Chapter 10: Aftermath

Alexandr – Day 2 – 02:38

I heard people coming towards me from the maintenance tunnel outside my room and woke up immediately. Their distant echoing voices were muffled through the walls and I could only just make out that it was a man and a woman talking.

"You tired?" The woman asked.

"I'm fine. We should keep moving," replied the man.

I panicked and collected my few belongings. My plan was to take the bedroll with me, but I unfortunately didn't seem to have the time anymore. I quietly moved through my door and closed it before moving into the main tunnel, only remembering that I should have turned the dim light off once I was too far away from the potential danger to care. I hoped that it led to either Kitay-Gorod or a Hansa station. The absolute worst-case scenario would be if it ended at Revolyutsii.

The tunnel was a disaster zone. So much of its walls had collapsed or been blown up. Broken weapons lay discarded and wasting away across the width of the tunnel and spent bullet casings were strewn about. I came across a number of skeletons that donned the very old and rudimentary armour of Hansa troops. Their helmets were rusting and most of their fabric clothing had all but disintegrated. I checked a few of the bodies and found nothing useful, anything good had either wasted away or had already been scavenged. While the sight didn't immediately bode well for me, I was somewhat comforted by the age of these bodies because that meant that this fighting wasn't recent at least.

I came across another blockage in my path; yet another section of the tunnel had collapsed. Running out of ideas as to what to do next, I shined my torch across the ruinous cave in with dismay. Just before I completely gave up hope, I saw an old train carriage in the corner of the rubble. I hurried over to it and shined a light through the narrow, glassless windows of its back door. The ruined carriage was covered in spider webs, the creators of which scurried away as fast as possible when I illuminated them. There were so many that I couldn't see to the other end of the carriage. I thought I'd make use of my lighter and burn them away nice and quickly, but routing around in my pockets and only served to make me panic when I couldn't find it. Searching through every pocket multiple times, I eventually concluded that I must have dropped when I'd hastily collected all of my equipment. Fuck. It was so cool and it actually would have been useful here.

After debating doing back into potential danger for a moment, I refocused if the train carriage. The two sliding doors were slightly open in the middle, so I grasped each door with my hands and tried to pull them apart. They didn't budge, they'd been sat dormant for far too long. Running out of ideas, I found a narrow but strong looking length of pipe on the floor nearby and wedged it in the gap. Pushing it to one side with all of my strength bent the pipe slightly, but I eventually managed to break the doors free of their rusting position with a sudden jerk that almost knocked me over. I pushed the pipe into the cobwebs in the carriage and swung it around a little to remove them from my path before I climbed into it myself. My lighter would have been much faster, but I slowly moved through the carriage using the pipe to clear my way as I went.

Several skeletons were sat in the seats and lying on the floor of the carriage. They looked significantly older than those I'd seen before and were dressed in the rags of civilian clothing. They must have died when the bombs dropped. Some figures were cowering in the foot wells when they died, others had been thrown to the back of the carriage, some were just sat in their seats. I saw one mother holding a child close to them. I momentarily forgot where I was and walked straight into a mass of cobwebs. I scraped them off me and rushed out of the carriage; I just wanted to be out of there. I used the same trick to open the door at the far end and hopped out into the relatively clear tunnel.

The rest of the tunnel was similarly littered with the fallen bodies of Hansa soldiers. For a moment I wondered why this was so prevalent, when I remembered the Hansa - Red Line War many years ago. This amount of aged Hansa bodies would mean that I was near one of two places, the Lenin Library or Revolyutsii. Unfortunately, it seemed like these bodies would be from one of the many times the Reds took over Revolyutsii and Hansa launched a counter attack, as I was supposed to be on the wrong side of the Red Line for it to be the Lenin Library, now a part of Polis.

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and instead thought about how Ilia and I had first bonded through our fathers' deaths and his mother's eventual suicide. He was always somewhat emotionally distant from then. He didn't even tell me what actually happened with his mother until I was 15, previously choosing to tell me that she simply ran away. He never coped with it particularly well and tended to beat those that mentioned her into a pulp. When he got angry, it was never worth trying to stop him. He'd even lash out at those that barely mentioned her, simply because he couldn't deal with thinking about her again. When he was 12, another child a year younger that didn't know him asked him general questions about his lack of parents. Ilia initially tried to shrug him off but, when the child kept persisting and not getting my hints to leave it alone since similar things had happened before, Ilia slammed him up against a wall and threw him into another family's tent, collapsing it completely, before walking away without saying a word to any of them. I was unfortunately left to try and pick up the pieces he'd left. People in the station soon learned to not ask questions like that.

