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.
Song Recommendation: "Now's Your Chance" – Together We Fall (Only *one* song this chapter? Wow, Valk!)
Chapter Forty-Nine: Everything Happens for A Reason
"Sorry I stole you from your original partner. I'm sure Ulman is better company than me." Mikhail was still trying to retrieve the things he wanted to apologize to Artyom for as they descended the stairway to the lower level. The armory was on the opposite side of the med bay but he looked in that direction as if he expected to see Sasha standing by the doors. It's not time yet. And she can't even stand up.
"Oh, it's fine." Artyom shrugged passively. "Kind of a nice change to be paired up with someone who takes things seriously."
"I didn't always," Mikhail smiled as he thought about his old self again.
His charismatic persona was coming back out now that the thick layer of depressing guilt was falling away, but he was sure he'd never fully return to the old state of being. As long as Sasha still loved him, it wouldn't really matter, and she said she liked him better this way but maybe she was just happy to have him back in any kind of condition. She had been so wonderfully consolatory thus far, when he was certain that he would face harsh scrutiny as she delineated what was different about him now, convinced she wouldn't be interested in these damaged remnants of what she used to love. He seemed to himself so opposite from everything he had been before. He couldn't think of a single time he'd cried in front of her before they were torn apart, and it felt like he'd done nothing but cry since he recognized her. 'Everything used to be a joke to you, and now you're more serious… You look grown up,' she assessed the alterations, the wounds both physical and mental, but she didn't judge him at all. She was sympathetic to his anguish, and she wouldn't let him apologize to her any more than he already had. She held him and kissed him and talked him through what was on his mind every time the dark shadows crept too close.
And she had certainly made some evolutions in her own disposition. Just as Ulman had said, 'She isn't your innocent little seamstress anymore.' Of course, she always had the potential to do great things, only limited by the fascist regime and its societal gender roles. Her sustained fortitude and compassion surprised him more and more every day. His gentle yet fiery seamstress had not only rejoined the Resistance, but undermined the Führer himself, and organized her escape – all things that Mikhail failed to accomplish. Then she and Ivanovich built a network of like-minded people to help other unfortunate survivors and refugees from all over the Metro. She took care of those who had nowhere else to go; foreigners who were undesirable in the eyes of the major powers, the elderly, the disabled, orphans, widows, and widowers. Mikhail couldn't wait to see Avtozavodskaya and meet all the residents as well as her remaining clanmates that had worked alongside her and kept her safe and secluded. Everything with her group is so secretive. I must have been in Venice or Novokuznetskaya a dozen times in the last few years. How did Artyom find her, again? She essentially set a trap, waiting for someone in the Order to come along, looking for answers about Hunter. What if it had been me? I almost wish…
"You doing okay so far?" Artyom prodded his arm gently and looked at him with concern. He had been quiet for too long after his last statement.
"Yeah, I'm holdin' on. I'm just wondering, if you don't mind more questions, you said that you went with two guys to Avtozavod from Novokuznetskaya?" Mikhail worked backwards in his memory of Artyom's stories from their first lengthy conversation on the monorail. There was something that he hadn't figured out and only thought to ask about it now.
"Nikolai and Dmitri of the Red Arrow, and their man Valya in Novokuznetskaya is like their communications officer or something. They saw my uniform and… she wanted to know about… you know who." Artyom looked remorseful even though he didn't name Hunter specifically.
"Right, yeah, but I don't understand… what brought you there in the first place? And why by yourself? Where was Ulman?" Mikhail wasn't criticizing his partner or Ulman but he thought to himself that he never would have been caught off-guard like that. Artyom went along with these two unknown men willingly and it could have ended in disaster. Wasn't Ulman supposed to be looking out for him? But if he hadn't gone with Nikolai and Dmitri…
"We got separated. Ulman and I went up for a turn at Sparta Base and then there was a distress call near the Black Station. Six of us went to assist, we spread out and everybody's partners got mixed up, then a hoard of watchmen attacked and… Semyon Andreevich pulled me away from it all but he was hurt bad, he didn't make it. Grigori Igorevich ended up with a cast and… shit, that's two broken legs on my watch." Artyom shook his head gravely but Mikhail was interested in a different fragment of his partner's response.
