Metro 2034 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, summary Automatic translate

This post-apocalyptic science fiction novel depicts the survival of the remnants of humanity in the Moscow subway. Created in 2009, this book is a grim chronicle of the Sevastopolskaya station’s hopeless struggle against an unknown threat and simultaneously a story about the search for lost humanity. The author develops the universe, deepening the characters’ psychology and confronting them with moral dilemmas in the face of total isolation.

Threat from the North

Sevastopolskaya Station has been transformed by its inhabitants into an impenetrable fortress. It constantly fends off mutant attacks from Chertanovskaya Station. Its only source of survival is trading electricity with the powerful Hansa Station Alliance. Groundwater, which turns the blades of underground hydroelectric power plants, generates the energy. Convoys carrying ammunition and food are sent to Serpukhovskaya Station, but one day, communication is lost. Another convoy vanishes without a trace. A reconnaissance team also fails to return. Station Director Istomin and the colonel decide to organize a new expedition.

The mysterious Hunter is summoned — a scarred lone fighter with superhuman reflexes and animal-like instincts. He takes Homer, a sixty-year-old former assistant engineer, as his partner. The old man is obsessed with preserving knowledge for posterity. He dreams of creating a great epic about modern-day heroes to save the survivors from generational amnesia. The third participant in this deadly expedition is the lookout, Akhmed. The trio enters the darkness of the northern tunnels, heading for Tulskaya.

The Curse of the Serpent

At Nakhimovsky Prospekt, the group passes piles of corpses and swarms of necromancers. Homer finds a soldier’s helmet and a blood-stained notebook. The notes are fragmentary. Soon, the squad reaches Nagornaya. A thick white fog envelops the station. The air becomes heavy. Ghostly giants appear in the whitish haze. The mutants take Akhmed into the void. Hunter engages the demons, but the monsters leave him alone. They disdain him, recognizing him as a more terrifying predator. Homer and Hunter flee.

An old man secretly reads a notebook he found. It’s the diary of a signalman from a lost caravan. A monstrous epidemic of an unknown disease has broken out at Tulskaya. The virus is airborne and kills within weeks. Those infected rot alive and go mad. The station’s defenders have sealed the massive hermetic gates from the inside, condemning themselves to death to save the rest of the metro. The entries end with a warning: do not storm the station.

Exiles

Sasha’s story unfolds simultaneously. She lives in the abandoned Kolomenskaya station with her ailing father, the station’s former commandant. Her father goes surface hunting, is fatally wounded by wild dogs, and soon dies. Left alone, Sasha becomes the captive of a marauder who once hated her father. The bandit takes the bound girl away on a handcar toward Avtozavodskaya.

Hunter and Homer reach the sealed gates of the Tulskaya station. Shots are heard from the other side. The defenders refuse to let them through. Hunter tells Homer that the station has been captured by bandits, demanding a total cleanup using flamethrowers. They return to the Kashirskaya station to bypass the dangerous section along the radiated depot branch. In one of the tunnels, they encounter Sasha and her kidnapper. Hunter kills the bandit in cold blood. The rescued girl joins the squad.

Meeting at Paveletskaya

The trio reaches Paveletskaya Station. The station amazes Sasha with its grandeur and luminosity. There they meet a young flutist, Leonid. His music has a remarkable ability to calm people and give them hope. Sasha is enchanted by the flute’s sounds. Hunter, however, seeing his reflection in the mirror Homer gave him, smashes it in a rage. The foreman realizes he’s turning into a merciless monster, but he can’t stop.

A bloody drama unfolds at night at Paveletskaya Station. Deadly, blind chimeras infiltrate the defenseless station from the surface. The monsters swiftly destroy the sentries. One of the monsters corners Sasha. Homer tries in vain to hit the creature with his machine gun. Suddenly, Hunter appears. Engaging in unequal hand-to-hand combat, the foreman kills the chimera with a blow from his cleaver, but is himself gravely wounded. Homer finishes off the second monster with a well-aimed shot. Rescued, Sasha is filled with gratitude to the wounded foreman.

