Metro 2033

  Hunter who was studying his fingernails through this monologue, raised his eyes to Sukhoi and said gravely, ‘You have really given up on everything since I last saw you. I remember that you were telling me that if we preserve culture, if we don’t turn sour, if we don’t stop using proper Russian, if our children learn to read and write, then we’ll be fine and we’ll last here underground . . . Didn’t you say all that - or wasn’t it you? And now, look at you - surrender, Homo sapiens . . . What the hell is that?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I just figured out a thing or two, Hunter. I have felt something which you have yet to get, and maybe you’ll never get it: we are dinosaurs, and we are living the last days of our life . . . It might take ten or even a hundred years, but all the same . . .’

  ‘Resistance is futile, right?’ Hunter offered, in a mean voice. ‘What are you driving at?’

  Sukhoi was silent, his eyes downcast. Clearly this had cost him a lot - having never admitted his weaknesses to anybody, or said such a thing to an old friend. Even worse that it was in front of Artyom. It was painful to him to hold up a white flag.

  ‘But no! You won’t wait!’ Hunter slowly said, standing up to full height. ‘And they won’t wait! New species you say? Evolution? Inevitable extinction? Dung? Pigs? Vitamins? I’m not there yet. I’m not afraid of it either. Got it? I am not putting my hand up to volunteer. The instinct of self-preservation? You call it that. Yes, I will sink my teeth into life. Fuck your evolution. Let other species wait their turn. I’m not a lamb being led to slaughter. Capitulate and go off with your more perfect and more adapted beings - give them your place in history! If you feel that you’ve fought all you can fight, then go ahead and desert, I won’t judge you. But don’t try to scare me. And don’t try to drag me along with you into the slaughterhouse. Why are you giving me a sermon? If you don’t do it alone, if you need to do it collectively, you won’t be so ashamed? Or has the enemy promised you a bowl of hot porridge for each person that you bring to them in captivity? My fight is hopeless? You say that we’re at the edge of the abyss? I spit on your abyss. If you think that your place is at the bottom of the abyss then take a deep breath and forward march. But I’m not coming for the ride. If rational man, refined and civilised Homo sapiens chooses to capitulate - then I refuse to be called one and would rather become a beast. And I will, like a beast, sink my teeth into life and gnaw on the throats of others in order to survive. And I will survive. Got it?! I will survive!’

  He sat down and quietly asked Artyom for another splash of tea. Sukhoi stood up himself and went to fill and heat the kettle, gloomily and silently. Artyom stayed in the tent alone with Hunter. His last words were ringing with contempt; his malicious confidence that he would survive lit a fire in Artyom. For a long time he was trying to decide whether to say something. And then Hunter turned to him and said: ‘And what do you think my friend? Tell me, don’t be shy . . . You want to turn into vegetation too? Like a dinosaur? To sit on your things and wait until someone comes for you? Do you know the parable about the frog in the cream? Two frogs landed in a pail of cream. One, thinking rationally, understood straight away that there was no point in resistance and that you can’t deceive destiny. But then what if there’s an afterlife - why bother jumping around, entertaining false hopes in vain? He crossed his legs and sank to the bottom. The second, the fool, was probably an atheist. And she started to flop around. It would seem that she had no reason to flail about if everything was predestined. But she flopped around and flopped around anyway . . . Meanwhile, the cream turned to butter. And she crawled out. We honour the memory of this second frog’s friend, eternally damned for the sake of progress and rational thought.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Artyom ventured at last.

  ‘Who am I? You already know who I am. The one who hunts.’

  ‘But what does that mean - the one who hunts? What do you do? Hunt?’

  ‘How can I explain it to you? You know how the human body is built? It’s made up of millions of tiny cells - some emit electrical signals, others store information, others still soak up nutrients, transfer oxygen. But all of them - even the most important among them - would be dead in less than a day, and the whole organism would die, if it wasn’t for cells responsible for immunity. They’re called macrophages. They work methodically and regularly like a clock, a metronome. When an infection gets into an organism, they find it, track it down, wherever it’s hiding, and sooner or later, they get to it and . . .’ He made a gesture as though he was wringing someone’s neck and let out an unpleasant crunching sound. ‘Liquidate it.’

