Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (42 page)

In a few moments the bumpers of both vehicles would hit each other and they would board their railcar …

Sasha looked at Leonid frantic, who had seemed to have lost his mind because he was suddenly undressing himself.

In front of them was the defense line, sandbags and tank stoppers made out of steel: The goal of their escape.

Now two search lights would be pointed on them and two heavy machine guns. They would hit them like a hammer an anvil.

Just one more minute and it would all be over.

Salvation (Chapter 18)

The group was a few dozen meters long. They were the best fighters of the
Sevastopolskaya
, Denis Michailovitsch had choosen every single one of them carefully. Their small helmet lamps flickered in the darkness of the tunnel and suddenly the commander thought that the whole formation looked like giant swarm of glowworms that was flying through the night.

A warm and good smelling summer night at the
Krim
, over the cypress and near the soft sounding ocean. This place to where the colonel hoped he would go after his death …

A pleasant shiver went over him but at the same time he shook himself, put on his dark look and yelled at himself. Yes, even he had started to get weak. It was his age!

He let the last soldier pass him, opened his steel cigarette box and took one of his last self made cigarette out of it, smelled at it and lit his lighter.

It was a good day. He still had luck, everything happened as planned. They had passed the
Nagornaya
without any casualties. One single soldier had disappeared for a moment but he had returned to the column. All were happy:

To go to war was easier then to wait for eternity and not knowing what was going on.

Also Denis Michailovitsch had allowed them to get a good night sleep before the fight. Just he himself hadn’t been able to close one eye.

Fate had always just been a chain of coincidental events for him so the old fighter couldn’t understand why someone could trust himself to it. Since he had gone to the small expedition to the
Kachovskaya
there had been no message from them. It was possible that even Hunter wasn’t immortal.

What had he been thinking when he had sent the half crazy brigadier and the old story telling old man? He couldn’t wait anymore.

The plan was that the main part of their fighters would go through the
Nachimovski prospect
,
Nagornaya
and the
Nagatinskaya
to the southern gate of the
Tulskaya
and take the station by surprise. He had men on the surface as well. Their orders were to get into the tunnels through the vents and eliminate the guards if there were still some. Finally they would open the gate for the main force. It was all about a question of military strategy, it didn’t matter who was occupying the station.

They had needed three days to locate the vents and excavate them. Now some stalkers were with them to go down and let them in. They would only need a few more hours.

A few more hours, then it would all be decided and Denis Michailovitsch’s thoughts were his own again. He would be able to sleep and eat again. The plan was easy, carefully planned and without any gaps. Still, the colonel had a strange feeling in his stomach and his heart was racing like eighteen years ago when he had went to his first fight at the village in the mountains …

The hot air of his self made cigarette calmed him down a bit. Finally he threw away the rest, put his mask on and ran behind the brigade with hastily steps.

A short while after that they were standing in front of the steel door. Now they could catch their breath. Denis Michailovitsch would use the time before the storm to go through different strategies with his commanders. With one thing the old man had been right thought the colonel and smiled:

Why run at a fortress head on when you could open it from the inside? That was the story with the Trojan horse, from whom was that story again?

Denis Michailovitsch took a look at the geiger counter, radiation was low and he put off his gasmask. The officers followed his example and then the rest of the fighters.

They had earned a last breather!

There had always been gaffers at polis. Most were poor people that fought themselves through the dark stations and struggled for their daily meal. Now wandered with wide open eyes and open mouths through the galleries and halls.

And so almost no one paid attention to Homer while he made his rounds at the
Borovizkaya
, went with his hands over the narrow pillars of the
Alexandrovski sad
, torn from one side to the other and had even fallen in love with the chandeliers of the
Arbatskaya
.

Premonition had griped his heart and didn’t let him go: This was his stay at Polis. What happened in a few hours at the
Tulskaya
would shake his entire life. Yes, it may even marked his end. But he had decided: He would do what he had to do. He would allow Hunter to massacre the station and burn it down … But then he would try and kill him. He knew
that if the brigadier would suspect anything he would just break his neck immediately. But maybe he already died at the storm of the
Tulskaya
and that would mean that everything would already be over at that point. But everything would go after his plan; Homer would return to his lonely nest and fill the last white papers of his book, from the intrigue to the finally. The last would be that he shot Hunter his back …

Was he able to do it? Would he have the courage?

Even thinking about it made Homers hands shiver.

Calm down, calm down. Everything would be solved by itself, now wasn’t the right time for those thoughts …

But that didn’t make him any less nervous.

It had been his luck that the girl had disappeared!

Homer didn’t know where her adventure had lead her. How had he been able to drive her into this lion’s cage?

His over exaggerated ambition of an author had been the cause of that and apparently he had forgotten that she wasn’t a creature of his fantasy. Homer’s novel had turned out differently from what he had thought. He had loaded to much on himself. How would he even be able to get it to the people? He didn’t even have space for the crowd of people who was passing the old man. Also his novel shouldn’t have become a big mass grave with meter long lists of names in
front of his eyes. Writing made off bronze letters which didn’t tell you anything about the faces of the dead.

