About a hundred metres from the station they were struck by a bright light, and they stopped.

‘Hands above your heads! Stand still!’ a voice roared through a loudspeaker. Artyom obediently put his hands at the back of his head and Mikhail Porfirevich thrust both his hands into the air.

‘I said, everyone, hands up! Walk slowly forward! Don’t make any sudden movements,’ the strained voice continued, and Artyom couldn’t look to see who was speaking because the light was beating right into his eyes and it was too painful to do anything but look down.

Walking with small steps for some distance, they again stood still when they were told and the searchlight was finally turned to the side.

There was a whole barricade erected there, and there were two machine gunners in position and another guy with a holster in his belt, and they were all dressed in camouflage with black berets, aslant on their shaved heads. They had white armbands – with something looking like the German swastika on them but with three points not four. There were some barely visible dark figures in the distance and there was a nervously fidgeting dog by their feet. The surrounding walls were painted with crosses, eagles, slogans and curses aimed at non-Russians. They puzzled Artyom somewhat because they were partly in German. In a visible place, underneath a panel with the silhouette of an eagle on it and a three-pronged swastika, there was that sign again, lit from underneath, the one with the unfortunate little black figure and Artyom thought that it was being displayed like some sort of religious icon for them.

One of the guards made a step forward and lit a long torch, holding it at head level. He slowly walked around the three of them, steadily looking into their faces, apparently trying to find some evidence of non-Slavic features. However, they all looked Russian and he turned his torch away and shrugged his shoulders, disappointed.

‘Documents!’ he demanded.

Artyom readily extended his passport. Mikhail Porfirevich rummaged in his pocket and finally found his.

‘And where are your documents for this one?’ the older guard asked, nodding at Vanechka in disgust.

‘You see, the thing is, that the boy…’ the old man started to explain.

‘Siiiilence! You will address me as “officer”! Answer the question precisely!’ the document checker barked at him and his torch jumped around in his hands.

‘Officer, you see, the boy is sick, he doesn’t have a passport, he’s just little, you see, but, look, he’s assigned to me, here, I’ll show you…’ Mikhail Porfirevich began to babble, looking at the officer ingratiatingly, trying to find a spark of sympathy in his eyes.

But the man stood still, straight and stiff, like a rock, and his face was like stone, and Artyom again felt that he wanted to kill someone.

‘Where is the photograph?’ the officer spat, having flipped through the pages.

Vanechka, who had been standing quietly until that point, tensely watching the dog’s silhouette and enthusiastically gurgling from time to time, now turned to the document checker and, to Artyom’s horror, he bared his teeth and hooted meanly. Artyom was suddenly so scared for him that he forgot his own hostility toward the man, and his desire to kick him good and properly.

The document checker took an involuntary step backwards, staring at Vanechka unkindly and said, ‘Get rid of this. Immediately. Or I’ll do it myself.’

‘Please forgive him, Officer, he doesn’t understand what he’s doing,’ Artyom was surprised to hear his own voice pronounce.

Mikhail Porfirevich looked at him with gratitude and the document checker quickly rustled through Artyom’s passport and returned it to him, saying coldly, ‘No questions for you. You can pass.’

Artyom made a few steps forward and froze, feeling that his legs wouldn’t obey him. The officer, turned away from him, and repeated his question to the other two about the photograph.

‘You see, the thing is,’ Mikhail Porfirevich started and, stumbling, he added, ‘Officer, the thing is that there’s no photographer where we live, and it costs a lot to get them at other stations, and I just don’t have the money to get a picture…’

‘Take off your clothes!’ the man interrupted him.

‘I’m sorry?’ Mikhail Porfirevich’s voice quavered, and his legs started to tremble.

Artyom took off his rucksack and put it on the floor, not thinking at all about what he was doing. There are some things that you don’t want to do and you pledge to yourself that you won’t do, you forbid yourself, and then suddenly they happen all by themselves. You don’t even have time to think about them, and they don’t make it to the cognitive centres of the brain: they just happen and that’s it, and you’re left just watching yourself with surprise, and convincing yourself that it wasn’t your fault, it just happened all by itself.

If they undressed them and led them like the others to the three-hundredth metre, Artyom would get his machine gun out of his rucksack, would switch it to automatic fire and would take out as many of these camouflaged non-humans as he could, until they shot him down. Nothing else made any sense. It wasn’t important that he had only known Mikhail and Vanechka for a day. It wasn’t important that they would kill him. What would happen to VDNKh? There was no point in thinking what would happen afterwards. There are things that it’s just simpler not to think about.

‘Undress!’ the man articulated carefully, repeating himself. ‘A search!’

‘But, if you please…’ Mikhail Porfirevich uttered indistinctly.

‘Siiilence!’ the man barked. ‘Quickly!’ and he reinforced his words with a gesture, by taking his gun out of its holster.

The old man started to unbutton his jacket hastily, and the document checker turned his pistol away and silently watched how the old man threw off his jersey, clumsily hopping on one foot to take off his boots, and swaying, trying to undo his belt buckle.

‘Faster!’ the officer hissed rabidly.

‘I’m clumsy… you see…’ Mikhail Porfirevich started, but the document checker had finally had enough and smacked the old man in the teeth.

Artyom rushed forward but two strong arms grabbed him from behind and, as much as he tried to extract himself from them, it was useless.

And then something unforeseeable happened. Vanechka, who was about half the size of the thug in the black beret, suddenly bared his teeth and with an animal roar he rushed at him. The man didn’t expect such speed from the wretched boy, and Vanechka managed to grab his left hand and even to hit him in the chest. However, a second later the officer recovered and flung Vanechka off, took a step backwards, held out his hand holding the pistol and pulled the trigger.

The shot, amplified by its echo in the tunnel, resounded in their ears but Artyom thought he could still hear how Vanechka sobbed silently and sat down on the floor. He was leaning over, clutching both hands to his stomach, when the officer kicked him and, with a disgusted expression on his face, pulled the trigger again, aiming at the head.

‘I warned you.’ He threw a cold look at Mikhail Porfirevich, who was frozen in place, looking at Vanechka with his jaw dropped and rattling sounds coming from his chest.

At that moment, everything went dark in front of Artyom’s eyes and he felt such strength inside of him that the soldiers holding him from behind almost fell to the floor when he rushed forward. Time stretched for Artyom and he had enough of it to seize the handle of his machine gun and, clicking the safety lock, he fired a round right through the rucksack into the breast of the officer.

He noticed with satisfaction the black line of dots on the green of the camouflage.