Surface and revelations

While Hunter lies delirious, Sasha finds a way to the surface. She ascends the escalator to the outside to see the remains of a dead Moscow. The city appears destroyed and hostile. Giant mutants roam the wastelands. She is attacked by a huge flying lizard. At a critical moment, she is saved by an unknown fighter in a protective suit. To her amazement, she recognizes her savior as the recovered Hunter. The foreman leads Sasha back to the safety of the tunnels.

Leonid confesses to Sasha that he knows about the fever. The musician claims the disease is curable: the virus is killed by exposure to intense radiation. He promises to take the girl to the Emerald City, a mythical refuge for scientists beneath the University building, where the necessary knowledge is sure to be found. The young man skillfully manipulates the fugitive’s emotions, making her believe in a miracle. Homer is left alone and goes to the Dobryninskaya, wondering about the fate of his wayward charge.

The road to nowhere

The musician guides Sasha through the Red Line checkpoints using a diplomatic passport. Leonid reveals himself to be the son of Moskvin, the communist leader. The young man admits he invented the Emerald City. In reality, he simply wanted to get Sasha away from Hunter. Sasha is desperate: time is running out, and hundreds of innocent people are being prepared to be killed at Tulskaya. She demands an immediate return. Leonid steals an old handcar. Fleeing pursuit by a combat motor locomotive, they break through to the Circle Line.

Meanwhile, Homer reaches Polis. He finds Melnik, a wheelchair-bound man and the leader of the mysterious Order. Melnik believed Hunter had died fighting mutants at VDNKh. Homer learns that after that battle, Hunter broke down, turning into a soulless killing machine. The foreman takes Melnik’s metal token — a pass granting him unlimited power and the right to deploy the Order’s cleaners. Homer realizes Hunter intends to burn the Tulskaya to the ground, along with all its inhabitants.

Water and Fire

At Tulskaya, the defenses are collapsing. Frantic patients break out of their isolated train cars and attack the guards. Young soldier Artyom and the wounded commander lock themselves in the radio room. The commander announces that he has mined the groundwater pipes. He plans to flood the station to prevent the virus from escaping. Reaching Dobryninskaya, Artyom warns of the danger and then carries out the order: he seals the northern hermetic gates.

Hunter, leading a heavily armed punitive detachment, arrives at the station’s borders. Soldiers in hazmat suits prepare flamethrowers. A crowd of infected pushes back the remnants of the garrison. At that moment, Sasha and Leonid appear. The musician begins playing the flute. The instrument’s sounds mysteriously halt the rioting crowd. The infected freeze, mesmerized by the wondrous melody.

Sasha fearlessly steps forward to meet the black line of cleaners. She addresses Hunter, shouting that the illness can be cured with radiation, begging him to stop and remember his compassion. The Order’s idols remain silent. The foreman remains adamant. Suddenly, one of the mutants kills the musician, breaking the crowd’s stupor. With a single impulse, the sick rush toward the stern line of cleaners.

Suddenly, a deafening roar erupts. The pipes explode, releasing thousands of tons of groundwater. An icy torrent crashes onto the stone platform. The Order’s soldiers hastily retreat behind the watertight gates. Sasha laughs joyfully, mistaking the pouring water for the cleansing summer rain Homer had told her about. She disappears into the swirling torrent. At the last second, Hunter lunges for the closing gate, trying to pull Sasha out, but he’s too late. The gate slams shut.

The end of the journey

Homer is on guard duty at the Sevastopolskaya station. The old man leafs through a scribbled notebook and recalls the words of engineer Serov: "Our lives have no final score, and the judge gave us extra time." The epidemic was stopped bloodlessly: the surviving infected were sent to the irradiated tunnels of the Kakhovka Line, and the disease retreated. Sasha’s body was never found.

Hunter survived. He sits nearby, staring into the pitch-black tunnel. Suddenly, a hoarse, inhuman groan erupts from his chest, gradually building into a rhythmic melody. The stern foreman quietly whistles the gentle melody of the murdered musician’s unnamed song. Homer realizes that Hunter’s human spark has not completely died. The old man prepares to put the final period to his book.