Tunnels 02, Deeper

she'd been carrying, he had a noose around his neck. What did that mean? Had she been about to shoot him?
    "Yes, I'm your mother," she groaned. "You must tell me..." Then her voice failed her.
    "What? Tell you what?" Will asked.
    "Did you kill Tam?!" Sarah screamed, her chest heaving and her eyes flicking wide open as she stared at Will. He was so shocked that he almost fell backward.
    "No, he didn't," Cal answered from beside Will, who hadn't even noticed he was there. "Is it really you, Mother?"
    "Cal," Sarah said, tears spilling from her eyes as she squeezed them shut and began to cough. It took her several seconds before she was able to talk again. "Just tell me what happened in the EternalCity... Tell me what happened to Tam. I need to know."
    Cal found it difficult to speak, his lips trembling. "Uncle Tam died saving us... both of us," he said finally.
    "Oh my God." Sarah wept. "They were lying to me. The Styx were lying to me all the time." She tried to sit up.
    "You need to keep still," Elliott told her. "You're bleeding badly. I thought you were a Limiter. I shot--"
    "That doesn't matter now," Sarah said, rolling her head with the pain.
    "I can dress your wounds," Elliott offered, shifting uneasily on her feet as Will looked up at her.
    Sarah tried to say no but broke into another coughing fit. When it had passed, she continued. "Will, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I'm so very, very sorry."
    "That's... that's OK," Will stammered, not really knowing what she meant.
    "Come closer, both of you," she urged them. "Listen to me."
    As they leaned in to hear what their mother wanted to tell them, Elliott set about applying some gauze pads to Sarah's hip, tying them in place with bandage strips.
    "The Styx have got a deadly virus and they're going to spread it Topsoil." She stopped talking, clenching her teeth together with a moan, then resumed. "They've already tested a form of it there, but... but it was only a trial run... The full-strength virus is called Dominion... going to cause a terrible plague."
    "So that was what we saw in the Bunker," Cal whispered, looking at Elliott.
    "Will... Will," Sarah said, staring at him with an intense desperation. "Rebecca carries the virus around with her... and she wants you out of the picture. The Limiters" -- Sarah tensed her body, then relaxed again -- "won't stop until you're dead."
    "But why me?" Will's head reeled -- here was the confirmation he was dreading. The Styx were out to get him.
    Sarah didn't answer but, with the greatest effort, looked at Elliott as the girl put the finishing touches to a bandage on her temple. "They're coming for all of you. You've got to get away from here. Are there others you can call on for help?"
    "No, there's only us," Elliott answered her. "Most of the renegades have been rounded up."
    Sarah was silent while she tried to steady her breathing. "Then, Will, Cal, you have to dig yourselves in deep... somewhere they can't reach you."
    "That's what we're doing," Elliott confirmed. "We're going to the Wastes."
    "Good," Sarah croaked. "And then you must go Topsoil and warn them what's coming."
    "How..." Will began.
    "Oh, it hurts," Sarah groaned, and her face went limp as if she'd blacked out. Only the occasional flutter of her eyelids told them she was hanging on to consciousness.
    "Mum," Will said hesitantly. Addressing a complete stranger in that way felt so incredibly foreign to him. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask her. "Mum, you've got to come with us."
    "We can carry you," Cal said.
    Sarah's response was resolute. "No, I'd only slow you down. You've got a fighting chance if you get going."
    "She's right," Elliott said, picking up Sarah's rifle and belt kit and handing them to Chester. "We have to leave now."
    "No, I'm not going without my mother," Cal insisted, seizing Sarah's limp hand.
    As Cal talked to his mother, tears flowing freely down his cheeks, Will took Elliott aside.
    "There's got to be something we can do," he pressed her. "Can't we take her with us some of the way and hide her?"
    "No," Elliott replied emphatically. "Besides, moving her isn't going to help her any. She's probably going to die, anyway, Will."
    Sarah called Will's name, and he immediately rejoined Cal by her side.
    "Never forget," Sarah said to the boys. She was really struggling now, her face contorted with pain. "I'm so proud of both of..." She didn't finish the sentence. As Will and Cal watched, her eyes slid shut and she was still.
    "We've