Chapter LXIX: Needle in a Frozen Haystack

 Snow had fallen. The rows of derelict rescue and military vehicles had, for once, taken an uniform look as the fresh snow covered their roofs and frost had crawled its way up their windows. The dawn's early light had already begun to melt the white blanket, but it still struggled on, helped by the chilling breeze. The Digger camp had woken up from their far from cozy sleeping quarters, and now most of the dirty, dust-covered men marvelled at the sight of sheer bright snow.

Boris, Dima and Toha were already up when the camp begun its return to life, the trio having spent the night catching up, discussing the faction politics and making plans with Wild Napr. The main resolution was that Toha would remain as the Redemption representative, having grown used to the rowdy but friendly company of the Diggers. Eventually Vityukha or Dimuha would send a squad to guard the camp, in exchange for the occasional artefact or piece of old technology but mostly to fulfill the philosophy of Redemption. Dima felt it to be a good way to train the greenhorns, and Boris agreed. Napr was just glad to have some guards now.

As men started to arrive to the main source of heat in the area, Boris and Dima made room for them and begun their search. The decoder would be somewhere here, among the million different busses and vehicles. Boris took out the RF receiver and carefully adjusted it to frequency 171. The device buzzed and occasionally let out a voice that sounded very much like that of an Ukrainian soldier. The pair wandered between the vehicles for quite some time, aimlessly looking for even the faintest beep of the machine.

They did not find a source before they were found. A pair of the big volks arrived out of nowhere, sprinting towards them, foam dripping from their jaws. Their large teeth were prepared to tear the two stalkers apart, but they had underestimated the effect of the element of surprise. Boris opened fire first, firing his Fort-500, spraying pellets on the attackers. Dima switched to his mobile artillery piece and started unleashing 23mm thunder. First wolf-creature begun to limp for cover, only to fall by Boris' shot. It groaned miserably as the warm blood stained the fresh blood.

The other volk leaped at Boris and struck him in the torso. Boris roared in pain and smacked the creature with his shotgun, dazing it for a second. It was all Dima needed, a shrapnel cloud decimating the beast and turning its hide into bloody pulp. It let out its last pitiful whine and collapsed down, streams of crimson liquid dripping from it. Boris sighed, tucking away his shotgun. The beast had hit his wound, which didn't seem to heal well. It pulsed with pain, but Boris fought back to not show his agony. Now was not the time to rest.

He took out the device again, and to his astonishment, it produced a faint beep, just loud enough to hear over their racing hearts. As they travelled eastwards, the signal grew stronger, but it seemed it wasn't that close to them either way. Dima and Boris travelled for a while in silence, until Dima decided to break the silence.

• What do you think about the stuff Napr told us just now? That the bandits are in an open civil war? Or the other stuff about Freedom and loners?

• Honestly, I expected Olivius to step up and take leadership, didn't expect the faction to fragment like that. The guy we saw in Red Forest seems like a tough one, might give Olivius', Klenov's and Livid's gang a run for their money. We gotta keep an eye on the situation, but I think Micha is already doing that. As for the loner expansion? I think it'll benefit us in the long run, Boris replied, partially lost in thoughts.

• Indeed. I think it's a reckless strategy, taking on the military like that, but if it works... well, I'll be first to give them medals, Dima commented.

Napr had told them that the loners were preparing a big assault on the Agroprom military base. That was partially what Anton had been doing in Agroprom earlier, scouting out the underground as a possible point of entry. With the increased military activity, the loners had to strike them at the source if they wished to survive. If Agroprom was taken, they'd have a hard time recovering. Freedom was planning to support them through Yantar, but it still remained to be seen if Duty would intervene. None of this really concerned Boris or the Redemption, but it was clear that should the loners and Freedom succeed, their jobs would become much easier.

Their musings were stopped suddenly when the receiver started beeping faster and louder than before. The decoder was near. There was a pair of busses nearby, and the two Redeemed inspected them closely. The closest one was locked off, inside it a particularly worse-off zombie laying on the floor. Boris wondered what had happened to it, but by the looks of the bus there would be no decoder there. The other bus however produced results. There was a large calculator-looking thing laying on one of the benches, next to a safe.

Boris grabbed the decoder and inspected it. Interesting device, he couldn't make heads or tails of how to use it but hopefully it'd help in the fight against Sin and Monolith. The safe had piqued Dima's interest, as it was slightly ajar. He took a crowbar out of his bag and started to wedge it into the small crack as the door seemed to have been rusted shut despite being open.

• Damn son, where'd you find that?, Boris asked, looking at the pristine crowbar.

• Oh, there was this random corpse in Wild Territory, weird glasses and a big ass pistol next to him, found this on him too. I lost the pistol years ago but this stuck with me. It has some odd stains on it, like blood but green and yellow, I dunno what exactly it means but it's a nice thing to have, Dima answered, forcing the safe open with a massive, rusty groan of metal.

A small note slipped out. On it read "Ha ha, thought you'd get something good out of here, right? Fuck you. Yours, Stitch". Dima looked at Boris, not particularly amused. Boris held back a giggle.

• That little suka, I was wishing for some cigars or at least some meds but no. Old Dima never gets anything, Dima complained with a sour face.

Boris was about to reply that Stitch probably wasn't the type to smoke, when a message alert of his PDA chirped. It was Mark. Boris' face darkened as he read it, Mark was in trouble. The Alpha Karlik was dead but they had been attacked and he had lost contact with Hip and Anton. The message stopped abruptly mid-sentence, and it seemed he had been attacked or interrupted by someone, or something. Boris showed the message to Dima, who's sour mood was not improved one bit. They quickly raced back to the Digger camp, passing by a pack of dogs who thankfully were far too busy feasting on the volk corpses to mind them.

• Back already? You got what you needed?, the Digger leader asked, slightly surprised by the pair's haste

• We did, but it seems there truly is no rest for the wicked. Our friends in the Forest Highway have ran into some trouble, and we gotta rescue them, quickly, Boris replied, panting slightly from the running.

• Forest Highway? How are you going to get there? Last time I checked, the area was closed off by thousand vortex anomalies, there's not a gap between them, no way through, Napr questioned, utterly puzzled.

• I have an idea. Does that thing still work?, Dima asked, pointing towards the large excavator inside the Digger camp, a cunning look on his face.