Tunnels 01, Tunnels

his haunches. He brushed the sweat from his face with a raw hand. "I suppose we do what Tam said. We climb down."
    Cal looked behind and then to his brother, nodding. For several minutes neither of them made a move, immobilized with fatigue.
    "Well, we can't stay here forever," Will sighed and swung his legs into the vent and, with his back pressed against one side and feet hard against the other, he began to see himself down.
    "What about the cat?" Will shouted after he had gone a short distance. "Is Bartleby going to be able to cope with this?"
    "Don't worry about him," Cal said with a smile. "Anything we can do--"
    Will never heard the rest of Cal's sentence. He slipped. The sides of the vent shot by, and he landed with a large splash -- he was submerged in an icy coldness. He thrashed out with this arms, then his feet found the bottom, and he stood up and blew out a mouthful of freezing liquid. He found he was chest-deep in water, and after he'd wiped it out of his eyes and pushed back his hair, he looked around. He couldn't be certain, but there seemed to be a dim light in the distance.
    He heard Cal's frantic shouts from above. "Will! Will! Are you all right?"
    "Just had a quick dip!" Will shouted, laughing weakly. "Stay there, I'm going to check something out." His exhaustion and discomfort were ignored for the moment as he stared at the faint glow, trying to make out the vaguest detail of what lay ahead.
    Soaked to the skin, he clambered out of the pool and, stooping under the low roof, crept slowly toward the light. After a couple of hundred yards, he could clearly see the circular mouth of the tunnel and, with his heart racing, he sped toward it. Dropping more than three feet off a ledge he'd failed to notice, he landed roughly, finding himself under a jetty of some kind. Through a forest of heavy wooden stanchions, draped with weeds, he could see the dappled reflections of light on water.
    Gravel crunched underfoot as he walked into the open. He felt the invigorating chill of the wind on his face. He breathed deeply, drawing the fresh air into his aching lungs. It was such sweetness. Slowly he took stock of the surroundings.
    Night. Lights reflected off a river in front of him. It was a wide river. A two tiered pleasure boat chugged past -- bright flashes of color pulsed from its two decks as indistinct dance music throbbed over the water. Then he saw the bridges on either side of him and, in the distance, the floodlit dome of St. Paul's. The St. Paul's he knew. A red double-decker bus crossed the bridge closest to him. This wasn't any old river. He sat down on the bank with surprise and relief.
    It was the Thames .
    He lay back on the bank and closed his eyes, listening to the droning hubbub of traffic. He tried to remember the names of the bridges, but he didn't really care -- he'd gotten out, he'd escaped, and nothing else mattered. He'd made it. He was home. Back in his own world.
    "The sky," Cal said with awe in his voice. "So that's what it's like." Will opened his eyes to see his brother craning his neck this way and that as he stared at the stray wisps of cloud caught in the amber radiation of the streetlights. Although Cal was sopping from his immersion in the pool, he was smiling broadly, but then he wrinkled up his nose. " Phew , what's that?" he asked loudly.
    "What do you mean?" Will said.
    "All those smells!"
    Will propped himself up on one elbow and sniffed. "What smells?"
    "Food... all sorts of food... and..." Cal grimaced. "sewage -- lots of it -- and chemicals..."
    As Will sniffed the air, thinking again how fresh it was, it occurred to him that he hadn't once considered what they were going to do next. Where were they going to go? He'd been so intent on escaping, he hadn't given anything beyond it a second thought. He stood up and examined his sodden, filthy Colonists' clothes and those of his brother, and the unfeasibly large cat that was now nosing around the bank like a pig searching for truffles. A brisk winter wind was picking up, and he shivered violently, his teeth starting to chatter. It struck him that neither his brother nor Bartleby had experienced the relative extremes of Topsoil weather in their sheltered, subterranean lives. He had to get them moving. And quickly. But he didn't have any money on him -- not a penny.
    "We're going to have to walk home."
    "Fine," Cal replied unquestioningly, his head back as he stared at the stars, losing himself in the canopy of the sky. "At