Alpha
If I Don't Come Back
A thorough interrogation was imminent: upon Artem’s return, his stepfather would surely _grill_ him and ask him about his conversation with Hunter. But contrary to Artem’s expectations, Sukhoy was not waiting with a rack and Spanish Boots, but instead slumbering peacefully—it was his first opportunity to sleep in over a day.
Having slept through the entire day after keeping a night watch, Artem was now obligated to work a night shift on the tea farm.
After decades of living underground, in the darkness only partially _dissipated_ by a dim reddish light, the true meaning of the words “night” and “day” gradually vanished. The station’s illumination was dimmed at night, as it was done _long ago_ in long distance trains to allow the travelers to sleep, and was never turned off completely—except for during emergencies. Even after spending years in the darkness, the human vision [|sight] could not compete with the sight of the beasts inhabiting the abandoned tunnels and passages.
The division into “day” and “night” was done more out of habit than necessity. Having a night made sense only because it was convenient for most of the inhabitants of a station to sleep at the same time. Cattle slept at the same time, lights were dimmed, and _quiet hours were enforced_ [|noise was prohibited]. The exact time was displayed on the two giant clocks, each above the tunnel entrances on the opposite sides of the station. These clocks were included in the list of strategically important objects, such as the armory, water filters, and the generator. They were carefully maintained, and the smallest glitches were corrected immediately. Any attempt to sabotage the clock, whether by diversionists or by vandals, carried out the most severe sentences, including banishment from the station.
VDNH had a strict penal code. Criminals were swiftly brought to justice by a tribunal, which took into consideration the permanent state of emergency. Diversion against strategic objects _resulted in_ the harshest of punishments. Smoking on the station, starting fires outside the designated areas, and careless usage of handguns and grenades also resulted in banishment from the station, in addition to the confiscation of all possessions.
Such draconian measures were necessary because a few stations had burned down completely _to date_. Fire would spread through the entire tent city in an instant, indiscriminately consuming everyone and everything in its path; the residents of neighboring stations would _remember_ [|hear] the mad, agonizing screams for months after the catastrophe; and the charred bodies, glued together by melted plastic and tarpaulin, bared their teeth, cracked by the insane heat, at the travelling merchants and wanderers who inadvertently walked into this hell.
To avoid a repetition of this grim _destiny_, the majority of the station added carelessness with fire to a list of _capital_ [|grievous] offenses.
Banishment was also a punishment for such crimes as burglary, sabotage, and intentional evasion of work. However, taking into account the fact that everyone was always in sight, and that the station _housed_ around two hundred people, these _and other types of_ crimes occurred rarely, and mostly by foreigners.
Work was compulsory on the station; everyone, young and old alike, had to fulfill a daily work quota. The pig farm; mushroom plantations, tea factory, _meat-packing plant_, fire station, engineering _depot_, and the _weapon shop_—each resident worked in one, or sometimes two places. In addition, males were required to keep watch in one of the tunnels once every two days, and even more frequently during the times of conflicts or when some new danger would crawl out from the depths of the metro—with increased watches and with armed reserves stationed on the railways.
Life was tuned this finely only on a handful of stations, and VDNH’s reputation was attracting large crowds of people looking for a new home. However, foreigners were accepted rather rarely and reluctantly.
There were still a few hours until the beginning of his shift at the tea factory, and not knowing what to do, Artem headed to his best friend Zhenya—one of his companions in the dizzying journey to the surface.
Zhenya was the same age as Artem, but in contrast to Artem, lived with his real family: father, mother, and a younger sister. There were only a handful of cases where the whole family was saved, and Artem secretly envied his friend. Of course, he loved his stepfather and greatly respected him even now, after his nerves were beginning to give, but he fully understood that Sukhoy wasn’t his father, not even a relative, and never called him “Dad”.
