A Shephard- ZoC Main Story Vol 1 Chapter 11

Part 11 - Old Artifacts

Your boots crunch softly on the worn asphalt road. The get sky overhead setting a calm tone as you walk past the abandoned complex.

Weather here in The Zone, you’ve observed is a fickle thing. It could be overcast now and sunny in an hour. You’ve never seen it snow, but some stalkers say it can happen in a matter of minutes. And the sunny weather can give to random lightning storms. All of these freak changes are before you take into account the occasional Blowout which radically alters the landscape, or that it could be a blistering day even though the global calendar says it’s winter.

But as far as what you’re looking to accomplish today, the bizarre weather is the least of your worries.

The Barkeep had explained that a client of his needed a Gravi artifact; something that would occasionally occur in gravitational anomalies. Anomalies that were found around the research institute. Where they might be, however, he’s not sure. The two recent blowouts have scattered the common location of anomalies he had logged. Another reason he was going to pay you a bit more.

The rifle sways in your arms as you walk on, mindful of the area ahead. You’re PDA hasn’t beeped indicating there are others in the area, but you’re still a bit on the paranoid side.

And that’s when you think you see what you’re looking for. On the left side of the road, a bit higher on the hill, you think you saw the air shimmer, just for a bit. Cautiously approaching, but not leaving the road, you bring the scope up to your eye and try to get a closer look. A group of pulsating waves in the air, just maybe.
A larger group of them would make it more dangerous, sure. But also more likely to find what you’re looking for. Which has been described as an oddly stretched object with multiple ovular shapes.

Bringing the scope down, you mutter “wish me luck, Lucy,” as you steel your resolve and approach the hill.

Last time you encountered a gravitational anomaly, you had elected to go around. But you’re not sure how much your equipment would get in the way. You find a rock that is relatively close by, and set down your pack and rifle. The worst thing you want is for her lighter rifle weight to get sucked up into one of these things. Pulling out your trusty makarov from you pack, you pocket it as you set up the Bear detector in one hand and a bolt in the other.

Turning around to look at your rifle, you jokingly tell her to “watch out for any more of those bloodsuckers, okay?”

No response again, huh?

You take your first steps towards where you think the group of anomalies are. A gentle ping from the anomaly detector in your mask tells you you’re getting close. Stopping, you take a bolt out, and throw it out in front of you. It encounters no resistance as it flies straight and true. Nervously, you throw another one, slightly to the left now. That has the indicative effect of hitting “something” and flying off in another direction. No go. And a third bolt to the right tells you there's another whirligig there as well. So you have a path straight forward, at least.

You walk ever so slowly, as if a sudden move would cause one of these to pounce on you.

Wait, can anomalies move on their own? No one ever explained that to you.

And now you’re in the middle of them.

Circumstances hitting you like a bitch, once again.
Great.

You proceed for the next couple of minutes further in. The Bear detector has lit up, a section of bright green LED’s pointing in a general direction to your right.

Same process. Bolt left, bolt center, bolt right. If any of them fly normally, you follow that path. This field has turned more into an invisible maze, as you glance back at the small trail of undisturbed bolts you’ve left. Should be easy to find your way out, however.

Another bolt. Another careful series of steps.

Lucy doesn’t like showing her human form a lot, and even less when you try to touch her. The only times you actually had were when she was too emotionally worn after the Rusty incident, and that didn’t last for long.

Did she not like it? When she could walk and talk?

It’s kind of amusing. Here you are, surrounded by invisible spheres of infinitely compressible death, and your mind is already wandering. I guess you can get used to any routine, no matter how extreme.

Another bolt. A check of your Bear detector. Another thought.

She pretty well described she was a rifle, but how do I make her like being a “person?”

A sudden series of short pings brings you out of it, and you take a few quick steps backwards. You watch in fascination as a series of pulses in the air speed up for a moment, and then calm down again.

Your thoughts almost got you killed again. You look back. Yep, still your rifle, just leaning on your bag and a rock.

You had circled this artifact a few times now, the direction on the bear detector shifting as you had been moving. You were close now.

The bolt you just threw seemed to ping off something in the tall grass. The same direction the detector was indicating. You throw a few extra bolts to be sure, and move closer.
Reaching down, the Bear detector is going nuts. This must be the artifact. Grabbing it, your geiger counter suddenly spikes up, but then goes silent again as you pull it towards you. Must be the effect of the jellyfish artifact you have, pretty nifty little thing.

You don’t want to spend any more time then you have to, so you pocket the new artifact without examination and promptly follow your own path out of the field.

You were so eager to leave, you almost got caught up again, the shrill pings in your mask detector reminding you of your folly. Almost being out, however, you just continued to run, and could feel a gentle pull back from the direction you were fleeing from.

But you were free now, turning around to see the space you had just occupied suck air, some plants, and a few errant leaves into it; before it compressed it all with a sharp crack, scattering the contents everywhere.

Whew, you think. Lucky you weren’t in that.

You sit down now, leaning against the rock. Glad to have Lucy near again. Glad not to be so close to death. Your mind was distracted for a bit there, but thinking about it now, you let out a small laugh. Lucky to be alive, you guess.

Taking the newly acquired artifact from your pouch, you examine it.

What lies in your hands is not what you expected at all.

It’s a melted shape of metal, the color of oxidized rust on one side and a sickly green on the other. You’re not sure what this artifact does, but it doesn’t seem like the gravi you’re looking for. Sighing, you stow it away. Hopefully it’s worth something?

You don your backpack once more, and grab your rifle.

“Sorry to make you wait. Turns out that artifact was a bust, so we’ll be looking around a bit more, okay?” you say to the rifle. If you talk to her enough, maybe she’ll overcome that theorized phobia of her body. You turn around, heading back the way you came.

