"Metro 2033" - читать интересную книгу автора (Glukhovsky Dmitry A)

CHAPTER 4. The Voice of the Tunnels

The unreliable light of the lantern in the hands of the commander wandered like a pale yellow stain on the tunnel walls, licking the damp floor and disappearing completely when the lantern was pointed into the distance. There was deep darkness ahead, which was greedily devouring the weak beams of their pocket flashlights from just ten paces away. The wheels of the cart squeaked with a whining and melancholic sound, gliding into nowhere, and the breathing and the rhythmic footfalls of the booted people walking behind it punctuated the silence.

The southern cordons were behind them now, the flickering light of their fires had died away long ago. They were beyond the territory of VDNKh. And even though the journey from VDNKh to Rizhskaya was considered safe, given the good relations between the stations and the fact that there was a sufficient amount of movement between the two, the caravan needed to stay on alert.

Danger was not something that just came from the north or the south – the two directions of the tunnel. It could hide above them, in the airshafts or at the sides in the multiple tunnel branches behind the sealed doors of former utility rooms or secret exits. There were dangers waiting below too in mysterious manholes left behind by the metro-builders, forgotten and neglected by maintenance crews back when the metro was still just a means of transportation, where terrible things now lurked in their depths, things which could squeeze the mind of the most reckless of daredevils in a vice of irrational horror.

That was why the commander’s lantern was wandering along the walls, and the fingers of the people at the back of the caravan stroked the safety locks of their machine guns, ready to fix them into firing mode at any moment and to lunge at their triggers. That’s why they said little as they walked: chatting weakened and interfered with their capacity to hear in the breathing space of the tunnel.

Artyom was starting to get tired already; he laboured and laboured but the handle, descending and then returning to its former place, gnashed monotonously, turning the wheels again and again. He was looking ahead without success, but his head was spinning to the beat of the wheels, heavily and hysterically, just like the phrases he heard from Hunter before he left – his words about the power of darkness, the most widespread form of government in the territory of the Moscow metro-system.

He tried to think about how he was going to get to Polis, he tried to make a plan, but slowly a burning pain and fatigue was spreading in his muscles, rising from his bent legs through the small of his back, into his arms and pushing any complicated thoughts right out of his head.

Hot, salty sweat dripped onto his forehead, at first slowly, in tiny droplets, and then the drops had grown and became heavier, flowing down his face, getting into his eyes, and there was no chance of wiping them away because Zhenya was on the other side of the mechanism, and if Artyom released the handle then it would land all the effort on Zhenya. Blood was pounding louder and louder in his ears, and Artyom remembered that when he was little he liked to adopt an uncomfortable pose in order to hear the blood pounding in his ears because the sound reminded him of the steps of soldiers on parade. And if he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was a marshal leading the parade and faithful divisions were passing him, measuring their paces, and saluting him. That’s how it was described in books about the army.

Finally, the commander said, without turning around:

‘OK, guys, come down and change places. We’ve reached half way.’

Artyom exchanged glances with Zhenya and he jumped off the cart, and they both, without speaking, sat on the rails, even though they were supposed to be going to the rear of the cart.

The commander looked at them attentively and said sympathetically:

‘Milksops…’

‘Milksops,’ Zhenya admitted readily.

‘Get up, get up, there’ll be no sitting here. It’s time to go. I’ll tell you a good little story.’

‘We can also tell you a few stories!’ Zhenya confidently declared, not wanting to get up.

‘Yes, I know all your stories. About the dark ones, about the mutants… About your little mushrooms, of course. But there are a few tales you’ve never heard. Yes, indeed, and they might not even be tales – it’s just that no one is able to confirm them… That is, there have been people who have tried to confirm the stories, but they couldn’t tell us for sure.’

For Artyom, this short speech had been enough to give him a second wind. Now any information about what happened beyond the Prospect Mir station had great meaning for him. He hurried to get up from the rails and, transferring his machine gun from his back to his chest, he took up his place behind the cart.

With a little shove, the wheels started singing their plaintive song again. The group moved forward. The commander was looking ahead, peering watchfully into the darkness because not everything was audible.

‘I’m interested, what does your generation know about the metro anyway?’ the commander was saying. ‘You tell each other such tales. Someone went somewhere, someone made it all up. One tells the wrong thing to the next who whispers it to a third, who, in turn, stretches the story over a cup of tea with a fourth person, who pretends that it was his own adventure. That’s the main problem with the metro: there aren’t any reliable communication lines. It isn’t possible to get from one end to the other quickly. You can’t get through in some places, it’s partitioned in others where some crap is going on, and the conditions change every day. Do you think that this metro system is all that big? Well, you can get from one end to the other in an hour by train. And it takes people weeks to do that now, and that’s if they make it. And you never know what is waiting for you at every turn. So, we’ve set off for Rizhskaya with humanitarian aid… But the problem is that no one – me and the duty officer included – no one is prepared to guarantee that when we get there, we won’t be met with heavy fire. Or that we won’t find a burnt-out station without a living soul in it. Or that it won’t suddenly become clear that Rizhskaya has joined forces with the Hansa and therefore there’s no passage to the rest of the metro left to us anymore, ever again. There’s no exact information… We received some data yesterday – but everything is out of date by evening and you can’t rely on it the next day. It’s just like going through quicksand using a hundred-year-old map. It takes so long for messengers to get through with the messages they carry that it often happens that the information’s not needed anymore or it’s already unreliable. The truth is distorted. People have never lived under these conditions… And it’s scary to think of what will happen when there isn’t any fuel for the generators, and there isn’t electricity anymore. Have you read Wells’ The Time Machine? Well, there they had these Morlocks…’

This was already the second such conversation in the last two days, and Artyom already knew about the Morlocks and about Herbert Wells, and he didn’t want to hear about it all over again. So, disregarding Zhenya’s protests, he resolutely turned the conversation back to its original direction.

