Metro 2034

CHAPTER 11 Gifts

Your report! You could say what you wanted; the commander was always good for a surprise. In the entire garrison they told legends about him. Once a mercenary he was skillful with knives and was known that nothing could turn his attention away from his tasks. Back then before he had settled down at the Sevastopolskaya he had massacred the outer guard post of an enemy station alone, using the slightest mistakes of the guards.

Artyom jumped up, pressed the receiver against his ear with shoulder, saluted and stopped, not without some regret, counting. The commander approached the schedule of duty, locked at his clock and put next to his thumb, 3rd November and the numbers 9:22, signed and turned to Artyom.

“My report: Nothing. I mean, nobody picked up”

“Silence?” The commander crackled with his jaws and loosened his neck muscles. “I just can’t believe it”

“What?” Asked Artyom worried.

“That it has already hit the Dobryninskaya. Could the epidemic have already hit Hanza? Do you understand what is going if it has hit the ring line?”

“But we don’t know anything for sure.” Answered Artyom. “Maybe it has already started. We have no contact to them.”

“What if the line is damaged?” The commander lowered his head and started to knock on the table.

“But then there was still a line to the base.” Artyom nodded his head into the direction of the tunnel that lead to the Sevastopolskaya. “That one is completely dead. Here we get at least ringing. That means the line is still working”

“Only that the base seems to no longer need us.” Said the commander calm. “You can’t see anybody from there at the door. Maybe the base is no more. And no more Dobryninskaya. Listen to me, Popov, when nobody is alive there anymore, we die very soon and all of us as well. Nobody is going to come to our help. Why still keep the quarantine up? Maybe we should forget about all this shit, what do you think?” Again his jaws moved.

Artyom was shocked. What heresy! He didn’t want to but he had to think about the commander’s habit to shot deserters into the stomach before reading them their sentence.

“No commander, the quarantine is necessary”

“What you don’t say… Today alone three have become sick. Two from here and one of us. And Akopov is dead”

“Akopov?” Artyom swallowed and closed his eyes. His mouth felt dry.

“Beat his head in on the track.” Continued the commander with the same calm voice.” He had said that he couldn’t take the pain anymore. Not the first case. It got to hurt like hell when you try for half an hour to beat in your skull or what?

“Yes, sir.” Artyom turned his head.

“And what’s with you? Nausea? Weakness?” asked the commander worried and shined his small flashlight into Artyom’s face. “Open your mouth and say >Ahhh<. Good.

Listen up, Popov. You see that finally somebody picks up. Somebody has to pick up, Popov, at the Dobryninskaya and they shall say that Hanza has a vaccine and are reading sanitary brigades who are going to be here soon. And that they are going the get the healthy out. And heal the sick. And that we don’t have to stay in this hell forever. That we will get back to our wives. And you to your Galya and I to Alyona and Vera, understood?”

“Yes, sir!” Artyom nodded his head cramped.

“At ease.”

His long knife hadn’t been able to resist the weight of the falling down beast and had broken exactly over the handle. The blade had penetrated deep into the chest of the creature so that they hadn’t even tried to get it back out of it.

The bold one who had been scared by the claws of the beast had been unconscious for almost three days.

Sasha couldn’t help him but she still had to see him.

At least to think about him, even though he couldn’t hear her.

But the doctors didn’t let her to him. They said the injured man needed rest before all.

She didn’t know exactly why the bold one had killed the people on the railcar. But if he had shot to save her then that was enough of a reason to her. She tried to believe in it but she couldn’t. Probably there was a different explanation: Instead of asking, he rather killed.

At the Pavelezkaya it had been different: He had followed Sasha and had been ready to die for her. Was there actually a connection between them?

Like back then, at the Kolomenskaya when he had yelled after her, she had waited for a bullet not the question to come with them. But when she had turned around she had recognized a change in him, even though his scary face hadn’t moved a bit. It had been his eyes: Suddenly she had seen somebody else through the black pupils and looked at her.

