Istomin didn’t answer immediately. He wanted to give the colonel time to blow off steam. “We are going to wait.”
He said finally. It sounded assuring, but relentless.
Denis Michailovitsch crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Two days”
“Two days”. Istomin nodded his head.
The colonel turned around on the spot and returned to the barracks. He had no intend to lose valuable hours. The commanding officers of the strike teams already waited for about an hour at the long table. Only two chairs were empty:
His and Istomins. But this time they would have to start without their leaders.
The commander of the station hadn’t realized that the colonel had already left. “It’s strange how our roles have been swapped isn’t it?” Said Istomin sunken in thoughts.
When he got no answer he turned around and saw the helpless look of the adjutant. He made a hand gesture that he could go. He didn’t recognize the colonel anymore, he thought. Normally he always refused to give up even a single fighter. He felt something, that old wolf. But could he rely on his nose this time?
Istomin’s instincts said something completely different: Remain calm. Wait. The heavy infantry of the Sevastopolskaya would find some kind of mysterious and invincible enemy at the Tulskaya.
Vladimir Ivanovitsch searched his pockets, found his lighter and lit it. Smoke rings rose over him and he was looking directly into the mouth of the tunnel. Hypnotized – like a rabbit looking into the tempting mouth of a snake.
When he finished his smoke, he shook his head again and strolled back to his office. The adjutant broke free from the shadow of one of the pillars and followed him, but he kept his distance.
A dump rattling sound – a beam of light illuminated the first 50 meters of the ribbed tunnel; Hunters lamp was big and high-powered like a search light. Homer exhaled silently.
In the last minutes he thought that the brigadier would never turn on the light because his eyes didn’t it.
Since they had dove into the darkness he had nothing in common with a normal human being anymore. His movement was fluent and fast like of an animal. It seemed that he had only turned on the light for his followers, he only trusted his senses. He had put down his helmet and was listening to the sounds of the tunnel. Again and again. From time to time he inhaled the rusted air as if he could smell something, which only made his suspicions stronger.
Hunter stepped through the tunnel without making any sounds and he didn’t look back. It seemed that he had forgotten their existence. Achmed who only accusingly had guard duty at the southern guard post and because of that didn’t know the habits of the brigadier poked the old man in his side: What was going on with him? Homer spread his arms. How was he supposed to explain it to him in two words?
Why did he even need them? Hunter seemed to feel considerably securer in these tunnels than Homer. At the same time he would have thought himself to be the guide of the group. If he would have asked the old man he could have told him much about this region. Legends but also true stories that were mostly more terrible and bizarre than the unlikely stories that the guards told themselves at the lonely guard fire when they were bored.
Homer had a different metro plan in his head – Istomin’s map was nothing compared to it. He could have filled all the white parts with his own markings and notes.
Vertical shafts, open ones, even some operational service rooms and connecting lines like spider webs. As an example of his plan there was a junction between the Sevastopolskaya and the Juschnaya, so one station to the south, it ended like a gigantic hose at the gigantic train depot, the Warschavskoye that had gathered dozens of side tunnels like small veins.
Homer that had a holy awe for trains saw this depot as a dark but also mysterious place, like some kind of elephant graveyard; he could talk about it for hours, provided that there were listeners.
Homer thought that the section between the Sevastopolskaya and the Nachimovski prospect was especially difficult. Preclusions and a healthy human mind demanded that they stayed together, moved forwards slowly, carefully, watching the walls and the floor at all times.
You couldn’t even keep the tunnel, where all vents and cracks had been bricked up and sealed by the construction teams of the Sevastopolskaya, behind you out of your sight.
The darkness had only been ripped open by their light for a short time and had already grown together again. The echo of their footsteps was thrown back from the rips of the tunnel segments and somewhere in the distance a lonely wind howled through the vents. Big, heavy drops gathered in the cracks on the ceiling and fell down. Maybe they were only made out of water but Homer preferred to move out of their way. Just to make sure.
In old times when the bloated monster city lived its fever like life and the metro was nothing but a soulless traffic system for the restless people of the city, a young Homer who everybody just called Kolya, already walked with his flashlight and iron toolbox through the tunnels.
The way there was prohibited to mortals. The only things that were meant for them were around 150 polished marble pillars and tight wagons that were covered with colorful advertising. Even though they spent between two or three hours in the rocking trains of the metro, millions of people weren’t aware that they only saw a tenth of this unimaginable big underground kingdom face to face. And so that they wouldn’t start to think about its real extend or about where the inconspicuous doors and iron blockades, the dark side tunnels and the over passings that had been closed for months because of reparations lead, they turned their attention away with conspicuous posters, lead them with provocative but dumb slogans into nowhere and even chased them on the escalators with wooden advertising announcements per loud speaker.
It seemed like this to Kolya after he began to deal with secrets of this state within a state.