"Hang on a minute… you were on the team that came from the Church?" Mikhail halted in his tracks and grabbed Artyom's shoulder to make him turn around. "When we got… when Arseniy got the fuckin' car stuck?"
"Y-yeah…? Wait, that was you that called in?!" Artyom hadn't fully connected the situation either, it seemed.
"Holy shit. And you went to Novokuznetskaya from there?" Mikhail stared with disbelieving horror.
Artyom nodded and continued to look at him curiously; he understood the remarkable coincidence about their proximity on the surface but there was a further implication that Mikhail was failing to find the words to explain. His partner quickly caught up and seemed to read his thoughts again, finally putting everything together with the same wide-eyed expression and covering his open mouth.
"And that's… how I met Aleks!" Artyom began to share in the same nerve-tingling shock that Mikhail had already succumbed to, taking a few steps away and then coming back. "Oh my God, I only found her because of you!"
"That's just… another fucking layer of insanity! This is unbelievable, I can't even…" Mikhail breathed deeply, staving off further panic, and shook the tension out of his arms. "I have so much to… God, why did everything suddenly line up like that? Eight fuckin' years of hell. Why now?"
"I don't know… but the more I think about it, the more it seems as though it was all supposed to go this way," Artyom put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "That night we were at Kuznetsky Most and I told her about my first mission to Polis, she said everything happens for a reason. She even told me that our meeting was some kind of fate. So, I guess we finally know what it was all for."
Mikhail didn't respond because what was he supposed to say to that? He walked forwards and pulled Artyom in for a tight hug. Katya and Ulman each got one, so he earned one, too. I couldn't believe in that concept anymore, because what was the reason that she was taken away from me? Why did I have to forget everything for so long? It didn't make any sense, and I still don't know the answer. But maybe she's right… with all these things, it's more than just random chance. Artyom returned the embrace uneasily and it was only just then that Mikhail realized that his young partner was taller than him by several centimeters.
"You're welcome, I guess?" Artyom laughed nervously as Mikhail let go of him but still hadn't come up with anything to say. At least there weren't any tears coming out today, he could retain a bit of decorum.
"I'll never be done thanking you." Mikhail confirmed his earlier theory, then he imagined Sasha's astonished face when he explained this further twist of fate and grinned excitedly. "She's gonna freak out when we tell her how you got to Novokuznetskaya that day."
"In a good way, I hope," Artyom seemed apprehensive again but managed to convince himself with a hopeful half-smile and Mikhail agreed.
"And the next time I see Arseniy…" Another name was added to the list. Why was it getting longer instead of shorter? Arseniy deserved the same gratitude and apologies as everyone else, and maybe he should be here for this weapon cleaning lesson, too. Arseniy is with Romanov, where does he usually go on patrols? North-East, I think? Might not see them for a bit.
Artyom led the rest of the way into the armory and went over to talk to Vladimir while Mikhail was getting stuck in his own head again. He was able to retrieve a cleaning kit and a few rags from the communal workbench on autopilot, finding two wooden crates nearby for himself and Artyom to sit on. His partner came over with each of their weapons in hand, holding the Simonov out to him carefully and then setting the Vintorez across his lap as he sat down and waited for instructions. Sitting around is no good. Come on, stay with it… this is supposed to distract you.
"Alright, let's start with yours—uh, hers… I guess." He thought back to his quiet reflection in Sasha's hospital room this morning and started feeling bad about what he said, or at least how he said it. Did she think he was angry with her about her relationship with Hunter? He still hadn't sorted out the meaning behind these uncomfortable feelings regarding his former mentor but he had at least ruled a few labels out. It wasn't anger, it wasn't jealousy, it wasn't revulsion.
"Ulman said Hunter was your partner for a while," Artyom asked delicately. Mikhail's immediate instinct was to dodge both the question and the topic but then he thought that perhaps talking about the missing Ranger would help him figure out the hidden emotions.