I figured that he needed a good woman to teach him some compassion but that wasn't likely to happen in this place and I certainly wasn't going to be able to get through his outer shell.

While absorbed in these thoughts, I saw a light in the distance of the tunnel. It was a campfire with four Red Line soldiers gathered around it. Unfortunately, it seemed as if I was I correct in my judgement about where I was. They had a kettle set up over the fire and were boiling some water to make tea. One of them spotted me and bolted upright as they aimed their rifle at me and yelled, "Contact! Who's there?!"

The rest of them rushed to join him as I put my hands up, wondered how on Earth I was going to play this, and yelled back, "Friendly!"

They approached me as the speaker continued. "What's your business?"

I had to think on my feet. "I'm soldier of the Red Line! The fascists captured me but I managed to escape!" Where did that come from?

"What are you talking about? There's no Nazis on this side of the line, there's nothing this way."

"It's a long story, but it involved a perilous trip to the surface. I've travelled for a long time, can I come in?"

They all looked at each other and discussed quickly. I just about managed to overhear their mutterings. "You two can take him to the door while we stay here. Don't be long." They turned back to me. "Fine. Come here and follow close." I approached them and they took my small amount of equipment off me with promises to give it back if I was let in. They led me past another campfire of four soldiers before we eventually made it to the main door of the tunnel with yet another contingent of guards on alert outside. My guides shared a few quiet words with them before knocking loudly on the door and requesting entry. The well-maintained sliding doors slowly unlocked with a loud, echoing clunk of the mechanism before they were painstakingly pushed apart by the guards behind the door.

At first glance, the station beyond was a stark contrast to Lubyanka, the only other officially Red station I'd ever visited. Where Lubyanka was half-prison, half-slum, Revolyutsii appeared to be significantly more militarised and wealthy. While the outer guards were the standard Red Army conscripts, outfitted with the most basic equipment as they were only there to inform the rest of the station of any of the rare threats to their eastern tunnel, the soldiers inside the station were all grizzled veterans who were given proper body armour and more reliable and powerful weapons. The three guards past the door all had pre-war urban camouflage as well as large bulletproof vests and a selection of weaponry. They carried high-end AKS-74Us, a shortened version of the usual AK-74M, but leaning against supply boxes and barricades was an RPK light machine gun, a Saiga semi-automatic shotgun and even a VSK-94 silenced sniper rifle. The doorway led into a closed off inspection room where the three guards stood to attention amongst an officer in a large black trench coat and officer's cap who was sat expectantly behind an empty table. I was told by my two guides to stay still and wait to be called up as they moved up to the officer.

"This man claims to be a Red soldier coming from Nazi captivity," one of the guards said as he unloaded my shotgun and placed it on the table along with my flashlight, gas mask and canteen. "This is what he had with him."

The officer furrowed his brow and judged me from across the room. He was clearly a stranger to physical work, preferring instead to organise things from the background. He was middle-aged yet his hands had no callouses, his clothes were clean, and his short and greying hair was well maintained and hidden under his pristine cap. He glared at me for a few seconds before briefly turning back to his subordinates. "You may return to your watch now." They quickly obeyed and paced out of the room before the door loudly closed behind them. He continued to glare at me. I wasn't sure how to react, so I tried my best to stand to attention like I'd seen Hansa troops do to their superiors at home. He eventually beckoned me towards the empty seat in front of the table and, without breaking eye contact, said, "Take a seat." I obliged and silently sat down on the uncomfortable metal chair before me. His glare was nerve wracking but I desperately tried not to show it. "Do you have your papers?"

I was prepared fir that question. "I'm afraid they took them off me, Sir."

He sighed heavily. "Ok, what is your name?"

I had to quickly think of a name as I desperately didn't want to give my real name. I went with the alleged name of someone in my home station that tried to copy the exploring that Ilia and I did. He was never very good and unfortunately ended up disappearing into the northern tunnels, never to be seen again. "Sergei Savin, Sir."

