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

think: What remains when I am gone? What have I accomplished?”
    “Hm. I don’t know about you, but I have my children.
    They won’t forget me.” After a short pause he added:
    “At least not my oldest.”
    Homer wanted to reply upset but Achmed’s last sentence took the wind out of his sails. Of course it was easier for him to risk his old and childless hide. That boy on the other hand had his entire life in front of him and didn’t need to think about achieving his immortality yet.
    They had passed the last lamp; a glass can with a weak light bulb and a grid out of steel around it, full of burned flies and winged roaches. The chitin-mass moved almost unnoticeably: Some insects were still alive, trying to crawl
out of a pit – like wounded death candidates trying to crawl out of a mass grave.
    For a second Homer got stuck at the trembling, reaching, weakly-yellowish light, looking like it swelled out of graveyard’s lamp. Then he took a deep breath and dove into the deep-black darkness that reached from the Sev astopolskaja to the Tulskay a – if the station still existed.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    It seemed like the sad woman and her children had grown together with the granite plate. They weren’t the only ones: A little bit next to them a one-eyed man with shoulders like a wrestler looked after the group that was vanishing into the darkness. Behind him a thin old man in a military jacket was silently talking with the adjutant.
    “No we can only wait.” Said Istomin, while he crushed the self-made cigarette.
    “You can wait.” Answered the colonel edgy. “I’ll do what I have to do”
    “It was Andrey. The leading officer of the railcar that we sent.” Vladimir Ivanovitsch could hear the voice out of the receiver once again – he couldn’t get it out of his head.
    “And?” The colonel raised his brow. “Maybe he talked under torture. There are specialists that new certain methods.”
    “Unlikely. You didn’t hear his voice. There is something different going on. Something unexplainable. A surprise attack won’t matter …”
    “I can explain it to you.” Assured Denis Michailovitsch.
    “At the Tulskay a there are bandits. They overpowered the station, killed some of our guys and took the others hostage. They didn’t cut the power of course, they need power as well and they didn’t want to make Hanza nervous.
    They probably just turned off the telephone. How else would you explain that the telephone works some times and then it doesn’t?”
    “But his voice was so …” Mumbled Istomin as if he didn’t even listen to the colonel.
    “Well how?” Exploded the colonel. The adjutant carefully took a few steps back. “When I drive a nail under
your fingernail then you’ll scream differently! And with pliers I could turn a bass into a soprano for life!” He knew what he had to do, he had made his choice. Now after he had defeated his doubts he was on a new high and his fingers twitched to his sword. Istomin can complain as much as he wants.
    Istomin didn’t answer immediately. He wanted to give the colonel time to blow off steam. “We are going to wait.”
    He said finally. It sounded assuring, but relentless.
    Denis Michailovitsch crossed his arms in front of his chest.
    “Two days”
    “Two days”. Istomin nodded his head.
    The colonel turned around on the spot and returned to the barracks. He had no intend to lose valuable hours. The commanding officers of the strike teams already waited for about an hour at the long table. Only two chairs were empty:
    His and Istomins. But this time they would have to start without their leaders.
     
     
     
     
    The commander of the station hadn’t realized that the colonel had already left. “It’s strange how our roles have been swapped isn’t it?” Said Istomin sunken in thoughts.
    When he got no answer he turned around and saw the helpless look of the adjutant. He made a hand gesture that he could go. He didn’t recognize the