Stalker 2: Start

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

It was supposed to be an easy job, to infiltrate the exclusion zone around the Chornobyl power plant and get a report back. Using the cover of being a courier for a new scanner device handled the paper work while good timing and cardio for a night time run got me through the military border to the nearby mobile bunker lab where I was to drop off the device (and collect the report from the inside contact).

Everyone in that lab was dead, and before I knew it I got jumped by some goons who took the device and left me for dead in an anomaly field too. Lucky Richter the wanderer showed up and taught me how to disrupt said anomalies to make them temporarily safe to pass through, then pointed me to the small village of Zalissya where there is tension between the local stalkers and the members of the Ward faction (who seem to be like the police) who have taken up position in the town hall.

I managed to radio HQ from there but they've tasked me with scouting the zone myself, specifically the SIRCAA research institute which is only going to let me in if I can get that scanner back. Asking around town I learn about Squint, the local sticky-fingers who has gone into hiding for stealing something from Ward (and why they've moved in), might know where my own missing equipment has gotten to.