Guidance

[Corsair]

Better to get there by noon, I figured. I heard it could get very hot in the Zone, from all of the stuff in the atmosphere. The shotgun hung on my belt, and I cinched it tighter to my waist. With my water suit removed, I had only skintight black clothes now, which I knew wouldn't protect me from anything. From what the scientists had told me, a boar could ram straight through me with one of it's tusks. Not an appealing thought.

I wasn't really watching the ground closely, rather scanning the distance, looking for movement. My foot went right into a puddle of water, my boot disappearing into the hole. I stumbled forward, but caught myself quickly enough to avoid a broken ankle. I kind of hopped my way back upright, and drew my foot from the ankle-breaker. I could feel my foot getting wet, the water trickling through my boot. I swore, and checked my PDA. Still going the right direction.

As I began to walk again, the squelch of my boot drew my attention to another sound. Something was trying to match my footsteps, but it was just slightly off sync. I tried to locate the direction it was coming from. Behind me. I sped up my footsteps, and so did my stalker.

My hand snapped up to my shotgun, hand on the hilt, and spun around to face the brush that the sound was coming from. I pointed my gun directly at it. "Come out and let me see you." I said to it. I could hear breathing from the bush. Heavy breathing. Then it snorted. Not in a human way.

The brush rustled, and a boar came dashing out, full charge. Two kilos of rage, all focused on me. I pulled both triggers, emptying two shells almost point-blank into it's forhead. It let out a dying scream, it's eyes rolling back, blood and spittle flying from it's gaping mouth. I leapt out of the way before it's dead mass crushed me. I didn't wait to see if it was traveling in a group. I used my PDA to point me in the right direction and I broke out in a distance run.

I got about a kilometer before I began breathing haggardly, and had to slow to a trot. It was when I slowed and began to check myself that I let out a groan- I had dropped my gun after I had fired it. The kick was more than I had expected, and I was holding the gun with one hand. My wrist was sore, and I could feel it now.

I slowed further, to a walk. The PDA put me at five kilometers from the rookie camp, but there was something making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I stopped, not knowing what it was. I located a stick, a hefty, about the length of my forearm. I gave it a good throw in front of me, and about two meters ahead of me, it was lifted up, and spun in circles about two meters off the ground. Then, a loud CRACK made the stick shatter. The PDA had it recorded as a "Whirligig" anomaly.

Now that I looked closer, I could see it. The air swirled around it, and the ground beneath it was bare. I could see that it made a line, a seemingly unbroken chain of anomalies. Between me and the camp. The first thing that came to mind was not "How can I get around them?" but rather, "Good thing they gave me an anomaly detector."

I whipped out my Bear detector, and sure enough, it pointed me to at least a dozen artifacts within this kilometer. I'd say that this is a good start to my career.

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