S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Northern Passage s-2 Read online

  Stepping out from chamber, the Stalker removes his gas mask and wipes cold sweat from his face.

  1243? Good God. Who is the bigger idiot? The guy using such a pathetic code or me for not being able to guess it?

  For a moment, the Stalker is confused as to which of the two similarly dark corridors to take, and the barely readable pieces of paper that are fastened to a bulletin board on the nearest wall don’t give any clue. Then the fire emanating from the room lights up the two dead mutants on the far end of the corridor to the left. He takes the one to his right.

  Avoiding more anomalies, he eventually finds a room with lockers still standing to his left and a broken wall section to his right. The anomaly detector beeps like mad, but the anomaly behind the broken wall section poses no danger for a moment. It seems to appear and disappear like a distortion in space, and if it wasn’t for the crumbled wall, it would just snatch and crush him in a vortex of power that would eventually explode and scatter his body parts all around. After a few more avoided anomalies and corridors turning, he soon finds himself back in the elevator room.

  The combination lock still works. With an unpleasant screech, the steel door opens and reveals another staircase.

  Good God, this one’s leading real deep.

  After several turns, the staircase ends in a rubble of debris. A room similar to the elevator room above opens. Swiftly moving down the corridor to his right, he reaches a dead-end — one more code-locked steel door bars his way.

  I’m getting weary of these stupid doors.

  The Stalker decides to take the hard way and track down the source of the thumping steps. Finally, another staircase appears in the small light circle of his headlight. The ground is shaking. He almost feels more than a few hairs on his head turning grey from horror.

  On the left side of the short corridor that appears to be the lowest level of the laboratory vaults, an opening in the wall leads into a huge, wide hall. The metal door that had once been there was removed, or shattered long ago. Inside a mutant is moving up and down, like a lion in a cage. It consists of barely more than a hulk, a short, reptile-like tail and two brawny legs. Its appearance would appear grotesque, ridiculous even if its growls weren’t blood curdling and the head emitting them resembling a squashed human face with the mouth and teeth of a shark.

  Suddenly, the thumping steps cease. Hoping that the mutant thinks to have scared him away, the Stalker sneaks inside. He has almost reached the center of the hall, covered in complete darkness save for a few emergency lights far away from him, when the light of his headlamp suddenly illuminates the distorted face. Flashing its shark-like teeth, it stretches its legs and now towers over him, raising one leg to crush him. The vault shakes as the pseudogiant smashes his leg to the ground. The impact causes the Stalker to drop his shotgun.

  Screaming with fear, he makes a desperate dash for the exit. Once back to safety, he bends forward and leans on his knees, heavily panting.

  I must get into that hall.

  Having caught his breath, he enters the hall once more and takes a few steps towards the metal fence that had once protected a machine resembling a huge generator. Immediately, the lumbering giant starts closing in on him.

  I must lure that beast into grenade range.

  The pseudogiant trots towards him but before it could crush the Stalker with its massive hulk, he is already back to the corridor, pulling the safety from a fragmentation grenade and throwing it into the hall. A groan follows the detonation and the thumping steps continue.

  Peeking inside, his headlight beam falls on a red fuel drum not far from the door.

  He enters the hall and yells. The mutant immediately attempts to charge him through. Swiftly, he kicks the fuel drum into the direction of the door, lets the mutant approach and just before it can reach him, he leaps out to the corridor. By the time he is outside, he has removed the safety from another grenade. He tosses it close to the fuel drum and then jumps to his belly to avoid the wave of the huge detonation. The power of the explosion shakes the underground and the deafening bang mixes with the mutant’s painful roar. Two more explosions follow as the shockwave makes two more fuel barrels detonate. For a moment, it seems that the whole vault is about to collapse.

  The Stalker’s ears are ringing, but the pseudogiant’s steps echo no more.

  He picks up his shotgun from the floor and reloads it. He looks around in the hall, keeping his weapon aimed at the dark shadows of some railroad containers from where something might still jump at him. Looking up towards the emergency light in the corner, an alcove catches his attention. A few metal stairs lead up there and continue in a catwalk along the walls. It looks like a good place for someone trying to hide from a monster. If Stalker lore about the fate of Lab X-18 is true, this was exactly what happened here.

  To his disappointment, the alcove holds nothing useful. The rotting Saratov refrigerator in the corner is empty, so is the tool box on a table except for some junk.

  Above the box, a photograph is glued to the wall. It shows a group of people, probably the scientists who had once worked there. Though the faces are barely recognizable, they look to the Stalker like a happy party, gathered up in front of their facility on a sunny day that had passed long ago.

  So this is the bunch who built this lab… I wish I could better see the faces.

  Walking cautiously down the stairs, he passes by a rusting metal casing with a locked door. It emanates a low, electric buzz.

  Probably a generator. That would explain why some emergency lights are still on, but I haven’t the faintest idea what could make it still run after so many years.