‘So, what does your generation know about the metro?’

‘Mm… Talking about the devilry in the tunnels is bad luck… And about Metro- 2 and the invisible observers? I won’t talk about that either. But I can tell you something interesting about who lives where. So, do you know, for example, that at the place that used to be Pushkinskaya station – where there’s another two pedestrian passages to Chekhovskaya and Tverskaya – that the fascists have now taken that?’

‘What – what fascists?’ Zhenya asked, puzzled.

‘Real fascists. A while ago, when we still lived there,’ the commander pointed upwards, ‘there were fascists. There were also skinheads who called themselves the RNE, and others who were against immigration, and there were all kinds of different types, since that was the trend in those days. Only a fool knows what these acronyms mean, now no one remembers, and they themselves probably don’t even remember. And then, it seemed, they disappeared. You heard and saw nothing of them. And suddenly, a little while ago, they turned up again. “The metro is for Russians!” Have you heard of that? Or, they say: “‘Do a good deed – clean up the metro!” And they threw all the non-Russians out of Pushkinskaya, and then from Chekhovskaya and Tverskaya. In the end they became rabid and started punishing people. They have a Reich there now. The fourth or the fifth… Something like that. They haven’t crawled any further yet, but our generation still remembers the twentieth century. And what fascists are… The mutants from the Filevskaya line, basically, exist in actual fact… And our dark ones, what are they worth? And there are various sectarians, satanists, communists… It’s a chamber of curiosities. That’s what it is.’

They went past the broken down door to an abandoned administrative room. Maybe it was a lavatory or maybe before it was a refuge… Full of furniture: iron bunk-beds and crude plumbing – it was all stolen long ago and nowadays no one tried to get into those dark empty rooms scattered along the length of the tunnels. There’s nothing there… But truth is, you never know!

There was a weak blinking light ahead. They were approaching Alekseevskaya. The station was minimally populated, and the patrol consisted of one person, at the fiftieth-metre – they couldn’t allow themselves to go any further. The commander gave the order to stop at forty metres from the fire that had been lit by the patrol at Alekseevskaya – and he turned his flashlight on and off several times in a precise sequence, giving the patrol a signal. A black figure was delineated by the light of the flames – a scout was coming towards them. From far off, the scout yelled, ‘Halt! Don’t approach!’

Artyom asked himself: Could it be possible that one day they wouldn’t be recognized at a station with whom they considered themselves to have friendly relations, and they would be met with hostility?

The person was approaching them slowly. He was dressed in torn camouflage trousers and a quilted jacket which displayed the letter ‘A’ in bold – apparently from the first letter in the station’s name. His hollow cheeks were unshaven, and his eyes gleamed suspiciously, and his hands were nervously stroking the body of an automatic machine gun that was hanging from his neck. He looked them right in the face and smiled – he recognized them and, with a little wave showing his trust, he pushed the machine gun onto his back.

‘Great, guys! How are you doing? Is it you guys heading to Rizhskaya? We know, we know, they warned us. Let’s go!’

The commander started to ask the patrolman something but it was inaudible, and Artyom, hoping that he also wouldn’t be heard, said quietly to Zhenya:

‘He looks overworked and underfed. I don’t think they want to join forces with us because they’re having the good life.’

‘Well, so what?’ His friend responded. ‘We also have our interests in the matter. If our administration is pursuing it then it means there’s something they want from it. It’s not out of charity that we are coming to feed them.’

They went past the campfire at the fiftieth-metre where a second patrolman was sitting, dressed just like the one who had met them, and their cart rolled towards the station. Alekseevskaya was badly lighted and the people that lived there looked sad and seemed to speak little. At VDNKh, they looked on guests with friendliness. The group stopped in the middle of the platform and the commander announced a smoking break. Artyom and Zhenya stayed on the cart to protect it and the others were called to the fireside.

‘I’ve never heard about the fascists and the Reich,’ Artyom said.

‘I’ve heard that there were fascists somewhere in the underground, ’ Zhenya answered, ‘but they only said that they were at Novokuznetskaya.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Lekha did,’ Zhenya admitted reluctantly.

‘He’s told you a lot of other interesting things,’ Artyom reminded him.

‘But there really are fascists there! The guy just got the wrong place. He wasn’t lying OK?!’ Zhenya said in defence. Artyom became silent and sank into thought. The smoking break at Alekseevskaya was supposed to last no less than a half hour. The commander was having some kind of conversation with the local leader – probably about the future cooperation. Afterwards, they were supposed to push on forward, so that they would make it to Rizhkaya by day’s end. They would spend the night there, decide what needed deciding, and look at the newly discovered cable, and then they would send a messenger back to ask for their next instructions. If the cable could be used for communication between three stations then it made sense to unwind it and to open up a telephone connection. But if it looks unusable then it would be necessary to return to the station at once.

