Metro 2034

“Yes, sir!”

“Then be quick about it.”

The telephone was silent now.

The gods of the telephone had to be thanked that Homer had understood most of the words of the soldier at the Tulskaya. He didn’t hear his last sentences but most he had understood before the connection had stopped working.

The old man looked up. Above him was Andrey Andreyevitsch’s heavy stomach. Under the arm pits of his blue uniform he could see dark spots and his fat hands were shivering. “What is going on there?”

He said toneless.

“The situation is out of control.” Homer swallowed. “Sent every available men to the Serpuchovskaya”

“I can’t do that.” Andrey Andreyevitsch pulled his Makarov out of his pocket. “They’re in panic here. The few people I can rely on have gathered around the post of the ring line so that nobody of them runs away”

“You can calm them down. We have… You can cure the fever. Through radiation. Tell them that…”

“Radiation?” The commander made a grimace.

“And you believe that? Of course. You have my permission!” He saluted jokingly and closed the door loudly behind him and locked his office.

What now? Now Homer, Leonid and Sasha couldn’t even run away from here anymore. By the way, where were they? Apparently they ran away!

Homer ran out to the corridor with one hand pressed on his racing heart. He ran onto the train platform and yelled their names. They had disappeared.

At the Dobryninskaya chaos reigned. Women, children and men with big sacks blocked the exits.

Behind thrown down tents some kind of riffraff ran around, but nobody paid attention to them. Homer had seen something like that before: It would start with the soldier kicking all who stepped on their feet and in the end they would shoot at the unarmed people.

Suddenly a moaning went through the tunnel.

The noise and screaming got silent; instead you could hear surprised yells. Again this powerful sound sounded, like hundredths of horns of the roman legion that had wandered around for centuries and finally marched to the Dobryninskaya…

Hastily the soldier pushed away the barricades out of the tunnel because something massive approached. An armored battalion. In front of the heavy skulls were mounted steel plates with only a small slit in them. On their backs where heavy machine guns.

Not even Homer had ever seen such a monster.

Faceless idols were on their armor which black as ravens.

They were wearing full-body suits out of Kevlar, gasmasks of an unknown kind and special military backpacks.

They didn’t seem to belong to this time or to this world. The battalion stopped. The heavy armed arrivers from the train platform, not caring for the crowd of people and formed three rows next to each other. Then they turned like one man, likeone machine with thundering steps to the tunnel of the Serpuchovskaya. Their powerful steps sounded over the conversations of the adults and the screaming of the children.

Homer ran behind them and tried to identify Hunter under the dozens of fighters. But all were built strong and the overalls sat on their shoulders as if they had only been made for them.

Everybody had the same, terrible weapons: Flamethrowers and Wintores—rifles with suppressors. No insignias, no badges.

Maybe he was one of the first three in the line?

Homer passed the group, waved his hands and looked into the windows of the gasmasks. But he only got the same stiff look that didn’t care for him. None of the arrivers reacted, nobody knew Homer.

Was Hunter even under them?

He had to be. He just had to appear!

Homer couldn’t see Sasha or Leonid on his way to the tunnel. Should their common sense have won and had the musician had taken the girl at a safe place?

Yes, hopefully they were waiting for this bloodbath to pass. Later Homer would try to barter with Andrey Andreyvitsch to get a solution, if he hadn’t put a bullet between his eyes by then.

Like a thrown hammer the formation made its way through the crowd and marched with surprising speed.

Nobody dared to get into their way and even the border of Hanza stepped away silent. Homer decided to follow the battalion; he had to make sure that Sasha wasn’t going to try something.

Nobody of the soldiers chased him away. For them he was a dog that ran after a railcar. When they entered the tunnel the three rows in front of them switched on their search lights and burned away the darkness in front of them. Their lights were as bright as a thousand candles. Homer couldn’t stop

thinking that the bodies of those humans were like iron but that their souls had died long ago. He had a prefect killing machine in front of him; its single parts were without a will of their own. Only one of them who you couldn’t separate from the rest knew what would happen: When he gave the command: “Fire” the rest would burn down all on their way to the Tulskaya and the other stations.

At least they didn’t go through the tunnel with the train and the sect. Those unlucky people could still wait until the eternal flame got to them. First the Tulskaya and then they…

Suddenly, like they reacted to an invisible signal the group slowed down. One minute later Homer understood why: They were at the station where you could hear screams in the distance.

Then something surprising came to the ears of the old man which made him question his own sanity: A wonderful melody.

Homer listened like under a spell. He didn’t hear anything put the voice that sounded out of the receiver and suddenly Sasha knew that now was the best time to leave.

She slipped out of the greeting room waited for Leonid and dragged him with her. At first to the tunnel to the Serpuchovskaya, then the tunnel that lead where they needed their help. Where they could save lives.

Also the tunnel lead to him, Hunter.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Sasha asked Leonid.

He smiled. “Yes. But I have the slight feeling that I am finally doing something important”

“You don’t have to come with me. It could be that death is waiting for us. We could also just stay here and go somewhere”

“Nobody knows what the future brings.”

Answered Leonid with his finger raised.

“And I was thinking that you decided it yourself?”

“Ah, stop it already” Leonid smiled ironic. “We are all just rats in a labyrinth. There are small doors which are opened and closed by those who research us. When the door to the Sportivnaya is closed you can scratch at it as much as you want, it is not going to be opened for nothing in the world. And if behind the next door is a trap you still fall into it, even though you were already expecting it. Because there is no other way. You only have one choice: You keep running or die out of protest.”

Sasha’s forehead got wrinkles. “Aren’t you angry at all that you have to live?”

“No I am angry at my spine. I can’t put my head that far back to look into the face of who is doing the experiment.”

“There is no experiment. If necessary rats can bite through concrete.”