‘I’m from
VDNKh,’
Artyom replied, glancing at him.
‘What do you say! How terrible!’ Leonid Petrovich even put down his knife and fork. ‘They say things are really bad there? I heard they are hanging on by a thread. Half the people have died . . . Is it true?’
A lump stuck in Artyom’s throat. For better or for worse, he had to reach
VDNKh,
see his own kind, perhaps, for the last time. How had he been able to waste valuable time eating? Moving the plate away, he asked for the bill and, despite Ulman’s protests, pulled him along with him, past the counters with meat and clothing in the openings of the arches, past the piles of merchandise, past the bartering peddlers, bustling loaders, the sedately strolling fascist officers, towards the crossing to the Ring line. Over the entrance hung a white cloth with a brown circle in the middle. Two machine gunners in the familiar grey camouflage checked their documents and inspected their things. Artyom had not succeeded in getting through to the Hansa territory with such ease before. Ulman, still chewing a piece of cutlet, dug into his pocket and presented an unknown type of ID to the border guards. They silently moved away a section of the barrier, allowing them in.
‘What kind of a pass is that?’ Artyom was curious.
‘So . . . The award booklet for the medal, “For Service to the Fatherland’,” Ulman laughed it off. ‘Everyone is indebted to our colonel.’
The crossing to the Ring was a strange mixture of fortress and warehouses. The second Hansa border began beyond the footbridges over the tracks: real redoubts had been erected there with machine guns and even a flame-thrower. And further away, next to a memorial - a bronze, bearded guy with a machine gun, a frail girl and a pensive lad with weapons (most likely, the founders of Byelorusskaya or heroes of a battle with mutants, Artyom thought) - a whole garrison of not less than twenty soldiers was deployed.
‘This is because of the Reich,’ Ulman explained to Artyom. ‘It’s like this with the fascists: trust but verify. They didn’t touch Switzerland, of course, but they subjugated France.’
‘I have gaps in my knowledge of history,’ Artyom acknowledged with embarrassment. ‘My stepfather couldn’t find a tenth grade textbook. Though I have read a little about ancient Greece.’
An endless chain of loaders with bundles on their shoulders trailed past the soldiers like ants. The movement was well organized: the bearers descended on one escalator, and they came up, unladen, on the other. A third was intended for the remaining passers-by. Below sat a machine gunner in a glass booth, watching the escalator. He checked Artyom and Ulman’s documents again and issued them papers with the stamp, ‘Temporary Registration - in Transit’ and the date.
This station also was named Byelorusskaya, but the difference from its radial twin was striking: they were like twins separated at birth, one of whom ended up in a royal family and the other who was adopted and grew up poor. All the prosperity of that first Byelorusskaya faded in comparison with the Ring station. It gleamed with shining white walls, fascinated with intricate stucco work on the ceiling and dazzled with neon lamps, of which only three were burning in all the station, but even their light was more than enough. The loaders on the platform were divided into two parts. One group walked to the tracks through arches on the left, the other to the right, casting off their bundles into piles and returning at a run for new ones. Two stops had been made at the tracks: for merchandise, where a small crane had been installed, and for passengers, where a ticket office stood. Once every fifteen or twenty minutes a cargo handcar went past the station. They were outfitted with a peculiar body - board planking on which they had loaded boxes and bundles. Besides the three or four men who stood at the handles of the handcar, there also was a guard on each.
The passenger handcars arrived more rarely - Artyom and Ulman had to wait more than forty minutes. As the ticket collector explained to them, the passenger handcars waited until enough people had gathered so as not to send the workers on errands for no reason. The fact that somewhere in the metro it was still possible to buy a ticket - a cartridge for each stage - and pass from station to station, as before, completely fascinated Artyom. He even forgot about all his problems for a while and simply stood and observed the loading of the merchandise. It showed him how fine life in the metro must have been earlier when huge sparkling trains, not manual handcars, moved along the tracks.
‘That’s your carrier coming!’ the ticket collector announced and he began to ring a small bell. A large handcar, to which was attached a tram with wooden benches, rolled to a stop. Having presented their tickets, they sat down on unoccupied seats. After waiting another few minutes for tardy passengers, the trolley moved on. Half the benches were situated so that the passengers were sitting facing forward and half facing to the rear. Artyom had got a seat facing backwards and Ulman was sitting in the remaining seat, with his back to him.