So Artyom had dispensation for no more than two days. During this time, it would be necessary to invent a pretext under which it would be possible to get though the external cordons of Rizhskaya, who were even more suspicious and nit-picking than the external patrols at VDNKh. Their lack of trust was totally understandable: there, in the south, the wider metro system began, and the southern cordon of Rizhskaya was subjected to attacks pretty often. And though the dangers that were threatening the population of Rizhskaya were not as mysterious and frightening as those hanging over VDNKh, they were different in their amazing variation. The fighters that defended the southern approach to Rizhskaya never knew what to expect, and therefore they had to be ready for everything.

Two tunnels go from Rizhskaya to Prospect Mir. To collapse one of them for some reason didn’t seem possible, and the Rizhskys had to put blockades up in both. But this took such a toll on their forces that it became vitally important for them to at least secure the northern tunnel. They joined forces with Alekseevskaya and more importantly, with VDNKh, and shifted the burden of defence in the northern direction onto them, which provided some peace in the tunnels between stations, so that they could focus on their domestic goals. And at VDNKh, they saw this as an opportunity to widen their sphere of influence.

In light of the imminent union, the outposts of Rizhskaya were showing increased vigilance: it was necessary to prove to their future allies that they could be counted on to defend the southern borders. That’s why it seemed a particularly difficult task to get through the cordons in either direction. And Artyom had a maximum of two days to figure it out.

However, despite the complexities, it didn’t seem impossible. The question lay in what he would do after that. Even if he got through the southern outposts, it would be necessary still to find a sufficiently safe route to Polis. Since he had had to make an urgent decision, he hadn’t had time in VDNKh to think about his next moves to make it to Polis. At home, he could have asked traders he knew about the dangers out there, without raising suspicions. And he knew that he would raise suspicions immediately if he asked Zhenya or anyone else in the group about the way to Polis – and Zhenya would definitely know that Artyom was up to something. He didn’t have friends at Alekseevskaya or at Rizhskaya, and he couldn’t trust mere acquaintances with these questions either.

Having taken advantage of the fact that Zhenya walked off to chat with a girl who was sitting nearby on the platform, Artyom furtively got a tiny map of the metro out of his rucksack. It was printed on the back of a card with charred edges that was advertising a market fair (that had been and gone long ago), and he circled Polis a few times with a pencil.

The way to Polis looked easy and short. In the ancient, mythical times that the commander had been describing when people didn’t have to carry weapons, and they went from station to station, even if they had to change trains and take another line – in the times, when the journey from one end to the opposite end, didn’t take more than an hour – in the times when the tunnels were only populated by rattling and rushing trains – back then the distance between VDNKh and Polis would have been quick and clear.

It was directly along the line to Turgenevskaya and from there a pedestrian tunnel to Chistye Prudy, as it was called on the old map, which Artyom was examining. Or take the Kirovskaya line and the Red Line, the Sokolnicheskaya line – straight to Polis… In the era of trains and fluorescent light, such a trip would take about thirty minutes. But ever since the words ‘Red Line’ had been written in capital letters, and the red calico banner had hung over the pedestrian tunnel to Chistye Prudy, there was no point even thinking of a short-cut to Polis.

The leadership of the Red Line had abandoned attempts to force the population of the whole metro to be happy by forcing Soviet power on them, and it had adopted a new doctrine which established communism along a separate line of the metro system. Though it had been unable to dispense with its original dream and continued to call the metro system the ‘V. I. Lenin Metropolitan’ it had taken no practical steps to pursue the grand plan for a while.

But despite the seemingly peaceful behaviour of the regime, its internal paranoid nature hadn’t changed at all. Hundreds of agents of the internal security service, like in the old days, with a certain nostalgia for the KGB, constantly and diligently watched the happy inhabitants of the Red Line, and their interest in guests from other lines was unending. Without the special permission of the management of the ‘Reds’ no one could get to any other station. And the constant monitoring of passports, the total watching and a general clinical suspicion was imposed on the accidental travellers as well as the spies who were sent there. The former were equated with the latter and the fate of both was rather sad. So there was no point in Artyom thinking about getting to Polis through three stations that belonged to the Red Line.

Generally there wasn’t an easy route into the very heart of the metro. To Polis… Just the mere mention of this name in a conversation made Artyom (and most others) fall into a reverential silence. He clearly remembered even now the first time he heard the word in a story told by one of his stepfather’s friends. Afterwards when the guest had left, he asked Sukhoi quietly what the word meant. His stepfather then looked at him carefully and, with a vague sadness in his voice, he said, ‘That, Artyom, is probably the last place on the earth where people live like people. Where they haven’t forgotten what the word “person” means, and, moreover, how the word should sound.’ His stepfather smiled sadly and added, ‘That is a City.’

Polis was located where four metro lines crossed, and it took up four stations all by itself: Alexander’s Garden, Arbatskaya, Borovitzskaya and the Lenin Library. That enormous territory was the last, genuine seat of civilization, the last place with such a large population that provincial types who happened upon it couldn’t help but call it a city. It was given a name – but it meant the same thing anyway: Polis. And perhaps it was because this word had a foreign ring to it, an echo of a powerful and marvellous ancient culture which seemed to protect the settlement, that the name stuck.