  ‘But what relevance does that have to your job?’ Artyom insisted.

  ‘Imagine that the whole metro was a human organism. A complex organism, made up of about forty thousand cells. I am the macrophage. The hunter. This is my job. Any danger that is sufficiently serious as to threaten the whole organism must be liquidated. That’s what I do.’

  Sukhoi finally came back with the kettle and poured the boiling brew into the mugs. He had obviously gathered his thoughts in the meantime, and he said to Hunter, ‘So you’re going to take on the liquidation of the source of danger, cowboy? You’re going to go hunting and shoot down all the dark ones? It’s hardly possible that anything will come of it. There’s nothing to be done, Hunter. Nothing.’

  ‘There is always one last option - the last resort. To blow your northern tunnel to pieces. Collapse it completely. To cut off that new species of yours. Let them procreate from above and leave us moles alone. The underground is now our natural habitat.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something interesting. Only a few people know about this at the station. They’ve already blown up one tunnel. But above us, above the northern tunnel, there is a stream of ground water. And, when they blew up the second northern tunnel, we were almost flooded. If the explosion had been just a bit stronger - goodbye my dear VDNKh. So, if we now blow up the remaining northern tunnel, then we’ll be flooded. We’ll be covered in radioactive swill. Then that will be the end, not only for us. Therein lies the real danger to the metro. If you start an inter-species battle now and in this way, then our species will lose. As they say in chess: check.’

  ‘What about the hermetic gate? Surely we can simply close the hermetic gate in that tunnel?’ Hunter said.

  ‘The hermetic gate was already dismantled along with the rest of the lines gates fifteen years ago by some smart guys - and they sent the material to fortify one of the stations. No one remembers which one anymore. Surely you knew about this? There you go, check again.’

  ‘Tell me . . . Have they increased their pressure recently?’ Hunter, it seems, was conceding and shifting the conversation to another tack.

  ‘Increasing? And how! It’s hard to believe that it was only a little while ago that we didn’t know they existed. And now, here they are - a major threat. And believe me, the day is near when they will sweep us away, with all of our fortifications, searchlights and machine-guns. It’s impossible to raise the whole metro to defend one good-for-nothing station . . . Yes, we make pretty good tea, but it’s unlikely that anyone will risk their life even for such excellent tea as ours. In the end, there’s always competition with Pechatniki. . . . check again!’ Sukhoi grinned sadly. ‘No one needs us. We ourselves will soon not be in any condition to handle the onslaught. We can’t blow up the tunnel and cut them off. We also don’t have the means to go to the surface and burn them down, for obvious reasons . . . Checkmate. Checkmate to you, Hunter! And checkmate to me. Checkmate to all of us in the near future, if you see what I mean.’ Sukhoi grinned sourly.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Hunter snapped back. ‘We’ll see.’

  They sat there a little longer, discussing all kinds of things. Many of the names mentioned weren’t familiar to Artyom. There were references to bits and pieces of stories. Every once in a while an old argument would spark up, of which Artyom understood little, but their discussions had clearly been going on for years, abating if the men hadn’t seen each other i
n a while and flaring up again when they met.

  Finally, Hunter stood up and said it was time he went to bed because he, unlike Artyom, hadn’t slept since his patrol. He said goodbye to Sukhoi. But before leaving he suddenly turned to Artyom and whispered to him: ‘Come out for a minute.’

  Artyom jumped up straightaway and followed him, not paying attention to the surprised look on his stepfather’s face. Hunter waited for him outside, silently buttoning up his raincoat and lifting the latch on the gate.

  ‘Shall we go through?’ he suggested and he quickly stepped forward onto the platform towards the guest tent where he was staying. Artyom hesitantly moved to follow him, trying to guess what this man wanted to discuss with him, a mere boy really, who had done nothing significant or even useful for anyone so far.

