“What’s a Category One?” the young lady asked.
“Not good news, I’m afraid,” Drake said. “Major fracture of the supply line — probably due to ground freeze. It’s likely to have been spewing gas down there for some time, and into” — Drake swallowed as if he could barely bring himself to utter the next words — “into an enclosed space.”
“Yes, I’d say the fault’s been active for thirty . . . no . . . thirty-five hours,” Mrs. Burrows informed him, sniffing randomly.
Drake whistled. “Blooming heck! That long?” He whirled around to the woman. “Look, madam, you have to leave the property right now. Our insurance doesn’t cover us for customer fatalities. Please just gather your coat and what you need, and get away from here — well away. And don’t operate anything electrical — even a cell phone could set off the gas down there and blow us all into the next century.” He looked at Mrs. Burrows. “We’ll have to make the cellar a containment area and flush it out before we can even start to think about digging down to the fault.” Then he turned back to the young lady again. “I need a set of house keys and a number where I can reach you. I’ll let you know the moment it’s safe to return.”
“Of course. Anything you say,” the woman replied. “I’ll be at my mother’s. And thank you for coming so quickly.”
As Will and Elliott watched the proceedings through the back window of the van, the woman hurriedly left the house, pausing only to scribble down a telephone number for Drake. Then she tore down the street, throwing the odd glance over her shoulder as if it might be the last time she’d ever see the place.
As Will’s breath left condensation on the glass, he wiped it away with his sleeve so he could see his old home clearly. “Number 16 Broadlands Avenue. I used to live there,” he said distantly, as if trying to convince himself. He pressed his finger against the window and pointed, directing Elliott’s attention to the upper floor. “So weird . . . that’s the Rebeccas’ bedroom. The vile little snakes slept there, under the same roof as me,” he said, then swiveled around and slumped down against the door. “This place was all I knew for so long . . . and now I can hardly remember it.”
Elliott hummed but didn’t say anything.
“I’m not going to ask what you lot are up to.” The bald man behind the steering wheel suddenly spoke up. It was Drake’s mechanic from the under-the-arches garage in West London, who had been brought in to supply them with the mock British Gas van, the overalls Drake and Mrs. Burrows were wearing, and also their identity cards. It was apparently one of the many services his “clientele” expected from him, in addition to unregistered vehicles.
The mechanic had met them in a motorway services parking lot, where Will, Elliott, Mrs. Burrows, and Drake had transferred from the Bedford to the van for the final leg of the journey to Highfield. “But whatever your caper is, it’s not strictly legit, is it?” the bald mechanic now added.
“Do you really want to know?” Will challenged him.
The mechanic rubbed his chin but didn’t reply.
“If I said that we’re trying to save the human race, would you believe me? And if we don’t succeed, every single person on the surface will die,” Will said, completely straight-faced.
Elliott drew in a breath in surprise.
The mechanic grinned, showing his golden tooth. “You’re right, mate, I shouldn’t go sticking my nose in your beeswax. The less I know, the better.” He patted his breast pocket, then chuckled. “Anyway, the sparklies your Mr. Jones gave me are all the answer I need.”
“Mr. Smith,” Will corrected him, grinning. “Mr. Smith gave you the diamonds.”
At that moment, Mr. Smith, who was actually Drake, rapped on the back of the van and then opened the door a few inches. “The owner’s out of the way. I called Sparks and the others — they’ll be along when we’ve prepped the place. But in the meantime, we should” — noticing the mechanic was listening, he checked himself — “get the Christmas decorations inside.”
The Christmas decorations were in fact enough explosive to blast through many yards of rock. As Will entered the house, carrying two heavy bags laden with them, he stopped dead. He looked at Mrs. Burrows. “It’s all different, Mum,” he gasped. “The wallpaper’s new.” He scuffed his boot on the floor — it was no longer covered with the stained carpet he’d known all his life. “And this, too. They’ve completely redone the place.”
Drake came up behind him. “We need the gear downstairs, Will. OK?”
