Chapter Sixteen: Escape Plan
An unassuming door in a dark side-passage led to the corridor which spiraled deeper into the excavations of the enigmatic Metro-2 line. Artyom and Aleks had needed to transfer to the Arbatskaya on the Filyovskaya Line and exit into a service tunnel before finding the hidden elevator shaft; it had all been written on the cardboard piece that Grigori Igorevich handed to Artyom. As instructed at the top of the list of directions, Artyom covered their tracks and made sure nobody had been following them.
"I never thought I would see any of this with my own eyes." Aleks breathed with admiration, shining her flashlight around the small station.
"Seems like you could have found it if you'd wanted to. You have people everywhere bringing in all kinds of information." Artyom mused, as if another entity was using his mouth to speak while his mind was preoccupied with questions; about Khan and the Dark Ones, about Melnik, and what Hunter had left for Aleks. The reality of these things was more tangible now than it ever had been, and scenarios began to play in his mind and he was immersed in them.
"Well, to be honest, I'm not that interested in the Metro itself… So what if there's a secret bunker with weapons and food - who cares? It's just another thing for everyone to fight over." Aleks exclaimed and flicked her hand as if brushing imaginary dust from in front of her.
"You're not wrong… but it is important. Strategic." Artyom remained detached from the conversation, not focused enough to begin debating politics with her.
There was silence for a time as Artyom looked for the switch box that controlled the lights. He wondered when the electric train would arrive. Although he'd ridden on it a few times before, he still wasn't sure if they were dispatched and summoned, or just continued to run automatically at scheduled intervals. Had the trains been running even before they had found D6? Going to each station diligently as it had since its creation, even though there were no longer any people to utilize it. Artyom thought there was something else to compare that kind of situation to, but couldn't place what it was.
Finding no box, he figured that the station lights must be part of the switchboard in the control room. He could see the glow of the buttons in a glass booth across the platform, but there were thick spider webs strung up between the pylons and the walls. He groaned, loathing to have another obstacle, and began to take out his knife to cut through them.
"It doesn't matter how many resources anyone can find down here. It can't last forever." Aleks had crept up close behind him and startled him with her interjection. Apparently she wanted to continue the discussion.
Artyom said nothing, and went back to slicing at the strands which kept sticking to the blade of his knife and tangling around it.
"Here." Aleks pulled out a cheap plastic lighter from her pocket; she flicked the flint and an orange flame sprung to life. She touched it to the wispy white webs which dissipated into nothingness with a flash of fire and a hiss.
"We have to live somehow." Artyom's mind had finally caught up with itself, and he concluded that he would rather distract himself with conversation than be trapped in his own thoughts. He might not have much longer to spend talking with her and had to take advantage of the opportunities when she was loquacious. "What else are we supposed to do to survive?"
"Leave." Aleks said ominously, keeping her eyes focused on clearing the cobwebs with the lighter.
Artyom looked back at her with brows knit in confusion; he attempted to laugh, because she had to be joking. Yet, her expression remained as stern and resolute as he'd seen on the first night that he met her, her steel pupils lit up with red and yellow reflections as the fire spread and died again.
"Y-you're serious?" He stuttered, putting a hand on her arm and forcing her to face him.
"I think it could be possible… There have to be places on this Earth that haven't been touched by radiation and fire." She kept her focus on the webs, but with an ear tuned for his reply.
"They've sent scouts before; trying to see what was beyond the edge of the city. Most of them never returned and the ones who did only reported the same destruction for miles and miles. It's further than anyone can go with only so many filters… not to mention all the creatures up there…" Artyom's voice waned as he internalized his monologue, trying to imagine what he might pack in his rucksack if his mission was to walk across the surface to another city. It was intangible to him how distant other places actually were, having never been outside Moscow even when he was a child.
"What if the ones who didn't return simply found something better?" Aleks said softly, stowing away her lighter as the last of the cobwebs were disintegrated.
"But then why wouldn't they come back for the rest of us?" Artyom could only imagine that they had been lost or killed somehow, what other reason could there be?
"Would you want the job of sorting everyone out?" Aleks tugged at the rusty door to the control room but it didn't budge.
"What do you mean, sorting?" Artyom cocked his head curiously.
