Literature / The Areal

Year 1991. During the final days of USSR, a meteorite large enough to end all life on the planet almost hits Moscow, only to explode mid-air, with shards falling all across Siberia. But, in the ongoing chaos, bare minimum of efforts gets put into investigating it, and the strange and anomalous events which occurs around the epicentre — even when people and animals starts disappearing, running away to taiga after discovering weird yellow rash, or when people starts suffering from unexplainable injuries.

Year 2008. After a head injury he sustained during counterterrorist operation, captain Ivan "Mist" Beryozov is forced to quit his job at "Alpha" group of special forces, but then he gets invited to work on the highly secretive object "Areal", the anomalous zone, resources of which are used to produce unique equipment and X-type oil; and not just as a desk jokey: they need him specifically due to his field experience, as they have a special task for him. He accepts, not yet fully believing in all the rumours about the "magic artifacts", mutants and dangerous anomalies; not knowing yet that this would change his life forever...

The Areal is a series of sci-fi novels by a Russian writer Sergey Tarmashev, which, just like the other works by him, is a part of larger multiverse and connected to the other series by him, in one way or another. It takes many themes from both Roadside Picnic and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but explores them in its own way.

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List of novels:

1. Areal. The Infestation (2011)
2. Areal. The Price of Greed (2011)
3. Areal. The Doomed Ones (2011)
4. Areal. The Forsaken Ones (2012)
5. Areal. State Within State (2013)
6. Areal. Die With Style (2013)
7. Areal. Divided We Fall (2015)
8. Areal. Rip the Whirlwind (2017)

The series provides examples of the following tropes:

Series-wide

• Alien Geometries:
  • As was revealed in the latter novels, several anomalies are only 1-2 dimensional (humans are considered to be 4-dimensional), which is exactly the reason why they are so lethal — this verse follows the rules that contact of the higher-dimensional entities with the lower-dimensional ones would be fatal for the former, assuming they are alive to begin with. Two such anomalies are known: the Cobweb (1-dimensional), which serves to block the passages, and the Bald (2-dimensional; looks absolutely fla