“Sure,” Will replied, ambling toward the cellar door. “This is where my dad disappeared every night,” he told Elliott, who was following behind him with a kit bag full of tools. “Until he disappeared altogether, down to the Colony.”
The cellar was also very different now — very tidy and organized — with peg boards on the walls, holding carefully arranged power tools. And a partially disassembled vintage Triumph motorcycle sat on an oily sheet in the center of the room.
“Sweet,” Drake said, running a finger over the gleaming chrome of the handlebars. “But we need to shift all this out of the way so we can get at those.” He looked at the shelves, on which there were pots of paint and decorating equipment.
Will and Drake worked quickly while Mrs. Burrows and Elliott dragged between them a mattress down from one of the upstairs bedrooms. This was secured against the back door of the cellar leading to the garden, to help deaden any noise they might make while working.
Taking a pickax from one of the bags, Drake used the tip to lever the shelves from the wall. As he heaved the unit aside, the others gathered around to see. Behind it, there was what appeared to be a stretch of perfectly ordinary wall painted white.
“Right here,” Will said, going over and tapping the spot where he remembered the tunnel mouth had been. “It was right here.”
Drake nodded. “We’ll do it the hard way to begin with, using good old elbow grease to knock a hole through. It’ll make less noise,” he said. “Everyone back,” he warned, then swung the pickax. Within a matter of minutes, he’d loosened enough bricks that a chunk of the wall dropped onto the cellar floor. A raft of hardcore and gravel slid from the small opening.
“Very clever,” Drake said. “Precisely what you might expect to find.” He continued until he’d increased the size of the opening. “That’s enough. Over to you, Will.” Breathing heavily, Drake turned to the boy. “We need the spoil cleared away so we can see what we’re up against. And you used to enjoy a spot of digging, didn’t you?”
Will smiled. “Sure, but this is going to take ages, isn’t it?” He was remembering how many days he and Chester had toiled to reexcavate the tunnel the first time around.
“Not if I can help it,” Drake said. “Just do your stuff, Will.”
“OK,” Will replied. He chose a shovel from the bag and expertly tested its weight in his hands. Then he spat on his palms. “Watch out! I’m back!” he announced, and began to dig.
He worked like a whirlwind, only stopping to lift aside the larger pieces of rubble that he encountered. Elliott, Drake, and Mrs. Burrows had formed a chain and were passing the filled buckets to the end of the cellar, where they emptied them out.
With a jarring clang, Will swore and straightened up. “Bad news — I’ve hit solid rock. It’s a bloody monster of a piece.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “There was nothing like this when I dug the tunnel out.”
Drake didn’t seem to be at all disheartened by this news, but before he could respond to Will, his walkie-talkie crackled into life. “Your Christmas turkeys have flown in,” the mechanic’s voice announced, using Drake’s code. A few moments later, there were footsteps on the wooden stairs, and Eddie descended into the cellar.
“Where are Sweeney and the Colonel?” Mrs. Burrows asked. “And Colly?”
“They’re staying with the truck until we need them,” Eddie replied.
“Hope they’re keeping their eyes peeled,” Drake said. “With that payload, we can’t afford to t
ake risks — any number of terrorists or rogue states would give their eyeteeth for fissionable material in full weapon configuration. Besides that, Parry would go postal on me if I lost them!” He grinned. “And while I’m on the subject of explosives” — he went over to one of the large bags that Will had carried into the house and zipped it open — “it’s time to use the charges. We’ll just keep blasting until we’re through.”
“You’ve already hit the first barrier?” Eddie inquired.
“You mean this?” Will said, as he turned to slap the uneven wall of rock.
“Yes. It will be approximately five feet in width, followed by more loose material, and then the same thickness of rock again,” Eddie pronounced.
“You seem pretty sure about that,” Drake commented, as he took two pads of explosives from the bag.
Eddie nodded. “It would be more normal for the tunnel to be collapsed in along its full length so there’d be no opportunity for anyone to use it again. Particularly after you and Chester came down it,” he said, glancing at Will. “But there was nothing normal about this tunnel. We envisaged that we might need to bring it back into service again.”
