UNDERGROUND

162

Everything ended quickly. He heard a winch-like sound, after which the rays vanished into thin air and the returned light became even brighter. The old man hurriedly crossed the space, heading for the only door. Boris quickly realized, jumped to his feet. The old man had already opened the door and disappeared behind it. Boris followed.

There was no business center lobby behind the airlock door. A rather narrow corridor with poor lighting lined with dirty tiles and walls covered with rolled up dust, painted with blue paint “in human growth”. The corridor unmistakably hinted at belonging to the metro infrastructure. The huge figure of the old man loomed at the end - he was already opening another door, as if he wanted to get rid of Boris and Yakov as soon as possible.

Boris began to sneeze from the dust - the corridor was dirty and filthy, like the Kazan railway station in the early nineties. Huge amounts of gray cigarette butts, dark glasses and small pebbles lay underfoot, as Boris u