It seemed that the station had hired a mercenary that didn’t need an own name.
Hunter.
While Homer stood in the entrance of Istomin’s office undecided he formed the strange word silently with his lips. It didn’t fit for a human – more for a middle-Asian Sheppard-hound. He couldn’t suppress a smile: Actually there had been such dogs here. How did all this come to his head?
A militant race, with a shortened tail and ears directly on its head – nothing superfluous.
But the more often he said this name, the more he thought that he knew it. Where had he heart it? It probably got stuck in the endless stream of legends and rumors and had sunken to the ground of his mind. Meanwhile a thick layer of names, facts, rumors and numbers had appeared in his mind – all that useless data about the lives of other humans that Homer had always listened to eagerly and tried to remember faithfully.
Hunter … A criminal with a price on his head from Hanza? Homer threw a stone into the dim lake of his mind and listened. No. A stalker? Didn’t match his appearance. A field commander? More like it. And apparently a legend as well. Homer studied the face of the brigadier in secret. The name of a dog suited him surprisingly well.
“I still need two men. Homer comes with me, he knows these tunnels.” The brigadier didn’t ask for his approval and nor did he turn to him.
“And a runner, a currier. I’ll leave today”. Istomin nodded his head, but then he gave the colonel an asking look.
He mumbled his approval even though he had fought about the men for the unit with the commander for all these days. Homers opinion didn’t seem to interest anyone, but he didn’t think about protesting at all. Despite his age he had never refused any missions like this one. He had his reasons.
The brigadier took his helmet from the table and moved to the exit. He held the door for a moment and said into Homers direction: “Say goodbye to your family. Arm yourself for a long march. Don’t take ammunition with you; you’ll get it from me”
Then he disappeared.
Homer ran behind him to at least find out what was going to await him on this expedition. But when he stepped on the train station he saw that hunter had already left with big steps. It was pointless to try to catch up to him. Homer looked after him and shook his head.
Against his habit the brigadier hadn’t put on his helmet. Maybe he was in thoughts or he needed more air. He passed a few young girls that sat on the train platform. They were pig shepherds on a break. Suddenly one of them whispered: ”Look girls, what a zombie.”
“Where did you dig him up?” Asked Istomin. Relieved he sank into his chair and reached for a package of papirosso-paper.
The weed that was smoked at this station with joy had been allegedly found by a stalker near the Bitzewski Place.
One time the colonel had held a Geiger-counter at the package of “tobacco” and it really started to tick.
After that he decided to stop smoking immediately and the coughing that had haunted his nights with the possibility of lung cancer became less frequent. Istomin on the other hand refused to give the story about the radiation to much credit. And he wasn’t that wrong – in the entire Metro there was almost nothing that didn’t radiate more or less.
“We’ve known us forever.” Replied the colonel unwillingly. After a short break he added: ”Back then he was different. Something must have happened to him”
“According to his face something has happened to him for sure”
Istomin coughed and looked nervous to the entrance as if he feared hunter could hear his words.
The commander of the outer guard posts didn’t want to complain that the brigadier had emerged out of the mist of the past so suddenly; ultimately he had transformed himself into the most important support of the southern guard post in no time. But Denis Michailovitsch still couldn’t entirely believe the return of his old friend.
The news of hunter’s terrible and strange death had spread like an echo through the tunnels last year. And when he appeared in front of the colonel’s door without warning he had made a cross with his hand. How he had passed the guard posts without being noticed – as if he had walked right through the fighters – which had increased his doubts that everything was happening without something supernatural intervening.
The silhouette, which he saw through the peephole had been familiar to him: Broad shoulders, the shaved head and the slightly dented nose. But the nightly guest remained where he was; had his head, oddly, slightly turned to the side and didn’t try to break the tense silence. The colonel looked at the bottle of sweet wine on his table with regret, sighed deeply and unlocked the door. His codex demanded that he helped everyone of his own kind – regardless if they were alive or dead.
Hunter looked up only when he had stepped through the door. Now it became apparent why he had turned away the other side of his face. He had probably feared that the colonel wouldn’t have recognized him otherwise. Denis Michailovitsch had seen much while commanding the garrison – unlike in his wild years – it seemed to him like an honorably pension now but hunters wound still got to him.
Then he laughed insecure, like if he wanted to excuse his undisciplined behavior.
The guest didn’t even show a hint of a smile. In this night he didn’t smile a single time. His terrible wounds had healed in the last months, but this man had nothing in common with the Hunter that Denis Michailovitsch remembered.
He didn’t lose a single word about his miraculous rescue, his long absence and he didn’t seem to hear the amazed questions from the colonel as well. Rather he asked Denis Michailovitsch to tell nobody of his return. Would have the colonel followed his commons sense he would have informed the elders right away – but there was an old debt which he had to repay to hunter and so he let him in peace.
Nonetheless Denis Michailovitsch started to research in secret. Truly, everybody thought that his guest was dead.
