METRO 2033 (56 page)

 

 

 

There was a sheet of paper, taken from a school notebook and folded four times, and a leaf of thick drafting paper with rough pencilled drawings of the tunnels. This was exactly what Artyom had expected to see inside the envelope - a map and the keys to it. While he was running toward Smolenskaya across Kalininskiy Prospect, he hadn’t had time to think about what may have been inside the bag that Daniel had passed to him. The miraculous resolution of a seemingly insoluble problem, something capable of taking from the
VDNKh
and the whole of the metro an incomprehensible and inexorable threat.

A reddish-brown spot had spread in the middle of the sheet of explanations. The paper, glued fast with the Brahmin’s blood, would have to be dampened a bit to reveal its message and great care would have to be taken not to damage the finely written instructions on it.

‘Part Number . . . tunnel . . . D6 . . . intact installations . . . up to 400,000 square metres . . . a water fountain . . . not in good working order . . . unforeseen . . .’ The words sprang at Artyom. Trying to jump from the horizontal lines, they merged into one whole, and their sense remained absolutely incomprehensible to him. Having despaired of shaping them into something sensible, he handed the message to Melnik. The latter took the sheet into his hand with care and fastened his covetous eyes onto the letters. For some time he didn’t say anything, and then Artyom saw how his eyebrows crept upwards with suspicion.

‘This can’t be,’ the stalker whispered. ‘It’s just all nonsense! They couldn’t have overlooked something like this . . .’

He turned the sheet over, looked at it from the other side, and then began to read it again from the very beginning.

‘They kept it for themselves . . . They didn’t tell the military. Not a surprise, really . . . Show them something like this and they’ll immediately take it as something old,’ Melnik mumbled indistinctly while Artyom patiently awaited some explanations. ‘But did they really overlook it? It’s faulty . . . Well, let’s assume it is OK . . . That means they must have checked it!’

‘Can it really help?’: Artyom finally couldn’t stand it.

‘If everything written here is true, then there’s hope,’ the stalker nodded.

‘What’s it about? I didn’t understand a thing.’

Melnik didn’t answer right away. Once more he read the message to the end, then thought for several seconds and only after that did he begin his tale:

‘I had heard about such a thing before. Legends were always flying about, but there are thousands of them in the metro, you see. And we live by legends, and not by bread alone. About University, about the Kremlin and about Polis you can’t make out what is the truth and what was contrived around a bonfire at Ploshchad Ilicha. And so you see . . . Generally, there were rumours that somewhere in Moscow or outside of Moscow a missile unit had survived. Of course, there is no way that could have happened. Military facilities are always the number one target. But the rumours said they were unsuccessful, or they didn’t see it through, or they forgot it - and one missile unit wasn’t damaged at all. They said that someone had even walked there, had seen something there, and, allegedly, the installations were beneath a tarpaulin, brand new in the hangars . . . True, there’s no need for them in the metro - you can’t reach your enemies at such a depth. They stand - well, let them remain standing.’

‘What have missile installations got to do with it?’ Artyom looked at the stalker in amazement and lowered his feet from the couch.

‘The dark ones come to
VDNKh
from the Botanical Garden. Hunter suspected that they come down into the metro from the surface right in that area. It’s logical to assume that they live right up there. As a matter of fact, there are two versions. The first says that they come from a place that is like a beehive, figuratively speaking, not far from the metro entrance. The second says that in truth, there is no beehive, and the dark ones come from outside the city. Then there’s the question: why haven’t we noticed more of them anywhere else? It is illogical.

‘Although, perhaps, it’s a matter of time. Generally, this is the situation: if they arrive from somewhere far away, we won’t be able to do anything with them anyhow. We blow up the tunnels beyond the
VDNKh
or even beyond Prospect Mir - sooner or later they’ll find new entrances.

‘Barricading ourselves in the metro will be our only option, closing ourselves in tight, and forgetting about returning to the surface and forever subsisting on pigs and mushrooms. As a stalker, I can say with certainty that we won’t last so long. But! If they have a beehive, and it is somewhere close by as Hunter thought . . .’

