“Stop! Identify yourselves!” A young man’s voice called out, dispelling Sergio’s memories.
Both Sergio and Marco halted in their tracks; Sergio raised his arms halfway into the air and only heard the rustle of clothing as Marco must have done the same. He wondered if she had noticed the ten or so glowing green eyes watching them as they had approached. The clicking of machine gun bolts and safety switches echoed off the walls.
“I am a Brotherhood Hunter, Sergio Marcoeyevich, and I’m escorting this woman to see Colonel Vera.” Sergio replied loudly and clearly.
“Proceed towards the light; we will check your documents.” The voice replied calmly and then the impermeable darkness was split with a crack of warm light as a door was heard creaking open.
Sergio thought he must not have met any of these guards before, or else they might have recognized him and dispensed with the formalities. None the less, he obeyed the order and slowly walked forward to the one lamp burning in a room off to the side of the tracks. Here, a large man in dark green clothing sat behind a small table. He bore the two headed eagle tattoo of the Kshatriya of Polis, but Sergio didn’t know him. Slowly reaching in his pocket for his passport, he slipped the man the document and then turned to Marco for hers.
“Ah, Sergio! The Colonel told us to watch out for you. He was expecting you yesterday. Go on in to the station, someone will radio in for you.” The guard gave a knowing smile, handed them back their passports, and waved them onwards without asking anything extra about Marco. Sergio had never looked at her passport himself to see where it had been issued, but it had checked out in any case.
Striding confidently, although inside disbelievingly, he led Marco into the next hall which bypassed the hermetic lock at this station. Apparently they didn’t open the big door unless there was a cart or caravan; it was probably more secure that way, Sergio guessed.
Although she shielded her eyes with one hand, Marco didn’t seem to be too bothered by the bright electric lamps at Farkasovsky Sad station as Sergio had been at his first arrival. He had to wear dark glasses for days and still wasn’t completely used to the lights even after that. Still, Marco looked at the whole vestibule with amazement in her eyes, and he knew that this was truly her first time entering the grand unified stations of Polis. At long last, he was home again.
Chapter 15: Contact
Farkasovsky Sad station was bustling, though there wasn’t much noise; people talked and moved about in an orderly fashion, going about their business succinctly and efficiently. There wasn’t a full open market at this station, as most of it had been converted into a makeshift barracks. The Brahmins now mainly kept to Borovitskaya and the Library station, whereas the Kshatriya ruled over Arbatskaya and Farkasovsky Sad now that most of the Order had moved to D6. Sergio had heard once from another Brotherhoodn that all exits to the surface leading from here had been sealed off, but the informant seemed to have his doubts about the fact.
Looking around for a radio post, Sergio was somewhat discouraged by his lack of familiarity with this station. He absentmindedly offered Marco an arm to lean on as he sorted through his memories and found his way around. He figured his best bet was to find the passage to Arbatskaya, where Vera’s old office was. With Marco still compromised from her brush with the anomaly, he didn’t want to alarm her by making her think he wasn’t sure of himself. He did his best to keep a calm demeanor as she took hold of his arm; it amused him that finally he was leading her around a station and not the other way around. Slowly, he began to wind through the main vestibule, scrutinizing every signpost and banner for directions to Arbatskaya.
After finally finding the passage at the other end of the platform, Sergio could make his way to the office easily; it had been turned into a checkpoint for the Order, and was always manned by one of their own men to maintain communications with D6.
Marco was trying to hide the fact that she was still dizzy, and Sergio thought it would be best to leave her outside the door and let her rest while he made contact. She stumbled slightly as he helped her shift to the wooden bench, and she let her head fall back against the wall. Her eyes seemed like glass, and she mumbled a few words to him. They were jumbled fragments about her father, and some kind of conversation with him, but that was all Sergio could make out. Perhaps when she recovered more, she would remember what it was and tell him about it.
“Will you be alright for a few minutes here?” He asked worriedly.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She said softly, attempting a laugh as she waved him away.
Promising to be brief, he left her side and went to knock on the frame of the office door. A young man with grayish-blonde hair was sitting behind the square wooden desk that Vera had occupied for untold amounts of hours when he wasn’t on a mission of his own. The small space was warmed by several filled book shelves and a few chairs and even a potted plant in the corner. On the left side of the room was a metal-grated partition which served as a small arms room. The walls still had maps of The Subway lines with notes scribbled down and pencil marks in several colors where there were transfer tunnels and other side-passages. Sergio tried to identify the markings about the passage they had just come through from the Red Line but it was too far away to make out properly. At least the Order knew something about it, and somehow he was relieved.
“Sergio? Is that you?” Spoke a familiar voice in response to his knocking.
“Grigori?” Sergio replied disbelievingly as the young man lifted his head from a book.
“So, you’ve made it! I’m glad. When they told me you’d be coming back I couldn’t believe my ears.” Grigori beamed, extending his arm towards a chair adjacent to the desk that let Sergio know he should sit in it. “Tell me where it is you’ve been!”
“I will, but first I need to contact Colonel Vera. He was expecting me back yesterday and—” Sergio paused, turning his head back to the door and thinking of how best to explain Sara to his fellow Hunter. “I have someone with me that needs to speak with him in person, urgently.”
“Someone?” Grigori echoed, raising an eyebrow and trying to follow Sergio’s gaze out the door. “Not one of us?”
“No. She’s from Avtozavodskaya.” Sergio reported flatly, suddenly wanting to be done with the questioning and get on with making the call.
“She?” Grigori’s expression was of shock and intrigue.
“She was a friend of Sacco.” Sergio said with emphasis, knowing that dropping the name of all names would put any more questions in the other man’s mind aside, at least momentarily, and force him to make the call. Any mention or news of the man was still considered serious business as Vera had not yet given up the search for the missing Hunter.
“I see, I see.” Grigori said with an intrigued nod.
The young Hunter slowly rose to his feet, having some kind of trouble, but it wasn’t until he walked over to the radio box awkwardly that Sergio noticed the cast on his lower leg. Grigori must have been injured during the fight at the church, and so they stuck him on duty here where he only had to sit and keep up communications. Sergio felt a twang of guilt, and began wondering who else may have been hurt. For a moment he believed that if he had been paying attention to the spotlight, the whole incident may never have happened at all – but then, he also wouldn’t have met the members of Roten Spaten.
“Igorevich here, Sergio has arrived. Yes. Tell the Colonel we have a code black.” Grigori tapped his finger against the side of the box, waiting for a reply.
Sergio finally took a seat in the chair he’d been offered and let the straps of his rucksack fall from his shoulders, not even contemplating what the meaning of that code word was. The items he had stowed to hide from the Reds hadn’t seemed very heavy when they left Kuznetsky Most, but the weight had taken its toll over the course of the harrowing day. His aching feet and spine took up all of his attention for the moment.