Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (43 page)

“Don’t fear for me.” Answered the girl silently. “I know how I can stop Hunter. He has two sides … And I’ve witnessed both of them. The one wants to see blood and the other wants to save lives”

Homer put his hands over his head. “What are you talking about? There are no more sides, just one single monster in human form. Maybe a year ago …”

Hastily the old man told him off the conversation between Melnik and Hunter but Sasha couldn’t be convinced.

The longer she listened to Homer the surer she got that she had been right. She searched for words to explain it to the others: “It’s like that. The killer inside of him betrays the other. He tells the other one that he doesn’t have a choice.

The other on is thirsty for blood and the other one by his longing to save people … That’s why Hunter wants to get to the
Tulskaya
so badly, because both of his half’s drag him there! And I have to separate them from each other. As soon as he has the choice to safe without killing …”

“My god! He won’t even listen to you! What is it that still drives you?”

“Your book” Sasha smiled at him. “I know that it’s not over yet. The end isn’t written yet”

“Have you lost your mind? What foolish talk”

Mumbled Homer desperately. “Just why did I tell you of it?”

He grabbed Leonid’s arm. “Young man, at least you … I beg of you, I know that you’re not a bad man and you didn’t lie with bad intentions. Take her with you. That’s what you want isn’t it? You’re both young and beautiful. You should live! She can’t go there, you understand? And you too.

There … Is going to be a terrible massacre. And none of your lies are going to stop anyone from …”

“It wasn’t a lie.” Answered the musician polite.

“Should I give you my word?”

Homer stopped. “Well I would like to believe you.

But Hunter … You’ve only seen him for a short time.

Leonid cleared his throat. “But heard more than enough about him.”

“But with what do you want to stop him? With your flute? Or do you think that he’s going to listen to the girl?

Something controls him … Something that no longer listens to anything else”

Leonid turned to Hunter and said: “Actually I fully agree with you. But she asked me for it. And as a gentleman …” He winked to Sasha.

“Don’t you understand? this isn’t a game!” Homer looked at the girl pleading, and then at Leonid.

“I know.” said Sasha serious.

And the musician added calmly: “Everything is a game”

If Leonid was really Moskwin’s offspring it was possible that he knew something about the epidemic that Hunter didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell them. Homer thought Leonid was a liar, but what if the fever could be fought with radiation? Against his strong will and common sense the old man tried to find proof tor this theory. Hadn’t he wished exactly for this a few days ago? Was at the end of the day the blood in his mouth and nausea just the symptoms of radiation sickness? The dose which he had gotten from the
march over the
Kachovskaya
line must have been high enough get rid of any infection.

How easy he let himself be lead astray!

If it was right, what did that mean for the
Tulskaya
?

What did that mean for Hunter? Sasha hoped that she could make him stop. And she really seemed to have a strange power of the brigadier. But inside of him were two antagonists: The one may have thought about the chain the girl had tried to put him on that it felt like soft silk and for the other it had burnt like glowing iron. Who of the two would be in command of Hunter’s body in the all deciding moment?

This time the
Polyanka
had no pictures ready for them, whether for him nor for Sasha or Leonid. The station seemed empty and dead. Was that a good or a bad sign?

Maybe it was just the movement of the air that blew through the tunnel. Blowing away all hallucinogenic gasses.

Maybe Homer had made a grave mistake and there was no more future the
Polyanka
could show him.

“What does emerald mean?” Asked Sasha suddenly.

“An emerald is a green shimmering diamond.” Said Homer confused. “Emerald just means green”

“Strange.” Said the girl sunken in thoughts. “That means that the emerald city really exists …”

“What are you talking about?” Said Leonid.

“Oh just … You know.” She looked at the musician again. “I am going to search for it now, your city. And some day I am going to find it”

Homer shook his head; he didn’t believe Leonid when he had said that he was sorry.

Sasha had been sunken in thoughts the whole time and again and again she had whispered to herself and a few times she had sighed. Then she looked at Homer searching:

“Have you written down what happened with me?”

“I … Am working on that”

She nodded her head. “Good”

At the
Dobryninskaya
something was cooking.

Hanza had doubled their guards and the silent and dark soldiers at the entrance held their ground and refused to let Homer and the others through. Whether the bullets of the musician nor their reasoning could impress them. Finally he had an epiphany: He ordered them to connect him to Andrey Andreyevitsch.

After a long half hour finally the radio operator stumbled to them rolling a thick cable behind him. Homer talked into the apparatus threatening; he said they were the
first of the troop of the order. This halfway true statement was enough that they were lead through the station right away.

In the middle hallway it was hot as if somebody had pumped all the air out of the station. Even that it was late didn’t seem to bother anyone because everybody was on their legs.

Finally they stood in the greeting room of the commander of the
Dobryninskaya
.

He welcomed them, sweating and run down, with dark eyes and an unpleasant smell. The adjutant was nowhere to be seen. Andrey Andreyevitsch looked around nervous when he didn’t see Hunter and he grunted: “When are they going to arrive?”

“Soon.” Promised Homer

“At the
Serpuchovskaya
a riot is in progress.” The commander wiped over his face and walked from one end of the greeting room to the other. “Somebody told them about the epidemic. Nobody knows for what they should be afraid of and now they are saying that gasmask don’t help”

“That’s true.” Said Leonid.

“At one of the southern tunnels that lead to the
Tulskaya
a complete set of guards have left their posts.

Cowardly pigs! In the second tunnel that leads to the train with the people from the sect, they are still standing even thought these fanatics have started a siege and are screaming something of a judgment day. And at my own stations hell can rise up at any moment. Where are they?

They are our last hope!”

Suddenly you didn’t hear the loud cursing in the station anymore. Somebody yelled and the barking sounds of the guards joined in. After nobody answered Andrey Andreyevitsch he pressed himself back into his office, a little bit later they heard how the bottle neck clanged against the drinking glass. As if he had just waited till the commander would leave the station the red lamp of the telephone on top of the desk of the adjutant started to blink. It was the apparatus with the name of the
Tulskaya
on it.

Homer hesitated one, two seconds then he stepped to the desk, licked his dry lips and took a deep breath.

“
Dobryninskaya
here!”

“What am I supposed to say?” Artyom looked confused at the commander.

But he was still unconscious. The fainting eyes were like behind a curtain and rolled upwards again and again without a goal. From time to time he had to cough cramped.

The bayonet had penetrated his lung.

“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.