‘Missiles?’ Artyom said at last.

‘A salvo of twelve rockets with high explosive fragmentation warheads covers an area of 400,000 square metres,’ Melnik read, finding the necessary place in the message. ‘Several such salvos from the Botanical Garden will turn them to dust.’

‘But you just said that these are legends,’ Artyom objected.

‘Well, the Brahmins say they aren’t.’ The stalker waved the sheet. ‘It even explains here how to find our way to the location of this military unit. True, it also says that the installations are partially inoperable.’

‘Well, just how then do we get there?’

‘D-6. It mentions D-6 here. Metro-2. The location of one of the entrances is indicated. They maintain that the tunnel leads from there towards this unit. But they stipulate themselves that unforeseen obstacles may arise on trying to get through to Metro-2.’

‘Unseen observers?’ Artyom recalled a conversation he had heard once.

‘Observers? That’s rubbish and nonsense.’ Melnik wrinkled his face.

‘The missile unit was also just a legend,’ Artyom added.

‘And it remains a legend as long as I haven’t seen it myself,’ the stalker cut him short.

‘And where is the exit to Metro-2?’

‘It’s written here: Mayakovskaya station. That’s strange . . . As many times as I’ve been to Mayakovskaya, I never heard anything like that.’

‘So what will we do now?’ Artyom was curious.

‘Come with me,’ the stalker answered. ‘You have a bite, relax, and I’ll think about it for a while. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.’

Only when Melnik began to talk about food did Artyom suddenly become aware of how hungry he was. He sprang to the cold, tiled floor and was at the point of hobbling toward his boots when the stalker stopped him with a gesture.

‘Leave your shoes and all your clothes, put them there in that box. They will clean and disinfect them. They will also check your rucksack. Over there on the table are trousers and a jacket, put those on.’

 

Smolenskaya looked gloomy: a low semi-circular ceiling and narrow arches in massive walls lined with marble that was once white. Although decorative false columns overhung from the arches and well-preserved plasterwork adorned the walls at the top, all of it only accentuated his first impression.

The station gave the impression of a citadel besieged for a long time that its defenders had adorned in their own manner, giving the place an even more stern appearance. The double cement wall with the massive steel doors along both sides of the pressurized gate, the concrete firing points at the entrances to the tunnels, all said that the inhabitants here had grounds to fear for their safety. Women were hardly seen at Smolenskaya, but all the men were carrying weapons. When Artyom asked Melnik directly what happened at this station, the latter only vaguely shook his head and said that he could not see anything unusual here.

However, a strange sensation of tension hanging in the air did not leave Artyom. It was as if everyone here was waiting for something. The stalls were arranged in a line in the centre of the hall, and all the arches were left free, as though they were afraid to obstruct them so as not to hinder an emergency evacuation. At the same time, all the housing was situated exclusively in the spaces between the arches.

Halfway along each train platform, where it went down to the rails, sat duty personnel, who constantly kept the tunnels under observation from both sides. The almost total silence at the station added to the picture. The people here spoke in low voices among themselves, sometimes going into a whisper altogether, as if they were afraid that their voices may drown out some kind of troubling sounds coming from the tunnels.

Artyom tried to recall what he knew about Smolenskaya. Did it perhaps have dangerous neighbours? No, on one side the rails led to the bright and safe Polis, the heart of the metro, and the other tunnel led to Kievskaya, about which Artyom remembered only that it was populated mainly by those very same ‘Caucasians’ he had seen at Kitai Gorod and in the cells of the fascists, at Pushinskaya. But these were normal people, and they were hardly worth being so concerned about . . .