Somebody who was interested in her.

Somebody who she had to be thankful for her live.

Should she give him a silver ring, the same gesture like back then from her mother? What if the bold one didn’t understand a gesture like that? But how should she thank him instead?

To give him a knife, as a replacement for the one which he had lost because of her, at that was least something.

When she had been totally illuminated by this simple thought, standing in front of the weapons-smith and imagining how she would give him the blade, how he would look at her, what he would say, she totally forget that she would buy a murderer another tool with it he would slit throats and stomachs. No, in this moment he wasn’t a bandit for her but a hero, no killer but a warrior and before all – a man. And there was another, obscure thought in her head: Since his blade had broken, he hadn’t awoken. Maybe he would be a whole blade again… Like an amulet… So she had bought it for him.

And now that she was standing in front of his bed and hid the present behind her back Sasha hoped that he reacted to it or at least feel the presence of the blade. the bold one twitched from one sided to the other , made croaking sounds, started single words, moaned but didn’t awoke.

Darkness had him strongly in its grasp.

Up until now Sasha hadn’t said his name one single time, neither loud or to herself. No she whispered it to him.

“Hunter!”

The bold one went silent, he seemed to listen as if he was unimaginably far away and her voice was only an almost inaudible echo to his ear, but he didn’t answer. Sasha repeated it again, loader. She wouldn’t stop until he would open his eyes. She would be his tunnel light.

From the hallway she heard she a surprised scream, boots started to hammer on the ground. She kneeled down fast and put the knife on the small table at the head end of his stretcher. “That’s for you.”

She said.

Suddenly the iron hard fingers held on to her hand, so strong that they could have broken all of her bones in her hand. The eyes of the injured man were open, his look wandered around without any goal. “Thanks.” He mumbled.

The girl had no intentions to free herself.

“What are you doing here?” A thin boy with a dirty white coat put a needle in the bold mans arm which brought him to sleep immediately again. Then the nurse grabbed Sasha by her shoulders and he said with closed teeth: “Don’t you understand? In his condition… The doctor has forbidden…”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand! He needs something that he can hold on to. From your needles he is just getting weaker…” The nurse tried to push Sasha into the direction of the exit, but she had already taken the steps and looked at him with angry eyes.

“I don’t want to see you in here again! And what is this here?” He had found the knife.

“That’s… His.” Mumbled Sasha. “I brought it with me. If he hadn’t been there… Those things would have torn me to pieces.”

“And the doctor is going to tear me to pieces when he is going to find out.” Growled the nurse.

“Now go!”

Sasha hesitated for a moment and then she turned to Hunter again who was still sleeping heavily sedated and ended what she had wanted to say: “Thank you, you saved me”

When she was leaving the room she suddenly heard his croaky voice: “I just wanted to kill it… That beast…”

The door was shut right in front of her face and the key fell into the lock.

The knife had been for something else. That had Homer realized immediately when he had heard how she called the name of the fevering brigadier, asking soft and sorrowful at the same time. At first he hadn’t wanted to get involved but then he thought about it differently and turned way, here was nobody that needed to be protected from something. All he could do was to retreat as fast as possible so he wouldn’t scare Sasha off.

Maybe she was right. At the Nagatinskya Hunter had totally forgotten about his companions. He had thrown them in front of the ghostly zyklops as a meal. But in this fight…

Maybe the girl meant something to him?

Sunken in thoughts homer strolled along the hallway and went to his room at the hospital. A nurse bumped into him, but the old man didn’t even realize it.

It was time to give Sasha what he had bought for her.

It seemed she would need it very soon.

Out of the desks drawer he brought a package to the light and turned it in his hands. After a few minutes the girl stormed into the room, nervous, confused and angry. She sat onto the bed, pulled her legs up and stared into the corner.

Homer waited until the storm would start or pass him. Sasha was silent and started to gnaw on her fingernails.