  ‘What do you think about the job that I do?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘It’s cool . . . I mean if it wasn’t for you . . . Well, and the others like you - if there are such people . . . Then we would have long ago . . .’ Artyom mumbled uncomfortably.

  His tongue was twisted and he felt hot suddenly. As soon as someone like Hunter paid him attention and wanted to tell him something, even just asking him to come outside for a minute, to be alone, without his stepfather, he blushed like a virgin and started agonizing, bleating like a lamb . . .

  ‘You think highly of it? Well, then, if people think highly of it,’ Hunter grinned, ‘that means there’s no point in listening to the defeatists among us. Your stepfather is being a coward, that’s all. But he’s really a brave man. In any case, he was once. Something horrific is happening here Artyom. Something that can’t be allowed to continue. Your stepfather’s right: these aren’t just the goblins we’ve seen at dozens of other stations, these aren’t vandals, they’re not just degenerates. This is something new. Something meaner. There’s a chill in the air. There’s death in the air. I’ve only been here two days and I am already being penetrated by the fear here. And the more you know about them, the more you study them, the more you see them, the stronger the fear, as far as I understand. You, for example, have you seen them often?’

  ‘Only once so far. I’ve only just started on the northern patrol, though,’ Artyom confessed. ‘But if I’m honest, once was enough. I’ve been tortured by nightmares ever since. Like today for example. And it was a while ago that I saw them!’

  ‘Nightmares you say? You too?’ Hunter frowned. ‘Yes, it doesn’t look like a coincidence. . . . And if I live here a bit longer, another couple of months, and go on patrols regularly, then it’s not out of the question that I’ll turn sour too . . . No, my lad. Your stepfather is mistaken. It isn’t him speaking. It’s not his thinking. It’s them thinking for him, and it’s them speaking for him. Give up, they say, resistance is futile. And he’s their mouthpiece. And he probably doesn’t even know it himself . . . And it’s right, I guess, that they tune in and impress themselves on the psyche. Fiends! Tell me, Artyom,’ Hunter turned to him straight on, and the boy understood: he was about to tell him something really important. ‘Do you have a secret? Something that you wouldn’t tell anyone on the station, but that you could tell a passer-by perhaps?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Artyom hesitated and for a perceptive person that would have been enough in order to understand that such a secret existed.

  ‘And I have a secret too. Why don’t we swap. I need to share this secret with someone but I want to be sure that they won’t blab. That’s why you give me yours - and don’t let it be any crap about a girl, but something serious, something that no one else should ever hear. And I’ll tell you something. This is important to me. Very important - you understand?’

  Artyom wavered. Curiosity, of course, had got him, but he was frightened of telling his secret to a man who was not only interesting to talk to and who had seen many adventures but, by the looks of things, was also a cold-blooded murderer, who wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest to remove any obstacle in his path. And what if Artyom happened to have been an accessory to the incursion of the dark ones . . .

  Hunter looked into his eyes reassuringly. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of in me. I guarantee inviolability!’ And he winked fraternally.

  They had walked up to the guest tent that had been given to Hunter for the night but they remained outside. Artyom thought again for the last time and decided what to do. He took in some more air and then hurriedly, in one breath, laid out the whole story of the expedition to the Botanical Gardens. When he was finished, Hunter was silent for a time, digesting what he’d heard. Then, in a hoarse voice, he said, ‘Well, generally speaking, you and your friends should be killed for doing that, from a disciplinary point of view. However, I already guaranteed you inviolability. But that doesn’t extend to your friends . . .’

  Artyom’s heart jumped, he felt his body freeze in fear and his legs falter. He wasn’t able to speak and so he waited in silence for the verdict.

