Bittsevskiy Park part 2

I live! I'm assuming since they've been there a day, it's some kind of nook that's sheltered underground. Otherwise they'd be bad on filters and have corroded radiation gear.

Tupik.

That was the first word in Mitya’s head upon waking. Tupik. Dead-end. Every other word or thought felt lazy and half-formed. He could tell he was laying down. Where or why, he wasn’t sure yet. Without opening his eyes, he slid his hands from where they were folded on his stomach and just spent a few minutes squeezing the blankets on either side of him.

I must not be dead, he reasoned, because in heaven they’d have silk sheets.

That weird little notion comforted his sluggish mind. He cracked his eyes open. Everything looked fuzzy and dark. The walls were cement and hard looking, and the ceiling was low and dirty. He was on the floor and there was a table with an oil lantern burning atop it, which felt way too bright. It hurt. He closed his eyes again, head throbbing and his limbs feeling entirely too heavy and hot.

***

When Mitya woke again he felt a little clearer. Clear enough to recognize he was nursing a fever. He figured being gnawed on by rats tended to have that effect. Dirty teeth. Dirty in general. Slowly and carefully, he eased himself up to sit with his back against the wall and tried to orientate himself.

His wounds were treated and bandaged. He didn’t remember doing that, and hoped he hadn’t fought whoever had too hard. The next thing that struck him was that he didn’t have a mask on. The surroundings definitely weren’t of the metro, they reminded him more of some kind of underground foundation… Which reminded him of… Rangers.

“I hope I’m not dead,” Mitya announced in a scratchy voice. “I was expecting a banquet… Music… Pretty girls…”

Mitya was young looking. Clean-shaven and not ruggedly handsome by any stretch. He was short and scrawny without his bulky bag on. He looked friendly, and there was a sort of disarming, boyish good looks about him. He was a bit uncomfortable without his mask, and cradled it on his lap. He looked like he could be Arab- dark skin, big dark eyes, short curly brown hair.

He looked at Nikolai and smiled, relieved he looked more or less alive, still seeming fuzzy and out of it. He was missing his two front teeth, even though they looked white.

"Where are we?" he asked. "How long have we been here, is it night?"

He rubbed his eye, his tired mind still trying to piece everything together. His grin widened after a second.

"Heya, Ranger, you wiped the floor with that Nazi rat bastard?"

 

Mitya still looked bleary. He stopped rubbing at his eyes and watched the older man in front of him work, curiously, from where he sat cross-legged. He'd never been around armour much and knew nothing about what kind of repairs the gear would need. Metal plates probably would have been handy to stop the rats from chewing into his back. His hindsight had always been better than his foresight.

"I've never been to Polis. I wonder how well I would get along there," Mitya replied, after pretending to consider the offer. He doubted Polis would take him in, but he wasn't going to turn up his nose at an escort back into the metro. "Aside from incredible luck and great hair, my skill-set leaves a bit to be desired. By their standards, that is. I'm not a proper stalker, and I've heard their guardsmen are twice my size. I'm not sure how well they'd take to an ex-propagandist vagrant that gets stuck right in the rat's nest, without even some salvage to show for it."

He paused thoughtfully and propped his head in his hand, looking very much like a kid mulling over whatever bedtime story he'd just heard.

"Then again, if Odysseus and the Cyclops come to their door," he winked cheerfully and covered eye with his other hand, mimicking Nikolai's bandage, "I'm sure their scribes would have a field day. They might keep me around just for the novelty, bahaha!"

Mitya let his hand fall back to his lap, and his smile dropped. He ran his tongue over where his front teeth used to be, thinking, then sighed. For a second he looked uncharacteristically morose.

"Eh, in short, that's my way of saying yes. I want to come," he said decidedly, watching the older man carefully. "Though honestly, Nikolai, there's nowhere in particular I have to be. I can be out of your hair at the very first station we come to, if you don't feel like dragging me around. As for where you're going..."

Mitya trailed off, feeling embarrassed. "I suppose I shouldn't be prying into 'Ranger business,' huh?"

 

Red would come around with a groan and get up off the pallet she had fell asleep on head still pounding and recarry her pack she had been using as a pillow lighting up a cigarette walking up to the men."What did I miss?"

