Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (39 page)

It smelled of smoke, poorness and pride. A shadow attached himself to their steps immediately. Wherever they went he followed them up to exactly ten steps.

The girl pushed on but the musician held her back.

“Not now. We have to wait.” He found room on a stone bench and opened the locks of his flute box.

“Why?”

“You can only open the door at a specific time”

“When?” Sasha’s view turned to the station’s clock.

If it was on time they had only twelve hours.

“I’ll tell you soon enough”

“You’re delaying everything!” She stared at him and distanced herself. “Sometimes you promise to help me and sometimes you try to delay me!”

“Yes.” He breathed in and looked into her eyes. “I want to delay you”

“Why? For what?”

“I am not playing with you. Believe me, I would’ve found somebody to play by now, I don’t get a no that fast. I think I am in love. By god, how banal that sounds …”

“You don’t believe that in your life! You just say that, that’s all”

His voice was still dead serious. “There is a method to tell the difference between love and a game”

“When you lie to get someone is that love?”

“You can always change the rules of a game. Love just destroys your entire former life. True love doesn’t care for circumstances”

“I don’t have a problem with that. I have never had a life. Now lead me to the gate”

Leonid looked at the girl with his heavy eyes, leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms in front of his chest. A few times he breathed in as if he wanted to tell Sasha no, but then he breathed out again without saying one word.

Finally he got smaller and admitted: “I can’t go with you. They won’t let me go back”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t go back to the ark. The banished me from it”

“Banished? Because of what?”

“Because of a certain thing.” He turned away and spoke very silently even thought Sasha was just standing just one step next to him. She still couldn’t understand everything.

“It … was a personal story. With one of the head librarians.

He made me look like a fool in front of others …

In the same night I got drunk and burned down the library. The librarian burnt with the rest of his entire family. It was a pity that they had gotten rid of the death sentence, I would have deserved it. Instead they banished me. For life.

For me there is no way back”

Sasha’s hands became fists. “Why did you led me here then? Who did you have to burn my time too?

“You could try to ring.” Mumbled Leonid.

“Second side tunnel, twenty meters from the gate there is a marking of white paint. Exactly under it, at the same height as the ground there is the button of a bell. You have to ring three times short, three times long and three times short, that is the signal for returning watchers …”

Leonid helped Sasha to pass the three guard posts and then he went back to the station. As a goodbye he wanted to put an old assault rifle into her hand, which he had gotten somewhere, but Sasha didn’t want it. Three times short, three times long, three times short was all she needed. And a lamp.

The tunnel behind the
Sportivnaya
made a dark, silent impression at first and so every guard post that passed reminded her more and more of a small fortress.

Sasha wasn’t afraid. She just thought about one thing: Soon she would see the doorstep to the emerald city.

And if the city wasn’t real she didn’t have to be afraid any longer.

The side tunnel was there were Leonid had said it would be. A damaged grid was in front of the entrance but it was big enough for Sasha to slip through. After a few hundredth feet she saw the steel wall of a security door which made an eternal and unshaken impression.

Sasha counted forty feet and indeed: She saw the white markings on the wet and at the same parts sweating wall out of the darkness. She found the the bell immediately. She searched with her hands for the button and put another look at the watch that Leonid had given her. She had made it!

She had gotten there in time! She just had to wait another few moments and she closed her eyes …

Three times short

Three times long.

Three times short.

Who’s talking? (Chapter 17)

Artyom lowered his glowing barrel. Sweat and tears burnt in his eyes. But the back of his hand only hit his gasmask. Should he just rip it off? What difference did it make now?

What difference did it make now …

The screams of the infected had apparently been louder than the salves of the rifles. How else was could he explain it to himself that more and more had streamed out of the wagon and stormed into the hail of led? Hadn’t they heard the thunder, hadn’t they not understood that they were executed in their close area? For what had they hoped? Or hadn’t they cared at all?

In front of the entrance to the train platform was covered for meters with bloated corpses. Some were still twitching; yes even some of them were moaning on this terrible graveyard like hill. The pest had spilled out. Those who were still in the wagon had cowered down in fear and hid from the bullets.

Artyom looked at the other marksmen. Was he the only one whose hands and knees were shivering? Nobody said a word and even the commander was silent. You could
only here the sighing of the humans who were still in the overcrowded train, like they were cramped trying to suppress bloody coughing. Out of the morgue the last dying man cursed them: “You monsters … Pigs … I’m still alive …

Can’t stand it”

The commander looked for the unlucky until he found him, went to his knees and fired the rest of his clip of his magazine into the man until you could only hear an empty clicking sound and even then he pulled the trigger a few more times.

Then he rose up again, looked at his pistol and strangely cleaned it on his pants. “The rest of you: Stay calm!”

He screamed huskily. “Everybody who tries to leave the hospital without permission will get the same treatment”

“What are we supposed to do with the bodies.”

Asked someone.

“Back into the train. Ivanenko, Aksyonov you do it!”

The stability had been renewed. Artyom could return to his seat again and try to find some sleep: Until the wake-up call there were still a few hours so he could make it till tomorrow …

But it came differently.