"Yeah, he was, for nearly three years actually. I mean, Melnik looked after me for the first few months after I got my memory back… but he was as busy then as he is now, so he passed the torch so-to-speak. I knew a good amount of regs from the Reich but all that ceremonial stuff didn't mean shit compared to what we do here. The Honor Guard operated under the banner of the Station Security Forces but it's pretty much just for show, a walking propaganda poster." He sighed mournfully; he was getting off-topic since he'd been reminiscing so much about his old self. Not that he wanted to go back to that life by any stretch of the imagination, but everything seemed simpler then. Or maybe he just hadn't taken things seriously enough. "Anyway, I have Hunter to thank for any and all of my worth as a soldier, my success if you wanna call it that. When I could barely get up in the morning, he believed in me."
"I'm sorry," Artyom said but Mikhail didn't know why he was apologizing. "He was sort of like that for me, too. But not directly like you and Aleks. I just looked up to him, what he stood for."
"Enough about all this depressing crap," Mikhail commanded himself under his breath. Focus on the task at hand. And then he considered that perhaps these morose memories were simply taking the place of the worries he was trying to subvert. Furthermore, he was likely feeling miserable because this was the first time he'd been away from Sasha in four days. Did his physical proximity to her determine his outlook? Would he always feel this awful every time she was away? What would happen when his leave of absence ended? If she agreed to enlist, would they be able to go on missions together?
"So, this rifle is special somehow?" Artyom interjected quietly, trying to start a new topic to get away from the unpleasantness.
"Well, it's rare, created for the special forces. Opinions vary on its effectiveness on the battlefield but in this nuclear wasteland it's even more useful if you ask me."
"How so?" Artyom looked down at the weapon thoughtfully.
"It was originally designated as a sniper rifle but it's only accurate to four-hundred meters or so. A Dragunov, for example, is effective to nearly a thousand." Mikhail smiled at Artyom's curious stare. Arseniy never asked for thorough explanations about weapons so he was delighted to share his opinions with someone who wanted to hear them. "The Vintorez can auto-fire and the suppressor is built-in, so it's more adapted for mid-range engagements where the sound is a factor. You're always gonna hear something when you fire any kind of weapon but with this your target will be on the floor before they hear the sound barrier breaking."
"I can see how that's handy," Artyom smiled but then his face fell flat. Maybe he was remembering the Nazi guards that they had neutralized at Tverskaya. "What about yours? Seems a little old-fashioned." Mikhail thought back to Sasha saying that the Simonov suited him. Artyom thinks it's old-fashioned? Damnit. Tell him why you chose it.
"Here, take a look." Mikhail ensured the chamber was clear before placing his Simonov into Artyom's outstretched arms and pulled out all the reasons he admired it. "Sure, it's an older invention but it's got a lot of features; and this one's a real Russian original, all matching parts except the suppressor and a few screws and springs that had to be replaced. You could call it a bridge between the classic heavy bolt-actions of the Great War and the modern assault rifle. It was pretty popular in the mid-century until Kalashnikov invented the AK-47 and everybody latched on to that, but Simonov really thought of everything. See the bayonet underneath? Some people say it's superfluous but he factored it into the design. It balances out the weight, so if you remove it, you'll constantly be off zero. There's also a trap door in the stock to store your cleaning kit. Ten round internal capacity which you can reload with the stripper clips or manually, and there's a magazine release latch at the bottom. I retrofitted a larger magazine but I didn't really need to."
"Wow… and you prefer your iron sights? Why, because of the tunnels?" Artyom turned the Simonov over in his hands as Mikhail explained all the parts, examining it with reverence.
"Not particularly, I just don't see the point in adding anything more. It can be a pain in the ass to modify properly because of the top-loading and cartridge ejection. We've got the girls for the long-range stuff anyway, and when you're an officer you pretty much let everybody else do the shooting."
"Oh, so now you remember that you're an officer?" Artyom chuckled as he handed the weapon back but Mikhail couldn't accept it as the joke that it was.
"I've been… barely alive this whole time. Melnik should never have let me enlist but I guess it was the only way he knew to give me a purpose again. I don't know how anybody ever put up with me, I don't know how I got anything done." If he was being honest, there were probably a lot more people that belonged on this figurative list. He had spent so long pushing everybody away when it might have benefited him to just be truthful with them about what he had been through. You can't change the past, not from the Reich, and not from the Order. There's no going backwards, only forwards.
