The Best Laid Plans

A S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl fanfic

   ‘So you can arrange this?’
The Dealer made a hushing gesture with the stump of his left arm. The fat little man in the sweat stained shirt was limping across the dimly lit basement. Leaning on a huge shotgun, as if it were a crutch, he put his head to the door and listened for eavesdroppers. In the shadows, the other man who had asked the question regarded the paranoia of the Dealer. Nobody knew anything about him, not even his real name. He was just known as the Dealer. And logically he was a cautious man, a vital quality in his line of work, but to suspect his own bodyguards seemed a bit much. Hiding out in a basement, having bodyguards and always, always that enormous shotgun of his. The man had never seen the Dealer without it. Maybe the loss of his left hand had anything to do with it, or his deformed legs. Either way, the man didn’t care. He was growing impatient and repeated his question. After a few seconds the Dealer looked back with bulging eyes and a shark’s smile.
   ‘Relax, Mr. Nemilostivyi. You stalkers are too tense. Look at you! Hiding away in the shadows, like a pig running from the butcher.’
   ‘It is no fault of mine that you live here in this shithole with only one single light bulb,’ retorted the man coolly. His full name was Oleg Nemilostivyi and he hated the fact that the Dealer knew it as well. He also hated the fact that there was no one else to turn to. The Dealer was the only option to acquire weapons, missions or to have certain arrangements made.
The Dealer snorted. He knew stalkers disliked him. He disliked them just as much, especially this one. His eyes were too calm. They kept watching him, never leaving. They were not curious eyes, nor mocking. Just observing, watching him the whole time. Oleg was a man of indeterminate age. Dressed in the usual stalker garb, drab and green, he made no distinctive impression. Only his gray eyes were different.
In the end, the Dealer decided he disliked pleasantries just as much. The stalker’s proposal could be very good for business. He hobbled towards a threadbare couch and lowered himself down.
   ‘Of course I can arrange it. In fact, I know just the tools for the job. And you’ll have to pay up front.‘
   ‘Tools? What tools? Tell me,’ demanded the stalker. With an afterthought he added, ‘Then you’ll get your money.’
   ‘First your group must agree to provide protection for a scientist. She’s currently staying at the inn at the village. Is that a problem?’
   ‘No,’ answered Oleg promptly. ‘The Monoliths have baby-sat scientists before, who didn’t have the patience to wait for a stalker to come up with anything interesting. If I tell our leader Mikhail there’s a nice profit in it, he’ll welcome her with open arms. What’s up with her?’
   ‘You ask too many questions for a man who wants something done. Stalker idiots,’ grumbled the Dealer, wiping sweat from his forehead with his stump. He never was particularly secretive about his contempt for stalkers.
   ‘But I’ll tell you this much. She has found something in the Zone and she wants to go back and investigate it. I don’t know what it is and frankly I don’t give a shit. If it’s valuable, you can take it and sell it back to the scientists at the border. If it’s not, the whole thing still goes through as planned, I don’t care. If you’ll take her with you, you’ll get exactly what you wish. All you have to do is go over to the inn, find her and tell her I sent you. She’ll come along.’
   ‘And then what?’ replied Oleg. His patience was wearing thinner by the minute. The sweaty stink of the basement and the Dealer’s unnatural stare made him long for outside air.
   ‘I’ll give it two days and then I’ll send for my other tool. A rogue stalker, just as you requested. A complete nutjob, believes everything I tell him. He’s done some missions for me before. I always wonder how that fruitcake ever manages to get his shoelaces tied, let alone survive the Zone.’
Oleg scowled. The idea to have a madman carry out such an important part of the plan didn’t appeal to him at all. But the Dealer cut him short before he could object.
   ‘Don’t worry, he’ll work out. When I whisper some sweet words in his ear, he’ll get the job done.’ The Dealer grinned broadly at the last words. It didn’t do much good for Oleg’s  suspicion. He could almost see the multiple rows of teeth in that shark’s smile.
   ‘You see,’ continued the Dealer, ‘This guy used to be a soldier, stationed near the old Chernobyl plant. He’s constantly looking for his sister, a researcher working for the government. Something happened when the accident occurred. Nobody knows exactly, but they say his buddies found him screaming his lungs out at the border of the Zone. He even ran back in and the guys who were sent after him died kind of…messy. He spent the next four years in a Moscow asylum getting his brains fried. Then he suddenly escapes and becomes a stalker, so he could go look for his sister again. If I tell him what he wants to hear, I’ll have him eating out of my hands.’
The whole thing sounded far from easy to Oleg. And in his opinion it was twisted and pretty psychotic. Then again he couldn’t care how it was done, as long as someone did it. He’d work out the cleaning up later. He managed a thank you and paid the offensive Dealer. The man grabbed the money right out of his hands.