  ‘But in light of your age and the general brainlessness of that event, and also the fact that it happened a while ago, you are pardoned. Go on.’ And so that Artyom could be brought out of his prostration sooner, Hunter winked again at him, this time even more reassuringly. ‘But know that you’d be shown no mercy by your fellow inhabitants at this station. So you have voluntarily given over to me a powerful weapon against you yourself. And now listen to my secret . . .’

  And while Artyom was regretting his big mouth, Hunter continued:

  ‘I haven’t come across the whole metro system to this station for no reason. I’m not giving up on my own task. Danger should be eliminated, as you have probably heard many times today. Should and will be eliminated. I do that. Your stepfather is afraid of it. He is slowly turning into their instrument, as far as I can see. He is resisting them more and more reluctantly and he’s trying to get me to join him. If the ground water thing is true then the option of exploding the tunnel is, of course, obsolete. But your story has clarified something for me. If the dark ones first made their way here after your expedition, then they’re coming from the Botanical Gardens. Something has been growing there that isn’t right, in that Botanical Garden, if that’s where they were born . . . And that means that you can block them there, closer to the surface. Without the threat of unleashing the ground waters. But the devil knows what’s happening at the seven-hundredth metre of the northern tunnel. That’s where your powers end. That’s where the powers of darkness begin - the most widespread form of government in the whole Moscow metro system. I’m going there. No one should know this. Tell Sukhoi that I asked you lots of questions about conditions at the station, and that will be the truth. You don’t have to explain anything, right - if everything goes smoothly, I’ll explain everything to whoever needs to know. But it might be that . . .’ He stopped short for a second, and looked at Artyom more closely. ‘That I don’t come back. Whether there’s an explosion or not, if I don’t come back before the following morning, someone should say what’s happened to me, and tell my colleagues about the fiends that are making trouble in your northern tunnels. I have seen all my former acquaintances here at this station today, including your stepfather. And I feel, I almost see, that there’s a little worm of doubt and horror crawling through the brains of everyone who has been exposed to their influence. I can’t rely on people with worm-eaten brains. I need a healthy person, whose ability to reason has not yet been stormed by these ghouls. I need you.’

  ‘Me? But how can I help you?’ Artyom was surprised.

  ‘Listen to me. If I don’t come back, then you have to, at any cost - at any cost you hear! - you have to go to Polis. To Gorod . . . And look there for a man with the nickname Melnik. Tell him the whole story. And one other thing. I will give you something, which you will give to him as proof that I sent you. Come inside for a minute.’

  Hunter took the lock off the entrance, lifted the flap of the tent and ushered Artyom inside.

  There wasn’t much room in the tent due to the huge camouflage rucksack and the impressively la
rge trunk which were standing on the floor. By the light of the lantern, Artyom saw a dark shimmering gun-barrel in the depths of the bag, which, by the looks of it, was a reassembled army hand machine gun. Before Hunter could manage to close the bag so he wouldn’t see, Artyom caught a glimpse of a matte black metal box containing machine-gun magazines, laid in a dense row next to the weapon, and small green anti-personnel grenades on the other side of it.

  Without any commentary on this arsenal, Hunter opened the side-pocket of his rucksack and withdrew a small metal capsule from it, made of a machine-gun cartridge case. The side where there should have been a bullet was screwed up into a little twist.

  ‘Here, take this. Don’t wait for me if I’ve been gone two days. And don’t be afraid. You will meet people everywhere who will help you. You have to do this! You know that everything depends on you. I don’t have to explain that to you - right? That’s it. Wish me success and get out of here. I need to catch up on some sleep.’

  Artyom managed to utter a word of goodbye, shook Hunter’s hand and started wandering over to his tent, stooping under the weight of the mission on his shoulders.

  CHAPTER 3

  If I Don’t Come Back

  Artyom was sure he would be cross-examined as soon as he got home. His stepfather would shake him down, trying to find out what he spoke about with Hunter. But, contrary to his expectations, his stepfather wasn’t awaiting him with a rack and Spanish boots but was snoring peacefully - he hadn’t had a chance to sleep in the last twenty-four hours.