Polis remained a unique phenomenon in the metro. There, and only there, you could still meet the keepers of old and strange knowledge, which in this severe new world, with its disappearing laws, you just couldn’t find anymore. Knowledge for the inhabitants of almost all the other stations, and in essence for the whole metro, was slowly plunging into an abyss of chaos and ignorance, becoming useless along with those who carried it. Driven from everywhere, the only refuge they found was in Polis, where they were welcomed with open arms, because their colleagues were in power here. That’s why in Polis, and only in Polis, you could meet decrepit professors, who at some point worked in the departments of famous universities, which were now empty and in ruins, crawling with rats and mould. And the last remaining artists lived there too – the actors, the poets. The last physicists, chemists, biologists… Those who stored the best of man’s achievements in their skulls, and who knew a thousand years of history. Those whose knowledge would be lost when they died.

Polis was below what used to be the very centre of the city above. Right above Polis stood the building of Lenin’s Library – the most extensive storehouse of information to come from all ages. There were hundreds of thousands of books in dozens of languages, covering probably all the areas in which human thought was directed. There were hundreds of tonnes of papers marked with all sorts of letters, signs, hieroglyphs, some of which no one could read anymore because the language had died with the last of their speakers. But the whole massive collection of books could still be read and understood, and the people who died a hundred years ago and who wrote them still had a lot to say to the living.

Of all the confederations, empires and powerful stations who had the means to send expeditions to the surface, only Polis sent stalkers up to get books. It was the only place where knowledge was valued so much that people were willing to risk the lives of their volunteers for the sake of books, to pay enormous sums to those they hired to do it and forego material assets for the sake of acquiring spiritual assets.

And, despite the seeming impracticality and idealism of the administration, Polis stood strong year after year and troubles bypassed it. If any danger threatened it then the whole metro was ready to rally for its protection. The echoes of the last battle that took place there in living memory – between the Red Line and the Hansa – had died down and there was a magic aura of invulnerability and well-being surrounding Polis again.

And when Artyom thought about this wonderful city, it didn’t seem strange to him at all that the journey to such a place wouldn’t be easy. He would have to get lost, go through dangers and tests of strength, otherwise the purpose of the journey would have its charms wasted.

If the way through Kirovskaya along the Red Line to the Lenin Library seemed impenetrable and too risky, then he’d have to try overcoming the Hansa patrol and go along the Ring. Artyom peered into the charred map even more closely.

Now, if he could be successful in getting through the Hansa territory, by creating some sort of pretext, chatting to the guards at the cordons, breaking through with a fight or by some other means, then the trip to Polis would be short enough. Artyom pushed his finger into the map and drew it along the lines. If he went from Prospect Mir in the direction of the Ring, through the two stations that belonged to the Hansa, he would come out at Kurskaya. Then he could switch over to the Arbatsko-Pokrovsk line and from there he could get to Arbatskaya, which is to say, to Polis. True, Revolution Square was on the way, surrendered after the war to the Red Line in exchange for the Lenin Library, but the Reds guaranteed free transit to all travellers. This was one of the basic conditions of the peace agreement. And since Artyom was not planning on staying at that station but just going through it, he would ideally be let through freely. Having thought about it, he decided to stick with that plan and to try to iron out the details along the way about the stations he would have to pass through. If something didn’t work out, he said to himself, he could always find an alternative route. Looking at the interlacing lines of the numerous passages, Artyom thought that the commander went a bit too far in painting a picture of the difficulties of even the shortest trips through the metro. For example, you could get from Prospect Mir not from the right, but from the left – Artyom drew his finger down the map to the Ring – until you got to Kievskaya, and there you could go through a pedestrian passage to the Filevskaya line or the Arbatsko-Pokrovskoi line with just two stops to Polis. The task didn’t seem so impossible to Artyom anymore. This little exercise with the map had given him confidence in himself. Now he knew how to act, and no longer doubted that when the caravan got to Rizhskaya, he wouldn’t be returning with the group back to VDNKh but would go on with his journey to Polis.

‘Studying?’ Zhenya asked him having walked right up to Artyom without his noticing.

Artyom jumped up in surprise and tried to hide the map in his confusion.

‘Yes, no… I was… I wanted to find the station on the map where this Reich is, the one that the commander was telling us about before.’

‘Well, then, did you find it? No? Oh come on, let me show you,’ Zhenya said with a sense of superiority. He oriented himself in the metro much better than Artyom – better than their other contemporaries too, and he was proud of it. He put his finger on the triangle of Chekhovskaya, Pushkinskaya and Tverskaya straight away without mistake. Artyom exhaled with relief but Zhenya thought that it was out of envy.

He decided to console Artyom: ‘Don’t worry, one day you’ll be as good as me in figuring it out.’

Artyom had an expression of gratitude on his face and hurried to change the subject.

‘How long are we stopping here?’ he asked.

‘Young men! Let’s be off!’ the booming bass of the commander’s voice rang out, and Artyom understood that there would be no more resting and he hadn’t managed to get anything to eat.

Again it was Artyom and Zhenya’s turn to be on the cart. The levers started to grind, boots started to clatter against the concrete, and they were off again into the tunnel.

This time the group moved forward in silence, and only the commander spoke. He had called Kirill to the front and discussed something quietly with him. Artyom had neither the strength nor the desire to hear their conversation. All his energies were taken up by the accursed cart.

