Tunnels 01, Tunnels

ledger, not once looking in the boys' direction. He also had an orange-gold star stitched onto his jacket, and although his appearance was much like that of the other officer, he was younger and his head was covered with a neatly cut stubble of white hair.
    "Chester," Will whispered. When his friend didn't react, he stretched over to nudge him. In a flash, a truncheon lashed out, smacking sharply across his knuckles.
    "Desist!" the policeman next to them barked.
    "Ouch!" Will jumped up from the bench, his fists clenched. "You fat...," he shouted, his body trembling, trying to control himself. Chester reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.
    "Be quiet, Will!"
    Will angrily shook off Chester's hand and stared into the policeman's cold eyes. "I want to know why we're being held," he demanded.
    For a horrible moment they thought the policeman's face was going to explode, it turned such a livid red. But then his huge shoulders began to heave, and a low, grating laugh rumbled up, which grew louder and louder. Will threw a sidelong glance at Chester, who was eyeing the policeman with alarm.
    "ENOUGH!" the voice of the man behind the counter cracked like a whip as he looked up from the ledger, his gaze falling on the laughing policeman, who immediately fell silent. "YOU!" The man glowered at Will. "SIT DOWN!" His voice held such authority that Will didn't hesitate for a second, quickly taking his place next to Chester again. "I," the man continued, puffing out his barrel chest self-importantly, "am the First Officer. You are already acquainted with the Second Officer." He nodded in the direction of the policeman standing by them.
    The First Officer looked down at the roll of paper from the message tube. "You are hereby charged with unlawful entry and trespass into the Quarter under Statute Twelve, Subsection Two," he read in a monotone.
    "But..." Will began meekly.
    The First Officer ignored him and read on. "Furthermore, you did uninvited enter a property with the intent to pilfer, contrary to Statute Six, Subsection Six," he continued matter-of-factly. "Do you understand these charges?" he asked.
    Will and Chester exchanged confused looks, and Will was about to reply when the First Officer cut him off.
    "Now what have we here?" he said, opening their backpacks and emptying the contents onto the counter. He picked up the foil-wrapped sandwiches Will had prepared and, not bothering to open them, merely sniffed at them. "Ah, swine," he said with a flicker of a smile. And from the way he briefly licked his lips and slid it to one side, Will knew he'd seen the last of his packed lunch.
    Then the First Officer turned his attention to the other items, working his way through them methodically. He lingered on the compass but was more taken by the Swiss Army knife, levering out each of its blades in turn and squeezing the little scissors with his thick fingers before he finally put it down. Casually rolling one of the balls of string on the countertop with one hand, he used the other to flick open open the dog-eared geological map that had been in Will's bag, giving it a cursory inspection. Finally, he leaned over and smelled the map, wrinkling his face with a look of distaste, before moving on to the camera.
    "Hmmm," he muttered thoughtfully, turning it in his banana-like fingers to consider it from several angles.
    "That's mine," Will said.
    The First Officer completely ignored him and, putting down the camera, picked up a pen and dipped it in an inkwell set into the counter. With the pen poised over a page of the open ledger, he cleared his throat.
    "NAME!" he bellowed, throwing a glance in Chester's direction.
    "It's er, Chester... Chester Rawls," the boy stammered.
    The First Officer wrote in the ledger. The scratching of he nib on the page was the only sound in the room, and Will suddenly felt helpless, as if the entry in the ledger was setting in motion an irreversible process, the workings of which were quite beyond his understanding.
    "AND YOU?" he snapped at Will.
    "He told me my father was here," Will said, bravely stabbing his finger in the direction of the Second Officer. "Where is he? I want to see him now!"
    The First Officer looked across at his colleague and then back to Will. "You won't be seeing anyone unless you do as you are told." He shot another glance at the Second Officer and frowned with barely disguised disapproval. The Second Officer averted his gaze and shifted uneasily from foot to