 

Mitya found himself gawking a bit at the woman. It was weird enough to see one armed to the teeth, nevermind her being on the surface. Yesterday had been so hectic he wasn't able to recognize her as the sniper that had been in the window until Nikolai referred to her as "comrade Sniper." That made him scoff quietly.

"Oh no. If I give up the SKS, I'm afraid my Uncle Vadim will roll in his grave," Mitya declined, giving his head one firm shake. Blood relatives were a rarity among the older generations in the metro, and the man had only been Mitya's "uncle" by his own insistence.

"He was a merchant in Arbat and was very possessive of it. Of course, now the Reich have their claws in there," Mitya said sourly. "Pfft. Reich. Half the stupid bald bastards can't speak a lick of German beyond heil and fuhrer, and I wouldn't count on them being able to write it either- or even plain Russian for that matter."

He peered peevishly around the dim room, looking for the rifle. Had it been grabbed yesterday? He could remember tossing it aside as a sort of last ditch effort to reason with that fascist bastard... After he had yanked the Ranger behind the rusted out car. The sun had just been threatening to rise, but Mitya couldn't remember anything else clearly. Did that even happen yesterday? How long had he been unconscious?

Mitya forced himself to stand, slowly. The headrush from not moving for at least a day accompanied by the low grade fever made him feel dizzy and wobbly-legged. He located his bag, heavy clothing, and holstered pistol on a chair by his makeshift bedroll, but no rifle.

He tried not to feel too sad about it. After all, he still had the Tokarev. Most people never got to even hold one pre-war weapon let alone two. He started to pull on his heavy coat, whistling some sort of marching tune.

"That's what, an armoury?" Mitya asked. He nodded toward the door Nikolai had pointed to. "Is there a chestplate or something I can use? I don't care if it's scrap. I've never actually worn one at length, but it's probably a good idea. If that Nazi had gotten a bead on me earlier, I'd be dead. And I unfortunately attract fascist bullets, so..."

 

Red would take a drag off her cigarette and rummage around finding replacement plates for her armor a aks-47 and a couple magazines."I may as well go to polis got nothing else to do but damn my head still hurts and its hard to think.Must be where I smacked it off the pavement outside huh?"she'd laugh."Just call me red given time I might reveal my real name."She'd say finally pulling her hood down to reveal knife cut red hair

 

"I'll get it out of you eventually," Mitya assured Red impishly. That, or he'd just guess until he landed on the correct name. Perseverance was key. He muttered "excuse me, Varya," and brushed past the woman into the armory.

He nodded to Nikolai as he talked, only to show he was listening. The way Mitya was looking around the small, poorly lit room was so greedy it could come across as inattentive. It wasn't that he thought this was the largest or most impressive stockpile in existence. It was the fact he could take anything. He decided not the question the Ranger on it, fearing his curiosity could make him reconsider.

Mitya walked up to the table with the helmets and located the least weather-worn of the bunch. The young man held it close to his ear and tapped it, trying to see if flicking at it could produce the same exciting sound as a bullet drumming on the surface. It did not. Only slightly disappointed with his experiment, Mitya rolled his balaclava down to hide his face and fixed the helmet to his head. There was a knife on the table. He leaned over it and peered suspiciously at his own reflection, but only his eyes were visible.

After some deliberation, he decided on a double-barrel shotgun. It was a bit junky looking. The wooden stock was scratched and faded, and if any varnish had ever been on it that was part of ancient history. There was a silly little bayonet fixed to the underbarrel with something brownish and unidentifiable staining it.

Still, he felt obligated to take it because no one else ever would. It was the romantic in him, but even the romantic in him knew to grab one of the AK74s just in case it fell apart in his hands. The '74 was nice and compact, with a neat little laser-sight attached to it. Mitya tested it, then continued to switch it on and off a few more times just because he found it interesting.

"So, Niko," Mitya piped up, a bit muffled under the balaclava. He'd taken some spare filters and cartridges, and was trying to fumble armour on. Just a light chestplate made of scrap and some pads. It was a slow process. He was inexperienced and the fever made him slow and clumsy. "Do you think we have enough dark left to make it back to the metro tonight? The Kievskaya radial can't be too far... Then again, I'm going off outdated estimations. I'm not entirely sure where I am anymore."

