Chapter VIII: A Renegade for hire

 Dead City. A large forgotten town right at the edge of all the best spots in the Zone. Empty Soviet era buildings rotting away while their new guardians pushed their hidden agendas in the Zone. Boris Unforgiven had never visited it before, as in his previous loner life coming here would've been a death sentence. He would have to keep a low profile even now, disguised as bandit. Mercs might be neutral to bandits, but they have a feeling of superiority to the low-lifes of Dark Valley and no neutrality pact is going to stop a merc from pumping a bandit full of lead if the pay is good enough. And they'd more likely spare a loner than a renegade. Still, if Boris worked for them and earned their trust, it wasn't unheard of that mercs could offer him a place in their midst. The bandits he had spent time with had spoken of joining mercs possibly if they made high enough impression, although such talks could lead to a smacking from which ever mob boss heard it.

Boris headed towards the center of the town, a large market place with snipers covering all entrances. This reminded him more of some warzones he had seen in pictures and news than the Zone. The mercs rivaled even Duty in their militaristic ways. Freedom looked much more like a paramilitary force compared to the mercs. Boris had rarely crossed paths with the mercs, and even when he had he had never been attacked by them. Only after becoming renegade he had had to defend himself from the mercenaries. Even more reason to not get his cover blown, he thought. He entered the marketplace, and was instantly stopped by a merc. Boris almost panicked, he thought they had immediately spotted him.

But it was a false alarm, the merc was the one Boris was here to bring the package to. Boris gave the merc his package, and the merc gave him quite a generous sum back for his efforts, visibly pleased. While the merc was walking away, Boris couldn't help but glance at what he had been delivering as the merc opened the package. Weed, lots of it. Well, should've guessed, Boris thought, amused. He headed to the trader by the name of Dushman, a sinister figure who Boris had heard a lot of during his loner days. He had some interesting things for sale, especially a ISG Saiga caught Boris' eye, but he could never afford it in this state. Boris asked him about the mercenary situation and whether or not they were hiring. Dushman replied that they only let people with extensive experience into the mercenaries, i.e not Boris. If he really wanted to join, he'd have to work for it.

While Boris had no plans of deserting the Renegades, he still could not achieve all he wanted without joining some sort of faction. Freedom or Mercs would be the most reasonable ones, and Freedom was too heavily tied down in the defense of the Barrier to be much use to Boris' eventual plan. Mercs meanwhile interacted with all the factions of the Zone and their job was already mostly intelligence gathering and weakening other factions. Thus, if Boris was to lead the renegades to eventual victory, they'd be a perfect stepping stone to his plan. Boris agreed to some of the jobs Dushman had on offer. Hunting Monolith bastards, finding documents. Basic but very useful work. The merc bartender also had some killing contracts, some hunting contracts and some culling contracts. The merc medic asked Boris to find him a drug-making kit. Boris thought the last mission would be easiest to complete, Army Warehouses was right next door. But he started with one of Aslans hunting jobs, clearing the outskirts of Merc base.

It was an easy job, the new AKS rifle came very handy with tough mutants like boars, but some poor sods who had been zombies for years could easily be dispatched with a swing or two from a knife. It was a long contract, but once again something Boris didn't mind doing. He had large plans of taking over the Zone, yet killing stalkers was still hard for him. Putting mutants, Zombies and Monolith out of their misery however was not. Zombie after another got a knife wound in the head and Boris was soon covered in blood from head to toe. Aslan seemed pleased however, and one more step was taken to joining the mercs by Boris.

Boris kept completing menial tasks for the merc grunts, supplying them with vodka and cigarettes during watch hours, repairing or looting new guns for them, helping them find certain mutant parts and subcontracting for them in their hits. One of them even asked Boris to help with a scouting operation in Limansk. Boris set off to there, but the scouting part soon turned to full-blown combat. Limansk had mostly fallen to Monoliths, and even the middle outpost was under siege. Boris used his new AKS to great effect, fighting the enemy tooth and nail. Burst by burst the Monoliths guarding a barrier further into the city fell, and Boris could continue onwards, first pillaging the corpses like a true renegade of course.

In the large building opposite of the river outpost, Boris made a small snipers nest. He pulled out his Mosin and through the scope surveyed the outpost on the other side of the river. The Monolith seemed relaxed there, sure of their victory in Limansk. Boris proved them wrong, one 7.62x54 round to the head at the time. The Monoliths soon turned into full blown alert mode, but could not pin down Boris' location. They never got it down completely before the last one was shot to death by Boris. Yet his mission wasn't even close to being finished. Boris placed all the loot he had so far collected into a small safe he had found under a car, and continue to the other side of the river.

His target was a large construction yard on top of a hill, a fortress by Zone standards. He once again used his Mosin to great effect, picking the Monolith sentries from afar, although the firing lines were hard to get. Boris started closing in, switching to his AKS. The Monoliths had already started swarming out of their base, and Boris managed to decimate one of their squads as it was coming down by placing down an IED he had looted off a corpse. Another squad met their end by a fragmentation grenade Boris lobbed over the wall. In the confusion, Boris stormed in, AKS firing wildly. Two Monoliths fired back, one of them narrowly missing Boris and hitting his exoskeleton servos. Boris was a millisecond faster with his return fire and ended them. Two more Monoliths remained, they had climbed to replace the sentries. Boris stalked them throught the skeleton building, and managed to catch the other one unaware, ending him with a swing of a knife. The other Monolith heard his friends death gurgle and hurried to help, only to be blasted with two barrels of Boris' TOZ-66.

With his mission complete, Boris gathered as much as he could carry, exoskeleton coming handy once again. Then he headed up to the safe, emptied it and very painfully dragged all his loot to Dead City. Half-dead from the combat and weight, starving and thirsty, he offloaded his gear at Dushman and reported back to the merc, who generously compensated him for doing much more than surveillance. Boris counted his roubles and realized that he could probably get a better weapon to replace his Mosin with from Dushman. Dushman greeted him by saying: So, mister Renegade man, what can I get for you today?

Boris froze on spot. He had been spotted. He'd die painfully soon. Dushman grinned at him. Listen man, he said. Did you really think we're like those bandits and Freedomers, too stupid to realize who you are? We've been following your steps ever since you killed one of our patrols in Garbage. Now, usually we'd end you right here and now, but we like your attitude. You've got some balls waltzing in here, the heart of our operations, working for us like nothing happened, all the while wearing what can only be described as the shittiest exoskeleton ever created. Listen. You asked if we're hiring. You just cleaned the entire Limansk for us while we asked you to do recon. I think you'd be a good fit for us mercs, if you behave.

Boris couldn't believe his ears. The merc leader wanted him to join them, instead of shooting him on spot. Apparently he had done well by working for the mercs like a complete idiot, doing the worst jobs they had to offer. So what's the catch then? Boris asked. Good man, you aren't a completely naive idiot, Dushman replied and continued. So here's the deal. I can't let you just join our merry band of murderers just like that and be forgiven for what you did to our bratans. I mean, it's in your name even. So your first main jobs will be suicide runs. If you survive, then yeah, we'll let you off the hook. If you don't, well, same thing as would happen if you decline.

What are these special jobs then, Boris asked. Oh you know, entering forgotten labs, shutting down the psy-emitters so we can finally visit the north and Yantar, tracking down legendary stalkers who might shoot you on sight for being a merc. The usual initiation rites, you catch my drift. Boris gulped. This seemed absolutely insane, he'd never survive. But then again, this was his best shot to fulfilling his plan. And besides, what choice did he have? Boris agreed to the merc leaders terms without hesitation, joining the ranks of mercenaries.