  • All metamorphites have more than four dimensions, with the "Ariadne" specifically being twelve-dimensional.
• Alien Sky: Amongst the other things being wrong with the Yellow zone, it has a green sky with blue sun, while grass suddenly becomes blue. It becomes even worse in the Red zone and especially the Epicentre, but only few people ever managed to see them, given that entering the Red zone means instant zombification.
• Alternate History: The meteorite, which caused the Areal to appear, fell in Siberia all the way back into Nineties, right when USSR started falling apart. Eventually, the Russian government realised that the oil extracted in the Areal has extraordinary properties, and started exploiting it. They also managed to extract the other Areal-born resources, giving them major advancements in developing both weapons and protecting equipment. This, of course, did nothing to improve the quality of life for common people.
• Amputation Stops Spread: After Jelly starts consuming you, the only way to stop the spread is to cut off the infected body part.
• Apathetic Citizens: One of the main themes of the series. Countless problems could've been solved had people ever bothered to just stand up and do anything, be it about the Areal, or rampant corruption of the Corporation.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The "Membrane" suit provides its wielder with great protection from the various dangers of the Areal. It also slows you down and is painfully uncomfortable, especially if you walk in it for too long and start sweating (down to and including tearing down your skin to the point of causing bloody wounds). Bolt never wears one, and Mist soon agrees that he has a point. It was later modified to solve the issue (as well as improving its defensive capabilities), but the new "Membrane-M" is very rare and expensive.
  • The Sixth Sense met allows to sense any other life form nearby. It also allows those life forms to sense you, which may and usually would include mutated animals and zombies. And if you feel fear or hatred while using it, it would greatly enrage them. It has its uses (particularly during rescue operation), but often it causes more harm than good.
• Bears Are Bad News: Mutated bears are amongst the most dangerous creatures in the Areal, second only to Epicentre monsters like giant dogs and unks. One bear is fully capable of singlehandedly wiping out the whole boar pack (and boars are not exactly safe to walk around either), and is very hard to put down even by a well-armed group. No one risks to fight them head on. They are so tough and dangerous, people use RPGs against them, and even then it's not always enough. When in the Green zone, the SOT may even send attack helicopters against them — they're just that dangerous.
• Bigger Is Better: The bigger a met is, the stronger its effects would be.
• Black Site: "Areal" is a government-controlled area, any humans there either work for it, or are illegals seeking some profit (either stalkers or bandits). It becomes more complicated once the "Disinfection" permanently changes the way Areal behaves.
• Boring, but Practical: Several mets have rather utilitarian functions, often essentially replacing various tools you can't normally use within Areal, and wouldn't even make you good money if you sell them, but while in Areal, they are no less (if not more) valuable than more exotic and "cool" ones:
  • The Lockpick has exactly one function — it gives you immunity to the Shackle anomaly. Considering that if you get caught in it without a couple of friends ready to rescue you, You Are Already Dead, this is still very valuable.
  • The Primus can boil water... and only water. Even snow wouldn't be affected, nor it can heat you or your gear. It's valued for ability to prepare food in Areal's conditions (it's impossible to start a fire here, as it quickly extinguishes), but has no other uses.
  • The Firefly acts as a light source. In absence of (working) flashlights, and torches being borderline useless, they may be your only source of light in the Yellow zone (which has extremely dark nights).
  • The Bug somehow prevents food from spoiling just by being nearby. In absence of freezers, especially with how hard it's to obtain food in Areal post-"Disinfection", it suddenly becomes rather valuable in the everyday life, especially for those who spend a lot of time in the Yellow zone.
  • The Compass just tells you direction towards the Epicentre. Since normal compass wouldn't work here, and there were cases when people crossed the border between zones purely by accident (entering the Red zone is instantly fatal), it can be very useful.
• Cast from Calories: The Energiser and Adrenaline mets significantly boosts your stamina. They also consumes your own body resource to work, making it easy to accidentally kill yourself, so they must be used sparingly.
• Central Theme: Apathy. The main reason why the world is such a hellhole is because we do nothing to improve it. The villains are allowed to thrive because no one bothers to stop them. We have everything we need to save our world, but chose to just sit on our ass and whine about "injustice", rather than stand up and spread justice ourselves. No one would fix everything for us if we wouldn't.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Each zone has its own colour palette. The Green zone at the first glimpse looks almost normal, if not counting for the weird blue spots on the local plants. The Yellow zone has blue grass (with yellow spots) and green sky and blue sun. The Red zone recolours many things into orange and purple (even Blue, omnipresent insect from the first two zones, suddenly becomes purple). The Epicentre mixes black soils and grass (what's left of it) with red skies and sick white sun which can't even blind you if you look directly at it, being too pale.
  • The Cloud anomaly alternates between two modes, distinguishable by its colour. While it's black, it's safe to walk around. While it's green, it would zap to death anything coming too close.
• Company Town: The Satellite was build by the Corporation after the Disinfection, and every people living there work for the Corporation. In return, the Corporation gives them living conditions as close to that outside of Areal as possible.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Inverted. True to its name, the Heat anomaly is a localised zone of, well, extreme heat, which kills humans just by boiling them alive. It somehow doesn't affect anything but people inside it and their gear, despite something as hot being supposed to kill the grass at the very least.
• Corrupt Church: Greedy and corrupt church is one of the main tools Lozinsky and his friends uses for money laundering; church isn't required to pay taxes, has great reputation, and no one can just go and check them without looking like an asshole. The main base in the Areal has one church right on its territory, with a local priest Eulanthius being part of the scheme. The scheme died out with Eulanthius himself in the third book, during Disinfection.
• Creepy Child: Every child born from the Addicted people (or, at least, within Areal) would resemble some human/monkey hybrid (fur included); people even call them "monkeys", with sole exception being their parents. They have uncanny ability to sense various Areal-related things, but it varies greatly (some can sense Emissions; others managed to get themselves killed in the anomaly, which both mutants and zombies safely bypass), and often acts rather weird because of that; some can even run away towards the Epicentre. They secrete some unknown substance which often causes minor poisoning; people regularly living nearby gradually develops resistance to it, but it certainly does not add to their popularity. Parents of such children seems to have some unknown connection with them; exact nature of this connection isn't elaborated upon, but it's made clear that it wouldn't allow them to separate from their "monkeys", even if it would force them to lay low (which "nonals" actually do).
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Most anomalies would kill you very quickly, but some are particularly gruesome and painful:
  • The Jelly would slowly melt you into more Jelly. It would take around half an hour to finally kill the unfortunate victim, and all this time they would scream in agony, until their upper body would jellyfy as well.
  • The Heat boils you alive right in your gear.
  • The Shackle wouldn't kill you by itself. It would merely chain you to the ground, with no way to escape, where you would live for just long enough to die from Emission, which would destroy your body with the brutal vibrations. Unless some animals would find you first and just eat you alive. Or you die from thirst.
• Danger with a Deadline:
  • There's so-called "No-fly weather" — a grace period after the recent Emission, when mutants are still very cautious and inactive. Once it ends, they resume their usual activities, becoming fully dangerous once again. And when it comes close to another Emission, the mutants becomes increasingly aggressive, because they feel the upcoming danger, and thus are even more nervous than usual.
  • Several anomalies can vary in their lethality depending on the certain conditions:
    • The Cobweb can be noticed without outside help during twilight. During the other times, the only way to check for it is to either use a lighter (its sparks would briefly reveal the Cobweb), or pock it with a stick and listen for specific cracking noises. And if you so much as touch it yourself (even if you already pocket it), You Are Already Dead.
    • The Jelly can be easily seen during nighttime, because it emits the ghostly blue light. During the day, it's completely invisible, and if you step into it, you would be lucky if you lose only a leg.
    • The Cloud alters between two modes, distinguishable by its colour — the completely docile black cloud, and the violent green cloud, which would zap you to death if you go too close.
• Deadly Gas: Amongst the other things, there are gas anomalies. They work like invisible, concentrated mist of toxic gas which somehow maintains its form even while moving. The one and only clue that you must put on a gas mask is the quiet "pshh" sound; miss it, and you would die in extreme agony: depending of anomaly type, either from suffocation, or from being dissolved alive; that last one would also kill anyone unfortunate enough to have holes in their equipment (like from bullets).
• Death World: Simply put it — while you are in the Areal, you would always be at danger. Deadly anomalies comes in great varieties, and regularly change their location, disappearing in one places and appearing in others. Local fauna has heavily mutated and became extremely hostile. If you get caught during emission, you likely would die from internal organs being destroyed by extreme vibrations, unless you find a shelter quickly (and it must be the underground shelter, or at least some deep hole, or you may mutate), and if you get caught by emission while in so called "step" (estimated area which would be consumed by the next zone), you have a great chance to be killed by a new anomaly which just spawns right under your feet. Plus, stalkers, bandits and soldiers are constantly at each other's throats, so no matter on which side you are, you would have enemies. And then there are zombies, who shoot them all on sight. The further into zones you go, the worse it becomes, with new anomalies and mutants, new restrictions, and new rules; the Yellow zone disables any electrics, including detectors, and adds mobile anomalies into mix. The Red zone, assuming you even manage to resist its attempt to brainwash you (there were only "3,5" documented cases of people doing so), makes anomalies not just moving, but actively pursuing intruders. It somehow became even worse post-"Disinfection".
• Doom Magnet: When people with Addiction are too far away from the Areal, weird and dangerous things starts occurring near them, with something constantly breaking, malfunctioning, etc, often with fatal consequences for anyone around. People soon started noticing that all of this occurs near those who returned from the Areal, and started forcing them to leave — if not outright lynching.
• The Dreaded:
  • While all mutants are dangerous to some degree (particularly bears), dogs are universally feared by everyone, no matter how good they are equipped and armed. Why? Because they are bigger than a rhino, tougher than a tank and can cut you in half with one bite. Some are just as aggressive as any other local creature, while others are friendly... but with their size it makes little difference, since their attempt to "play" still results in traumas and deaths. Fortunately, they all live in the Epicentre and nearly never go into zones. Nearly.
  • The Veteran. No one knows who he is — a zombie, an anomaly, or something else, but everyone knows that when he shows up, there would be blood. A lot of blood was spilled before it was deduced that he only gets attracted by the groups of thirty or more people, so ever since then the SOT only operates by groups of exactly 29 men.
  • Amongst the anomalies, the one universally considered to be the most dangerous (and competition is strong) is the Swell. It's very hard to notice until it's too late, it can exploit any breaches in your hideout to reach you and fill it in its entirety, it's very hard to run away from (it's extremely fast), and it can dissolve a fully geared man in a matter of seconds.
  • Everyone are scared of the Red Train; ever since it was consumed by the Areal, it not only accumulated huge amount of anomalies upon itself, it also started moving around by itself, and its guns are as lethal as ever, if not more so. There's also the Blue Train, but it seems to be non aggressive, at least to unarmed people.
• Eldritch Location: The deeper into Areal you go, the less Earth-like it becomes. The Green zone already looks weird, but the Yellow zone paints the sky green, and the grass yellow. And then there's the Red zone, which is even weirder, and the Epicentre, which no longer resembles Earth at all, being closer to some alien planet. There's a good reason for it: Areal is actually the alien terraforming instrument, which AI of the fallen alien spacecraft uses to prepare survivable environment for its inhabitants.
• Elite Zombie: Ever since the "Disinfection", two new types of zombies started appearing, Professors and Guards. Both are bonded to specific buildings where they were zombified (and mutated), and are much more dangerous than standard zombies, due to unique abilities only they possess — for example, Professors have psychic powers. Names came from whom they were prior to mutation.
• Enforced Technology Levels: Electronic tech starts working worse while in the Green zone, and shuts down completely while in the Yellow one. So, no transport or detectors. And anything working during emission would be destroyed beyond repair, even if indoor.
• Entitled Bastard: People soon started taking whatever SOT makes for them for granted, without ever trying to help in turn; quite opposite, in fact. Bear often questions why they even bother, but never has heart to quit, because as long as there are some decent people, it's not in vain.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Any animal, no matter how small, had mutated into a killing machine and became extremely hostile to any outsider. Even sparrows developed razor-sharp poisoned talons and attacks en masse, to the point that people started taking shotguns with them specifically to deal with the birds, because nothing else would work. And then the anomalies comes in, in great variations: gravity anomalies, heat anomalies, gas anomalies, acidic anomalies, "just-what-the-hell-is-that" anomalies, and so on. The deeper into the Areal you are, the more dangerous it becomes. Starting from the Yellow zone, anomalies becomes mobile (while your precious detector no longer works), and in the Red zone they are actively pursuing you, though most people wouldn't experience that, since they would be zombified the moment they cross the border, or soon afterwards. As if that's not enough, there are periodical Emissions, which spreads the Areal further while wiping out anyone caught in the open and creating new anomalies. This became even worse post-"Disinfection", with many things being changed to purposely harm people, and even animals close to Areal (but not yet inside it) starting acting aggressive, probably being already assimilated into its psi-field.
• Evil Smells Bad: Some anomalies have specific smell associated with them, which experienced stalkers can use to detect them:
  • The Grava has very specific smell of ozone, which instantly tells you about its presence. It became much weaker post-"Disinfection".
  • The Solenoid has heavy salty stench, which can be noticed just before you enter its area of effect; that smell is the source of its name, actually.
  • Inverted regarding the Sieve; the key clue of it being nearby is the total lack of smell (any smell, bad or good, even where it should normally be), in combination with the grass being unusually flat. Noticing that can save your life or at least your limb.
  • Inverted with the Licker, one of the few non-hostile anomalies, which smells like buns. The problem is, it looks just like the Swell (the deadliest anomaly), and by the time you can smell it, if it's indeed the Swell, it would be too late to run.
• Evolutionary Levels: The further into the zones you go, the further mutations progresses. All species seems to follow specific pattern, with the same animals mutating into the same kinds of mutants, all the time, with further mutations being more advanced and dangerous. The only revealed full chain is the Porcupine (called that for its poisonous needles; likely former hedgehog), who mutates into the Octopus (drops the needles in favour of more mobility and ability to just spit its poison) and then into the Squid (wasn't described).
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Many anomalies were named after the ways they kill people. If it boils you alive, then it's called the Heat. If it dissolves you alive, it's called the Dissolver. If it tears you apart, it's called the Tearer. And so on. However, several anomalies don't follow that naming convection, being named after the visual clues indicating their presence instead.
• Fantastic Drug: Goldenlocks, mutated Areal cannabis (called that due to its weird look, which resembles, well, golden hairs), became popular after "Disinfection". It has no harsh post-high effects, and is "stronger" than heroin, but has 100% addiction rate, and has one small, but unpleasant side effect — each time it's used, there's a random chance that its user would feel sudden impulse to go into Areal, only realising what's going on after crossing the barrier and becoming Addicted. Since it happens at random, and due to junkies being, well, not the sanest people alive, it never stops anyone.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Justified for the Corporation's personnel. Using last names within Areal is strictly forbidden due to secrecy concerns. Official documents mentions people only by callsigns, but in personal conversations it's allowed to use the first names (but never surnames).
  • In general, characters (including unrelated to the Corporation) mostly gets referred to either by a callsign, nickname or first name. It's rare for them to even have their last names revealed.
• Forbidden Zone: The Areal by itself is a restricted area, where stalkers go illegally, but within Areal itself there's also the Red zone — territory where no one can go, due to the risk of immediate zombification, which would happen to you even before you have a chance to being killed by the even more lethal anomalies than before. Through all history, only 3,5 people made it out of it alive, and this isn't a figure of speech. So much was said about it being inaccessible (with some exceptions), that it was inevitable that it would be visited sooner or later. Most of restrictions were lifted after "Disinfection", as it became impossible to maintain them anyway.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • The Red zone rejuvenates anyone going there, to the point that the old people becomes young again. It also can quickly (though not immediately) regenerate most injuries. It may even bring back recently deceased, at least as long as the head is not damaged. It somehow works for the broken equipment, too, at least for the more primitive one, like suits or gas masks. While normal humans usually can't visit it, the zombies actively uses it to cure their injuries mid-battles.
  • When anomaly chooses an object to sit upon, that object gradually rejuvenates and starts looking new and shiny. Since things not touched by anomalies looks old and rusty/rotten due to their age, it's the red flag that something is wrong for anyone even vaguely familiar with how Areal works.
• Genius Loci:
  • The closer to Epicentre, the more dangerous anomalies becomes, and not just in power. In the Green zone, they are static. in the Yellow zone, they may react to you when you are too close and move a little, or just wander aimelessly. In the Red zone, assuming you survive even crossing the border, they would actively pursue you.
  • Scientists working in the Areal are speculating that the Areal may have a mind of its own, and increasingly harsh conditions and violently aggressive animals are its reaction to humans being so violent and destructive. They ended up being partially right, as the third book reveals that the Areal is run by an alien AI.
• Ghost Town: Post-"Disinfection", both Ukhta and Olenegorsk are now in ruins, inhabited solely by bandits (Merkulov's and Rasp's gangs, respectively) who set up underground shelters here, but even they only occupy small portions of the cities.
• Good Counterpart:
  • There are two anomalies, the Swell and the Licker, which looks very similar at the first glance. The first one is large, fast (if it catches you off-guard and attacks, you can't outrun it) all-consuming mist of acidic gas, while the second one is one of the few non-hostile anomalies in the Areal, which smells like fresh buns and acts weirdly similar to little puppy ("licks" you and plays with you by gently throwing things back). By the time you realise the difference between the two, it would be too late. Mist presumes that whoever discovered the Licker, was already prepared to die when he encountered it for the first time. There's actually a good reason why they look so similarly: they are actually two different modes of the same anomaly.
  • The only difference between rangers and stalkers is that rangers works for the Corporation, helping collecting mets and acting as pathfinders for the field squads, while stalkers work only for themselves (selling mets on the black market) or for the bandits. In fact, some rangers are the former stalkers, while some stalkers are rangers gone rogue. It stopped mattering after "Disinfection", as government stopped prosecuting stalkers due to countless people being now forced to live within Areal, all stalkers included.
• Gravity Screw: Full spectrum of gravity-related anomalies:
  • The Shackle, instead of flat-out killing you, pins you to the ground (with enough force to knock you out if its catch you on the move). Unless you have a Lockpick met (which disables it), or at least two friends who are ready to drag you out of it, you are doomed to die from starvation, the local fauna or from the Emission.
  • The Grava (short for "graviconcentrate") represents the zone of gravity increased to so ridiculous level that anything trying to cross it would be splatted across the ground.
  • The Vortex sucks everything in, then mangles whatever it catches into incomprehensible mess.
• Grey Goo: Whatever gets in contact with the Jelly, becomes Jelly itself (but it wouldn't touch any materials surrounding its spawning point). If you step into one (and it's very easy to do so, since it only becomes visible during the night), you can say your leg goodbye — in the best case scenario. Fortunately, it's rather easy to predict where it would appear, since it only spawns in the various holes.
• Hive Mind: All mutants are connected to the Areal's psi-field, which gives them, amongst the other things, ability to telepathically give each other information. Ability to use that connection varies greatly amongst different species, and they only do this when this wouldn't conflict with their interests (why warn the others about something you want to eat yourself?), but any pack animals can be expected to use it on regular basis.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Several anomalies work by throwing things back to their sender... at armor-piercing speed. They are the reason why people stopped throwing bolts and nuts, instead using bullet shells; and god forbid you from shooting into it... First one, the Centrifuge, spins the object which gets inside it (as the speed so high that the humans dies instantly if they end up there), and throws them back, possibly killing whoever throws things there. The Roulette works similarly to Centrifuge, but throws things at unpredictable angle. And then there's the Cannon, which, once it catches something, holds it for few seconds to charge up, and then throws out at massive speed and on massive distance (even the bodies can fly for fifty metres if they don't hit anything mid-flight).
• Hufflepuff House: Out of five major factions formed after "Disinfection", three (Mercenaries, Oil-miners and Obshyak) have bare minimum involvement in the plot. While Mercs were eventually expanded upon, the other two were not so lucky:
  • Despite being even stronger gang than Townsfolk, Obshyak's only major contribution to the plot is their slave-trafficking business, which helps kickstarting Volodina's plot; past that, they drop out almost completely.
  • Pretty much the only thing known about the Oil-miners is that, true to their name, they are prime oil-traders in Areal. They are powerful enough to being offered to join the Alliance, but not story-important enough to ever appear on-screen.
• Humans Are Bastards: Running theme of the series, with Areal itself being merely the setting to put humanity's worst traits into play.
  • Areal reacts to aggression with aggression, to hate with hate. People keeps killing animals out of fear and cruelty, and they becomes more aggressive and dangerous. While some mutants are inherently hostile, in many cases it's entirely possible to avoid conflict — if someone even bothers to not provoke the animals.
  • Humans are no better to each other than to mutants, with major reason why the Areal is such a crappy place to live in being constant attacks from the local bandits, or Corporation treating everyone around them like dirt — and people doing nothing to change their condition for the better.
• Impartial Purpose-Driven Faction: Non-aligned ("Nonals" for short) refused to join any group, even become Free Ones (who, while not a part of specific group, still abide established "rules", like paying bandits, or, more or less, enslaving their women, and at times only differentiate from bandits by being less violent and chaotic). As result, while they are "free", they now have the worst lives out of everyone: they live in the middle of the Yellow zone, with bare minimum of... well, pretty much anything, and are in constant danger of being wiped out. They are often considered to be the greatest losers in the whole Areal, and this is saying something. We later learn just why they chose such life: they are the only people who refused to abandon their mutated children (Addicted always give birth to mutants), which also put them in danger, since many people would take their children away, by force, in hope that they can predict the Emissions, despite their ability to sense Areal being very unreliable (some can sense the Emissions, others can't even see anomalies and gets killed).
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Many new technologies are based on materials obtained from the Areal: "Membrane" suits, "Knight" armor, "Puncher" ammo (strong enough to reliably pierce aforementioned armor), Type X oil... the list can go on. And then there are metamorphites, some of which are greatly useful even outside of Areal.
• Last-Name Basis: Most villains are consistently referred to by their last names (except in personal discussions), namely: the Corporation's leadership, Merkulov, Levin (also known as Hunter or "Darkwing") and Salmatsky (also known as Firz). The good guys usually calls themselves by first names or callsigns.
• The Little Detecto: Yet another of the Corporation's inventions, the Universal Measuring Contraption (UMC). This detector can scan the territory around you, noticing most anomalies before you just step into them. The newer model is, the better it works, with newest models being able to memorise anomalies and use satellite to quickly update its memory with fresh information. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work in the Yellow zone, which is where you need it most.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Many anomalies works by making whoever gets inside into a mess of blood and bloody clothes, with exact way they kill you ranging from anomaly to anomaly. For example, the Sieve would cut up anything stepping into it, like razor-sharp sieve (hence the name), the Tearer would, well, tear you apart, and the Magnet would outright explode you.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Appropriately called the Magnet anomaly sucks inside most metallic object passing nearby. It's dangerous for humans, too, due to iron in our blood, but exact effect was never elaborated upon, other than that result is messy. Unlike other anomalies, it can actually be useful during shootouts, since it consumes shots directed at you.
• Nepotism:
  • Nearly all members of the board of executives (save for Vorontsov) are distantly related to each other; they prefer to not announce that fact, of course.
  • Lieutenant Levein (callsing "Hunter") is actually Belov's nephew (and, as we later learn, the son of security team's colonel, though by that point his father would be already dead); the only reason he is here to begin with is because his uncle plans to set him as his successor, and place like the Areal would be great for his career, even if he wouldn't make it outside main base.
• The Mafiya: Local gangsters are the constant source of problems for everyone within the Areal and near it.
• Nicknaming the Enemy:
  • "Zombies" isn't the official term, it's how stalkers (and later "Areal" personnel, who chose to not reinvent the wheel) chose to call them. The same applies to all anomalies and mets.
  • Whatever force which zombifies people in the Red zone was nicknamed "the Dark Lord".
• No Cure for Evil: So-called "Kugelstein's paradox", when, even knowing full well how certain technology works, some people can use it, and others can't, no matter what. All such technologies just so happen to be related to either medicine or free resources. Exact criteria for being eligible for usage of such technologies is unknown, but every person who actually managed to make them work is someone who sincerely wants to help the other people (Dr. Kugelstein, Ludmila Nikolaeva and Nikita Stepanov), and most persons who consistently fails are someone working for Lozinsky and Belov, with everyone in between actually producing something, but with the vastly inferior results.
• Nom de Guerre: Due to high secrecy surrounding anything going on in the Areal, all local personnel must use callsigns, including scientists. While using given names in conversations is acceptable (mentioning surnames is strictly forbidden), all official documents address them only by callsigns. We don't even learn the real names for many of the characters, or at least their last names.
• Not Enough to Bury: Many anomalies leaves bodies in such terrible condition, it would be hard to find anything fitting for proper funeral even if you manage to avoid being killed yourself while searching:
  • The Sieve would cut you up into small pieces, like razor-sharp sieve, the moment you come in contact with it.
  • The Bald just splats you on the ground, reducing you to the wet blood spot.
  • The Cannon is the worst of "throw things out at lethal speed"-type anomalies, with whatever being thrown not just being horribly mangled, but actually smoking.
  • The Millstones, the Tearer, the Meatgrinder and the Dissolver are pretty much self-explanatory. Being caught would result in you being crushed, torn apart, reduced to small meat pieces or just plain dissolved alive, respectively.
  • The Swell would just dissolve you, leaving only bloody clothes behind.
  • The Vortex leaves nothing even remotely resembling the body after it finishes with you.
• Nothing Is Scarier: How exactly the Peacekeeper kills its victims was never described. The only thing known for sure is that when you go close to it, you die.
• One-Steve Limit: The word "Areal" is both the name of the anomalous territory, and of the government-funded corporation trying to control it. To not mistake the two, the corporation either gets addressed by the full name ("The Areal Corporation"), or simply as "the Corporation".
• The Place: The series is named after titular location, the Areal — massive anomalous area filled with dangerous anomalies, mutants and valuable artifacts.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: The Areal doesn't abide the normal rules of the outside world. Electricity works weirdly in the Green zone, and doesn't work in the Yellow one. Open fire extinguishes itself shortly after starting. Open water suddenly disappears without a trace, despite looking perfectly normal outside. When you reach the Yellow zone, the sky suddenly becomes green, and the grass blue. And that's before mentioning metamorphits and dangerous anomalies.
• Regularly Scheduled Evil: Post-"Disinfection", emissions mostly follows a weekly schedule, with first two days being particularly dangerous (due to increased animal hostility), following with several days of the relative peace (called "no-fly weather"), when even anomalies are losing most of their aggression. This gradually dissipates, with aggression stabilising to the "normal" level... and then suddenly another emission comes.
• Schmuck Bait: One particular anomaly, the Peacekeeper, works by making you believe that everything is fine, and showing you the perfectly safe and normal meadow inside the Areal. Everyone with even basic knowledge (and common sense) avoids it like fire, because the more normal something within Areal looks, the less normal it actually is. How fake its grass actually is was best demonstrated when the shell was thrown into it... and the shell just disappeared, while grass not even moved.
• Shock and Awe: Two anomalies works by zapping their victims to death:
  • The Solenoid attaches itself to an object standing above ground, and zaps things moving too close. It hits hard enough to outright blow up your head (which actually happens to one of characters).
  • The Cloud alters between two states, distinguishable by colour. The black cloud is perfectly safe, while the green cloud would zap anything going too close to it. Unlike the Solenoid, it's not picky when choosing a location.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • So-called "doggy" — an empty shell with a string attached — allows to navigate within the Yellow zone, by throwing the shell to check for anomalies, and just pulling it back when it misses. It saved more lives than all detectors combined, especially in the Yellow zone, where detectors are unusable.
  • People are using the empty lighters (they can't be used the intended way, due to Areal suppressing open fire) to search for Cobwebs, due to the sparks they create. Otherwise, the Cobweb requires the very specific light (or detector, which wouldn't work in the Yellow zone anyway) to be noticeable.
• Suddenly Significant City: Ukhta was relatively small, little-known town in Siberia, but due to close proximity to Areal, it suddenly attracted countless new people interested in trying to earn some money by becoming stalkers. Of course, it's illegal, but when it stopped Russians from doing anything?
• Summon Bigger Fish: The mutants can smell alcohol, tea, coffee or tobacco (especially alcohol) from a far away, and instantly drop whatever they're doing and attack. This was eventually weaponised (the idea is to make zombies attack your opponent), albeit this tactic is risky, as mutants and zombies would attack all humans on sight.
• Super-Scream: Unks defends themselves by ultrasonic scream which may blow up your brain if you don't make necessary preparations, and damage your ears even if you do. Since they react with scream at first provocation, it's really best to just sit quietly and wait for them to leave. Don't try to kill them, this would scare them, with predictable results.
• Technically-Living Zombie: Any person going into the Red zone becomes zombified either immediately or soon afterwards, and falls under control of Areal's psi-field. Areal uses them to attack people in the Yellow (rarely Green) zone, since they keep all their skills — and weapons — intact. They are not dead, though this can't be called "life" either, and even if they do get killed, one trip to the Epicentre, and they swiftly gets resurrected and healed. Since they are still alive, in order to sustain themselves, they consume living flesh, including from humans they kill.
• The Teetotaler: No one who works in the Zones drinks before, or especially during their stay in the Areal, not even criminals. Justified, since the local fauna (and zombies) somehow smells alcohol (and, to lesser degree, tobacco, tea and coffee) from the very large distance, and, given how aggressive the locals are, results of doing so would be not very pleasant. That being said, alcohol still has its use... to lure zombies to attack someone.
• Thieves' Cant: Whenever criminals talks with each other, they make high use of the stereotypical Russian criminal slang.
• This Is Not a Floor: Strong enough anomalies possess so-called "Call" — a mental attack which gradually compells people to go closer and closer to the anomaly, to their death. Only two people are known to be immune to it, Bolt (for not entirely clear reasons), and Mist (due to his head trauma).
• Too Dumb to Live: Despite it was established long time ago that any person going into the Red zone inevitably becomes zombified and "joins the Dark Lord's legions", a stream of the new people who think that this wouldn't apply to them never ends. Thus, the Areal never runs out of zombies.
• Undead Child: Unks are the result of newborn babies dying during the first Emission in what is now Epicentre, and being reanimated and mutated by the Areal.
• Underground City: Shortly after "Disifnfection", since Addicted can't survive outside Areal for long due to ever-growing Itch, Lozinsky (who is Addicted himself) financed creation of the small underground city right in the Green zone — "Satellite". It has everything people need to live, down to and including internet, while also remains perfectly safe due to being deeply underground.
• Upgrade Artifact: Areal-born artifacts, called "mets" (short for "metamorphites"), gives their wielders various new abilities, though not all of them would work outside of Areal, or at least would reduce in effectiveness. Several of them works by amplifying your abilities or giving you the new ones:
  • The Energiser works by amplifying one's stamina. As the side effect, it consumes user's internal resources, so it must be used with caution. Another similar met, Adrenaline, is weaker, but is usable outside of Areal.
  • There are several "medical" mets, though only three were mentioned: the Leech, the Nurse and the Cups. Leech speeds up one's metabolism, allowing to quicker get rid of negative elements at the cost of consuming more body resources; the other two were not described.
  • The Owl gives perfect night vision when attached to the back of your head (it requires contact with skin specifically, not the hair, so have to shave that part first). It was quickly adapted as the element of the new night vision googles, but just strapping it to your head would work too. As additional bonus, it can see Jelly regardless of time of the day, and completely counters effects of the other met, the Stealth.
  • The Stealth hides you from any optics, scanners, radars, etc (there are even rumours that it protects from animal smelling you) — pretty much anything, except from being spotted visually. For this reason, people use it during the night, when it's much less of a problem. It has limited power, so large object must be covered with several such mets, but for personal use one would be just enough.
  • The Ariadne gives you ability to see anomalies. After some time, you would learn to distinguish them, because each one has unique look. It's very hard to find, with only three being known by the start of the first book: one belonged to professor Lavrentiev and was lost with him; one was brought by Bolt and now belongs to Firz; and the one was brought by stalker Syoma Sniff and eventually expropriated by bandits.
  • The Sixth Sense allows you to sense any life form nearby, how far away it's from you, and how to reach it... and allows those life forms to sense you in the similar way. Including local monsters and zombies, which attacks any intruders on sight. People rarely risks using it outside of the rescue operations, or brief reconnaissances.
  • The Spring (somehow) feeds its wielder with water while worn, essentially removing any need to drink. Only known met of this type was brought by Ras' (now-zombified) father in his last expedition, and was subsequently sold, because without him, the family had no income.
  • The Living Water, so rare that it's ambiguous whether it's even real, or just an urban legend, gives its wielder complete immunity to zombification or the Call. The only catch is that it slowly wears out outside of Areal, requiring "recharging" it with the Areal's water — something which normally causes the instant zombification just by going close.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • The Prospector met has one use — it can sense gold. Outside of the Areal, it's perfectly useful, but in the Areal, you would rather take something which actually helps with survival.
  • The Silence can completely hide any noise made by you... and only you: it wouldn't hide the noise of your gunshots. As result, only spies have any use for it, and even then, with it becoming extremely rare post-"Disinfection", there are easier and cheaper ways to make job done. As added "bonus", it also prevents its user from talking, making it useless in the team operations.
• The Usual Adversaries: Blue is the local insect called that for, well, being blue. Blue are too small to cause major damage, but they sure as hell would try to make you suffer: they have extremely painful bite, biting out the small pieces of your skin each time (all Areal's fauna is hostile to humans, and insects are not an exception) and causing the wound which would take a lot to heal afterwards, leaving ugly, swollen scars. They are omnipresent in the Green and especially in the Yellow zone, and are universally hated by anyone who ever went into the zones. They can be collected to be used as the material for various technologies, but are very easy to accidentally kill, and, when they reach the critical mass, start emitting psi-signals (like any other local animals), causing every other (much more dangerous) mutants to go out of their way to attack you while you are struggling to escape the Areal with your trophies, so most people prefer to not even bother; only mercs and nonals risk to deal with them: the former managed to set up entire plantations, keeping them under heavy guard, while the latter know now to collect them quietly.
• Villain with Good Publicity: The Areal Corporation actively advertises it being the sole structure in Russia to be completely free of corruption, as part of its propaganda to get the best cadres and contracts.
• Walking Techbane: Amongst other effects of the Addiction is so-called Poltergeist — invisible aura which increases chances of various incidents (especially if any tech is presented) to absurd levels, to the point that things just breaks out of nowhere. Common test to bust any Addicted trying to sneak on board of plains or trains, endangering other people, is to force people to wait two hours between registration and going on board, in a room full of tech (TVs, cameras, etc) — if at least one Addicted is presented, something would break before long.
• You Are Already Dead:
  • The Cobweb would outright kill anyone rushing through it, but if you shrug it off with a stick, nothing would happen when you cross it... at first. Then you would suddenly drop dead due to a heart attack at unpredictable moment; no one has ever survived for more than six months — including one guy who was actually reanimated after initial heart attack right in the Green zone. This is because you can't really destroy the Cobweb (it just becomes invisible) — only reduce its strength, but not nearly enough to make it harmless.
  • The Shackle wouldn't kill you. It merely bonds you to the ground, without a chance to break out on your own. Unless you have the Lockpick met, or couple of friends able to drag you out, you are doomed to die slow and agonising death. Unless you would get caught by animals or Emission; then it would be quick and agonising death.
• You Can't Go Home Again: The Addiction not only makes the people into Doom Magnet, but also causes them so-called "itch" — the never-ending pain which gradually increases when outside of Areal, which would eventually kill them.
• Zerg Rush: Small birds, like the mutant sparrows, are too small and weak to harm humans by themselves (even if taking into account their razor-sharp poisonous talons and beaks). The problem is, they never fly by themselves, always hunting in large packs of several hundred birds. People takes hunting shotguns with them just to deal with them, because in absence of flamethrowers (which are only available on Perimeter), it's your only chance of survival if caught in the open. Large enough pack can even destroy an attack helicopter.