He wasn’t involved in any crimes nor was he being sought-after. They had never found hunters body – that was for sure – otherwise he would have surely tried to contact them. The colonel agreed.
But he appeared, to express it better: His vague – and in those cases normal – shadow appeared in a good dozen half true myths and stories. It seemed he liked his role and kept his companions believing that he was dead.
Denis Michailovitsch remembered his old debt and came to the only conclusion: He relaxed and played the game.
When others where with them he never used Hunters real name. He only told Istomin the truth but didn’t go into detail. But not many cared, because the brigadier had earned his daily ration of soup many times over. He guarded the posts in the southern tunnel day and night; at the station he appeared maybe once a week – on bath day. And even if he just appeared in this hell to hide from his pursuers, Istomin didn’t mind. He knew to appreciate the service of legionnaires with dark pasts – the only thing that he demanded from them was to fight and in this case that wasn’t a problem at all.
The guards that had complained about the condescending nature of the new brigadier became silent after the first battle. When they saw how methodical, sunken in some kind of cold frenzy,he destroyed everything that there was to destroy, everyone came to their own conclusion.
Nobody wanted to become his friend, but everyone followed his orders without any complains, so that he never had to raise his dull and broken voice. There was something in his voice, something like a hypnotizing sound of a snake and even the head of the station nodded his head obedient whenever he talked to him – even when he hadn’t finished talking, just in case.
For the first time in ages the air in Istomin’s office felt a lot lighter – as if a silent thunderstorm had passed, created by the strong tension. There was no more reason to argue, because there was no better fighter than Hunter. But when even he died in the tunnels there would be no other option for the Sewastopolskaya.
“Should I order the preparations for the operation?”
Asked Denis Michailovitsch.
“You got three days. That should be enough”
Istomin closed his lighter and his eyes. “We can no longer wait for them. How many people do we need?”
“The strike team is ready. I will take care about the second one, which should be another 20 men. When we don’t hear anything from them after the day after tomorrow.”He pointed his head at the exit. “Then you have to make everybody ready to leave. We will try to break through”
Istomin raised his eyebrows but didn’t answer; he just kept smoking his self-made cigarette. Denis Michailovitsch picked up some of the papers and started circling names using a system that only he understood.
To break through? The colonel looked past Istomin’s grey neck and through the tobacco smoke at the map of the Metro that was hanging on the wall. Yellow, dirty and covered with small signs this plan was a chronicle of the last century. Arrows for recon missions, circles for sieges, stars for guard posts and exclamations marks for forbidden zones.
Ten years had been documented in this plan, ten years, with not a single day without blood spilling.
Under the Sevastopolskaya, right behind the station called Juschnaya the markings stopped. As far as Istomin could remember nobody had ever returned from there. The line ran down a lot of white areas, like one of the old maps that the first Spanish conquerors had when they arrived on the shores of supposed India. Like a branched root. But a conquest of the entire line was too big for the people of the Sevastopolskaya – no exhaustion of the irradiated people would have been enough.
And now the white fog of uncertainty covered their godforsaken line that went on to Hanza, to humanity. When the colonel would order the people to arm themselves soon, nobody would refuse his command. At the Sevastopolskaya the war for the destruction of mankind, which had lasted for two centuries, had never stopped for a minute. If you live long enough in the face of death, fear makes place for fatalism, talismans, believes and instincts.
But who knew what waited for them between the Nachimovski prospect and the Serpuchovskaya? Who knew if you could break through this mysterious obstacle or if there was still something behind it that was worth fighting for?
Istomin thought about his last trip to the Serpuchovskaya: Markets, homeless on benches and those who still had something, sleeping behind curtains. This station didn’t produce anything; they didn’t have any animal farms or greenhouses. The residents of the Serpuchovskaya were thieves but they were smart. They lived from speculation, sold expired goods that they had bought from late caravans for almost nothing. They also offered the inhabitants of the ring line services that could have brought them in front of the courts at Hanza. This station was a parasite, a fungus, a growing tumor inside the powerful Hanza.
It was the last union of rich trade stations, appropriately named after the medival German model, a stronghold for civilization in the Metro. Everything else sank into barbarism and poverty. There was a real army in Hanza, electrical light and even in at the poorest parts a piece of bread for everyone that had earned the much sought after stamp of citizenship.
Even on the black market those cost a fortune and if the border patrol caught somebody with a fake passport it would have cost you your head.
Hanza owed its wealth and power to its extraordinary place: The ring line united all other lines of the star shaped complex together and opened up the possibility to switch from one line to any other line. Traveling merchants who brought Tea from the WDNCh, trolleys that brought ammunition from the weapons forges of Baumskaya – they all unloaded their cargo at the nearest toll station of Hanza and returned back home. It was always easier for them to sell their goods a little bit cheaper than to embark on a hunt for higher profits throughout the whole Metro. It could possibly be fatal.
