Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

"Go in, there's no one inside," he told me magnanimously.

I carried my bag into a tiny little room, in which the entire furnishings consisted of a rubbish bin in the corner and, of course, a tiny window with one of those little retractable drawers that had always reminded me of an eternally hungry mouth.

Hey , I reminded myself, don't forget just how young your "always" is …

But even so-if I thought like a man who really had lived thirty-five years, surely there must be some reason for it?

All right, we could get to that later.

The hungry mouth instantly devoured five one-hundred-dollar bills and my passport. I couldn't see who was concealed there behind the blank partition, and I wasn't really concerned to get a look at them. All I noticed were the fingers with pearly polish on the nails, which meant it was a woman. The mouth reluctantly slid open and belched out a sizeable heap of one-hundred-ruble bills and several bills of smaller denominations. Even a couple of coins. Without counting the money, I put it into my breast pocket, under my sweater, keeping just the smaller bills and the coins for my trouser pocket. I put my passport in my other breast pocket and threw the receipt-a small rectangle of green paper-into the rubbish bin.

Right, now I was someone. Even in this insane city, which was just about the most expensive on the planet. But no… that wasn't right. It had to be almost a year since Moscow had relinquished that dubious title.

Outside, winter greeted me again with its ice-laden breath. The wind carried fine hard crumbs, like grains of semolina, a kind of immature hail. I strolled back along the front of the railroad station and then down to where I wanted to be-on the metro circle line.

It felt like I was beginning to remember where I needed to get to. Well, I could enjoy making some progress, even if I didn't enjoy the state of uncertainty. And I could hope that whatever business had brought me to Moscow was entirely good, because somehow I didn't feel I had the Power to serve Evil.

Only native Muscovites go home from the railroad stations in taxis. If their financial status permits it, of course. Any provincial, even if he has the kind of money I had, will take the metro. There's something hypnotic about this system of tunnels, with its labyrinth of connections, about the rumbling of the trains as they go hurtling past and the rush of air that fades away and then starts up again. About the constant movement. Down here there is unspent energy seething and swirling around under the vaults of the station halls: free for the taking, more than I could possibly use.

And there is protection. I think it's connected somehow with the thick layer of earth above your head… and all the past years that are buried in that earth… Not even years-centuries.

The doors of the train parted and I stepped in. There was a repulsive, insistent buzzing from the loudspeakers, and then a finely modulated man's voice announced: "Please mind the closing doors. The next station is Komsomolskaya."

I was riding the circle line. Counter-clockwise. And I was definitely not getting out at Komsomolskaya. But after that… after Komsomolskaya I apparently would get out. That would be Peace Prospect. And, by the way, it would be worth walking up the platform at Komsomolskaya to get closer to the front of the train. Then I'd be nearer the exit for my connection.

That meant I was changing onto the brown line, and probably going north, because otherwise I'd have gone around the circle line in the opposite direction and changed at Oktyabrskaya.

The carriage shook as it moved, and since I had nothing better to do, I studied the numerous advertisements. There was a long-haired man standing on tiptoe, but squatting down at the same time, who was advertising pantyhose for women, and someone with a felt-tip pen had taken the opportunity to endow the hairy poser with a phallus of impressive proportions. The next stick-on poster suggested that I should go chasing around the city after a jeep painted in bright colors, but I failed to grasp the point of this pursuit. A prize, probably. Miracle tablets for almost every ailment-all in a single bottle- real estate agencies, the most yogurty yogurt of all yogurts, genuine Borzhomi mineral water with a picture of a ram on the bottle… And here was Komsomolskaya.

I was fed up with the advertisements, so I dropped my bag by the door and went to look at the plan of the metro system. I don't know why, but at the first glance my attention was immediately caught by the little red circle with the letters AEEA above it-the All-Union Exhibition of Economic Achievements.

That was where I was going. No doubt about it. To a massive horseshoe-shaped building. The Cosmos Hotel.

No one can deny that life feels easier when you know what your goal is. I heaved a sigh of relief, went back to my bag, and even smiled at my dull reflection in the glass of the door. The door also bore traces of the mindless hyperactivity of the city's own pithecanthropoids-the inscription "Do not lean against the doors" had been reduced to "Do lean again do."

The unknown author of this pointless statement wasn't even a pithecanthropus; he was more likely a monkey, a dirty, smug little monkey. Dirty and stupid, precisely because he was too much like a human being…

I was glad that I was an Other, and not a human being.

Here was Peace Prospect; stairs, a turn to the right, an escalator, and there was the train just arriving. Rizhskaya, Alexeevskaya, AEEA. Out of the carriage and turn right-I'd always known that.

A long, long escalator, on which for some reason I have no thoughts about anything at all. Those annoying advertisements again. A pedestrian underpass. And there's the hotel. A horseshoe-shaped monstrosity of French architecture. The hotel has changed, though, and quite noticeably. They've added illuminated billboards and bright lights; and then there's the casino, with the prize foreign automobile displayed on a pedestal. Some street girls standing around outside smoking, despite the hard frost. And the doorman inside, whose hands instantly swallow up a hundred-ruble bill.

It wasn't really late yet, so it was still busy in the foyer. Someone was talking on a cell phone, rapping out phrases in Arabic loud enough for everyone to hear, and there was music coming from several directions at once.

"A deluxe suite for one," I said casually. "And please, no phone calls offering me girls. I've come to work."

Money is a great thing. A suite was found instantly and I was immediately offered dinner to be delivered to my room and promised that no one would call me, although I didn't really believe it. And they suggested I should register straightaway, because I had a Ukrainian passport. I registered. But then, instead of quietly making for the elevator to which I was solicitously directed, I set out toward an unremarkable little door in the darkest and emptiest corner of the foyer.

There were no plaques at all on this door.

The receptionist watched me go with genuine admiration. I think everyone else had stopped noticing me at all.

Behind the door I discovered a grubby little office-probably the only space in the hotel that hadn't been given a European makeover. It looked as if it had come straight out of the uncivilized Soviet '70s.

A standard-type desk-not really shabby, but it had seen plenty of service, a standard-type chair, and an ancient Polish "Aster" telephone in the center of the desk. Perched on the chair was a puny little guy wearing a militia sergeant's uniform. He looked up at me inquiringly.

The sergeant was an Other. And he was a Light One-I realized that straightaway.

A Light One… Hmm. Then who was I? I didn't think I was a Light One. No, definitely not a Light One.