The Infestation tropes

• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Instructor who teaches newcomers about the dangers of Areal was one of the people working at the Perimeter back when it was not yet established that so-called "step" of Emission exists (an area which gets consumed by the next zone when it expands). As result, he failed to escape before the Emission started (you can't outrun it if you're in the open), and Jelly has formed right under his feet, with predictable results. He was saved, but uses prosthesis ever since.
  • Stalker Syoma Sniff somehow managed to avoid being zombified in the Red zone, but lost both legs to the Jelly, and one arm to Sieve. He survived only because he found the Ariadna somewhere and managed to keep it in his teeth. Just how he survived all this is a mystery. The in-universe "joke" about "3,5 people" making it out of the Red zone refers to him.
• Audience Surrogate: Mist is a complete newbie in the Areal, so the book introduces the readers to how things works in the Areal through his actions and interactions with other characters: Mist browsing through internet in futile attempt to find useful information about the Areal before starting working there; rather large part dedicated to briefings, both about anomalies and about local fauna; Mist's interactions with Bolt while already in Areal; etc.
• Big Damn Heroes: Mist's first real mission in Areal, which happens before he even finishes his training, occurs when a SOT group gets stuck, pinned down by bandits from one side and by zombies from another, and with Millstone anomaly being about to kill them from the top; Mist reinforces Bear's group to assist in taking the guys out, with the reason why he gets sent prematurely being his experience in counter-terrorist operations.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • When Areal has reached the old graveyards, it reanimated the corpses buried there as slow, half-decayed zombies (called "walkers") who, well, walk around (not even the Areal can restore tissues which are too decayed). They are too slow and weak to be of real danger, though if one tries to catch them "alive" (scientists are always in need of live specimen), they may cause problems due to risks of catching infection when scratched or bitten.
  • It's presumed that Unks (from the word "Unknown", in English) are infants who died during the very first emission, but were immediately resurrected, and subsequently developed into some weird and highly deformed kind of zombies. They normally don't leave Epicentre, but reacts to strong negative emotional emanations, particularly someone dying. This is very bad, since they are very hard to put down, and starts screaming at first provocation. And you really don't want them to scream... They are not violent, unlike the "normal" zombies — they died at too young age to learn hatred; they reacts this way due to fear.
• Came from the Sky: Everything started when a meteorite (huge enough to wipe out all life on Earth) almost crushed in Moscow, but suddenly exploded in the air while above Siberia. Then all kinds of crazy things started to occur around the place now known as Epicentre, with weird injuries, pieces of rock with anomalous properties, and people running away to taiga soon after finding weird yellow rash, never to be seen again (that rash later gets revealed to be the sign of you being about to zombify). While no one knows exactly what is going on, everyone are certain that it's somehow related to meteorite.
• Career-Ending Injury: First post-prologue chapter depicts protagonist, Mist, participating in operation to save hostages (several women and children) from a group of islamists who threatened to blow them up. The last surviving one blows himself up, with Mist caught in the blast. While Mist survives, the head trauma he received forces him to retire from "Alpha" (elite spetsnaz team). Fortunately, he gets recommended as a new recruit for "Areal", with his head trauma actually ending up more of an asset than a burden.
• Cliffhanger: Book ends on Prokopenko and Firz discussing their plan how to hide the secret lab they organised right in the Yellow zone from upcoming visit of counterintelligence group.
• Deconstruction: Of the idea of using bolts to check for anomalies, like it was done in both S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Roadside Picnic, on which Areal is based upon. Mist asks how people checks for anomalies when in the Yellow zone, where detectors are unavailable, and presumes that they are throwing bolts. Ras says that at first, some "morons who read too much Sci-Fi" have indeed tried to use bolts, but soon stopped (those who survived), after realising that several anomalies works by throwing objects back at the sender with lethal force. Not to mention, bolts are too heavy to take a large supplies of them (more weight means more energy spent, and thus more risks). In the Areal, people use shells instead: still painful if thrown at you, but it's not gonna kill you, and you're highly unlikely to run out of them.
• Distant Prologue: Prologue takes place back in the days of USSR's fracturing, in early nineties. Main plot starts in 2008.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Hunter's behaviour during security briefing tells us everything we should know about this guy. His is insufferable, arrogant dumbass with overblown ego, who exploits his connections to get away with bullying almost anyone he wants, or breaking secrecy rules such as never mentioning anyone's last names. And yet he's a coward, who never picks a fight with anyone who can't be scared by his connections.
  • Prokopenko's behaviour when he goes to casino shows his true colours: he's not just corrupt, but also extremely prideful, and sees everyone who has less power and money than him like dirt.
• The Greatest Story Never Told:
  • Thirteenth somehow made it out of the Red zone, bringing back zombified counterintelligence agent (now un-brainwashed), and the important databank from a fallen satellite. He refused to tell Bolt any details about what and how he did there, and never appears in the story afterwards.
  • Just how stalker Syoma Sniff managed to survive the journey from the Red zone with only one hand left (even if he had the Ariadne)? For that matter, how he avoided being zombified?
• Hero of Another Story: Ras and Bolt have a lot of stories to tell, but it's not the place, nor the time for them.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • After owner of "Metronom Plus" reacted with utter disgust to revelations that, despite all claims, "Areal" is just as corrupt as any other structure in Russia, and refused to cooperate even if it means losing contract, Prokopenko realised that this guy may be dangerous, and organised for his assassination; he made it look like an accident — guy's personal driver had a heart attack and car crushed into the truck — but it still attracted unwanted attention. The new owner, Merkulov, is much easier to work with — and even harder at the same time, due to having his own agenda.
  • Operation to apprehend the stalker named Lame Ashot fails, because Ashot "accidentally" faills into Meatgrinder with predictable results. In truth, it was assassination: Ashot knew that Firz and Prokopenko are behind the bandit attack, and had to be silenced.
• Honest Corporate Executive: Owner of "Metronom Plus" reacts with utter disgust when Prokopenko offers him to participate in a money laundry scheme, and angrily refuses, despite all the possible benefits it may give him.
• Hope Spot: Inverted; Mist and Bolt seemingly gets cornered by the Swell — the most lethal anomaly, and prepares to die, but then Bolt notices the specific smell of buns, and calms down: it's not the Swell, it's its Good Counterpart, the Licker.
• Insult Backfire: When Mist jokes that with her attitude (she clearly prefers Areal's violently aggressive fauna over people who works here), Lavender should have joined Greenpeace, Bolt confirms that she already had.
• Lecture as Exposition: Mist attends briefings to learn more about the Areal. Just as he learns how to survive there, the reader learns more about the Areal.
• Mr. Exposition: Several characters (instructor, Lavender, Ras, Bolt) mainly serves the purpose of explaining how things goes in the Areal, though Bolt also acts as the guide during Mist's first field mission.
• Non-Indicative Name: There're no boars in the Boar forest, because bears came in and wiped them out. People still call it that out of habit.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Pretty much all Grishka's problems are related to his inability to think before saying something. He vouched for his pal who was in debt to Syoma Rasp, and since this pal is now under arrest, paying this debt is up to Grishka. He bragged about having (non-existent) Stealth met, which made Rasp interested in using him as a guide, only to find out that this was bullshit. Then, during operation, he brags that, had he have the equipment Corporation's personnel uses, he may take mets even from the Epicentre... and gets promptly called dumbass for never learning on his mistakes, since at this point bandits very well may force him to do exactly that.
• Prolonged Prologue:
  • While the story's actual prologue isn't that long, first half of the story mostly consists of Mist attending briefings, and Prokopenko doing business (or wasting money at casino). The actual action, as well as any significant plot development, wouldn't happen until halfway into the book.
  • In a sense, this entire book is one for the series, as it mainly serves to provide exposition, introducing characters, and setting up the future events, but has very little place left for its own action.
• Schmuck Bait: While crawling past the anomalies, both Bolt and Mist feels the weird call deep in their mind which tries to convince them to stand up and run, which they resists. Bolt then explains that it's how the Call of anomalies works: it attacks your mind, trying to make you go right to your death; Bolt is protected from it by unknown force (presumably his grandmother's magic), while Mist can thank his brain trauma. Later similar things happens to Grishka, who actually falls for the illusion and dies.
• Shout-Out: According to Bolt, the Licker was named after a monster from one old movie.
• See the Invisible: Grishka somehow can see Cobweb without any outside help. Or so he claims. It does him no good in the end, though.
• This Is Not a Floor: Stalker Grishka, who assisted bandits during stealing Type X oil, dies by jumping into the large anomaly, demonstrating how the Call actually works. In his delusions, he believed that he was perfectly safe and not in the Areal at all.
• Too Dumb to Live: Ras believes that whoever tries to use bolts to check for anomalies are "idiots who watch too much Sci-Fi", and calls them "bolt-lovers": several anomalies returns whatever you throw at them back, at armor-piercing speed; some dim-witted people are still willing to try, however.

