Catching my breath and looking around the hill again, I still headed for the water. I didn't put my pistol away, having learned from bitter experience, I decided it was better to always keep it in my hand. This time I reached it calmly, took off my backpack, took out two crumpled plastic bottles, wiped their necks with wet wipes, I don't even know where these bottles have been and who drank from them and when, it's better not to risk it, I straightened them and started filling them. Having finished with this, I threw the bottles into my duffel bag and this time took out the PDA. I need to calculate the route to the Abandoned Town.
"By the way, System," I only now remember that I raised one of my skills, so I need to ask. "Why did my shooting skill increase so quickly? You said I had to try for it."
"Skills improve better when you use them in emergency situations, user. An attack from behind on those zombies was not such a situation. And, in any case, it is incomparably easier to bring all skills to the Experienced rank than to bring one to the Expert rank, let alone Master."
Well, in any case, it's not that important now. I open the map on the PDA and start estimating the route. I can go directly from the Boiler Room to the town, but the path goes near the helipad, and I don't know who lives there. There are no notes from the predecessor, the System won't give a hint. Maybe I'll slip by, maybe I'll run into bullets. Or mutants. On the other hand, the detour through the village and the forest is incomparably longer, but there's also a chance to encounter fauna. I doubt I'll survive another fight with a boar, or worse, boars; next time I might not be lucky.
"System, can I hit a mutant in the eye from a distance?" I clarify an important point, maybe I'm worrying too much and now even boars with a PM are not scary for me.
"No, user, to hit the eye of a running target, you need the Expert rank. If the target is too far away, you may need the Master rank, and you should also not forget about the condition of your weapon. If your weapon is faulty, no matter what your rank is in handling it, it will be useless."
"I have a repair skill, don't I? Can I fix this pistol if necessary?"
"No, user. At the moment, you are only capable of cleaning weapons, and only the simplest ones, like your pistol."
It's sad, in any case, all these skills can be improved, I am already in better condition than many stalkers. Still considering which way to go to the scientists, I put away the PDA, take out an open pack of cartridges and put the pistol on my duffel bag. I start loading the magazine and notice that I'm doing it much more deftly than last time. Or did I imagine it? I quickly unload the magazine and load it back with almost the same speed. Well, the system's influence is obvious, it's unlikely you can learn to load magazines so well in a couple of tries, and at school, I wasn't very good at loading an AK magazine.
I throw the backpack over my shoulders and start climbing the slope. The time in the status window has passed twelve noon, which means there is still time until evening, and I can rummage around the Boiler Room, maybe I'll find something. At this moment, I approach the Moskvich, mangled by the boar's blow, and the thought comes to my mind to search it, but the missing windows, the torn interior trim in places, and the almost broken glove compartment door hinted that everything had been searched before me. Although the trunk of the car was untouched, I could try to open it if I found some crowbar or tools, but I doubt there will be anything useful in it. We'll see.
I enter the second building of the boiler room. A metal staircase to the second floor, a couple of rooms, and an electrical panel with wires ripped out of it. I decided to inspect this building before going to search the boxes on the first floor. In the panel, as I could have guessed before, nothing was left. The first room I entered was some kind of utility room. A narrow and elongated room with shelves made of metal grids, lined with metal, on which there was nothing but a rusted hammer with a almost rotten handle. The rust can be removed, and the handle can be found or carved by myself if I really want to, so for safety's sake, I decide to take it with me, after breaking off the rotten handle. I'm learning the basics of the stalker profession, taking everything that lies poorly. In the second small room, I find the remains of a chair, a wardrobe without doors, and a pile of yellowed paper. I pick up one sheet and start reading.
"...in connection with the planned inspection of the technical equipment of the boiler room near the village of Lubyanka, I order to suspend the heating and supply of hot water from 07/01/1985 to 07/10/1985..."
There was nothing interesting in these documents. Some invoices, orders, and appointments. However, it's not surprising, everything most important must have been evacuated. I put the sheet back in place and go to the second floor, on the wall of which I find some switches and levers, apparently, the water supply system or something like that. And a passage to another building, through which I passed. I immediately head to the attic, to the boxes.
I constantly check the time in the status window. In May, the sun should set around eight in the evening, and I still have a long way to go to the scientists, so I should manage in two hours. At this moment, my stomach rumbles, well, it's time to eat. I'm not going to make a fire, I don't have a pot anyway, so I can't cook, and I can eat stewed meat warm, it's good that it's warm outside. I open a can with a Swiss knife, settle comfortably on a metal box, put the PDA with the stalker network section open next to me, and start eating.