"Well, I'm glad you stuck it out. It paid off." Artyom encouraged him again.
"It's a fuckin' miracle… how this all came together. I just wish I'd seen her before your mission." What would that have been like? Walking through the corridor one minute and collapsing dramatically into each other the next, sitting down for supper and seeing her walk into the mess hall, in the midst of an evacuation drill and watching her rush by with everyone else. She would have heard his name at some point, she would have sought him out just to verify her own disbelief. Or maybe, she would have shown up with Hunter. And then what might have happened? 'Hunter isn't here, you are,' Artyom had declared in the barracks.
"She's going to be alright," Artyom checked his watch but it still wasn't time.
"I know, I know." He convinced himself calmly. She'll be here in the armory with you in no time. And she's gonna love your Simonov the same way she loves you.
"So, Aleks said the Vintorez comes apart into three pieces and there was a storage case for it."
"Well, there's more pieces than that!" Mikhail managed to brush off the despair and turn the dialogue outwards, he was starting to get better at that, this was good practice. "But yeah, I think the case broke it down to… four, actually. Scope comes off, barrel, receiver, and stock. Hunter taught me about it but he didn't use the Thread Cutter much cause that caliber ammo is pretty rare and it's also corrosive."
"Specially made by the weapons specialists at Baumanskaya… you know, you should have heard her saying all this stuff about it to Melnik. She said a whole bunch of technical specs I think even he didn't know about... sub-sonic armor-piercing ammo, a cousin of this other assault rifle, rotating bolt, something something… built in Tula." He tried to imitate what she'd said, even lightening his voice to sound a little more feminine. "Something like that. It was crazy. She knew about every single weapon that they found in the warehouse, even your Simonov."
"Damn, I wish I was there for that." Mikhail laughed and shook his head incredulously. He still couldn't believe all the stuff she had learned about weapons and combat because none of that was relevant when they were in the Reich. He tried to picture her wearing his Honor Guard uniform and laughed again. He hadn't gotten the chance to see her in her Spartan armor, but she always looked amazing no matter what she had on, or didn't have on.
"I'm sure she'd be thrilled to say it all again." Artyom was slowly studying the Vintorez. "Okay, so how do I do this?"
"First thing, make sure it's cleared, then pull this back," Mikhail pointed at the part that needed to be moved and Artyom followed his gestures. "Take the barrel off, grip and twist it to the right, yup, exactly."
"I didn't think it would be that easy," Artyom seemed impressed with himself as the pieces separated.
"If they made it difficult then nobody would do it!" Mikhail scoffed with amusement and began to take his own rifle apart, laying out the components on a cloth by his feet.
"How often should we be doing this? I bet my rifle could use a once-over, too." Artyom looked behind them at the storage lockers. What was his normal weapon? Standard issue Kalashnikov? Or did he have something more special due to his prestigious status? If he found the information about D6 and helped in clearing it out, then he should have gotten first pick from the arsenal.
"Well, it depends on your usage," Mikhail looked up ponderously. These rituals were so engrained that he didn't really think about the reasoning behind it. Didn't I explain this to Arseniy? To Zero? To Alyosha? "If you fired it but then don't intend to use it again for a bit, its best to store it with a bit of oil. If you use it a lot, then just brush it out as best you can between patrols. Sometimes it's a gamble on whether to clean it or not to, especially if you're up on the surface, to keep more dirt and shit from getting into the action."
"Usage…" Artyom gazed off despondently. "She shot a guy and then I shot a guy."
"She did?" Why didn't Artyom mention that during all his other chronicles of his adventures with Sasha? What happened? When? On their mission? Why didn't she tell me about this when she confessed about Nikita? Has she encountered anyone else?
"Yeah, at Mayakovskaya, before we went up and found the listening post. It was some ruffian the Nazis paid to let them go up to the surface or something like that. Boris. They gave him an official letter from a Hauptman, tobacco, and cartridges. I submitted the evidence but I didn't tell anyone about what she did because I was afraid the Colonel would be pissed and not let her join." Artyom reported it calmly and quietly, perhaps still worried about that last fact.
