“Come again?”
“I’ll need a little time to snuffle around before I can hack into a server, you know?”
“No need for that. I still have my password.”
“Oh.” No-Go sounds disappointed. “Help yourself. There’s an USB hub — plug and play!”
“Is that a secure connection? I mean, can it be tracked?”
“Course it can be. The question is what they find.” No-Go leaves the gutted computer alone and takes a wireless keyboard. He appears like a musician who’s about to play a challenging piece on piano knowing that it’s well within his abilities.
“If they try to nail the guy who made the call, a clueless geek somewhere in Beijing will be in for a surprise… look! I can see him hosting a guild party in World of Warcraft right now… geez, not only that. Seems like he’s running a gold farm! Damned cheaters… Now give me just ten minutes and all that gold will be mine, only mine!”
No-Go starts tapping his keyboard with fingers telling of routine.
“By the way, I presume it was you who provided us with Pete Leighley’s police file. Thanks, we would’ve never found him without that.”
No-Go sneers. “LAPD… gimme a break. We had police servers for breakfast before LulzSec got busted… oh yeah, those were the times!”
Tarasov logs on to the server of the Ukrainian military storing the messages during periods of an officer’s PDA being switched off. Back at the Tribe’s stronghold he did it a couple of times already, wondering if his old account is still available because the military hasn’t given up hope on his return. Knowing how things are run back in the army, sheer negligence is his other guess.
Intended for short periods during missions in locations where there’s no signal or during a leave, the log stores only messages from senders whom Tarasov or the system automatically has flagged as important. Now, after almost two months of absence, Tarasov is glad for this feature. It spares him the trouble of going through dozens of outdated emission warnings and status reports.
“Promotion to Lieutenant Colonel denied,” he reads out one of his messages, shrugging. “Looks like Degtyarev’s influence does have its limits after all.”
Most of the news is about usual events in the Exclusion Zone: supply lists, mission reports from his former comrades like Freedom patrol sighted at Pig Farm, Dark Valley. Area secured. 2 KIA. Lt. Priboi. A few Stalker warnings about mutant sightings.
All seems quiet in the Zone. Seeing how life went on without him, Tarasov is disappointed. The messages almost make him feel as if he were dead and looking back from the afterlife to the world of the living where he is no longer needed. Not even the thought of his impending return to the New Zone can cheer him up.
Only three messages are interesting. A report by a junior Duty commander shared with the military tells of an increased number of Bandits appearing. Strangely enough, they seem to avoid any confrontation with free Stalkers and other factions. The other two come from the same sender—Strelok.
Condor. Heard about your mission. Whenever you get back, come and see me. Back in my days I found something in X-18 that I want to show you now. Doctor and Barkeep are still reliable. Look for me in the Bar. Avoid Sidorovich.
The second, sent only a few days ago, makes Tarasov frown.
Condor. Got the SBU on my tail. Need your help. Hurry.
“Wow, yes! I’m rich!” No-Go shouts and thrusts his fist into the air, triumphantly. “All I have to do now is to re-route the server—hey, why so serious? Bad news?”
Tarasov reads the messages again, carefully. “Strange… first, an old friend says he has something important to talk about. A few days later, he says he’s in trouble and needs my help.”
“Who’s that guy?”
“An old friend, one of the last ones I still have in the Exclusion Zone.”
No-Go’s smart eyes wink behind his glasses.
“Let me know if there’s a change in your itinerary, okay? I’ll need to book your tickets, you know…”
“I need a moment to think this through. By the way — are you allowed to play video games all the time?”
“It’s part of my job.” Seeing Tarasov’s surprise, No-Go carries on. “Smaller part, though. The bigger part is monitoring YouTube and some forum threads—AR15.com, Marines.com and so on. Facebook too, of course.”
“How come?”
“Ever since the Bush wars, why do you think the bad guys were allowed to post hate videos showing our guys being blown up by IED’s, and worse? The NSA and all the other spooks were watching. As soon as Mahmud and Rashid started to praise those vids, the spooks ID-d them through their IP address and put them under surveillance. Extremist sites—ditto.”
“And?”
“We do the same, just looking at it from another angle. If Jack or Joe starts ranting about killing all the baddies, we flag them, check them, and if they seem to be clear Judging by their net traffic, we reach out for them.”
“There was a kid among the recruits. Fond of computers, apparently. Did you find him like that?”
“You must be meaning the all-American Counterstrike champion.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind, someone like you wouldn’t like it anyway. Though it made that kid a fucking millionaire. What door did the Top send him through?”
“The right one, I think.”
The hacker’s face darkens. “Uh-oh.”
“Why?”
“Well… anyway… so, as you see, our recruiting methods are much more efficient than Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you from a poster. But it’s just one part — there’s also the NRA, Probation Service, veteran and suicide help lines, Alcoholics Anonymous… lots of good people who’d get lost for the right cause without us.”
“All this must be top secret but you tell me everything without a second thought. How come?”
“The Top vouching for you makes you almost one of us.”
Although he is still curious about what this means, Strelok’s messages overwhelm Tarasov with desire to return to the Exclusion Zone. He is so much lost in his thoughts that he almost walks into Harman as he exits the recruiting hall.
“I see you are impressed by our little base, Major!”
“Net, ya… I mean, uhm, yes… You done with recruiting?”
“Twenty-four out of thirty-six. Good catch. Even got a Canadian and an kiwi among them. Outstanding stock.”
“Top, I saw and heard things I was probably not supposed to. Everyone kept telling about you vouching for me. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Follow me. I need you to see something.”
The Top opens a door. As soon as they enter the dark room behind it, an almost blinding light is switched on. A striking red stripe on the ceiling catches Tarasov’s attention. Then, as he looks down, a ghastly cry escapes him.
“Gospodi… it’s the recruit’s you’ve rejected! All dead!”
“Here they lie, one by one finished off by Sergeant Hillbilly’s silenced Beretta 92. They enter the room through that door from the recruiting hall. Light goes up and they instinctively look up to that red area on the ceiling, just like you did — and are dead before hitting the floor. A head jolting backwards makes for a perfectly clean headshot.”
“That’s horrendous!”
“Necessary, too. Now you know to what lengths we go to keep this place secret. We don’t want anyone talking about this base to the wrong person, be it for revenge or frustration over not being chosen. Though I feel kinda sorry for this kid here.” Hartman takes his ten dollars from the hands of the dead Iowa youth.
“No-Go said he was a millionaire,” Tarasov dryly observes.
Hartman shrugs. “So what? He was too weak to hold even a combat knife. I gave him a chance and asked if he has any skills we need. Well, he hadn’t. I’m tellin’ you, Major, if all these nerd types would make ten push ups every half an hour they spend video gaming or downloading porn we’d live in a better world. Anyway, you’re alive to see all this — that’s what vouching for you means.”