“There is another one! Up there, in the third pipe!”
The upper searchlight had broken out of the frame and dangled twitching like a hanged man on the cable, scattering its hard light at the scenery of the fortifications: Sometimes it illuminated cowering silhouettes of creeping mutants, other times it hid them in the darkness or blinded the guards with its glaring light. Treacherous shadows raced around, became smaller and bigger, appeared as distorted faces so that you couldn’t distinguish the humans from the mutants.
The post was in a good position, because in this place two tunnels ran into one. Right before the apocalypse the Metrostroi (Russian term, means workers in the metro) began their repairs, but they had never been able finished it. The residents of the Sevastopolskaya had transformed the junction into a fortress: Two heavy machine gun-nests, one and a half meters thick protection walls made out of sand bags, tank-stoppers made from tracks, high voltage traps and a carefully thought through alarm system. But when the mutants came in waves, like on this day, it seemed like this fortress would fall.
The machine-gunner mumbled with a monotone voice to himself. Bloody bubbles came out of his nostrils and he looked surprised at the shiny red wet palms of his hands. The air around the Petscheng (it is a heavy machine gun) flickered because of the heat but now the damned thing was jammed.
The gunner made a short grunting sound and leaned against the shoulder of his neighbor, a colossal fighter with a closed titan-helmet and turned silent. In the next second they heard a bloodcurdling scream: The creature attacked.
The man with the helmet pushed the blood-smeared machine gunner out of the way, stood up, raised his Kalashnikov and fired a short burst. The disgusting, sinewy, grey-skinned animal had already jumped; spread its claws and flight membranes and flew at them shrieking. The hail of bullets ended the scream and the dead animal continued to fly into the same direction. Then the 150-kilo (300 pounds) body slammed into the sand bags and created a thick cloud of dust.
“That’s it”
The seemingly never ending onslaught of creatures that came out of the sawed-off pipes on the tunnel ceiling, just a minute ago, had stopped. The guards left their cover carefully.
“A stretcher! A doctor! Bring him to the station, fast!”
The colossal man that killed the last animal attached a bayonet to his assault rifle and approached the dead and injured creatures that were lying around on the battlefield leisurely. He pushed down the head of the first animal and ran the bayonet right through its eye, then repeated the process until he was sure that every creature was dead. Finally he leaned himself against the sand bags, looked to the tunnel, raised the visor of his helmet and took a sip out of his canteen.
The reinforcements from the station arrived after everything was already over. Even the commander of the outer guard posts came limping, breathing heavy, cursing at his illness and with his jacket open. “Were do I get three men now? Am I supposed to cut them out my body?”
“What are you talking about Denis Michailovitsch?”
Asked one of the guards.
“Istomin wants to send a recon team to the Serpuchovskaya. He is fears for the caravan. So where do I get three men now? Especially now …”
“Still nothing new?” Asked the man with the canteen without turning around.
“Nothing.” Reassured the old man. “But not a lot of time has passed. What would be more dangerous? If we weaken the south now, there might be no one left to greet the caravan when it arrives”
The other one shook his head and turned silent. He still didn’t move when the colonel asked if any of the guards would join the three men team.
There were enough volunteers. Most of the guards had enough from sitting around and couldn’t imagine anything more dangerous than guarding the southern tunnels.
From the six volunteers, the colonel choose those who he thought to be expendable. A reasonable thought: Nobody of the three ever returned to the station.
It had been three days since they had sent the recon team on the railcar. The commander thought that the others were whispering behind his back and looking at him with distrust. Even the most intense conversations ceased when he entered and the tense silence that followed seemed to be a silent request: Explain it to us, justify yourself.
But he only did his job – ensuring the security of the outer guard posts of the Sevastopolskaya. He was a tactician, a strategist. They didn’t have enough soldiers anyway. What right did he had to waste them on doubtful and senseless expeditions?
Three days ago he had been absolutely convinced. But now, because every afraid, disapproving, doubting look was hallowing out his certainty, he was starting to doubt as well.
A recon team with light weapons didn’t even need a day on their way to Hanza and back – even accounting for possible fire fights and delays through the independent stations.
The commander ordered to let nobody enter, closed the door to his small office, pressed his hot forehead against the cold wall and started mumbling. For the hundredth time he went through all possibilities. What had happened to the merchants? What happened to the recon team?
The people of the Sevastopolskaya weren’t afraid of humans – except maybe of Hanza’s army. The bad reputation of the station, the inflated stories told by the few eye witnesses about how dear the inhabitants had to pay for their own survival – all that had been spread by the merchants throughout the metro using word of mouth.
And soon that proved results. The leaders of the station quickly realized what advantages a reputation like theirs would bring them and took the fortifications of the station in their own hands. Informants, merchants, travelers and diplomats were allowed, with an official permission, to spread the most horrible lies about the Sevastopolskaya and the neighboring stations.
Only a few were able to look behind this curtain of smoke and lies and realize the true potential of the station.
