Бери́сь дру́жно, не бу́дет гру́зно.

(If all of us take hold of it together, it won't feel heavy.)
- Russian proverb


„Two days after the birth of their daughter I went to visit Kunjana and Mowgli“, Mr Tuniak remembered. „Kunjana had to stay at the hospital for the night, but Mowgli went back to his park and I went with him.“
„Had the park already opened?“, I wanted to know.
„Yes. There were fewer animals than nowadays, but in general... yes, you could say that it was open“, Mr Tuniak said. „But I didn't go to see the park. Not that many things had changed since the last time I had visited it a few months before. No, I went, because Mowgli had gotten a letter for me.“
„Oh.“ I wanted to ask why a letter would have been sent to Mr Tuniak's friend instead of to himself, but the answer was obvious. He had no address where it could have been delivered to. He may count the Island Leviathan as his home, but it wasn't really a place where the post could easily get to. „Do you have all your letters sent to Mowgli?“, I asked.
„No, I never did that“, Mr Tuniak replied. „I was surprised myself. Today, I tell everyone to send me an email if they want something, because I can check my account wherever I am. And if someone really needs an address, I give them the address of this office here.“ He pointed at the office in which we were sitting.
„So, who had sent the letter?“

They had returned from the hospital and parked the car in front of the main building. Mowgli opened the entrance door and said: „I will give you your letter right now, otherwise I'm sure we will forget about it.“
„Do you know who sent it?“, Alexander asked.
„No, I don't. There's no other name or return address on the envelope“, Mowgli said. „Whom have you given this address?“
„No one.“
They went into the kitchen, where the letter was lying on a table. Alexander took it and immediately opened it. There was only one sheet inside, with only a few lines in handwriting on it. Alexander frowned as he read the message.
„And? Who is it from?“, Mowgli asked, as he opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of beer. One of them he offered to Alexander.
„Yuuto“, Alexander answered and took the bottle. Then he told Mowgli about their meeting in Centralia.
„And what does he want now?“
„Planning to go to Moscow next year to proof the existence of the Metro-2 underground line. Interested?“, Alexander read loud. „Then there's the address of a hotel and a date.“
Mowgli took a sip from his beer. „Sounds strange. Have you ever heard about this Metro-2? What's special about it?“
Alexander shrugged. „I don't know.“

„The Metro-2 is not a single line in Moscow's underground system, but a whole separate secret underground network, hidden right below the city itself“, Mr Tuniak told me. „At least, that was the theory.“
„The theory? Didn't you find it?“, I wanted to know.
A smile played around Mr Tuniak's lips. „Let me tell you the story in the right order, ok? What I'm going to tell you know, is everything I found out about this Metro-2 before going to Moscow and meeting Yuuto. The story goes, that the Metro-2 was built not just so that Russian officials had their own subways, but also so that the government could secretly and quickly be evacuated during an emergency.“
„Are there similar underground lines in other cities as well? Washington, for instance?“
„It is possible, but I have never heard about it“, Mr Tuniak said. „There are probably plans for the evacuation of the government in all the capitals of the world, but the thing that makes the Metro-2 special is that supposedly it's bigger than the public underground lines.“

Alexander found the hotel at the border of the city. From the outside it looked old and non-descript and this first impression was confirmed in the entrance area. Some day soon several big repairs and renovation work was surely necessary. The woman at the reception was also the owner of the hotel and she led Alexander to Yuuto's room.
“Oh, great you could come”, Yuuto said, after letting Alexander enter and having closed the door behind him.
“A pleasure. But your letter was a surprise, I didn't expect it”, Alexander said.
“Well, we both know how important surprises are, don't we?” Yuuto winked. Alexander nooded slightly and showed thus that he was now remembering the visit to Centralia.
“I'm waiting for one other person”, Yuuto informed him and gestured for Alexander to sit down on the bed. The room was very small and apart from one chair, the bed was the only place where one could sit down. Alexander did so and saw an issue of Times lying next to him.
“I got the idea from an article in there”, Yuuto explained. “According to it, there's not only a secret underground system, but a whole secret city beneath Moscow. At the moment it's probably empty and uninhabited, but if there should ever be an emergency, like a nuclear attack on the city, over a hundred thousand people could live there. I've heard rumours about it before, but until now I've never had an opportunity to take a closer look.”
“Because of the Iron Curtain?”
“Partly because of it. But also because I couldn't think of a way to conduct my investigations secretly. Even if the Soviet Union doesn't exist any more, I'm pretty sure the Russian government would not be happy if it found out that someone was snooping around.”
“And what is your new secret way?”
As if it had been waiting for this cue, a knocking on the door started at this moment. Yuuto opened the door and a young woman with violet hair entered. She was surprised to see Alexander and quickly exchanged several words with Yuuto. She was talking too fast for Alexander to understand everything, but he caught a word here and there and judging by them and her gestures she had not expected him and was not happy about his presence. Yuuto managed to calm her down.
“May I introduce Tatjana?”, he said. “She can sense magnetic fields.”