On the other side of the train tunnel in the local area, is a bit more forested than the hills to your back. A distant growl you weren’t familiar with has you on your toes, but you press onward. It might be more difficult to see the spacial anomalies here, but it was worth a try.
[_________________]

It was late afternoon. The haze that covered the day had lifted, and the sun could be seen peeking through the complex of buildings to the west. Most of the day had been spent on pins and needles; carefully treading your way through anomalies looking for artifacts. But other than the one you found this morning, there was no such luck. You head to the complex of concrete buildings and pipes, hoping to find shelter for the night. You’ll try again tomorrow, having noticed a smaller complex of buildings to the south you’d like to check out.

Now entering the complex that the railroad from earlier terminated at, you turn on your flashlight and ready your rifle. It wasn’t quite dark enough for the NVGs, but the dark corners that now grew from the sun's absence were of concern. As you walk into the walled complex, you are a bit curious as to what exactly this place was for. There are a few rail cars still sitting here, and the large 4ft diameter pipes that weave between the buildings confuses you. As you are about to round a corner, you back away and take it from a distance. Cutting small visual slices as you go, you eventually round the thing. Once again, there was nothing there.

There’s a particularly large building in the center, with a huge doorway. Adjacent to it is an exterior stairway. You decide to take the stairs, as you’ll have a better means of exit instead of throwing yourself into the large, dark room that lies behind those massive doors. You wince as the first step is taken upon the stairs, the loud groan seemingly breaking the evening calm. Stopping, you don’t hear a response. At this point, you are more concerned with local “wildlife” that may have taken residence than other stalkers. Animals you could deal with, but apparently you can’t deal with people.
Committing to the cacophony of metal groaning you were about to cause, you rapidly take the rest of the stairs to the third story. There was no door, so you take a peak inwards. The flashlight casting long shadows into the room, but that was all the movement you could ascertain.

Slowly entering, you peak around. There was some abandoned lockers up here, something you mentally noted you would sift through later. Some wood cabinets, and a cot, which the good condition suprised you. The room itself had two entrances, the exterior one which you had entered from the outside metal stairway, and another that lead to a lower hallway north and an interior stairway.

This would do.

After having looked over a bit more, you move to the lockers. Tall individual things, you’re not too surprised when you find they’ve been looted clean. You take one, and wincing at the loud metal scratch, drag it over to the interior entrance. You'll want some sort of security, but don’t want to lock yourself in here. You do the same to the exterior entrance.

The lockers sit now, not completely blocking the exits, but making a stealthy entrance a bit harder for anyone who wanted to try to pull a Rusty.

Feeling a bit more safe, you now remove your backpack and lean your rifle against it. Time to really take stock of the room.

The cot seems fine. A little stiff, but not rotted for bug ridden. If you had to guess, it had probably been brought in well after the exclusion order. But the layer of dust in the room implied whoever took the effort to bring it here hadn’t been back in some time.
The windows that surrounded the room on the north side were all missing their glass, and the water damage that had creeped through on that side of the room made for a smell that wasn’t too pleasant. Still, whoever set up here last made a good point of not leaving much of anything on the windows to rot, so it wasn’t terrible.

You still couldn’t tell what this place was originally for, though. The layout made little sense, and the looted lockers game no answers.

You sit on the edge of the cot, and reaching over to your backpack, decide to open the package of documents you were carrying north.

You weren’t in a hurry about these, as it had been made clear there was no timetable on this. Plus you would prefer to stick around the 100 rads bar, as it was probably the best place to find information about your brother. But you were curious as to why these documents were so valuable.

You flip through them for the 100th time when you notice some missed print on the backside of the page, which a small scribble underneath it.”

“New designation X-22: Disposal Site. Group has designated acceptable loss of valuable equipment in necessity of containment. High priority of reclamation advised after starvation. 5 Years. New priority as following: X-8 for project MONO. “

The hell?
The more legible, newer scribble underneath the faded print reads

“The facility is still unobtainable. The Group had underestimated what they were dealing with, but we will not. Our stalker friend Bearing from the north has brought some chemical nerve agent, and we hope to flood the place. These are your orders. Go to the southeast monitoring station in Limansk, as staying near the Seredniy
Field itself is extremely dangerous, and maintain occasional observation of X-22. It will take a few months, if not a year, for the cyclosarin to fully evaporate. This is the best we can do at the time. When levels drop to safe, do NOT enter. Immediately report back to HQ and we will move from there.

-Leb“

The hell?

Chemical weapons? There’s no way Sidorovich knew about this, and you’re damn sure you’re not getting paid to open up a vault full of death. But should you give this to someone else to have that shit unleashed upon The Zone?

This place is crazy enough already, without the sealed super secret and spooky labs this writing implied.
You sigh, as you put the documents back in their plastic container and stow it away. You’ll figure out that shit later, if- when you find your brother. Perhaps the two of you could butt your heads together and come up with a solution. Right now, you just wanted to sleep. It had been a long day of tension, and this revelation certainly didn’t help.

Laying out your blanket, you repeat what you’ve done for the last couple of nights as you lay your rifle down on it, using the backpack as a pillow to rest the end of the barrel on. Yourself climb onto the cot, and look over at the rifle. Heh, you’d be crazy a few weeks ago to make a “bed” for your rifle, but as long as she's comfortable you didn’t mind a bit of cold.

You turn around to look out the window as the moonlight streaks into the broken windows.

“Night Lucy. Thanks again for watching my back today.”

…

“It’s customary to say goodnight, a sort of positive charm others say as they send each other off to sleep,” you explain.

…

“Good night” you hear softly, as you drift to sleep.