Disclaimer: The characters and story originally created by Dmitri Glukhovsky in the book and video game series "Metro: 2033" and its sequels do not belong to me. Those properties are owned by Glukhovsky, 4A Games, and Deep Silver. This work of fiction is intended for entertainment purposes and is not meant to be canonical, though I tried very hard to make it fit within the parameters. I do retain my rights for the creation of my own original characters and ideas. I do not make any money from writing this story.
Chapter Seven: The Venice Incident
The old ferryman navigated the small boat nimbly as they floated amongst quite a lot of debris and rubble from the collapsed tunnel liners. Most of the passageway had been reinforced with crude wooden beams, making the ceiling seem even lower and constricting. There wasn't much room to stand up, as the water level was almost half the height of the enclosed space. The water itself was particularly murky and disgusting, in its depths Artyom could see parts of sunken boats, lost baggage and other garbage, and bones of unknown beings- all covered in green slime.
Ivanovich had taken a knee behind him and propped his rifle up in his arms; Aleks was still standing but kept her head down and hunched her shoulders. After almost getting smacked in the head by a wooden beam, Artyom decided to crouch down. He definitely didn't want to end up in that water.
Fortunately, this leg of the journey was short and uneventful. Each of them was beginning to lose track of their speed with the tunnel being so curvy and dark, with the only light coming from the lantern hanging next to the ferryman at the rudder. They were coming now to a metal fence that separated them from the station, and after speaking a few words of greeting, the man controlling the gate opened it to them. Artyom noted how even the main island platform inside the station was covered over by the muddy water. Wooden docks and barriers had been built all around the edges of the area, with high walkways above them in the main vestibule.
Steering around a few men fishing from their own rigs, they docked in the heart of what seemed to be the recreational district. There was a small restaurant above them on a catwalk and the brothel with its red spotlights shone behind them. Residents came and went and there was much activity and chatter.
Aleks disembarked first, stepping onto the walkway and looked to both sides warily. Ivanovich moved only his head and spoke to Artyom with a jerk of it, making sure he got off the boat next before joining them on the dock.
"Alright, let's find Semyon while we wait for Nikolai and Dmitri and see if there's any news. Then we can get some pirozhki before we head out." Aleks spoke in a low voice, placing her rifle into a sort of sling on the side of her rucksack.
"They make pirozhki here?" Artyom asked excitedly, trying to sniff out the location of the delight.
"Best you've ever had." She glanced over at him with a one sided smile.
Artyom now felt warm inside, he couldn't remember the last time he had enjoyed such a delicacy as pirozhki. The fluffy egg dough with potato and cabbage inside reminded him of special occasions at home. Even his stepfather Sukhoi would sometimes bring him some if he had been exploring or on business for a long time, as if to make up for being away from him.
Ivanovich gave a nod in response to the ferryman as he pushed the boat away from the dock with his foot, having made brief mention of when he would be back with the other two members of their party. Aleks then immediately set off, seeming to know exactly where she was going. Artyom followed behind her quickly so as not to provoke Ivanovich to push him onwards. They wound their way past the bar and brothel and towards the open market in the next area of the divided station, having to use an upper walkway to cross over.
"Hey!" A rough hoarse voice called from between the arches. "You got some nerve showing up here!"
"Fuck." Aleks whispered under her breath, stepping back into Artyom and pushing him behind Ivanovich's large frame for cover.
Artyom would have protested, but he actually found it a bit funny that she was able to move him at all. He smiled to himself, recognizing a certain willingness to comply with her.
"You got a problem?" Ivanovich growled, stepping ahead of the two of them.
"Yeah, I got a problem with your boss. Thinking he owns the place, like he can just order us around." A scrawny man approached wearing a strangely adorned grey jacket that had the white version of the spade symbol on it. Several more men dressed similarly to him began to gather around after hearing the commotion.
Artyom glanced around at all the people who had turned their attention to the situation unfolding, gripping at Aleks's shoulder so as not to fall backwards as she was still pushing against him. She abruptly turned around, grabbing onto his arm, nearly running in the opposite direction with him in tow.
