Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (40 page)

“Then you had been right back then.” Said Melnik with unexpected intensity. “Forgive me! At the beginning I didn’t think it was important and didn’t believe you. Back then we … You know it yourself. We found them and burnt them down. We thought you were no longer alive. And that they … That’s why I … Them … For you … To the last!”

“I know.” Said Hunter huskily. It must be hard for him to talk about it “They knew it would come to it. Because of me. They knew everything. The fate of every single one of us.
If you knew against whom we had raised our hand back then! Back then he had smiled on us one more time. And we … And I’ve judged them and you carried out the sentence.

That’s how we are. The true monsters …”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I got to them … They showed my myself.

Back then it was like I was looking into a mirror and I saw everything for what it was. I understood everything about me. About humanity. Why everything had happened to us …”

“What are you talking about?” Melnik stared at his comrade worried and looked hastily to the door. Did he regret that he had sent the guards away?

“I tell you, I have seen myself with my own eyes, like in a mirror. Not from the outside, but from the inside, what was behind the armor … They brought it to the light.

The monster. I didn’t see a man back then. And I had been afraid of myself. I had lied to myself … Told myself that I am here to protect the people, to save them … All lies!

Like a hungry animal a went for their throat. Even worse … The mirror disappeared but this here … This … Remained. It awoke and didn’t let me in peace. They thought I would kill myself after that. And yes: For what should I still
live? But I didn’t do it. I had to fight. At first alone so that no one could see it. Far away from the people. I thought I could punish myself so they didn’t have to. I thought I could chase it away through pain …” The brigadier touched his scars.

“But then I realized that I couldn’t defeat it on my own. Again and again I forgot myself … So I returned”

“Brainwashing.” Said Melnik. “That’s what they did to you”

“It doesn’t matter! It is already over.” Hunter took his hand from his face and his voice changed: Now it was again dump and lifeless.

“At least almost. The story is old. What happened, happened. No we’re alone. We have to fight through … But I’m not here because of that. At the
Tulskaya
there has been an outbreak of an epidemic. It could spread to the
Sevastopolskaya
and the ring. The air fever. The same as back then. Deadly”

Melnik gave him a distrusting look. “Nobody has told me anything about that”

“Nobody told anybody anything. They’re cowards.

That’s why they lie. And keep it to themselves.

They don’t understand what they doing.

Melnik rolled closer to the brigadier. “What do you want from me?”

“You know that as good as I do. The threat has to be eliminated. Give me my tags. Give me men. Flamethrowers. We have to lock down the
Tulskaya
and clean it. If needed, the
Serpuchovskaya
and the
Sevastopolskaya
as well. I hope that it didn’t get any further.

“To just cut out three stations, just in case?”

“To save the rest”

“After a massacre like that they will hate the order”

“Nobody is going to know about it. Because there won’t be anybody left that could infect others … Or have seen something”

“For such a heavy price?”

“Don’t you understand? If we hesitate longer we won’t be able to save anybody anymore. We heard of the epidemic too late. There is no other possibility to stop it. In two weeks the entire metro is a pest barrack and after one month a graveyard”

“I have to see for myself …”

“You don’t believe me, don’t you? You think I’ve gone mad? Well believe what you want, I don’t care. I go alone. Like always. But at least I go with a clear conscience”

Hunter turned away, without taking a single look at the frozen Homer and moved to the exit. His last words had hit
Melnik
like a harpoon and it was dragging him behind the brigadier.

“Wait! Take your tags!” Hastily Melnik took them out of the pocket of his uniform and gave hunter the simple disks. “I … Approve”

The brigadier took the tags out of his bony hand, put them into his pocket, nodded his head silent and took a long look without closing his eyes.

He mumbled. “Come back. I am tired”

Hunter cleared his throat again in that strange way and said: “I on the other hand have never felt better”

Then he disappeared.

A long time Sasha didn’t dare to ring again so that she wouldn’t make the watchers of the emerald city angry.

They had probably heard her but needed more time to study here thoroughly. They hadn’t opened the door which seemed to be rooted in the ground, but that must have meant
that they were still discussing if they should let this stranger in who apparently had guessed the secret code on her first try.

What should she say when they opened the door?

Should she tell them of the epidemic at the
Tulskaya
? Would they risk influencing the story? What if they guessed her intentions right away like Leonid had done?

Should she admit to them what she hadn’t even admitted to herself? Would Sasha even be able to melt their cold hearts? When they had already cured that terrible disease before why hadn’t they sent a currier with the medicine to the
Tulskaya
?

Just because they were afraid of ordinary people?

Or did they hope that the disease would kill all the people in the metro?

Or in the end they were the ones who had created the disease …

No! How could she even think about that? Leonid had said that the people of the emerald city were righteous and humane. That they didn’t use the death sentence and didn’t even imprison you. That in the midst of all their beauty there wasn’t even one criminal.

Then why didn’t they save these death candidates?

And why didn’t they open the door?

She rang again. And again.

Behind the steel door it was as silent as if it was fake and a thousand tons of rock were behind it.

“They won’t open”

Sasha turned around. About ten steps behind her was Leonid, crouched down, with tousled hair and a depressed face.

