METRO 2033 (8 page)

‘We’ll see,’ Hunter snapped back. ‘We’ll see.’

They sat there a little longer, discussing all kinds of things. Many of the names mentioned weren’t familiar to Artyom. There were references to bits and pieces of stories. Every once in a while an old argument would spark up, of which Artyom understood little, but their discussions had clearly been going on for years, abating if the men hadn’t seen each other in a while and flaring up again when they met.

Finally, Hunter stood up and said it was time he went to bed because he, unlike Artyom, hadn’t slept since his patrol. He said goodbye to Sukhoi. But before leaving he suddenly turned to Artyom and whispered to him: ‘Come out for a minute.’

Artyom jumped up straightaway and followed him, not paying attention to the surprised look on his stepfather’s face. Hunter waited for him outside, silently buttoning up his raincoat and lifting the latch on the gate.

‘Shall we go through?’ he suggested and he quickly stepped forward onto the platform towards the guest tent where he was staying. Artyom hesitantly moved to follow him, trying to guess what this man wanted to discuss with him, a mere boy really, who had done nothing significant or even useful for anyone so far.

‘What do you think about the job that I do?’ Hunter asked.

‘It’s cool . . . I mean if it wasn’t for you . . . Well, and the others like you - if there are such people . . . Then we would have long ago . . .’ Artyom mumbled uncomfortably.

His tongue was twisted and he felt hot suddenly. As soon as someone like Hunter paid him attention and wanted to tell him something, even just asking him to come outside for a minute, to be alone, without his stepfather, he blushed like a virgin and started agonizing, bleating like a lamb . . .

‘You think highly of it? Well, then, if people think highly of it,’ Hunter grinned, ‘that means there’s no point in listening to the defeatists among us. Your stepfather is being a coward, that’s all. But he’s really a brave man. In any case, he was once. Something horrific is happening here Artyom. Something that can’t be allowed to continue. Your stepfather’s right: these aren’t just the goblins we’ve seen at dozens of other stations, these aren’t vandals, they’re not just degenerates. This is something new. Something meaner. There’s a chill in the air. There’s death in the air. I’ve only been here two days and I am already being penetrated by the fear here. And the more you know about them, the more you study them, the more you see them, the stronger the fear, as far as I understand. You, for example, have you seen them often?’

‘Only once so far. I’ve only just started on the northern patrol, though,’ Artyom confessed. ‘But if I’m honest, once was enough. I’ve been tortured by nightmares ever since. Like today for example. And it was a while ago that I saw them!’

‘Nightmares you say? You too?’ Hunter frowned. ‘Yes, it doesn’t look like a coincidence. . . . And if I live here a bit longer, another couple of months, and go on patrols regularly, then it’s not out of the question that I’ll turn sour too . . . No, my lad. Your stepfather is mistaken. It isn’t him speaking. It’s not his thinking. It’s them thinking for him, and it’s them speaking for him. Give up, they say, resistance is futile. And he’s their mouthpiece. And he probably doesn’t even know it himself . . . And it’s right, I guess, that they tune in and impress themselves on the psyche. Fiends! Tell me, Artyom,’ Hunter turned to him straight on, and the boy understood: he was about to tell him something really important. ‘Do you have a secret? Something that you wouldn’t tell anyone on the station, but that you could tell a passer-by perhaps?’

‘Well . . .’ Artyom hesitated and for a perceptive person that would have been enough in order to understand that such a secret existed.

‘And I have a secret too. Why don’t we swap. I need to share this secret with someone but I want to be sure that they won’t blab. That’s why you give me yours - and don’t let it be any crap about a girl, but something serious, something that no one else should ever hear. And I’ll tell you something. This is important to me. Very important - you understand?’

Artyom wavered. Curiosity, of course, had got him, but he was frightened of telling his secret to a man who was not only interesting to talk to and who had seen many adventures but, by the looks of things, was also a cold-blooded murderer, who wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest to remove any obstacle in his path. And what if Artyom happened to have been an accessory to the incursion of the dark ones . . .