The man at the rear, left all alone, felt distinctly uncomfortable, and timidly looked behind himself again and again. Artyom was standing facing him in the cart and could see that there was nothing scary behind him but he was just as reassured when he glanced over his own shoulder to the front. This fear and mistrust followed him always, and it wasn’t just him. Any lone traveller was familiar with this feeling. They even had a name for it: ‘tunnel fear.’ It was when you were going along a tunnel, especially if you had a bad flashlight, and it felt like there was danger right behind your back. Sometimes the feeling was so augmented that you felt someone’s gaze at the nape of your neck – or not even a gaze but… Who knew who or what was there and how it perceived the world… And then, sometimes, it was so intolerably oppressive that you couldn’t stand it, and you turned around lightning fast, poking your flashlight into the darkness – and there was no one there… Silence… Emptiness… All was quiet. But while you were looking behind you, and straining your eyes into the darkness until they hurt, and the darkness was condensing behind you again, you wanted to throw yourself in the other direction, to light the tunnel ahead. Was anyone there, had anyone stolen up on you while you were looking the other way?… And again… The main thing was not to lose control, not to give in to the fear, to convince yourself that it was all crap and that there was nothing to be afraid of, and that you hadn’t heard anything anyway…

But it was very hard to control yourself – especially when you were walking alone. People had lost their minds. They just couldn’t calm themselves down, even when they reached inhabited stations. Then, of course, slowly, they came to themselves again, but they couldn’t make themselves go into the tunnel again – or they would immediately be seized by the same feeling of alarm, familiar to every metro-dweller, and it could turn into a pernicious delusion.

‘Don’t be scared – I’m watching!’ Artyom shouted to the man at the back. And the man nodded, but after a couple of minutes he couldn’t help it and looked behind himself again. It was hard…

‘A guy I know at Seregi also went a little crazy like that,’ Zhenya said quietly, knowing what Artyom had been referring to. ‘To be fair, he had a pretty serious reason for it. He decided to go through that tunnel at Sukharevskaya – remember I was telling you about it? Where you shouldn’t ever go alone and you have to go in a caravan. Well, the guy lived. And, you know why he survived?’ Zhenya smirked. ‘Because he didn’t have enough courage to go beyond the hundredth-metre. When he was heading in he was so brave and resolute. Ha… After twenty minutes he came back – his eyes goggling, his hair standing on end, and he couldn’t pronounce a single discernible word. So, they didn’t get anything out of him – and since then, he speaks incoherently, mostly lowing like a cow. And won’t put a foot in the tunnel – just stays at Sukhareveskaya begging. He’s the local village idiot now. Is the moral of the story clear now?’

‘Yeah,’ Artyom said uncertainly.

The group moved along for a while in total silence. Artyom sunk into his thoughts again and walked like that for a while, trying to think up something plausible to say at the exit post to get out of Rizhskaya.

And so they continued until, after a while, he noticed some kind of strange sound that was getting louder and louder, coming from the tunnel ahead of them. This noise, which had been almost inaudible to begin with, was on the border of audible sound and ultrasound, slowly and imperceptibly gaining strength, so that you couldn’t tell when you’d started hearing it. It reminded him of a whistling whisper more than anything – incomprehensible and inhuman.

Artyom quickly looked over at the others. They were all moving rhythmically and silently. The commander had stopped talking to Kirill, Zhenya was thinking about something, and the man at the back was calmly looking forward, having stopped his nervous backward glancing. They didn’t hear anything. Nothing! Artyom became scared. The calm and silence of the group became even more noticeable against the background of this whispering, which was getting louder and louder – and it was incomprehensible and frightening. Artyom stopped working the lever and stood up to his full height. Zhenya looked at him in surprise. Zhenya’s eyes were clear with no trace of the drugs that Artyom was afraid he might find there.

‘What are you doing?’ Zhenya asked, annoyed. ‘Are you tired or something? You should have said so and not just stopped like that.’

‘You don’t hear anything?’ Artyom asked in bewilderment, and something in his voice made Zhenya’s face change expression.

Zhenya listened harder without ceasing to work the lever. The cart, however, was going slower and slower, because Artyom was still standing there with a confused look, catching the echoes of the mysterious noise.

The commander noticed this and turned around.:

‘What’s wrong with you? Have your batteries run out?’

‘You don’t hear anything?’ Artyom asked him.

And at that moment a foul sensation crept into his soul, that maybe there was no noise and that’s why no one heard it. He was just going mad, he was imagining it out of fear…

The commander gave the signal to stop so that the squeaking of the cart wouldn’t interfere and the grumble of boots would die away. His hands crept up onto his machine gun and he stood motionless and tense, listening, and turning one ear to the tunnel.

The strange noise was right there now, Artyom could hear it distinctly, and the clearer the sound became the more attentively Artyom peered at the commander’s face, trying to make out if he could also hear what was filling Artyom’s consciousness with ever-strengthening agitation. But the features of the commander’s face gradually smoothed out, and Artyom was overcome with a sense of shame. Moreover, he had stopped the group for nothing and had freaked out and alarmed the others as well.

Zhenya, clearly, couldn’t hear anything either even though he was trying. Having given up his work at last, he looked at Artyom with spiteful mockery, looking him in the eye, and asked:

‘Hallucinations?’

‘Fuck off!’ Artyom unexpectedly shouted with irritation. ‘What, are you all deaf or something?’

‘Hallucinations!’ Zhenya concluded.