The colorful plan of the metro should convince curious minds that they dealt with a civilian object here. But in reality these lines in those happy colors were crossed by invisible lines of military tunnels which lead into government bunkers and military depots. Even some lanes were connected by a labyrinth of catacombs, out of the pagan times of the city.
When Kolya was very young and his country was too poor to compete with the ambitions of others, the bunkers and air raid shelters which had been build for judgment day collected dust. But with money people returned with bad intentions. Rusted, weighting tons, doors opened creaking, food and medicament supplies were renewed and air and water filters were brought back on the newest level. Just in time.
The job in the metro was like a welcome into the society of the freemasons. He felt like that because he came from a small town. Once an unemployed loner, now and now member of one of the most powerful organizations that rewarded his humble service generously and brought him insight into the deepest secrets of the world order. He also liked the pay of his job; they didn’t request much from future service men.
It took him some time to realize through his colleges hesitant explanations why the metro organization had to lure their employees with high wages and extra money for dangerous work. No it wasn’t even for tight work shifts and the voluntary sacrifice of daylight. It was about totally different dangers.
Homer, a skeptical man, never paid much attention to the never dying rumors or even darker stories of the devils work in the tunnel. But one day one of his colleges didn’t return from his side inspection of the service tunnels. Like the man all documents vanished, he had suddenly never worked in the metro.
Only Kolya, still young and naïve didn’t want to settle with the disappearance of his friends. Until one of the older employees took him to the side and whispered, looking around hastily and said that they had “taken” his friend with them. Kolya realized just too well that something sinister was going on in the Moscow underground and that long before Armageddon broke over the huge city and destroyed all life with its flaming breath.
The loss of his friend and the
initiation into this forbidden knowledge should have scared Kolya. He should have left his work and found a different one. But his arranged marriage with the metro had progressed into a passionate affair. When he was feed up with endless wandering through tunnels he let himself be trained as a substitute train driver and secured himself a firm place in the complex metro hierarchy.
The closer he got to know this ignored world wonder, the more nostalgic he looked at the antic labyrinth, this master less, zyclopic city, the on its head turned reflection of the surface of Moscow and fell in love with it. This from human hand created tartarus was worthy of a real Homer, at least the feather of a old master and it would have impressed him more than the island Laputa … But it was only Kolya that honored the metro in secret and sang clumsy of its greatness. Nikolai Ivanovitsch Nikolayev. Ridiculous.
It was possible to love the mistress of the cooper mountain, but the cooper mountain in particular? (Should be a Russian fable)
But this relationship was based on love on both sides and envy. It would rob Kolya of his family and safe his life.
Hunter suddenly stopped and Homer wasn’t able to get up from his soft bed of memories fast enough and ran straight into the brigadiers back without slowing down. Without saying a word he pushed the old man back and stopped again, he lowered his head and held the distorted ear into the tunnel.
Like blind bats made its picture from their surrounding room it seemed that he perceived invisible sound waves as well.
Homer on the other hand felt something different: The smell of the Nachimovski prospect, a smell that you couldn’t mistake for anything else. How fast they had gotten through the tunnel … Hopefully they didn’t have to pay for being allowed to pass so freely …
As if he had heard Homer thoughts, Achmed took his assault rifle from his back and switched the safety off.
“Who is there?” Whispered Hunter suddenly to Homer.
Homer smiled in secret: Who knew what the devil had brought them? Through the wide open doors of the Nachimovski prospect horrible creatures feel through the ceiling like through a funnel. But there were also permanent residents in this station. Even though they were seen as not dangerous Homer felt about them in a special way: A sticky mixture of fear and disgust.
“Small … Hairless.” The brigadier tried to describe them.
That was enough for Homer: There they were. “Corps-eaters.” He said silently.
Between the Sevastopolskaya and the Tulskaya, maybe in different regions of the metro this curse had achieved a new literally meaning in the last years.
“They feed on flesh?” Asked Hunter.
“More on dead flesh.” Answered the old man unsure.
These disgusting creatures – spiderlike primates – didn’t attack humans; they feed on dead flesh that they had dragged down from the surface. And a big clan had made their nest at the Nachimovski prospect, the reason you could smell the disgusting-sweet smell rotting flesh in the neighboring tunnels, in the station it was so heavy that it could make your head spin. It was that there, where they had gathered dead bodies for food. Some wore their gasmasks before entering so that they could tolerate the smell.
Homer who remembered the special feature of the Nachimovski very vividly, reached hastily for his gasmask and put it over his mouth and nose.
Achmed who didn’t have enough time to pack looked at it with envy and covered his nose with his arm. The miasma that grew in this station covered them, surrounded them and chased them forwards.
Hunter didn’t seem to experience anything like them. “Is that toxic? Spores?” Asked Hunter.
“The smell.” Said Homer from under his mask.
The brigadier looked at Homer as if he wanted to make sure that he wasn’t trying to make a joke on his expense.
Than the shrugged his broad shoulders and said: “So just the usual”. He held his assault rifle more comfortable and made clear that they should follow him and continued with soft steps.
