“Are you still alive?” He yelled into the receiver.
“The infected broke free!”
Then in this moment he realized that there nobody knew what was going on at the Tulskaya. He had to tell them from the start and explain.
From the train platform he heard the scream of a woman and then machine gun fire. The sounds slipped through the door slit, you couldn’t escape it. Somebody on the other end of the line asked him something but he couldn’t really understand him.
“You have to barricade the exit!” Said Artyom hastily. “Shot them down. And keep your distance!”
But they didn’t even know how the sick looked like. How should he describe them: As swollen, exploded and stinking creatures? Those who had just been infected looked totally normal.
“Shoot them all down!” He said mechanical.
But what when he tried to leave the station himself? Would they fire at him too? Had he spoken his own death sentence? No he wouldn’t get away anymore.
There were no more healthy here. Artyom suddenly felt terribly alone.
“Don’t hang up.” He pleaded.
Artyom didn’t know about what he should talk with the unknown man at the end of the other line. He started with his in desperate tries to contact them and told him that he had feared that no station in the metro was still alive. He had thought it could have been that he had spoken with a future where nobody had survived. Even that he told the stranger.
He wasn’t afraid to embarrass himself anymore. He didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore.
The main thing was that he could talk to somebody.
“Popov!” Suddenly he could hear the husky voice of the commander behind him. “Did you reach the northern post? Is … The gate closed?”
Artyom turned around and shook his head..
“Idiot!” The commander spat blood. “Not useful for anything … Listen up. Above us is an underground river.
I’ve placed something there … When we blow it up this whole fucking station is going to be filled. The button is here, in the room of the radio operator. But you have to close the northern gate and look if the southern is still standing. The station has to be without a single leak, you understand? I am not drowning the entire metro. And when everything is done you tell me … The connection to the guard post is still working?”
“Yes.” Artyom nodded his head.
“And see to it that you get out in time.” The commander tried to make a tortured smile and then he had to cough again. “It wouldn’t be fair otherwise …”
“And what’s with you? You’ll stay here?”
The commander’s forehead got wrinkles. “Pull yourself together, Popov! (I think it means something like boy). Everybody is born to do something. Mine is to drown those pigs. Yours to close the hatch and die from old age.
Understood!?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then be quick about it”
The telephone was silent now.
The gods of the telephone had to be thanked that Homer had understood most of the words of the soldier at the Tulskaya. He didn’t hear his last sentences but most he had understood before the connection had stopped working.
The old man looked up. Above him was Andrey Andreyevitsch’s heavy stomach. Under the arm pits of his blue uniform he could see dark spots and his fat hands were shivering. “What is going on there?” He said toneless.
“The situation is out of control.” Homer swallowed. “Sent every available men to the Serpuchovskaya”
“I can’t do that.” Andrey Andreyevitsch pulled his makarov out of his pocket. “They’re in panic here. The few people I can rely on have gathered around the post of the ring line so that nobody of them runs away”
“You can calm them down. We have … You can cure the fever. Through radiation. Tell them that …”
“Radiation?” The commander made a grimace.
“And you believe that? Of course. You have my permission!” He saluted jokingly and closed the door loudly behind him and locked his office.
What now? Now Homer, Leonid and Sasha couldn’t even run away from here anymore. By the way, where were they? Apparently they ran away!
Homer ran out to the corridor with one hand pressed on his racing heart. He ran onto the train platform and yelled their names. They had disappeared.
At the Dobryninskaya chaos reigned. Women, children and men with big sacks blocked the exits. Behind thrown down tents some kind of riffraff ran around, but nobody paid attention to them. Homer had seen something like that before: It would start with the soldier kicking all who stepped on their feet and in the end they would shoot at the unarmed people.
Suddenly a moaning went through the tunnel.
The noise and screaming got silent; instead you could hear surprised yells. Again this powerful sound sounded, like hundredths of horns of the roman legion that had wandered around for centuries and finally marched to the Dobryninskaya …
Hastily the soldier pushed away the barricades out of the tunnel because something massive approached. An armored battalion. In front of the heavy skulls were mounted steel plates with only a small slit in them. On their backs where heavy machine guns.
Not even Homer had ever seen such a monster.
Faceless idols were on their armor which black as ravens.
They were wearing full-body suits out of Kevlar, gasmasks of an unknown kind and special military backpacks.
They didn’t seem to belong to this time or to this world. The battalion stopped. The heavy armed arrivers from the train platform, not caring for the crowd of people and formed three rows next to each other. Then they turned like one man, likeone machine with thundering steps to the tunnel of the Serpuchovskaya. Their powerful steps sounded over the conversations of the adults and the screaming of the children.
Homer ran behind them and tried to identify Hunter under the dozens of fighters. But all were built strong and the overalls sat on their shoulders as if they had only been made for them.