Sasha looked at him unbelieving. “Then you try it!

Maybe they have forgiven you? That’s why you came with me or not?”

“There is nothing to forgive. There is nothing”

“But you’ve said …”

“I lied. That isn’t the entrance to the emerald city.”

“Then where is it?”

“I don’t know.” He raised his arms. “Nobody knows”

“And why did they let you through all the posts?

So you’re no watcher? You did … At the ring and the reds … You’re playing games again, yes? You told me about the city and you didn’t want to!” She tried to get a look at his face, to get confirmation of her assumption.

Leonid was looking at the ground. “Back then I’ve dreamed about it myself. Have gathered rumors, read old
books. I’ve been a hundredth times at this place. And there was the bell … And I rang it for days. In vain”

“Why did you lie to me?” She approached him, her right hand reaching for her knife. “What have I done to you?

Why have you done this?”

“I wanted to take you away from them.” The knife confused the musician but instead of running away he sat onto the tracks. “I thought when you were alone with me …”

“And why are you here now?”

“Hard to say.” He looked up at her. “Probably I’ve realized that I’ve gone too far. After I sent you here … I started thinking. The soul isn’t born black. In the beginning it’s clear and light shines through. It only gets darker over time. Spot after spot, every time when you forgave evil, tried to justify it and tell yourself that it’s just a game. Then one day darkness has the upper hand. You only notice it rarely, it’s hard to notice from the inside. But I knew that right here I am crossing a line from which on I’m going to be a different person. Forever. And that’s why I’m here, telling you everything. Because you’ve earned it”

“Why are they all afraid of you? Why are they bowing down to you?”

“Not to me.” Sighed Leonid. “To my father”

“What?”

“Does the name Moskwin tell you anything?”

Sasha shook her head. “No”

The musician made a sad smile. “You’re probably the only one in the entire metro. Well my father is the big boss. The big boss of the red line. He gave me a diplomat passport so they would let me through everywhere. The name isn’t that common and nobody wants to get into trouble. Only when somebody doesn’t know it …”

Sasha had stepped back and looked at him.

“And what are you watching? Did they send you because of that?”

“They threw me out. When daddy realized that no real man is going to become of me he no longer cared about me.

And now I’m bringing shame to his name.” Leonid made a grimace.

“Did you two argue?”

“How can you argue with the great comrade Moskwin?

He is a monument! They banished and cursed me.

You know I’ve been a fool in Christi since I was a child. I only liked beautiful paintings, playing the piano and reading books. That was my mother’s fault because she had wanted a girl. When my father had realized that he had tried
to get me interested in firearms and the party but it was already too late. Mother taught me how to play the flute and father drove it out of me again with his belt. He banished the professor who had taught me and put a Politruk at my side.

Everything in vain. I had already been corrupted to the core. I hate the red line, it was to … Grey to me. I wanted a colorful life, wanted to play music and paint. So my father once let a mosaic be destroyed for educational purposes. With that I learnt that everything beautiful could perish. And he made me destroy it. And so I did. But while I did that I remembered every detail, even now I could still put it together … And since that moment I hated my father”

“You can’t say that!” Yelled Sasha horrified.

“I can.” Leonid smiled. “Others are shot for it. That with the emerald city … My professor had told me about it.

He had whispered it to me when I was still small.

And so I decided to find the entrance when I would be older. There had to be a place where for what I was for living made sense. Where all live was like back then. Where I wasn’t a small, ugly no good, no white handed prince and no inheritor to the red line but an equal under equals”

“And you’ve never found that place.” Sasha put away her knife. She had found the core of all his words.

“Because it doesn’t exist”

Leonid shrugged with his shoulders. He stood up, went to the bell and rang it. “Probably it doesn’t matter if somebody hears me on the other side. Probably it doesn’t even matter if this place even exists. The main thing is that I
believe
that it exists somewhere. That someone hears me. And that I haven’t earned the right yet so that they would open up.

“And that’s enough for you?”

Again the musicians shrugged with his shoulders.

“It’s always have been enough for the world, so it’s enough for me”

Homer ran onto the train platform and looked around confused. Hunter was nowhere to be seen. Behind him Melnik rolled out of the prison, grey and beat down as if the brigadier had received not just his tags but also his from him soul.

Why had he ran away again and to where? Why had he left Homer? He wouldn’t ask Melnik. Homer was trying to get out of his way before he remembered him. So Homer
acted like he wanted to catch up to the brigadier and stepped away hastily. Waiting for a yell from behind. But Melnik didn’t seem to be interested in him anymore.

Hunter had said that he needed Homer so that he wouldn’t forget his former self. Had he lied? Maybe he had just tried to avoid a fighting polis in his rage which he could easily have lost and what would’ve blocked his way to the
Tulskaya
. His abilities and his killer instinct were paranormal but nobody could dare to storm an entire station. If that was true then Homer had served his purpose by accompanying Hunter to polis and now he had been pushed from the stage.

And not very soft.

So he had taken part in the end of the story, he had taken part in the final act that the brigadier, or whoever played the main role.