"I imagine you'd only want to bring good people with you to a new city… So then how do you ensure that those such as the Nazis and Cannibals don't follow you?" Aleks held up a hand as if the solution was contained in it but the answer wasn't so simple.
"I hope you're wrong." Was his only reply; and he set about prying open the door to the switchboard. He couldn't imagine that other people had escaped the tunnels and gone on to live elsewhere without anyone hearing about it. Wouldn't someone who discovered such a paradise want to come back for his friends? His family?
"Do you really want to live here forever? In this wretched underground world that we never asked for and had no hand in creating? Won't you even try?" Her eyes expressed determination and also anger.
"I wouldn't even know where to go." Artyom strained the words as he finally lurched the door aside.
"Then we should start somewhere close, somewhere we know the location of precisely." Aleks stepped up into the door frame after Artyom had gone inside; it was as if she intended to block his path back out until he agreed with her.
"You talk as if you've already chosen a place." Artyom said quietly as he examined the buttons and knobs on the panel in front of him, trying to make sense of the controls.
"Emerald City." Aleks leaned in, waiting eagerly for his reply.
Artyom absorbed her statement for a moment, caught between wanting to know what her interest in the legendary station was and also trying to select the right button for the lights. After deciding on a large black switch he flipped it up and was happily surprised that he had chosen the right one. The white lights over the platform sparked to life and he grinned at Aleks. Noticing her pressing expression, he quickly caught himself up on the past few seconds of conversation.
"Why there?" He managed to ask after a few seconds of thought. "It's just a silly legend."
"If anyone would know about the probabilities of survival, or where to go, it would be the scientists who knew the world before it ended." Aleks dropped her eyes to the floor and Artyom knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. "It's not a legend, Artyom. You wanted to know what the true mission was, earlier. Well that's my idea, my hope, to find a way to leave Metro and live a real life again."
Artyom was momentarily stunned, as if her words hung all around him and prevented him from moving. Her proposal wasn't entirely crazy, and had the core energy of serious hope and possibility. But there was something else hanging in the words, a kind of melancholic desperation in them.
"You're looking for someone there." He stated simply, and her answer was confirmed when her head shot up and she glared at him blankly.
"H-how did you…?" She squeaked.
"I am getting to know you after all." He smiled crookedly, putting a hand on the door frame as his way of asking her to move back so he could exit.
She didn't respond with any words, but tried to hide an impressed smile and stepped aside, letting Artyom lead the way back to the railing that would open to let them on to the train when it arrived. He thought he could hear the hum of the monorail in the distance, but it was impossible to tell because each station was sealed separately from the tunnels.
"Would it be too much for me to ask who it is?" Artyom asked after a few moments of her stunned silence. Her answer proved to him that he had earned the right to know.
"My father. In the dream, he was telling me…" Aleks gazed across the tracks to the far wall as she was assumedly conjuring memories of the man. "He was a chemist, or still is. I don't know exactly what he did, but he studied abroad in Germany. Then he became a professor at Moscow University and met my mother."
Her story actually answered more than one question for him. Now he knew why she had, at times, been partial to German sayings, and the foreign name of her clan finally made sense.
"And you think he's still there?" Artyom found himself also hoping that it could be true.
"Well, he was at work when… when it happened." Aleks shrugged and shook her head clear of her memories. "He could still be there now, at the University, or in the stations below it."
"So, how do you plan on—" Artyom began, but suddenly a whirring was heard and the hermetic lock over the tracks squeaked open.
A shiny silver train approached them and stopped squarely in front of the railing. An automated voice bade them to stand clear as the doors opened. Artyom caught sight of Aleks' excited expression before they boarded. He could only guess that she'd never been on a real running train before. The doors slid shut and the heavy partition in their path eased open, bearing them into a black tunnel softened only by the headlights which shone a meter in front of them.
Aleks clutched nervously against one of the front seats, though she looked through the forward windshield with astonishment. Artyom smiled to himself, amused by her enjoyment and remembering his own amazement when he had first stepped aboard. He hoped the feeling would last as long as possible for them both, because the atmosphere would most certainly change once they arrived at D6. There were many serious and sad things to speak about and Artyom attempted to clear his mind to make way for the right words.