Orekhovo Station: Day 2, Monday, 2:00 PMMGR: 5
Mikhail's lips moved before his mind caught up. "And… tell Katerina…" The pause was deliberate. The words hung, sour in the stagnant air. "Tell her she's in my mind."
The phrasing, innocent on the surface, carried a subtle weight, a hint of darker currents beneath. Mikhail felt his stomach tighten. The guards flanking the merchant exchanged a glance—knowing, sharp, a reminder that in this place, words could be weapons as easily as steel.
He nodded, the motion stiff, the taste of ash and coal thick in his mouth. Whatever game the merchant was playing, Mikhail realized, it would not end well unless he learned the rules quickly. And the rules were never fully explained.
Mikhail's throat tightened. He stepped back from the stall, nearly bumping into a man behind him.
"Next," the merchant said, already turning away.
The world's noise washed over Mikhail as he stumbled toward the edge of the market, the crowd swallowing him whole. The lamps flickered overhead. His breath fogged in the cold air, even inside the cramped warmth of the station.
He passed the guitarist again—playing the same broken tune. He passed the coughing man, now slumped against a wall. He passed a group of children huddled around a cracked heater, arguing about whose turn it was to sit closest.
Katerina's stall came into view.
She was ladling soup with slow, aching movements, her scarf sliding down her neck, revealing pale skin marked by fatigue. The pot steamed weakly—too weakly. The slow boil was the kind that said the fire was barely holding on.
She didn't see him at first, buried behind the smoke and the frantic motion of ladles and tin cups. The smell of coal and burnt mushrooms clung to the air, choking and sweet at the same time.
Mikhail stepped forward, hands trembling, the brass of his remaining MGRs heavy in his pocket. He wanted to speak, to explain, but his throat felt dry and clogged with ash and fear.
Katerina didn't lift her eyes. She moved with practiced precision, ladling the thick, oily soup into battered bowls, handing them to the waiting, impatient crowd. Each movement was measured, mechanical, as if she were slicing not mushrooms but the last threads of her own hope.
He tried again. Words came, but tangled and slow. "I tried…"
A pause. A moment of nothing, as if the walls themselves were listening. He tried to force the rest out: "…Katerina… he wouldn't… he didn't—"
She exhaled sharply, shoulders slumping in a small, private defeat. The faint sparkle of life in her eyes dimmed, replaced by a thin, exhausted glaze. She didn't need him to finish the sentence. She already knew the answer.
The clatter of a coin on the counter interrupted the stillness. A customer shoved forward, impatient, muttering curses about useless promises and people who thought themselves important. Katerina forced herself back into motion, ladling soup with the grace of someone who had been moving too long to remember why she ever cared.
Mikhail's chest tightened. He had nothing to offer her—no words, no coin, no hope. Only the weight of failure, the heavy emptiness pressing down on him like the ceilings of the tunnels themselves.
Finally, Katerina glanced at him, cold and sharp, her voice quiet but firm. "Go home."
He opened his mouth, a protest, an insistence. But the words stuck again, swallowed by shame and fatigue.
"Go," she said again, softer this time, but no gentleness in the command. Her hands still moved, ladling soup, turning life into sustenance like the rest of the station turned breath into survival.
He nodded slowly, retreating toward the shadows of the platform. The crowd swallowed him, the clamor of vendors and the smell of burnt coal masking the shame that burned hotter than any fire.
He stepped back. The steam from the pot warmed his face briefly before fading.
He drifted away from the stall like a man underwater, the world blurring around him. His feet carried him down the corridor toward his small, cold room near the station edge. The lights dimmed as he went, the sound of cyclists and generators strained.
The dead mechanical movements of holding out his ID and tax card while in a daze of helplessness before reaching the guard. Without a thought, the guard has already waved him through.
By the time he reached his bunk, the lamp nearby had gone completely dark. He sat on the edge of his bed, listening to the faint hiss of draft wind slipping through the vents.
The cold was coming and the coal was running out. He had nothing to offer but hope, the one currency that is crushed, mocked and unacceptable in the Metro.
He curled onto his side, pulling his coat around him and tonight, the cold would sleep closest. Like many who weren't able to buy a meal, sleep became the only appetite suppressant.
Orekhovo Station: Day 3, Tuesday, 7:40 AM — MGR: 5
When he woke, the light from the cracked bulb had dimmed to a pale orange. He can taste the acid as his stomach grumbles from the acid burns. The lost meal makes him shake. The next shift had begun. He could already hear the rhythmic tapping of hammers echoing down the corridor. The same beat that filled his every waking hour.
A four-man squad was seen marching away from Gus's workshop. Their clean, Hanza-sourced, armored vests and clean gear. High grade enough to seal against chemical or biological residue.
He arrived at Gus's door early this time. Earlier than he needed to. The habit of survival was punctuality and the consequences was felt.
The door opened with a groan. Gus stood there, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette, his eyes sharp and amused just before Mikhail's stomach let a loud growl that can be heard through the door.
