1850-01: A Survivor's Story (Part Nine)
Pavel embarks on his final mission as a resident.
This is part of a series centered on Pavel Tzarkowski’s experiences as a survivor in early Nova Espero entitled “1850-01.” Follow this link to go to the series’ page.
“Watch your step,” said Lieutenant Suarez as he and the rest of Platoon 403 approached the entrance of the subway station. The guard posted at the rotting gateway nodded as the unit passed through, stomping down the concrete steps made slick by snowmelt from the streets above. A patina of green grime clung to the tiled walls, disappearing with the daylight down what appeared to be an infinite chasm into the unfinished subterranean subway network.
Just ten or so paces down, Pavel and the others snapped on their flashlights, illuminating a fog of hazy ozone and the shimmering pool of water at the base of the stairs. Splashing down, Corny cursed their aging boots.
“They couldn’t have given us the rubber boots for this one?” he grumbled.
“Quit complaining. The railbed will be dry,” the lieutenant replied.
Indeed, approaching the edge of the platform revealed a gravel causeway just barely peering above the waterline. One after another, the foursome jumped down onto the unfinished tracks, the smell of rotting wood permeating their nostrils. Hundreds of railroad ties sat helplessly, wasting away half-submerged in the stagnant water beside the railbed. Frederic, forming the tail of the unit, instinctively looked back to help Kara down. Of course, she wasn’t there.
“Alright… onward for the next couple of miles,” said the lieutenant.
“I hate the tunnels,” Corny whispered to Pavel, “they’re way too spooky.” In the dead-quiet of this thankfully linear catacomb there was no way that Suarez didn’t hear him. Either out of mercy or out of frustration, the lieutenant chose not to acknowledge the complaint.
The slushy gravel squelched underfoot, inundated with two years of rainwater and snowmelt unable to drain into the severely damaged sewer system. The boots, which they already demanded so much of, failed under the pressure of the near-marshy environment. Soon enough, their socks became soaked with a gray-brown slurry, exacerbating the blisters beginning to form on their feet.
The tunnel, bored deep into the earth in the years prior to the War, was pitch dark. It was so far removed from the surface that no pinpricks of light from the pockmarked streets and bombed out basements above could make it through. Only the faintest levels of light emerged when the platoon made their way through defunct stations, where the apparition of day peered in through the distant entryways. The men trained their lights on the railbed, careful not to veer into the frigid ditches of ice water on either side. In front and behind, they could hear the scurrying of the tunnels’ massive rats, returning to the region with the newfound “prosperity” of the human inhabitants of Nova Espero. Though the city’s residents were careful when it came to food waste, not everything could be saved. And the rats relished in this comparative feast after so many years of famine.
“You think Anna would want one as a pet?” Corny asked Pavel, aiming his light at a particularly robust creature perched atop a rail tie. “There was a kid who kept one over on Kelso Street, but it bit him and I think he got an infection though, and he…”
Corny, remembering how the story ended and the particular sensitivity of his audience, caught himself.
“Maybe not, then,” he said.
After hiking for two hours in this abominable sludge, Platoon 403 lumbered over the edge of a station platform to stop for lunch. Though the tile was far from finished, the station sign had already been cemented to the wall. COATS it read in a thick, regal serif font. Pavel knew this area – it was a perfectly proper, middle-class ward along the posh northern coastline of the city. Several of his colleagues at the Imperial University spoke of their dreams of moving to somewhere like Coats once the subway finally got built. The low-slung sprawl on the outskirts, where Pavel and Elizabeta had lived, was seen as being outmodish – these so-called “urban villages” of high-rise condos and subway stations were becoming the new aspiration of the middle class.
Now, the quarter-finished remains of Coats station were covered in mildew and a slick, ubiquitous slime. Pavel could only imagine how the surface might look. From the sooty clouds he saw during his long march home, it looked like there had been a considerable firestorm in the area.
The platoon set up their lights and a small stove in the middle of their huddle. Though they had been spared the whipping winter winds of the surface world by taking the subway, the tunnel still served as a cold cellar. Taking off their boots, water dripped from the men’s fully saturated socks. Wringing them out, water splashed on the ceramic floors below, refracting sparkles of light from the bright-white lanterns. They laid their footwear near the stove in a vain effort to dry them out, the air filling with the stench of sweat and whatever unknowable particulates had built up in this makeshift sewer over the past twenty-seven months. Thankfully the cold had so far suppressed this odor – Pavel could only imagine what this place smelled like in the summer.
Pavel, Corny, Frederic, and the Lieutenant greedily opened their containers of rations. Inside were an allegedly high-protein biscuit made of lentils and mushrooms and a small tin of sardines. The sardines had been a major victory – the growing electrical grid helped power a couple of canning machines, and the calming waters had allowed a couple of small fishing boats to venture outwards. The lentils and mushrooms were the product of the Provisions Department’s experimentation with light hydroponics. Better electricity had made these things easier to produce – some of the “hydrofarmers” seemed optimistic that Nova Espero may even have fruit by the springtime.
Several more grueling, trudging hours passed through the gravelly muck and mud of the tunnel. The all-consuming darkness weakened the platoon’s perception of the passage of time and space. Were it not for the stations and their name placards, one would be forgiven for thinking that they had been marching for miles when in reality they had only gone a few hundred feet. And as far as Pavel and the rest of the crew knew, it could very well either be midnight or midday.
From their preparations, Pavel and the others knew that they had reached their destination upon seeing the station name MIST COVE arranged in fresco tiles on the wall. Pavel recalled that this had once been a resort community, complete with a boardwalk, taffy shops, and a carousel.
