Dmitry Glukhovsky: Metro 2033

Exactly the same thing was happening at Lenin Library. That was the Reds’ fort and the coalition forces repeatedly tried to seize it from them. The station had huge strategic value because they could split the Red Line in two parts there, and then they would have a direct passage to the three other lines with which the Red Line doesn’t intersect anywhere else. It was the only place. It was like a lymph gland, infected with the Red plague, which would then be spread across the whole organism. And, to prevent this, they had to take the Lenin Library, had to take it at any cost.

But as unsuccessful as the Reds’ attempts were to take Revolution Square, the efforts of the coalition to squeeze them out of Lenin Library were equally fruitless. Meanwhile, people were tiring of the fight. Desertion was already rife, and there were incidents of fraternization when soldiers from both sides laid down their arms upon confrontation… But, unlike the First World War, the Reds didn’t gain an advantage. Their revolutionary fuse fizzled out quietly. The coalition didn’t fare much better: dissatisfied with the fact that they had to constantly tremble for their lives, people picked themselves up and went off in whole family groups from the central stations to the outer stations. The Hansa emptied and weakened. The war had badly affected trade; traders found other ways around the system, and the important trading routes because empty and quiet…

The politicians, who were supported by fewer and fewer soldiers, had to urgently find a way to end the war, before the guns turned against them. So, under the strictest of secret conditions and at a necessarily neutral station, the leaders from enemy sides met: the Hansa president, Loginov, and the head of the Arbat Confederation, Kolpakov.

They quickly signed a peace agreement. The parties exchanged stations. The Red Line received the dilapidated Revolution Square but conceded the Lenin Library to the Arbat Confederation. It wasn’t an easy step for either to make. The confederation lost one of its parts along with its influence over the north-west. The Red Line became punctuated since there was now a station in the middle of it that didn’t belong to it and cut it in half. Despite the fact that both parties guaranteed each other the right to free transit through their former territories, that sort of situation couldn’t help but upset the Reds… But what the coalition was proposing was too tempting. And the Red Line didn’t resist. The Hansa gained more of an advantage from the agreement, of course, because they could now close the Ring, removing the final obstacles to their prosperity.

They agreed to observe the status quo, and an interdiction about conducting propaganda and subversive activities in the territory of their former opponent. Everyone was satisfied. And now, when the cannons and the politicians had gone silent, it was the turn of the propagandists to explain to the masses that their own side had managed an outstanding diplomatic feat and, in essence, had won the war.

Years have passed since that memorable day when the peace agreement was signed. It was observed by both parties too – the Hansa found in the Red Line a favourable economic partner and the latter left behind its aggressive intentions: comrade Moskvin, the secretary general of Communist party of the Moscow Underground in the name of V.I.Lenin, dialectically proved the possibility of constructing communism in one separate metro line. The old enmity was forgotten.

Artyom remembered this lesson in recent history well, just as he strived to remember everything his stepfather told him.

‘It’s good that the slaughter came to an end,’ Pyotr Andreevich said. ‘It was impossible to go anywhere near the Ring for a year and a half: there were cordons everywhere, and they would check your documents a hundred times. I had dealings there at the time and there was no way to get through apart from past the Hansa. And they stopped me right at Prospect Mir. They almost put me up against a wall.’

‘And? You’ve never told us about this, Pyotr… How did it work out?’ Andrey was interested.

Artyom slouched slightly, seeing that the story-teller’s flashlight had been passed from his hands. But this promised to be interested so he didn’t bother to butt in.

‘Well… It was very simple. They took me for a Red spy. So, I’m coming out of the tunnel at Prospect Mir, on our line. And Prospect is also under the Hansa. It’s an annexe, so to speak. Well, things aren’t so strict there yet – they’ve got a market there, a trading zone. As you know, it’s the same everywhere with the Hansa: the stations on the Ring itself form something like their home territory. And the transfer passages from the Ring stations are like radials – and they’ve put customs and passport controls there…’

‘Come on, we all know that, what are you lecturing us for… Tell us instead what happened to you there!’ Andrey interrupted him.

‘Passport controls,’ repeated Pyotr Andreevich, sternly drawing his eyebrows together, determined to make a point. ‘At the radial stations, they have markets, bazaars… Foreigners are allowed there. But you can’t cross the border – no way. I got out at Prospect Mir, I had half a kilo of tea with me… I needed some ammunition for my rifle. I thought I’d make a trade. Well, turns out they’re under martial law. They won’t let go of any military supplies. I ask one person, then another – they all make excuses, and sidle away from me. Only one whispered to me: “What ammunition, you moron… Get the hell out of here, and quick – they’ve probably already informed on you.” I thanked him and headed quietly back into the tunnel. And right at the exit, a patrol stops me, and whistles ring out from the station, and still another detachment is running towards us. They ask for my documents. I give them my passport, with our station’s stamp. They look at it carefully and ask, “And where’s your pass?” I answer, surprised, “What pass?” It turns out that to get to the station, you’re obliged to get a pass: near the tunnel exit there’s a little table, and they have an office there. They check identification and issue a pass when necessary. They’re up to their ears in bureaucracy, the rats…

‘How I made it past that table, I don’t know… Why didn’t the blockheads stop me? And now I’m the one who has to explain myself to the patrol. So this muscle-head stands there with his shaved skull and his camouflage and says, “He slipped past! He snuck past! He crept past!” He flips further through my passport, and sees the Sokol stamp there. I lived there earlier, at Sokol… He sees this stamp, and his eyes all but filled with blood. Like a bull seeing red. He jerked his gun from his shoulder and roars, “Hands above your head, you scum!” His level of training was immediately apparent. He grabs me by the scruff of my neck and drags me across the entire station, to the pass point in the transfer passage, to his superior. And he says, threateningly, “Just you wait, all I need is to get permission from command – and you’ll be against the wall, spy.” I was about to be sick. So I try to justify myself, I say, “What kind of a spy am I? I’m a businessman! I brought some tea from VDNKh.” And he replies that he’ll stuff my mouth full of tea and ram it in with the barrel of his gun. I can see that I’m not very convincing, and that, if his brass gives their approval, he’ll lead me off to the two-hundredth metre, put my face to the pipes, and shoot me full of holes, in accordance with the laws of war. Things weren’t turning out too well, I thought… We approached the pass point, and this muscle-head of mine went to discuss the best place to shoot me. I looked at his boss, and it was as if a burden fell from my shoulders: it was Pashka Fedotov, my former classmate – we’d remained friends even after school, and then we’d lost track of each other…’