"Sergei Savin. You say you escaped from Nazi captivity?" I gently nodded. "Where were you based and where were you captured?"

"Lubyanka, Sir." I decided to use the only Red station that I knew anything about. "I was captured after the recent Nazi attack."

The officer leant back in his chair and thought to himself as he continued to stare at me. "This attack being the prisoners that the Reich sent towards our border?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I wasn't aware that we lost anyone from that. The prisoners were unarmed, were they not?"

I hesitated as I tried to make up my story. "They were unarmed, yes, but they were escorted by some of the Reich's troops. Me and one of my watch team went after them but they managed to get the drop on us."

"And what was your comrade's name?"

I paused again as I tried to think of a name before realising that the officer probably knew less about the attack than me since he seemed based in this tunnel entrance. "I'm afraid I didn't know his name. I met him that day and I think he died there."

He his gaze finally left me as he looked over my possessions on the table. "This… equipment," he said derisively. "It is not standard issue."

"Yes. I took this from the fascists."

"How exactly did you escape?" He quickly asked, hoping to catch me off guard.

Fortunately, I'd been thinking about this for a while. "I reached a point in my interrogation where-"

"Wait," he interrupted as he held his hand up and showed some worry. "Interrogation? Did you tell them anything?"

"I have nothing to tell them, Sir," I flatly responded. A small smile broke out of him as he nodded in acceptance and beckoned me to carry on. "I only had my hands tied and one person interrogating me. I stole his knife, killed him, and took his equipment. From there, I made my way out of the station and to the surface where I fought a demon amongst other things." He showed a little spark of being impressed as I continued. "Eventually I made it here, much further away than I intended but it was hard to find my way accurately across the surface."

He thought to himself again for just over a minute. "Stay here. I have to check your story." He gave me one last stare before slowly rising to his feet and quietly moving through the metal door behind him. The door slammed shut and I was left with the three well-equipped soldiers watching my every move. One of them briefly flinched when I went to scratch my head, so I decided to stop moving altogether.

It was a tense few minutes. With each second, I felt more and more nervous about what the officer was checking. I didn't think that I was hugely convincing and the scornful looks that he had given me as I made my story up on the spot didn't help. I'd always considered myself a decent liar, though. During my time in the officer's limbo, I distracted and reassured myself with thoughts of my previous successes in this regard.

One of my better lies was when I convinced most of the populations of Novoslobodskaya, neighbouring Mendeleevskaya, and the northern neutral station of Savelovskaya that all of the stations north of Savelovskaya were covered in radiation and were much too dangerous to scavenge from so that Ilia and I could have the first pick of everything. Ilia and I went off to Dmitrovskaya to recover an heirloom left by a family in Savelovskaya for a hefty price. When we got there, it was an untapped goldmine of old electronics, bullets, and even books. It was too much to take back in one trip, so when we found an old and broken analogue Geiger counter, we formulated a plan. Carefully, we took off the dial's plastic cover and moved the needle so that it was stuck in its highest position. After putting the cover back on, we only took the heirloom and rushed back to Savelovskaya where we collected our reward but proceeded to show everyone the broken Geiger counter. I took the lying lead as we pretended that the radiation at the station was so strong that it broke our Geiger counter. I didn't even know if that was possible, but people seemed to buy it.

From then on, we would sneak off and make our livings from the scrap we found there. No one knew where we got our materials from and we weren't about to tell them. Word quickly spread of the radiation and traders coming to our station from all over the metro started telling us about it. We only stopped going north because we'd scavenged everything in Dmitrovskaya and Timiryazevskaya and fancied somewhere closer to home. That turned out to be Tsvetnoy Bulvar, a bad move.

In reality, the northern stations had been abandoned because of a nosalis infestation. The residents held out for as long as possible but were eventually overrun and had to retreat to Savelovskaya where the defences were bolstered by Hansa until the threat was dealt with. Those that left still didn't return, however, as most were simply too scared. Years had passed by the time we got there and so our lie was almost plausible. We didn't even encounter any nosalises, there was clearly no longer any source of food so they left for greener pastures.

The door slammed open and the officer confidently strode up to his chair, put both of his hands on its back, and leant on it as he stared me down again. "It seems your story checks out." He extended his hand towards mine. I gave him a firm handshake as he smiled and said, "Welcome home, Comrade Savin. You may keep your equipment. Rest easy tonight, we'll get you back to Lubyanka when you've recovered from your journey."

