The Titanium Vine

A cold, damp morning of September 15, 2051…

Almost half a century has passed since the Second Chernobyl catastrophe. This time, it exploded in five places at once. From Sosnovy Bor near St. Petersburg to the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow; from the Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk to Kazantip. Simultaneous explosions of monstrous power marked the beginning of the nightmarish Five-Zone wasteland. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could survive in it. And yet people survived. New stalkers faced not only mutants and anomalies, but also lifeless creations spawned by supermodern technologies. Mechanoids and staltechs, autoons and rolling-zones—these are the true inhabitants of the Wasteland. This world belongs to them, and they won’t give it up without a fight. But the desperate young stalker Darling—codename "Titanium Vine"—is not the kind to retreat in the face of difficulties.