It was time to intervene.

“I got a gift for you.” The old man came forth from behind the table and put the package next to the girl on the blanket.

“For what?” She said, without coming out of her snail house.

“Why do people give gifts to each other?”

“To repay good things.” She said convinced. “For what you have gotten or for what you hope to get”

“Then let’s say that I am repaying for all the good things that you have already given me. For I don’t need anything else”

“I didn’t give you anything.” Answered Sasha

“And what about my book?” He made a jokingly, offended face. “You’re already in it. I don’t like owing something to somebody. Now come on, open it”

“I don’t like to owing something as well.” Said Sasha and ripped open the wrappings of the package. “What’s this? Oh!”

In her hand was a red disk of plastic, a small box that could be opened from both sides. Back then it had been a cheap makeup box for when you were traveling, but both compartments for powder and rouge were already empty. But the mirror on the inside had survived.

“Here you can see yourself better then in a puddle of water.” Sasha looked with her big eyes at her reflection. It looked strange. “Why did you give this to me?”

“Sometimes it is better to see yourself from the side.”

Homer was grinning. “You’ll understand more about yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sasha s voice had become more careful.

“There are people who have never seen their own reflection in their entire life and because of that they think that they are someone entirely different. And if the stand in front of their reflection they often can’t believe who is standing in front of them.”

“And how am I seeing?”

“You tell me.” He crossed his arm in front of his chest. “Myself. Well… A girl” To be sure she turned the mirror from one cheek to the other.

“A young women.” Corrected Homer. “And a very unkempt one.”

She turned from one side to the other a few times, blinked at homer as if she wanted to ask something, thought about it again, went silent for a moment and gathered all her courage and said: “Am I ugly?”

The old man cleared his throat. He had to keep himself from laughing. “Hard to say. Under all that dirt you can’t really tell.”

Sasha raised her eye brows. “What’s the problem? Don’t men have a feeling for if a woman is beautiful or not? Do you always have to show and explain?”

“Seems like it. And women often use that to deceive us.” Homer had to laugh. “Makeup can work wonders on a female face. But in your case it is not about repairing a portrait but to free it. When you can only see the foot of an antic statue you can’t really tell how it looks like.”

Then he added: “Even though there is a great chance that it is beautiful.”

“What does antic mean?” Asked Sasha unsure.

“Old.” Homer was having his fun.

“I am only seventeen!”

“We are going to know. After the excavation.”

The old man leaned back to his table, opened the notebook at the last page he had written on and started to read through his notes again. Suddenly his face darkened.

If anybody digs us up one day… The girl, himself and all others. What if in thousands of years archeologists would explore the ruins of Moscow from which not even the name was known and suddenly found the entrance to this underground labyrinth? Probably they would think it was a gigantic mass grave. Nobody would believe that in thesee dark catacombs humans could have lived. They would come to the decision that this highly advanced culture had become only a few in its last days and that they had buried their leaders with all of their possessions, weapons, servants and concubines.

His book had a mere eighty free pages. If that would be enough to house both worlds in it: The one on the surface and the one in the metro?

“Can’t you hear me?” The girl shook his arm.

“What? Sorry, I was sunken in thoughts.” He wiped his forehead.

“Are antic statues really beautiful? I mean what the people found beautiful back then can it still be today?”

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Yes.”

“And tomorrow as well?”

“Possible. When somebody is still left to judge them.”

Sasha went silent and thought about something.

Homer didn’t try to carry the conversation forward but he sunk back into his own thoughts.

After some time she asked surprised: “So that means without humans there is no beauty?”

“Probably not.” He answered a bit confused. “When nobody can see it… Animals aren’t able…”

“But if animals distinct themselves from humans because they don’t know the difference between beauty and ugliness can humans even exist without beauty?”

The old man shook his head. “Of course, certainly. There are many that don’t need it”

Now the girl took a strange thing out of her pocket: A small quadratic piece of plastic with a drawing on it.