"Thank you, Sir." I picked up my equipment, choosing to put the unloaded shotgun shells in the bandolier rather than loading them. I had no idea how I'd gotten away with my story; if he actually checked it out, he would have found it to be completely falsified. I could only assume that he left the room to pretend to check it out since he didn't have the means to do it properly in the short space of time required.

I followed him out of the door behind the table which led into the main station. A wooden pathway led immediately off the tracks and onto the station's platform. The tracks were full of the usual supply crates but the station looked as though it would have once been much grander than the standard Metro station. While it's walls and abnormally high ceilings were still covered in the usual soot and grime, the archways that led into the platform's centre contained small statues depicting Soviet workers (fitting for the Red's capital station) on either side that were well maintained and in good condition. Most of these relatively small archways were blocked off by supplies or the dozens of soldiers in varying states of work. Some were eagerly exercising while others were stood in their groups and idly muttering to each other. All of them glared at me with mistrust briefly until they saw that I was being escorted by the likely low-ranking officer, when they simply went back to what they were doing.

The walls and ceilings were lined with red banners. Halfway down the long platform was a set of stairs in its centre that led down to the transfer tunnel to Teatral'naya station and past that was the long set of escalators that eventually led to the cruel surface. Where the stairs in the centre were placed, the archways in the walls changed their purpose. In the immediate centre, they were clear to allow passage to the other sides of the platform, but the subsequent arches held small tents used as living spaces. They all looked relatively large, clean, and tidy; they must have been for the lower ranking officers, such as the man guiding me, as simple grunts wouldn't get as luxurious tents and higher ranking officers (at least in Hansa stations) got even nicer abodes. The officer led me to a tent that clearly hadn't been used in some time. It was generally clean, but the front flaps were coated in a layer of dust that wouldn't have formed if they were in constant use.

"We don't normally situate simple door guards in these tents," he began as he stopped me in front of the tent, "but as you have gone through a great deal of hardship to make it back to our glorious homeland, we have decided to let you rest here, in a guest tent, for a while before we sort your transfer back to Lubyanka."

"Thank you, Sir," I replied as sincerely as possible before remembering what faction I was with. "Glory to the Red Line."

"Glory to the Red Line," he quickly responded before saluting and moving back towards his position at the tunnel entrance.

The tent was long and narrow but made use of all of the space in the arch, meaning that I would even be able to stand up once inside. I pulled back the tent flap and inspected the interior. There was little more than a surprisingly clean but nevertheless old green army cot on one side with a plain black length of scratchy carpet covering the hard tiled floor, and a small wooden chair on the other side to the cot. I dumped my equipment in a corner and sat on the uncomfortable chair. Since I'd already slept for a fair amount of time in the tunnel, I didn't particularly need the sleep that they assumed I did and I didn't know how long they were going to be until they came to get me.

I didn't particularly want to go to Lubyanka again, either. Especially as my story would likely unravel as they would actually be able to check it when we got there. I didn't want to leave early and accidentally arouse suspicion, however. I had absolutely no idea what to do. Poking my head out of the tent revealed two heavily armed guards on the other side of the platform casually leaning up against the wall but clearly watching my tent. I nodded to them and went back inside, realising that they were there to make sure I didn't do anything suspicious. It seemed as though they believed my story but didn't want to take any chances.

. . .

I sat with my own thoughts ages but couldn't be sure for how long, during which time I'd thought up no plans and no method of escape from this station. I'd really dug myself a grave and wished that Ilia would have been with me to remind me to think of the entire plan rather than my current improvising as I went along.

I heard a voice call to me outside. "Comrade Savin! Are you awake?" I pulled open the flap and greeted the young soldier outside. He was wearing the standard Red Army equipment; brown clothes with a small backpack and a terrible machine gun hanging from a clearly homemade strap across his shoulder. "Hey, I've been sent to collect you for your transfer back to Lubyanka." Reluctantly, I gathered my things and joined him outside. "I'm Anton Yudin." We shook hands and he began to lead me further down the station. "We have a couple of things to do before we go. First, they want to reequip and pay you, the second is a surprise." He gave me a small smile that made me worry; it sounded so sinister. "It's a pleasure to meet you. From what I've heard, your escape sounds quite incredible."