Although Will was still contemplating the slab of rock blocking the way, his curiosity was piqued. “Why? What was so special about it?”
“It was referred to as the Jerome tunnel,” Eddie told him.
Will’s head jerked toward the former Limiter. “The what?” he asked.
“It was named after your blood mother — Sarah Jerome.”
Will frowned.
“Do you think it was simply down to chance that a tunnel led straight to your house?” Eddie put to him.
“I don’t know . . . I haven’t really thought about it,” Will admitted.
“It was excavated specifically for you, Will — or more specifically, so that there was a quick means to reach you if Sarah showed herself. The Styx Panoply had made her recapture a priority, due to her growing influence as an antihero for the more rebellious elements in our city.”
“You mean in the Rookeries,” Will interjected.
“No, not just there but across the rest of the Colony, too. We wanted to reel her in and make an example of her. Of course, when we did eventually apprehend Sarah, the Rebecca twins had other plans for her.”
“Yes, they tried to make her kill me,” Will said quietly as Eddie peered into the shadows behind him.
“And this tunnel also enabled us to maintain contact with the Styx females you call the Rebecca twins,” Eddie said. “Particularly when they were first embedded in your family as infants. It enabled us to swap them over as and when we wanted.”
“So you were sneaking into our home, and we didn’t know a thing about it,” Will said, stepping closer to Mrs. Burrows.
“Mostly at night, to check on you while you slept.” With his boot Eddie rolled over a piece of brick lying on the floor. “Later on, when Dr. Burrows began to drill holes in our hatch, we were forced to reinstate the cellar wall.”
“I was there then!” Will exclaimed, shaking his head. “I helped him do the drilling so he could put his shelves up!”
“During his Darklighting sessions, Dr. Burrows was given instructions about the existence of the tunnel,” Eddie said. “We intended that he should discover it and then be drawn down to the Colony. We knew it was almost a certainty that you’d follow him there, Will.”
“You’re saying Roger was conditioned to do that?” Mrs. Burrows asked. “It wasn’t something he did off his own back?”
“Not at all. In addition to the existence and location of the tunnel, we instilled in him both wanderlust and an over-powering hankering for exploration. Over a period of several years, these were introduced in the form of compulsions deep in his preconscious, ready for us to activate when we decided it was time he should be on his way,” Eddie replied matter-of-factly. “He was highly receptive to our conditioning. Although I wasn’t around to see it, I assume these very same compulsions later drove him to leave the Colony, enter the Deeps, and keep going until he reached the inner world. These actions weren’t taken of his own volition and were not something a man in his right mind would ever contemplate.”
Will let out a sharp breath. “So . . . so Dad wasn’t really some great explorer . . . and all the stuff he was so mad keen to discover . . . to record in his journal . . . that was because of you.” The boy’s eyes were wide with disbelief as he tried to articulate the myriad thoughts racing through his head. “Then, what I thought Dad was . . . wasn’t really him. You made him that way. The Styx made him something he wasn’t?”
“Yes. Like most Topsoilers, Dr. Burrows was decidedly unmotivated until we Darklit him,” Eddie said, staring at the sightless Mrs. Burrows. “And, of course, we did precisely the opposite to you, Celia. We instilled utter and absoluteapathy in you because there was no role for you to play. It suited us that you did nothing . . . but watch your television.”
For a moment no one in the cellar spoke.
“And I thought I was the one with the dynamite around here,” Drake murmured, putting the explosive pads back into the bag.
As if she was on the verge of fainting, Mrs. Burrows was swaying where she stood. “I knew it,” she croaked several times.
“Mum?” Will said, as he took her arm to steady her.
“All those years . . . I felt as though I was fighting something that wasn’t me. I felt as though I was losing myself . . . that I wasn’t in control of my life. And I wasn’t, because you Styx were dictating who I was. It was all a fabrication . . . a construct! Those thoughts . . . my thoughts were never my own!”