  Squeezed between a railway container and the stairs leading to a low platform, pipes protrude and connect to the floor like an inverted U, thick enough to offer a man cover. Even so, this refuge didn’t save the scientist lying dead behind the pipes. Any treasure hunter would hardly consider the body wearing an orange hazmat rewarding enough for venturing this deep into the vaults, not even for the Enfield L85A1 lying next to the body, but the Stalker even emits a low cry of joy when the corpse appears in the light circle. Patting down the pockets of the hazmat suit, his search proves fruitful — a small plastic card with a number printed on it.

  For a moment, he considers taking the assault rifle with him but then reminds himself of the infamous unreliability of the weapon. Even in perfect condition, the Enfield has a tendency to jam and this one had been lying on the floor of a decaying vault for years.

  Maybe this hapless fellow died because the rifle jammed at the worst possible moment — like rifles usually do.

  Wishing in vain he could at least de-mount the 4x scope, he eventually leaves the Enfield alone and makes his way out of the dreadful hall.

  He is almost at the exit when a giant mutant’s body appears in the headlamp’s light beam. In a blind panic, he fires the shotgun. His guts are still wrenched by fear when he realizes that it is the mutant he had killed before.

  Phew… I’m getting nervous.

  Back at the code-locked door in the small corridor with a few fuel drums and crates scattered on the floor, he is about to type the combination when a noise makes his blood freeze: it sounds like some heavy object is being smashed against the door from the other side. It’s almost as if a giant force is desperately trying to break through, either to escape something even more horrible than itself — or to get at him.

  The noise repeats itself and with each smash, the door bulges for a moment, making dust and moldy paint whirl up from the metal.

  With a throat painfully dry, the Stalker pants in fear.

  A low drone comes from the direction he was coming from. Adding to his dread, he sees the fuel drums slowly go up in the damp air. He can dodge the first one when it smashes at him after a second, but his luck runs out when the second drum hits his shoulders, causing him to lose his balance and moan with pain as he falls against the door. The power inside smashes it at the same moment.

  Fucking lab. Fuc
king mission. Fucking me for coming here!

  He fires his shotgun at the drum levitating above him, as if the unseen attacker making the objects trash him would still be aiming. The shot pushes the drum a meter away, from where it smashes at him again. He feels blood on his forehead.

  I must get behind that door. I must.

  Kneeling, he types the code on the pad. Immediately, the door unlocks. More eager to escape the unnatural projectiles than scared of whatever is inside, he swiftly enters the room. To his relief, no monster is jumping at him inside the abandoned room that, Judging by the instrument panel fitted to the wall on the far end, must have been some sort of a control facility. Broken machines stand on the decayed floor in ankle-deep debris. They don’t resemble anything the Stalker has seen or heard before.

  The documents I found in Agroprom mentioned oscilloscopes and spectrometers… perhaps this is one of those? A bloody guillotine or a bathtub with a dismembered corpse inside would appear more relaxing than these things… At least of those I knew what those were.

  Separated from the rest of the room by a wire fence, huge containers stand in a corner. All bear the yellow hazmat sign. To the right of the door through which he has just entered, another code-locked door appears in his headlamp’s beam. This, however, is wide open and letting him peer inside a dark hall looking like a laboratory. It is even darker there, with only light beams falling in from above, although this would be impossible to be sunlight. A machine, similar to the broken one outside, is dimly visible.

  Almost relieved over the quiet that promises no mutants close by, he is about to enter the laboratory when his sight reddens and a sudden dizziness creeps into his skull. Ignoring it, he steps inside.

  The light beams come from three neon tubes atop of grey sections on the wall covered with green tiles. High up on the domed ceiling, a spherical object is hanging in the middle, looking like a space satellite from the Sixties. Thick cables connect it with six cylindrical cages standing on the floor, one of them fallen over either by its fittings decayed away or while someone—or rather, something—inside was trying to break free.

  Something still appears to be in the other cages. The Stalker steps closer to the next one but regrets it immediately.

  An oversized human embryo hangs inside, its extremities still undeveloped or not supposed to develop, the torso ending in a vestigial reptile tail. It has the greenish-yellow color of drowned corpses. It is not the size or the deformation, and least the color, that makes him shudder but the deformed face. He knows immediately that should he ever make it out of here alive and live to tell this story, he would have no words to describe the evil radiating from this face.

  The other cages hold more mutated embryos, or rather: embryonic mutants, except the fallen one.

  And I thought the gulags were bad enough.

  Cautiously, he raises his shotgun and enters the chamber to the left of the entrance. It leads up into a smaller laboratory with cages built into the wall, and similar cylinders to those on the floor below, except that these are empty and lined up horizontally.

  Two of the wall cages, however, still hold dead mutants — they are about the size of a cat but their mummified body resembles that of a rat.

  I don’t know what kind of animal was made to turn into such abominations, but the word “guinea pig” wouldn’t come to my mind to describe them: these beasts were not even remotely cute.

  He makes his way over to the stairs on the far end of the domed hall. They lead up to a position overlooking the whole hall, as if someone wanted to witness the development of the caged species from a safe position.

  As soon as he steps on the first stair, he hears a howl from above that is sounding like a wounded beast. Instinctively, he runs back and takes cover behind the fallen cage, firing his shotgun towards the glittering, blurry apparition that floats down the stairs. The glitters look like shiny eyes as it approaches the Stalker. He frantically fires his shotgun.