Shy and at the same time proud, like she was showing her a biggest treasure and held it into Homers direction.

“What’s that?”

“You tell me.” A smart smile hushed over her face.

“Well.” He took the small quadratic piece of plastic carefully out of her hand, read the print and gave it back to the girl. “That’s the packaging of a teabag. With a picture on it.”

“A beautiful picture.” She corrected him. “If not for this, I would’ve become an animal…”

Homer looked at her. He felt how his eyes filled with tears and breathing got harder for him. Sentimental idiot!

He cursed himself. He cleared his throat and sighed.

“Have you never been on the surface, in the city? I mean except this one time?”

“No, and?” Sasha put the packaging back into her pocket. “Do you want to tell me that out there it isn’t like on this picture? That there is nothing like this anymore? I now that already. I know how the city looks like, the houses, the bridge and the river. Destroyed and empty”

“Not at all.” Answered Homer. “I have never seen anything more beautiful. You act like you wanted to judge the entire metro by the one platform you’ve seen. How am I supposed to describe it? Building higher than the mountains, big streets flowing like the river on the mountain. A sky that never got dark and shining fog… A very, ambitious, short-lived city, just like every one of its millions of former inhabitants. Crazy and chaotic. Influenced by trying to combine what can’t be combined. Build without any plan. But so alive!”

His hands became fists, like he was angry at the world.

“You can’t understand that. You should’ve seen it with your own eyes…” At that moment he was convinced that she just had to go to the surface so that she could see everything like himself. He never realized that she had never seen the city in its living condition.

Homer hadn’t talked to anybody and they had lead them through the barricade to Hanza and the whole neighboring stations, to the offices where the bath was. Under guard, like if they were lead to the henchman’s block.

The only thing that the two Pavelezkaya’s had in common was the name. They were like two sisters that had been separated from birth and the one had grown up with a rich family and the other at a poor station, or even in a tunnel.

The rooms were dirty and run-down, but bright and roomy. The ring station made a more crouched, edgy impression, but it was always lit and polished. They must have caravans and merchants coming through. At this time nothing was going on, who didn’t work seemed to favor the masses of the neighboring station and not the strictness of the ring.

In the dressing room Sasha was alone. The walls were covered with yellow tiles and on the ground were hexagonal and broken tiles. There were also painted iron cabinets for shoes and clothes, a light bulb on a cable, two benches covered in scratched, artificial leather… She couldn’t stop looking around.

She took an unbelievable white towel and a heavy, quadratic piece of grey soap. Then she locked the shower from the inside.

The small quadratic towel, the a little bit disgusting smell of the soap, all that was part of a distant past for Sasha when she had been the loved and protected daughter of the commander. She had already forgotten that all those things still existed.

Hastily she took off her clothes which were covered in dirt and jumped under the rusty pipe of the self made shower.

With a bit of effort she turned the valve and almost burned her hand, the water was hot! She pressed herself against the wall so that she could move out of the way of the water and turned the other one. Finally when the she had found the right mixture she stopped dancing around… And stepped into the water.

The water washed away the dust, ash, machine oil and blood, her own and the blood of other people, tiredness, sorrow, guilt and doubts down the drain. It took some time until the water which was running down the drain got clear again.

Was that enough so that the old man wouldn’t make fun of her anymore?

Sasha looked at her clean feet as if they weren’t her own, and then she looked at the unusual white hands. Was that enough so that men would recognize her beauty?

Maybe Homer had been right and it had been foolish to visit the injured man before she had cleaned herself up. She probably still had to learn those things.

Would he recognize that she had changed? She stopped the water, went back to the dressing room and opened her new mirror… No it was impossible to not recognize it!

She had relaxed in the hot water and all her doubts had been silenced. What the bold one had said about the beast hadn’t been destined for her, but had been part of a heavy struggle in his dream.