 

I am still in for this- I am just going to wait for a good moment to eventually enter the picture.

 

"I know a guy."Red says."Near that lurker prospekt station he can help us get in the metro.What do you say?"She'd smile and wait for them to respond finishing her cigarette and lighting up another one.

 

no worries Cheesie, classes just started up again so I'm a bit busy as well. I'll try not to be too flaky though


Mitya studied the map for several long seconds. He reached into his breast pocket and produced a stiff, folded up rectangle of green posterboard. It was obviously some sort of makeshift map. There was a map of the metro hand-drawn in thick black marker, though most of the stations had outdated communist names. The marker was clipped to the edge of the board.

He flipped it and listened to Nikolai and Red converse, viewing a roadmap of Moscow he had painstakingly copied. He was looking shiftily at the Ranger's map. He took the marker and carefully circled an area on his own.

"Bittsevskiy. Yes, it's no good," he agreed. He was doodling something idly. "But I've been chewed on enough to not want to go anywhere near a station that has Lurker in the name."

He stole a quick look at Red. Honestly, that was only part of his hesitance. The woman hadn't revealed her real name, and it seemed suspicious to him. He was starting to figure she might just be a lure for bandits. Send a girl to get the defenses down. Now she has seen what Nikolai has, she must think it will be easy to put a pullet in both his and Mitya's head, then reap the benefits of the Ranger outpost.

Mitya was friendly, but he wasn't a fool. He gave Nikolai a slightly concerned look.

"Here's my idea. I say we risk going to Hansa through Dobrynin," he continued. He resumed drawing on the map, a serpentine rat taking form. Beside it he neatly wrote here be monsters!

"As long as we have all our documents in order, we might not get too much trouble from their patrolmen... Worst case scenario, we'll backtrack and risk the park. Like Kolya said, it's a short walk from here to Dobrynin, and falling back to plan B shouldn't effect our time too drastically."

Mitya looked up, only his dark eyes and a sliver of dark skin visible, but he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

 

Red sighs."I can see the distrust in your eyes...I just don't trust easy and I'd rather use my man near prospekt he has helped me in the past and frankly I owe him bullets."She sighs."You can have my guns if you want but just remember my blood would be on your hands."

 

Mitya blinked innocently. He pulled down his balaclava past his chin, and flashed Red an apologetic smile. His two front teeth were missing.

"I'm not worried about your guns," the young man said simply. "If you were going to shoot us, you could have done it while I was passed out. Or better yet, when you were in that window."

He was backpeddling like a true merchant, friendly and apologetic. As if to say, I'm sorry I can't trust you, but you're leaving me no choice. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. Whatever an apple was.

"What I'm worried about is your companion. Forgive me, kiska, but trust is scarce and blood is cheaper than cartridges," he explained with a cheerful wink. His expression dropped and began to re-fold his map, unhurriedly.

"You might not have done us in here, but from my perspective I don't see much from stopping your friends doing it when we reach this 'Lurker' station. Again. Forgive the suspicion, but my 'barrel-to-the-face' count for the past forty-two hours is at a nice, even four. I'm going to keep it at that if I can help it."

 

"Well let me call him atleast got a radio?"She would sigh and cough like a true smoker a long coughing fit."C-cause he might be angry...if I miss his bullets I owe."

 

"You should get some tea once we reach the metro. That cough doesn't sound good," Mitya plainly. If that had been a tactic for the would-be bandit to gain pity, he wasn't buying it. Okay, maybe he felt a little bad...

He gestured lazily toward the armoury exit. Most of his possessions were still by the bedroll. "I have a radio in my bag. More power to you if you can get the thing to pick up a signal."

He fell silent and inched closer to Nikolai and tried to catch the taller man's eye, hoping they could converse while Red busied herself in the next room. He was worried. He didn't think he was being paranoid, especially not after what he'd just been through, but in any case he wasn't comfortable taking off toward this mysterious station without some assurance.

 

Red would go try to get the radio to get a signal cursing as she did so as it fails on her numerious times until it does get a signal."Hello hello can you hear me?"