‘Why are the seats arranged so strangely, in different directions’? Artyom asked of his neighbour, a hale old woman of about sixty years old who was wearing a woollen shawl riddled with holes. ‘It’s uncomfortable you know.’
She threw up her hands.
‘And what? Would you leave the tunnel running wild? You young people are thoughtless! Didn’t you hear what happened over there the other day? Well, such a rat,’ the old woman gestured in dismay, ‘jumped out of an interline, and dragged away a passenger!’
‘It wasn’t a rat!’ a man in a quilted jacket interrupted, turning round. ‘It was a mutant! They have a lot of mutants running about at Kurskaya . . .’
‘And I say, a rat! Nina Prokoievna, my neighbour, told me. Do you think I don’t know?’ The old woman was indignant.
They argued for a long time, but Artyom was no longer listening to their conversation. His thoughts once again had turned to
VDNKh.
He had already decided that, before he went up to the surface to set out for the Ostankino tower with Ulman, he would definitely try to get through to his home station. He still didn’t know how he would convince his partner but he had a bad feeling that this might be his last chance to see his home and friends. And he couldn’t ignore it. Who knew what would happen later? Though the stalker had said that there was nothing complicated about their task, Artyom didn’t really believe that he would be meeting him any time again. However, before starting his own, perhaps, final climb up, he had to at least return to
VDNKh
for a little while. How it sounded . . .
VDNKh ...
Melodic, endearing. ‘I could listen and listen to it,’ Artyom thought. Had his casual acquaintance at Byelorusskaya really been speaking the truth? Was the station really on the point of falling to the onslaught of the dark ones? Were half its defenders already dead? How long had he been absent? Two weeks? Three? He closed his eyes, trying to imagine his beloved arches, the elegant, but reserved lines of the domes, the delicate forging of the copper ventilation grids between them and rows of tents in the hall. The handcar gently swayed in time to the lulling chatter of the wheels, and Artyom didn’t notice that it was putting him to sleep. He was dreaming about
VDNKh
again . . .
Nothing surprised him any more, he wasn’t listening and not trying to understand. The goal of his dream was not at the station, but in the tunnel. Leaving the tent, Artyom went right to the tracks, jumped down and headed south, towards the Botanical Gardens. The darkness no longer frightened him, but something else did: the forthcoming meeting in the tunnel. Who awaited him there? What was the point of it? Why did his courage always fail him in the end?
His twin finally appeared in the depths of the tunnel. Soft confident steps gradually approached, as before, and Artyom felt his nerve failing. However, this time he comported himself better. His knees shook but he was able to control himself and wait until he came right up to the unseen creature. He was covered in a cold, sticky sweat, but did not break into a run when the light ripple of the air told him that the mysterious being was just a few centimetres from his face.
‘Don’t run . . . Look into the eyes of your fate . . .’ a dry, rustling voice whispered into his ear. And here Artyom recalled - and just how had he been able to forget about it in his past nightmares? - that he had a lighter in his pocket. Groping for it, he struck the flint, preparing to see who was speaking to him. And he immediately went numb, feeling only that his feet were taking root in the ground. A dark one stood next to him, not moving. Its dark eyes were without pupils and wide open, searching for his glance. Artyom cried as loudly as he could.
‘Damnation!’ the old woman was holding her hand to her heart, breathing heavily. ‘How you frightened me, you tyrant!’
‘Please forgive him. He’s with me and . . . He’s nervous,’ Ulman said turning around.
‘Just what did you see there, that you shouted out?’ The old woman shot him a curious glance from beneath half closed, swollen eyelids.
‘It was a dream . . . I had a nightmare,’ Artyom answered. ‘Excuse me.’
‘A dream?! Well you young people are impressionable.’ She again started moaning and bickering.
Actually, Artyom had slept for a rather long time - he even had slept through the stop at Novoslobodskaya. But he didn’t have time to remember what he had understood at the end of his nightmare as the passenger handcar arrived at Prospect Mir.