The men sagged under the weight of their heavy coats and rucksacks, and Pavel was convinced that taking off his clothing would reveal deep ruts where his pack straps had been sitting. Corny, whose body was already aged far beyond his thirty-eight years, belted out a string of expletives as he hobbled from the railbed to the station platform.
“Fucking finally,” he bleated as he splayed onto the unfinished concrete floor. As Pavel followed, he noticed Corny’s pained relief giving way to exasperation, rubbing his eyes in anguish.
“What?” Pavel asked, desperately catching his own breath.
“The stairs,” he said, flinging his hand rightward to the dimly lit stairwell in the far corner. “I always forget about the stairs.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Lieutenant Suarez panted. Pavel was grateful to see his commander in this state, overencumbered and exhausted. It reminded him that he was indeed a human, and not some one-man mechanized infantry unit who never fatigued. Though, sure enough, within seconds he was bounding towards those sure-to-be abominable stairs.
After some thirty-thousand steps – what surely felt like thirty-thousand steps – Platoon 403 emerged from the underworld. They found themselves in a pitch dark neighborhood. Though there was no moon in the sky, the winds had pushed the clouds out to sea, revealing a vast tapestry of stars above.
Lieutenant Suarez led the platoon down a series of streets and alleyways fronted by fire-scorched buildings that had not seen the light of life in quite some time. These great stone caverns seemed darker and colder than the night outside, their upper stories in varying states of decay. Windows burped out shattered bricks, with piles forming on the sidewalk. Rebar poked like hairs from scarred concrete, and snow crept up against empty doorways.
Turning down one of these alleys, the lieutenant made his way towards a heavy metal door. Using an archaic key on what appeared to be an even more archaic lock, he gestured the others inside. Pavel was prepared for another bivouac in some bombed out house, warmed only by the integrity of the thin wool blanket issued to him by the Scavenger’s Union.
Groping the dark interior walls for a minute, he eventually found a switch. When he hit it, the room erupted in a warm, incandescent glow. On the wall to the right hung a map of the region, and to the left bulletin boards with carefully written out instructions for visitors. A spiral staircase in the corner led upwards, and a desk in the opposite corner held a radio.
Flipping it on, the lieutenant chattered a message to Nova Espero.
“Nova Espero, this is Platoon 403. We have arrived at Granmercy and are clocking out for the night, over.”
“Understood, 403,” a reply crackled. “Sweep the roof, and then goodnight.”
“Pavel, follow me,” the lieutenant quickly barked as he turned off the radio and desk lamp. Grabbing two brooms, the men headed up the steep stairway. On the second floor, Pavel noticed three, steel-frame bunk beds side by side, with a water closet in the corner – “It’s non-functional, we have to empty a bucket when we leave,” Lieutenant Suarez explained.
At the top of the stairs, the lieutenant contended with another ancient lock, shoving the door upwards into the night sky. The two ascended onto the small roof, topped by a series of solar panels coated in a half-inch of snow. One by one, the men swept the snow off, Pavel taking the occasional opportunity to gawk at the kaleidoscope of colors above. The light purplish brush strokes and milky smudges, the innumerable diamonds forming absurd constellations. The moon itself seemed exaggerated, casting an impossibly bright beam in its reflection. A few blocks away, Pavel watched as the moonlight jittered over the rolling waters of the Western Sea.
As the waves smashed on the seawall, he could almost remember those summer nights where he and Elizabeta strolled the promenade, popping into the gimmicky gift shops and import stores together. Despite the frigid temperatures, Pavel could feel the warm sea breeze and taste the cup of Kilmartin Dairy ice cream they shared. Ice cream. What a throwback. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had-
“Pavel,” the lieutenant grumbled. “I have something for you. Don’t tell the others.”
Lieutenant Suarez handed Pavel a cigarette. At the time, this was no mere friendly gesture. Even as stale as they were, cigarettes had become a borderline currency in the Collapse.
As the lieutenant sparked his light and the cigarette began to burn, Pavel took a puff. Was it- it couldn’t possibly be?
“Fresca,” Suarez said. Even in the faint light, he could detect Pavel’s confused expression. He explained that in addition to more sensible, nutritious things like lentils and kale, the Provisions Department had experimented with tobacco hydroponics. The justification was that it would not only be a morale booster to be able to have fresh cigarettes again, but that once Nova Espero began to go out and trade, fresh cigarettes might be worth their weight in gold to the nicotine-starved world of survivors.
Eyeing his watch, Suarez coughed “congratulations, citizen.”
Citizen. Pavel thought. His mind raced away from the pure narcotic bliss between his lips and back to that hospital bed. Anna’s a citizen.
Eight miles away, Elizabeta stroked her daughter’s hand as she eyed the clock. Across the hospital bed, Dr. Poilievre prepared a series of syringes and vials, the antibiotics that would become available to the ailing six-year-old.
Anna had been asleep since just after dinner some five hours ago. The other children in the ward slumbered peacefully, their quiet only occasionally interrupted by the hacking cough of one of their fellow tubercular patients.
When the clock struck midnight, the doctor reached for some paperwork. Signing her affirmation of Anna’s citizenship, she handed the clipboard over to Elizabeta for her signature.
As she scribbled on the page, Dr. Poilievre got to work. One by one, she plunged the needles into Anna’s arm. She was so weak and exhausted that she hardly stirred.
“Now all we can do is continue her medication and keep her rested,” the doctor said.
Elizabeta quietly thanked the doctor. She could feel her eyes sagging as they darted back to Anna. Despite her improved diet, Elizabeta had been awake for nearly eighteen hours with little rest. Her stress and anxiety over Anna was compounded by her stress and anxiety over Pavel. At this point, her weariness had overridden her cortisol, and Elizabeta smiled softly as she nodded off in her chair.