Sukhoy, on the other hand, having initially asked Artem to call him “Uncle Sasha”, with time began to regret it. Years kept going by and he, an old tunnel wolf, missed his chance to start a real family; he didn’t even have a woman who would wait for him to return from his journeys. His heart ached to see mothers with small children, and he dreamt of the day when he would no longer march off into the darkness, disappearing from the life on the station for days, weeks, or maybe even forever. And then, he hoped, there would be a woman who’d become his wife, and they would have kids who, having learned to talk, would call him not Uncle Sasha but Dad.
Old age and feebleness were approaching; there was less and less time , and it was probably wise to hurry; but Sukhoy just couldn’t tear himself away. One assignment was replaced by another, and there was no one to delegate a portion of the responsibilities to; to entrust the _connections_ [|contacts] upon; to disclose professional secrets to, in order to _afford_ a boring job at the station. He’s been long wishing for a calmer occupation and could even count on a managerial position at the station, all thanks to his reputation, his stellar service record, and his friendly relationship [|relations] with the administration. But until he could find a someone even remotely suitable as a replacement, he lived in the present and pushed his retirement off into the future, while pouring his blood, sweat, and tears to protect faraway stations and tunnels.
Artem knew that despite an almost fatherly love, his stepfather never thought of him as his own, and, as a matter of fact, considered him a _blockhead_ [|goofball |dolt], quite _unfairly_ [|undeservedly]. He never took Artem on his lengthy expeditions, despite the fact that Artem was growing up, and it was impossible to scare him with stories of being kidnapped by zombies or eaten by rats. He also didn’t understand that his mistrust in Artem was doing quite the opposite—impelling [|pushing] Artem to undertake the most reckless adventures, which ultimately got him belted. Suhoy evidently wanted his stepson to live a safe and secure life after his own dreams: working and raising kids, not wasting his youth; instead of roaming the metro and encountering pointless danger—much like what Sukhoy was actually doing. While wishing this tranquility upon Artem, Sukhoy didn’t realize that to earn for it he himself first had to live though _fire and water_, survive hundreds of adventures, and be sated by them. It wasn’t wisdom acquired over the years that controlled him now, but old age and tiredness. Artem, on the other hand, was teeming with excitement. His life was only beginning, and he couldn’t fathom living a stagnant life, drying and crushing mushrooms, changing diapers, and avoiding crossing the five hundredth meter. His desire to sneak away from the station was growing every day, as we was understanding the lot that his stepfather was _allocating_ for him. A career in fathering kids and manufacturing tea _scared_ Artem. That is probably what Hunter saw in Artem: his spirit for adventures, the desire to be thrown about like tumbleweed by the tunnels’ winds, chasing them into the unknown, following his destiny, that made him place such a _grave_ responsibility upon Artem’s shoulders. Hunter was a good judge of character, and a single hour-long conversation was enough for him to trust Artem. Even if Artem didn’t reach the destination, he would at least try, instead of forgetting his responsibilities, should anything happen to Hunter on Botanicheskiy Sad.
Hunter made the correct decision.
Zhenya, thankfully, was home, and Artem could pass the time listening to the latest gossip and discussing the future, while sipping [+strong] tea.
“What’s up!” replied Zhenya to Artem’s greeting. “You’re also working tonight at the factory? They scheduled me as well. I felt sick earlier; was going to ask the higher-ups to switch. But since you’ll be there, I’ll be all right, I’ll manage. You had vigil duty today, yea? Kept watch out there? Well, go on, tell me! I heard you had an emergency there… What happened?”
Artem emphatically turned toward Zhenya’s little sister, who was so enthralled _by_ the forthcoming narrative that she stopped feeding mushroom peelings to the rag doll given to her by her mom, and watched them _moon-eyed_, holding her breath, from the corner of the tent.
“Hey, you, kiddo,” sternly uttered Zhenya, understanding Artem’s gesture, “you’d better gather your things and go, play with the neighbors. Didn’t Katya ask you to come over? You should always maintain a good relationship with your neighbors. So go on, grab your kewpie dolls—and shoo!”