After drinking water after the meal and putting everything back in my backpack, I start searching the unlocked boxes, although there were locked ones here too, but I had nothing to open them with. I tried to break the lock on one of them with a lever made of a metal tube, but nothing came of it, I only bent the tube itself, and also hit my head on the rafters when I stretched out to my full height. In the other containers, there was nothing particularly interesting: again some papers, books on the repair and maintenance of pipes and the boiler room itself, iron tubes, wires, helmets, and work clothes, which could only be torn into rags. Which I did, tearing the fabric with a knife. And in two hours of stalking, my catch consisted of a rusty hammer and rags, which could be used for bandages.
There's nothing more to do here, so I decide to leave, but before leaving the building, I remember that I can try to open the car trunk. I just need to find something to pry open the trunk or at least break through the car's trim. The desired iron rod was found quickly, and I went straight to the Moskvich, kicking the boar in the belly along the way. I'll have to ask at the camp later what can be sold from them, and not just from the boars. But for that, I also need a hunting knife, alas. I approach the trunk, try to fit the rebar into the trunk's recess, and it works. I start to press down, the rusty metal of the car begins to give way, and, here it is, it worked. I opened it.
I find worn and dusty galoshes in the trunk, not my size, a fire extinguisher, and a leather bag with the white inscription "First Aid Kit". Nothing else. I take out the first aid kit and shake its contents onto the bottom of the trunk. Ampoules, pills, a blue-orange splint, a tourniquet, and several bandages. Too bad, but the expiration dates of everything have long passed, the maximum I can take is the first aid kit itself and the tourniquet with the splint, which I did. Now I can finally leave here.
I walk past the gates of the Boiler Room and head straight along the road that runs next to the helipad. I didn't trade a needle for a bobbin. Either way, I could run into someone or something. And here at least the path is shorter than through the forest. I walk quietly and cautiously, listening to my surroundings as much as possible. I hold my pistol in my hand, the safety has long been off, as has the hammer cocked, I just don't keep my finger on the trigger, I don't want to accidentally shoot somewhere I shouldn't. I get closer to the helipad and now walk parallel to it, but nothing can be seen except that white fence. No sounds can be heard from the other side. It might be for the best. A few hundred meters away, I see a small white house, apparently a checkpoint. It's hard to see from here if there's anyone there or not. I cautiously walk forward, trying to spot anything.
After a few minutes of walking, a picture of closed rusty gates and an absolutely empty checkpoint appears before me. I'm lucky again, but I don't plan to go in there. The sun is slowly but surely beginning to set, I need to hurry to the base, not to wander around abandoned places, so, relaxing a little, I quicken my pace. And soon I notice the military town itself. Shabby five-story buildings, with boarded-up windows on the first floors and sloping roofs, the free space between the houses is blocked by brick fences and barbed wire, it looks like remnants of the Soviet era. The time has passed four o'clock in the afternoon when I finally approach the stalker checkpoint at the entrance to the town.
"Oh, newbie, glad to know you're safe," a stalker I don't know, standing at the post, calls out to me. "When you didn't come yesterday, we thought, that's it, the guy's run his course, where did you have to sleep?"
"I slept in the tunnel," I reply, approaching closer. "I was afraid to go into the houses, and I was right to do so, there were zombies there."
"Well, that's right. By the way, you asked
here if anyone would sell a shotgun, well, Vasily is ready to sell, you'll discuss the price yourselves."
"Oh, okay, I'll just go to the scientists first for money," I said happily, and hurried to clarify. "And where can I find your Vasily, and what does he look like, can you remind me?"
"He's not mine, why do you say that right away?" the stalker pretends to be offended. "He's in the basement, well, in the central building, dark-haired, with a huge mustache! You'll recognize him immediately when you see him."
"Well, thanks then, I'm going, bye."
I say goodbye and enter the stalker camp, heading straight for the scientists. I take a few steps and only now realize that I don't know at all where these scientists are. Maybe in that very basement, in the central building, or maybe somewhere else entirely. I can barely stop myself from swearing. I'll have to ask the stalkers, I don't want to look like a fool in the eyes of the local community, but there's nothing I can do. I look around for someone to ask for help, and I see a lone stalker smoking near metal garages in a gray jumpsuit.