Everybody had the same, terrible weapons:
Flamethrowers and Wintores-rifles with suppressors. No insignias, no badges.
Maybe he was one of the first three in the line?
Homer passed the group, waved his hands and looked into the windows of the gasmasks. But he only got the same stiff look that didn’t care for him. None of the arrivers reacted, nobody knew Homer. Was Hunter even under them?
He had to be. He just had to appear!
Homer couldn’t see Sasha or Leonid on his way to the tunnel. Should their common sense have won and had the musician had taken the girl at a safe place?
Yes, hopefully they were waiting for this bloodbath to pass. Later Homer would try to barter with Andrey Andreyvitsch to get a solution, if he hadn’t put a bullet between his eyes by then.
Like a thrown hammer the formation made its way through the crowd and marched with surprising speed.
Nobody dared to get into their way and even the border of Hanza stepped away silent. Homer decided to follow the battalion; he had to make sure that Sasha wasn’t going to try something.
Nobody of the soldiers chased him away. For them he was a dog that ran after a railcar. When they entered the tunnel the three rows in front of them switched on their search lights and burned away the darkness in front of them. Their lights were as bright as a thousand candles. Homer couldn’t stop thinking that the bodies of those humans were like iron but that their souls had died long ago. He had a prefect killing machine in front of him; its single parts were without a will of their own. Only one of them who you couldn’t separate from the rest knew what would happen: When he gave the command: “Fire” the rest would burn down all on their way to the Tulskaya and the other stations.
At least they didn’t go through the tunnel with the train and the sect. Those unlucky people could still wait until the eternal flame got to them. First the Tulskaya and then they …
Suddenly, like they reacted to an invisible signal
the group slowed down. One minute later Homer understood why: They were at the station where you could hear screams in the distance.
Then something surprising came to the ears of the old man which made him question his own sanity: A wonderful melody.
Homer listened like under a spell. He didn’t hear anything put the voice that sounded out of the receiver and suddenly Sasha knew that now was the best time to leave.
She slipped out of the greeting room waited for Leonid and dragged him with her. At first to the tunnel to the Serpuchovskaya, then the tunnel that lead where they needed their help. Where they could save lives.
Also the tunnel lead to him, Hunter.
“Aren’t you afraid?” Sasha asked Leonid.
He smiled. “Yes. But I have the slight feeling that I am finally doing something important”
“You don’t have to come with me. It could be that death is waiting for us. We could also just stay here and go somewhere”
“Nobody knows what the future brings.”
Answered Leonid with his finger raised.
“And I was thinking that you decided it yourself?”
“Ah, stop it already” Leonid smiled ironic. “We are all just rats in a labyrinth. There are small doors which are opened and closed by those who research us. When the door to the Sportivnaya is closed you can scratch at it as much as you want, it is not going to be opened for nothing in the world. And if behind the next door is a trap you still fall into it, even though you were already expecting it. Because there is no other way. You only have one choice: You keep running or die out of protest”
Sasha’s forehead got wrinkles. “Aren’t you angry at all that you have to live?”
“No I am angry at my spine. I can’t put my head that far back to look into the face of who is doing the experiment”
“There is no experiment. If necessary rats can bite through concrete”
Leonid started laughing. “You’re a rebel. I am an opportunist”
Sasha shook her head. “That’s not true. You think that you can change people as well”
“I would like to believe in it”
Sasha passed the post that apparently had been abandoned in all haste: Some pieces of wood were still smoking, next to them old, almost fallen apart magazine with pictures of naked women were laying around. On the wall was an abandoned and half shredded standard. Around ten minutes later they found the first body.
It was hard to recognize it as a human being. Arms and legs were spread and swollen so much so that its clothes had fallen off. Its face was more monstrous then everything Sasha had ever seen at any monster.
“Be careful!” Leonid pulled away the corpse.
“That one is contagious”
“And? There is a cure. There were we’re going everyone is contagious”
Suddenly they heard shots and distant screams.
“We made it just in time.” Said Leonid. “It seems that they no longer want to wait for your friend …”
Sasha looked at him scared, but then she said:
“Doesn’t matter! We just have to tell him. They think that all are sentenced to death. We just have to give them hope!”
The security gate of the station was completely open. Another corpse was laying there, face down but at least it still looked human. Next to him was a metal box that hissed in, as if the radio was trying to wake up the dead guard.
At the end of the tunnel a few men had bunkered down hastily behind a few sandbags. One heavy machine gunner and a few soldiers with assault rifles. That was the entire barricade.
In front of them were the narrow tunnel walls ended and the platform of the Tulskaya started a terrible crowd was cooking and enclosed the besieged. It were infected and healthy, hideous monsters and human silhouettes, some had flashlights in front of them and others didn’t need light anymore.
The soldiers who were in front of them defended the tunnel. Their bullets were going to an end and the shots sounded sparsely and even more sparsely. The crowd got closer and closer.