The girl _peeped_ something and forlornly began to gather her things, _in passing_ speaking her mind to her doll, who dully stared at the ceiling with her half-faded eyes.
“They think they’re so important! But I already know everything! You’re going to talk about your stupid toadstools,” she said disdainfully as she was leaving the tent.
“And you, Lena, are too young to discourse about toadstools. You’ve still got mother’s milk on your lips,” replied Zhenya, putting her in her place.
“What is milk?” asked Lena perplexedly, examining her lips.
Neither of them deigned to answer her, and the question was left hanging in the air.
When she left, Zhenya fastened the folds of the tent closed and asked,
“Well, what happened? Come on, spill it. I’ve already heard so many rumors. Some say, that a giant rat crawled out from the tunnel, others—that you deterred a Dark scout, and even wounded it. Whom do I believe?”
“Don’t believe anyone,” advised Artem. “Everyone’s lying. It was a dog. A small puppy. Andrey picked it up—he’s the marine guy. He said he’ll raised it to be a German Shepherd,” added Artem with a smile.
“But Andrey himself told me that it was a rat!” recounted Zhenya in confusion. “Did he lie to me on purpose?”
“Don’t you know? It’s his favorite _catch phrase_: rats the size of pigs. He’s a comedian, see?” responded Artem. “What’s new here? What do the guys say?”
Zhenya was friends with the merchants, who shipped tea and pork to the market at Prospekt Mira. In return, they carried vitamins, rags, other junk; and sometimes even got their hands on greasy books. These books, often with missing pages, had somehow made their way to Prospekt Mira—probably having crossed half a metro, from one trunk into another, from one pocket into another, from trader to trader, finally finding their ways to VDNH.
Residents of VDNH prided themselves in being able not only to survive in the continuously worsening conditions, but also to _upkeep_ [|maintain] the rapidly deteriorating human _culture_ [|civilization]—at least within the bounds of the station—despite being removed from the center and from the main trade routes.
The station’s government tried to pay as much attention to this topic [|issue] as it could. All children were [|mandatorily] taught to read. There was even a small library at the station, which comprised mostly of the _traded_ books. Unfortunately, the traders didn’t have a _selection of_ [|choice of] books—they bought whatever they could [|they took whatever was given to them]—and there was more than enough of _literary garbage_ [|pulp].
Books were held in such respect at the station, that no one would dare to _tear a page from_ [|desecrate] even the most worthless book. Books were canonized—they were the last reminder of the beautiful world, vanished into the void. The adults, treasuring every second of their memories brought _about_ by reading, passed this attitude toward books _unto_ their children. But the children didn’t have anything to remember; they never knew, and would never know, any world outside the endless plexus of the cramped, gloomy tunnels, corridors, and crossings.
Few places in the entire metro worshipped the printed word, and the inhabitants [|residents] of VDNH considered their station as one of the few remaining strongholds of culture, the northernmost outpost of civilization on Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line.
Both Artem and Zhenya liked to read. Upon the return of his friends from the market, Zhenya would always rush to greet them and ask them whether they’d brought back anything new. The book would go to him first, and only then to the library.
Artem got his books from his stepfather, who’d acquire them on his trips [|treks]. In their tent they had an almost genuine bookshelf, which displayed tomes yellowed by time, damaged by fungus, chewed by rats, stained by reddish drops of blood. They owned titles unseen by anyone else at the station, and even possibly in the entire metro: Márquez, Kafka, Borges, Vian, several volumes of Russian classics.
“They guys didn’t bring anything this time,” said Zhenya. “Alex says, next month there’ll be a whole shipment of books from Polis. He promised to keep a couple for himself.”
“I’m not talking about books,” Artem brushed him off. “What did they hear? How is everything?”