Hunter looked into his eyes reassuringly. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of in me. I guarantee inviolability!’ And he winked fraternally.

They had walked up to the guest tent that had been given to Hunter for the night but they remained outside. Artyom thought again for the last time and decided what to do. He took in some more air and then hurriedly, in one breath, laid out the whole story of the expedition to the Botanical Gardens. When he was finished, Hunter was silent for a time, digesting what he’d heard. Then, in a hoarse voice, he said, ‘Well, generally speaking, you and your friends should be killed for doing that, from a disciplinary point of view. However, I already guaranteed you inviolability. But that doesn’t extend to your friends . . .’

Artyom’s heart jumped, he felt his body freeze in fear and his legs falter. He wasn’t able to speak and so he waited in silence for the verdict.

‘But in light of your age and the general brainlessness of that event, and also the fact that it happened a while ago, you are pardoned. Go on.’ And so that Artyom could be brought out of his prostration sooner, Hunter winked again at him, this time even more reassuringly. ‘But know that you’d be shown no mercy by your fellow inhabitants at this station. So you have voluntarily given over to me a powerful weapon against you yourself. And now listen to my secret . . .’

And while Artyom was regretting his big mouth, Hunter continued:

‘I haven’t come across the whole metro system to this station for no reason. I’m not giving up on my own task. Danger should be eliminated, as you have probably heard many times today. Should and will be eliminated. I do that. Your stepfather is afraid of it. He is slowly turning into their instrument, as far as I can see. He is resisting them more and more reluctantly and he’s trying to get me to join him. If the ground water thing is true then the option of exploding the tunnel is, of course, obsolete. But your story has clarified something for me. If the dark ones first made their way here after your expedition, then they’re coming from the Botanical Gardens. Something has been growing there that isn’t right, in that Botanical Garden, if that’s where they were born . . . And that means that you can block them there, closer to the surface. Without the threat of unleashing the ground waters. But the devil knows what’s happening at the seven-hundredth metre of the northern tunnel. That’s where your powers end. That’s where the powers of darkness begin - the most widespread form of government in the whole Moscow metro system. I’m going there. No one should know this. Tell Sukhoi that I asked you lots of questions about conditions at the station, and that will be the truth. You don’t have to explain anything, right - if everything goes smoothly, I’ll explain everything to whoever needs to know. But it might be that . . .’ He stopped short for a second, and looked at Artyom more closely. ‘That I don’t come back. Whether there’s an explosion or not, if I don’t come back before the following morning, someone should say what’s happened to me, and tell my colleagues about the fiends that are making trouble in your northern tunnels. I have seen all my former acquaintances here at this station today, including your stepfather. And I feel, I almost see, that there’s a little worm of doubt and horror crawling through the brains of everyone who has been exposed to their influence. I can’t rely on people with worm-eaten brains. I need a healthy person, whose ability to reason has not yet been stormed by these ghouls. I need you.’

‘Me? But how can I help you?’ Artyom was surprised.

‘Listen to me. If I don’t come back, then you have to, at any cost - at any cost you hear! - you have to go to Polis. To Gorod . . . And look there for a man with the nickname Melnik. Tell him the whole story. And one other thing. I will give you something, which you will give to him as proof that I sent you. Come inside for a minute.’

Hunter took the lock off the entrance, lifted the flap of the tent and ushered Artyom inside.

There wasn’t much room in the tent due to the huge camouflage rucksack and the impressively large trunk which were standing on the floor. By the light of the lantern, Artyom saw a dark shimmering gun-barrel in the depths of the bag, which, by the looks of it, was a reassembled army hand machine gun. Before Hunter could manage to close the bag so he wouldn’t see, Artyom caught a glimpse of a matte black metal box containing machine-gun magazines, laid in a dense row next to the weapon, and small green anti-personnel grenades on the other side of it.

Without any commentary on this arsenal, Hunter opened the side-pocket of his rucksack and withdrew a small metal capsule from it, made of a machine-gun cartridge case. The side where there should have been a bullet was screwed up into a little twist.