The Price of Greed tropes

• Chekhov's Gag: Any readers who remembers how easily the Licker (completely harmless) can be mistaken for the Swell (one of the most lethal anomalies out there) would suspect just what is wrong with the lab the moment Firz shows it to the investigation team. They would be proven right the instant Mist revisits the lab by himself.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Remember Mist's brain trauma from the first book which allegedly made him "immune to telepathy"? It's time to test whether it works or not, by going into the Red zone.
  • Remember that story about stalker Syoma Sniff who made it out of the Red zone with only one hand left and with Ariadne in his teeth? Well, that met was taken by the bandits, and now belongs to Merkulov.
• Cliffhanger: Book ends right when Mist goes into the Red zone to save Lavender and capture Firz.
• Co-Dragons: Firz entrusted two of his underlings to become his main accomplices in his crimes — Ducat, and Lemur.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Inverted. When Mist gets briefly caught by (very border of) Heat anomaly, he feels so much heat, he thinks that his gear would melt, and his body with it (and it's even worse in the epicentre, where no gear would protect you — it would just boil your brain)... yet grass and even insects on it remains perfectly intact. He gets told that the Heat anomaly specifically affects only complex life forms, like humans, and their gear, and makes no harm to "lesser" beings. How it works, never gets explained.
• Crazy-Prepared: Firz set up a bomb in the lab "just in case"; this allowed him to blow up the wall and escape when he seemingly was cornered.
• Disappeared Dad: Ras' father was a stalker himself. One day, he promised that he would be on his son's birthday, but disappeared for almost entire day and returned at the very last moment. He brought a weird met (which turns out to be the Spring, metamorphite which works by providing the body with water out of nowhere), and then disappeared again, this time forever. Ras believes that he is in the Red zone now, and that there's a way to save him (mythical "Living water" met, which can cure zombification). This is why his reaction to meeting Mist, whom he mistook for non-hostile zombie, was to ask to escort him to the Red zone.
• Downer Ending: With Firz's accomplices being dead, and the secret lab destroyed along with all evidences and personnel, there's no way for Mist to prove his innocence. Firz himself escaped with the last trace of evidence, which he keeps as the trump card against Prokopenko, but he chose the Red zone as escape route, taking Lavender hostage to secure his retreat. This stops just short of the utter failure due to there being a slim chance that Mist can catch him and bring back, being one of the very few people who can go to the Red Zone with his mind intact.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Prokopenko starts realising that he relies on Firz a bit too much, and that it's him who needs Firz, not the other way around. Now, Firz is perfectly able to destroy everyone related to the lab, Prokopenko included, while Prokopenko is powerless to do anything but to ask Merkulov for help. He can't even involve Belov, since Firz is technically his underling, not Prokopenko's, and making him aware would cause further problems. After attempt to assassinate Firz results in nearly all bandits being wiped out without achieving anything, the rest of the book is dedicated to conflict between Mist and Firz, without further Prokopenko's involvement.
• The Dreaded: Thanks to Firz, Bear has terrible reputation amongst local stalkers, because he allegedly never takes prisoners and is just a bloodthirsty maniac in general. By the time the reader learns about this, it would be already obvious that this is Blatant Lies, since his previous actions are anything but "maniacal" (with Mist pointing several cases directly contradicting the rumours).
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After all this setup, Lemur gets caught in the blast of Firz's bomb and dies.
• Fountain of Youth: It's not hard to recognise Veteran, his dog and the woman he talks as Bolt's grandparents from the first book's prologue, who got majorly rejuvenated by Areal.
• Early Instalment Weirdness: The Bald gets called a "specific variation of Grava"; subsequent books showed that Bald isn't even a gravitational anomaly, it just annihilates whatever comes in contact with it.
• Everyone Can See It: Despite them never stating it officially, or going beyond friendly chatting or working together, Mist's friends (particularly Bear) still jokes about them being "a couple" (Bear takes this further, in somewhat vulgar manner).
• Evil All Along: Suspecting that something is fishy, Mist revisits the "lab" without Firz to check whether it is as lethal as he claimed. When turns out that it isn't, and that someone still visits it, he tells his suspicions to Lemur, who not only confirms this, but also reveals that one of his trusted lieutenants, Wind, must be in league with traitor. Then it turns out that it was Lemur, not Wind, who was in alliance with Firz all along. When Mist comes too close to bust their scheme, Lemur betrays them both, kills Wind on Firz's orders and frames Mist, whom he leaves for death.
• Fall Guy: When Mist tries to uncover Firz's involvement with the secret lab's scheme, he gets backstabbed and left for death, after which Firz frames him as the traitor who curated that lab.
• Hate at First Sight: Bear immediately recognised that Firz is no better than his first commander. He is certainly smarter, but he is no less of an asshole to his men. Firz, in turn, immediately realised that he can't trust Bear (who's too honest to involve in his schemes), and used his team as a "dump" for any other people he can't rely on.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: One of the stalkers who worked for bandits gets killed by the Tearer anomaly (which spawned out of nowhere right on his path), by being torn in half.
• Heel Realisation: After learning that Mist is the same hero who risked his life to save several women and children from terrorists not long ago (she watched reportage about it when it just happened), Lavender clumsily tries to apologise, realising whom she just insulted. Mist doesn't accept her apologise, since she only regretted insulting a hero, not insulting people at random in general, and points out that in any different situation she would've continued insulting him, as usually. After this, she changes for the best for real, dropping her Insufferable Genius attitude.
• He Knows Too Much: Book's title is rather meaningful, since people just keep backstabbing each other due to them knowing too much about their actions, and putting them in danger of being revealed as criminals. All of this is over the secret lab (and money which can be earned through it).
  • When Mist learns about the secret lab, Firz and his subordinate (who was a part of the plan) tries to kill him by putting him into the Shackle anomaly, with Sixth Sense attached to his hand (making him a living beacon for any local monsters). They also kills the second person presented, Wind, since he was not part of their plan, and frames Mist for the killing, and plans to frame Bolt as Mist's collaborator, since he is the second one who knows about the lab.
  • One of subordinates of the local corrupt priest learns too much about the schemes of his boss, who steals most of the money which were supposed to be used to help people. Thanks to Firz, he didn't make it out alive from his latest visit to the zones.
  • X-Ray's group still insists on investigating the secret lab further, now when it was proven that it was inhabited after all, so Firz decides to terminate everyone related to it, including Semyon Rasp, Anatoly Nanai and even Merkulov. Prokopenko has no problems with it (he would only miss Merkulov's money), but he fears that after killing these three, Firz would kill him as well, so he unites with Merkulov to kill Firz instead... after he kills everyone else. This completely fails due to sudden Veteran's intervention, with Merkulov's men being wiped out almost entirely, and Firz losing almost two dozens of his people, but surviving himself thanks to the new experimental armour. After that, Prokopenko tries to deal with Firz "legally", by falsifying evidences against him (real evidences would incriminate Prokopenko himself), and set Hunter (who technically represents Federal Security Service) to do it, knowing that someone else, like X-Ray, wouldn't fall for his schemes.
  • When Ducat gets wounded by Mist during the final shootout, Lemur finishes him off to ensure that he wouldn't be caught alive and interrogated. Without witnesses, X-Ray can't prove anything.
• Hostage Situation: When the hidden cameras which he installed reveals that Mist is alive, Firz takes two his trusted underlings, abducts Lavender (he lied to her that he knows where to find Mist, and that they need her help) and escapes to the Yellow zone (he dropped the heigh to ensure that they would survive the crush when crossing borders). He later uses her to ensure that he can escape alive into the Red zone.
• Info Dump: The explanation for how church ended up as a part of Lozinsky's scheme, including backstory of otherwise extremely minor character, crooked priest Eulantius, takes several pages.
• Inside Job: Multiple characters are suspecting that someone provides information to the bandits, as the only possible explanation for previous book's failures. As the readers already knows by this point, they are completely right: the traitor is Firz himself.
• In the Back: Lemur shoots Wind in the back when he least expected it. When it fails to kill him and Wind tries to grab his gun, Lemur finishes him off with another burst, this time in the head.
• I Surrender, Suckers: When Mist offers Firz to surrender (he has no chance to escape anyway,and this way at least he would be caught without crippling injuries), Firz pretends to accept... and then tries to kill Mist the moment he opens the door. He misses, and then Mist shoots him couple of times; unfortunately, he hits Ducat instead (who was then shot several times more by Lemur to ensure that he wouldn't be caught alive and interrogated), and then Firz detonates the bomb he hid in the wall (killing Lemur and knocking out Mist), and escapes.
• It Was Not A Dream: After noticing that new boots and new pistol he obtained during his "dream" (the same one which involved unknown people — a young woman, a man in Second World War-era uniform and giant black dog) are still there, Mist realises that it probably happened for real (especially since he somehow healed all the damage which was done to him by other anomaly during emission). And, best of all, after waking up, Mist realises that the Ariadne is also here. He just accepts it (this is Areal, after all), and concentrates on more important things — revenge and survival, in that order.
• Karmic Death: Veteran and his dog suddenly attacks the group of Rasp's bandits, killing nearly everyone. One of surviving thugs backstabs a stalker for his Owl, and tries to run away. He almost makes it... and drops dead due to his heart suddenly stopping working. Why? Because he blindly run through a Cobweb — something which was completely preventable had he was more careful — or, you know, didn't backstab the guy who actually knows how everything works here.
• Kick the Dog: As later turns out, Firz's squad suffered and nearly died in the Heat anomaly only so he may scare off X-Ray; contact with it was perfectly avoidable, since Firz has Ariadne.
• Left for Dead: Firz and his accomplice traps Mist in Shackle anomaly, with Sixth Sense attached. Their obvious intention was to induce cruel and painful death on him, but then emission happened and they run away without making sure that the plan actually worked. It didn't: Mist was taken away by Veteran, healed by Polina and, rearmed, returned back to the forest, now ready to find them and avenge himself and everyone who died due to their machinations.
• Limited Loadout: In-Universe. It gets stated that it's not possible to use more than six mets at once; any extra wouldn't work. The reason behind that is unknown.
• The Millstone: Nikolaeva and Stepanov are relying on Prokopenko to aid them in their research, and fix countless problems they experience. Unknowingly to them, all their problems were caused by either Prokopenko himself, or his men (Firz and later Hunter). And they intentionally waste as much time as they can get away with while fixing any problem, whatever small. Many of the "problems" they allegedly encountered were in fact completely and obviously fake, like "lack of free personnel during the emission" (emission is, in fact, the time when they certainly would be free, due to inability to go outside for safety reasons).
• Not Quite Dead: Turns out that Bolt's grandmother, her best friend and their dog not only didn't die in Areal back in the first book, but de-aged back into their youth. In fact, the man is no one else but the dreaded Veteran himself, who now seeks and destroys new enemies of his homeland.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When Mist neutralises Firz's accomplice (that one who killed Wind), he makes sure to neutralise him by shooting through both his elbows, leaving him unable to use his hands. He states that this is a payback for what he did to his "friend" Wind.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When Wind realises that something is wrong, Firz says that "Lemur would explain"... and then Lemur shoots Wind in the back.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Both Bear and X-Ray quickly accepts that Mist may be innocent (especially since Firz's story had many holes even before Mist's sudden return), and gives him a chance to prove it, by going with him to the lab and trying to catch Firz red-handed.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Bear's previous commander was hopelessly moronic officer who led his men into the slaughter, from which they were only saved by reinforcements arriving, though they still lost many people. Bear reacted to it by beating him to the pulp. Instead of going to the jail, he was assigned to the Areal.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Ras is no longer an illegal stalker, but he still secretly escapes to Areal from time to time during his free time, keeps secret stash of mets for his own needs (he needs to survive in Areal somehow, and receiving them officially is usually out of question), and has several hidden routes to avoid guards. This all comes in handy when he encounters Mist, who desperately needs to sneak into the base without being caught.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Attempt to frame Mist and Bolt was so blatant that Bear quickly noticed several "plot holes" in official version, which were so glaring that attempt to "explain" them only resulted in creating new ones.
• Second Episode Introduction: Scientists Nikolaeva and Stepanov arrived to study Areal back in the first book, but due to limited place available (with much of the first book dedicated to introducing setting and main characters) were not properly introduced until now.
• Spoiler Cover: Book's cover spoils the fact that there would be non-hostile encounter with Veteran in this book.
• Took a Level in Kindness: When Mist proves himself different from local guards with "soldier sees, soldier kills" mindset and points her own flaws which she can't deny, Lavender changes her behaviour to the best, not just to him (with whom she, presumably, fell in love), but in general.
• Too Dumb to Live: Licker anomaly is completely harmless, but has one interesting trait — it throws back whatever you throw into it (at same speed). Someone tries to kill Mist and his team, who are standing within Licker, with grenades — with predictable results.
• We Have Reserves:
  • Merkulov is perfectly okay with letting all people who went with him to die (save for Fixa and Mute, who disapprove it); they can always recruit new ones.
  • Turns out that the mutant attacks on Firz's group wasn't accidental; he intentionally used Sixth Sense to provoke the attacks, all to scare off the counterintelligence group sent to investigate the illegal lab. The group suffers two casualties because of that, but it's just "collateral damage" for Firz. He also endangers the group by leading them into a Heat anomaly, though thankfully no one dies from it.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Firz believes that Wind was too naive and idealistic, due to his stubborn believe in the Corporation indeed being as incorruptible as it's advertised; for this reason, he didn't even try to recruit him, and set everything up to kill him alongside Mist.

The Doomed Ones tropes

• Apocalypse How: Class X-3; the galaxy from which Fragment's ship evacuated, was utterly annihilated almost momentarily by unknown cataclysm, with not even local physics surviving intact; knowing that Mist can't comprehend it, the Fragment doesn't go into details, but it involved such concepts as space and time "switching up".
• Big Bad: The moment Belov joins the game as the new main villain, he shows himself as much more dangerous to the heroes than Prokopenko ever was. He actually nearly wipes them out, with them being only saved by Fragment's intervention.
• Bad Boss: How Belov convinced president that there's an act of aggression from Areal? By showing him heavily edited recordings of X-Ray's discussion with Mist and subsequent pursuit... and by sending some of his men with the wrong coordinates, resulting in them being zombified and attacking the other Belov's men, to simulate zombie invasion.
• Body Horror: "Lovely" description of ulcers-covered, half-naked dogs and cats, devouring remains of mutilated corpses of Ukhta victims.
• Changing of the Guard: After Mist's disappearance, Bear replaces him as the "lead" character from now on.
• Didn't Think This Through: Prokopenko's decision to backstab Merkulov by trying to frame him was a really bad decision, for more than one reason:
  • Merkulov lampshades how naive Prokopenko is in his belief that he may just backstab his "partner", and get him replaced by someone "easier to deal with"; more likely scenario would be Merkulov's bosses just stopping working with Prokopenko altogether because he's too unreliable.
  • Prokopenko chose Hunter, of all people, to arrest Merkulov, hoping that since he's too incompetent, he would be easy to manipulate. But Hunter is aware that he's too incompetent for that... and asks his uncle, Belov, who is amongst the last people Prokopenko wants anywhere near Merkulov, since he may learn about his betrayal. Even Prokopenko himself realises eventually how bad this idea was.
• Demoted to Extra: Without his right-hand man Firz, Prokopenko swiftly lost any powers to affect the current situation. And then he gets arrested by Belov's men due to (correct) suspicion that he plays his own game, and disappears for the rest of the book.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Fragment stubbornly refuses to believe that Bolt is a real man, insisting that he's either a hallucination or a local myth. When Mist insists that he knows him personally, he receives an answer that "Bolt" was just a scammer. This reactions is due to Fragment being unable to sense Bolt through his surveillance system, and arrogantly believing that if it can't sense something, it doesn't exist.
• Fall Guy:
  • Prokopenko tries to set Bear up as "coconspirator" of Nikolaeva and Stepanov, who allegedly tried to steal X-type oil which was provided for their experiments, so he may deal with all three in one strike.
  • Bear was already set up as Firz's "accomplice" back in the previous book, but now X-Ray decides to pretend that he fell for it in order to provoke the real accomplice to reveal himself. Until then, Bear and both scientists (who were arrested for "stealing" Type-X oil) would remain in a jail.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Fragment's mentions some unknown alien force, whose genes are still present amongst the humanity; it considers them to be extremely dangerous, but refuses to elaborate upon them.
  • Several things about Vlad foreshadows revelations which would be made in subsequent books — namely, his weird headache which only stops when he consumes water in large quantities, and no less weird... itch, which started when he leaved Areal in the very end of the book.
• Fountain of Youth: Bear's main clue that Mist did, in fact, visit the Red zone back in the previous book is him being rejuvenated, looking at least five years younger than before.
• Ghost Town: Operation "Disinfection" was done in such haste that barely anyone managed to evacuate Ukhta in time (if anyone at all), especially taking into account how poorly the evacuation was organised; whoever was caught in the following Emission, was either killed or zombified, with only those who were in any shelter surviving — only to find themselves in the middle of the Green zone, surrounded by zombies and anomalies, with no knowledge and, in most cases, weapons to protect themselves (not that they help much).
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Now, when Firz disappeared in the Red zone, Prokopenko tries to backstab Merkulov, knowing that he would do the same to Prokopenko himself the moment he would realise that X-Ray is close to uncover his machinations. Since he can't just assassinate him without Fir'z help, he starts exploiting Hunter to just frame him (without revealing clues pointing to himself).
  • X-Ray is indeed aware of Prokopenko's involvement, but can't prove it without Firz's documents. He fears to show his knowledge in any way, because Prokopenko is also involved with Lozinsky's own schemes, and if he starts suspecting something, he would just terminate Prokopenko as a dangerous witness by sending Belov after him, thus cutting off the best thread leading to Merkulov and potentially Corporation's corrupt executives.
  • Fragment advises Mist to take only Firz's backpack, not Firz himself, since he knows way more, not about Prokopenko alone, but other directors of Corporation save for Vorontsov, including Lozinsky himself; he would be killed over it, and Mist with him.
  • The moment Belov learns about what's going on in the Epicentre and that Firz is still alive, he tries to kill Mist and X-Ray (who already learned too much about what's going on in the "Areal" to let him alive) before they reach it.
  • When Vorontsov learns about the crimes of the rest of the board of executives from X-Ray, he tries contact with Moscow. Not risking to just assassinate him, Lozinsky tries to arrest him and pass him as either a zombie or psychically unstable, to justify locking him up. Belov later outright orders to kill him on sight.
  • One guy overheard the information aboutoperation "Disinfection", and warned several other people so they hid in shelter during it, allowing them to survive when the building was entirely destroyed. He also saw a helicopter on which Lozinsky and Belove evacuated to the shelter. Later Belov sent attack helicopter to kill that guy and whoever was nearby just to ensure that this information wouldn't come out. They kills more than a hundred people, but it's too late to prevent him from telling this to the other people, who were not caught in the massacre.
• Hostile Terraforming: Turns out that Areal is indeed an alien terraforming tool. The Fragment of an alien spacecraft, which crashed on Earth years ago, slowly changes Earth to "multi-dimensional" space which would be fitting for aliens — but lethal to humans, even zombies.
• Humans Are Insects: The Fragment can't shut up about humans being insignificant, non-sapient creatures, always using the comparison to ants: just as humans can't be concerned with accidentally killing some ants (or even entire anthill), the Fragment can't be concerned with wiping out all life on our planet — not because it has any motive to do so, but because it's unavoidable side effect of preserving the children under its watch. However, if Mist assists in contacting the other survivors, the evacuation can be made, allowing to just disable the Hostile Terraforming systems as no longer needed. As the Fragment insists that lying is "below the sapient species", it may actually be true.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Meteorite which nearly wiped us out years ago was actually an alien spacecraft. Its sudden explosion was a self-destruct sequence, which it only initiated because scans showed that Earth is one of the rare planets suitable for most living forms, which are prohibited from being destroyed like this; before that, its AI was perfectly fine with wiping out all life on the planed during crash landing: human lives worth nothing, and aliens aren't interested in this planet, at all; for the same reason, the aliens are willing to shut down the Areal if assisted in evacuating.
• Insufferable Genius: The Fragment just can't shut up about its creators' superiority to humans, repeating things like "half-sapient animals of mediocre level of organisation", "sapient life is sacred", "on your level of evolution", or bringing up the comparison of it talking with Mist to humans talking with ants, so often, Mist soon starts finishing the sentences for it. The Fragment completely misses the obvious mockery.
• It's All About Me: Everything about "Disinfection" just screams how really selfish the Corporation's leaders are:
  • The reason why "Disinfection" was called in the first place? They feared that the aliens may give X-Ray enough evidences to convince them. That was their first and only concern.
  • To provoke the president into allowing the "Disinfection", as additional argument they hacked the detectors of several rangers in order to lure them close to the water (leading to them being zombified), and set it up as a "zombie assault".
  • They purposely completely botched the evacuation (which was called over what's going on in the Areal, not nuclear strike) specifically because mass panic would distract everyone from what's going on here, while they safely made it to the underground bunker.
  • They safely evacuated via helicopter (they reached it through the safe underground tunnel), while sending no help to the people in Ukhta. In fact, the moment they learned that someone witnessed their helicopter, they sent combat helicopter to wipe them out.
• Jekyll & Hyde: We finally learn why Swell and Liker anomalies look so similar, yet act so differently — they are the two forms of the same anomaly; first form is a defensive mechanism, while the second may act like a teleport when required. They switch between modes depending on what the Fragment currently needs from them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite all toxicity, Fragment is still right at some points. Most humans out there are too corrupt, greedy and selfish to even try to interact with them, people just keep going into the Red zone and becoming zombies over their greed, and humans indeed tries to nuke the Epicentre into oblivion the second they learns about what's going on there. It's the choice of words which nullifies all sympathy either Mist or the readers may have.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Hunter involves his uncle, general Belov, in Merkulov's apprehension. Besides forbidding local police forces to interfere, they also ruins X-Ray's own plans for Merkulov, since they either would botch apprehension (which is what ultimately happens), or would lock him up over something insignificant and either allow him to go free, or just provoke Merkulov's own bosses to assassinate him.
• Lethally Stupid: Some dumbass from Corporation's personnel thought that it would be a good idea to brink vodka in his flask on the work. As even dumbest crooks know, alcohol smell attracts Areal animals and zombies — and you don't want to attract Areal animals and zombies... This guy didn't survive the emission, but his flask was later found by Bear who searched for some water for injured Stepanov — and was nearly killed by the zombies when he opened it up without knowing what's inside.
• Manipulative Editing: Recordings of X-Ray's discussion with Mist (combined with recordings of X-Ray's helicopter being shot down by Belov's men) were heavily edited to pass them as zombie attack on "Areal's" personnel and Vorontsov himself.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • X-Ray really should've listened to Mist when he asked him to turn off a microphone. He realises that he had a very good reason for that too late to comply, resulting in Belov becoming aware of what's going on and trying to kill them both, at which he nearly succeeds. To his credit, his men almost managed to prevent Belov from obtaining the recording, but "almost" never amounts to anything.
  • Attempt to nuke the Epicentre only makes things worse, since AI in charge of it took it as hostile act, and reacted appropriately, causing massive Emission, strong enough to consume Ukhta by the Green zone, killing and/or zombifying countless people. And Areal became more hostile than ever.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Runaways businessman Podberezovsky and imprisoned Pokhodorkovsky are obviously based on Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
• Nuke 'em:
  • Government almost nuked Ukhta years ago, due to panic over Areal. Without bothering to even evacuate it first.
  • As response to info about what's really going on in the Areal, Belov and Lozinsky convinces the president to nuke it. It leads to horrible catastrophe, which makes Areal and life in it even worse for absolutely everyone, including Lozinsky and his people.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Bear's superiors have plans to get rid of him by reassigning him outside of the Areal. Since he would be likely discharged afterwards anyway, X-Ray suggests him to join counterintelligence afterwards.
• The Scapegoat: To calm down bandits who are not too eager to work with Rasp again after latest operation ended in bloodbath (they were ambushed by the Veteran), Merkulov and Fixa sets up Nanai as a scapegoat, since he was the one responsible for supplying bandits, and they wanted at least some respite after losing so many of their friends. The next time Nanai would be mentioned posthumously.
• Sequel Hook: Last line about weird "itch" Vlad started feeling after leaving Areal just screams that something seriously changed with the Areal, and changed to the worst — and that it wouldn't take long to find out what.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Fragment offers Mist several possible speech patterns he may use for communication, numbering them. Type 1 is a hard-to-follow mess of science terms and overly complex sentences.
• Skewed Priorities: Back in the days of Mist's trainings, drill instructor confronted him about taking speed over stealth during stealthy movement trainings. Mist tried to defend himself by saying that he tries to meet the standards... and received an answer that these "standards" were created by morons, familiar with war only by printed reports: it doesn't matter how fast you can crawl, if you get busted and immediately shot to death. He later forced him to undergo additional training, but it paid for itself more than once later, and now Mist feels nothing but gratitude for his old instructor.
• Taking You with Me: Fragment warns Mist that if humans would attempt to nuke the Epicentre, which likely would result in death of the children Fragment tries to protect, it would use the blast energy to fuel catastrophic Emission which would wipe out Ukhta and everyone at the base for good. Humans tries this anyway, and it turns out that this was not an empty threat; survivors of the operation "Disinfection" suddenly found themselves in the Areal, surrounded by anomalies and zombies... those who survived at all, that is.
• Thieves' Cant: Fragment offers Mist several possible speech patterns he may use for communication, numbering them. Type 4 talks like a bandit, with speech consisting solely of mix of criminal slang and profanities.
• Totally Radical: Fragment offers Mist several possible speech patterns he may use for communication, numbering them. Type 3 is a slang-tossing youngster... or at least how author imagines such youngster would speak.
• Uncertain Doom: Just what happened with Mist, X-Ray and Lavender during the "Disinfection"? Did they survive, or did they perish? We have no way to know; the last quarter of the book follows Bear.
• Villainous Rescue: When Mist, Lavender and X-Ray gets caught in the hopeless battle with Belov's men, with Lavender being immobile due to leg injury, and X-Ray being mortally wounded in the lung, Fragment orders Licker anomaly to come to their rescue, and then transforms it into Swell, instantly — and painfully — killing many of the attackers. Then it transforms back, allowing them to escape into Epicentre.
• Wham Episode: Operation "Disinfection" massively changes status quo, destroys both "Areal" base (with most inhabitants perishing) and Ukhta (again, with most people dying or becoming zombies), and makes Areal even deadlier than it used to be, with only small portions of changes being shown right now, and some others being teased for upcoming sequels. Not to mention actual revelation just how Areal appeared in the first place.
• Womanchild: While being (temporarily; proper antidote would be provided only if Mist fulfils his end of bargain) de-zombified, Lavender acts extremely childish and non-serious, like this being some sort of a game.
  • When Mist pretends to be a terrorist to steal Beacon on Fragment's demand, Lavender gets so overly enthusiastic with "blowing something up" that Mist actually feels relief over her SMG's safety being set on.
  • During helicopter pursue, while Mist and X-Ray are concerned with surviving that extremal voyage... Lavender excitedly compares it to a roller coaster.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Belov previously used one stalker as informant, in exchange for sparing him and his group. Now, when he needs to demonstrate to president the bloody battles going in the Areal, this guy would be more useful as a cannon fodder.