Since not even I could say what had happened because I made most of it up, I just noncommittally replied, "I don't know, it just kind of happened."

He led me through one of the open archways that led to a larger maintenance tunnel. He opened its double doors and revealed an armoury in the surprising space. The corridor expanded in one direction into a large square room, but the weapons themselves were blocked off at the bottom by a DIY countertop and a mesh fence coming from the top to stop people stealing weapons. Behind it was an older man who had either seen his fair share of action or unreliable weapons. He had a shaved head with numerous scars all over it, he'd gone blind in one eye where a visceral scar covered it, and his Red Army clothes were tattered and worn. His hands were blackened and greasy and he seemed oddly uncomfortable in his seating position. Behind him was a wall full of all manner of weapons hung from pins on the wall ranging from the worst AK-47s to almost futuristic looking assault rifles that I'd never seen or even heard about before. Below these were several boxes of ammunition and general equipment.

"This is Sergei Savin, Sir," my guide said as we approached.

"Ah, yes," the armourer said in a deep, gravelly voice. "I was told you would be coming." He reached below his desk and pulled out an already prepared machine gun. It looked remarkably similar to my old gun that I'd lost to the Reich, the only real differences were that this one had a solid wooden stock rather than my flimsy collapsible metal one and it still had its safety catch whereas mine had fallen off long ago. Alongside it, he put down a satchel that contained a full magazine of thirty military grade bullets, a post card sized paper map of the metro, and a small black capsule. "Your weapon and your payment. As usual, you are encouraged to use your pay against the enemy. If you're captured again, you may consider the cyanide capsule." He looked at the shotgun already slung on my shoulder before putting a lot of effort into awkwardly standing up and staggering over to the back wall. Only one of his legs seemed to be his own, the other looked to be a prosthetic as he lifted a lid off one of the boxes and pulled out a moderately sized green backpack. It was larger than Ilia's single-strap affair, but certainly nothing special. He dumped it on the desk and slid it through the gap between the desk and the mesh as he said, "For the rest of your equipment. You can tie your other weapon to the side."

I took the backpack and began tying my shotgun around it using its strap as I said, "Thanks. Much appreciated." I finished up and put the rest of my equipment inside before checking my new Bastard gun's safety worked and picking it up without loading the magazine into it. Unfortunately, the weapon had no carrying strap, but I felt comfortable enough holding it anyway due to my previous experience.

"Right, onto your surprise," said Anton with a smile. My nerves were slightly eased by the weapon, at least it seemed like it wasn't a trap if they were willing to give me a loaded gun. Maybe they really did believe me.

He led me back through the station and to the central stairs. He checked the time on the station's massive clock and quickly said, "We have to hurry before it starts," before rushing down the stairs. I followed him with great interest as he dashed to the bottom and hurried through the long transfer tunnel. The tunnel was full of living quarters that ranged from simple tents to hastily constructed slum housing. I could only assume this was where the general residents of the stations lived. We were moving too fast to examine them in detail, but the people looked relatively content. None looked majorly hungry and, in contrast to Lubyanka, few were begging for money or food and none were soliciting degrading services just to make ends meet.

Eventually, we came down more stairs and to a small dingy bar. Its patrons were eating, drinking and laughing happily as we basically ran through its centre and rounded tight corners, through narrow passages flanked by scrap-constructed buildings and repurposed train cars, and eventually came to a large entrance hall in the middle of the station's platform. Red curtains covered some of the relatively clean walls and blocked off the archways that led to the platform edges, and a small queue led to a ticket booth with two turnstiles being guarded by a burly looking but otherwise unarmed ticket inspector. Above him was a sign lit up with dozens of bulbs that proudly read 'Bolshoy'. The beautifully decorated ceiling was perfectly clean and still resembled its pre-war glory. I suddenly remembered that Ilia had always wanted to come here in his attempts to pretend that he was more cultured than he actually was.

Before we reached the ticket inspector, Anton stopped me and quietly said, "You can keep your weapons in here, but don't do anything stupid." I nodded and he led me past the queue towards the bouncer, showed him two small strips of paper that I could only assume were tickets, and said, "He's with me," as he glanced back at me. I kept my weapon by my side and quickly nodded to the burly man in an attempt to seem like I belonged.