‘Quiet. There’s nothing. You just thought you heard it probably. Don’t worry, it happens, don’t get tense, Artyom. Go ahead and start up again and we’ll go on,’ the commander said softly, calming the situation, and walking ahead himself.

Artyom had no other option but to return to his work. He earnestly tried to convince himself that the whisper was only in his imagination, that it was just tension. He tried to relax and not to think about anything, hoping he could throw the sound out of his head along with his disturbing and rushing thoughts. He managed to stop the thoughts for a time but, in his empty head, the sound grew more resonant, louder and clearer. He gained strength from the fact that they were all moving further to the south, and when the noise had become so great that it seemed to fill the whole metro, Artyom suddenly noticed that Zhenya was working with just one hand, and that, without noticing it, he was rubbing his ears with the other.

‘What are you doing?’ Artyom whispered to him.

‘I don’t know… they’re blocked… they’re itching…’ Zhenya mumbled.

‘And you don’t hear anything?’ Artyom asked.

‘No, I don’t hear a thing – but I feel pressure,’ Zhenya whispered in response, and there wasn’t a trace of the former irony in his voice.

The sound had reached an apogee and then Artyom understood where it was coming from. It was emanating from one of the pipes that lay along the tunnel walls. It had been used as a communication line and who knows what else. The pipe was burst and the torn black muzzle was emitting this strange noise. It was coming from the depths of the pipe and. as Artyom tried to figure out why there were no wires, nothing, just complete emptiness and blackness, the commander stopped suddenly and said slowly and laboriously, ‘Guys, let’s… here… Let’s have a break. I don’t feel so well. Something in my head.’

He approached the cart with uncertain steps so he could sit on its edge but he hadn’t gone a step before he dropped like a bag to the ground. Zhenya looked at him in confusion, rubbing his ears with both hands and not moving from his place. Kirill for some reason had continued walking alone, as though nothing had happened, not reacting to their shouts. The man at the back sat down on the rails and started to cry helplessly like a baby. The light of the flashlight beamed at the tunnel’s ceiling and, lit from below, the scene looked even more sinister.

Artyom panicked. Clearly he was the only one whose mind hadn’t been dulled by the sound, but the noise was becoming completely intolerable, preventing any concrete thoughts from developing.

Artyom covered his ears in despair and that helped a little. Then with all his might he slapped Zhenya who was rubbing his ears with a silly expression on his face and yelled at him, trying to overcome the noise, forgetting that he was the only one to hear it: ‘Pick up the commander! Put the commander in the cart! We can’t stay here, no way! We have to get out of here!’ And he picked up the fallen flashlight and went after Kirill who was marching like a sleepwalker into the pitch darkness ahead.

Luckily, Kirill was walking rather slowly. In a few bounds, Artyom managed to chase him down and tap him on the shoulder. But Kirill continued walking and they were getting further and further away from the others. Artyom ran ahead of him and, not knowing what to do, he directed the flashlight into Kirill’s eyes. They were closed but Kirill suddenly frowned and broke his stride. Then Artyom, holding him with one hand, used the other to lift Kirill’s eyelid and shine the light into his pupil. Kirill screamed, began to blink, shook his head and regained consciousness in a fraction of a second and opened his eyes, looking at Artyom in bewilderment. Blinded by the flashlight, he could almost see nothing, and Artyom had to lead him by the hand back to the cart.

The unconscious body of the commander was lying on the cart, and Zhenya sat next to him, with the same stupid expression on his face. Leaving Kirill at the cart, Artyom went to the man at the back who was still sitting there on the rails, crying. Having looked him in the eye, Artyom met a look of total suffering, and the feeling was so sharp that he stepped backwards in fear that he himself might also start crying in the face of this pain.

‘They were all killed… And it was so painful!’ Artyom made out the words between sobs.

Artyom tried to get the man to stand up but he pulled away and unexpectedly cried out angrily, ‘Pigs! Bad people! I won’t go anywhere with you, I want to stay here! They are so lonely, and are in so much pain here – and you want to take me away from here? It’s all your fault! I won’t go anywhere! Anywhere! Let me go, you hear!’

At first Artyom wanted to slap him thinking that that might bring him back to his senses – but then he was afraid that the guy was so excited that he might just retaliate instead. So, Artyom got down on his knees in front of the man and, even though it was difficult since the noise was so loud, he spoke softly:

‘Now, you want to help them though, right? You want to stop their suffering?’

Through his tears, the man looked at Artyom and whispered with a frightened smile: ‘Of course… Of course, I want to help them.’

‘Then you have to help me. They want you to help me. Go to the cart and stand at the lever. You have to help me get to the station.’

‘They told you so?’ the man looked at Artyom disbelievingly.

‘Yes,’ Artyom replied confidently.

‘And then you’ll let me go back to them?’

‘I give you my word that if you want to go back to them, then I will send you back,’ Artyom confirmed and, without giving the man time to think anymore, he pulled him up into the cart.

He left the man on the cart, mechanically obeying Zhenya, and he and Kirill worked the levers, while the unconscious commander lay there in the middle. Meanwhile, Artyom took the forward position and aimed his machine gun into the darkness, and walked forward with quick steps. He was surprised himself that he could hear the cart following him. Artyom felt that he was doing the unacceptable, having an unprotected rear, but he understood that now the most important thing was to get out of this terrible place as fast as they could.