Whether he’d intended it or not, Eddie’s response was completely without remorse. “Yes. I thought that you would have already worked that out for yourself. After all, you managed to overcome the programming when you w —”
“You hijacked our lives,” Mrs. Burrows growled accusingly. “You soured everything with your games, and all because you wanted Sarah Jerome.”
“Well, not quite,” Eddie said. “It was also an opportunity for the Rebecca twins to gain their experience of life among the Heathen.”
Nobody noticed that Mrs. Burrows had laid a hand on Will’s shovel.
With a sudden step forward, she swung it at Eddie. It struck his head with such force he was thrown on top of his daughter.
“Hey! No!” Drake yelled, wresting the shovel from Mrs. Burrows’s hands. But this did nothing to stop her. She was still trying to punch the Styx as Drake pushed her back.
“Keep her away!” Elliott cried, supporting her stunned father. “She’s gone crazy.”
“Mum’s not bloody crazy!” Will yelled at Elliott. “These maniacs are! They messed with our lives! They ruined everything!” He was so furious that he was spitting as he shouted.
The anger seemed to have gone out of Mrs. Burrows, but Drake was now forced to step in between Will and Elliott, his hands outstretched as he kept them apart. “Everyone just chill. We don’t have time for family feuds. Not now.” He half turned toward Mrs. Burrows. “Celia, I want you to take some deep breaths, then go upstairs with Elliott and make tea for everyone. And you two,” he said, looking in turn at Will and Eddie, who was bleeding profusely from the temple. “We’re going to patch up Eddie’s noggin, then plant the charges. You can settle your differences later, but right now time is running out for all of us. So is everyone going to behave like adults?”
Elliott hesitated, about to say something.
“I thought I told you to take Celia upstairs,” Drake said firmly.
That was enough for Elliott — she nodded a yes. And Mrs. Burrows appeared to have regained full control of herself as she shuffled past Eddie. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “It was the shock — I really wasn’t aware of any of that. It was the shock . . .”
Eddie wiped the blood from his eyes. “That’s quite all right,” he replied, then promptly collapsed.
Eddie was carried up from the cellar and laid out on the sofa in the
living room. While everyone was fussing over him, Will slipped from the room. He lingered at the foot of the stairs for a moment. The banister had been freshly painted and was so white and clean and perfect that he felt he had to touch it with his grime-encrusted fingers.
He began to climb to the first floor. He’d been up and down the same stairs so many times in his life that, with each step, different memories from his childhood filtered back to him. Saturday lunches, when whichever Rebecca twin was there would prepare a huge fry-up for the family — eggs, sausages, mushrooms, bacon, and waffles — all dripping with unhealthy fat. Will smiled; it was strange that the Rebecca twin had never seemed to partake of the food herself. Maybe even then she had been trying to kill them all off?
And Will remembered his mother’s lengthy phone conversations with Auntie Jean. He would sometimes sit on the bottom step of the stairs and listen as the two sisters rabbited on about the latest turn of events in some TV soap or other. But when Auntie Jean began to monopolize the conversation with her long lists of what she’d eaten that day and how her unpredictable digestive system was coping with it, or what her precious poodle, Sophie, had got up to, then all Will heard was his mother saying, “I know . . . I know . . . I know,” in a bored voice. On a couple of occasions, Mrs. Burrows had even nodded off while her sister was still talking.
But as he reached the landing, Will realized that what he’d accepted as normal family life was far from it, and what he was remembering might as well have been scenes from a play. If it wasn’t enough that the part of his sister had been shared by two girls — if girls was the right word, because they weren’t even human — the Styx had been directing and manipulating everything in the house with their Dark Light sessions for years.
“None of it was real,” Will whispered.
And even the stage on which this farce had been performed was no longer there. As he surveyed the landing before him, everything was different. The fitted shelving unit had gone, the paper ball lampshade replaced, and the brand-new carpet didn’t have those patches in it where the weave was completely worn away.