Tunnels 02, Deeper

She knew what that shake of his head meant. She knew the truth. In the Colony, medicines such as antibiotics were in permanent short supply. The little that had been stockpiled was for the sole use of the ruling classes, the Styx and maybe a very select band of elite within the Board of Governors.
    There had been another alternative: She'd suggested buying some penicillin on the black market and wanted to ask her brother, Tam, to get hold of some for her. But Sarah's husband was adamant. "I cannot condone such actions" were his words as he stared bleakly at the hapless infant that was growing weaker with every hour. Then he had blathered on about his position in the community and how it was their duty to uphold its values. None of this mattered one jot to Sarah; she just wanted her baby to be well again.
    There was nothing else to do but continually swab the shining red face of the howling infant in an attempt to lower its temperature, and pray. Over the next twenty-four hours, the baby's crying quieted to pathetic little gasps, as if it was all it could do to breathe. It was useless trying to feed it; it made no effort to draw milk. The baby was slipping away from her and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do.
    She thought she might go mad.
    She went into fits of barely suppressed fury and, backing away from the crib into a corner of the room, she would try to hurt herself by frenziedly scratching at her forearms, biting her tongue lest she cry out and disturb the semiconscious child. At other times, she slumped to the floor, overcome by such a deep despair that she prayed she might also die with her child.
    In the final hour, its pale little eyes became glazed and listless. Then, sitting by the crib in the darkened room, Sarah had been roused from her desolation by a sound. It was like a tiny whisper, as if someone were trying to remind her of something. She leaned over the cot. She knew instinctively that she'd heard the final breath leak from the baby's dry lips. It was still. It was over. She'd lifted the child's tiny arm and let it fall back against the mattress. It was like touching some exquisitely made doll.
    But she didn't cry then. Her eyes were dry and resolute. At that very instant, any loyalty she had felt for the Colony, her husband, and the society in which she'd lived her whole life evaporated. And in that instant, she saw everything so clearly, as if a spotlight had been switched on in her head. She knew what she must do, with such conviction that nothing was going to get in her way. She must spare her other two children from the same fate, whatever the cost.
    That same evening, as the body of the dead baby, the child that had no name, lay cooling in its cot, she had thrown a few things into a shoulder bag and grabbed her two sons. While her husband was out making arrangements for the funeral, she left the house with both her boys, heading toward one of the escape routes her brother had once described to her.
    As if the Styx knew her every move, it had very quickly gone wrong and become a game of cat and mouse. While she'd struggled through the warren of ventilation tunnels, they were never far behind. She recalled how she'd stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Leaning against the wall, she cowered in the darkness with a child held under each arm. In her heart of hearts, she knew she had no choice but to leave one of them behind. She wasn't going to make it not with both of them. She recalled her tortured decision at the time.
    But shortly afterward, a Colonist, one of her own people, had stumbled across her. In the frantic tussle that ensued, she had fought the man off, stunning him with a wild blow. Her arm had been badly hurt in the struggle, and there was no question about it anymore.
    She knew what she had to do.
    She left Cal behind. He was barely a year old. She'd gently laid the twitching bundle between two rocks on the grit floor of the tunnel. Etched indelibly into her memory was the image of the child's cocoonlike swaddling, smeared with her own blood. And the noise he was making, the gurgling. She knew it wouldn't be long before he was discovered and returned to her husband, and that he would care for him. A scant consolation. She had resumed her flight with the other son and, more by luck than skill, had somehow eluded the Styx and broken out onto the surface.
    In the small hours of the morning, they had walked down Highfield's
    Main Street
    , her son on the pavement