There were now three of them working the levers and the group was moving faster than before. Artyom felt with some relief that the vicious noise was getting quieter and his sense of being in danger was diminishing. He shouted at the others, telling them to keep up the pace, and suddenly he heard the sober and surprised voice of Zhenya behind him:

‘What are you, the commander now?’

Artyom signalled to stop, having understood that they had gone past the dangerous zone, and returned to the group and fell to the ground weakly, leaning his back on the cart. The others slowly came to their senses. The man from the back stopped sobbing and was wiping his face with his hands, looking around in perplexity. The commander started to move and rose with a dull groan, complaining of a headache.

Half an hour later, it was possible to go on. Apart from Artyom, no one remembered anything.

‘You know, a heaviness pulled me down so quickly and my head was so fogged up – and then suddenly I was out. I’ve had it happen once before from a gas attack in another tunnel, far from here. But if it had been gas then it would have had a different effect – on everybody at once, without discriminating… And you really heard that sound? Yes, this is all strange…’ The commander was thinking aloud. ‘And Nikita was roaring… So, Nikita, who were you crying about?’ he asked the rearguard.

‘The devil knows… I don’t remember. That is, I did remember about a minute ago but it’s flown out of my head… It was like a dream: as soon as you wake up, you remember everything and the picture is so clear in your mind. But after a few minutes you regain consciousness a little – and it’s all gone, empty. Just fragments remain… Well, it’s the same now. I remember that I was really, really sorry for someone… but who, and why – no clue.’

‘And you wanted to stay in the tunnel. Forever. With them. I promised you that if you wanted I would let you go back,’ said Artyom, with a sidelong glance at Nikita. ‘So, there you go, I’ll let you go back,’ he added and chuckled.

‘No thank you,’ Nikita responded gloomily, ‘I’ve reconsidered…’

‘OK, guys. That’s enough hanging about. There’s nothing here in this tunnel to stick around for. Let’s get there first and then we’ll talk about it all. We still have to get back home at some point too…’ Though why plan ahead on a day like this – God willing they’d just make it to their first destination. ‘Let’s go!’ the commander concluded. ‘Listen, Artyom, come and walk with me. You’re our hero today,’ he added unexpectedly.

Kirill took his place behind the cart, Zhenya despite his protests stayed on the cart with Nikita and they moved forward.

‘There was a broken pipe there you say? And your noise was coming from it? You know, Artyom, maybe we blockheads are all deaf and didn’t hear a thing. You probably have a special sense for that crap. You were lucky on this one, boy!’ the commander said. ‘Very strange, that it came from a pipe. An empty pipe you say? Who the hell knows what goes through them anymore,’ he continued, cautiously glancing at the snake-like interlacing pipes along the tunnel walls.

There wasn’t much further to go before they’d get to Rizhskaya. A quarter of an hour later, they could see the light of the patrol fire, and the commander slowed his pace and gave the correct signal with his flashlight. They let them through the cordon quickly, without delay, and the cart rolled into the station.

Rizhskaya was in better condition than Alekseevskaya. Sometime a long time ago, there was a big market above ground at this station. Among those who managed to run to the metro and save themselves were a lot of traders from that market. The people at the station ever since the beginning had been enterprising people and its proximity to Prospect Mir and thereby to the Hansa and its main trade routes also gave it a certain prosperity. They had electric light, emergency lights like at VDNKh. Their patrols were dressed in old camouflage, which looked more impressive than the decorated quilted jackets at Alekseevskaya.

The inhabitants led the guests to their tent. Now a swift return home was not likely, since it was unclear what this new danger was in the tunnel and how to deal with it. The administration of the station and the commander of the small group from VDNKh came together for a meeting, and the rest of them were given some time off. Artyom, tired and overwrought, fell face down onto his cot immediately. He didn’t want to sleep but he was out of strength. After a couple of hours, the station had promised to have a feast for their guests and, judging from the winking and whispering of their hosts, it seemed there would probably be some meat to eat. But now there was time to lie down and think about nothing.

Noise started up beyond the walls of the tent. The feast was being prepared right in the middle of the platform, where the main campfire was. Artyom couldn’t resist and looked outside. Several people were cleaning the floor and laying out a tarpaulin, and a little further away they were carving up a pig, cutting it into pieces and sliding them onto steel wire to string them over the fire. The walls of the station were unusual: not marble like at VDNKh and Alekseevskaya but lined with yellow and red tile. This combination must have looked pretty cheerful at one time. Now, the glazed tile and plastering were covered with a layer of soot and grease – but some of the old feeling of it was preserved. But the most important thing was that at the other end of the station, half buried in the tunnel, was a real train – though its windows were blown in and its doors were open.

You didn’t find trains in every passage or station by any means. Over the last two decades many of them, especially the ones that had got stuck in the tunnels and were unsuitable for living inside, were gradually pulled apart by people who used the wheels, the glass and the outer material of the train to make things at their own stations. Artyom’s stepfather told him that at Hansa one of the passages was cleared of trains so that passenger trolleys could move between points easily. Also, according to rumour, they were pushed into the Red Line. And in the tunnel that went from VDNKh to Prospect Mir, there wasn’t a wagon left, but that was probably just accidental.