Ivanenko made a step back, shook his head and said he refused to touch the in pus covered, half fallen apart bodies. Without hesitation the commander put his pistol at him, but he seemed to have forgotten that he was out of bullets, hissed hatefully and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened but a clicking sound. Ivanenko screamed and ran away.

Suddenly one of the soldiers raised his assault rifle coughing and rammed the bayonet with an oblique movement into the commander’s back. The commander didn’t drop down but turned his head slowly over his shoulder and looked at the attacker behind him.

“What are you doing you damn son of a whore?”

He asked him silently and surprised.

The other one screamed at him: “Soon you’ll get rid of us like as well! There are no more healthy here! Today we kill them and tomorrow you throw us to them into the wagon!” The man moved the gun from one side to the other and tried to pull it out of the commander put didn’t pull the trigger.

Nobody dared to intervene. Even Artyom who had made one step into the other direction had stopped. Finally the bayonet got out of his back. The commander tried to
touch the wound, in vain. He fell to his knees, leaned on his hand and shook his head. It looked like he was fighting against sleep.

Nobody dared to shot at the commander. Even the provocateur who had stabbed him stepped back afraid. Then he ripped his gasmask from his face and screamed over the entire station pass: “Brothers! Stop this torture! Let them go!

They are going to die anyways! And we too! Aren’t we humans?”

“Don’t you dare …” Hissed the commander still on his knees.

The marksmen started to discuss loudly. Suddenly one of the soldier fired the provocateur straight in his face so that he fell onto his back. He was laying right next to the other bodies. But it was too late: With a triumphal howling the infected streamed out of the train, ran stumbling on their thick legs, ripped the rifles out of the hands of the undecided guards and disappeared into all directions. Even the guards started to move: Some of them shot at the sick; others had already joined them and ran into the tunnels leading to the north. To the
Serpuchovskaya
and to the
Nagatinskaya
.

Artyom was still standing as if he was made out of stone and stared at the commander confused. He just refused to die.
At first he was crawling on his hands and feet, then he stood up and started to stumble. It seemed that he had a certain goal.

“You’ll be surprised.” He mumbled. “It’s not that easy to … Me …”

His glassy look stopped at Artyom. He looked at him as if he didn’t recognize who he was and then he barked with the same tone as always: “Popov! Get me to the room of the radio operator!

The guards at northern post have to close the door at all costs …”

The commander leaned on Artyom’s shoulder and both stumbled past the empty train, past the fighting humans and the mountains of trash until they finally reached the of the radio operator. The wound of the commander seemed to not have been fatal but he had lost a lot of blood. So his strength left him and he passed out.

Artyom put the chair in front of the door, took the microphone and dialed the number of the northern guard. The apparatus clicked, there was a rasping sound as if somebody was breathing exhausted and finally silence. It was too late.

He could no longer cut them off. But the
Dobryinskaya
, he had to warn them at least! He rushed to the telephone, pressed both buttons and waited a few seconds …

Thank god, the apparatus was still working! At first he could only hear the whispering echo and then the ringing.

One … Two … Three … Four … Five … Six

Please god, let them answer! If they are still alive, if they aren’t infected yet, let them answer, so that they could have a chance. Let somebody pick up the receiver before the infected reach the station … Artyom would’ve sold his soul for it, if somebody would just pick up the receiver at the other end …

Then the unimaginable happened. The seventh calling broke the silence; a croaking sound was to be heard, in the background a few shreds of words and then a breathless, broken voice cut through the static.

“
Dobryninskaya
here!”

The cell was plunged into half darkness but even the bit of light was enough to notice: The silhouette of this prisoner was to small and lifeless to be the brigadier. It looked like there was a puppet made out of hay behind the bars. The person had collapsed. Probably it was one of the guards, dead. But where was Hunter …

“I almost thought you wouldn’t come.” It sounded the hollow from behind them. “In there it was to … Narrow”

Melnik turned around so fast that Homer couldn’t keep up. In the middle of the passage way to the station was the brigadier. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, as if he mistrusted them and feared to let them go.

Melnik’s cheek twitched. “Is that you?”

“Still.” Hunter cleared his throat strangely. If Homer wouldn’t have know better he could’ve interpreted the sound as some kind of laugh.

“What’s with you? With your face?” Probably Melnik wanted to ask something else entirely. With one gesture of his hand the guards distanced themselves.

Homer was allowed to stay.

“You’re not in the best condition either.” The brigadier cleared his throat again.

“Nothing special.” Melnik made a grimace. “Just too bad that I can’t hug you. The devil take ... How long we’ve searched for you!”

“I know. I had to … Be alone for some time.” Said Hunter in his typical way. “I …didn’t want to go back to the people. Wanted to disappear forever. But then I was afraid …”

“What happened back then, with the dark ones? Is that from them?” Melnik pointed with his head at the violet scars on Hunters face.

“Nothing happened. I wasn’t able to destroy them.”

He touched his scar. “I couldn’t. They … Broke me”