Tunnels 02, Deeper

around inside his head, picking out and cruelly exposing his innermost fears and secrets. Nothing was inviolate -- the twins were putting everything on show for all to see.
    Then the twin on the left spoke out, her voice deadly serious.
    "What we wanted to tell you, Will, and that lumbering oaf Chester, is that very soon now there won't be any home to go back to."
    "No more Topsoilers," the second twin warbled gleefully.
    "Well, not quite so many," the first corrected her in a sing-song voice.
    "What are they saying?" Chester demanded. He was sweating profusely, his face an ashen white under the patches of dirt.
    Will had had enough.
    "Lies! It's all a load of lies!" he shouted, his whole body shaking with terror and anger.
    "You saw for yourself, we've been busy bees in the EternalCity," a twin said. "We've had the Division prospecting there for years."
    "And they finally isolated the very bug we were looking for. Our scientists did some work on it, and her are the fruits of their labors."
    Will watched as the twin on the left took something that hung around her neck and held it up into the searchlights. It glittered as the beams caught it: a small glass phial, or so it appeared.
    "Choice little number, this... bottled genocide... the big daddy of all pandemics from centuries ago. We call it Dominion."
    "Dominion," the other repeated.
    "We're going to let it rip Topsoil and--"
    "--the Colony will reclaim its rightful home."
    The twin with the phial proffered it to her sister as if she was proposing a toast.
    "To a new London."
    "To a new world," the other one added.
    "Yes, world ."
    "I don't believe you, you witches! It's all trash talk!" Will protested. "You're lying!"
    "Why would we bother?" the twin on the right countered, waving a second phial. "See this? We've got the vaccine, old chap. You Topsoilers won't be able to produce it in time. The whole country will be crippled, and there for the taking."
    "So don't flatter yourself that we're down her just on your account."
    "We've been doing a spot of spring-cleaning in the Deeps, ridding it of rotten old renegades and traitors to the cause."
    "As well as running some final trials on Dominion -- but then, some of your new buds have seen that for themselves."
    "Ask Elliott. She knows the story."
    At the mention of her name, Elliott jerked her head up from behind the rifle. "The Bunker," she mouthed at Will, recalling the sealed cells she'd blundered across with Cal.
    Will's mind raced. He knew in his gut that Rebecca -- the Rebeccas, he had to keep reminding himself -- were capable of the most abject cruelty. Did they really have a plague? His thoughts were brought to an abrupt end as the twosome started up again.
    "So, to business, bro," the Rebecca on the left said. "We're going to make you a one-time offer."
    "But we're going back first," added the other.
    Will watched as the doppelgangers both spun daintily on their toes and began to skip their way up the slope.
    "I might be able to nail one..." Elliott whispered. She was behind her rifle again.
    "No, wait!" Will pleaded with her.
    "...but not both," Elliott went on.
    "No. You'll only make it worse. Hear what they've got to say," Will begged, the blood in his veins turning to ice as he imagined the pack of stalkers descending on their gang of four, ripping each of them limb from limb.
    As he watched, both figures slipped from view among the menhirs. What were the twins up to? What was this offer going to be?
    He didn't have to wait long to find out. The twins yelled down at him in quick succession.
    "People have a habit of dying around you, Will, don't they?"
    "Fun-loving Uncle Tam, sliced to shreds."
    "And that fat fool Imago. A little fish told me he got sloppy--"
    "--and now he's stone-cold dead," the other twin chimed in.
    "By the way, have you bumped into your real mother yet? Sarah's down here, and she's looking for you."
    "Somehow she got it into her head that you're to blame for Tam's death, and--"
    "No! She knows that's not true!" Will cried, his voice cracking.
    For a beat the twins were silent, as if they'd been taken by surprise.
    "Well, she won't get away from us a second time," one Rebecca promised, not sounding quite so confident anymore.
    "No, she won't. And while we're playing family reunions, sis, do tell him about Grandma Macaulay," the other Rebecca suggested with a harsh edge to her voice. This twin was clearly not fazed in the slightest by Will's interruption.
    "Oh, yes, I forgot about her.