"We don't take threats from assholes like him, so you can tell him to step off. This is our ground!" The scrawny man yelled.
Ivanovich replied in kind, but he was quickly out of earshot as the crowd of spectators swallowed them up as they flew back down the catwalk and out of sight. Artyom only concentrated on the feel of Aleks's hand gripping his arm because whichever side she put more pressure on was the way that they were about to turn. Going around the next corner they were now in a sort of back alley where there were small shanties built of wooden pallets and corrugated plastic.
Aleks put her back to the very corner of this hall, taking a few deep breaths. Artyom had been released a few paces from her and could only look in the direction they had come from, wondering what was going on now.
"You're just going to leave him out there alone?" Artyom asked of Aleks, suddenly fearing for Ivanovich's safety amongst the pack of criminals.
"He's not a child, Andrei can handle himself." She replied with an arrogant look.
Artyom didn't speak again, he just kept watching around the corner to see if he could spot anything. Venturing too far elicited a whisper from Aleks, commanding him to return to the shadows.
"So, why are we hiding here?" Artyom whispered back, confused and annoyed at the lack of communication.
"Because I can't afford to get into it with these guys today, we need to get to Polis as quickly as possible." Aleks crossed her arms. "And as you heard, they don't know that I'm the one in charge – and I'd rather it stay that way."
"Does this kind of thing happen every time you leave home?" Artyom asked, wondering not only about the hostility of this area of the Metro in general, but also what sort of information Aleks would give him about her personal experience. He now imagined her to be an elite spy, pulling the strings from behind a curtain but rarely stepping foot on stage.
"Sometimes." She mused, staring at the floor, and then seemed to decide that he deserved a better answer. "For Venice, it is always hostile even when it looks quiet. These idiots are always up to something, thievery usually, or scheming to do something worse. We just try to stay one step ahead of them, and bully them into submission when we have to."
"What about the guards? Can't the station master do anything to stop them?" Artyom asked incredulously.
"There aren't any guards. This place is like—" Aleks's words were silenced by the sound of semi-automatic gunfire. Two shots rang out and there was a solid minute of absolute silence in the area.
Both Artyom and Aleks bolted to the corner of the passage, eyes wide and searching for answers, but all that could be seen was a panic – people fleeing in terror in all directions, screaming and yelling to each other. Two men came out from the brothel, blocking the entrance to the stairway that led inside; Artyom gathered from their stance that they were acting as security guards for the women inside.
Grasping on to Artyom's arm again, Aleks pulled him forward, pushing her way back through the crowd again, but now in the opposite direction. They had just run away from a potential fight and yet were now running towards the sound of gunfire. It seemed extremely strange to Artyom for the moment he had to think about it before his initial fear for Ivanovich's well-being surfaced again. He hoped that Ivanovich had been the one to shoot first, at least to protect himself, but also deeply hoped that no one had been hurt. He hoped it had just been some warning shots to scare off the bandits he had been arguing with.
Artyom finally matched speed with Aleks so that she wasn't tugging on him anymore. She yelled fiercely at people to move, and then began shoving them aside with her free hand so that they could get through. He almost expected her to pull out her own pistol for effect- to fire her own warning shots- but people began to step aside when they realized that the two were going the opposite way.
There had since been silence as far as weaponry was concerned, which only made the pair forge forward even faster to see what had happened. Entering back into the market area was nearly impossible. People ran about, scattering like rats in a bright light, their panicked cries blocking out all other sounds. A fire had caught from some place in the back corner of the shops and people had abandoned the area ten feet around it, no one was even trying to put it out. It almost maddened Artyom, thinking it also a little bit ironic that a station flooded with water could even catch on fire in the first place.
Aleks swung her head back and forth, searching every corner as rapidly as she could for her comrade, but there was no sign of any of the men involved in the prior quarrel. They paused for a moment in the middle of the space, seemingly in the eye of the storm of residents and bandits alike rushing around them. Artyom glanced down, noticing a smear of fresh blood on the metal grate beneath their feet, he pulled at Aleks's sleeve to get her attention and she followed his gaze, looking back up at him in pained horror.
"Aleks!" An unfamiliar masculine voice called from the other side of the market.