Crossed Out From Life tropes

• All for Nothing: Ras and Vodyanoy barely infiltrates into the ruins of the research center, avoiding bandits and anomalies, and almost gets killed by a Swell (fortunately, they don't agitate it), all in hope to find documentation which would show the secret (safe) passage here. Turns out that the scheme they need is in the same room with the Swell, right on the wall... with a part about passage being destroyed with paint which someone just threw at it right above the Swell.
• Berserk Button: Baykal was so enraged by bandit mistreating SVD sniper rifle, he shot him dead without even bothering to take him alive, despite him being amongst the least threatening combatants.
• Bus Crash:
  • Three members of the board of executives (least established ones) died during Time Skip between third and fourth books for various reasons related to them now being Addicted:
    • Linder died when attempt to treat Itch horribly backfired at unknown time; Kugelstein stopped using advanced anaesthetics ever since, just in case.
    • Shumelkina's helicopter exploded right in the air soon after "Satellite" was established, with no survivors.
    • Zilberman died in the train crush, with what's left of his body being horribly mutilated. This is despite everything allegedly being "fail-proof".
  • It's confirmed that a crooked priest Eulantius (whom we didn't see since the second book) perished during "Disinfection".
• Cannon Fodder: Rasp's favourite tactic is to send forward expandable newbies to the dangerous locations, like former institute, in hope that at least some of them would make it back with valuable loot.
• Cliffhanger: Book ends just when Volodina manages to run away from bandits' captivity, into Areal.
• Company Town: Corporation creates Underground City "Satellite", specifically for its workers (and high-ups) stuck in the Areal. In return for staying there with living conditions as good as possible within Areal, people must become employees.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Zilberman's death happened due to so many improbable things going wrong at the same time, no adequate explanation was ever provided just how "absolutely safe" system malfunctioned so horribly.
  • Just by sheer luck, Bear and his team, while in the forest, encounters bandits beating up several stalkers. After saving them, it turns out that those "stalkers" are... Ras, Vlad, Nikolaeva and Stepanov. Low probability of such encounter gets immediately lampshaded.
• Due to the Dead: After killing Guard, Bear asks Vlad to help him with putting his body in the nearby Bald, as a funeral of a sorts, since it's not his fault that he was zombified and mutated. Even more so, Bear actually used to know that guy back when he was still alive.
• Facial Horror: When their generator malfunctions, Nikolaeva and Stepanov gets seriously injured. While Stepanov, as usually, injures his arm (this time seemingly to the point it's no longer usable), Nikolavea's face gets horribly burned, with no chances to heal. Fortunately, that same incident also leads to creation of Essence — medicine with regenerative qualities strong enough to reverse both traumas.
• Fluffy the Terrible: How SOT called the lethal toxic anomaly which regularly visits their base (and which saved their life at least once just because they can operate around it, and enemies can't)? "Toxy".
• Forbidden Zone: So-called "neutral territory" around the Areal is off-limits for outsiders, unless they coordinate everything with Federal Security Service and cross it officially. It's still more freedom than before.
• Foreshadowing: Vlad's new ability to sense where not to go to avoid anomalies, just instinctively, and constant headache like something tries to fry his brains, uncomfortably strongly resembles zombies.
• From Bad to Worse: Post-"Disinfection" Areal is now as deadly as never before. Mutants somehow became even more aggressive to humans. Entire Green zone is now "infested" with bandits who attacks everyone on sight and fights with each other over resources and clear places to live. Green zone is partially contaminated with lethal radiation. Emissions are now much weaker (in terms of how much land they consume), but occurs much more often, and now would instantly zombify you if you didn't hide (previously, you had a small chance to hide before vibrations take you). And worst of all, anyone who ever contacted with Areal in any way (mets, meteorite shards, certain byproducts) or crossed its border, now feel ever growing Itch whenever they are outside of it, which gradually becomes pain, then insufferable pain, and then you just die in agony. Treatment exists, but it's extremely painful, very expensive, can be done in only one place on Earth (in Germany — which is a... little to far away from Siberia) and lasts for very limited time, after which you must wait at least a month to take another dose. And then there's "poltergeist" effect, when near such people bad things occurs so often and with so destructive effects, they becomes the outcasts.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Russian word for "member", depending on context, may be used as euphemist for dick. One of characters, the girl named Julia, makes fun of Prokopenko being called "Member" (capital letter is intended, which, for Julia, only adds up the fun).
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Quartz, Sole Survivor of X-Ray's team (everyone else perished during the attempt to escape from what was left of the base), joined Bear's team in part because he knows that he would be assassinated to ensure that X-Ray's investigation would die out with every participant.
  • Bear is still hunted for, due to knowing personally every single major figure of the secret lab case, save for Merkulov (Quartz even jokes that this is kinda rude on his side to make him an exception).
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: All surviving members of the board of executives ended up with Addiction. Linder, the one who came up with the plan to nuke the Epicentre in the first place, died while trying to deal with it.
• Hope Spot: A group of stalker runs away from bandits. They almost manages to escape, only to gets shot at the last moment. One of them survives and starts going through anomalies, easily avoiding them... and then he misses the Magnet, and explodes into a red mist.
• How We Got Here:
  • First chapter starts with Lozinsky attending regular Itch treatment in Germany. The rest of chapter explains backstory behind that, and what happened with Areal and those who were there during "Disinfection", switching back to Lozinsky at present only at the very end.
  • Second chapter (which spans almost the entire book, with only around last quarter remaining for the third and last one) starts with bandits trying to find out more details about how SOT organises their tradings, so they may exploit it later during another attack. Shortly after plot switches to SOT themselves (discussing what just happened), then story jumps back again (this time, from Bear's PoV), to explain how SOT even ended up here, with not only scientists, Vlad (now known in Areal as Vodyanoy) and ex-ranger Ras, but also Quartz (Sole Survivor of X-Ray's team), and goes like this for almost entire book, only switching to the "present" at the last quarter.
• Humans Are Bastards: Ras presumes that Areal's current condition is direct response to the nuking attempt. When Aybolit tries to point out that Areal technically attacked first, Ras counters that with the following:
  Ras: I spent a long time walking through Zones, and have seen many things. Tress, bushes, grass, beasts and birds, even water... Everything mutates, indeed. But they still have the soul and brains, and only humans become zombies.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: One of SOT snipers shoots the knife held by bandit, breaking it without harming the bandit himself. Other sniper does the same with other bandit's SMG. This scares the bandits enough to not escalate the conflict further.
• In-Series Nickname: While Ras, Quartz and former SOT members still uses their old callsigns out of habit, Vodyanoy (who isn't even military) received his "callsign" after Ras (meaning his enormous water consumption habits) jokingly suggested him to start working as vodyanoy (Slavic water spirit) in some water reservoir. It sticks.
• The Load: One of the bandits who're trying to attack the SOT is armed with the SVD sniper rifle which he likely looted from someone. He is abysmal with it, missing every shot, and then flat out breaking it. Baykal just shoots him out of "pity".
• Ludicrous Gibs: Sole surviving stalker from the squad wiped out by the zombies almost makes it out alive, successfully avoiding several anomalies... and then he gets himself sucked into Magnet and explodes into the red mist.
• Mistaken for Racist: Kugelstein's (a German) comment about Itch treatment failing on Linder (a Jew) due to genetic incompatibility gets mistaken by Lozinsky (a Jew himself) for antisemitism (he only resisted to call him a nazi due to him being the sole source of treatment). Considering Tarmashev's heavy use of genetic memory in nearly every his work (including villainy — and heroism — being In the Blood, regardless of other factors), it's very likely that Kugelstein meant something else besides Linder being a Jew (especially since that same formula worked on Lozinsky and the others, with sole difference being anaesthetics used).
• Mythology Gag: Bear thinks "truth is eternal", then starts wondering why he even had such weirdly-worded thought. "Areal" originally was supposed to share universe with Tarmashev's earlier series, The Ancient One, which had these words as catchphrase of the one of "good" alien races.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Vlad takes unknown met with unprotected hands without asking anyone first. By the time Bear realised that it was a Sixth Sense, it was too late, and now they must run from the lab without properly exploring it, since squad of zombies already noticed them and now goes on the hunt.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Judging from Lozinsky's party's In-Series Nickname "the party of vile and corrupted", it's very likely that they act as fictional counterpart to real world's Putin's party, "United Russia", which is very commonly called "the party of rogues and thieves" by its detractors.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • "Meteorite" shards were useless before the "Disinfection", and became actually harmful after, since now they may force people who find them outside to bring them back into Areal (with predictable consequences), so people stopped even bothering to bring them, since they don't worth the money (rather small by local standards). But, as it turns out, when used correctly, they may suppress Areal's restriction on electronics, even in the Yellow zone (that's how Firz's secret lab managed to work back in the second book). Since then, SOT is on a lookout for any additional shards. Fortunately for them, one particular black market trader, the guy called Moneybag, still has lots of them (he refused to throw them out, in hope that their price would return back one day and he would become rich).
  • "Warmer" met was considered to be completely useless prior to "Disinfection", but now it revealed its radiation-curing abilities. Considering how many radiation sources are now in Areal...
  • Downplayed with the Sixth Sense. While it had some use prior, it was so deep in the Awesome, but Impractical territory that no one risked to use it anyway outside of the very specific circumstances. Again, Nikolaeva and Stepanov managed to find a great use for this met: it turns out to be a key component to... reverse Areal's expansion.
• Not Good with Rejection: As if we need additional reasons to hate Prokopenko, we now learn that he has connections to Rasp's gang (who now, amongst drug trading, abduct and sell women as Sex Slaves); he uses that connection to smuggle the one woman who refused his advances into Areal (meaning that she is doomed to stay here forever), to either break her to become his concubine, or give her away to bandits to be raped, possibly to death, like many others they dealt with.
• Not So Stoic: When Bear shoots Professor with an RPG, forcing it to blindly run out screaming, usually cold, composed and not exactly talkative Baykal gets so shocked when it run just past him (death missed him by that much), he goes into long and passionate "holy shit, what was that?!" speech — much longer than everything he said prior to that, combined.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Either Volodina becomes Prokopenko's concubine and lives in VIP conditions (at least, until he gets tired of her), or he would give her away to bandits to be gang-raped and possibly killed.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Quartz is sure that X-Ray (and by extension, Mist) survived the "Disinfection", because X-Ray, knowing full well what's going on, ordered him to wait, not just run, which means that he had a plan prepared to survive. But until the right time comes, Quartz would be on his own.
  • Bolt once again becomes the sole person to not being harmed by Areal's side effects. Once again, he gets locked in the medical facility due to this, this time in desperate attempt to find out how to transfer his immunity to Lozinsky and his people.
• The Remnant: Bear and his team are essentially what is left from the SOT; everyone else are dead, zombified or MIA.
• Sacrificial Lamb: To demonstrate how dangerous Addiction is, three (least developed ones) members of the board of executives gets killed off before this book even started — Linder, Shumelkina and Zilbermann.
• Sadistic Choice: Prokopenko gives recently abducted Tatiana two choices: she may willingly submit to him... or he may give her to the bandits as their personal sex toy. Fortunately, he makes a mistake of giving her time to think this over, which results in her escaping.
• Sex Slave: Obschyak (Rasp's new gang) now, amongst other things, deals in women trafficking. They can even capture specific women as a "special order", like Volodina for Prokopenko.
• Start My Own: To counter criminals, who restarted their "business" in Green zone and organised massive black market of metamorphites and X-Type oil, Prokopenko legalised stalkers and allowed them to sell whatever they find in "Satellite".
• The Team: Bear recollected few survivors of the SOT into his new team. Besides Aybolit, whom he met in the end of the previous book, new SOT also included Rustle, Mantrap, Baykal, Basalt and Tantal (sole survivor of Ducat's team, and also sole decent man from it; unfortunately, he didn't last for long). Additionally, sole survivor of X-Ray's team, Quartz, joined in and now uses his professional skills to analyse any information they obtain.
• Took a Level in Badass: Rasp managed to survive on his own without Merkulov, and now his new gang is one of the strongest in the Areal (alongside Merkulov's gang, with which they have perpetual war).
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Prokopenko was always a jerk, especially when he needs not to hide his ugly personality (like casinos' personnel, who are forced to tolerate him because casinos are technically illegal in Russia, and he may shut them down), but post-"Disinfection", with all the "nice" Addiction-related additions to his life, he became even more of a jerk than before, openly antagonising everyone and mocking their fear of "poltergeist", even after someone actually got hurt.
• Villain with Good Publicity: When human rights activist Ilya Abramov tried to use interview with Prokopenko (who was sent to represent "Areal" Corporation) to put "Areal" and its leadership in a bad light, Prokopenko actually manages to reverse the situation, making himself look like just yet another victim, who's undeservedly insulted. He even mentions his family, who perished in the "Disinfection" (his wife lived in Ukhta).
• We Hardly Knew Ye: New member of the Bear's team of the SOT survivors, Tantal (survivor from Ducat's team who was not corrupt, unlike his commander) gets introduced... and then the next time we hear about him, it turns out that he'd lost his legs to the Jelly (detector malfunctioned and failed to warn him), and was finished off by bandits.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Even taking into account that he's in dare need of people, Lozinsky let Prokopenko get away with his scheming surprisingly easy, with bare minimum of punishment. Of course, for Prokopenko, being stripped of access to dirty money is Not So Harmless Punishment, but still.
• You Are in Command Now: With three members of the board of executives dying, Lozinsky is in dare need of people, so he promoted Prokopenko, effectively leaving him in charge of newly founded Satellite.
• You Can't Go Home Again:
  • In general, any people with Addiction must stay within Areal, or ever growing Itch would kill them when it reaches the life-threatening (or sanity-ruining) level. Treatment exists, but is extremely expensive and is highly impractical (for starters, it has to be done in Germany, while Areal is in Siberia). And any such person is constantly pursued by weird effect called "poltergeist", which causes disasters constantly occurring around them at random, so soon people started recognising them, and trying to force them to leave, if not outright lynching them; it also makes it hard to actually reach Germany to get treatment. Combination of Itch, "poltergeist" and near universal hatred forced all such people to move closer and closer to Areal, and eventually even staying inside. Lucky ones now lives within "Satellite", others must build their own shelter right in the Zones and hope for the best.
  • After Tatiana Volodina refused his blatant advances, Prokopenko "punished" her by hiring bandits to abduct her and smuggle into Areal. Now, when she's Addicted, whether she survives or not, she can't return home ever again.
• Zerg Rush: Merkulov's first attempt to attack Bear's base was done with almost eighty people. They utterly failed and were almost entirely wiped out, because whatever upper hand they had in quantity dissipated with a sudden attack of acidic cloud, which killed off everyone whose armor was damaged (and thus not hermetic) in ensured shootout even slightly — by dissolving them alive right in their armour. Before attempting anything like that again, Merkulov decides to collect more info.