“Could she really do that?” I had interrupted Mr Tuniak's recounting. “Is that even possible for a human to do?”
“As far as I can tell, yes”, he answered. “And why shouldn't it be possible? Countless animals can sense the magnetic field of the Earth, maybe some kind of atavism had awakened in Tatjana and given her this ability. I've met people who claimed to be able to sense even stranger things.”
“But it does sound like something straight out of a comic book.”
“I've once read an article about a girl who claimed to have x-ray vision”, Mr Tuniak said. “I've met a man who could eat metal and another one who saw the world like a bee.”
“Like a bee?”
“He was able to see infra-red. The spectrum of light he could see was shifted in comparison to most other people. He couldn't see blue or violet, but he could see a bit into the infra-red spectrum”, Mr Tuniak said. “So, I had no trouble believing that Tatjana could sense magnetic fields.”

The first few days they spent wandering around Moscow and visiting all the places where supposedly the secret entrances to the underground were located.
“But we won't use any of those”, Yuuto claimed.
“Why not?”, Alexander asked.
“Because they are probably being watched.”
They were talking in Russian, which Alexander could only do very slowly and with a lot of errors, but otherwise Tatjana would have become suspicious of him again.
After looking for all the entrances, they made a map where they marked the places where they were supposed to be. Having done that, they tried to guess where the lines were actually running between them. Yuuto also produced several sketches, which he had found in old archives and which he claimed had been used during the construction of the Metro-2.
“Tomorrow we are entering the canalisation”, Yuuto announced one evening, as all three were sitting in his room and eating dinner.
“Why?”, Alexander asked.
“Because there are so many electric wires and lines in the normal underground stations, that I wouldn't be able to sense anything else”, Tatjana explained. “But if I sense something in the canalisation, it should be relatively easy for us to decide whether it's just part of the public infrastructure or something else.
“Why is she doing this?”, Alexander asked later that same evening after Tatjana had left.
“She belong to a student groupt”, Yuuto said, as if that was all the explanation needed.
“And?”
“They want to uncover the secrets of the government or something like that”, Yuuto continued. “Although I'm not really sure what they plan to do, if we should really find the Metro-2. I can't imagine that it would create the big scandal they are so desperately hoping for.”

It took another four days before they found something. But it wasn't what they had expected.
“Something is in front of us”, Tatjana whispered suddenly. They were again walking through the canalisation. Close to them dirty water was flowing through the dark and from time to time rats crossed their path. Alexander was always looking closely at them, hoping to see another rat king. But he had no such luck this time.
“I can see it too”, Yuuto said after a while. Alexander too could now see what Tatjana had sensed. Some way in front of them there was a light. They switched off their electric torches and carefully continued forward.
The light grew stronger and stronger and finally they entered an open space.
“Wow”, Yuuto exclaimed and Alexander had to agree with him.
This subterranean space was like a big hall. Light bulbs were hanging from the ceiling, light bulbs that were plugged directly into the electric circuits, without any socket or fitting. On the floor there were dozens of beds in various sizes and shapes and between them boxes, chests, shopping carts and anything else that could be used for storage.
Several people were looking back at them. There were men and women, old and young,... excepting their choice of living space, they had nothing in common.
Tatjana immediately started talking to them and forgot all about Alexander and Yuuto.

“We had found a group of people who could no longer afford their apartments and homes”, Mr Tuniak explained. “They had moved into the canalisation, because there they were protected from the weather and it didn't get that cold there during the winter. Several of them still had their jobs. It was interesting to see some men putting on their best suits and leaving.”
“Did you stop looking for Metro-2 after this?”, I asked.
“Yes”, Mr Tuniak said. “Tatjana was no longer interested in it and instead preferred to publish articles in several journals about the fate of these people. And Yuuto had already found another project.”
I was disappointed. I had expected more. “Why did Yuuto ask you to join them? He needed Tatjana to find the underground lines and he organised everything. But I don't understand your role in his plans?”
“I was there for their safety”, Mr Tuniak explained. “If something had gone wrong... if the government or some secret service had tried to put a stop to our activities.”
“I don't understand.”
“I would have taken Tatjana into the past for her protection. Maybe even Yuuto.”
“You would have taken them to a time before any government or other department would have a reason to look for them. You truly were a safeguard.”
“And I still am.” But he didn't explain that comment any further.

NEXT WEEK
Só percebemos o milagre da vida quando deixamos que o inesperado aconteça.