He hadn’t said no to her. She just had to wait until he woke up again. If she was with him at that point he would understand. And then? Why should she think about it now? She knew enough that she could trust herself with him.

Again she thought how the bold one had turned from side to the other in his fever. Without knowing why she knew that he had been searching for her. She could bring him rest, peace and bring him into balance again. She felt warm when she thought about him.

They had taken the dirty overall from her and had promised to wash it. Instead she got bright blue jeans and a sweater with a few holes in it. The new clothes were too small for her and when she went back to the guard post she could feel the looks of all men on her, so that Sasha felt like she had to take another shower before she got back to her bed.

The old man wasn’t in his room but she wasn’t alone for long. After a few minutes the door was opened and the doctor stepped in.

“You can now visit him.” He said, “He’s awake.”

“What’s the date?”

The brigadier put his weight on his elbow, put his head back and forth and starred at homer. He reached at for wrist immediately, even though he hadn’t had a watch in years. Then he spread his arms and shrugged his shoulders.

The nurse intervened. “The second. November”

“Three days”. Hunter fell back down onto his pillar.

“I’ve been laying here for three days. We got to go or we’ll be too late.”

“You won’t get far.” Said the nurse. “You almost had no more blood in you.”

“We got to go.” Repeated the brigadier. “Time is running out… The bandits…” Suddenly he stopped. “Why do you need a respirator?”

Homer knew the question had to come sooner or later. He had had three days to build his defenses and organize to fight back. Hunter being unconscious had kept him from realizing; now he had a well thought-out lie ready.

He lowered his head over the bed of the injured man and whispered: “There are no bandits. While you were fevering… You have been talking the entire time. I know everything.”

“What do you know?” Hunter grabbed him by his collar and dragged him to him.

“From the epidemic at the Tulskaya… It’s alright.”

Homer waved at the nurse who had wanted to come to his aid. “I can do this. I have to talk to him. Would you be so kind…”

Only reluctantly the nurse gave up, put the cover back on the needle and left them alone.

“About the Tulskaya…” Hunter had still fixed his red eyes on him but his iron hard grip loosened gradually.

“Nothing else?”

“Only that some kind unknown infection has broken out at the station. That it is transferred over the air. And that our guys have put up quarantine and wait for help.”

“If you say so. Ok…” The brigadier let go of him.

“Yes it is an epidemic. And you’re afraid to infect yourself?”

“Be on your guard then god helps you.” Answered homer carefully.

“Yes, Yes. It’s alright… I wasn’t close and the air was moving in the other direction… Nothing should have happened.”

Homer found his courage again. “Why that story with the bandits? What’s your plan?”

“First to the Dobryninskaya, to make a deal. Then to clean the Tulskaya. We need flamethrowers. We can’t do it otherwise…”

“Burn down the entire station? What’s with our guys?”

Homer hoped that his words were just another try to get him away from the truth like he had lead the commanding officers of the Sevastopolskaya astray.

“They are already walking corpses. There’s no way out. All who have contact with the infected infect themselves. The entire air is infected. I’ve heard of this disease…” Hunter closed his eyes and licked over his bloody lips with his tongue. “There is no cure. A few years ago we had a similar outbreak. Two thousand deaths”

“But then it stopped?”

“There was a siege. Flamethrower.” The brigadier turned his scared face to him. “There is no other way. If there’s an outbreak and only one human gets through… That’s it for us. Yes that with the bandits was a lie. Otherwise Istomin would’ve never agreed to kill all of them. He is too soft. I am going to get people that don’t ask any questions.”

“But what if there are still people that are immune against it? What if there are still healthy people there? I… You’ve said… Maybe there is still somebody with who we can talk…”

“There is no immunity.” cut the brigadier him off.

“All that got in contact get infected. There are no more healthy ones there, only those that last longer. And it is going to be worse for them. They will have to suffer longer. Believe me it’s better for them if I… If they are killed.”