The State Within State tropes

• All Men Are Perverts: Nearly all men with whom Volodina interacts sees her as the lust object at best, or outright threatens to rape her at worst.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Ras' weird theory about relations between anomalies and metamorphites finally proves that it indeed works, when he, after checking positions of just three anomalies, quickly finds a good quality "Firefly" met.
• Ax-Crazy: Half of the Globe's men consist of people rejected or kicked out by mercs due to being just that insane; Globe himself is not much better, being known for his Hair-Trigger Temper. And then there's Globe's ally Shoehorn (how they tolerates each other remains a mystery), who's even more unstable.
  Moneybag: I have few clients left, they prefer to avoid our settlement. Globe is batshit crazy, and grabs his gun at slightest provocation. And his men are no better, half of the settlement consists of maniacs with few brain cells and lots of ammo. People who join us generally consist of those who were rejected or kicked out by the Mercenaries. Us, or Shoehorn. But Shoehorn is completely insane. We still wonder how Globe and Shoehorn keep maintaining their alliance, instead of killing each other just for fun.
• Batman Gambit: Merkulov, remembering how Aybolit saved wounded bandit over everyone's objections, decides to exploit his inability to leave injured people in peril as part o his (not yet entirely known) plan, by giving him another patient to work on — Volodina; and indeed, the medic insists on leaving her on the base so he may finish treating her, instead of just moving her to the settlement after giving her first aid, and supplying her with medicaments afterwards. While Tatiana isn't a spy yet, Merkulov is working on that.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Ras reacts badly to the pretty harmless joke about Areal water (not even directed at him), due to his father being zombified after contact with water.
• "Eureka!" Moment: If Magnet anomaly requires a lot of free space (like a bear road) to spawn and move, and there's barely enough place to spawn one, let alone four in the short time span, it means that firstly, the SOT was pursued by the same anomaly all along, which was trapped here after cataclysm, since its current location obviously would never produce that type of anomaly (each anomaly has special "requirements"); secondly, the secret entrance the SOT is looking for must be nearby, since it may be the only place where it initially spawned, before being trapped; thirdly, there are only few roads the Magnet can move through, so they don't need to search the whole forest. With that in mind, the SOT is very close to find the lost research complex and all the mets and shards it contains.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Not even Obshyak would assault trading caravans: since trading is so crucial for everyone's survival, it would put absolutely everyone at your throat (attacking people anywhere else is the fair game, but even then they would rather take them alive). The sole person who doesn't care about this is Merkulov, who has no standards whatsoever. In fact, his shameless attempt to attack Vodyanoy right during trading serves as yet another clue which points Quartz to him.
• False Flag Operation: Merkulov causes Rasp a lot of troubles by attacking Oil-miners (who were protected by Mercs at the time) while masked as Obshyak's gangsters.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Quartz dismisses Merkulov's involvement in several schemes they previously dealt with, because with casualties like this, it just looks implausible that Townsfolk had any hand in it. Unknowingly to him, Merkulov indeed values the lives of his men just that low.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: They were outlaws even prior to this, but now people believe that Bear and his men are outright maniacs, zombies or both. While obviously not everyone believes in this, this creates a lot of problems with dealing with the other people, especially since they only survives via trading.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Ras starts ranting about corrupt police, until Quartz reminds him that he's kinda policeman, too, being a counterintelligence officer.
• In-Series Nickname: Since all SOT's members uses callsigns, Volodina receives her own: "Bambi".
• Internal Reveal: After analysing what's going on, Quartz realises that it must be Merkulov who stands behind all those attempts to destroy the SOT; Lozinsky and his men barely do anything to pursue them, not even bothering to raise the bounty, and being perfectly okay with them becoming the local boogeymen. Readers are already aware, due to Fixa's PoVs from the previous book.
• Kaizo Trap: When fighting a moose, if it manages to accumulate enough speed, it may still hit you even posthumously, which, considering that it weights half-a-ton, wouldn't end well no matter how good your gear is. For that reason, when encountering a whole pack of them, Bear decides to just avoid them entirely.
• Man Behind the Man: Piece is so pathetic and talentless, Anna easily becomes his de-facto boss, with him only nominally being one in command, solely because locals wouldn't be as aggressive that way.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: "President Crabsky" is an obvious reference to Vladimir Putin's infamous nickname "Crab", ^Explanation One of Putin's speeches (where he compared himself to the "galley slave oarsman") was misheard for him calling himself "crab" ("crab" sounds similar to the word "rab" – slave) which also means that his weak-willed predecessor Vorobiev likely represents Dmitry Medvedev.
• No-Sell: The bandits hired former kick-boxer to lead them into ruins of research complex. When he tried to use his combat skills on Guard, he just shrugged it off, then beheaded the guy with one hit.
• No Woman's Land: Areal is so predominately male, with almost no women in sight, that many societies started forcing what few they have into living with some of them (in return for food, shelter and protection, but still). Then there are bandits, who either rapes them on sight, or forces them to work in their brothels. Even normally "safe" position of Resellers are not exception: while they wouldn't blatantly attack you, since it violates the treaty, bandits would happily request you to "pay" for your license in... some other way. At least one woman fell victim of this in the past, and barely managed to reach Satellite.
• Oh, Crap!: Grey feels weirdly familiar smell. Then he realises that it's vodka, which means, all local zombies would soon be here.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Bear justifies finishing off the wounded bandit (over Aybolit's objections) with him believing that there's no point of giving bandits a second (third, fourth...) chance, since they never change; once the man steps on the path of exploiting the other people's misery for his own profit, he's Beyond Redemption.
  Bear: Gleb Zheglov once said, "thieve should be jailed". He was wrong; thieve should be buried. If someone gives themselves the right to rob the other people, I give myself the right to send them to hell.
• Private Military Contractors: One of the groups is explicitly called "Mercenaries", and can be hired to protect anyone (though their prices aren't cheap); as additional bonus, any wandering mercs would gladly help you if you encounter them in the Zones while being protected by one of their friends.
• Properly Paranoid: At first, it seems that Quartz's weird theory about Tatiana being Merkulov's agent, who set up an elaborate scheme just to make her look like a victim, so she would be accepted into base, allowing her to spy on them (including shooting her just the right way to seriously injure her, yet not kill or cripple her, which requires well-prepared snipers, and bandits have not exactly good record with that) is just his usual paranoia. But, as the very ending shows, he was almost entirely right; the sole mistake is that she isn't a spy yet, but Merkulov already works on making her into one.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Mercs never takes metamorphites with them while on duty, to not reveal themselves as mercs (who're known for being rich and well-equipped). According to Ras, this is, ironically, what actually reveals them, since literally everyone else, including bandits, would use at least some mets.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Even Nikolaeva, who has not exactly good history with Prokopenko, gets shocked by him being involved in the women trafficking, previously thinking that not even him would step so low.
• Someone Has to Die: Subverted. After long run while under various mets, everyone were exhausted to the point of barely resisting falling asleep right here and now. Aybolit volunteers for the first watch, and continues using mets, despite being perfectly aware that this can outright kill him. When Bear awakes prematurely and forces him to go to sleep, Aybolit is already on the brink of coma, requiring first aid (in the form of chocolate) just to survive removing the mets. His justification for this was that better one than the whole team.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After Mist so easily ignored his head trauma while in Areal (that one which was allegedly bad enough to reduce him to the office work at best), you would expect the same for Volodina's spine trauma. Nope. Turns out that making highly dangerous and and potentially traumatic jump while already being two steps away from a wheelchair would be extremely painful and traumatic; she barely avoids gravely injuring herself, but renders herself unable to walk after that for some time just due to sheer pain alone, and even two months later, she still suffers from the side effects.
• Taking You with Me:
  • When bandits attacks Volodina and others with her, only to be wiped out, dying bandit opens a flask with vodka, ensuring that his killers would soon be taken out by zombies, attracted by the smell of alcohol.
  • When SOT rescues oil seekers from the bandits, a thug called Beaver tries to threaten them with the vodka flask, which would summon zombies right from the nearby battleground (there are lots of them). Baykal shoots him down before he manages to open it.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: According to Anna, Grey's original plan involved bringing people to collect X-type, then backstab everyone, so he may (with the help of mercs he hired beforehand) sell it all by himself. Plan changed after they were attacked by the bandits and then immediately by the zombies as well, only to be rescued by said mercs, after which trying anything like this was out of question — especially since Anna learned about this plan, and threatened him with a gun to force him into following official plan (bring X-type to the Neutral zone, sell it, divide the money).

Die With Style tropes

• The Alliance: Inverted; it's the bad guys (represented by Prokopenko) who unites with Mercenaries and Oil-miners to form the Alliance, with Obshyak and Townsfolk being invited, but refusing (Rasp insists on maintaining independence, while Merkulov either wants to remain secret, or just doesn't care), with only good guys remaining out (not counting so-called Free people, who are not even considered to be a political power, and expected to submit by themselves sooner or later).
• Batman Gambit: The real reason why Ras started that rumour about unique stump which can miraculously cure Addiction was to provoke Belov into bringing Bolt back into Areal, since he's the only one who can go to the Red zone and live — the Corporation wouldn't miss any chance to cure their bosses from Addiction, whatever small.
• Blessed with Suck: Turns out that Vodyanoy's abilities were caused by botched zombification. He can't become a zombie, but the process never stopped and now slowly destroys his brain instead. It can be slowed down by consuming water, but can't be stopped.
• Blob Monster: Bolt gets ambushed by the new kind of monsters while at the Epicentre, whom the calls the "Amoebas" for their weird look.
• The Bus Came Back: Bolt finally gets brought back into Areal from Moscow where he was kept captive in the hospital, in futile attempts to determine how he avoids Addiction, ever since book three.
• The Cavalry:
  • Hopelessly outnumbered Bear (with Mantrap being seriously injured and near death) gets saved from the Corporation's men's pursuit by a sudden appearance of Veteran, who causes them serious casualties, including destroying one attack helicopter and damaging another to the point it would require a lengthy repair.
  • Bolt, when outnumbered by Amebas, gets rescued by the Vet's Dog.
• Chekhov's Gun: Remember the old car which belonged to Bolt's grandfather? Turns out that it's still intact in the Epicentre, and can somehow protect whoever sits inside from the Areal — including Epicentre.
• Creepy Child: We finally learn why "Nonals" prefer to staying away from "civilised" settlements — their mutant children (often called "monkeys" for their weird look). "Monkeys" are not hostile, but often acts weirdly; it's highly implied that they are somehow connect to the local psi-field (at the very least, they are empaths), which may explain why their screams may provoke mutants to attack. Their talons are poisonous, leaving ugly wounds which would take several weeks to heal. They also produces weird chemicals into air, which are also poisonous, though non-fatally (and after prolonged exposure, humans gradually becomes immune to them). They have very limited speech capabilities, but can recognise their parents, and can feel gratitude for being helped (like Bear giving one such child, the girl called Asya, painkillers).
• Dehumanization: Prokopenko discusses with his "friend" some new "goods", which are already packed and ready for shipment. The thing is, the "goods" in question are new sex slaves whom Prokopenko ordered to be delivered from the "Big Earth", and his "friend" is a human trafficker and drug trader.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The whole situation with "Nonals" and their mutant children (having to care for sick and crippled from birth children without much resources for it, while facing constant prejudice, fear and outright hate) is very similar to what the real-world parents of "wrong" children face all the time (with common reaction being "why you didn't abort them / put them into orphanage?"). Considering Tarmashev's love for using his fiction as metaphor for the real world and its problems, this analogy is likely intentional.
• Everyone Can See It: Everyone can see that Tatiana feels attraction to Bear, and now making bets when it would become mutual. The sole person in denial is Bear himself, and even he quickly accepts that there's something between them. This, however, results in him facing dilemma: either allow feelings to overthrow him, or reject them, and potentially risk the rest of the team starting competing over Tatiana and create unwanted tension.
• Everyone Has Standards: Rasp rejects an offer to join newly-formed Alliance, because no self-respecting criminal would ever work for, or align with the government, no matter how dire the situation is.
• Evil All Along: Abramov turns out to be completely corrupt, and, worst of all, on Prokopenko's paycheque.
• Face–Heel Turn: Piece, one way or another, was recruited by the people who now seek for Volodina. He refuses to share this with Anna (knowing that she's Tatiana's best friend), but she just eavesdrops them, and later warns Bear (after secretly going with another caravan) to not return Tatiana back, for her own safety.
• Fighting from the Inside: Ras meets his zombified father (who now leads the squad of zombies); he picks up the Sixth Sense, and then looks his son directly into the eyes. When Ras, losing any sense of self-control, rushes to his father, every zombie starts shooting at him... every one, except for his father, which may mean that there's still some hope for him left.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Moneybag is the valuable ally for Bear, but he's a shameless merchant who only cares about the money, which is exactly the type of people Bear hates. When asked whether their plan (smuggle Tatiana's letter through him) would endanger Moneybag, Bear outright states that he doesn't care.
• He Knows Too Much: The moment Prokopenko learns about Volodina's whereabouts, he starts planning assassination mission, since she and Bear knows too much about his, Lozinsky's and Belov's crimes to let them live. This is his only chance, because if he screws up, he would be terminated himself for endangering his boss yet another time.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Having no other way to deal with the bandits, Bear shrugs Cobweb, and walks through it to attack bandits from behind. It works perfectly because no one expected that someone would be so suicidal, but now Bear is doomed to die within following six months.
• Hope Spot: So, Tatiana successfully delivered the letter to her boss Abramov, and now all they have to do is to wait for Prokopenko being arrested. Except... Abramov actually works for Prokopenko, and just gives the letter to him at first opportunity.
• Humans Are Bastards: Bear gives Tatiana the speech why Areal is a such a Crapsack World — humans themselves; instead of standing up and doing something — confronting Corrupt Corporate Executives, demanding continuation of researches, anything, they do nothing, caring only about the prices for food and water.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Downplayed; experiments Bolt suffered in futile attempts to exploit him for curing Lozinsky and Belov did damage his lungs to the point that he would've likely died shortly after, but he reunites with the SOT in time to take some cure, though it still takes him time to rehabilitate completely.
• Insufferable Genius: Turns out that Lavender, prior to meeting Mist, was so toxic to everyone except for the other scientists around her, that not even Baykal (resident Cold Sniper) was able to tolerate her for long.
• Internal Reveal: Merkulov only now learns that his unseen opponent is Quartz — the last surviving member of X-Ray's team.
• It's All About Me: Corporation uses its entire supply of shards to build (actually pretty useless, even when working) detectors for the soldiers they sent with Bolt for the ghost chance to cure themselves from Addiction, instead of continuing experiments which can potentially revert the Areal.
• The Millstone: The operation to apprehend Bear and his team during Nail's extraction fails solely because of Hunter and his idiocy; what little success that operation actually had (capturing Nail herself) was only achieved due to his much more competent subordinate.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Abramov turns out to be completely corrupt and just delivers Volodina's letter to Prokopenko. This results in him resuming actively trying to kill Bear and his team, since Lozinsky wouldn't tolerate another screwup.
  • Attempt to recruit doctor Volkonsky to help with researches attracts attention of security service. While Hunter is just as stupid and incompetent as always, his subordinates are smarter. This results in Volkonsky being revealed the moment he returned from the SOT base, Nail being captured and interrogated (which, in turn, revealed everyone not yet on the wanted list, including Ras, and gave Corporation info how to make detectors work in the Yellow zone), and Mantrap being seriously injured, while everyone else barely escapes with their lives. This also indirectly leads to Bear being forced to crossing the Cobweb to defeat an ambush.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: When Ras, losing self-control, blindly rushes to his (zombified) father and receives thirty three bullets (with last two actually piercing through his armour and injuring him), Vodyanoy manages to take him out and run almost all the way to the base with him, with the help of four stamina-boosting mets. The problem is, all of them consumes body's internal resources, and even one would be potentially fatal after such a marathon; Vodyanoy used four, yet he still survived, since the water he consumes actually gives him enough resources to counter energy losses. And even then, he eventually loses conscience and falls into coma, with Aybolit barely taking him out of it.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • Another radiation-related metamorphite, "Dosimeter", which becomes warmer as radiation level increases. It was considered to be completely useless, similarly to Warmer, until "Disinfection" caused massive nuclear pollution, instantly making it into one of the most desirable mets; unfortunately, by now, they became just as rare as any other mets, since most of their supplies were either lost or delivered to now-defunct Institute.
  • Dull, called that for not only showing no useful abilities, but also looking plain and ugly, still didn't reveal its effects (and, considering how rare it became, it would be even harder to reveal it now), but Ras is sure that it's just as useful as everything else, they are just yet to find it.
• Only Sane Man: Mercenaries, of all people, particularly colonel Liman (who's the PoV character for the first chapter, and stands out even amongst them; for example, he's one of the few mercs who refused to trust Prokopenko, seeing him for who he is) are the only people outside of SOT and their friends, who understands that "Areal" corporation has stopped doing any meaningful researches of the Areal, right when everyone needs them most. Why mutants just keep and keep reproducing, no matter how many of them dies? Why they becomes more and more dangerous and bloodthirsty? Why old, time-proven methods suddenly stopped working, and new dangers have emerged? All of this must be found out to prevent even more deaths, yet no one cares about anything aside from earning more money! Mercenaries even plans to set up their own research base just to do something. Unfortunately, even within them, not everyone agrees on this. Mercs also generally understands that they shouldn't trust anti-SOT propaganda all that much, because SOT is just that useful for everyone else.
• Please Dump Me: Bear intentionally acts like a jerk to Tatiana in hope that she would leave him alone, partially because he still isn't sure whether he can trust her, and partially to suppress his own feelings. He changes tactic and starts outright avoiding her after passing the Cobweb.
• Properly Paranoid: Nail intentionally avoided learning various secret of the SOT and their base (with sole exception being usage of the shards to offset electricity not working, which was unavoidable), including its exact whereabouts; this greatly reduced the amount of information the Corporation was able to obtain from interrogating her when she was eventually captured.
• The Reveal: While Vodyanoy's anomalous ability to consume water in ridiculous amounts was known for the long time, we finally learn (through Aybolit's attempts to revive him) just what his body does with it, and where all that water goes, if stomach normally just has not enough place to put it in; turns out, Vodyanoy's entire body somehow sucks out water he consumes just as he drinks it, but just where it goes, he doesn't know, tough he has a theory that it's somehow related to his brain (Vodyanoy often drinks water when he starts complaining about brain "burning", particularly near anomalies).
• Secret-Keeper: Only three people knows about Bear's condition — Aybolit, Quartz and Bolt; first two learned from Bear himself (Aybolit was told this because otherwise he would blame himself for Bear's death, while Quartz can be trusted to keep the secret), while Bolt noticed by himself through his bolt, but agreed to keep quiet about it.
• Shipper on Deck: While everyone clearly sees that something starts between Bear and Tatiana (they already started making bets on where Bear would realise this himself), only Basalt actually tells this to Bear, saying that he shouldn't wait for long, since they are clearly made for each other, just like Lavender and Mist prior to them.
• Title Drop: Bear says that he certainly knows how to "die with style" when he crosses the Cobweb in order to deal with the guys who attacked him and Mantrap.
• Too Dumb to Live: Ras, to provoke Belov into bringing Bolt back into Areal, lies to his old acquaintance, a merc called Noise, that one specific stump in what once was Yellow, but now the Red zone, can cure you from Addiction. While most people are aware that it's now unobtainable for anyone but Bolt, surprisingly large amount of people thinks that if they run fast enough, they can touch it before being zombified. Needlessly to say, none of them survived the attempt.
• Useless Useful Spell: Detectors, upgraded with meteorite shards, can work in the Yellow zone... but with the radius reduced to pathetic two meters (for example, Solenoid's attack radius is three). Since his guards are unable to notice any danger until they literally walks up close, and many other people are trying to ambush them on every step, Bolt outright suggests them to not even bother, since these detectors makes more harm than good.
• Your Days Are Numbered: After crossing the Cobweb in order to save himself and injured friend, Bear is now doomed to die from Cobweb, and he knows it; even luckiest ones lived for six months at best after doing this, and he crossed Cobweb twice in a row. By the time Bolt learns about this, he confirms that Bear has only two months left.
• Zerg Rush: Mercs' Blue-harvesting plantation regularly gets attacked by mutants in so ridiculous numbers, by all logic they are supposed to go extinct by now, yet they reproduces absurdly fast, ensuring that there always would be enough for another round. Mercs' commander, colonel Liman, finds that to be weird even by the Areal standards.