"Hey, stalker, can you tell me how to get to the scientists?" I ask the man when I get closer.
"Newbie, right?" he asks, taking a drag, then exhales smoke from his mouth and points to the right with his right hand. "See the brick house, unfinished? There, on the second floor, your scientists are. Bye."
"Thank you," I thank him, but he doesn't pay attention, throwing his cigarette butt on the asphalt and walking past me.
I enter the house, go up the stairs to the second floor, where I see an open door, and enter it. A solid room, with several beds, a table, chairs, and even a red carpet on the floor. The first person I see is a man about thirty-five to forty years old, with a receding hairline and a shirt, sitting at a table and writing something on paper. Besides him, there are two more people in the room, one of whom is sleeping, and the second is watching me intently and holding an assault rifle. A guard. Then the man at the table looks up and says:
"Oh, you've finally arrived? Come in, come in, don't stand at the threshold," Timofeev pushes the notes away from him, and I take a few steps into the room and see some scientific equipment in one of the corners, behind a cabinet. "Did you bring the water sample? And I'll remind you one more time that if you, young man, decided to play a trick on us and are going to pass off water from some puddle, not from the lake we need, you won't like the consequences. I know its parameters..."
"No need," I reply, taking two bottles of murky water from my backpack. "I guarantee that this is water from that very lake behind the Boiler Room."
"Well, if you guarantee it," he says with a special intonation, from which I understand that he has no trust in me. "However, I'm glad we understood each other. Innokentiy Ivanovich, give him five and a half, no, six thousand, so be it. And I won't keep you any longer, young man. All the best."
After the scientist, I immediately go to find Vasily. It's better to buy the shotgun right away before someone else intercepts it, or maybe I'm the only broke guy with a pistol here. I enter the gray two-story building, go down the stairs and find myself in a huge basement room with beds, tables, and even a billiard table, although I didn't see any balls or cues. I try to find the arms dealer with my eyes, and I see him at one of the tables.
"Are you Vasily?" I ask, approaching the tall, mustachioed stalker dressed in a leather coat. "I was told you're selling a shotgun."
"Ah, yes. Wait a moment, I'll bring the gun, you'll see what's what," he replies and goes to one of the bunks, from under the mattress of which he pulls out a shotgun. "Here, take it, look, feel it, 16-gauge. The price is four thousand, no bargaining. I'll throw in a cleaning kit on top."
I take the worn shotgun in my hands, turn it over, check the hammers and the chamber, see how the triggers work. The handle is chipped and micro-cracked, but the barrel is in excellent condition. Overall, it'll do.
"Won't you sell me some cartridges?" I ask Vasily, put the shotgun on the table and reach into my pocket for money.
"No, I don't have cartridges, you should ask Pirog about that," he nods his head towards the stalker standing behind the counter at the end of the room, and pockets his four thousand.
This time I go to Pirog, I still have some questions I want to ask. The stalker himself looks like a sturdy man with short hedgehog-like blond hair, nothing in common with pies in his appearance.
"Oh, guy, are you going to extend your bunk? Uh, it seems like the fifth place, right? Yes, the fifth!" he notices me, tearing himself away from wiping the counter with a well-worn rag. Apparently, the predecessor rented a bunk here, convenient.
"We'll see," I reply. "I need 16-gauge cartridges for the shotgun. What do you have?"
"Okay, let me see," he moves away from the counter to one of the cabinets, opening it. "I have buckshot for five hundred a pack, I have slugs for seven hundred a pack, which ones do you want?"
"Let's have both, how much will it be if I also rent a bunk for a couple of days?"
"Fifteen hundred, here, take it, I'll give you the change now," Pirog counts out the change and hands it to me. I've already put the cartridges in my backpack. "You can leave your things on the bed if you want, while you're paying, I'll keep an eye on them."
"Okay," I'm about to leave, but I remember what I wanted to ask. "And where can I get water here?"
"There's a pump behind the garages, you can get water there, didn't you ask about it? Ah, never mind, by the way, you still haven't got a pot, I can still give you one for two hundred."
"Let's do it," and with all my purchases, I go to my fifth bunk, it's good that they are numbered. I take off my boots and collapse onto it, wincing slightly from the pain in my bruised back. I roll onto my side and close my eyes, I want to take a little nap before evening.