"Dude, slow down," Corporal Sokolov panted, dragging himself along the forest trail. "What, are you at the Marathon Department or the fucking Information Bureau?"
"The helicopter should be close; stop complaining and hurry up," Major Degtyarev grunted.
But yeah. It had been some time since he ran this much, all at once.
In his line of work, if he had to spit his lungs out, something had already gone very, very bad.
And well, his guide wasn't in his prime anymore, either.
"Go ahead, then," the balding ex-military man said, stopping to rest on his knees. "I'll catch up with you by the time you finish your reporting stuff. Jesus Christ."
"Suit yourself," Alex scoffed, but yeah.
He was way out of breath, too.
Speaking into his dictaphone would have been quite a challenge, but—
He forgot about it all when he finally found the next wreck.
Like, what the hell?
It should have gone down two or three days ago, but it was burning like crazy?!
Did someone light it on fire moments before they arrived?
And despite that fire, he found the entire aircrew nearby, but—
"All aboard Bort 18 confirmed dead. Killed by bullets after emergency landing."
The signs he had found were obvious, and yet they made no sense at all.
The crash landing shouldn't have been that hard. They didn't leave much debris, either, but a tree nearby seemed to have exploded, and—
"The fuck is even this?" he kicked at a corpse in ripped jeans but without a head.
"Ugh. That looks like a mutant to me," Sokolov said, still panting a little. "Look at those veins and the disproportionate body. But, well, this ain't your regular zombie, that's for sure."
More mutants? They have already found some strange stuff at the Duga.
And yeah, that guy definitely saw enough weirdness in the Zone to tell. But—
"Did this thing kill them?" was the most important thing to ask, and all he got was—
"Come on, Major. Am I the investigator, or you?!" the Corporal grunted, taking his sweet time to look around. "This thing had no weapons, nor did your guys carry a Dushka, so—"
"A Dushka?" Alex repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"I mean, those scrawny AKs wouldn't explode a head and a tree trunk like this," Sokolov pointed out. "Not with a single shot, anyway. And look—"
It only took him half a minute to find a pair of 12,7 mm casings.
"Wait. Did some Stalkers kill them?" the Major scowled. "With a freaking heavy machine gun?!"
"Someone definitely killed that mutant, but your soldiers?" Sokolov could only shrug. "Actually, I take the Dushka part back. There would be a bunch more casings if they used one."
Even after five minutes, he had only found one more, but realization lit up his eyes.
"Oh. And I happen to know someone running around with a fucking antimaterial rifle," he said.
"So it was a Stalker?!" Alex demanded, already planning how to hunt down the killer, but—
He didn't like what the Corporal said next.
"Nah. It's your missing Captain. The Hero of Kyiv."
"What?!" he yelled, grabbing Sokolov's shoulders.
No. If they were some regular old Stalkers, he could have understood it.
The National Guard shot at them on sight, and there were bandits to worry about, too. If they shot some military that didn't appear on their PDA, that would have made sense, but—
"Why would an actual soldier kill all my men?" he demanded, his lips trembling with anger.
"The fuck are you talking about?" Sokolov scowled. "I said he carries a gun with this caliber. And that he might have killed our mutant. Who said anything about the aircrews? Look at them."
Their bodies were also riddled with holes, though nothing close to a .50 caliber.
Still, he was with a group of Stalkers, right?
Whoever they were, Captain Bandera could have stopped them if he wanted.
But no. He was so hellbent on reaching the center of the Zone for some reason—
And yeah, they had found his traces earlier, too.
The God damn clues finally matched up.
"The bastard," the Major gritted out. "Not only did he desert his post, but he's also killing my soldiers to hide his tracks. These guys must've recognized him, so they all had to die."
"Major? Chill out," the Corporal grunted. "He never kept his identity a secret in the first place."
But Alex didn't buy the good guy story anymore.
"Why else did they set the wreck on fire? He must've known a search party would come, and—"
"That's a Burner Anomaly," Sokolov interjected. "They landed in the wrong spot, that is all."
The Major blinked, pausing to take a breath, but he was way too upset to pay any real attention.
"It might've looked like a marker at night. I even showed you the type before, remember?"
"Whatever," Alex barked. "There's one more crash-site all the way in Pripyat. If that fucker runs into my men there, he might kill them, too, so—we must hurry."
"What?! Were you listening?" the Corporal moaned. "We've been running for hours already."
But he followed him anyway, tropping the casings he had found.
Who would have thought all his objectives would overlap like this?
First, he came to save the aircrews while finding out more about the Zone. Silencing that deserter seemed like an optional sideshow. But if he was so involved with everything—
His tasks interweaved.
Damn it. If he knew earlier.
There was no helping these poor soldiers now, and the rest were at least safe with the scientists. But to the last wreck, the race was still on—and he'd rather end this mission on a high note.
"Come on, we can't let him get away with this," he urged the Corporal.
"Major, stop. All this running made you lose your mind," the man panted. "We should worry about this mutant instead. The question isn't who killed your men, but why? If that thing—"
"Later. We'll figure shit out on the go," he shot him down, following the narrow trail.
Ugh. How much of a head start they might have gotten on them?
A whole day? A few hours?
No. That bright fire suggested they set that helicopter ablaze only minutes ago.
An Anomaly, huh? As if.
He had seen a Hind burn before.
The ammunition cook-off could've hidden most of the evidence, but they arrived too soon—
Meaning they might have been still close.
"Wait for me, damn it," Sokolov groaned. "If there's one Burner, there might be more. You'll run straight into them like this. And if there are more mutants like Mr. Jeans there—"
Hmpf. For someone so tired and out of breath, he sure talked a lot.
But of course, he would. Corporal Sokolov had already met this Hero of Kyiv.
They even worked together.
Alex could no longer trust him; not that he ever did.
But he still needed a guide. For now. At least until they reached Prypjat.
And he wouldn't fall for his tricks to slow him down.
"You'd better catch up, then, or you'll have to deal with those mutants by yourself," the Major warned. "I'll reach the town with or without you, and there's no time to waste."
He hated nothing more than famous little propaganda boys, after all.
Especially those who turned out to be traitors.
Captain Dmitry Bandera had to die.