Melnik seemed to know a lot about her, but had he known about what she had done during her escape? How much did Sasha tell him about herself? What was the Colonel's verdict on their recon mission, her merit assignment? And would she even want to join after all that had happened? Maybe she'd take a less active role in the Order; internal security, intelligence, communications, logistics, or even mending people's uniforms like she used to in Chekhovskaya. There was probably a sewing machine in D6 somewhere. Imaginations aside, Mikhail would make sure to ask Melnik about his ruling when he went up to see him after this.
"No shit?" Mikhail finally responded and cocked an eyebrow curiously but he wasn't distressed about her ruthless act. In fact, he imagined himself and Sasha as an indomitable fireteam for a short moment before Artyom interrupted the fantasy.
"His body wasn't there when you and I went to meet Kirill. I think she was right that it didn't matter, nobody missed him, nobody said anything. The Nazis will think twice before trying to bribe anybody there again and other residents can see what aiding the fascists gets you." Artyom was looking off at the far wall again and Mikhail suspected that he was repeating some of Sasha's justification in order to solidify it for himself. Once again, her logic had been on-point but even so, Artyom appeared unsettled. His partner had been hesitant to take down the guards in the tunnel to the Second Unit but he figured that was because he was still fairly new to the force. Now he was beginning to understand the gentler nature of this young man; idealistic, cautious, reflective, almost passive.
"That's the Metro for you." Mikhail sighed, acknowledging his own callousness on missions and patrols. 'Make sure it's them and not you,' Hunter used to tell him. "You did well at Tverskaya. I know you had a hard time with it and there's nothing wrong with that."
"I just did what you ordered," Artyom was staring blankly at the floor. How was Mikhail supposed to explain to him that such undertakings were a necessary evil? But then his partner picked his head up and smiled, "And I didn't even know your rank then, or your callsign, not even your whole name. There's so much you didn't tell me. You and Aleks are the same way like that, y'know?"
"Fuck, what haven't I told you about by now?" Mikhail couldn't think of anything that was secret anymore.
"Hmm… was the story about how you two met true?" Artyom accused with a doubtful smirk.
"Of course it was!" Mikhail defended himself quickly but then sighed wistfully. "Ah, I know I wasn't very… coherent… on the railcar. She can probably tell the story better than me but yeah, she chose to date the idiot that ripped his pants in the middle of the night. Funny, huh?"
"What was it like, living there? Working for them? Being a soldier there?" Mikhail almost couldn't believe that Artyom still had so many questions, and that he wanted to know so much about him. Invasive inquiries such as these had glanced off his hard-hearted armor for years, and he only rarely entertained Arseniy's endless probes. But with Artyom, sharing the stories was effortless, and Mikhail had never questioned his partner's conviction or confidentiality.
"Honestly? It was… my life was great. Maybe I'm only remembering certain parts, rose-colored glasses they say, but… I was charismatic and self-assured and popular… I had everything. If I just did my job and didn't think about what it meant then it was fine. I used to say… I still say that I had an invisible mask, to pretend like I didn't have real feelings but Sasha saw right through me from the start," Mikhail paused and breathed, wanting to do away with regret for the rest of the day. Try like Ulman, make a joke out of it. "Well, the Reich sucked obviously but damn if I didn't look good in that uniform! Sasha... Aleks was obsessed at first sight," he bragged with a huge grin. Really, it had been the other way around, or at least mutual, but Artyom didn't know that. Hopefully Sasha wouldn't correct him when she inevitably told this story herself.
"And you were, too, I'm guessing?" Artyom side-eyed slyly. He could tell this whole time how much Mikhail cared about her, suspecting that Sasha had drawn him in just as she did with Hunter and even with Artyom himself.
"God, you don't even know. Right away I could tell she was something special. She put me at ease when I was panicking about my uniform and she spoke her mind so fearlessly. It made me stop and think and… I felt like I wanted to be honest for once, I wanted to tell her what I really thought, and I wanted to know so much about her. I was somehow determined to prove to her that all men aren't assholes, that I wasn't like all the vainglorious officers she'd met before. I was worried that she would only see the same egotistical surface layer that went with the uniform and I wanted to show her there was more underneath." Mikhail was sure that he'd never said anything like this out loud, and definitely not while he was living that other nostalgic life in the Reich. He was beginning to draw out the positive memories from the pit of despair. Sasha would probably love to hear this, she deserved to know how important she was.
