Omake- Attempting To Retrieve The Plans: MNKH Archives Edition.
"Here, catch!" A decade-old gas mask flew through the air. Pyotr barely managed to catch it as it thumped into his chest. Thankfully, despite the mask being dirty, it did not leave a stain on his shirt as the thrower may have intended.
"What the … What do I need this piece of rubbish for? Is this another of your jokes, Daniil?" Pyotr asked.
"Yeah, you're going to need it when you go looking for a long weight again!" Daniil replied. "No, dumbass, you're going into the archives. Trust me, you'll need it". Pyotr had indeed been tasked with going into the archives. As a new hire to MNKH, barely out of university, he got the honor of being everyone's errand boy. Today Deputy Director of Infrastructure Pauzin himself had managed to grab him and asked him to retrieve some documents from the MNKH archive.
Pyotr looked dubiously at the mask in his hands. Once-white leather had been stained beige by cigarette smoke, and a layer of grime had accumulated around the eyepieces. He checked the filter. Curiously, it was in date.
"Why do you even have this anyway? Where did you get it from?"
"Ah, you know Luka? Ex-army guy in Services? It's his. He brought it in because they kept making him go down there for the whole of the last plan. The mask then got, ah, communised in the spirit of socialist fraternity when the rest of us learned about it."
So the mask was stolen then. Luka was a scary guy, Pyotr wasn't sure he wanted to be caught with the mask if it meant getting into a fight with him. Still… he looked at the mask. Sure it was probably a joke, or perhaps a scheme to get him in trouble with Luka. But what if he really did need it?
"By the way Pyotka, you should watch out for the spiders down there. I saw one once, it was as large as a dog!" Daniil laughed. "I think they're farming them for the cafeteria, anything to give us a break from the catfish! Anyway, I have to go talk to Mariya from the computer pool about getting her a promotion. See ya". With that Daniil walked off. What was the deal with that guy? Daniil wasn't a manager but he sure seemed connected.
Pyotr wasn't sure why he still had the mask in his hands as he walked down the stairs to the archive. People passing him in the stairwell gave him strange looks as he descended. This was definitely a prank and he was falling for it. Still, the teasing would be worse if he turned around now, so he'd just have to go through with it. He continued down the stairs to B-2. The deep storage vault that cointed the entire history of the MNKH in paper form.
Floor B-2 was the lowest layer of the Ministry and wasn't a place many people liked to visit. The artificial light and bare concrete walls created sinister shadows that triggered an ancient fight-or-flight instinct in Pyotr's brain. Still, he pushed his way through the fire-doors out of the stairwell and into the atrium proper. In front of him a bored guard sat on a metal chair at a metal desk, reading some kind of book. On the desk sat a large ledger and a pen. The only other furniture in the room was a metal cabinet and the large metal door The guard looked up as she heard Pyotr enter.
"ID?" she asked, her eyes going to the gas mask in his hand. Pyotr pulled his wallet out of his pocket and placed his ministry ID on the table. The guard pulled it towards herself to better inspect it. After a minute, one that felt like an eternity, she slid it back towards Pyotr, seemingly satisfied. He could swear that she took longer than she needed to. To make fun of him sweating nervously, no doubt.
"And the reason for your visit?" She probed.
"I need to retrieve some schematics for Deputy Director Pauzin, Comrade" Pyotr replied, picking up his ID card and sliding it back into his wallet.
"Hm. Alright then. Wait there a minute." The guard pushed herself back, the legs of her chair screeching as they scraped against the floor. She walked over to the drawers, from which she pulled out a flashlight. "We have to keep it dark to stop the paper from degrading, you'll need that to find whatever the deputy director is looking for" She announced with a grin. Tossing the flashlight to Pyotr, who again barely managed to catch it, she headed towards the vault door at the back of the room.
The vault door was a large steel construction taking up most of the back wall of the room. In the centre of the door was a circular handle, and in the centre of the handle was a keyhole. The Guard took a key off her belt and inserted it into the lock then heaved on the circular handle, turning it until the door opened. She pulled the door open until it was wide enough for a person to walk in and then gestured to Pyotr.
