“According to his face something has happened to him for sure.”
Istomin coughed and looked nervous to the entrance as if he feared Hunter could hear his words.
The commander of the outer guard posts didn’t want to complain that the brigadier had emerged out of the mist of the past; ultimately he had transformed himself into the most important support of the southern guard post immediately. But Denis Michailovitsch still couldn’t believe the return of his old friend entirely.
The news of Hunter’s terrible and strange death had spread like an echo through the tunnels last year. And when he appeared in front of the colonel’s door without warning, he had made a cross with his hand. How he had passed the guard posts without being noticed – as if he had walked right through the fighters – increased Hunter’s supernatural aura.
The silhouette, which he saw through the peephole, was familiar to him: Broad shoulders, the shaved head, and the slightly dented nose. But the nightly guest remained where he was; his head, oddly, slightly turned to the side. He didn’t try to break the tense silence. The colonel looked at the bottle of sweet wine on his table with regret, sighed deeply and unlocked the door. His codex demanded that he helped everyone of his own kind – regardless if they were alive or dead.
Hunter looked up at first when he stepped through the door. It became apparent why he had turned his face. He had probably feared that the colonel wouldn’t have recognized him otherwise.
Denis Michailovitsch had seen much while commanding the garrison, but Hunter’s wound still struck him.
Then he laughed insecurely, like if he wanted to excuse his undisciplined behavior.
The guest didn’t even show a hint of a smile. In this night he didn’t smile a single time. His
terrible wounds had healed in the last months, but this man had nothing in common with the Hunter that Denis Michailovitsch remembered.
He didn’t lose a single word about his miraculous rescue, his long absence and he didn’t seem to hear the amazed questions from the colonel as well. Rather he asked Denis Michailovitsch to tell nobody of his return. Would have the colonel followed his commons sense he would have informed the elders right away – but there was an old debt that he had to repay Hunter and so he let him in peace.
Nonetheless Denis Michailovitsch started to research in secret. Truly, everybody thought that his guest was dead.
He wasn’t involved in any crimes nor was he being sought-after. They had never found Hunter’s body – that was for sure – otherwise he would have surely tried to contact them. The colonel agreed.
But he appeared, to express it better: his vague – and in those cases normal – shadow appeared in a good dozen half true myths and stories. It seemed he liked his role and kept his companions believing that he was dead.
Denis Michailovitsch remembered his old debt and came to the only conclusion: He relaxed and played the game.
When others where with them he never used Hunter’s real name. He only told Istomin the truth, but didn’t go into detail. But not many cared, because the brigadier had earned his daily ration of soup many times over. He guarded the posts in the southern tunnel day and night; at the station he appeared maybe once a week – on bath day. And even if he just appeared in this hell to hide from his pursuers, Istomin didn’t mind. He knew to appreciate the service of legionnaires with dark pasts – the only thing that he demanded from them was to fight and in this case that wasn’t a problem at all.
The guards that had complained about the condescending nature of the new brigadier became silent after the first battle. When they saw how methodically, sunken in some kind of cold frenzy, he destroyed everything that there was to destroy, everyone came to their own conclusion.
Nobody wanted to become his friend, but everyone followed his orders without any complain, so that he never had to raise his broken voice. There was something in his voice, something like a hypnotizing sound of a snake and even the head of the station nodded his head obediently whenever he talked to him – even if he hadn’t finished talking, just in case.
For the first time in ages the air in Istomin’s office felt a lot lighter – as if a silent thunderstorm had passed, created by the strong tension. There was no more reason to argue, because there was no better fighter than Hunter. But if he died in the tunnels there would be no other option for the
“Should I order the preparations for the operation?” asked Denis Michailovitsch.
“You’ve got three days. That should be enough.”
Istomin closed his lighter and his eyes. “We can no longer wait for them. How many people do we need?”
“The strike team is ready. I will take care of the second one, which should be another 20 men.
When we don’t hear anything from them after the day after tomorrow,” he pointed his head at the exit, “then you have to make everybody ready to leave. We will try to break through.”
Istomin raised his eyebrows but didn’t answer; he just kept smoking his self-made cigarette. Denis Michailovitsch picked up some of the papers and started circling names, using a system that only he understood.
To break through? The colonel looked past Istomin’s grey neck and through the tobacco smoke at the map of the Metro that was hanging on the wall. Yellow, dirty and covered with small signs this plan was a chronicle of the last century. Arrows for recon missions, circles for sieges, stars for guard posts and exclamations marks for forbidden zones.
Ten years had been documented in this plan, ten years, and not a single day had passed without blood spilling.
Under the Sevastopolskaya, right behind the station named Juschnaya the markings stopped. As far as Istomin could remember, nobody had ever returned from there. The line ran down with a lot of white areas, like one of the old maps that the first Spanish conquerors had when they arrived on the shores of India. Like a branched root. But a conquest of the entire line was too big for the people of the Sevastopolskaya – no exhaustion by the irradiated people would have been enough.
And now the white fog of uncertainty covered their godforsaken line that went on to Hanza, to humanity. If the colonel had ordered all the people to fight, no one would refuse. At the Sevastopolskaya the war for the destruction of mankind, which had lasted for two centuries, had never stopped for a minute. If you live long enough in the face of death, fear makes place for fatalism, talismans, believes and instincts.
But who knew what waited for them between the Nachimovski prospect and the Serpuchovskaya? Who knew if they could break through this mysterious obstacle or if there was still something behind it that was worth fighting for?
Istomin thought about his last trip to the Serpuchovskaya: Markets, homeless on benches and those who still had something sleeping behind curtains. This station didn’t produce anything; they didn’t have any animal farms or greenhouses. The residents of the Serpuchovskaya were thieves but they were smart. They lived from speculation, sold expired goods that they had bought from late caravans for almost nothing. They also offered the inhabitants of the Ring line services that could have brought them in front of the courts at Hanza. This station was a parasite, a fungus, a growing tumor inside the powerful Hanza.
It was the last union of rich trade stations, appropriately named after the German model, a stronghold for civilization in the Metro. Everything else sank into barbarism and poverty. There was a real army in Hanza, electrical light and even in the poorest parts a piece of bread for everyone that had earned the much sought after stamp of citizenship.
Even on the black market those cost a fortune, and if the border patrol caught somebody with a fake passport it would have cost you your head.
Hanza owed its wealth and power to its extraordinary place: The Ring line united all other lines of the star shaped complex together and opened up the possibility to switch from one line to any other line.
Traveling merchants that brought Tea from the VDNKh, trolleys that brought ammunition from the weapons forges of Baumskaya – they all unloaded their cargo at the nearest toll station of Hanza and returned back home. It was always easier for them to sell their goods at the safe Hanza than to embark on a hunt for higher profits throughout the whole Metro, which often proved fatal.