Gus stood there "You look well-fed, Mikhail," he said cruelly. Mikhail kept his gaze fixed on the floor just beyond Gus's boots. His stomach twisted, but he forced his face into a neutral mask.
"You look eager for the Cold Corner," Gus continued, stepping aside. "But not today. Today you clean."
He led Mikhail through the workshop to a pile of weapons dumped beside the ventilation shaft. A sack of tangled, filthy machinery that stank of oil and corrosion. He looked around but Petrov is not in sight.
"A proper gunsmith," Gus said, tapping his chest, "is judged by his cleaning, not his loading. But I'm not about to teach a powder-rat how to run a business. You'll take the jobs no one else wants."
He kicked the sack. The sound was a chorus of clattering metal. "Twelve Bastard SMGs," he said. "Fresh off patrol. The Demolition Corps burned them out again. They jam if you so much as breathe on them. I want every spring, every coil scrubbed clean."
He reached for a tin on the shelf and slammed it into Mikhail's hands. The label was half-eaten away, but the sharp, chemical odor was unmistakable.
"Lye-mix solvent. Strong enough to eat the grime. Strong enough to eat you, too, if you're careless. Strong enough to eat the grime. Strong enough to eat you, too, if you're careless. We don't waste precious filters on solvent fumes; you breathe it deep."
Mikhail nodded, clutching the tin. The weight of it felt dangerous. Gus turned and walked away, leaving him alone with the broken weapons.
The Bastard SMG. the Metro's first homemade gun. Crude, ugly, temperamental. Born from scraps, like everything else down here. Most gunsmiths cursed them. Most soldiers feared them. But Mikhail saw something else.
Opportunity.
He dragged the sack to his corner and untied the cords. One by one, the weapons spilled out. skeletal, rusted, but whole. Each one was a puzzle of metal fatigue, heat warping, and fouled barrels.
He ran a hand over the first weapon, tracing the grooves cut by years of firing impure ammo. This was no punishment. This was a gift. A chance to learn. To touch the craft that had haunted his dreams since childhood.
The smell of lye filled the air as he worked. sharp and caustic. His fingers burned, his lungs protested, but his heart was steady. For six hours, no one shouted, no one cursed. There was only the hiss of solvent, the scrape of wire brushes, and the steady rhythm of a man quietly resurrecting the dead.
Piece by piece, screw by screw, Mikhail cleaned and learned. And as the first Bastard SMG clicked cleanly under his hand, something inside him stirred. not hope, not yet, but something that could one day become it.
Mikhail stood over the canvas sack, the smell of mildew and gun oil rising like something alive. The fabric was damp, stained by years of neglect, and the odor of the Lye-Mix solvent drifted through the air like poison vapor. It stung his nostrils, coating the back of his throat with a bitter slickness that made him swallow against the taste of metal.
Gus's voice still echoed in his mind. You get the garbage. The words were less insult than sentence.
He crouched by the sack and opened it. Inside lay a dozen Bastard SMGs. each one a crude monument to desperation. They were built from scraps of the dead world: pipes, old valves, mismatched bolts, warped rails, springs cut from bed frames. Each was slightly different, but all shared the same intent. they worked just enough to kill.
Their surfaces were blackened and greasy, steel sweating carbon and burnt powder. The air smelled of heat and neglect. Every weapon was fouled, rusted, and warped from overuse. The Bastard's reputation was well-earned: it overheated, jammed, tore itself apart. But it had one saving grace, it would fire anything.
The Metro's weaker, handmade cartridges — Dirty Rounds — were powder-light, barely enough to kick the bolt back. The Bastard's crude piston and loose recoil assembly made it possible. It had no proper tolerances, no sealed pressure. It spat out rounds more by defiance than design. Military Grade Rounds gave it a little more bite, but at the cost of shaking it half to death. A single burst with the good ammo could warp the barrel or split the casing.
He'd given him six hours to make twelve of them "clean enough" for the Demolition Corp.
He set the first gun on the bench. The receiver was hot from the nearby vent, slick with oil and soot. It reeked of carbon, sweat and biological matter. The Bastard was a weapon that punished carelessness and rewarded patience. qualities Gus lacked. This task wasn't training; it was humiliation. A slow execution disguised as work.
He stared at the first weapon. His hands trembled. From cold, hunger, maybe fear. The gloves he wore were split open at the fingertips, and every scrape along the metal found a cut.
He began with the buttstock. His thumb pressed into the recessed stud where memory told him the release was. It didn't move. The steel had fused with grime. He grabbed a brush and try to remove the matter that was fused on it. He then shifted his grip, pressing harder. His palm squealed against the oily surface. Then, with a sharp metallic pop, the stud gave. The tensioned spring released with a violent snap. He caught the frame just before it hit the floor.
The noise echoed in the small backroom. Mikhail froze. No sound from beyond the curtain. only the hum of the air shaft and the steady clicks and clinks of the bullet's assembly line.
He exhaled and continued.
