Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

Did he have any right to ignore this chance?

Did he have any right to become a hermit, forget about his legend, voluntarily abandon genuine immortality and deprive all his contemporaries of it too? Which would be more criminal and more stupid – to carry the blazing torch of the plague through half the Metro or to burn his manuscripts and himself with them?

As a vain and cowardly man, Homer had already made his choice, and now he was only searching for arguments to support it. What would be the point of mummifying himself in the vault at Kolomenskoe in the company of two other corpses? He wasn’t cut out for feats of heroism. And if the Sebastopol soldiers at Tula were prepared to enlist in the ranks of the dead, that was their choice and their right. At least they didn’t have to die alone. And what good would it do if Homer sacrificed himself? He couldn’t stop Hunter in any case. The old man had been spreading the disease without knowing what he was doing, but Hunter had known everything perfectly well since that encounter at Tula. That was why he had insisted on the total extermination of all the station’s inhabitants, including the men from the Sebastopolite convoys. That was why he had mentioned flamethrowers.

And if they were both already sick, the epidemic would inevitably affect Sebastopol. In the first instance the people they had been with. Elena. The station commandant. The commander of the perimeter. Their adjutants. Which meant that in three weeks’ time the station would first be decapitated and overwhelmed by chaos, and then the pestilence would scythe down everyone else. But how could Hunter expect to avoid infection? Why go back to Sebastopol, even though he realised that the illness could have been transmitted to him as well? It was becoming clear to Homer that the brigadier was not acting on intuition, but implementing some kind of plan, step by step. Until the old man had spoiled his game.

So Sebastopol was doomed in any case, and the expedition was completely meaningless now? But even in order to return home and die quietly beside Elena, Homer would have to complete his round-the-world voyage. The journey from Kakhovka to Kashira had been enough to put their gas masks out of action, and the protective suits had absorbed tens, if not hundreds, of roentgens – they had to be disposed of as soon as possible. He couldn’t go back the same way he had come. What should he do?

The girl was sleeping, shrunk up tight into a ball. The fire had finally swallowed the plague-infected diary, consumed the final branches and gone out. To save the batteries of his flashlight, the old man decided to sit in darkness for as long as he could manage it.

No, he had to carry on following the brigadier. He would avoid everyone else, in order to reduce the risk of infection, dump his knapsack here with all his bits and pieces, destroy his clothing… He would hope for mercy, but still count down the thirty days. He would work on his book every day without taking any time to rest. ‘It will all work out somehow,’ the old man kept telling himself. ‘The important thing is to follow Hunter, not to fall behind. That’s if he shows up again…’

It was more than an hour since the brigadier had disappeared into the blurred opening at the end of the tunnel. When he reassured the girl, Homer was by no means certain that the brigadier would definitely come back to them.

The more the old man learned about him, the less he understood him. It was impossible to trust the brigadier, but just as impossible to doubt him. He was impossible to analyse, he didn’t fit the pattern of normal human emotions. Trusting him was tantamount to surrendering yourself to a force of nature. But Homer had already done it: there was no point in regretting it now, it was too late.

In the pitch darkness the silence didn’t seem so dense. Strange mutterings and whispers were hatching through its smooth shell, something howled in the distance, something rustled. In some sounds the old man fancied he heard the shambling, drunken footfalls of the corpse-eaters, in others he heard the slithering of the phantom giants at Nagornaya, and in some the cries of dying men. Before even ten minutes had passed, he surrendered.

He clicked the switch and shuddered.

Hunter was standing two steps away from him with his arms crossed on his chest, staring at the sleeping girl. Blinded by the sudden light, he put his hand over his eyes and said calmly:

‘They’ll open the door now.’

Sasha was dreaming: she was alone at Kolomenskoe again, waiting for her father after one of his ‘strolls’. He was late, but she had to wait for him, help him take off his outer clothes, pull off his gas mask, feed him. The table was already laid for lunch and she didn’t know what to busy herself with. She wanted to leave the door leading to the surface, but what if he came back at the very moment when she wasn’t there? Who would open it for him? And there she was, sitting on the cold floor beside the door, and the hours flew by, the days came and went, and he still didn’t return, but she wouldn’t leave her place until the door… She was woken by the hollow clang of a bolt opening – a bolt exactly like the ones on the door at Kolomenskoe. She woke up with a smile – her father had come back. Then she looked round and remembered everything.

The only real part of her rapidly fading vision was the screeching of the gigantic latches on the metal door. A minute later the immense slab started vibrating and moving slowly. A beam of light poured through the widening crack and diesel fumes seeped out. The entrance to the Greater Metro…

The door gently moved aside and slipped into its groove, revealing the insides of the tunnel that led to Avtozavod Station, and then on to the Circle. Standing on the rails, with its engine growling, all ready to go, was a large motor trolley with a front floodlight and several riders. In the hairlines of their machine-gun sight the men on the trolley saw two travellers wincing at the light and covering their eyes.

‘Hands!’ a voice shouted.

Sasha followed the old man and obediently raised her hands. This time the motor trolley was the same one that used to come out across the bridge on trading days. The team on it knew all about Sasha’s story. And now the old man with the strange name would regret taking the shackled girl from the empty station without bothering to ask how she came to be there.

‘Take off your gas masks, present your documents,’ the voice ordered from the trolley.

As she revealed her face, she castigated herself for being so stupid. Nobody could set her free. No one had annulled the sentence passed on her father – and on Sasha along with him. Why had she believed that these two could take her into the Metro? Did she think she wouldn’t be noticed at the frontier?’

‘Hey, you! You can’t come in here!’ She had been recognised immediately. ‘You’ve got ten seconds to disappear. And who’s this? Is this your…’

‘What’s going on?’ asked the old man, bewildered.

‘Don’t you dare! Leave him alone! It’s not him!’ Sasha shouted.

‘Clear off!’ the man with an automatic told her in an icy voice. ‘Or we’ll shoot… To kill.’

‘At a girl?’ a second voice asked uncertainly.

‘I told you…’ said the first man, snapping the breech of his automatic in anticipation.

Sasha backed away and squeezed her eyes shut, preparing to meet death for the third time in the space of a few hours. Something gave a quiet chirrup and then fell silent. The final order never came: the girl couldn’t bear to wait any longer and she half-opened one eye.

The engine was still smoking, with its blue-grey fumes drifting through the torrent of white light pouring out of the projector, which was pointing up at the ceiling.