No it was impossible! His already with holes riddled memory wouldn’t be able to take all this people on board. The sweaty face of the merchant who was selling candy nor the pointy face of the girl who was giving him a bullet. The smile of her mother, bright as a Madonna or the sticky smile of the soldier who had just passed her. The deep wrinkles in the faces of the beggars or the wrinkles of the smile of the thirty year old woman …

Who of them was violent, who was a scrooge, a thief, a traitor, a lively one, a prophet, a righteous one, who didn’t care and who hadn’t decided about it yet?

All of that Homer would never know. He didn’t know what the merchant was really thinking while he looked at the girl, how to interpret the smile of the mother that had been lit by the look of the soldiers. Nor what job the old man had had before his legs had stopped working. It wasn’t in Homers power to decide how had the right to be in his story and who didn’t deserve it. Six milliards of people annihilated, six milliards of people!

Was it a coincidence that only a few thousands had been able to rescue themselves?

Train operator Serov which place Nikolai had taken over had looked at life like a at a soccer game. Humanity had lost, he used to tell Nikolai but both of us are still running around.

Why do you think is that? Because it is still nil-nil in our life, that’s why! The referee had given us more time.

Till the final whistle we have to find out why we are here and finish our last things, get everything out of ourselves, then we make the last pass and flew towards the shining goal … He had been a mystery, old Serov. Homer had never asked the soccer fan if he had already shot his goal. But he had been reassured that he, Nikolay Ivanovitsch Nikolayev was still able to settle his score. And from Serov he had been convinced that nobody was in the metro out of pure coincidence.

But it was completely impossible to write about all of them! Was it even worth a try? In this moment Homer saw one face in the thousands of unknown ones. Exactly the one he had expected the least.

Leonid threw away his coat, pulled his pullover over his head and finally his white t-shirt. He moved the shirt like a flag from one side to the other; not caring for the bullets that rushed through the air all around them. Something strange had happened: The diesel powered railcar started to fall behind and the fortress in front of them didn’t open fire like they had thought.

“My father would kill me now!” Said Leonid after he had stopped the railcar in front of the tank stoppers. The brakes were howling.

“What are you doing? What are we doing.?” Asked Sasha, still out of breath. She didn’t know how they had been able to stay out of harm’s way at this race.

“We surrender!” He laughed. “That is the tunnel to the
Bibliotek imeni Lenina
, it’s the border to polis. We are now deserters.”

Guards ran to them and ordered them to get down from the railcar. Then when they opened Leonid’s passport they exchanged a few looks, put the handcuffs back and lead them to the station. There they brought them to the hall of the guards. The soldiers were whispering to each other and
looked at them respectful, they left the room to inform the leaders of the station.

Leonid got comfortable in one of the scratched armchairs. Soon after he jumped up, looked through the open door and waved at Sasha. “They are even sloppier then at the red line.” He said. “Nobody is guarding us”

They slipped out of the guard room, walked slowly along the corridor but got faster and faster until they finally started running. Hand in hand, so they wouldn’t get lost in the crowd of people. A little bit later they heard the first whistles in behind their backs but to disappear in this giant station was easy, here even more people were around them than at the
Pavelezkaya
. Not even in her visions off the surface she could have imagines such a crowd! And it was so bright here. Just like on the surface. Sasha put her hand in front of her eyes and looked only through a small gap between her fingers.

Wherever she looked, she saw wonderful things, faces of stone, pillars and if not for Leonid she would have let go of his fingers, stumbled and got lost. Some day she would return to here she promised herself. Some day …

“Sasha?”

She turned around and looked at Homer, he was looking at her afraid, angry and surprised. She smiled: Yes, she had missed the old man!

“What are you doing here?” He didn’t have to ask the two young people that stupidest question out of all.

“We want to the
Dobryninskaya
!” She answered out of breath. They now ran slower so the old man could keep up with them.

“That’s madness! You can’t go there … I won’t allow it!”

But none of Homer’s arguments he told them while he was gasping for air could convince them.

When they had reached the entrance of the defense line at the
Borovizkaya
it seemed that nobody had informed the border guards of their escape.

“I am here on orders of Melnik. Let me through immediately.” Said Homer to the officer on duty. He wanted to open his mouth but found no words, saluted the old man and moved out of the way.

When the post had sunken into darkness, Leonid asked politely: “You did lie, or not?”

“And?” growled Homer.

“The important part is that you do it convincingly” said Leonid. “Then only pros realize it”

“Stay away with your teachings!” Homer’s forehead got wrinkles and he switched his lamp on and off a few times because its rays had gotten weaker.

“We’re going to the
Serpuchovskaya
, but I won’t let you go any further!”

“That’s not the important thing.” Said Sasha.

“There is a cure!”

“What?” Homer stopped, had to cough and looked at Sasha almost afraid. “Really?”

“Yes! Radiation!”

“The virus can be neutralized through radiaton.” Said Leonid.

“But a virus is like a hundredth, no a thousand times more resistant to radiation than a human! And you’re immune system is weakened by radiation too.” Homer lost his control and turned to Leonid: “What did you tell her? Why did you drag her here? Don’t you know what is going to happen there! Nobody, not I or you can stop it! Take her with
you and hide at a secure place! And you …” He turned to Sasha. “How could you believe him … That pro!” He spat out his last words full of contempt.