The situation here was strikingly different from the satisfying prosperity of Byelorusskaya. There was no business recovery at Prospect Mir, not even a sign of it, but on the other hand one immediately noticed a large number of military personnel: Spetsnaz and officers with the chevrons of the engineering troops. From the other edge of the platform, on the tracks, stood several guarded cargo motorized trolleys with mysterious boxes covered with tarpaulins. In the hall, nearly fifty poorly dressed people with huge trunks were sitting right on the floor, looking round hopelessly.
‘What’s going on here?’ Artyom asked Ulman.
‘It’s not what’s happening here, it’s what you have going on at
VDNKh,’
the fighter replied. ‘It’s obvious they intend to blow up the tunnels . . . If the dark ones crawl through from Prospect Mir, Hansa will have to answer for it. Most likely, they are getting ready for a pre-emptive strike.’
While they were crossing to the Kaluzhka-Rizhskaya line, Artyom grew convinced that Ulman’s guess was most likely correct. The Hansa Spetsnaz was also active at a radial station where it wasn’t supposed to be. Both entrances to the tunnels leading to the north, towards
VDNKh
and the Botanical Gardens, were fenced off. Someone had constructed some makeshift blockhouses here, where the Hansa border guards were on duty. There were no visitors in the marketplace, almost half the stands were empty, and people whispered nervously, as if inevitable misfortune was looming over the station. Several dozen people were crowded into one corner, whole families with bundles and bags. A chain had been strung around a table with the sign, ‘Refugee Registration.’
‘Wait for me here, I’ll go find our man.’ Ulman left him at the shopping area and disappeared.
But Artyom had a few things he wanted to do himself. Climbing down onto the rails, he went up to a blockhouse and started talking with a sullen border guard.
‘Can one still get to
VDNKh?’
‘We are still letting them through, but I don’t advise going there,’ the guard answered. ‘Haven’t you heard what’s happening there? Some kind of vampires are getting in, so many that they can’t be stopped. They’ve taken over nearly the whole station. Obviously it’s really hot there. If our miserly leadership had decided to let them have some free ammo, if only to hold them off till tomorrow.’
‘What’s happening tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow we’re going to blow everything to hell. We are placing dynamite three hundred metres from Prospect in both tunnels and everything will be just a fond memory.’
‘But why don’t you just help them? Certainly Hansa has the power?’
‘I told you. There’re vampires there. It’s swarming with them, there’s not enough backup.’
‘But what about the people from Rizhskaya? And from
VDNKh
itself?’
Artyom couldn’t believe his ears.
‘We alerted them several days ago. They’re trickling in. Hansa is taking them. We aren’t animals. But they had better hurry. When the time runs out, it’s so long. So you should try to get there and back as soon as possible. What do you have there? Business? Family?’
‘All of it,’ Artyom replied, and the border guard nodded knowingly. Ulman was standing in the arch, quietly speaking with a tall young man and a stern man in a machinist’s coat and with the full regalia of the station chief.
‘The vehicle is up above and the tank is full. In any event, I still have a radio and protective suits, and another Pecheneg and a Dragunov sniper rifle.’ The youth pointed at two large black bags. ‘We can go up at any time. When do you need us up there?’
‘We’ll be monitoring the signal every eight hours. We should already be in position by then,’
Ulman answered. ‘Is the pressurized gate working?’ he addressed the chief.
‘It’s OK,’ the chief confirmed.
‘When you give the word. Only we’ll have to drive off the people so they aren’t frightened. That’s all I have. So, we’ll rest for about five hours or so and then full speed ahead,’ Ulman summed up. ‘So, Artyom? Lights out?’
‘I can’t,’ Artyom told him, pulling his partner aside. ‘I have to get back to
VDNKh.
To say goodbye and just to look around. You were right, they will be blowing up all the tunnels from Prospect Mir. Even if we come back alive from there, I won’t see my station any more. I have to! Honestly.’
‘Listen, if you are just afraid of going up, to your dark ones, just say so,’ Ulman nearly started, but on seeing Artyom’s look, he stopped short. ‘It was a joke. Excuse me.’