X16

After entering X16, proceed slowly but surely through the facility. There are plenty of zombies about, as well as more snarks. Snarks are quite dangerous in close quarters like these, as they can quickly sap your health and cause you to bleed out if they get in melee range of you, so keep your distance and nail them with machinegun fire.

Eventually you’ll come to a large control room, and the countdown that Sakharov warned you of will begin. You have around four minutes to scale the room and deactivate the emitter. Begin by finding the small control modules on each of the three first floors here and flipping the levers to shut down the machine, then reach the control room at the top of the chamber and flip the switch there to shut down the floating brain altogether.

Get the Documents from Ghost

Controllers are responsible for some very annoying psi-attacks, but they'll still fall if you put a cap in their dome.

Now that you have shut down the psi-emitter, you’re safe from zombification for the moment. The body of Ghost is nearby, and you need to search it for any relevant clues. Head there to find a controller patrolling nearby. These guys may be deadly on higher difficult levels, and they’re certainly annoying here, but if you rush them at full health and unload a clip from your rifle into their head, they’ll die relatively quickly.

After searching Ghost (his suit is neat, in that it features accelerated healing, but will offer less protection to you than the Monolith suit), grab the documents off of his body and drop through the hole in the northeastern corner of the room. You’ll eventually drop down into the sewers underneath the facility. Make your way out, being careful not to get squashed by the pseudogiant you encounter, and make your way back to the bunker. Sakharov will be happy with your progress, and will now sell you the SEVA suit, which is essentially a combination of the radiation protections of the science suit and the physical protections of the stalker suits you’ve been wearing. Nice!

Return to Barkeep

You have two main storyline-related missions now: return to Barkeep with the documents, and meet with Guide in the Cordon. We’ll start with the Barkeep, since he’s on the way back to the Guide. Head back through the Wild Territory, first off. When you spot the mercs atop the building in your path, head up that way and kill them off to find a scope for your TRS 301 rifle.

When you return to the Barkeep, he’ll tell you about the Brain Scorcher, which is apparently located to the north, and which protects the center of the Zone from intrusion. You can head that way and start up that quest if you like, but don’t forget that you also have the Find the Guide quest as well, which will take you down to the Cordon.

Quest: Find The Guide

Guide is located in the Cordon area, in one of the huts near the rail crossing. If you speak to him, he’ll give you a simple message: to meet the Doctor, you have to find Strelok’s secret hiding place. Since you claimed to be coming from Ghost, you obviously already know where it is...

Finding The Doctor

The game doesn't allow you to complete the 'kill Strelok' objective by shooting yourself in the head, sadly enough.

Well, luckily for you, you do. Return to Agropom and head into the sewers again, making your way back to where you found Strelok’s flash drive. If you do so, you’ll find the Doctor, who, shockingly enough, calls you Strelok! Couldn’t see that one coming, no sir!

The Doc will give you information on how to access the controls that will lead you to the Monolith. That won’t occur until later on, though; for now, you have to head north and deactivate the Brain Scorcher.

Quest: Turn Off The Brain Scorcher

Barkeep will have pointed you towards the leader of the Duty in the Army Warehouses district, who’ll have more information for you and perhaps a quest or two. Be sure to go back and see Guide in the Cordon district and complete his quest if you haven’t done so yet!