After maybe fifty meters an almost unnoticeable whispering joined the horrendous smell. Homer wiped the warm sweat from his head and tried to keep his galloping heart at bay. They were close.
Finally the shine of the lamp illuminated something, the broken lights of a train that tried so hard to fight against the rust, its headlights starring blindly into the dark; a shattered windshield … In front of them was the first wagon of a train that blocked the tunnel like a giant cork.
The train laid hopelessly dead for a long time, but every time he saw it he had the childish wish to climb into the dusty driver cabin, touch the buttons of the panel and to imagine with his eyes closed that he was rushing through the tunnel, behind him a garland of bright lit wagons, full of people, that read, slept, stared at the advertising and tried to hold a conversation over the sound of the rushing train.
“When the alarm signal >atom< is given, you are to go to the next station. There you are to man the station. The doors are to be opened. The civilian teams have to help with the evacuation of wounded and the hermetic closure of the metro stations”
For judgment day he had gotten clear and easy instructions. Everywhere possible they were followed. Most of the trains broke down on the tracks and fell into a lethargic sleep and then there where the survivors that instead of a few weeks, what had been promised to them, now had to stay there forever. Most of the trains had been completely dismantled for inventory and spare parts.
In some places they used them as homes, but Homer that viewed them as living beings thought that that was like vandalizing a corpse, as if they had stuffed his favorite cat.
In uninhabitable places like the Nachimovski prospect time and vandals had left their mark on the train but it had remained intact.
Homer couldn’t turn away. The rustling and hissing that approached from the station, faded into the background and once again he heard the ghostly howling alarm siren and then the deep signal of the train that spread the unheard message, once long, twice short: “Atom!”
Brakes squeaked and through the speakers came the confusing message: “Dear passengers, because of technical emergency the train can’t continue its ride…”
Nor the train driver whispering into his microphone neither his assistant Homer knew the full extent of overwhelming hopelessness of this formal sentence. The exhausting creaking sound of the hermetic gates … They separated the living from the dead, once and for all. Protocol demanded that the doors had to be closed six minutes after the alarm had been sound and they had to be closed forever, it didn’t matter how many people where still on the other side.
Those who resisted the closing of the gates were to be shot immediately.
Would a tiny militia soldier that normally chased homeless people and drunks out of the station be capable of shooting a man into his stomach because he resisted the ton heavy machine so that his wife with her broken heel would still be able to slip through? Would the feisty women with her uniform and her cap, who checked tickets and had only brought two things to perfection in her 30 years of service, to get in your way and to get people in line, stop the for air gasping old man that was still trying to pass through the door?
The instructions saw six minutes for a human to become a machine. Or a monster.
The screaming of the women and the screams of the men, the unrestrained crying of the children, the sounds of the pistol and machine guns salves … Out of every speaker the request to remain calm sounded metallic and emotionless.
Somebody unaware read it because nobody that knew would be so controlled and indifferent in repeating the same sentence over and over again: “Please remain calm!” Crying, pleading … Again shots.
And exactly six minutes after the alarm, one minute before Armageddon – with the dump sound of a graveyards bell the doors closed. The sound of the bolts locking in place.
Silence.
Like in a grave.
To get around the wagon they had to move along the wall. The driver had braked to late, maybe he had been di
stracted by something on the track. They climbed upwards over an iron ladder and found themselves in a roomy hall. It had no pillars but a half-round ceiling with egg shaped holes for the lamps. The hall was big; it included the train station and both tracks with the trains. An unbelievable elegant, easy construction, simple and laconic.
Just don’t look down, not under your feet or in front of you.
Don’t look what the station had become.
A grotesque meadow of corpses, where no one ever found peace, a terrible field of flesh, covered with gnawed off skeletons, rotting bodies and ripped off parts of corpses. Grotesque creatures had dragged down greedily everything they could find in their small kingdom, a lot more than they could eat, as reserves. These reserves decayed and dissolved, but they were still growing.
The mountains of rotting flesh moved, ignoring the laws of nature, as if they breathed and from everywhere a disgusting scraping sound could be heard. The shine of the flashlight caught one of the strange creatures: Long nodular arms and legs, slack, wrinkled, hanging, hairless grey skin and a bent back. The dim eyes starring half blind around the room and the big ears moved like they had a life of their own.
The creature made a hoarse scream and retreated slowly on all limbs back through the open train door. As sluggish as this one the other corpse eaters started to climb down from their mountains of bodies. Angered they bared their teeth and growled at the group.
On two feet they wouldn’t have been able to reach Homer to the chest and he knew that the cowardly creatures wouldn’t attack a strong, healthy human. But the irrational horror that he felt for these creatures came from his nightly nightmares: Weakened and abandoned he was laying there alone in an empty station and the monsters came closer and closer. Like a drop of blood in the ocean attracted countless sharks these creatures could feel the approaching death of a stranger and rushed to look at him.
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 5