in artifacts between Ghorband and the Tribe, if you don’t mind shedding your own sweat.”
“We do,” Bruiser replies, smiling. “It’s easier to make ourselves home at Ghorband and let the Loners pay a toll on any artifact they carry on their way back to Bagram—so to say. However, that place is heavily defended.”
“I have something for you.” The half-mutant reaches into a pocket of his ragged coat and gives the Bandit a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s a map of the Asylum with all the weak spots marked. If you aren’t complete idiots, you can overrun it. The place is in disarray anyway since Shrink moved to Bagram.”
Bruiser glances at the map and then nods, obviously satisfied with what he sees, yet still gives the half-mutant a cagey look.
“Is this map reliable?”
“Believe me,” Skinner replies with a reassuring smile, “I know that place like the back of my hand.”
“And about what you’ve asked for in exchange—you sure about that?”
“Absolutely. I need a burer from the Exclusion Zone. Am I asking too much?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time for Barkeep to arrange for one, I guess. Still sounds weird. What do you need a burer for?”
Skinner smiles even wider. “They make cute pets.”
Bruiser frowns but makes a gesture meaning whatever.
“What about us?” the dushman asks. “You businessmen from the north don’t have to fight the Tribe, but how should we overcome those devils?”
For a heartbeat, Skinner stares into the flames of the campfire.
Now it would be my turn to talk in flowery language. It will be demons beating devils because I will unleash the demons of the New Zone. By the time you finish your petty business, my army will be ready. Then I will purge this land of human pestilence. There will be no souls left to be corrupted by a blood-thirsty religion, neither vicious minds to feed on greed. And then, maybe then, at least this one land shall be pure.
Looking at the two others, he eventually gives the dushman and the Bandit a patronizing smile.
“Rest assured, Bruiser, Sultan will get more loot and artifacts than he could sell in a lifetime. As for you, Saifullah, the Tribe will be annihilated. Just provide me with heavy weapons. Ten-fifteen dismounted NSV and DShK machine guns plus a few RPGs will do.”
Saifullah frowns. “Dismounted? Those are too heavy to be carried around!”
“Let that be my concern.”
“Your concern should be that no humans can beat those devils!”
“Don’t shit your pants, you brave, brave warrior,” the half-mutant replies to Saifullah’s whining. His smile turns into a grimace of despise. “My brothers will give you a helping hand — and they are not humans.”
He utters the last word like a profanity.
9
“Hey Mr. Fix-it! I got a pair of used boots, you have a look?”
“That will be twenty dollars, Ashot.”
“Hey come on, yesterday’s deal no bargain today!”
“Try those boots by walking over here!”
“I no can leave my bar alone. You come to me, huh?”
“No, you pop your head out of that wreck. The commandant wants to see you better.”
“Come again?”
“I CAN SEE ASHOT’S FACE THROUGH THAT WINDOW ON THE ANTONOV. CRAP! DOES HE EVER WASH HIS FILTHY DREADLOCKS?”
“That was the intercom’s button, Shrink,” Uncle Yar patiently explains. “If you want to zoom in with the telescope, you need to press the other button. Here.”
Standing in the window of the control tower that overlooks what had once been Bagram air base, now the free Stalkers’ home base in the New Zone, Borys the Shrink looks through the extra-large magnification telescope once more. He whistles in awe. “Now I understand how Captain Bone could keep a close eye over Bagram, literally!”
Proudly, Uncle Yar looks the telescope up and down as if this masterpiece of German optical engineering would be his own work.
“Repairing it was quite challenging but I loved having a break from broken weapons.”
“Well done, Yar. Wish your hippie friend would have listened to you and came over here. I need to talk to him, actually.” Shrink lets himself sink into the swivel chair that had once belonged to Captain Bone. “That fake Dutyer had have a good life here before Tarasov kicked his butts.”
“With all due respect to the major, I heard it different,” the technician says wiping his hands into an oily cloth hanging from his blue overall’s breast pocket. “Something about a former Monolithian sniper and a bunch of real Duty commandos downing Bone’s chopper and killing everyone on board.”
“Either way, good riddance of Bone and his henchmen. You think Tarasov will ever be back?”
“Ask me three different but easier questions.”
“All right.” Shrink thinks for a moment, putting the tops of his fingers together. He lets the chair spin left and right. “First, how to install this telescope on top of the old control tower? I’m not a wanker like Bone was who probably watched the Stalkers in the shower tent while jerking off. Instead I need a relatively sober Stalker watching the surrounding area day and night.”
“Can do. There’s a wrecked Apache chopper in the junkyard. Gutted, but still has the PPG glass-fiber cabin roof intact. Should come in useful for building a weather-proof lookout.”
“Excellent. Second, I’m not a secretive bastard like Bone was. I want all Stalkers be able to use their PDAs, just like in the Exclusion Zone. Possible?”
“Difficult. Enabling buddy tracking and messaging is just a flip of a switch away, but only in a 10 kilometer radius. You can contact anyone through Bone’s old radio up to 50 kilometers, but if we want more coverage for lesser mortals we’ll need signal relay towers.”
“Find out how, where, and when.”
“We’ll need a few volunteers to find locations for the relay towers. Do you mind if I broadcast a job opportunity?”
“Not at all. Third question: I’m not Russian like Bone was. I’m Polish. A Russian boss might let his men drink everything that has alcohol in it but a Pole cannot let this happen. I need to analyze Ashot and find a way to make him improve his vodka. Any ideas?”
“Maybe putting a gun to his head and telling him to stop watering it down,” Yar says, grinning. “Bone was Ukrainian, by the way.”
“That would make him half-Polish and the shame on him would be even bigger.”
“With all due respect, but as a Ukrainian myself I wouldn’t subscribe to the half-Polish thing.”
“No offense meant. In any case, no self-respecting man with a single drop of Polish blood in his veins would allow Ashot serve that mutant piss.”
“None taken if you make Mister No-good quit watering the vodka. I’ll see if there’s enough scrap metal in the wreck yard to weld a small tower from. Once I’m done with that and the scouts find a proper location, we can haul it there with the URAL truck.”
“Let me know if you need a helping hand. I’ll go to see Ashot later…” Shrink stretches his back in the chair and puts his legs on the desk. “Get working, Yar, and now let me feel important. It’s cozier here than in the Asylum, that’s for sure!”