It sometimes happened that Hanza affiliated neighboring stations but mostly those were left to their own fate – a tolerated grey area, where deals were made by them which the leaders of Hanza didn’t want to get involved in. Of course those “Radial stations” where filled with Hanza’s spies and to be exact – the stations had been bought a long time from the business men of Hanza. But they remained, formally, independent. So was it was with the Serpuchovskaya.
In one of the tunnels between this station and the Tulskaya a train had broken down on that day a long time ago. Istomin had marked the place with a catholic cross, because the wagon that stood in the midst of the tunnel was inhabited by members of a sect. They had transformed this lifeless part of the tunnel into an oasis in a black desert.
Istomin had nothing against the sect. Truly their missionaries lingered in the neighboring stations, trying to save fallen souls but these shepherds never came to the Sevastopolskaya nor did they hinder passing travelers – maybe with their missionary talk. The clean and empty tunnel between Tulskaya and Serpuchovskaya were preferred by the caravans.
Once again Istomin looked along the line. The Tulskaya? Their residents lived from what the bypassing convoys of the Sevastopolskaya and the smart merchants from Serpuchovskaya left behind. They repaired every possible technical piece of scrap metal and others searched for day jobs. For days they sat there and waited for one of the foremen offering slave labor. They were poor as well, but at least they didn’t have the greasy crook look in their eyes like the people from the Serpuchovskaya. And at this station there was order, dangers welds you together.
The next station was the Nagatinskaya. On Istomins plan it was marked with a short line, meaning that is was uninhabited. But that was only half the truth. Nobody remained their very long but shady folk living like animals.
Absolute darkness reigned here and small groups hid from strangers. Only scarcely the dim shine of a campfire lit through the pillars and illuminated the dark figures that held a secret meeting. Only unknowing and brave individuals stayed overnight because not all of the inhabitants of this station were humans. In the whispering darkness of the Nagatinskaya you could sometimes see the grotesque silhouettes of creatures scouring in the dark. And sometimes the shrill scream of a homeless person filled the remaining with fear until the victim got dragged into a cave and was devoured.
Further than to the Nagatinskaya nobody dared to come, so the area between this station and the strongholds of the Sevastopolskaya was an empty wasteland. It wasn’t entirely empty though – and the scouts from Sevastopolskaya tried not to meet them.
But now something new had emerged out of the tunnels. Something unknown. Something that had swallowed everybody that had tried to pass through this supposedly explored route. How should Istomin know if his station, even though when every able resident picked up a weapon, would form an army big enough to deal with that? He stood up burdensome, walked to the map and marked the area between the Serpuchovskaya and the Nachimovskaya prospect with a pen. Right next to it he placed a big question mark. He had wanted to place it next to the word “prospect” but somehow it landed next to the Sevastopolskaya.
At the first glance you could believe that the Sevastopolskaya was uninhabited. No trace of army tents in the train station which served them as homes at most stations.
But instead they had barricades of sandbags, which looked like big ant hills in the weak lights of the lamps. Those barricades were never manned and the quadratic pillars were covered with a thick layer of dust. Everything was built so that a stranger that passed through would think this station was abandoned.
But as soon as the unwanted guest just thought about staying here he risked staying here forever. Then the machine-gun teams and the snipers, which stayed at the neighboring Kavochskaya manned their posts in seconds and instead of the dim lamps, powerful quicksilver search lights on the ceiling were activated, burning the eyes of all invaders, humans or monster. Neither were used to the strong light.
The train station was the last carefully planned line of defense of the Sevastopolskaya. Their homes were located in the belly of this deceptive station – under the station. Under the enormous granite plate, invisibl
e for stranger’s eyes, there was another floor not much smaller than the station above, but divided into smaller cells. There were the lit, dry and warm apartments, the steady humming air filters and water purifier, hydroponic greenhouses … It seemed that the residents of this station felt only safe and comfortable when they retreated further into the ground.
Homer knew that the crucial battle didn’t await him in the tunnel, but at home. While he walked through the narrow hallway past the half open doors of the former service rooms were now the families of the residents of the Sevastopolskaya lived his steps slowed down more and more. He actually should’ve thought about his tactic again, revisited his answers, time was running out.
“What am I supposed to do? Orders are orders. You know how the situation is yourself. They didn’t even ask me.
Don’t blow it out of proportion – that is ridicules! No I didn’t volunteer. Refuse? Out of the question. That would be desertion, understand?”
He mumbled on and on, sometimes outraged and determent, sometimes gentle and pleading.
On the doorstep of his apartment he went over everything again. It seemed a scene wouldn’t be avoidable, but he wouldn’t back down. He made a dark look and opened the door ready for a fight.
From the nine and a half square meters apartment – very luxurious, he had waited for one for four years in some tent – was occupied by a two-story military bunk bed, a small neat dining table and another three big stacks of newspapers that reached to the ceiling. Would he have been an old bachelor that mountain would have already buried him. But fifteen years ago he had met Yelena, who tolerated the dusty old paper in their small apartment, kept them in order and away from the stove; otherwise this mountain would have transformed itself into to a papery Pompeii long ago.
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 3