Divided We Fall tropes

• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Attempt to bombard SOT position mostly fails, but it nearly kills Rustle, putting him in coma, damaging his spine and cutting out half of his palm.
  • Basalt loses his arm to machine gun fire during the last battle.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: By analysing what small information he has, Merkulov comes to conclusion that the cataclysm was caused by the Corporation — and that SOT wants to reveal their crimes to the world, with the Bolt's help. He also (correctly) guesses that X-Ray is still alive, and was in league with Bear all along. Now, he plans to become first to obtain that information for his superiors, to not just redeem himself for his failure, but actually become their favourite.
• Ax-Crazy: The moment she shows her true colours, Anna, overloaded with hatred, goes into murderous rage against her former friend (whom she beats up) and comatose Rustle (whom she injures further and nearly kills).
  Anna [while beating Tatiana into stomach]: Shut up, bitch! [kick] Shut up! [kick] Shut up! [kick] Shut up!
• Big Damn Heroes: When X-Ray gets captured and tortured, Mist, with the help of his old friends from "Alpha", who actually believed their transmission over official propaganda, manages to free him from the "hospital", and escape back to Areal, where he restores him via old scheme — at Epicentre (Living Water was exhausted by this point, but it can be restored through Areal water).
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent since third book, Mist, Lavender and X-Ray returns and rejoin the cast, with the help of Bolt.
• Call-Back: Firz's idea how to set up a bomb to create an escape route, which he used all the way back into the second book, gets reused during assault on the SOT base, allowing to evacuate the scientists.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several details, including certain anomalies, established earlier (both from this and from earlier books), finally comes into play during the Last Stand:
  • Remember "Toxy", which was introduced all the way back into the fourth book, and was swiftly forgotten about? It allows Baykal to sneak out of the base undetected. It also forces the enemy to retreat several times, which helps Bear.
  • The Vortex (which manifested over the roof) and the Tearer (which blocked the main entrance) helps a lot with consuming incoming missiles, which prevents the enemy from blowing up the base too early.
  • That insane idea to set up a "mine field" consisted of the tree stumps with Solenoids attached? It doesn't work in full force, due to the enemy attacking earlier, but it still wipes out enough soldiers to worth the efforts.
  • Remember that Bald which manifested near the secret entrance, and the plan to just jump over it? Well, the plan actually works.
  • Bear though that the scientists wasted too many resources of reinforcing his armour, considering that he's a deadman anyway. In the last battle, it allows him to survive enormous amount of shots, which would be fatal for anyone using the standard model. He still doesn't survive, but it allows him to put up a fight.
• Bookend: Bear started rebuilding the SOT with four men, besides himself — Aybolit, Rustle, Baykal, Basalt and Mantrap (Tantal, who joined from the other group, doesn't count due to perishing before they even found the base). For the last battle, everyone else are either on another task outside of the base, or are set to evacuate, leaving Bear with only Aybolit, Rustle, Baykal and Mantrap, all the same people he once started with.
• Chekhov M.I.A.: Anna started suspecting something shady going on early in the previous book, and run away into Areal halfway into it, when people started hunting for her, thinking that she may lead them to Tatiana. She reappears in this book, now working for Grey, and tasked with retrieving her former friend, whether she likes it or not.
• Delaying Action: Mantrap's last action during Last Stand is to try and provide cover fire to ensure that scientists would escape, while he and the rest of the SOT are doomed. He dies for nothing, as the scientists gets immediately ambushed.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • X-Ray goes into despair when he realises that everything he worked for was for nothing, because even his own command just betrayed him. He quietly, in defeated voice, whispers only three words: "Divided we fall..."
  • After learning that X-Ray's operation completely failed, Quartz loses all hope and just prepares to accept death.
    Quartz: X-Ray is no more, and so is Mist. We are next.
• Department of Child Disservices: Lozinsky and Belov decides to use Vodyanoy's daughter to blackmail him, by staging the excuse for taking her away from grandparents for "negligence" and putting her into orphanage (as parents would be relived of their duty as her guardians for "gross neglect"). Things don't go as planned, because, as we already know, Vlad's father is Afghan war veteran, who reacted to this by straight up abducting his granddaughter and going on the run, with guards being too scared to stop him.
• Do Not Go Gentle: X-Rays was completely aware that he has almost no chance to survive his attempt to reveal the Corporation's crimes to the world, but he still must to at least try. He only loses hope completely when he learns that even his own agency is in league with villains, when they backstab him.
• Downer Ending: Bear and the rest of the SOT dies, fighting hopeless battle; no one comes to help, despite all the benefits the SOT provided them with. Evacuation fails, with scientists likely perishing. The only characters still alive are Mist (who's stuck in Epicentre with zombified and aggressive X-Ray), Quartz and Vodyanoy (who are stuck in the Satellite, on the brink of being revealed and without water for Vodyanoy), Nail (who's still in captivity) and Ras.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Just before dying, Tatiana tells Bear that she loves him. They even tries to kiss each other, which works rather clumsily due to their injuries.
• Empty Shell: Ever since meeting his father, Ras (who used to be the soul of the company) feels nothing but sadness — and this sadness transfers to everyone around him. Vodyanoy (whose wife is kept captive in the Satellite) and Tatiana (heartbroken over Bear) feels no better. Bear wants to fix it, but doesn't know how.
• Enemy Mine: Merkulov secretly cooperates with the Corporation against the SOT, which helps them to set up the final assault.
• Et Tu, Brute?: While he was completely aware that his chance at success was slim, X-Ray still didn't expect that he would be betrayed by his own agency, which is very painful for him.
• Evil All Along: Anna states that she never was Tatiana's friend to begin with, only playing that role because Grey had some plans for her.
• Ghost Town: Olenegorsk (another city hit by the cataclysm, which Rasp has made into his base of operation) gets completely consumed by the Yellow zone, with bandits evacuating to the smaller nearby settlements, which are still in the Green zone).
• Hope Spot: At first, it seems like they have won: Corporation's crimes are revealed, Lozinsky, Belov and Prokopenko (with latter one already breaking and starting betraying former associates left, right and centre) are under arrest, people in Satellite are rioting (with Hunter being unable to take the situation under control). Then Lord Brindelberg gives the president an ultimatum (take situation under control, or their alliance would end), and everything goes to hell. X-Ray gets captured and framed for the very crimes he wanted to uncover, and would soon die from the combination of torture and Itch, while Mist must run; Quartz and Vodyanoy gets caught during operation to save Nail; the SOT goes under heavy mortar bombardment (which nearly fatally injures Rustle), and united army of Satellite and Merkulov's gangsters is already en route to attack their main base.
• Internal Reveal: Before sending Tatiana to evacuate with scientists, Bear explains to her how "Ariadne" works. As result, she notices the signs of the Cobweb's influence, and learns the real reason why he was so cold with her — to protect her... She can't help but cry.
• It's All About Me: Bear sees most of the Areal's inhabitants as lazy egoistical bastards. They always expect the best treatment, free food, water and shelter, but wouldn't do anything to at least try and improve the overall quality of their lives; and the moment something goes wrong, they would blame everyone but themselves. Make a mistake of helping them, and they would start thinking that you must do so again and again, thinking that you have betrayed them once you stop or fail to continue, but they never would repay you for your help, preferring to continue existing as parasites. Despite this, Bear still keeps believing that not all of them are like this, and they can convince at least some people to change their ways if they continue their work (in contrast with Quartz, with whom he had an argument about that earlier, and Ras, who outright suggested to exploit the Epicentre's time-conversion effect to "skip" ten years and return once everyone forgets about them). Naturally, no one comes to help in the end.
• It's All My Fault: Quartz tells Vodyanoy after they gets stuck together in the Satellite, with initial rescue plan being essentially failed, that he considers himself to be responsible for the Nail's capture, because it was him who wanted to obtain more info, disregarding safety risks. Vodyanoy doesn't follow up on that — but also doesn't object.
• Kick the Dog: Anna brutally beats up Tatiana and tries to kill already injured Rustle, just because.
• Last Stand: Last chapter depicts Bear and his team fighting hopeless battle against "Areal's" people sent after them — and dying one by one: Rustle, too injured to change position (it's a miracle he even awoke in time to join the battle), dies first, killed by two machine gunners; Mantrap dies next, covering for escaping civilians, when his position gets blown up by mortar blast; Baykal goes outside and attacks enemy from behind, killing several "Sixth Sense"-wielding officers before being revealed and mortally wounded, falling in coma with no chance to recover; Basalt, despite being mortally wounded, continues firing till the end, until enemy finishes him off with the mortar fire; Aybolit presumably dies under bombardment, too; and last ones to go are Bear — and Tatiana, who refused to escape, and chose to die with her loved one.
• The Load: Amongst the other people who answered to the call for volunteers for upcoming battle were some pretty useless guys, who didn't bother to bring either food or ammo, or brought bare minimum, either expecting to see that everything would be provided for them (never noticing that SOT is essentially a partisan team by this point, and has not that many resources by itself), or never thinking just what they are getting themselves into. None of them stays.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Another appearance of the president Crabsky (pretty obviously based on Vladimir Putin, with surname taken from his infamous internet nickname), this time in person; he's the one whom Lord Brindelberg forces to go down on X-Ray and stop his investigation by force, under threat of cutting Russia away from the global resource market.
• Nominal Hero: One of the last five "volunteers" still there by the point Bear meets them, asks Bear why they didn't just negotiate with the Corporation (instead of giving shelter to the outlaws, because who cares about these guys?), setting up some peaceful coexistence until they can accumulate enough power to betray them. He also presumes that their plan was to capture Satellite, execute Corporation's leaders and set up their own rule over it (he would gladly join in). After hearing him out, Bear just tells him that he would provide food and water, and escort them out.
• Not Completely Useless: "The Dud" met turns out to have some purpose after all; it gives you perfect underwater vision (even in the murky or dark water). The reason why no one noticed it is because it's of no use when in Areal.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • Grey didn't actually die when his caravan got attacked; and Vortex acted as a perfect coverup. He's the one who sent Anna to abduct Tatiana.
  • Anna's presumably dead daughter turns out to be alive, though it's unclear where she's now. Giving her the better future is the Anna's motivation to betray Tatiana.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Turns out that two years ago, the Fragment actually managed to finish the evacuation (and leaved the Earth itself) — but, just as it warned, to buy time and energy for the evacuation, it switched Areal into its current mode. With more time, it was possible to deactivate and set remutation in motion, but with nuclear strike incoming, Fragment had neither time nor motivation to do so. The second Fragment (yes, there were two surviving Fragments) was abandoned due to the time restraint, and still operates the Areal's growth.
• Poor Communication Kills: Lozinsky's people didn't check Vlad's father (who's, unknowingly to them, an Afghan war vet), because whatever info they have, was received from Belov — an actual general of special service here. The kicker? All the info they have was taken as granted from X-Ray, of all people, and never re-checked afterwards. By the point they stopped arguing whose fault it is, it was already too late to prevent the guy from escaping with Vlad's daughter (whom they wanted to use for blackmail). Belov has plan "B" in order, but it still would be much harder (and longer) than their original plan.
• Punch-Clock Hero: Amongst other people who answered to the call for volunteers for upcoming battle were some often rather... questionable guys, who clearly expected that Bear hires mercenaries. When it turns out that he isn't, all such people leaved on the spot, not even bothering with excuses.
• Recurring Dreams: Both Lozinsky and Belov keeps seeing certain nightmares every night; they see different dreams, but both involves Kugelstein, and signals that something bad is gonna happen — something related to their crimes. For the very first time in the long, long time they feels... fear.
• Secret-Keeper: Mist joins the circle of people aware of Bear's condition: Bolt warned him preemptively, knowing that otherwise he would notice this with his Ariadne, and potentially reveal this to everyone.
• Secretly Dying: While we were already aware how Vodyanoy received his abilities, we only now learn just how bad his condition truly is; turns out that not only he's dependant on water to postpone his death — as time goes on, more and more water is required just to survive, on a regular basis. His death is not just inevitable — process gradually speeds up.
• Senseless Sacrifice: It seems that Mantrap's attempt to cover for escaping civilians was for nothing, because they were ambushed on the way out.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Entire plot about revealing Corporation's crimes to the world completely fails, with X-Ray himself being captured and framed for the very crimes he wanted to uncover. The sole positive result is Prokopenko's conviction, but even this is not so much his success, as Prokopenko's superiors being tired of his screwups, and throwing hin under bus.
• Schmuck Bait: It was rather clear right from the start that something is wrong with Anna, who stays here, alone, with the "Sixth Sense"; several characters even comments on it. On Tatiana's insistence, they still tries to bring her onto the base, to see whether she needs help... and turns out that she actually acted as a scout for the joint Satellite/bandits/mercs army which goes to wipe out the SOT (and now knows where to find them, because Anna managed to hide the second met... somewhere in her body).
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Quartz tells Bear that while they can (and must) convict the Corporation's leaders, it wouldn't miraculously solve all world's problems, because there would still remain some other villains (they always do) — not in the last turn because people just allows them to keep doing their crimes, by being so apathetic.
• Sixth Ranger: Tatiana refuses to evacuate, instead staying (and dying) alongside Bear. Thanks to her, he actually manages to fight for a little longer, because by this point, he's too injured to even move, while she acts as his spotter and reloader.
• Taking You with Me: Once it becomes clear that help wouldn't come, Bear spills vodka around the base, provoking massive numbers of zombies into attacking the Corporation's soldiers from behind. This actually forces them to retreat, but then zombies attacks Bear himself. Though ultimately it's bombardment (which never stopped) that gets him and Tatiana killed.
• Tempting Fate: Everything seems to go fine, but where's that Millstone anomaly they just successfully avoided? And sure enough, Vodyanoy tells everyone to run: it's right behind them!
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: We finally learn what "the Dud" met is supposed to do; it gives you... the perfect underwater vision (even in murky or dark water). The problem? The only water in the Areal is the water you absolutely don't want to be close to. However, it just so happened that the guy who agreed to smuggle Mist, X-Ray and Firz out of Areal acts as his settlement's designated smuggler, and uses combination of "the Dud" and aqualung to pass the river underwater without being spotted.
• Together in Death: Tatiana refuses evacuating, and returns to fight alongside Bear, who by that point was too injured to even reload by himself. They goes out fighting, confessing their feelings at the last moment.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Bear and his friends are regularly warning people about upcoming emissions (lethal to anyone caught outside), and providing various hard-to-find goods, including fresh water in huge quantities, and unique medicine. The only thing they asks for in return is to help them against people who are trying to kill them. No one answers the call.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: In the outside world, it's almost two years since "Disinfection". In the locker room, only four hours have passed.
• Your Days Are Numbered:
  • For unknown reason, any contact with the Bolt's car provokes whatever entity grows within Bear's body to grow faster, thus bringing his remaining time to the mere twenty six days. It was two months when Bolt first witnessed it.
  • Turns out that the botched process of Firz's de-zombification (Fragment had too little time to do it properly) resulted in him not having Itch... but now he has the tumour in his head, which would kill him within two months at best. Not that anyone cares about his health, but he's a valuable witness in this case.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: This time, Prokopenko gives his superiors way too much troubles, so they just plays along and allows him to be prosecuted for everything; it helps that all the evidences connecting him to Belov and Lozinsky were destroyed, ignored or used to frame X-Ray himself.