In some isolated cases during the last years, unaware bandits tried to break through the outer guard posts, but the war machine of the Sevastopolskaya, lead by former generals destroyed them without problems.
The recon team on the railcar had gotten clear orders:
If they were to encounter any threats they were to avoid any confrontations and return immediately.
Of course there was also the Nagornaya on the route – not a place as terrible as Tschertanovskaya but still dangerous and fatal. And then the Nachimovski prospect which doors to the surface couldn’t be closed and had been overran by monsters from the surface. To blow up the entrance was no option for the Sevastopolskaya because the stalkers were using the surface access of the Nachimovski prospect for their expeditions. Nobody dared passing through the station on their own but until now every railcar was able to deal with the creatures that occasionally lurked there.
A cave in? The groundwater? An act of sabotage? A sudden raid by Hanza? It was the colonel, not Istomin that had to answer to the wives of the missing recon team, while they looked into his eyes unsettled and asking, hoping to find a promise or consolation. He had to explain it to the soldiers in the garrison. At least they didn’t ask any unnecessary questions and were – until now – loyal to him. And in the end he had to calm down everyone who gathered at the stations clock after work and wanted to know how long the caravan had been gone. Istomin had said that he had been asked why the lights of the station had been dimmed down. Sometimes he had even been asked to bring the lights back to full power.
Even though nobody had even thought about powering down the electricity: The lighting was set to maximum. It wasn’t the station, but the hearts of the people that had gotten darker and even mercury lamps couldn’t help against that.
The telephone line to the Serpuchovskaya was still dead. That took a feeling away from the colonel that was rare for the rest of the metro: The feeling of being close to other humans. As long as the communication was functioning, as long as caravans came and went regularly, as long as the journey to Hanza wo
uldn’t take more than one day, all residents were free to come and go whenever they wanted.
Everyone knew that just five tunnels further the real metro began, civilization – humanity.
Arctic scientist probably felt the same when they agreed – out of scientific interest or because of the high wages – to endure the fight against the cold and loneliness for months. They were thousands of miles away from the mainland, but the radio remained at their sides at all times and once a month they could hear the sound of an airplane dropping off canned meat.
The ice floe, on which the Sevastopolskaya was, had broken loose and every hour drove it further, into an icy storm, a dark ocean, into emptiness and uncertainty.
The wait went on and the colonels concerns turned into dark certainty: He would never see the three men from the recon team that he had sent to the Serpuchovskaya ever again.
To pull off another three fighters from the outer guard post and expose them to the same uncertain dangers was impossible. He couldn’t afford their certain death, which wouldn’t give them a way out either. He thought that is was still too early to close the southern tunnels, open the hermetic doors and form a big strike team. Why did he have to make this decision? A decision that was wrong either way.
The colonel sighed, opened the door a bit, looked around hastily and called the guard to him.
“Do you have a cigarette for me? For the last time, next time don’t give me one, no matter how hard I plead.
And don’t tell anyone”
When Nadia brought the pot with meat and vegetables the guards became alive again. Potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes were considered as delicatessen and except for some Kabas (means markets) at the Sevastopolskaya, the ring line and in polis nobody offered them anymore. That wasn’t just because of the complex hydro cultures, the cultivation of the seeds and the high amount of electricity that was needed to spice up the menu of the soldiers but almost nobody in the metro had enough electricity to do so.
Even the leaders of the station didn’t get vegetables except for the holidays, because it was mostly grown for children. Istomin had to argue heavily with the cooks and convince them to add a few grams of potatoes and tomatoes – to improve the moral.
And as a matter of fact: When Nadia laid down her combat rifle and raised the pot’s lid, the wrinkles on the faces of the guards started to get smoother immediately. Nobody would have wanted to talk about the missing caravan or the lost recon team now – it would have ruined their appetite.
An older man in a wool jacket with a small metro emblem on it stirred around the potatoes in his bowl and said smiling: “Today I had to think about the Komsomolskaya for the whole entire day. I would really like to see it again. Those mosaics! The most beautiful station in all of Moscow, I think”
“Oh stop it Homer.” Said an unshaven, fat man with a wool hat.
“You lived there and it is obvious that you still like it.
But what about the stained glass at the Novoslobodskaya? And the wonderful pillars and the ceiling fresco at the Mayakowskaya?”
“I always liked the Ploschtschad Revolyuzii.” Admitted a shy but no longer young man appointed as a sniper. “I know it is stupid, but I liked those dark sailors and the pilots, the border patrols with their dogs … Even when I was a child.”
“I don’t think it is stupid at all.” Agreed Nadya while she collected the scraps of the stew. “Especially some of the male statues were very handsome. Hey brigadier! Get on it or you won’t get anything!”
The tall, broad-shouldered fighter who sat alone, approached with leisurely steps the campfire, took his ration and returned to his place – if possible close to the tunnel and if possible as far away from the people as possible.
The fat man pointed his head at the broad back of the man who had just returned into the darkness and whispered:
“Does he ever go to the station?”
“No, he has been sitting here for over a week.”
Answered the sharpshooter as silent as the other man.
