"Aren't we going too far?" Sokolov asked, crawling on all fours in the darkness.
"I'd go even farther if I could," Alex grunted, but man—
What he would have given for his night vision right about now?!
"I can't see shit," Yuri complained, too. "Why can't we use a fleshlight?"
"Because then the Monolith would notice us, too," the Major pointed out. "The whole reason we came out this far was to sneak around them, so—"
"All we're doing is going in circles," the Corporal claimed. "And if we go too close to the CNPP—"
"Finally, the moon's out," the tiny leader of the Wolves sighed.
Indeed, the clouds were moving fast now, and that risked getting them spotted, but—
Alex noticed someone else instead.
An entire group, in fact.
Six people—they could have only been the Monolith, then. But this far from the city?
"Told you we should've gone even further," he whispered, pointing them out.
Although at a second glance—
Weren't they sneaking around, too?
"Could be Stalkers," Sokolov noted. "Now everyone and their dog is trying to reach the heart of the Zone. We could even get them to help, if they're one of the friendly groups."
"Yeah, but they're too far," Yuri added. "They won't show up on my PDA yet."
"I'd rather not risk it," Alex grunted, dropping to the ground when the group finally moved.
"Well, too late now, anyway," the Corporal whispered. "They're splitting up."
Two people remained, turning towards the CNPP, while four more headed right their way.
"Ugh. Shit. Get out of their detection range. Quick," the Major gritted out, crawling back towards the city. "I don't want any extra complications. Would rather go in unseen, and—"
"A green dot?" Yuri and Sokolov noted at the same time. "But only one," the Corporal added.
Crap. So the PDA's range was longer than he had expected?
That must have meant those guys had noticed them, too, but—
"And gone," the leader of the Wolves let out a sigh. "That was odd. All four should have been in range, but we only got one? And he didn't even notice us?"
"He was carrying something, but I couldn't see it in the dark," Sokolov noted.
"Could have been a bandit group that killed one of our friends," Yuri seethed with anger.
Yeah, after what happened to his Wolves—
But the Corporal shook his head.
"Nah, bandits would give us a ping without showing their exact locations," he said. "But either way, they're gone now, so we'll never find out. Unless you want to check on them, Major?"
Alex was still lying low, looking after those people, but he'd only grunt.
"Leave 'em. Keep it simple. I only want my aircrew back, not trying to solve mysteries. We could check on the other two, though—make sure they won't shoot us in the back."
And also because they got too close to Pripyat for comfort.
Even though that was his destination, this side of the city was still crawling with activity.
"You sure?" Sokolov asked. "They're deep into the danger zone already. And the bigger group had left towards safer grounds. If we want to go to the city, we should stop wasting time."
Ugh. Sure, he was right.
But Alex couldn't observe the Monolith's patrols in enough detail yet.
"Aren't you curious about what those two are doing in the danger zone, though?" he turned the question around. "If they know the way across, it could be useful for us, too."
"Unless they're Monolith, and they'd kill us to safeguard that knowledge," Yuri said.
"Well, then. I'd rather we ambush them than they shoot us in the back," the Major claimed.
And that earned him a long sigh from the Corporal.
"Makes a tiny amount of sense," he grunted. "If you're so afraid to enter the city. But you'd better know. If we run into one of those Teleportation Anomalies, anything could happen."
"That's why we'll stay behind them," Alex replied.
And while they went, he'd keep an eye on the patrols.
That was the best plan he had right now.
"So we're crawling even more?" Yuri complained but was already on his way.
Well, that was how Stalkers seemed to operate.
Search for treasures, and fuck off.
But what he wanted was a search-and-rescue mission under potential enemy fire.
They couldn't dance into the town, draw the Monolith's attention, and run. What if those airmen were still alive but wounded, starved, and at the end of their rope?
How could he conduct any investigation with the enemy around?
They had to do this with a methodical, slow approach.
And what if they had to crawl a little more? The night was still young, and at least they were moving now, rather than arguing about the approaches.
"Another green dot," the leader of the Wolves noted, but—
Hold on. What happened?!
They were crawling towards those two, leaving plenty of space to maneuver and stay out of their range. But somehow, one of them showed up on their PDA out of the blue, and—
"The hell?" Alex whispered. "Did he fucking teleport?"
Sokolov sighed, even longer than earlier.
"This is what I was trying to tell you," he said. "Danger zone. He ran into an anomaly, and it threw him back, or something. We're lucky he didn't look at his PDA so far."
"What kind of Stalker ignores it, though?" Yuri muttered, straining his eyes in the dark.
But as their luck would have it, the wind blew some dark clouds to block the moon again.
Right when they were as far away from Pripyat as they could have been.
Ugh. It could have been the perfect time to sneak in, had they gone the opposite way.
"What are they doing?" the tiny commander scowled, still watching those two. "Something was glowing there for a moment. Looks like they aren't worried about the Monolith spotting 'em."
"Or they're with those guys," Sokolov noted. "Now I'm curious about the second dude, too."
Green dots meant the earlier ones were friendlies, but what was the guarantee?
This whole PDA business was weird.
Run by a fat trader somewhere in a bunker at the edge of the Zone—
"Whoa, look at that," Yuri almost yelled.
Without a warning, hundreds of large, floating orbs appeared in the dark.
And one of them was within an inch of Major Degtyarev.
"Fuck," he grunted, trying to roll away, but—
In the next moment, he was alone, and somewhere else completely.
Absolute darkness. Cold, hard ground. No sign of the stars, or feeling any wind.
But blind as he was, he could still pull out his PDA.
"Yep, I'm alone," he groaned, using the screen's light to take a look around.
A room?
"I'm indoors?" he realized, taking a step, only for some broken glass to crackle beneath his feet.
Did he fall into a teleportation trap?
They must have noticed them and triggered it, or something, but—
Now, he couldn't ask that annoying Corporal or Yuri about it.
He walked to a window with the blinds closed and pulled them aside.
Turns out, he was on the highest floor of a prefab building.
In the heart of Pripyat.
A BTR-1 drove by on the street below, a few winter-camo soldiers marching behind.
But from a different window, he even spotted the helicopter crash site.
Surrounded by more of those people.
"Fuck," he grunted again. "So no amount of sneaking in would have helped."
But, oh well.
Now he was inside, even if he had no idea how.