“Everything? Nothing’s really happening. There are rumors, but there are always rumors, you know. The traders can’t live without their gossip and tall tales. It’s their major staple—they wither without gossip. But to believe or not to believe—that is the question. Everything seems calm now—if you compare it with the time when Hansa was at war with the Reds. Oh, yeah!” he remembered. “They banned dope on Prospect Mira. If they find anyone trading it, they confiscate it, kick the trafficker off the station, and put a mark on his record. If they find any the second time, Alex says, then they’ll banish the offender from Hansa for a few years. From all of Hansa! For a trader, that’s certain death.”
“Yeah, right. They imposed a ban on it, just like that? What’s gotten into them?”
“They said, that since it causes hallucinations, it’s a narcotic, and it will destroy the brain after prolonged consumption. They’re worried about health, supposedly.”
“Well, they should worry about their own health! Why would they suddenly worry about everyone else?”
“You know what?” added Zhenya conspirationally [|in a low voice]. “Alex says, that they’re actually just spreading the dis about the harmful effects on health.”
“What’s ‘the dis’?” asked Artem in confusion.
“It’s short for disinformation. Listen: Alex once went past Prospect Mira along our line, all the way to Suharevskaya. He was on some shady business; didn’t tell me what. And he met an interesting guy there. A mage.”
“A what?!” Artem couldn’t keep from bursting into laughter. “A mage? On Suharevskaya? Yeah, your Alex would be the one to talk. And what, did this mage give him a magic wand? Or a magic lamp?..”
“You’re an idiot!” quipped Zhenya, offended. “You think you’re smarter than everyone else? The fact that you haven’t met them or even heard of them doesn’t mean that they’re not real. Do you believe in mutants on Filevskaya?”
“What’s there to believe in? They live there. My stepfather told me about them. But I haven’t heard anything about any mages.”
“While I do respect Sukhoy and all, a lot, there are probably some things that even he doesn’t know anything about. Or maybe he just didn’t want to scare you. Anyway, if you’re not going to listen…”
“All right, Zhenya, go on. _I’m interested; let’s hear it_ [|It is interesting nevertheless]. Although it does seem a bit…” Artem smirked.
“Anyway. They were sleeping near a bonfire. No one really lives on Sukharevskaya, you know? Merchants from other stations stay there overnight, because the _arm_ of Hansa sees them off Prospect Mira after lights out. All the rabble hustles there—pickpockets, charlatans—always _following_ [sticking to] the merchants. Wanderers also rest there, before heading south. There’s some kind of insanity in the tunnels past Sukharevskaya. Although no one lives there—neither rats nor mutants—nonetheless people passing trying to through often just disappear. Vanish, without a trace. The next station after Sukharevskaya is Turgenevskaya. It adjoins the Red Line—there was a connection to Chistye Prudy, although the Reds renamed it back to Kirovskaya, after an important communist, they say… Anyway, people were scared to live next to that station; walled up the passage. And so now, Turgenevskaya is empty. Abandoned. So it’s a long way from Sukharevskaya to the next inhabited station… And that’s where everyone’s disappearing. Anyone travelling alone will surely vanish. Large caravans, on the other hand, with at least ten people do make it through. Just a normal tunnel, they say: clean, calm, empty, without any lateral offshoots—impossible to get lost. There’s not a soul there; no rustling; no vermin… And then the next day someone would hear all these stories, give in to the descriptions clean and cozy tunnel, _spit at_ [|ignore] the superstition—and vanish into thin air, as if he never existed.”
“You were saying something about a mage,” Artem reminded him quietly.