“He sleeps in a sleeping bag … Maybe he needs it.
Three days ago, when the creatures almost devoured Rinat, he killed every last of them. With his own hands. For fifteen minutes.
When he returned, his boots and rifle were full of blood. And he looked very satisfied doing it.”
“That’s not a human, but a machine.” Said the thin machine-gunner. “I wouldn’t like to sleep near him. Did you see what happened to his face?”
The old man, who was called Homer, shrugged his shoulders and said: “Strange, I really only feel safe when he is around. What do you want from him? The guy is alright, he just got hit. For what do we need beauty, that is for the stations. And by the way: Your Novoslobodskaya is the tip of a mountain of bad taste. And I can’t even watch those stained windows when I am sober … Stained windows, laughable!”
“And a Kolcho-mosaic over half the ceiling is no bad taste?”
“Please tell me where you saw a Kolcho-mosaic at the Komsomolskaya?”
Now the fat man got going. “The whole damned soviet art has only one theme: The life on a Kolchose and our heroic pilots!”
“Seryoscha, let the pilots out of it.” Warned the sniper the fat man.
Suddenly a hollow, deep voice said: “The Komsomolskaya is shit and the Novoslobodskaya as well”
The fat man was so surprised that he wasn’t able to say a single word and he starred at the brigadier who was still sitting in the dark. The others stopped talking as well. The stranger did almost never participate in any conversations.
Even when someone asked him something, he answered, if at all with one word.
He still had his back turned at them, continuously looking into the mouth of the tunnel. “At the Komsomolskaya the ceiling is too high and the pillars are too thin, the whole station lies in the open. Also it is very hard to barricade all passage ways. And at the Novoslobodskaya all of the walls have cracks, it doesn’t matter how often they’ve repaired them. You can destroy the entire station with one grenade.
And the stained windows are already broken. Way to brittle”
You could have argued with this kind of criticism very good, but nobody dared to raise their voice. The brigadier was silent for a while then he said casually: “I am going to the station. Come with me Homer. Shift change in one hour.
Arthur you are in command”
The sharpshooter stood up hastily and nodded his head, even thought the brigadier couldn’t see him. Even the old man stood up and gathered his possessions, even though he hadn’t finished eating. When the fighter returned to the campfire he was already in full gear and carrying his enormous bag.
While the unlike men – the colossal brigadier and the thin Homer – gradually entered the lit part of the tunnel, the sniper followed them with his eyes. Then he rubbed his cold hands together and realized he was shaking.
“Somehow I’m feeling cold. Put more coals on the fire”
On their way the brigadier didn’t speak a single word.
He only asked if Homer really once had been working in the metro and been driving a train. The old man looked at him with a distrusting look at first, but then he nodded his head.
At the Sevastopolskaya he always said he had been driving trains, but he never mentioned that he used to maintain tracks before that, he was a little bit embarrassed about that.
The brigadier greeted the guards with a military salute.
Those stepped out of his way and he entered the office of the head of the station without knocking. Istomin and the colonel stood up surprised from their chairs and walked into his direction. Both looked tousled somehow, tired and lost.
While Homer remained shyly at the entrance, stepping from one leg onto the other, the brigadier took off his helmet, put it right on top of Istomin’s papers and scratched his clean-shaven head. You could see once again how badly distorted his face was: The left cheek had contracted like after a heavy fire injury, the eye above it was a sm
all crack and a big violet scar ran from his mouth to his ear. Although Homer was used to this sight; it still ran cold down his back, like he had seen it for the first time.
“I will go to the ring line myself.” Said the brigadier.
He hadn’t even greeted any of them. Deep silence followed. Homer already knew that the man was an extraordinary fighter, what had earned him a special reputation with the leaders of the station. But it took him until now to realize that compared to other inhabitants of the Sevastopolskaya the brigadier didn’t follow orders. He wasn’t waiting for a permission of the two old and exhausted men; it almost seemed like he was giving them orders and expected them to follow them. And again – how many times now? – Homer asked himself: Who was this man?
The colonel looked at Istomin. His face darkened as if he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. “Whatever you want, Hunter.” He said. “Nobody can talk you out of it anyway.”
Return (Chapter 2)
Homer listened. Hunter. He had never heard that name at the Sevastopolskaya before. It sounded like a nickname – like his own, of course he wasn’t called Homer, but Nikolai Ivanovitsch. They named him after the creator of the Greek epics because he loved stories and rumors of all kind.
“Your new brigadier.” Had said the colonel to the guards in the southern tunnel two months ago. They looked at the broad-shouldered man in Kevlar armor and the heavy helmet with distrust and curiosity. He just looked at them indifferent and returned to the fortifications like if he cared more for them but the men he commanded. He shook the hands of those who came to introduce themselves but didn’t speak a word. He nodded his head silently, remembered their names and puffed blue smoke in their faces like he wanted to keep them at distance. His lifeless eye shimmered in the shadow of his folded up visor. Nor then or later the guards dared to ask for his name and so he remained “the brigadier”.
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 2