"Wow, that's… deep." Artyom looked reflective again but he was still brushing out the Vintorez as Mikhail rambled on.
"At the promotion reception for Smirnoff the next day, I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I remember her wearing a red dress, and she tied her hair up in a ribbon, but I didn't get to talk to her at all. It was torture."
Artyom laughed genuinely and kept looking at him expectantly as if he wanted more of the story but the jubilant memoirs of that day were fading out. I can't remember what happened next… but it didn't take long before we were 'officially' dating. You tried to give her the mask but she never needed it. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and she made you take things seriously for once. He tried to think of the best way to end the tale in a neat package.
"Like I said, I went to see her in the tailor shop a lot, and she hated her mom so she started living with me. You heard I was with those other girls before but it didn't mean anything. When I met her, she just… made sense."
"That's really nice." Artyom nodded as if he understood what that was like, and suddenly Mikhail felt his own curiosity coming forth.
"Enough about me already." Mikhail closed his eyes for a moment to refresh the perspective. He had to finish cleaning his own rifle, so if he asked Artyom about his life then he could focus on that while he listened. "What about you? You seeing anybody?"
"No," Artyom shook his head but then made an addition. "Well, I sorta like this one girl but I doubt anything could happen."
"If I'm any kind of example, then you shouldn't waste time overthinking it. Just go talk to her. Do as I say, not as I do." Mikhail insulted himself even as he tried to be uplifting.
"I don't know, Melnik might not like it," Artyom gave a further clue but Mikhail didn't understand.
"What's he gonna do? Unless it interferes with work?" Mikhail tried to decipher Artyom's reluctance. Who could he be talking about? One of the girls in the Order? I know it's not Sasha, it's not Katya, probably not Tatiana or Olga either, and it can't be Anya… right?
Artyom didn't respond this time and Mikhail thought it best not to push the subject if it was making his partner withdraw. What else can I ask him about? He's heard so much about me, and Sasha, but I barely know him at all.
"Why don't you tell me where you're from? I feel like you know everything about me by now but I haven't been considerate enough to ask what your story is."
"Well, I guess it's only fair if you want to hear how I got here. I didn't think I ever really had a story but... a lot has happened. A lot has happened because of me. And I know how it is to feel like everything is your fault, you don't have to explain that kind of thing to me," Artyom warned solemnly.
"You do?" Mikhail set his weapon down for a minute and looked over at his partner with concerned interest. "Dare I ask?"
"I figured everybody already heard enough about the 'Savior of the Metro' bullshit," Artyom spat out the title distastefully and Mikhail understood his revulsion. He doesn't like to be the center of attention, either. Rumors suck when they're about you.
"Everyone knows how you earned your rank, why we have this bunker," Mikhail began in an easy tone but Artyom cut him off.
"It goes further back than that... and actually, I... maybe none of us would be here in the first place if it wasn't for..." his partner trailed off and turned his dialogue inwards.
"The Dark Ones?" Mikhail had heard the outline of the situation but he'd been engaged with other projects at the time of Artyom's mission. And what had Sasha been doing during that time? After Hunter said goodbye to her… did she just keep waiting for him? She didn't want to believe that the same thing happened twice… that she lost two of us. And I haven't helped the situation at all by asking her about him, by talking like I have been. I need to do better.
"It was all my fault," Artyom spoke quietly and stared at the ground.
"Now you sound like me." Mikhail tried to joke but it just fell flat. He reached over and put a hand on Artyom's shoulder supportively. "Hey, if it hurts to talk about then don't push yourself."
"It's not that, it's just... I still don't know how to feel about it."
"Now you really sound like me." He smiled at his partner but that didn't catch on either. This was something entirely serious. And he just mentioned that he has a crush on someone. Is that part of it? "It doesn't involve a girl, does it?"
"No nothing like that..." Artyom still didn't look up.