“I’ll get to the mage in a minute,” promised Zhenya. “So, people are scared to go south through these tunnels alone. They look for companions on Sukharevskaya, to have someone to cross the tunnel with. And when there aren’t any trade fairs, there aren’t many people, and it can take days, if not weeks, to gather a large enough group to go on. The more people, the safer it is. Alex says that you can meet some interesting people there. Lots of scum, of course, so you need to watch out. But sometimes you luck out, and hear some amazing stories… In short, that’s where Alex met the mage. Not like you think, a cartoonish Genie from some Arabian lamp…”
“A jinn and a mage are two different things…” Artem injected carefully, but Zhenya ignored his remark and continued:
“The guy is an occultist. Spent half his life studying various _mythical_ [|mythological] literature. Especially someone named Castañeda, Alex says. So this guy can read others’ thoughts, can see into the future, can find things, can foretell danger. He says he sees spirits. Can you imagine, he even…” Zhenya _waited an artistic pause_, “travels through the metro without any weapons! No weapons at all. He has a Swiss army knife—for food, and a plastic walking cane. Anyway! He says that those who make dope and those who swallow it are madmen. Because it’s not what we think it is. It’s not dope, and the mushrooms aren’t actually mushrooms. This sort of fungus would never grow in the temperate zone. By the way, I’ve flipped through a reference book on mushrooms once—and he’s right, there’s no mention of those. Nothing looks even remotely similar… Those who swallow it for the trip, thinking that it’s just a hallucinogen, are mistaken, this mage says. And if you prepare these ‘shrooms slightly differently, then you can enter into a state of trance, and control [|manipulate] real-life events from this mushroom world where you end up after eating them.”
“You mage is definitely a mushroom junkie!” confidently stated Artem. “A lot of people mess around with dope here, just to relax, you know; but no one is insane to this extent. That guy is addicted, one hundred percent. He probably doesn’t have much longer [+to live]. I remember Uncle Sasha was telling me this story… On some station, don’t remember which, an old man was _importuning_ [|harassing] him, claiming that he was a powerful psychic, and that he’s waging a constant _war_ [|battle] against other powerful psychics and aliens, [+though evil ones]. They almost prevailed, and it could have been his last day—since all his energy goes into this battle. The station was like Sukharevskaya—it’s a way station; the fires and close to the middle of the station, away from the tunnels; people rest there and continue the next day. Three people pass right by my stepfather and the old man, and the old says, with terror is his voice, ‘See, the one in the middle is one of the strongest evil psychics, a disciple of the darkness. To his sides are two aliens. They help him. Their leader lives at the deepest point of the metro.’ My stepfather told me his name, but I forgot. Ends in –sky. Anyway, the old man continues, ‘They don’t get close to me because you’re here next to me. They don’t want normal people to know about our battle. But they’re attacking me with negative energy right now, and I’m shielding them. I’ll not give up so easily!’ You’re laughing now, but my stepfather wasn’t humored. Imagine, a god-forsaken corner of the metro; who knows what can happen there. It sounds delusional, but you know. Uncle Sasha kept telling himself that the old man is mentally ill, but then he felt that the one in the middle, surrounded by two aliens, was glaring at him, and then he thought he saw his eyes glowing a little…”
“What nonsense,” faltered Zhenya.
“Could me nonsense, but on those distant stations you need to be ready for anything. And the old man was telling him that the final battle with the evil psychics was approaching. If he were to lose—which he could, he didn’t have much strength left—then it would be [|mean] the end _of_ [|to] everything. There were more good psychics formerly, and the war was more balanced, but then the evil ones started winning, and this old man was one of the few survivors. Or maybe the very last one. If he perished and the evil wins, that’s it. End of the line.”
“I think this station is already at the end of its line,” added Zhenya.
“Then it’s not the very end; there’s yet something to strive for,” replied Artem. “So anyway, the last thing the old man says is ‘Sonny! Give me something to eat. I don’t have much strength in me left. And the last battle is nearing… Our future depends on it. Your future!’ You see? He was begging for food. Same with your mage, I think. He also probably has a few screws loose, but probably for different reasons.”
“You’re definitely an idiot! You didn’t even hear [+my story] till the end… And even so, how do you know that the old man was lying? Besides, what was his name? Did your stepfather say?”
“He did, but I can’t quite remember it. It was a funny name… Started with Chu. ‘Chuvak’, or ‘Chudak’… It’s often like that for the hobos: they have some stupid nickname in place of their real name. Why? What was your mage’s name?”