“What is going to bring you that?” Homer stepped back from Hunters stretcher and again he realized that the eye on his scarred side of the face didn’t fully close. Hunter waited so long with his answer that the old man already wanted to call the doctor again.

But then the brigadier spoke slowly, stretched, with closed teeth, as if I was under hypnosis and was looking for lost memories in his past: “I have. To defend humanity. Eliminate all threats. I am only there for that.”

Had he found the knife? Had he understood that it was from her?” What if he wouldn’t guess it and see no promise in it? She flew along the hallway and chased away those angry thoughts. She had no idea what she would say to him… To bad that she hadn’t been able to stand at his bed when he had awoken…

Sasha had almost heard the entire conversation.

Silently she had listened on the doorstep and had winched when he had talked about the killing.

Of course she hadn’t understood everything but she didn’t have to. She had heard the most important parts, there was no more use in waiting. So she knocked on the door.

When the old man turned around she could see the despair in his face. He almost didn’t move as if this time they had given him the injection to calm him down and had extinguished the flame in his eyes. He nodded at Sasha weak willed, it looked like a death candidates rope had been raised up.

The girl sat onto the edge of the chair, bit on her lip and held her breath before she entered this new and unexplored tunnel. “Do you like my knife?”

“What knife?” The bold one locked around and saw the black blade. His face didn’t move but looked at Sasha distrusting. “What is that supposed to mean?”

It was like somebody had punched her right in the face. “That is for you. Yours broke. As you… Thank…”

A few moments uncomfortable silence hung in the room. Than the bold one said: “Strange gift. Wouldn’t accept it from anybody.” She believed to hear something like a clue in his words, something with a second meaning and left unspoken. She accepted the game without knowing its rules and started to reach for fitting words. What emerged was clumsy, not making any sense, but Sasha’s tongue wasn’t used to describing what was going on inside of her.”

“Don’t you feel that you carry a part of me inside of you? That piece that they have ripped out of you… That you were searching for… That I have given back to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

It was like somebody had emptied a bucket of cold water over her head. Sasha was shivering but she stood her ground. “You feel it. That you are complete with me. That I can be near you and that I have to. Why else would you have taking me with you?”

“I did my partner a favor” his look was empty.

“Why did you defend me against the people on the railcar?”

“I would have killed them anyways.”

“Why did you safe me from that beast?”

“I have to kill them all.”

“It should have eaten me!”

“You’re not happy to be alive?” He asked surprised.

“Then you just have to go up the escalator. There’re more of them.”

“I… You want, that I…”

“I want nothing from you.”

“I am going to help you to stop!”

“You’re clinging on to me.”

“Don’t you feel anything, that…”

“I don’t feel anything.” His words tasted like rusty water.

Even the grotesque claw of the pale monster couldn’t have hit that deep. Surprised Sasha jumped up and ran out of the room.

She looked into the room and it was empty. She fell down at the corner, rolled up, was looking in her pocket for her mirror, to throw it away but she didn’t find it. It must have fallen out of her pocket in the room of the bold one.

When her tears had dried, she knew what she would do. There was no time to pack. The old man would forgive her for taking his Kalashnikov, he would forgive her everything. In the room next to her she found her radiation suit hanging on a hook, cleaned and decontaminated. As if a magician had emptied the dead body of the fat man into which Sasha had to step into again and again. Following her for eternity.

She slipped into it, walked out the room into the corridor with heavy steps and through the door onto the train platform. Somewhere she heard the faint echo of the magical music; she hadn’t had time to find its origin. Only for a moment she stopped… But then she resisted the temptation and approached her goal.

When it was day there was only one guard at the escalator. As long as it was bright outside the creatures left the inhabitants of the station alone.

Sasha didn’t even need five minutes to explain her situation: The way to the surface was always open. It was impossible though to take the escalator back down. She gave half of her magazine to the willing guard and put her foot onto the first step that would lead her to the sky.

Then she raised her leg and began to climb up.