Locals were slowly gathering, and a sleepy-faced Zhenya crawled out of the tent. Half an hour later the local leadership came out with Artyom’s commander, and the first pieces of meat were put on the fire. The commander and the station’s government were smiling and joking around a lot, seemingly satisfied with the results of their discussions. They brought a bottle of some kind of home-made liquor, there were toasts and everyone was very merry. Artyom gnawed on his meat and licked the dripping hot grease off his hands, looking at the glowing coals, the heat of which brought on an inexplicable feeling of cosiness and peace.

‘Was it you that dragged them out of the trap?’ said an unfamiliar guy who was sitting nearby and had been looking at Artyom for the last several minutes.

‘Who told you that?’ Artyom replied to his question with a question, looking at the man. He had a short hair cut, he was unshaven, and under his rough and tough leather coat you could see a soft vest. Artyom could see nothing suspicious about him: his interlocutor looked like a normal trader, the kind that you find at Rizhskaya, a dime a dozen.

‘Who? Yeah, it was your brigadier said something.’ He nodded at someone sitting a little way away and talking animatedly with the commander’s new companions.

‘Well, yeah it was me,’ Artyom reluctantly admitted. And even though he’d been planning to make a couple of useful acquaintances at Rizhskaya, now that he was faced with an excellent opportunity, he suddenly didn’t feel much like it.

‘I’m Bourbon. What’s your name?’ the guy said.

‘Bourbon?’ Artyom was surprised. ‘Why is that? Wasn’t there a king of that name?’

‘No, my boy. There was a kind of drink called bourbon. A fiery spirit, you see. It would put you in a good mood, so they say. So what IS your name anyway?’ The guy was still interested to know.

‘Artyom.’

‘Listen, Artyom, and when are you going back?’ Bourbon seemed insistent, and it made Artyom suspicious.

‘I don’t know. Now no one will say when we’re going back exactly. If you heard what happened to us, sir, then you should understand why,’ Artyom answered coolly.

‘Listen, I’m not all that much older than you so you can speak with me without the formality… Basically, I’m asking you… I have something to propose to you, boy. Not for your whole group but for you personally. Me, well, I need your help. You get it? It won’t take long…’

Artyom didn’t get it at all. The guy was talking haltingly, and something in the way he pronounced his words made Artyom wince inside. He wanted nothing in the world more than to end this incomprehensible conversation.

‘Listen, boy, don’t you… don’t get tense.’ Bourbon sensed his feelings of mistrust and sought quickly to disperse them. ‘Nothing dodgy, it’s all above board… Well, almost all. Basically, this is it: the day before yesterday some of our guys went along to Sukharevskaya, and well, you know, they went straight along the line and they never got there. Only one of them came back. And he doesn’t remember anything, came running back covered in snot, howling like your brigadier was telling us. The rest didn’t come back. Maybe they got out at Sukharevskaya… But maybe they didn’t get out at all, because no one has come from Prospect for three days now, and no one wants to go to Prospect either anymore. And well, basically, I think that there’s the same crap there as what you had. As I was listening to your brigadier, I just… I got the idea that it might be the same thing. The line is just the same. And the pipes are the same too.’ Then Bourbon quickly looked over his shoulder, to check, probably, that no one was listening to him. ‘And that crap didn’t affect you,’ he continued quietly, ‘you get it?’

‘I’m starting to,’ Artyom replied uncertainly.

‘Basically, I need to get over there now. I really need to, you see? Really. I don’t exactly know what the chances are that I’ll lose it, like our boys did, probably like all your guys did. Except you.’

‘You…’ Artyom muttered, ‘You want me to take you through the tunnel? To lead you to Sukharevskaya?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’ Bourbon nodded in relief. ‘I don’t know if you heard about it or not but there’s a tunnel beyond Sukharevskaya, which, like, is even worse than this one, full of crap, and I need to get through that one too. Bad shit has happened there to the boys. Everything will be fine, don’t worry. If you take me, I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll need to get further, of course, to the south, but I have there, at Sukharevskaya, some people, who will dust you off and set you on your road back home and all the rest of it.’

Artyom who had wanted to send Bourbon and his proposals to hell, understood suddenly that this was his chance to get past the southern gates of Rizhskaya without a fight and without any other problems. And to go even further… Bourbon didn’t say much about his next moves, but still he’d said he was going through the accursed tunnel between Sukharevskaya and Turgenevskaya. And that was exactly where Artyom needed to get. Turgenevskaya – Trubnaya – Tsvetnoi Bulvap – Chekhovskaya… And then it was only a stone’s throw to Arbatskaya… Polis… Polis.

‘What’re you paying?’ Artyom decided to add for the sake of acting normal.

‘Whatever you want. Currency, basically,’ Bourbon doubtfully looked at Artyom, trying to make out if the guy understood his meaning. ‘I mean, like, Kalashnikov cartridges. But if you want, I can get some food, some spirits or weed.’ He winked. ‘I can also get you that.’

‘No, cartridges are fine. Two magazines. And, well, enough food to get there and back. I won’t negotiate.’ Artyom named his price as confidently as he could, trying to meet the Bourbon’s challenging gaze.

‘You drive a hard bargain,’ Bourbon responded. ‘OK. Two horns for the Kalashnikov. And something to eat. OK, fine,’ he mumbled, apparently to himself. ‘OK, my boy, so how’re you doing there anyway? You should go and sleep, and I’ll come and get you soon, when all this ruckus calms down. Pack your stuff, you can leave a note if you can write so that they don’t arrange a search… So be ready when I come. Got it?’