Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

‘At Achievements…’ the old man repeated after him absent-mindedly. ‘Well yes, invulnerable mutants who could read people’s minds and make themselves invisible… I thought they were called the Dark Ones?’

‘That’s not important,’ Miller snapped. ‘He was the first to dig up the rumours and sound the alarm, but just then we didn’t have the men or the time… I told him no. I was busy with other matters…’ He gestured with his stump. ‘Hunter went up there on his own. The last time he was in contact with me, he said that those creatures suppressed people’s will and spread terror throughout the district. And Hunter was a simply incredible fighter, a born soldier who was worth an entire platoon all on his own…’

‘I know,’ muttered Homer.

‘And he was never afraid of anything. He sent us a boy with a note saying he was going up onto the surface to deal with the Black Ones. If he disappeared, it meant the threat was worse than he had thought. He disappeared. He was killed. We have our own reporting system. Everyone who’s alive is obliged to let us know every week. Obliged to do so! He hasn’t been in touch for more than a year.’

‘And what about the Black Ones?’

‘We flattened the entire area thoroughly with Whirlwind rocket salvoes. Since then nothing has been heard of the Black Ones either,’ Miller chuckled. ‘They don’t write, they don’t phone in. The exits at Achievements were closed off and life there has returned to normal. That boy also had mental problems, but as far as I know, he’s been restored to health. He lives a normal human life, he got married. But Hunter… He’s on my conscience.’

He trundled down the steel ramp from the steps, startling and scattering the book-loving monks at the bottom of it, then swung round, waited for the panting old man and added:

‘Don’t tell your cellmates that last part.’

A minute later the entire procession finally reached the holding cell. Miller didn’t open the door of the cell: bracing himself on the adjutant, he gritted his teeth, stood up and pressed his eye to the spyhole. A split second was enough.

Absolutely exhausted, as if he had covered the entire distance from Arbat on foot, with his infirmities, Miller fell back into his chair, ran his dead gaze over the old man and pronounced sentence.

‘It’s not him.’

‘I don’t think my music belongs to me,’ Leonid said with sudden seriousness. ‘I don’t understand where it comes into my head from. It seems to me that I’m just a channel… Simply an instrument. In the same way as I put my lips to my flute when I want to play, someone else puts his lips to me – and a melody is born…’

‘Inspiration,’ Sasha whispered.

‘You can call it that.’ He spread his arms in a shrug. ‘Whatever way it is, it doesn’t belong to me. I don’t have any right to keep it inside me. It… travels through people. I start playing, and I see these rich people and beggars gather round, all covered in scabs or shiny and greasy, angry ones and wretched ones and great ones. Everyone. And my music does something to them that tunes them all to the same key. I’m like a tuning fork… I can bring them into harmony, if not for long. And they’ll chime so pure and clear… They’ll sing. How can I explain that?’

‘You explain it very well,’ Sasha said thoughtfully. ‘That’s what I felt myself.’

‘I have to try to plant this in them,’ Leonid added. ‘In some of them it will die, in some it will sprout. I don’t save anyone. I don’t have the authority for that.’

‘But why don’t the other people who live in the City want to help us? Why are even you afraid to admit that you’re doing this?’

He didn’t answer, and he remained silent until the tunnel ran into Sport Station, which was just as faded and withered, affectedly triumphant and mournful at the same time, but it was also low and cramped, so that it weighed down heavily, like tight bandages round the head. This place smelled of smoke and sweat, poverty and pride. Sasha and Leonid were immediately assigned a nark, who loitered exactly ten steps away from them, wherever they went. The girl wanted to move on straight away, but the musician threw cold water on the idea.

‘We can’t go right now. We’ll have to wait a bit’ He settled himself comfortably on a stone bench and clicked the locks on his flute case.

‘Why?’

‘The gates can only be opened at specified times,’ said Leonid, looking away.

‘When?’ Sasha looked round and found a clock. If it was correct, less than half of the time allotted to her was left.

‘I’ll tell you.’

‘You’re dragging things out again!’ She frowned and pulled back from him. ‘First you promise to help, then you try to delay me!’

‘Yes,’ he said, gathering his courage and catching her eye. ‘I want to delay you.’

‘Why? What for?’

‘I’m not playing games with you. Believe me, I could have found someone to play with, and not many would have refused. I think I’ve fallen in love. My, my, how clunky that sounds…’

‘You think… You don’t even think it! You’re just saying it, that’s all.’

‘There is a way to tell love from a game,’ he said seriously.

‘When you deceive someone in order to get them, is that love?’

‘Real love shatters your entire life, it doesn’t give a damn for circumstances, including games with all the rest…’

‘I take a simpler view,’ said Sasha, glowering at him. ‘I’ve never had any life. Take me to the door.’

Leonid stared gravely at the girl, leaned against a column and crossed his arms, fencing himself off from her. He filled his lungs with air several times, as if he was going to rebuke her, but let it back out again without saying anything. Then he wilted, his face darkened and he made a confession:

‘I can’t go with you. They won’t let me back in.’

‘What does that mean?’ Sasha asked mistrustfully.

‘I can’t go back into the Ark. I was banished.’

‘Banished? What for?’

‘For good reason.’ He turned away and started speaking very quietly – even standing just one step away from him, Sasha couldn’t make it all out. ‘I… was insulted by someone. An attendant at a library. He humiliated me in front of witnesses. That night I got drunk and set fire to the library. The attendant and all his family were suffocated by the fumes. It’s a pity we don’t have capital punishment… I deserved it. I was just banished. For life. There’s no way back.’

‘Then what did you bring me here for?’ Sasha clenched her fists. ‘Why did you burn up my time too?’

‘You can try to attract their attention,’ Leonid muttered. ‘The door’s in a side tunnel, and there’s a mark in white paint twenty metres from it. Directly underneath the mark, at ground level, there’s a rubber cover and the button of the bell is underneath that. You have to give three short rings, three long ones and three short ones, that’s the code for returning observers.’

He really did stay at the station – after helping Sasha to make her way past all three guard posts he strolled back. As they parted, he tried to make her take an old sub-machine-gun that he’d got hold of from somewhere, but Sasha wouldn’t have it. Three short rings, three long rings and three short rings – that was all that could be any use to her now. And a lantern.

The tunnels after Sport Station were gloomy and empty. The station was regarded as the last one on the line, and every guard post that the musician showed her through looked more like a small fortress than the one before. But Sasha wasn’t afraid, not at all. The only thing she was thinking about was that in an hour, or an hour and a half, she would be on the threshold of the Emerald City.