An hour later Ella called the first rest break. It was hard work walking in the tunnel, with one foot always higher up the curve and many patches of slime to jump over. Then there were the junctions with lesser tunnels, to be waded across using ropes or linked arms. Always there was the oppressive darkness, the sudden heat as hot water flowed in from a side tunnel – and the fear when the burbling water rose to a roar, fear subsiding as the water returned to its steady flow.
They rested in a small chamber above the tunnel, reached by a rusty steel ladder that rose up through the ceiling of the tunnel and on up another twenty feet. Remnants of pre-Change times filled it, arcane objects known to them from videos and training lessons: a mildewed map of the drains on the wall, next to a pictorial calendar of naked women, now clothed in mould; two hard hats on hooks; an open tool kit on the floor, filled with rusted objects.
“We’re pretty close to the Main Junction,” Ella said as she handed out bars of chocolate. These were still pristine in their foil wrappers, despite a fifteen-year wait on supermarket shelves, a wait broken only when they were retrieved by the teams Shade sent scavenging.
“There are two upper walkways well above the water – in addition to the walkways around the sides, which tend to be a bit submerged. We’ll be taking those. So we’ll stop a bit short to listen for Myrmidons, let Ninde concentrate, and so on. If you have any of your visions, Gold-Eye, speak up.”
They ate in silence after Ella spoke, sipping from their water bottles. It was hot and airless in the room and Gold-Eye felt himself drifting off into sleep. As his head nodded forward, he felt the familiar grip of the soon-to-be-now – but just as the vision was about to come to him, Ninde shook him and it was lost.
“Come on!” said Ninde, switching on her flashlight. “We’re going.”
Gold-Eye followed her with the pressure of an unrealised vision throbbing at his temples and a sick swirling emptiness in his stomach. His glimpses of the soon-to-be-now were nearly always warnings of something bad about to happen – but not always. For a moment he considered telling Ella, but decided against it. Maybe he had felt like he was about to have a vision only because Ella had mentioned it…
But when they started walking along the drain again, the vision did come back. Gold-Eye let out a yelp and nearly fell against Ninde, who just managed to hold him up.
In his head, Gold-Eye saw water rushing along two tunnels, filling them both completely, speeding along in a frenzy of white froth – then cascading out into an enormous pool where many tunnels met. Trapped in his vision, Gold-Eye still realised that this was the Main Junction and the great rush of water was filling it. In moments it would begin a mad, headlong rush towards the sea. Along Ten East. The Main Drain.
“Water!” he shrieked, coming out of the vision. “Flood!”
Even as he cried out, a rumbling, deep roar vibrated through the tunnel, displaced air rushed past their faces – and the first small wave heralded the smashing waters to come.
“Back!” shouted Ella. “Back to the ladder!”
The others had already turned and in a second were running, dancing, slipping back along the tunnel. The sound of the water behind them rose as they ran, and the waves were soon slapping the backs of their knees and then their backs – and still the main flood was building in the surge reservoir they knew as the Main Junction.
“Up! Up!” Drum called as Gold-Eye arrived panting at the ladder. Holding the steel upright with one hand, he picked Gold-Eye up with the other and practically hurled him through the hole in the ceiling, and Ninde after him.
Then, with a ferocious, frothing howl, the flood hit.
Water geysered up the ladder shaft, exploding around Gold-Eye and Ninde as they desperately climbed higher. For a second, both were nearly plucked away, nostrils, mouth and lungs filled with forced water. Then, as quickly as it came, the water disappeared, leaving them coughing and crying on the ladder.
Ninde’s flashlight still hung on its cord around her wrist. She fumbled her light downward, but it illuminated only the subsiding waters. There was no sign of Ella or Drum.
“They’re gone,” she sobbed. “Gone.”
Gold-Eye heard her faintly, the words fuzzy in his water-logged ears. He felt weak, unable to speak, barely capable of holding on. His hands hurt, the knuckles cracking, unable to relax his deathly grip on the worn steel rungs.
“We shouldn’t have come out,” Ninde sobbed. “I knew it was wrong…”
“Ninde…” Gold-Eye said, suddenly less worried about himself as her muttering and crying rose in intensity and volume. “Ninde!”
She stopped in mid breath, choked and broke into a fit of coughing. When it stopped, she seemed calmer. Gold-Eye felt calmer too, as if his state of mind was directly dependent upon hers.
“Ninde,” he said again. “Can you do… mind-listen… people?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Ninde said, half coughing the words. “They’re drowned. I can’t hear what dead people think!”
Gold-Eye said nothing. Ninde coughed a few more times, then said, “I suppose I could try. Not from here, though.”
“Safe to go down?” asked Gold-Eye. He couldn’t see past Ninde.
“Yeah,” replied Ninde, shining her flashlight down again. “I guess… I guess it was a quick one. The water looks about w-waist high.”
“We go then?” asked Gold-Eye. “Look for Ella and Drum?”
“I suppose,” said Ninde doubtfully. She withdrew her elbows, which had been locked around the rungs. “I guess if it was the other way around, they’d look for us. And Drum is very strong. If they hung on to the ladder for long enough…”
She started climbing down, Gold-Eye following close behind – and then suddenly stopped, just at the top of the tunnel.
“What?” asked Gold-Eye anxiously.
“The last part of the ladder’s missing,” Ninde replied, her voice flat. “It’s just broken off. We’ll have to hang and drop.”
“Wait!” cried Gold-Eye as Ninde prepared to lower herself from the last rung. “Rope! We use rope!”
ARCHIVE MISSION ORDERS 3651 • STELO
| Stelo: | You want us to what? |
| Shade: | Capture a Winger. |
| Stelo: | How? |
| Shade: | The tethered goat. |
| Stelo: | What? |
| Shade: | It’s an old trick, used for capturing wild carnivores. Tigers, for example. You tether a goat to a stake. When the animal comes to eat the defenceless goat, you kill or capture it. |
