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

because every afraid, disapproving, doubting look was hallowing out his certainty, he was starting to doubt as well.
    A recon team with light weapons didn’t even need a day on their way to Hanza and back – even accounting for possible fire fights and delays through the independent stations.
    The commander ordered to let nobody enter, closed the door to his small office, pressed his hot forehead against the cold wall and started mumbling. For the hundredth time he went through all possibilities. What had happened to the merchants? What happened to the recon team?
    The people of the Sev as topolskay a weren’t afraid of humans – except maybe of Hanza’s army. The bad reputation of the station, the inflated stories told by the few eye witnesses about how dear the inhabitants had to pay for their own survival – all that had been spread by the merchants throughout the metro using word of mouth.
    And soon that proved results. The leaders of the station quickly realized what advantages a reputation like theirs would bring them and took the fortifications of the station in
their own hands. Informants, merchants, travelers and diplomats were allowed, with an official permission, to spread the most horrible lies about the Se v astopolska y a and the neighboring stations.
    Only a few were able to look behind this curtain of smoke and lies and realize the true potential of the station.
    In some isolated cases during the last years, unaware bandits tried to break through the outer guard posts, but the war machine of the Sev asto polskay a , lead by former generals destroyed them without problems.
    The recon team on the railcar had gotten clear orders:
    If they were to encounter any threats they were to avoid any confrontations and return immediately.
    Of course there was also the Nagornay a on the route – not a place as terrible as Tschertanov skay a but still dangerous and fatal. And then the Nachim ov ski prospect which doors to the surface couldn’t be closed and had been overran by monsters from the surface. To blow up the entrance was no option for the Sev astopolskay a because the stalkers were using the surface access of the Nachimovski p rospect for their expeditions. Nobody dared passing through the station on their own but until now every railcar was able to deal with the creatures that occasionally lurked there.
    A cave in? The groundwater? An act of sabotage? A sudden raid by Hanza? It was the colonel, not Istomin that had to answer to the wives of the missing recon team, while they looked into his eyes unsettled and asking, hoping to find a promise or consolation. He had to explain it to the soldiers in the garrison. At least they didn’t ask any unnecessary questions and were – until now – loyal to him. And in the end he had to calm down everyone who gathered at the stations clock after work and wanted to know how long the caravan had been gone. Istomin had said that he had been asked why the lights of the station had been dimmed down. Sometimes he had even been asked to bring the lights back to full power.
    Even though nobody had even thought about powering down the electricity: The lighting was set to maximum. It wasn’t the station, but the hearts of the people that had gotten darker and even mercury lamps couldn’t help against that.
    The telephone line to the Serpuchov skay a was still dead. That took a feeling away from the colonel that was rare for the rest of the metro: The feeling of being close to other humans. As long as the communication was functioning, as long as caravans came and went regularly, as long as the journey to Hanza wouldn’t take more than one day, all residents were free to come and go whenever they wanted.
    Everyone knew that just five tunnels further the real metro began, civilization – humanity.
    Arctic scientist probably felt the same when they agreed – out of scientific interest or because of the high wages – to endure the fight against the cold and loneliness for