Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) Read Free

technicians that had built the outer generators and regularly maintained them under supervision were always careful to not get closer than a few hundred meters to Tschertanov skay a .
    Almost everyone who had an expedition like that before him and who wasn’t a fanatic atheist secretly made a cross with his hands and some even told their families goodbye.
    The Tschertanov skay a was an evil station; everyone felt that who just approached her even half a kilometer. At first, in their naivety, the inhabitants of the Sev astopolskay a sent heavy armed scouting parties to extend their reach.
    They came back, if at all, heavy injured and at least decimated by half. Then they sat stuttering, slobbering at the
fire, so close that they clothes almost caught fire but they never stopped trembling. They struggled to remember their experience – and one report was never like any other.
    It was said, that beyond the main tunnel of the Tschertanov skay a , side tunnels plunged down into an enormous labyrinth of natural caves and allegedly were swarming with monsters. The people of the Sev astopolskay a called the place “the gate” – an arbitrary term, because nobody in the metro who was still alive, had entered this part of the metro.
    Although there was a story from when the line hadn’t even been built yet – supposedly a big recon unit passed through the Tschertanov skay a and discovered “the gate”.
    Over a transmitter – a kind of cable telephone – the radio transmitter communicated that it fell down, almost vertical at the end of a small corridor. They didn’t get any further. In the coming minutes the leaders of the Sev ast opolskay a heard shrill screams full of horror and pain.
    It was strange that the recon team didn’t shoot – maybe they knew that conventional weapons wouldn’t protect them. The last man of the group to be silenced was a mercenary without a conscience from the Kitai-G orod station, who cut of the small finger of defeated enemies as a souvenir.
    He seemed to be some distance away from the microphone which had slipped out of the hand of the radio operator, because you couldn’t hear his words very clearly.
    But after listening closely the head of the station understood what the man was sobbing while he was fighting for his life:
    A simple prayer. One of those simple, naive prayers that religious parents taught their small children. Then the connection broke off. After this incident all further tries to reach the Tschertanov skay a were stopped. Yes, there had even been plans to abandon the Sev astopolskay a and return to Hanza. This cursed station seemed to be one of those borders that marked the end of human rule in the metro. The creatures that pushed against these borders brought the inhabitants of the Sev astopolskaya many problems but they weren’t invulnerable and a good organized defense could fend off the attacks with slim to no casualties – as long as they had enough ammunition. Some of these monsters could only be stopped with high-explosives and high voltage traps. But in most cases, the guards had deal with less terrible – but still dangerous – creatures.
     
     
     
     
     
    “There is another one! Up there, in the third pipe!”
    The upper searchlight had broken out of the frame and dangled twitching like a hanged man on the cable, scattering its hard light at the scenery of the fortifications: Sometimes it illuminated cowering silhouettes of creeping mutants, other times it hid them in the darkness or blinded the guards with its glaring light. Treacherous shadows raced around, became smaller and bigger, appeared as distorted faces so that you couldn’t distinguish the humans from the mutants.
    The post was in a good position, because in this place two tunnels ran into one. Right before the apocalypse the Metrostroi ( Russian term, means workers in the metro ) began their repairs, but they had never been able finished it. The residents of the Sev astopolskay a had