Tunnels 02, Deeper

her, and had moved way over to the other side of the stake. Suddenly he thought how easy it would be to shoot her. But even though he might have just killed Drake, he knew he didn't have the stomach to kill Rebecca -- despite the intense hatred he felt for her.
    "Well?" Elliott said, cutting through his thoughts.
    "Yes, I think so," he lied as he pushed the rifle back at her. He had no idea whether he'd hit Drake, and didn't want to know.
    He just didn't want to know.
    And Rebecca. She had been there while the ghastly torture had been going on.
    His little sister!
    Her smiling face, her smug, self-satisfied face -- the same face that had confronted him time and time again when he was late for dinner or tracked mud onto the carpet or left the light on in the bathroom... a disapproving and superior smile that spoke of authority and even domination...
    He had to escape, to get away.
    He got up, yanking Elliott with him by the rope. They ran wildly down the slope, as fast as they could, Will almost pulling Elliott off her feet.
    As they reached the bottom of the incline, there was a flash of light. Amplified by the lens of Drake's device, it filled his eye with a searing, painful brilliance. He yelped. But no, it wasn't the Limiters. It was the electrical storm that always followed a Black Wind. The exposed hairs on his head and forearms bristled with the static.
    Massive sparkling balls of electrical discharge bobbed and rolled around them. There came another blinding flash and a deafening whiplash crack. A huge serpentine tongue of blue lightning speared horizontally over the ground, then split in two, each prong multiplying into many more until the tiny forks disappeared into nothing. The air was thick with the reek of ozone, just as if it was a true Topsoil thunderstorm.
    "Turn that off!" he heard Elliott call, but he was already fumbling for the brass switch on the box in his pocket. He knew that intense light might damage the night-vision device. There were so many crackling spheres of angry light spinning out from the remaining dust clouds, rolling around the plain in all directions, that the whole area was lit up like an exploding fireworks factory.
    Will heard shots and caught the vicious barking of dogs.
    "Stalkers!" he yelled at Elliott.
    She snatched a leathery wallet from inside her jacket and ripped off the top. She scattered its contents over the ground as they went, then threw down the empty wallet and kept moving. A small electrical ball of spluttering sparks zipped not inches from her, like some delinquent Tinkerbell, but she didn't slow, almost passing through its circumference.
    They came to the edge of the Great Plain.
    Then they were in one of the lava tubes, and in darkness again, the glow of the electrical storm flickering faintly behind them. Turning his headset back on, Will saw that Elliott was again taking another of the leathery packets from inside her jacket as she ran.
    "What're you doing? What is that stuff?" Will panted.
    "Parchers."
    "Huh?"
    "Stops the stalkers dead in their tracks. Burns them something awful," she told him, pointing to her nose with a malicious grin.
    He looked back and caught the sublime glow of pure yellow as some of the powder fell in a pool of water. He knew he'd seen it before... it was giving off the same glow as the bacteria that he, Chester, and Cal had come across. Genius . If a dog sniffed it up, it would scorch its nasal membranes. He laughed. It would render them useless as trackers.
    They ran and ran. He fell, sprawling, knocking his chin against the rough ground. Elliott helped him up. As he leaned against the wall, trying to get back his breath, she rigged a charge across the tunnel.
    She shouted him on again.

     

36

    Will blasted into the clearing and skidded to a halt. With his hands on his knees, he bent over, gulping hard to get air into his lungs.
    Chester and Cal both leaped to their feet in surprise. Will was an alarming sight: his face filthy from the dust storm and streaked with sweat, Drake's lens over one of his eyes, and the skin around the other smeared with fresh blood from the cut on his brow when he'd fallen.
    "Wh-what's happened?" Chester stuttered.
    "That's not Drake's, is it?" Cal asked at the same time, pointing to the headset.
    "I... had... to... " Will got out between breaths.
    Still gasping and swallowing air, he shook his head.
    "I... " he tried again.
    "We killed Drake," Elliott said flatly, stepping out from behind Will and