“I must go. I will search the ruins.” Khan stooped to lift his rucksack which he’d placed on the floor beside the bench. “I will contact you as soon as I have found something.”
“But—” Sergio started to follow after Khan as he headed quickly for the stairs. “I don’t think—!”
“Take good care of your friend, Sergio, there are not many like her in the world.” Khan said over his shoulder and then disappeared into the crowded platform below.
Sergio still wanted to speak further with his mysterious acquaintance, but Khan’s comment about Marco forced him to turn around and go back to her. He wondered also if there was something he saw about her that he hadn’t specifically identified. Exactly what did he mean when he was saying that the anomaly took a liking to her? It seemed to be quite the opposite to Sergio as Marco had been extremely somber and quiet since the haunted passageway.
He climbed back up the steps, and taking a seat next to Marco, he found that his mind was now blank. There seemed to be just too many questions and possibilities to process and so his brain had just decided to shut it all off. It was somewhat welcome, but still the uneasiness of the conversation remained in the rest of his body.
Marco had finished her tea and looked over at him. He continued to avoid her gaze, but managed to ask if she was feeling any better.
“Your friend Khan told me that I am lucky to be alive. That he had never known those things to act in such a way. I almost wish I had seen what he described it to look like, but I only saw blackness.” Marco paused, resting her head on Sergio’s shoulder. For once he didn’t freeze up at her touch. “He was helping me… sort out the memories. The music, it was an old song my father used to sing to me when I was small. A German lullaby.”
Sergio said nothing, but nodded his head so she would know that he was listening. For a moment he felt jealousy, thinking of his own mother, or what small he could remember of her. Had she sung to him as well? Why hadn’t the anomaly shown him anything so beautiful?
“I saw things, some of them I don’t think I can explain. It all seemed like… it wasn’t connected to our plane of time and space. I was floating around… in the stars.” Marco continued to ramble, seeming to have taken on the same mystical tone that Khan exuded, her eyes shifting back and forth across the far wall as if she was looking through it. “My father, I saw his face. I haven’t seen him in twenty years, Sergio. And he’s aged, so I just know it was like… I was seeing him as he is right now, and he’s alive somewhere, speaking to me.”
“Interesting.” Sergio said softly, with no particular emotions coming through. He was still somewhat distracted by Khan’s talk of the Dark Ones, although he had genuinely wanted to know about what Marco had seen in the cursed passageway.
“I saw Sacco, too.” Marco squeaked out after a long pause, as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “It was difficult, I didn’t see his face, I just, saw this hooded figure and I knew it was him somehow. He was in pain. Scared… I’m scared for him. What if he’s—”
“Sergio.” Grigori was standing at the door to the office. “The Colonel says you are to report to him immediately at D6, take the Subway-2, I have the map here.”
Sergio startled, already anxious from Marco’ and Khan’s words, and now Grigori’s sudden appearance and interruption. He had also transferred his shock to Marco who jumped and was stunned into silence, either from the same interruption, or she had been frightened by her own story, still considering its possible meanings. Sergio glanced at her as if to apologize before beginning his reply to his colleague.
“What about Marco?” Sergio stood up abruptly and closed the distance between himself and Grigori quickly, in case the answer to his question might offend her or exclude her.
“Her, too.” Grigori began to hobble back to the desk for the map he mentioned.
“Both of us?” Sergio was suddenly worried. “It’s allowed?”
“Yes, I told him what you said, about her knowing Sacco and the message. He said it was a personal matter, and that you’re to escort her directly. Take this, if you don’t know the new entrance from here.” Grigori passed him a small square of cardboard with written instructions on how to get to the Subway-2 station.
All Sergio could do was stare blankly and gather his things, he hadn’t even touched the tea he had been poured. He stuffed the cardboard in his vest and adjusted his bag on his back, taking a long and deep breath before leaving the room. Now he knew that her message couldn’t just be about some personal effects that Sacco had left for her. There had to be something more.
Chapter 16: Escape Plan
An unassuming door in a dark side-passage led to the corridor which spiraled deeper into the excavations of the enigmatic The Subway-2 line. Sergio and Marco had needed to transfer to the Arbatskaya on the Filyovskaya Line and exit into a service tunnel before finding the hidden elevator shaft; it had all been written on the cardboard piece that Grigori Igorevich handed to Sergio. As instructed at the top of the list of directions, Sergio covered their tracks and made sure nobody had been following them.
“I never thought I would see any of this with my own eyes.” Marco breathed with admiration, shining her flashlight around the small station.
“Seems like you could have found it if you’d wanted to. You have people everywhere bringing in all kinds of information.” Sergio mused, as if another entity was using his mouth to speak while his mind was preoccupied with questions; about Khan and the Dark Ones, about Vera, and what Sacco had left for Marco. The reality of these things was more tangible now than it ever had been, and scenarios began to play in his mind and he was immersed in them.
“Well, to be honest, I’m not that interested in the Subway itself… So what if there’s a secret bunker with weapons and food – who cares? It’s just another thing for everyone to fight over.” Marco exclaimed and flicked her hand as if brushing imaginary dust from in front of her.
“You’re not wrong… but it is important. Strategic.” Sergio remained detached from the conversation, not focused enough to begin debating politics with her.
There was silence for a time as Sergio looked for the switch box that controlled the lights. He wondered when the electric train would arrive. Although he’d ridden on it a few times before, he still wasn’t sure if they were dispatched and summoned, or just continued to run automatically at scheduled intervals. Had the trains been running even before they had found D6? Going to each station diligently as it had since its creation, even though there were no longer any people to utilize it. Sergio thought there was something else to compare that kind of situation to, but couldn’t place what it was.
Finding no box, he figured that the station lights must be part of the switchboard in the control room. He could see the glow of the buttons in a glass booth across the platform, but there were thick spider webs strung up between the pylons and the walls. He groaned, loathing to have another obstacle, and began to take out his knife to cut through them.
“It doesn’t matter how many resources anyone can find down here. It can’t last forever.” Marco had crept up close behind him and startled him with her interjection. Apparently she wanted to continue the discussion.
Sergio said nothing, and went back to slicing at the strands which kept sticking to the blade of his knife and tangling around it.
“Here.” Marco pulled out a cheap plastic lighter from her pocket; she flicked the flint and an orange flame sprung to life. She touched it to the wispy white webs which dissipated into nothingness with a flash of fire and a hiss.