Next came the recoil spring. He pressed the cap inward with both thumbs, leaning his weight over the receiver. It resisted. Not from strength, but corrosion. He pressed the cap inward with both thumbs. When the cap finally gave, it did so with a hollow groan, as though exhaling years of neglect. The spring slithered free, slick and dark with grease. He held it up to the lamplight. It wasn't a precision coil, it was salvaged junk, trimmed and reshaped.
Mikhail look at the awful mechanics that's been made in the Metro. The Bastard was too weak to be a good gun, which was precisely why it was the perfect Metro gun. Its loose tolerances and uneven spring were accidents of poverty that let it cycle the feeble, handmade Dirty Rounds. Weakness disguised as functionality. A gun born crippled, yet loyal to the hands that begged it to work.
He drew the bolt back, forcing it through the grime-choked receiver. The handle resisted, grinding like teeth on bone. He twisted, half-turn into the slot, and it came loose. The bolt slid out. Small, pitted, asymmetrical and not made for precision. He laid it down carefully onto the table.
The barrel was next. He twisted and yanked until it came loose with a wet pop, leaving behind a ring of soot. Inside, the rifling was uneven, eroded by heat and time. The bore would never shoot straight, but it would shoot. That was all Orekhovo can afford down here, especially when traders bring their lowest end weapons and we have nowhere to turn to.
He had finally field stripped it bare, the parts lay before him. Receiver, bolt, barrel, spring, and stock. The Bastard's heart laid open on the table but without tools, he cannot reach the trigger and the sensitive parts.
He dipped a rag into the solvent. The lye hissed faintly, clawing the air with fumes. The stench made his eyes water, and his breath caught in his throat. He began to scrub.
Black sludge came away in streaks. Beneath, the metal gleamed. dull, patchy, scarred. The lye ate at everything, dirt and steel alike. He worked quickly, wiping with a dry cloth before the solvent could chew too deep. The sting in his palms grew worse. He ignored it.
He finished one gun. Then another. Then another. The rhythm became his anchor: disassemble, scrub, rinse, oil. His muscles moved while his mind drifted.
He thought of Alexei, asleep in their shared cot, dreaming of food. Of Anastasia, her pale face behind the counter, counting the hours he owed. Of Gus, out front, running his thumb along other men's labor, stacking brass like wealth.
By the ninth SMG, time had begun to unravel. His wrists ached, fingers trembling. Six hours were nearly gone. From the front, Gus's voice can be heard yelling at another poor soul.
Mikhail crouched, pretending to search for a spring. The light under the bench was sickly. The floor was coated with metal dust, grit, and shavings. Treasure, to the right kind of eye.
He found small, discarded trigger springs, delicate, uneven, worth a few MGRs to a small tinker. He pocketed them. A bent firing pin lay nearby, black with carbon, fixable, sellable. He took that, too. And then the brass: soft, curled shavings, flakes like fool's gold. He wrapped them in an oily rag and pressed the bundle deep into his boot. It dug into his skin, a sharp reminder of quiet theft, of knowledge earned through pain.
He rose, pulse quickening, but the noise outside didn't change. Gus was still laughing.
Mikhail went back to work. The last three guns moved faster. His hands burns what he'd been forced to forget. Every spring and thread told him something. Every flaw became familiar.
When the twelfth SMG was done, the pile before him looked less like trash and more like a promise as he rack the charging handle. Clean enough to fire, maybe. As he pull the trigger and a loud clank follows. Good enough to transfer back to the Demolition Corp. Each one capable of cycling a Dirty Round. Barely. A rare kind of balance: fragile, functional, doomed.
Mikhail sat back, staring at his hands. The skin along his knuckles had split open, blood seeping into the lye burns. He rubbed them together, feeling the sting spread. The smell of oil and solvent clung to him like guilt.
He looked again at the weapons as if he understood the Bastard's secret. It wasn't meant to survive but it existed in the same contradiction as everyone in the Metro: too crude to live, too stubborn to die. The loose piston, the flexible spring, the softened bolt. All accidents of poverty that somehow gave the gun life where precision would have killed it.
He wiped the table clean. Poured the used solvent down into a used bottle. When the last rag came away gray instead of black, he stood. Outside, the market whispered. voices, metal cups, a harmonica echoing faintly through the tunnels.
Mikhail adjusted his coat with the sting of the solvent still fresh on his fingers. The bundle in his boot pressed against his heel. A reminder of quiet theft, of knowledge learned through pain.
He walked toward the faint noise of life but not too exposed in case Gus sees him from the other room, the ghosts of industry humming beyond the dark. No hope. No advancement.
Maybe purpose? Or just survival.
And in the Metro, knowledge was always the most dangerous thing of all. Knowing too much gets you killed, knowing too little gets you used.
He look up at the clock ticking visible from his booth. It is almost lunch time and the blare of the klaxon will echo throughout the whole station.
Orekhovo Station: Day 3, Tuesday, 2:35 PM — MGR: 5