Chapter XXIII: Lab X-8, the lair of Burers

 The elevator doors closed, leaving the Zone and the whole outside world behind this small box of an elevator. Boris was sweating. The elevator had one small dim light in the roof, barely making the elevator visible. Dima lit another cigarette, clearly nervous. Boris decided to break the silence.

• You've ever been to these labs?

• Nah, closest thing was this one weapons cache near Dead City, one of the sewers led there. A maze of a building, my old squad leader somehow knew the way there. Had to fight plenty of tushkanos but that was pretty much it. Found some sort of orange  experimental gravity weapon there, apparently made using gravitational artefacts.

• Well, in that case, you'll love this. Ain't nothing better than raiding these labs, Boris said in a sarcastic voice.

Dima scoffed, clearly not amused. He seemed to be about respond, when the elevator bell chimed, sounding like it was about the last chime it would ever make. The light was flickering, and the doors slowly opened, creaking from the lack of maintenance. Boris entered the lab, AKMN held ready. He had loaded one of his VOG-25 grenades into the launcher in preparation for all the monstrosities that waited here. Dima appeared next to him, crushing his cigarette against the wall.

• That was my last one, we better make this quick, he said in a calm voice.

Boris ignored him and turned his night vision on, the familiar turning up sound coming also from Dima's suit. They turned up the flashlights as well. The lab had plenty of lights scattered around, but Boris had learned that when it came to labs, excessive illumination was never a bad thing. They decided to split up, Boris heading further in while Dima searched the floor they had entered, ready to protect the elevator if need be. Boris started descending a set of stairs, while Dima prepared his Val for action and flooded the floor with his extremely bright headlamp.

Boris entered a room filled with anomalies, chemical ones known as Fruit Punch. At least there seemed to be not Burners here, he thought to himself, those things had plagued his dreams even. Carefully avoiding the rancid puddles of armour-melting gunk, he moved onwards slowly. Suddenly, a pair of snorks sprang at him from the shadows, and Boris let out a long burst from his AKMN, killing one and wounding the other. Boris saw the other snork limp away and fired a quick round into it, making it fall into one of those toxic puddles, instantly melting away. Boris flinched at the sight, and took even more care avoiding the remaining ones.

Down the hall, he could hear Dima's voice. He was yelling to Boris that there was something strange going on in the upper floor, things flying at him and so on. He could not see any poltergeists. Boris yelled back that it could be burers, but Dima did not respond. A thunderous roar from the KS-23 erupted, and Boris decided to check if Dima was okay. Entering the upper floor, a can of tuna flew at his face. This was followed by beans and tomatos in tin cans, and a bottle of purified water. Boris groaned at the full course meal peppering him, and continued on, as even more things begun to hit him, including wooden boxes and ammunition, even medkits. Boris was confused. Did the Burers want to kill him, feed him or heal him? Perhaps they were fans of irony and wanted to kill Boris with his medkit.

Dima appeared from the room, chased by an angry cloud of household items and foodstuffs. Boris would have laughed at the sight some other time, but the constant banging of different flavours of canned food across his head made it difficult. They ran as fast as they could to avoid the vicious little items, and ended up in a room with fallen furniture. A dusty old book hit Boris in the head again, but this time he managed to grab it before it levitated away. It was apparently the thing Strelok had sent them to fetch, but reading even a few paragraphs seemed to be a little too tough a thing to do when tomato grenades bounced of his visor.

They still needed to find the documents Griffin wanted, and thus they continued on. They could even hear a new sound, almost like a child crying. Dima asked Boris what the hell it was, and Boris responded that Butcher had told him of these. Apparently Burers could mimic children in rare cases, and it most likely was the solution as Boris had not met any children who used their minds to throw tomato cans at Nosorog-wearing mercenaries. They found the source of the noise, coming from a bathroom nearby, and Dima entered the room, yelling I'm not hungry thank you very much. Boris followed him, and they found the Burer inside a shower room. The combined might of a magazines of 23mm shrapnel and 7.62x39 brought the monstrosity down before it could raise its shield.

• Finally, no more pissed off tuna cans to worry about, Dima said, right as a can of tuna flew at his face. He did not even flinch, just sighed.

They continued on in the maze-like lab, until they happened upon a large room, partially flooded. Massive pack of tushkanos launched at them, and teared into their suits using their little claws and teeth. The pair kicked and fired at them, sending the mutated rats flying until the last one had been stomped. No permanent damage had been sustained, but they'd both have to fix their suits and boots after this. In the flooded room, Boris found some documents again, and the peppering by items had stopped momentarily. Boris checked the documents but it seemed like they were just research reports and the like. Interesting of course, but maybe not exactly what Griffin was looking for.

They retreated back up to the elevator to check for possible alternate routes, when something stopped them both on their tracks instantly. A voice started talking in their heads, whispering and wrestling for control. Boris hated this. After all the things this lab had thrown, literally even, at them, now this? He switched his grenade launcher to the ready position, and told Dima to follow him closely behind. They entered a room, large one with staircases going up and down, and saw the monsterous controller. It pointed at Boris with its hand and was clearly charging its psychic attack, when Boris pulled the trigger.

The grenade launched forward and hit the creature in the head, blasting it apart. The brains that had forced maybe hundreds of stalkers to become nothing more than shambling corpses now spread across the large room and its walls. May you rest in peace now, husks, Boris thought. With this immediate threat dealt with, they continued their search, the burers beginning their infuriating but mostly harmless duties again. Boris could see a collapsed elevator shaft that led to a floor they had not yet visited, and told Dima to once again guard the elevator they had arrived on. Dima refused, saying he had had his fill of being thrown shit at, and wanted to end one of the things at least. Boris nodded, and jumped into the shaft.

The floor was otherwise empty but led to another elevator shaft, where Boris climbed slowly but surely into yet another floor they had not visited. This place sure was a maze even worse than X-19 had been. The floor seemed to lead once more into nowhere but one room. There, Boris caught a glimpse of a burer, in their black trenchcoat. He reloaded his grenade launcher, and when Dima joined him up there, they stormed the final room. Boris entered the room, shot a grenade at one of the burers, killing it instantly. Another one blasted him with a telekinetic pulse, and he dropped into some sort of a ditch. Dima kept firing his Val, leaning from the door. Running as quickly as he could, Boris made it out of the ditch and emptied his mag into a burer that had appeared in front of him. The thing collapsed instantly, clearly surprised by Boris.

Final member of the Burer trio ran into a backroom, and threw every item in the room at Boris with massive strength. Boris ducked and weaved to avoid the angry tables and ammunition boxes, and slowly made his way up the catwalk, switching to his MP-133. The Burer appeared from the door and its blastwave hit Boris like a truck, making his lose his grip on the shotgun. Boris yelled in frustration and lunged at the creature, stabbing, slashing and beating it with his kukri. The burer fought back but was clearly exhausted and Boris beat it until it was down to a bloody pulp. Dima picked his shotgun up as Boris leaped over the burers corpse and found the last documents. These could come in handy, he thought after he gave them a quick skimming over.

Dima gave him back his shotgun, and they headed back to the elevator. It had been quite the operation surviving all this, but they had done it. If Strelok had doubted them before, it would be time for him to open up to them. And Boris could see the pieces finally move up on the board for his plan. But, despite all the successes of today, one thing was certain. Neither of them wanted anything to do with canned food for a while.