"Semyon!" Aleks yelled back, looking around for the source of the man she had mentioned meeting with earlier.
"Come this way, now! You have to leave!" The man who had called out stood across the canal waving both hands above his head. He was wearing a strange and heavy looking black uniform with a yellow rubbery tunic and a black knit hat.
Aleks and Artyom began pushing through people again, trying to skirt past the crowd, but the ever increasing shuffle of bodies prevented them from using the walkway. Aleks looked across the way, and then jerked her head to the side, motioning for Artyom to follow her as she jumped over the barricade and onto one of the wooden boats in the middle of the canal. She hopped onto an adjacent boat and then another, crossing the gap between them and Semyon by alternative means.
"Where is Andrei?" Aleks called as she climbed onto the far walkway, glancing behind her momentarily to make sure Artyom was still there.
"I haven't seen him, were you all here together?" Semyon glanced at Artyom curiously. "It doesn't matter now, you have to go. This way, they are loading the boats to Kitai Gorod now!"
Before either of them could ask any more questions or protest, Semyon had turned to lead them onwards to the next section of the station.
"I can't just leave him here, he could be hurt! Didn't you see what happened? There was blood!" Aleks yelled forward, trying to stop every few steps to talk to Semyon but he never ceased his quickened pace.
"He can take care of himself. You are more important." Semyon turned his head back to her with a solemn smile.
Aleks glanced over at Artyom with an apologetic look and silently shook her head. Having conveyed that she was not expecting their journey through this area to have turned out this badly, Artyom could only stare back at her. He was worried, too, on the inside, but wanted to show his own resolve and tact in the face of this disaster, at least to keep from worrying her more.
Rounding the next corner of the wooden walkway, they came into the next area which was entirely flooded and built up with boat docks and a few more shanties placed sporadically. The people gathered here were a bit more organized, quietly moving packages and organizing themselves and their few belongings onto different boats.
"Nikolai and Dmitri are still on the ferry from Novokuznetskaya." Aleks grabbed at Semyon's arm, trying to make him stop and turn to talk to her.
"Then I'll see to them after you go. I'll make sure they are kept out of this mess." Semyon attempted again to smile and reassure her.
"I won't just leave them here!" Aleks nearly screamed at him. Artyom thought it was touchingly impressive that she would risk so much for her soldiers, he could indentify completely.
"You must! There's still one boat left, but they won't wait much longer. Look, I'll tell the guys where you've gone, but please, you have to leave now before someone recognizes you." Semyon had finally turned and had taken both her shoulders in his large gloved hands, trying to impress on her the gravity of the situation that had unfolded.
Artyom could swear he saw tears in her eyes as she nodded back to him. He wondered where the two had met, and only now recognized that he must also be another emplaced member of the Red Arrow. He probably fed her information about the movements of bandits and criminals in Venice – that's what she had meant by staying one step ahead of them.
Semyon waved them towards the edge of the dock, one last boat remained and the passengers called to them to hurry and board so that they could go. Aleks looked back at Artyom once more and they climbed onto the boat together, kneeling down on its edge and pushing the boat away from the dock with their feet. Semyon gave a salute before disappearing back from the way they had come.
The man steering was an older gentleman with some fishing gear hanging from pockets on his old mesh military vest. He wore plain clothes but with tall rubber boots. He hit the switch for the electric motor as they entered the main tunnel away from the station. The tall gate on this side was already open, the operator was waving them on with a look of concern.
"Last one out!" Called the fisherman, and the operator nodded his head and closed the gate once they had passed through.
Artyom looked ahead into the tunnel, heaving a breath of relief, he'd hardly had time to process the whirlwind of events that had progressed in the last few minutes, let alone how this might change the rest of their journey back to Polis. He looked over at Aleks, who sat holding her knees and slightly rocking with the motion of the water, her gaze fixed back toward the station, eyes glassed over and not even blinking. In any other situation, he would consider her shell shocked, but he knew she was just worried about the rest of her company. She was probably more surprised than Artyom at the turn of events, as he knew she probably visited through this area often given her knowledge of it. He assumed that nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and she was left contemplating where she might have gone wrong.