"Don't worry, there's a safety handle on the inside so you won't get locked in. Put your mask on before you go on in though, the cleaners aren't allowed in for security reasons."
Pyotr put on his mask and entered the vault. Despite being warned, he still jumped when he heard the heavy door close behind him.
The rush of air from the door opening and closing again kicked up a sandstorm of dust. It was also very dark. Between the dust and the dark and the grime on his mask Pyotr could barely see anything. The air tasted of stale stillness and cigarettes, though the latter taste was likely from the mask as much as anything. It was as silent as the grave in the vault. Pyotr almost wished he'd brought his prayer beads to ward off whatever evil lurked in this hidden crypt.
He turned the flashlight on and was immediately rewarded with the ability to see again. It cut through the darkness like a sword, providing a small amount of relief. Immediately Pyotr turned around to check if there actually was a safety hand on the inside, or whether he'd been locked in forever. There was a handle.
As he turned back around, and as his eyes adjusted, Pyotr began to take a proper look around. Stretching out in front of him were rows upon rows of shelves, filled with baskets, folders, and books. They stood proudly and evenly, like a wooden army. Along the left wall, above the shelves, ran a row of green lights, not bright enough to properly light up the room but bright enough to be visible. Along the right wall ran a row of red lights. Overall, with the dust settling on the floor like sand, it was a very dramatic scene. Surely this sort of room was overkill for the civilian sector, even if its contents technically were state secrets.
Pyotr pressed bravely onwards into the dark of the vault. He couldn't see any webs and yet he couldn't help but remember Daniil's story about spiders the size of dogs. With his own footsteps echoing in his ears he wouldn't be able to hear them as they scuttled around in the darkness. With the narrow blade of light in his hand he might not be able to light up their beady eyes as they stare at him. Bah! None of this was real! He was scaring himself for no reason!
To distract himself he started paying more attention to the signs on the end of each row of shelves as he walked. It seemed like the shelves were sorted by department, and then alphabetically. Steel 1, Steel 2, Steel 3, Steel 4, Steel 5, Steel 6 … How many rows of shelves could you possibly need for steel production? Why were there 6 of them?? Sure it was a commonly known fact that steel production was both the heart and the spine of Soviet industry, but still, 6 shelves of paperwork? That was ridiculous!
Pyotr pushed further into the vault and the darkness closed in behind him. Now the lights on the ceiling were the only way to tell which way went deeper into the vault and which way went back to the mortal world. A good communist does not believe in ghosts, but to Pyotr it felt like the hands of the deceased were brushing along his arms and legs. They were not yet grabbing, but perhaps they might when he retrieved the treasure from within this crypt. How long had the building been here again? Why did these archives feel like they were stretching out forever?
Finally, after walking an eternity in the Abyss, Pyotr reached "M".
Where was the paperwork? Where was it?
He began to run, racing past shelves so quickly he barely had time to read.
Where was it?
There! Metro!
Pyotr scrambled to a stop and then threw himself into the correct aisle. Like a man possessed he started rifling through the various books and binders, barely caring to properly replace items that he didn't need. He was panting now, and sweating under the gas mask. The flashlight tucked under his arm to give himself as much light as possible, he rifled through plans and schematics until he finally found what he was looking for.
"Overground Communter Rail Plan! Yes! I have it!". Pyotr sank to his knees. He tried to wipe his forehead through the mask, but it didn't have much success and he had to blink away a bead of sweat that rolled into his eye. The silent archives did not reply.
And then they did. A hiss of air swept through the vault. A voice called out in the darkness.
"Hey did you find what you were looking for? Huh? Why aren't the lights on? Did you take the torch thing seriously?"
It was... the guard? With a hum, overhead strip lighting flickered on and an air filtration system started up. Pyotr sat on the ground, covered in dust and blinking at the light, feeling rather foolish.
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A/N I honestly don't know what I was cooking here, but I got inspired by the Commuter Rail finally being done after so long. I am not sure why my brain translated that into "man has a panic attack in the archives", but there you go.