‘Here, take this. Don’t wait for me if I’ve been gone two days. And don’t be afraid. You will meet people everywhere who will help you. You have to do this! You know that everything depends on you. I don’t have to explain that to you - right? That’s it. Wish me success and get out of here. I need to catch up on some sleep.’

Artyom managed to utter a word of goodbye, shook Hunter’s hand and started wandering over to his tent, stooping under the weight of the mission on his shoulders.

 

 

 

Artyom was sure he would be cross-examined as soon as he got home. His stepfather would shake him down, trying to find out what he spoke about with Hunter. But, contrary to his expectations, his stepfather wasn’t awaiting him with a rack and Spanish boots but was snoring peacefully - he hadn’t had a chance to sleep in the last twenty-four hours.

Since he’d been on night patrol and slept that day, Artyom was again going to have to work the night shift - this time at the tea-factory.

Decades of life underground, in the darkness interspersed with patches of dull-red light, makes you lose a true sense of day and night. At night, the station’s lighting was a little weaker (as it was on the trains of long ago so that people could sleep) but the lights never went out completely except in the case of an accident. Though it had become aggravated by years of living in darkness, human vision was nonetheless comparable with the eyesight of the other creatures that lived in the tunnels and abandoned passages.

The division of ‘day’ and ‘night’ had probably come about by force of habit, rather than by necessity. ‘Night’ made sense because the majority of inhabitants at the station were more comfortable with the idea of everyone sleeping at the same time, letting the cattle rest, turning down the lights and imposing restrictions on noise. The inhabitants of the station could find out the time by the two station clocks, placed over the entrance to the tunnels on either side. These clocks were considered to be as important as strategic objects like the arms store, the water filters and the electric generator. They were always looked after, and the smallest problems with them were immediately dealt with, and any delinquents attempting to take them down were dealt with very strictly, sometimes sent into exile from the station.

Here there was a criminal code, by which the
VDNKh
judged criminals in swift trials, and it was always being applied to extraordinary situations which were resolved and then new rules were established. Any actions against strategic objects brought about the most severe punishments. For smoking and the setting of fires on platforms, as well as the careless handling of weapons and explosives, you would be immediately expelled from the station and your property confiscated.

These draconian measures can be explained by the fact that several stations had already been burnt to nothing. Fire spread instantly through the small tent cities, devouring everything, and the wild screams of awful pain would echo in the ears of the neighbouring stations for months afterwards. Charred bodies stuck to the melted plastic and canvas, and sets of teeth, cracked from the inconceivable heat of the flames, gnashed in the light of the lanterns held by frightened traders who had accidentally come upon this traveller’s hell.

In order to avoid the repetition of such a grim fate in the rest of the stations, the careless setting of fires became a serious criminal offence. Theft, sabotage and the deliberate avoidance of labour were also punished with exile. But, considering that almost everyone was always visible to each other and that there were only two hundred or so people at the station, these kinds of crimes were rare and usually perpetrated by strangers.

Labour was compulsory, and everyone, young and old, had to fulfil a daily quota. The pig farm, the mushroom plantation, the tea-factory, the meat-packing plant, the fire and engineer services, the weapon shop - every inhabitant worked in one or two of these places. Men were also required to go on military duty in one of the tunnels once every forty-eight hours. And when some kind of conflict arose, or some new danger appeared from the depths of the metro, the patrols were strengthened and they put a reserve force on the pathways, at the ready.

Life was so meticulously arranged here, and
VDNKh
had established such a reputation for it that there were many wishing to live there. But it was very rare for outsiders to be taken into the settlement.

There was a few more hours until his night shift at the tea-factory and Artyom, not knowing what to do with himself, trudged over to see his friend Zhenya, the same one with whom he undertook the headspinning adventure to the surface. Zhenya was his age, but unlike Artyom, he lived with his own real family: his father, mother, and younger sister. There were only a handful of incidents where a whole family had been saved, and Artyom secretly envied his friend. Of course, he loved his stepfather very much and respected him even now that the man’s nerves had got the better of him. But nonetheless, he knew that Sukhoi wasn’t his father, and wasn’t his kin altogether - and he never called him ‘Dad’.’