Rip the Whirlwind tropes

• The Ace: Ras, when using his Val assault riffle against bandits, remembers that Rustle was able to "do miracles" with it, with only Mist being better than him with that gun.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • Most of the main characters chooses to go with the aliens, to fight new battles somewhere else to protect their homeworld from enemies even more dangerous than the Corporation.
  • Vodyanoy refuses to go, since he still must find his daughter and father (who are desperate enough to attempt to enter the Areal), and save Ras, who became a zombie to save him (fortunately, he has two Living Waters, taken from X-Ray and Lavender who no longer needs them, so he can save not only Ras, but his father as well). Nail wouldn't leave her husband, so she stays, too.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Ras becomes zombified himself after contact with Areal water, just like his father years ago, and runs to the Epicentre. Vodyanoy volunteers to find both him and his father, and bring them back, since now he can visit the Red zone and Epicentre with no risk.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Almost the entire main cast (with exception for Ras and the scientists, who're not presented) receives an offer from the aliens to join them and continue fighting enemies of their kind, just on... different battlefields. It's also highly implied that Kugelstein received a similar offer, alongside his entire team, since his clinic was clearly visited right before he had a chance to treat Lozinsky and Belov.
• Batman Gambit: Nail gets released from captivity, "due to the lack of evidences", and forced to leave the Satellite. All of this solely to provoke Vodyanoy into attempt to retrieve her, so he may be captured, in one way or another. Fortunately, Quartz explains this to him before he falls into the trap.
• Bookend: Ras' history as a stalker started when, at his tenth birthday, his father gave him the Source met, in hope that it would help his family to survive, which he obtained at the cost of his own zombification, due to contact with Areal water. Ras' history as a stalker (and human being, for that matter) ends with him becoming a zombie himself in the similar manner, this time to save Vodyanoy.
• The Cavalry:
  • Asya, due to her Areal-granted sensitivity, was able to feel Lavender being in trouble, and arrive just in time to hide her, and then lead to dying Aybolit to give him more medicine.
  • Bolt arrives just in time to break the stalemate and help Mist to strangle X-Ray and finally de-zombify him.
• Character Witness:
  • That same bandit whom Aybolit saved couple of books ago drags him out of the battle zone, hides him as much as he can, and gives him the first aid (as repayment for being saved before). Thanks to him, Aybolit survives until more qualified help arrives.
  • Asya (the "monkey" girl whom Aybolit and Lavender helped earlier), when everyone stops watching, drags injured Lavender out of danger, preventing Fixa from retrieving her and giving her enough time to recover.
• Darkest Hour: By the start of the book, everything seems to be lost for the heroes. The SOT is essentially wiped out, with only Mist and Aybolit still alive, with the former being stuck with the zombified (and ready to fight to the death) X-Ray, while the latter is on the brink of death from his injuries. Scientists were killed during the evacuation, with Lavender barely surviving almost by accident. X-Ray's mission ended in fiasco, with very trace of the evidence against Corporation being destroyed and X-Ray himself being framed as Prokopenko's coconspirator. Quartz, Ras and Vodyanoy are still stuck in the Satellite, without any meaningful chance to save Nail or, by this point, even themselves. Things wouldn't go any better from here.
• Dead All Along: When they finally meets the aliens, main characters gets informed that most (if not all, the statement was made in general, without going into any specifics) of the main characters were actually killed at one point or another, but resurrected to give them another chance to redeem their past sins (since they started caring about them too late to do much). We actually witnessed the deaths of Bear and his team, and Mist remembers the exact moment when he was saved (his "death" under emission in the second book), but for the others we can only guess.
• Death Seeker: Quartz shows signs of no longer wanting to live, barely caring about his own survival even after being convinced to continue struggling, and repeatedly suggesting to sacrifice himself to let his friends escape. Ras rejects such plans every time.
• Despair Event Horizon: Quartz sees no hope for winning, and by this point he basically lost any will to struggle anymore, or do anything, for that matter, just lying here and waiting for death (he doesn't even bother to undress before going to sleep). He still suggests plans when asked, but makes it clear that he doesn't believe that there's chance for them to succeed; it's just that if they are gonna die anyway, may as well die fighting, they have nothing left to lose; but he has no fire even for that.
  Quartz: I'm tired. The ending is always the same. There's no justice. The laws serve those who make them. The flame of those willing to fight always gets extinguished by the endless swamp of those who don't give a damn. No one cares. Everyone is satisfied with how things are, and wouldn't go beyond the empty words. You spend your whole life doing something you believe to be right and just, only to realise that you're one of the marionettes who holds up the thrones of the villains.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Fixa remains on Merkulov's side, but only because Merkulov is still more useful alive than dead, giving him and Mute the stable income. And as long as he gets the money, he's perfectly fine with (officially) being only the number two.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Veteran's Dog Chernysh instantly recognised Anna for who she really is, and killed her on sight, despite her being unarmed.
• Exact Words: Ras was not killed (he was zombified), so he can't be resurrected.
• Ghost Town: Rasp and Merkulov abandons Sosnogorsk and Ukhta, respectively, due to them being fully consumed by the Yellow zone, thus rendering them completely uninhabited.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Turns out that Anna was killed after the battle, when Veteran arrived with his Dog, and said dog cut her in half with one bite.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • To avoid any risks of him spilling anything (he already started in the previous book), Belov terminates Prokopenko, setting it up as a suicide (he, allegedly, pierced his throat with a broken spoon).
  • Firz gets put into prison, where he dies from Itch between last chapter and the epilogue.
  • Nikolaeva and Stepanov were terminated during failed evacuation, specifically on Belov's orders.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Quartz's original plan how to rescue Nail involves them taking her before she goes into the forest (where Hunter's men are planning to ambush them), and try to mask him as Nail, so they wouldn't notice until it's too late to do anything; Ras points that Quartz is two heads taller than Nail, and that he would fit better. Vodyanoy immediately recognises that this plan would be a one-way ticket, and rejects it, insisting that they must come up with something which wouldn't involve anyone of them sacrificing himself.
  • In search for something which may help dying Vodyanoy, Ras finally finds the way into the old research centre, only to notice that it was partially consumed by the Areal, with side effects including zombies (blind and deformed due to the lack of contact with the psi-field), zombification-inducing water in what was once the pool... and newly-formed Source met. That is exactly what Vodyanoy needs (the Source would give him infinite amount of water), but to obtain it, Ras gets forced to go inside. He makes it back, just like his father once, but Ras himself gets zombified and runs into the Epicentre.
• Higher-Tech Species: First appearance of the ancient race (who suspiciously resembles the ancient Varyags). They helps with destroying the (second) Fragment and wiping out every zombie in the Epicentre at the time, thanks to their tech being vastly superior to even Ifarshe, and takes the heroes from Earth, to fight on the new battles where they can really help humanity. They would later be expanded upon in the prequels for Tarmashev's other series, The Ancient One.
• Humans Are Bastards: The aliens are willing to assist us with what we can't manage, but doing the entire work for us (like destroying the Areal) is out of question; we have to show that we're willing to fight first. Most humans are perfectly fine with living in such crappy conditions, perfectly fine with being ruled by the corrupt tyrants, and perfectly fine with killing the ones who wants to help them; people like these don't deserve to be saved.
• Insistent Terminology: When asked whether they are all dead, one of the aliens answers that they were killed, but it was not "death"; most likely, she means "death" in a spiritual sense, rather than physical.
• Karmic Death: In absence of Kugelstein, Lozisinsky and Belov dies in agony from their brains literally rotting away in mere minutes. This is ultimate payback for causing the cataclysm in the first place.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • The scientists were killed by Belov's men during the evacuation from the base, then their corpses were thrown into an anomaly. Lavender, who escorted them, barely survived thanks to the Living Water still attached to her body, and even then, only because she fell too close to the water, making it impossible to come close to her, which convinced the assaulters that they may check up later, and allowed Asya to go and drag her out.
  • We learn that Anna was killed after the battle, when Veteran and his Dog investigated the ruins; the Dog bit her in half once he recognised her as an enemy.
  • Some characters were killed between the last chapter and the epilogue, with their deaths being mentioned in the passing:
    • Firz indeed died from his tumour; Belov did nothing to speed up things: his death was swift and cruel as is.
    • Merkulov made a mistake when he attacked Belov's men in (futile) attempt to capture Vodyanoy, giving his enemy enough information to know where to hunt for him. Soon afterwards, Fixa backstabbed him, brought his head (what was left of it after he got hit by a Solenoid charge) to receive a reward, and usurped the gang.
    • Volkonskiy was assassinated on Belov's orders, when he stepped into the "accidentally" unmarked anomaly. His team was set on the various missions, and all of them were killed en-route because Belov sabotaged detectors on their buses, allowing them to run into an anomaly.
• Killer Rabbit: Wrapper turns out to be badass enough to keep injured Aybolit secured (killing any approaching mutant) until help arrives.
• Laser-Guided Karma: When, after main events, Emission finally hit, it was unusually strong (though not nearly the Cataclysm level); the people, grown accustomed to receiving warnings about upcoming Emissions, were caught off-guard, causing massive casualties, with only one third being due to Emission itself, the rest were killed by resulting zombies, who started hunting for their former teammates. It's entirely their fault that it ended like this: they used Bear's help for so long, yet when he asked for help, they let him die; now, there's no one to warn them anymore.
• Living MacGuffin: With Vodyanoy being the sole remnant of the SOT's "miracles", he becomes the main prey for essentially everyone — Satellite, Obshyak, Townsfolk... The sole good point is that they need him alive, so they would be more careful with their shots.
• Not Enough to Bury: To make absolutely sure that nothing of their knowledge can be retrieved, Nikolaeva and Stepanov were not just killed, but thrown into the Tearer anomaly.
• Off with His Head!: After Merkulov made a mistake and revealed himself as "the Master", Belov put extremely high bounty for his head, and soon Merkulov got betrayed by Fixa, who tricked him into going close to the Solenoid, which beheaded him, and then brought his mutilated head to Belov for reward.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Otherwise bleak ending has many light spots which tones down or negates most negative moments. Sure, most heroes are dead... but the aliens gave them another life off-world — and a chance to fight for humanity somewhere where they can actually change things. With Nikita and Ludmila being dead, it's impossible to remutate the Areal, but it can't expand past its current borders either. Ras is zombified, and Vlad's father is stuck in Areal along with Vlad's young daughter, but thanks to his new abilities, Vodyanoy has a chance to save them. Meanwhile, Prokopenko and Merkulov were killed, the former assassinated by Belov who wants him to keep his mouth shut, the latter backstabbed by Fixa; and then Belov himself, along with Lozinsky, dies from the Itch, because doctor Kugelstain is nowhere to be seen (very likely also taken away by the aliens, which means that he would finally help someone else other than amoral moneybags).
• Redemption Earns Life: Several main characters gets resurrected by the aliens (in Mist's case, it happened all the way back into the second book, though he only now becomes aware of this), to give them the second chance to properly atone for their past sins (mainly, serving the hopelessly corrupt government against their people, until very last moment), by fighting for their people on the different wars far away from here; alternatively, they can reborn to relive their lives anew, this time properly. At least in Bear's case, it was done explicitly due to his rebellion against the Corporation, with his prior life being shameful and unremarkable.
• Refuge in Audacity: Quartz's plan how to rescue Nail: just grab her under their noses, and run. To buy Vodyanoy some time, he would mask himself as her. Plan gets rejected by Vodyanoy, who's not fine with any of them sacrificing themselves.
• Refusal of the Call: Bolt, Vodyanoy and Nail refuses to go with the aliens; Bolt thinks that someone must stay and look over Russia, since it's his homeland, after all (plus, he's the only one who can operate the car which allows the safe travel within Areal, including Epicentre), while Vlad and his wife must find their daughter and Vlad's father first, not to mention find and save Ras.
• Riddle for the Ages: The answer what's happened to Thirteenth was ultimately never given. Was he offered to join the aliens as well? Or he was an alien to begin with? We would never know.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Fixa and Mute already realised that their "Master" and foreign spy Merkulov are the same person, but chose to keep that info to themselves, since for now, "the Master" with his skills is more useful than whatever reward they can get for Merkulov's head. That doesn't last long, however, when the bounty gets suffuciently high.
• Schmuck Bait: One particularly cunning Octopus exploits a small mouse (too small to be useful as food) as a bait for the bigger prey, while remaining in ambush itself. It works well enough to not even bother with changing location.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Merkulov won nothing from his alliance with the Corporation; with scientists being killed on Belov's orders, all their researches being destroyed during the assault on SOT base, and secret of producing electricity in the Yellow zone no longer being a secret, he has nothing to offer to his old bosses, and, judging by them doing nothing to prevent Belov from hunting for him, he's essentially sacrificed by this point. Then he gets backstabbed by Fixa, and dies in very gruesome manner.
• Sole Survivor: Turns out that Aybolit was injured, but not killed during the SOT's Last Stand in the previous book, making him the sole survivor of the final battle, and one of the last three alive members of the original SOT in general (the other ones being Mist and Firz, with the last one being doomed anyway), and the only survivor of Bear's original team specifically.
• Suicide Mission: Because Fixa needs Lavender's "Ariadne" that much, he would send slaves to the lake in hope that they would grab it before being zombified; then they can just drag them via the rope attached. Slaves were, obviously, not informed about what's awaiting them.
• The Starscream: When reward gets high enough, Fixa finally backstabs Merkulov, receives a bounty for his head, and usurps his gang.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Aliens wouldn't solve all our problems, despite being able to do so, because it's our homeworld; they can help where we can't handle by ourselves, but they can't do the work for us — because it would encourage parasitism.
• Too Dumb to Live: Some dumbass thought that it would be a great idea to shoot Veteran (legendarily lethal entity) from the cannon. This obviously did nothing, and provoked his Dog to attack, resulting in the whole mortar team dying and cannon itself being bit in half.
• Troll: After being resurrected and before going onto the next mission in another world, Bear takes his last opportunity and mocks Rustle that there would be no chocolate. Rustle gets comforted by the aliens that he would find a fitting replacement.
• Useless Useful Spell: Mute shares Bolt's distrust to the new detectors, thinking that with their effective radius being so pathetic, it may be safer to go without them at all: all they can do is to give you the false sense of security.
• The Worf Effect: The aliens who arrives to help the heroes are capable of suppressing Ifarshe's technologies, including Areal:
  • They prevents Areal from (permanently) shifting the border of the Red zone past the railroad, shifting it back right after the latest emission, shocking Lavender when she discovered it: it must be something truly powerful if it can defy the rules of Areal. Because any Zone other than Epicentre always has exactly same size, other zones can't expand as well. This effect turns out to be permanent, with any subsequent Emissions going the same way.
  • They managed to stale the Emission for entire book, to allow the plot to unfold, and only then Areal was allowed to continue functioning as usual.
• Villainous Rescue: Merkulov's attempt to capture Vodyanoy for himself results in him sabotaging Belov's attempt to do the same, and them starting fighting each other. When Merkulov eventually wins, it's too late to capture Vodyanoy and his friends, who used this time to run away.
• Written by the Winners: Now, with the SOT gone, Corporation is free to spread ugly lies about them. Soon almost everyone started believing them, completely forgetting everything good they did for them.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Due to being stuck with (re)zombified X-Ray in the Epicentre (where time runs much slower than outside), Mist spends almost entire book offscreen, with Ras taking the lead role instead. Plot switches back to Mist only towards the end.
• You Have Failed Me: Even if Crunch makes it back alive from his engagement with the Mercs, Fixa would still execute him for this failure, especially because he volunteered to lead his group for this mission in the first place. Because betraying your people like this is frowned upon even amongst bandits, he lies to his men that Crunch volunteered to distract the Mercs.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Merkulov's higher ups no longer have any use for him; and because of Itch, they can't even take him out of the Areal. All this, combined with him being hunted for by the Russian government, makes it much easier to just let him die. Capturing scientists was his last chance, but their death at Belov's hands ruined even that.

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