I was oddly excited, the new Bolshoy theatre was heralded across the Metro as its cultural capital. While I didn't particularly care for the idea of the theatre in this cruel and unforgiving world – it seeming like a pointless expense to me when others were barely staying alive in the outer stations – it was still something worth seeing.

The bouncer moved out of our way and let us amble through the slightly pointless turnstile that easily turned both ways; it was probably there to give some familiarity to the old world. We pushed our way through the velvet red curtains that led us further down the station's platform and into the theatre itself. The curtained-off hall made grand use of the large station with its high ceiling and wide central platform. Fifteen rows of wooden seating that resembled church pews filled the space but left a narrow aisle in the middle. The bright mercury lamps illuminated the large and well-constructed wooden stage that was mostly covered by even more large and heavy curtains. A small clamshell light lay at the front of the stage and illuminated the curtains. Anton led me down the aisle of the busy theatre to roughly the middle of the seating where we found a row of Red soldiers on the right-hand side. He sat down first and I sat on the outside of the row, putting my bag on the floor and holding my new weapon between my knees.

The theatre was awash with the impatient chatter of the overly privileged audience. I felt completely out of place. I didn't exactly have the hardest life back at Novoslobodskaya, but I felt as though I earned my way through and didn't take much for granted. The clientele here were not of that ilk in the slightest; often this didn't seem to be a rare treat for some of them as I heard some mumblings of hoping that the show would be better than the last one they went to. Others were criticising the long queue but most were having inane conversations with little relevance to the realities of the harsh Metro. It was surreal, as if the bombs had never dropped. The old world seemed born again and these people had welcomed it with open arms, despite the conditions barely a station away.

A man and a woman that stood out to me walked past me through the aisle amongst the slow influx of guests. They didn't seem like either regular Bolshoy visitors nor Red soldiers. The woman's long black hair was well maintained although definitely wasn't perfect. Her clothes were slightly dirty and oddly had a few spider webs stuck to them. She was linking arms with a slightly staggering man wearing a tattered and filthy olive green coat with ripped trousers. He had an impressive AK-74M slung over his shoulder and a small one-strap backpack across his back. His dark brown hair was dirty and matted and I noticed that he had to occasionally hold his side as he walked. I vaguely recognised him but I couldn't think why, until he turned to look at me as he walked by without breaking stride. Ilia! It was only brief, but I saw a slight look of recognition and joy when we looked straight at each other. I was immediately happy but, when I saw his face, I saw what he'd been through to get to me. He was bruised and cut in several places. He looked weary and in pain as he staggered past me being slightly propped up by the beautiful woman he was with. She also showed some levels of exhaustion but had the remnants of makeup and was in significantly better shape than Ilia.

How did he get here? How did he find me? Questions rushed through my conscious and I wanted so badly to speak to him, but we both knew that we couldn't arouse any suspicion. They walked by and sat where there was space a few rows ahead on the end of the left side. The woman had to help Ilia take his weapon and backpack off before she eased him down onto the seat. I hated seeing him like that. Guilt hit me as I realised that he'd suffered through whatever he had for me, to save my stupid hide.

Absorbed in these thoughts, I almost didn't notice Anton talking to me. "So, how did you do it?" He asked.

I didn't speak for a moment before I snapped out of my trance and, after only barely registering what he asked, replied, "How did I do what?"

"You know, escape from the fascists!" He said excitedly. "I heard that you killed a demon!"

I laughed at the exaggeration of the story. "I scared a demon. Any idea how much it takes to kill one of those things?" He shook his head. I indicated towards my shotgun at my feet. "I fired both of these barrels at it and still only just got away from the thing."

"Jesus. Well fucking done."

To pass the time before the show started, I continued to regale him of my partially made-up tales as he watched with awe when I made up heroic feats in the Nazi stations. Despite having to be careful to not make it seem unbelievable, I had some fun with it. As long as I began every part of the story with the phrase, 'as a good communist', he seemed to lap it up. I occasionally glanced over to Ilia and his companion when I got a chance. They looked distinctly nervous and would regularly look back to me. I began to wonder who the woman was; who had he met on his travels? I desperately wanted to go and talk to him but knew I shouldn't, it would ruin my entire story. I simply had to hope that we could find a way to escape together.