"More secrets?" Mikhail couldn't think of many more angles from which to approach Artyom with his interest. It would be a long day if he had to keep playing this guessing game. But he understood the desire to keep uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to yourself, and he would readily dispense with this whole conversation if Artyom truly didn't want to talk about it. Yet somehow, he could tell that he was simply trying to find the right words.
"It's not a secret." Artyom took a breath and finally raised his head as he began the story with clarity as if he'd been rehearsing it. "Hunter came to my station, to Exhibition, 'VDNKh,' to speak with my stepfather Sukhoi. The advances from the Dark Ones had increased lately and we were losing a lot of good men. They weren't slaughtered but instead the attacks were psychological. Anyone who was near them went out of their minds. The whole station had nightmares even though they never came in that far, everyone was terrified. But once I… I don't think they were bad; I don't think they were trying to hurt us. I think… well, Khan said they had a different 'wavelength' than humans did."
"I heard they were smart, and normal weapons couldn't stop them." Hunter had given the bare facts to Mikhail and a select few other Rangers he trusted, creating a confidential task force that he planned to utilize upon his return.
"You heard right," Artyom sighed. "But the only reason they were able to get into the Metro at all was because of me."
"How do you mean?" Mikhail wasn't horrified at this news, still calm and curious. Non-judgmental, as they had been with each other all along.
"When I was about eight years old, me and two friends snuck out of the station one night. We wanted to see the surface. I know, I know, we were complete idiots," Artyom raised his hands defensively but Mikhail hadn't interjected nor changed his expression. Why did his young partner feel the need to be so apologetic? He figured he was about to find out. "At the Botanical Gardens station, we unlocked the hermetic door. Nobody lived at that station, not ever. Exhibition was the end of the line and we kept a watch all the way out to the four-hundred and fiftieth meter."
"The Reich never let us go up there, either. I didn't get to see it until after I joined the Order." Mikhail thought submitting his own desire to see the ruined city would relay his empathy.
"What did you think?" Artyom swiftly put the narrative aside and looked at him intently. Here we go talking about me, again… Sorry, Artyom. But he did ask.
"Well, I was a bit older than some, so I had a better idea of what happened. I knew right away that we really got bombed to hell due to the sirens, my family had drills every few days leading up to the end. My dad was some kind of intelligence or secret agent or something, he saw it all coming. He was Spetsnaz before my twin sister and I were born but after that he switched jobs. He never told us exactly what he did but he traveled a lot and we lived in a nice building in the Tverskoy District, so right next to… the Reich stations…" Mikhail trailed off, giving more information than Artyom had asked for. "I was thirteen when the shit hit the fan, and fifteen years later, I saw almost exactly what I imagined was up there. It didn't make it any less heartbreaking but at least I wasn't completely surprised."
"I don't really know what I expected to see, I was too young to remember much from before. I can't even remember my mom very well and she was with me on the train."
Both men were silent for a long moment until Artyom remembered that he had been telling Mikhail his appalling backstory about the Dark Ones.
"So, we unlocked the gate and went up to the surface. I think we were all shocked but none of us could really understand. Not even a minute goes by and some hungry mutants show up. We had a rusty shotgun but both my friends ran for it. For some reason, I was frozen on the spot – not terrified… I don't know what kept me from... and just as I was about to get jumped, a tall, black-skinned creature just… morphed into reality in front of me and pacified every single beast. Didn't kill them… silenced them and drove them away without a sound, without even touching them."
"That's... that's some shit..." Mikhail was completely stunned and didn't know what to say to such a tale. It defied his rationality to think that any of the mutant species roaming the city had any real sentience, let alone act with protective altruism. Where had the Dark Ones come from? What had they transfigured from? Were they humans? If they were benevolent to Artyom then why were they apparently hostile to Hunter? Or had something else happened to him up there?
"It saved me. That Dark One, but I sorta forgot everything after that. Next thing I know, I woke up in my bed like normal but... the door at the Gardens station was left open."
"Oh, damn," Mikhail breathed out his surprise quietly.