One of the Soldiers turned to Sasha. “Are you the reserves? Boys, they’ve reached the Dobryninskaya! The reserves are here!”
The monster with its many heads reacted as well and moved forward worried.
“People!” Yelled Sasha. “There is a cure! We found it! You won’t die! Patience! Just have a little patience!”
But the crowd swallowed up her words, yelled unsatisfied and moved on. The machine gunner shot angry another salve at them so that some fell to the ground moaning, while others answered with a few gunshots. Not stopping the mass moved forward, ready to trample anything in their path, defenders and Sasha and Leonid alike.
Then something happened.
At first hesitating, but then more and more self-confident the sound of the flute sounded through the tunnel.
Nothing seemed more unfitting, yes even stupider, but the crowd growled surprised at first and then moved forward laughing.
But Leonid didn’t mind. Probably he didn’t play for them but for himself. It was the same melody that had put a spell over Sasha and attracted dozens of listeners.
It was an unfitting method to stop the riot when you thought about it. Maybe it was just the touching naivety of this desperate step and not the magic of the flute that slowed down the march of the crowd. Or had the musician been able to remind those who were around them and already ready to tear them to shreds of something. Something that …
The shots stopped and Leonid stepped forward without taking the flute from his lips. It acted like this was his usual audience who would applaud every second now and threw bullets at him.
For a fracture of a second Sasha thought that under the listeners was her father who was smiling softly. He had waited for her … She thought about what Leonid had said:
This melody was able to take away the pain.
Behind the hermetic door it started to rumble all of a sudden. Actually too soon. Had the search party gotten through faster than expected? So the situation at the Tulskaya wasn’t as complicated? Yes, maybe the occupants had left the station already without opening the doors?
The troop spread out and the soldiers took cover behind the tunnel segments. Only four men remained next to Denis Michailovitsch directly next to the gate. All readied their rifles. It was time. Soon the door would open and after a few minutes the forty heavy armed men from the Sevastopolskaya would get into the Tulskaya, break down any resistance and occupy the station in a few moments. It had been easier then the colonel had thought.
Denis Michailovitsch took a deep breath to order his man to put on his gasmask.
He didn’t get any further.
The group formed again, spread out so that six men created one row and filled the entire width of the tunnel. The front line held the flamethrowers in front of them and the second row their automatic rifles. Like black lava it crawled forward, gradually and unstoppable.
Homer looked past the broad backs of the men. In the white rays of their search lights they could see the entire scenario: The handful of soldiers who were still manning their station and two small silhouettes, Sasha and Leonid and the horde of terrible creatures that enclosed on them. He starred at them horrified.
Leonid was still playing. Wonderful.
Unbelievable. Encouraged as never before. The terrible horde swallowed up the music and also the defenders of the tunnel had risen to get a better look at him. His melody divided the two enemy factions like if an invisible wall was between them. It was the only that stopped them from running at each other in a last and deadly fight.
“Ready!”
The order had come from one in the black group.
But from whom? The first row went to their knees immediately and the second row aimed over them.
“Sasha!” Screamed Homer.
The girl turned around, closed her eyes a bit and put her hand in front of them because she was fighting against an ocean of light.
The crowd was growling and moaned
under the burning rays. They got closer and closer.
The fighters remained still.
Sasha was standing almost in front of the black formation. “Where are you?” She yelled. “I need to talk to you. Please!”
Nobody answered.
“We found a cure! You can cure the disease!
You don’t have to kill anybody!”
Dark phalanx remained silent.
“I beg you! I know that you don’t want to do this.
You’re just trying to save them … And yourself …”
Suddenly out of one of the rows of fighters you could hear the husky voice: “Go away. I don’t want to kill you”
“You don’t have to kill anyone! There is a cure!”
Repeated Sasha desperate and walked from one side of the masked humans to the other. Searching for the one.
“There is no cure”
“Radiation! Radiation helps against it!”
“I don’t believe you”
“Please!”
“The station has to be cleaned”
“Don’t you want that something changes? Why are you repeating what you’ve done already? Back then with the dark ones! Why aren’t you searching for salvation?”
The fighters remained silent. And the cooking masses got closer.
“Sasha!” Yelled Homer pleading, but she didn’t hear him.
Finally the words dropped: “Nothing will ever change. There is nobody left to forgive me. I’ve raised my hand against … Against … I’ve been punished”
“It’s all inside of you!” Sasha didn’t give up.
“You can free yourself! You can prove it! Don’t you see? It’s a mirror! A reflection of what you’ve done, one year ago! But now you can do it differently … You can listen … Give them a chance … And earn your own!”
“I have to eliminate the monster.” Said the formation.
“You can’t do that! It is in me, it sleeps in all of us! It’s a part of the body, a part of the soul. And when it awakes … You can’t kill it, can’t cut it out! You can only bring it to rest … Sing it back to sleep …”
Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Page 32
