And while Artyom was regretting his big mouth, Hunter continued:

‘I haven’t come across the whole metro system to this station for no reason. I’m not giving up on my own task. Danger should be eliminated, as you have probably heard many times today. Should and will be eliminated. I do that. Your stepfather is afraid of it. He is slowly turning into their instrument, as far as I can see. He is resisting them more and more reluctantly and he’s trying to get me to join him. If the ground water thing is true then the option of exploding the tunnel is, of course, obsolete. But your story has clarified something for me. If the dark ones first made their way here after your expedition, then they’re coming from the Botanical Gardens. Something has been growing there that isn’t right, in that Botanical Garden, if that’s where they were born… And that means that you can block them there, closer to the surface. Without the threat of unleashing the ground waters. But the devil knows what’s happening at the seven-hundredth metre of the northern tunnel. That’s where your powers end. That’s where the powers of darkness begin – the most widespread form of government in the whole Moscow metro system. I’m going there. No one should know this. Tell Sukhoi that I asked you lots of questions about conditions at the station, and that will be the truth. You don’t have to explain anything, right – if everything goes smoothly, I’ll explain everything to whoever needs to know. But it might be that…’ He stopped short for a second, and looked at Artyom more closely. ‘That I don’t come back. Whether there’s an explosion or not, if I don’t come back before the following morning, someone should say what’s happened to me, and tell my colleagues about the fiends that are making trouble in your northern tunnels. I have seen all my former acquaintances here at this station today, including your stepfather. And I feel, I almost see, that there’s a little worm of doubt and horror crawling through the brains of everyone who has been exposed to their influence. I can’t rely on people with worm-eaten brains. I need a healthy person, whose ability to reason has not yet been stormed by these ghouls. I need you.’

‘Me? But how can I help you?’ Artyom was surprised.

‘Listen to me. If I don’t come back, then you have to, at any cost – at any cost you hear! – you have to go to Polis. To Gorod… And look there for a man with the nickname Melnik. Tell him the whole story. And one other thing. I will give you something, which you will give to him as proof that I sent you. Come inside for a minute.’

Hunter took the lock off the entrance, lifted the flap of the tent and ushered Artyom inside.

There wasn’t much room in the tent due to the huge camouflage rucksack and the impressively large trunk which were standing on the floor. By the light of the lantern, Artyom saw a dark shimmering gun-barrel in the depths of the bag, which, by the looks of it, was a reassembled army hand machine gun. Before Hunter could manage to close the bag so he wouldn’t see, Artyom caught a glimpse of a matte black metal box containing machine-gun magazines, laid in a dense row next to the weapon, and small green anti-personnel grenades on the other side of it.

Without any commentary on this arsenal, Hunter opened the side-pocket of his rucksack and withdrew a small metal capsule from it, made of a machine-gun cartridge case. The side where there should have been a bullet was screwed up into a little twist.

‘Here, take this. Don’t wait for me if I’ve been gone two days. And don’t be afraid. You will meet people everywhere who will help you. You have to do this! You know that everything depends on you. I don’t have to explain that to you – right? That’s it. Wish me success and get out of here. I need to catch up on some sleep.’

Artyom managed to utter a word of goodbye, shook Hunter’s hand and started wandering over to his tent, stooping under the weight of the mission on his shoulders.

CHAPTER 3. If I Don’t Come Back

Artyom was sure he would be cross-examined as soon as he got home. His stepfather would shake him down, trying to find out what he spoke about with Hunter. But, contrary to his expectations, his stepfather wasn’t awaiting him with a rack and Spanish boots but was snoring peacefully – he hadn’t had a chance to sleep in the last twenty-four hours.

Since he’d been on night patrol and slept that day, Artyom was again going to have to work the night shift – this time at the tea-factory.

Decades of life underground, in the darkness interspersed with patches of dull-red light, makes you lose a true sense of day and night. At night, the station’s lighting was a little weaker (as it was on the trains of long ago so that people could sleep) but the lights never went out completely except in the case of an accident. Though it had become aggravated by years of living in darkness, human vision was nonetheless comparable with the eyesight of the other creatures that lived in the tunnels and abandoned passages.

The division of ‘day’ and ‘night’ had probably come about by force of habit, rather than by necessity. ‘Night’ made sense because the majority of inhabitants at the station were more comfortable with the idea of everyone sleeping at the same time, letting the cattle rest, turning down the lights and imposing restrictions on noise. The inhabitants of the station could find out the time by the two station clocks, placed over the entrance to the tunnels on either side. These clocks were considered to be as important as strategic objects like the arms store, the water filters and the electric generator. They were always looked after, and the smallest problems with them were immediately dealt with, and any delinquents attempting to take them down were dealt with very strictly, sometimes sent into exile from the station.

Here there was a criminal code, by which the VDNKh judged criminals in swift trials, and it was always being applied to extraordinary situations which were resolved and then new rules were established. Any actions against strategic objects brought about the most severe punishments. For smoking and the setting of fires on platforms, as well as the careless handling of weapons and explosives, you would be immediately expelled from the station and your property confiscated.

These draconian measures can be explained by the fact that several stations had already been burnt to nothing. Fire spread instantly through the small tent cities, devouring everything, and the wild screams of awful pain would echo in the ears of the neighbouring stations for months afterwards. Charred bodies stuck to the melted plastic and canvas, and sets of teeth, cracked from the inconceivable heat of the flames, gnashed in the light of the lanterns held by frightened traders who had accidentally come upon this traveller’s hell.

In order to avoid the repetition of such a grim fate in the rest of the stations, the careless setting of fires became a serious criminal offence. Theft, sabotage and the deliberate avoidance of labour were also punished with exile. But, considering that almost everyone was always visible to each other and that there were only two hundred or so people at the station, these kinds of crimes were rare and usually perpetrated by strangers.

Labour was compulsory, and everyone, young and old, had to fulfil a daily quota. The pig farm, the mushroom plantation, the tea-factory, the meat-packing plant, the fire and engineer services, the weapon shop – every inhabitant worked in one or two of these places. Men were also required to go on military duty in one of the tunnels once every forty-eight hours. And when some kind of conflict arose, or some new danger appeared from the depths of the metro, the patrols were strengthened and they put a reserve force on the pathways, at the ready.