"I don't know why they waited for so long before they tried to infiltrate the Metro. Maybe they were waiting for me to turn a certain age or something, or waiting to see if I'd go back up there. And so, Hunter shows up one day and talks to my stepfather about it all but they couldn't agree with each other, they had been friends for a long time but they were arguing. I never told anybody about the door but Hunter took me aside like he knew what I was hiding. He sorta... I dunno, blackmailed me? I told him what I just told you. He said that he was there to assess the threat, find out what they were about, stop their advance. He gave me the cartridge capsule and told me not to tell anyone where he was going, not even my stepfather. And he said if he wasn't back by the second day, that I had to get to Polis and find Melnik, tell him what happened."
"And he didn't come back," Mikhail said with a solemn nod. So, that's what Hunter's last mission entailed, how it started and how it ended. Nobody could possibly know for sure what occurred once he left Exhibition station but search parties always came up empty-handed and there was not much left of the Botanical Gardens but ash. "Damn. So, you were probably the last person he spoke to."
"Yeah, I know..." Artyom sighed heavily again, probably hating to be reminded of that fact. "I had never left home before. Well, I had been to Alekseyevskaya and Riga that are next to us but never further than that. I don't even know how I managed to finally get to Polis. I mean, I do know but... I really don't want to talk about it."
Mikhail hoped that he might get to hear the whole chronicle someday but obviously it was a bit raw for his partner to speak about at present. In any case, he was happy that Artyom trusted him enough to tell him something so remarkable, glad to listen to someone else's dreadful stories and be supportive just as everyone had been for him recently. Now I've heard about Katya and I've heard about Artyom. This is even better than a 'thank you.' I can return the favor to them, for listening to all my crap. I hope it was helpful for him to get it out, seems like he's never really told anybody about this before. Does he feel responsible for Hunter's disappearance? His… death? Is that what had to happen? Was it all for a reason?
"So, Hunter disappeared and even though you did all this," Mikhail gestured vaguely around at the walls to imply finding the bunker. "You still feel guilty?"
"Yes. And I don't know if it will ever go away, if I'll ever feel right again." We're more similar than I thought… and he dealt with all this on top of helping Sasha? She was probably so upset when he told her this story. I never would have guessed anything like it…
"Well, I'm sorry to say that you won't. It can get better, and you can learn from it, but it doesn't go away. The doubt, the fear, the pain, it dulls down over time." You told the hard truth, now give him something positive. What did everybody keep telling you all these years? Having emotions means you care; and the emotions can feel bad but that doesn't mean caring is bad. "But I will say... that because you feel that way... that's what makes you human. That's what marks you as someone who gives a shit, and if anything Melnik and the psychologists tried to preach at me all these years is true... caring this much about the things you've done wrong matters."
"I suppose you're right…" but Artyom didn't seem assured. Maybe it would just take him more time to reason with himself, to learn to live with his altered framework, because for better or worse – there's no going back in time. Hunter has been gone for four months, now. When I got my memories back it took me days to calm down, to sleep, to eat something. Weeks just to organize everything I remembered; they made me write it down on scraps of paper and arrange it in order. Months to gain any sort of control over myself, could hardly go out in public. Years to learn how to operate again. And even now, I'm…
"Trust me. I've lived it." Mikhail pushed the last piece of his Simonov into place and ensured that everything was in smooth working order. He made a contented little grunt that signaled the completion of the task as well as the upsetting discussions and then leaned over to help Artyom reassemble the Vintorez properly.
"Thank you, Mikhail, for listening and not… condemning me." Does Artyom have his own list? He doesn't need to thank me at all.
"That's what friends do. So, you should use the short form of my name from now on." Mikhail put a hand on his partner's shoulder again and Artyom could finally return his smile as he understood and agreed to the informality. "Speaking of Melnik… I really should, uh… I owe him the same sentiments."
"I'll meet you back in the med bay?" Artyom stood up and held his hand out, offering to stow both weapons away just as he had signed them out.
"You told him I was coming, didn't you?" Mikhail accused knowingly as he handed his rifle off. Artyom thought of everything.
"He'll still want to see you," Artyom reassured him with a nod as he turned away.
"Thanks, I'll be down soon." Mikhail called after him. Then he organized the implements they had been using and tried to consolidate his thoughts again. What's Melnik going to say to me? What do I need to say to him? Thank you, I'm sorry, and… you were right about everything, dad.