Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

‘I’ve always lived here! As long as I can remember!’

‘Then you may not believe it, but people who weren’t born on the Circle have to eat sometimes too,’ the musician told him.

‘Let them eat each other! Or maybe it would be better to take everything away from us and divide it up, like the Reds say?’ the soldier asked aggressively.

‘Well, if everything carries on in the same way…’ Leonid began.

‘Then what? You keep your mouth shut, spindle-legs, you’ve already said enough to get yourself deported!’

‘I arranged to get deported earlier,’ the musician responded phlegmatically. ‘That’s what we’re doing now.’

‘But I could turn you in to the right people! As a Red spy!’ said the guard, getting heated.

‘And I could turn you in for drinking on duty…’

‘Why you… It was you that got us… And you…’

‘No! We’re sorry… He didn’t mean to say that.’ Sasha intervened, clutching the musician’s sleeve and pulling him away from Kostya, who had started breathing heavily.

She almost dragged Leonid to the tracks, then looked at the station clock and gasped. Their lunch and the arguments at the station had lasted almost two hours. She had set out to compete against Hunter’s speed, and he definitely wouldn’t have stopped for a second… The musician laughed drunkenly behind her back.

All the way to Culture Park the guards hissed baleful comments. Every now and then, following his natural impulse, Leonid attempted to answer them, and Sasha had to hold him back or persuade him not to. The alcohol continued swirling round in his brain, making him bolder and more insolent; the girl had to dodge constantly to keep out of reach of his wandering hands.

‘Don’t you like me at all then?’ he asked, offended. ‘Not your type, is that it? You don’t like them like me, you want muscles… and sca-a-a-ars. Why did you come with me?’

‘Because you made me a promise!’ She pushed Leonid away. ‘Not so that…’

‘I’m not like tha-at!’ he sighed sadly. ‘Always the same old story. If I’d known you were such a prig…’

‘How can you? There are people there… Live people… They’ll all die if we don’t get there in time!’

‘What can do about it? I can hardly move my legs. D’you know how heavy they are? Here, feel… And the people… They’ll die anyway. Tomorrow or in ten days’ time. And me, and you. So what?’

‘So you lied? You lied! Homer told me… He warned me… Where are we going?’

‘No, I didn’t lie! D’you want me to swear I didn’t lie? You’ll see for yourself! You’ll apologise to me. And then I hope you feel ashamed and you tell me: Leonid ! I’m so ash-amed…’ He wrinkled up his nose.

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’ll follow the yel-low brick road. Follow the yellow brick, yellow brick, yellow brick…’ the musician sang, conducting with his forefinger; then he dropped the case with his flute in it, swore, leaned down to pick it up and almost tumbled over.

‘Hey, you drunks! Will you even get to Kiev?’ one of the guards called to them.

‘Thanks for your concern!’ said the musician, bowing to him. ‘We’ll get there on the yellow brick road… and Dorothy will find her way home.’

Homer had never believed in the legend of Polyanka, and now it had decided to teach him a lesson.

Some called it the Station of Fate and venerated it as an oracle.

Some believed that a pilgrimage here at a critical turning point in life could part the curtains concealing the future a crack and provide a hint or a key, predicting and predetermining the path that remained ahead.

Some… But all sober-minded people knew that discharges of poisonous gases occurred at the station, and they inflamed the imagination, inducing hallucinations.

To hell with the sceptics!

What could his vision mean? The old man felt as if he was just one step away from the answer, but then his thoughts got tangled up and floundered. And he saw Hunter again, slicing the air with his black blade. Homer would have given a lot to know what vision had appeared to the brigadier, who he was fighting with, what duel it was that had ended in his defeat, if not his death…

‘What are you thinking about?’

The old man was so surprised, he felt a taut spasm twist his bowels. Hunter had never spoken to him without a compelling reason before. Barked orders, the resentful growling of stingy replies… How could you expect a soulful heart-to-heart with someone who had no heart or soul?

‘Oh, nothing really,’ Homer stammered.

‘You’re thinking. I can hear it,’ Hunter said in a flat voice. ‘About me. Are you afraid?’

‘Not right now,’ the old man lied.

‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t touch you. You… remind me.’

‘Of whom?’ Homer asked warily after half a minute’s silence.

‘Of something about me. I’d forgotten there was something like that in me, but you remind me,’ said Hunter, looking ahead, into the darkness, as he dragged the heavy words out of himself one by one and set them out.

‘So that’s what you brought me along for?’ asked Homer, simultaneously disappointed and intrigued – he’d been expecting something…

‘It’s important for me to keep it in my mind. Very important,’ the brigadier responded. ‘And it’s important for everyone else that I… Otherwise there could be… What’s already happened.’

‘Have you got problems with your memory?’ The old man felt as if he was creeping through a mine field. ‘Did something happen to you?’

‘I remember everything perfectly well!’ the brigadier replied sharply. ‘It’s only myself that I forget. And I’m afraid of forgetting myself completely. You’ll remind me, all right?’

‘All right,’ said Homer and nodded, although Hunter couldn’t see him just at that moment.

‘It all used to make sense,’ the brigadier said with a struggle. ‘Everything I did. Defending the Metro, defending people. People. The task was very clear – neutralise any threat. Annihilate it. That was the point, it was!’

‘But it is now too…’

‘Now? I don’t know what it is now. I want everything to be as clear as before again. I don’t do it just for the sake of it, I’m not a bandit. I’m not a murderer! It’s for people’s good. I tried living without people, to keep them safe… But I got scared. I was forgetting myself really fast… I had to get back to people. To protect them, to help them… To remember. And then at Sebastopol… They accepted me there. That’s my lair. I have to save the station, I have to help them. No matter what price I might have to pay. I think if I can do it… When I neutralise the threat… That’s something really big, something genuine. Maybe then I’ll remember. I must. That’s why I have to move fast, or else… It’s moving faster and faster now. I have to get it done in twenty-four hours. Get everything done – reach Polis, collect a squad together and get back… But in the meantime, you remind me, all right?’

Homer nodded stiffly. He was afraid even to imagine what would happen when the brigadier forgot himself completely. Who would remain in his body when the former Hunter fell asleep forever? Would it be that… Would it be whatever he was defeated by in today’s phantom combat?’

Polyanka was far behind them now: Hunter was racing on towards Polis like a wolfhound that has scented quarry and been let off its chain. Or like a wolf trying to shake off his pursuers?

Light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

They managed to drag themselves to Culture Park and Leonid tried to make peace with the guards again, inviting them all to ‘an excellent restaurant’, but the guards were wary now. He almost wasn’t even allowed to go off to the privy. After an exchange of whispers, one of the escorts agreed to guard them and the other disappeared.