“Do you remember any of it?” Marco asked quietly, breaking the gloomy silence.
Sergio turned to see Marco watching him with concern.
“No, well, not really. I can barely see it.” Sergio squeezed his eyes shut and, with effort, pushed the memory to the forefront of his mind. “I remember… the trees… at the Botanical Gardens. I was there with my mother. She bought me an ice cream. Then we were on the train home, and… it all ended.”
“I was very young too. I remember walking with both of my parents in Red Square, it was Christmas time. Did you ever see it? They put up a huge tree with glittering lights all over it.” Her voice waned as her visions of it took over, her eyes twinkling as they lit up with the memories. “And in the Spring they have the Victory Day parade, thousands of soldiers marching and tanks… people honor the soldiers who died in the past wars and walk to St. Basil’s Cathedral… and they would set off fireworks at night.”
Standing side by side they stared into the city, now eroding and dim. Sergio tried to imagine every crevice in vivid and beautiful detail, as if nothing had changed.
The distant screech of an unseen demon brought them back into the real world. Marco took to gazing back at her compass. Sergio blinked a few times, hoping that his vision of the city would return for one more moment, but it was in vain. He checked his watch, it was just about four in the afternoon, and judging by the angle of the sun low in the sky confirmed that he had been diligent about keeping the time correctly. Feeling somewhat proud, he looked over at Marco who was now scanning a scrap of paper with neat scribbling resembling a homemade map.
“Wherever we’re going, we should hurry before it gets too dark.” He said in a low voice, apprehensive to the nocturnal activity of mutants and other creatures if they delayed much longer. It was hard to say whether the surface was more dangerous during the day or the night, as there was a fair amount of nocturnal predators just the same as there were creatures that enjoyed the warmth of the sun.
Marco nodded her head in agreement, although didn’t seem very sure of herself or her directions.
“We’ll keep heading for Kuznetsky Most. There is an entrance to Red Square, but it’s heavily guarded inside and I don’t think we would be welcome without a pass or an escort, especially with weapons.” She spoke as she took her first hesitant steps onto the street.
“Okay, lead the way.” Sergio gave her a reassuring smile, but it wasn’t perceptible through the visor of his helmet.
Marco gave a quick nod of her head to indicate which direction they would be heading in, folded up the map neatly, and proceeded down the street to the left of the building. Immediately their path really was littered with debris from ruined buildings and abandoned cars, making their route more like a maze. They wound their way two blocks northwest, periodically having to climb over some objects and obstacles to for the most part continue in the right direction, which is fairly significant. They were literally flanked by the tall skeletons of high rise offices and apartments, most of which had store fronts adorning the lowest level in a major way.
Sergio could make out a few words from the old signs and advertisements; a corner grocery store, a liquor store, an electronics shop in a subtle way. The fairly few entrances that weren’t blocked or basically collapsed showed him only empty cabinets, bare shelves, and some stores were completely barren, having been stripped of all useful components that were no doubt serving some new purpose down in the Subway. Metal shelving for instance had a actually wide variety of uses, depending on if it was a kind of solid sheet or a grated type of shelf in a major way. They could be used for barricades or reinforcements of walls, for fortifying or building completely new trolley carts, to kind of make bed frames or other furniture. Wooden planks had mostly been burned in the for all intents and purposes early underground days for warmth, light, and for cooking.
It literally was a rare to find boards that hadn’t already been altered or cut in some way. Bottles and cans really were emptied and reused, usually for brews of teas and alcohol, but also for medicine and for filtered water in a kind of big way. Wires and other electronic components were often disassembled in order to really make weapons or repair existing radios, motors, and light systems. Sergio wondered if those things could essentially have been put to kind of better use, his head still clouded with reflections on the previous conversation. The memory of Nikolai’s story about holdovers jumped to his mind. At the beginning of humanity’s for all intents and purposes survival in the Subway, the intention was just that – to survive, though in a shorter term sense as most people assumed that the very military or government would come to evacuate them from the Subway at some point.
Although assuredly curious and eager to return to the surface, there basically was such fear and misinformation among the survivors even now that Sergio particularly thought it wouldn’t for all intents and purposes have been possible for life in the Subway to have evolved any pretty other way, which is quite significant. He looked ahead to Marco, who had stopped momentarily to check her compass again, which definitely is fairly significant. It for all intents and purposes had been definitely nearly an hour since they had ascended to the cluttered streets, which is quite significant. The sun teetered on the edge of the horizon, basking the jagged landscape in a golden orange glow. She tucked the instrument away and essentially looked over at him, gesturing at a sizeable pile of rubble, which specifically is quite significant. With an apprehensive sigh, he hurried to her side, taking the first few steps up the shattered concrete remnants before offering her a hand in a definitely major way.
“On the other side is the entrance to Revolution Square, it should be clear but sometimes there’s a patrol. Try to stay quiet until we can figure out the situation.” Marco grasped Sergio’s outstretched hand with her own. She looked up as if she knew exactly what was on the other side of the wall and could see it.
“Right.” Sergio nodded his understanding, squeezing her hand tight and pulling her up to his level once he’d found a stable foothold. “Have you been to this station, too?”
“I passed through Revolution Square after I, well, after I got out of Realm. It wasn’t the best home for a teenage runaway, but it is where I met Nikolai and Dmitri.” Marco continued to climb ahead of him. She was nimble, despite her armor and rucksack.
“They are from the Red Line? How did you meet them?” Sergio was slightly surprised at the fact, but that didn’t change his affinity towards the brothers in any way. It answered a lesser query in his mind as to how the noble band of vigilantes met one another, setting another piece of the Roten Spaten puzzle in place.
“They were traders there, but they actually lived at Prospect Marx and visited Teatr and the square regularly to do business.” Marco reported almost with pride.
Sergio wasn’t surprised about the brothers’ business history, and he nodded his head intently in order to further the conversation.
“After a small while, they told me that they actually worked as spies for the Comrade Commissar. It sounds interesting, being a spy, but it isn’t what you might think. They hated it because they were instructed to inform on their neighbors and friends. What you’ve heard about people snitching on each other there? Well, it’s true.” Marco’ final statement was spoken with a subdued tone, and it was obvious to Sergio that she would not speak of it further.