The airlock cycled open. The Rangers emerged into a brightly-lit tunnel. Santiago opened a nearby door. The room beyond held supplies. Ammunition boxes, weapon racks, medicine closets. A lonely fabricator in the corner. But no medbox.
Most of the crates were empty. Logistics cells roamed Metro-2, restocking equipment stores like this one, but as the war dragged on the resupply schedule had grown increasingly erratic. Part of Santiago rejoiced at the arsenal before him. Another raged at the bastards before him who had taken so much. A third insisted they take everything they could carry, while the last warned there was still a war on and other teams would need the supplies too. Santiago acknowledged each then coldly shoved them all away. The mission would dictate equipment, and their first mission was staying alive.
First priority was water. There was a water dispenser in a corner…which lacked a water tank. Entering the adjacent washroom, he turned the taps. Nothing. Santiago gathered a mouthful of saliva and swallowed it down. He’d been through worse.
After water came gear. As they topped off ammo and nano, they replaced their M592s with the racked ones. Those had never been zeroed, but M592s could launch projectiles at such ludicrous speeds zeroing wasn’t strictly necessary. They threw their old equipment into the fabricator’s mass digester, where it would be broken down into feedstock.
They peeled themselves out of their suits and wiped the suits’ computers, condemning the materiel to the digester. Maroon splotches crept across Santiago’s skin. They itched, but he refrained from scratching. When he peeled off his mask it took a mass of hair with it. Ismail and Meyers fared no better. Standard decon procedure was to wash off contaminated materials from their bodies. They made do by spraying themselves down in the washroom with nano, configured for cleaning instead of killing.
The fabricator churned out replacement suits, and after suiting up the team reconfigured the fresh suit computers and electronics. When Santiago powered up his q-com, he had a voice message waiting for him.
“This is Central,” a cool female voice said. “Proceed to Academy Outpost and link up with friendly forces. Prepare for high intensity operations. This is an Alpha Priority mission.”
Santiago passed on the message. Ismail frowned. “Academy’s on the other side of the city.”
“They’re bound to have a medbox there,” Meyers replied. “Water too.”
“How do we get there? If we’re walking… “
Ismail’s voice trailed off. Sure, they were Rangers, the best of the best and all that, but acute radiation syndrome cared little about that. Santiago could feel the invisible death gnawing through his veins, killing him by inches.
“The Underground Railroad,” Santiago said. “With Alpha Priority we can call the train.”
“It’s still functional?” Meyers asked.
“It better be.”
Metro-2 was an intricate network of service tunnels and corridors, denser than the civilian Metro. Digital maps were deemed non-secure and never stored on suits. There was a time when maps were posted at every junction, but Central had them torn down after they realised the Hivers were aware of Metro-2. Direction arrows were painted over, signs removed, even the alpha-numeric lettering that designated different sections were whited out. All that remained were sterile walls of white concrete, greying by degrees. Santiago had to navigate by memory alone. And, he knew, one of the side effects of radiation poisoning was decreased cognitive function.
No. He could not give in to despair. He had to keep going.
White lights gave away to lamps filled with bioluminescent bacteria, throwing a soft green glow into the darkness. They were filled with water, and for a moment Santiago entertained the thought of taking a sip from them. But that was the height of stupidity. Still, his tongue grew sticky fur and his skin tried in vain to reabsorb the sweat in his suit.
A soft metal crash reverberated behind them.
“What was that?” Meyers muttered.
A louder boom followed.
“Breaching charges,” Ismail replied.
Hunters filled the tunnels with a synchronized howl.
“They’re behind us,” Meyers said.
Santiago licked chapped lips. “Let’s move.”
They scurried into the dark. Santiago picked a turn, then another, and another. He’d only been here a few times, and that was so long ago. Was it the Guerrilla Warfare training module? Some operation at the beginning of the war? His memories were slipping away. He opened a gate, entering a small tunnel that stretched on into infinity. It looked just like any other tunnel, only the green lamps were in slightly different positions. Or were they?
“Wait a minute… “ he muttered.” Where are we?”
“Are we lost?” Ismail said.
“Haven’t been here before,” Santiago admitted.
“I think… I think I know where we are,” Meyers said.
Santiago cocked his head into the dark. “Lead on.”
She took point. Santiago rotated to the tail-end position. Keeping a hand on Ismail’s grab handle, he glanced over his shoulder every twenty steps. Hunters called into the dark. Santiago idly realized he was hearing the same long, drawn-out howl over and over. Even the most well-trained animals would vary their tone and length. But these howls were precise. Unvaried. A mechanical mimicry of biology. Which, in a nutshell, was the Hivers’ philosophy.
The Hivers they had encountered earlier weren’t equipped to perform explosive breaches. That meant Hiver infantry were coming. Humans, or what passed for humans in the Hive’s vision of humanity. Santiago suppressed a shudder. Sure, Neuvo Corazon had embraced genetic engineering and cybernetics, but they hadn’t discarded their humanity the way the Hivers had. He couldn’t understand their motives, and they never cared to explain. They just warped in their warfleet above the planet and dictated terms. When the government refused to surrender, the Hivers rained fire from above. That was… he couldn’t recall how long ago.
Meyers came to a door. She opened it, entering what looked like a substation. Power generators lined the walls, cold and silent.
“Eh?” she said. “I thought… where the hell…?”
“Lost?” Santiago said.
“I… shit. Yeah. We need to back—”
Hunters bellowed in the dark.
“Let’s not.” Ismail pointed. “Try that door.”
The door led to a staircase that descended into the dark.
“I’m not sure about this,” Meyers said.
“Only thing deeper than Metro-2 is the Underground Railroad,” Santiago said. “Doesn’t matter what stop we’re at, so long as we get there.”
They went down. At the bottom of the stairwell was a metal door. Locked. Meyers melted the lock and the trio stumbled into the room beyond. Santiago filled his lungs with stale air. He lowered his monocular and powered the IR lamp.
The platform was tiny. Just a strip of concrete adjacent to massive rails. The tunnels were clear, at least. Maybe a train would come here.
Like all the artefacts of civilization, Metro-2 needed power. The trains of the underground railway needed power. Power from the generators distributed across Metro-2 or tapped from reactors on the surface. The Hivers knew that too, and they always answered unexplained spikes in electricity demand with ground forces and orbital bombardments. The Resistance travelled almost exclusively on foot, or with vehicles that didn’t draw power from the grid. Central would authorize the use of the Metro-2 trains only in the gravest emergencies. With Alpha Priority status, Hivers on his tail, Santiago figured this qualified.
There was a q-com station next to the rails. Santiago flicked the power switch. The touchscreen displayed a keypad. He fed in his serial number. A host of buttons appeared. He selected the one that called for a train. Moments later, the intercom crackled.