A dining room was located in the central tent. Dinner-time, judging by everything, had already passed, because only a few people remained at the crude, homemade tables. Sitting Artyom at one of the tables, Melnik returned a few minutes later with a bowl in which an unappetizing grey, thin gruel smoked. Under the reassuring glance of the stalker, Artyom dared to try it and didn’t stop until the bowl had been emptied. The local dish turned out to be simply remarkable in taste, although it was difficult to define from what specifically it had been prepared. One could say for certain that the cook hadn’t spared the meat.

Having finished eating and putting the earthen bowl aside, Artyom calmly looked around. Two men still sat at the neighbouring table, speaking quietly. While they were dressed in conventional quilted jackets, there was something in their appearance that caused him to imagine them in full protective suits and with automatic rifles at the ready.

Artyom caught the look one of them exchanged with Melnik. Not a word was spoken aloud. The man in the quilted jacket examined Artyom casually and returned to his leisurely conversation.

Several more minutes slipped by in silence. Artyom attempted to speak once more with him about the station, but Melnik answered reluctantly and curtly.

Then the man in the quilted jacket stood up from his seat, walked to their table and, leaning towards Melnik, said, ‘What will we do with
Kievskaya?
It’s coming to a head . . .’

‘OK, Artyom, go have a rest,’ the stalker said. ‘The third tent from here is for guests. The bed has already been made up. I made the arrangements. I’m going to stay here for a while, I have to talk to these guys.’

With a familiar unpleasant feeling as if they had sent him away so that he couldn’t overhear adult conversations, Artyom obediently stood up and pushed off towards the exit. At least he’d be able to study the station alone, he consoled himself.

Now, when he was able to take a closer more attentive look, Artyom discovered several more small peculiarities. The hall had been perfectly cleared, and the assorted junk with which the majority of the inhabited stations in the metro were unavoidably filled was completely missing here. And Smolenskaya was larger and did not give the appearance of an inhabited station. It suddenly reminded him of a picture from a history book in which a military encampment of Roman legionnaires was depicted. Correctly and symmetrically organized space, which faced in all directions, nothing of excess, sentries placed everywhere and reinforced entrances and exits . . .

He didn’t manage to walk around the station for very long. Having been confronted by the frankly suspicious glances of its inhabitants, Artyom understood after only several minutes that they were watching him, and so he preferred to retreat to the guest tent.

A made-up cot really did await him there, and in a corner stood a plastic bag with his name on it.

Artyom sunk into the springs of the squeaking cot and opened the bag. Inside were the things that he had left in the rucksack. Digging in it for a second, he drew from the bag the children’s book he had brought from the surface. He wondered if they had checked his little treasure with a Geiger counter. Certainly the dosimeter would have begun to click nervously near the book, but Artyom preferred not to think about it. He leafed through a few pages, making out the slightly faded pictures on the yellowed paper, delaying the moment when he would find his own photograph between the next pages.

Would it be his?

Whatever happened to him now, to the
VDNKh,
and to the whole metro, first he must return to his own station in order to ask Sukhoi, ‘Who’s in this photo? Is it my mother or not?’ Artyom pressed his lips to the picture, then again laid it between the pages and concealed the book back into the rucksack. For a second it had shown to him that something in his life was gradually falling into place. And a moment later, he was asleep.

 

When Artyom opened his eyes and left the tent, he didn’t even consider how much the station had changed. Fewer than ten complete housing units remained there. The rest had been broken or burned. The walls were covered with soot and pocked by bullets, the plaster was crumbling from the ceiling and lay on the floor in large pieces. Around the edges of the platform flowed ominous black rivulets, the precursors of a coming flood. There was hardly anyone in the hall, only a small girl playing with toys alongside one of the tents. From the other platform, where the staircase of a new exit from the station went, muffled screams were heard. Only two surviving emergency lighting lamps dispelled the darkness in the hall.

The submachine gun that Artyom had left at the head of the cot, had disappeared somewhere. Searching the whole stall in vain, he resigned himself to the fact that he had to go unarmed.

Just what had happened here? Artyom would have liked to question the little girl who was playing, but she, having just seen him, desperately broke into tears so that to get anything from her proved to be impossible.