Tunnels 01, Tunnels

gave way. There was nothing he could do, he was in free fall, water sluicing down around him with a cascade of gravel and slurry. His body banged against the sides of the borehole, his hair and face drenched and covered in grit.
    He twitched like a marionette as the rope broke his fall. In less than a second, he'd gathered his wits; he guessed he'd dropped almost twenty feet, but he had no idea what lay below him in the blackness.
    Now's my chance . It occurred to him in a flash.
    He desperately groped under his oilskins, in his pants pockets, his hand closing on the penknife.
    ...to escape...
    He peered below him into the absolute darkness of the unknown, calculating the odds, the rope tensing as the others began to pull.
    ... and Dad's down here... somewhere ... The idea blinked through his mind as brightly as a neon sign.
    ... down here, down here, down here ... it repeated, flashing on and off with the irksome buzz of an electrical discharge.
    ... water, I can hear water ...
    "CLIMB THE ROPE, BOY!" he heard the scar man bellowing from somewhere above. "CLIMB THE ROPE!"
    Will's mind raced as he tried to catch the sounds below him; faint splashes and the gurgle of moving water were just audible over the pendulum creaks of the thick rope that bit into his waist, his lifeline back to the Colony above.
    ... but how deep is it?
    There was water below, that much was certain, but he didn't know if it was sufficient to cushion his fall. He flicked open the blade and pressed it against the rope, poised to cut it.
    Yes... no?
    If the water wasn't deep enough, he'd be jumping to his death in this godforsaken, lonely place. He pictured jagged shards of rock, razor-sharp and deadly, like a line drawing from a comic book... the next frame was his lifeless body, impaled and broken as his blood pumped out of him, mingling with the darkness.
    But he felt rash and daring. He drew the blade against the rope, and the first braid of fibers separated beneath it.
    A daring escape! flashed in his mind, even brighter that before, like a byline from some Hollywood adventure. The words were proud and brave, but then the image of Chester's face, laughing and happy, reared up, shattering it into a million fragments. Will shivered from the cold, his body drenched and plastered with mud.
    The muted hollering of the scar man once again drifted from above, as vague and confused as a yodeler down a drainpipe, wrenching Will from his thoughts. He knew he should start to do it. Then he sighed, and all the courage and bravado were gone. In their place was the cold certainty that if not now, there'd be another opportunity to escape later, and he would take it next time.
    He tucked away the penknife, twisted himself upright, and began the laborious climb back to the others.

    * * * * *

    Seven long hours later he'd lost count of how many boreholes they'd cleared as they progressed farther and farther into the tunnel. Finally glancing at his pocket watch under the light of the lantern, the scar man told them they were finished for the day. They trudged back toward the stepladder, and Will set off alone for the journey home, his hands and back aching horribly.
    As he climbed out of the trench and made his way slowly along the road, he spotted a couple of Colonists outside a building with a pair of large garage-type doors. They were surrounded by banks of stacked crates.
    As one of the men stepped back from the gathering, Will heard a high-pitched laugh. Then he saw something that made him blink and rub his eyes. A man in a puce-pink blazer and straw boater pranced in the middle of the group.
    "Can't be! No! It is! It's Mr. Clarke, junior!" he said aloud, without meaning to.
    "What?" came a voice from behind. It was one of the boys who had been working with Will in the tunnel. "You know him?"
    "Yes! But... but... what in the world is he doing here?" Will was dumbfounded as he thought of the Clarke's shop on
    Main Street
    and struggled with the displaced apparition of Mr. Clarke junior down here, still cavorting within the circle of stocky Colonists. As he watched, Will saw that he was picking things from the boxes with little theatrical flourishes and displaying them to his audience, sweeping them along his sleeve like a crooked watch salesman before placing them delicately on a trestle table. Then the other shoe dropped.
    "Don't tell me he's selling fruit!" Will said.
    "And vegetables." The boy looked curiously at Will. "The Clarkes have been trading