  The entity howls again. Beams of fire spout from the floor. Moved by his instinct of survival that tells him to run away, the Stalker glances at the entrance—the door which had been wide open when he entered the laboratory is now shut.

  Damn!

  Hoping that his armored suit will protect him from the worst, he tries to dodge the fire jets and pellets the floating apparition with shotgun shells.

  Only four shells left. God help me!

  Aiming the short rifle with his right and feeling in his ammo pocket for his last two shotgun shells, he fires the weapon into the entity as it floats right next to him. Suddenly, it disappears.

  Another low, humming drone starts, as if emitted by the darkness itself—audible dread creeping from the fissures and cracks of the vaults. The floor shakes and the Stalker has to grasp the cage next to him to prevent himself from falling. It doesn’t help him as his vision starts to dim and he falls into a full mental black-out.

  One of his recurring nightmares appears. He is standing outside of the Chernobyl Power Plant, the fence with the sign of irradiation danger softly bulging in the wind, which slowly grows into a roaring gale. He realizes it’s not the wind he hears but the noise of a thousand mutated critters, exactly like those he has seen in the cages, running away from the Power Plant—if it is not the Power Plant itself emitting them like a tsunami of corruption. He raises his carbine and starts shooting at them, more in despair than the hope of stopping them, and suddenly he hears someone calling a name, a god-like voice suppressing even the howling mutants and echoing on in his aching skull.

  Then it is all over. He opens his eyes and glances at his watch. Only a minute has passed.

  The Stalker gets on his feet, groaning, praising his good fate for leading no hungry mutant to his body while he had been passed out.

  The door is open. The power that held it shut apparently vanished with the glittering apparition he had eliminated.

  Cautiously, he climbs the metal staircase leading to the observation platform.

  Even more control panels are fitted to the tiled walls. Their broken instruments and rusty panels have suffered more than the grey plastic of the stone-age personal computers lined up on two long wooden tables, though the opaque glass on the monitors has long been scattered.

  Next to one of them, right at the window overlooking the laboratory below, there lies a waterproof case full of papers that look like documents.

  After all the perils the Stalker had to overcome to find these documents, they appear easy to take — almost too easy. He looks closer to make sure they are not booby-trapped. Cautiously, perhaps fearing that touching the dossier would release another monster or some other apparition, he reaches out for it. He has almost touched it when the monitor rises up to the ceiling and smashes at him.

  Damn thing, I’ll give you such a beating once I see you!

  He grabs the documents and descends the stairs. For a moment, he believes that the blurry shape emitting a bluish, fuzzy tint in front of him is caused by his exhausted eyes. It moves, though, and the Stalker fires his last two shotgun shells into it. A painful moan comes out of nowhere. Shouting and cussing, he unholsters his Beretta pistol and empties a full magazine of JHP parabellum rounds inside. Something red splashes as the bullets home, then a growling moan is heard and the blurry entity takes shape of a leg-less mutant that now helplessly falls to the ground, the long arms protruding from the humanoid torso still shaking.

  Sorry for not fighting you by throwing things at you, but if the Zone’s not fair, why should I be?

  To make sure the mutant is dead, he reloads the pistol and shoots two more rounds into the mutant’s head.

  No more objects start to levitate. With no imminent danger around, he hides in a corner and fishes an energy drink from his rucksack. The vicious mix of taurin, guarana extract and caffeine would not satisfy his hunger but should at least allow him to keep his edge through the way out of the vaults. The beverage tastes of very artificial strawberry flavor.

  Disgusting
… but if all goes well, maybe tonight I can flush it down with something better.

  The Stalker allows himself for a little curiosity and starts reading the documents. Lit by his headlamp, the yellowed pages tell the story of secret experiments carried out to study the effects of psychic radiation on living cells, set up in the wake of the 1986 disaster. It’s nothing entirely new to him. The scientific descriptions are beyond his understanding, but the first few pages, describing how and when the secret facility had been set up, make him cuss loudly.

  “Bastards—so that’s what you’ve been doing there all the time!”

  He thinks of all that he has seen here in the Zone — the abominations and mutants in the undergrounds, friends killing each other over a precious artifact and factions over ideologies they have by now almost forgotten over ground, the crows circling in the sky and looking for a new corpse to feast on, the emissions from the Zone’s far-away center when it erupts with waves of supernatural evil and devastates earth and sky alike.

  How I wish this all would come to an end, or if I had power over the world to end this.

  Hearing a noise, he reaches for his rifle and shoves the documents into his map container. Suddenly, a transmission crackles in his radio set.

  “Base, this is Zero Three-Four, we are right above the target.”

  “Roger, Zero-Three-Four. Start the action. Teams One and Two: check the first floor. Team Three: main hall. Teams Four and Five: second floor!”

  He pats the earphone connected to his radio set, as if the transmission could have been caused by a malfunction.

  I can’t believe this, what the hell is the army doing here? All right… let’s sneak out while I can.

  He holsters the shotgun and unslings the assault rifle. Having fished a magazine from his ammo web, loaded with armor-piercing rounds, he reloads his main weapon. Another message comes. This one is addressed directly to him.