Tunnels 02, Deeper
must have approached it from another direction. They pulled up Cal with the rope knotted around his chest and got him to one of the beds in the end room. Drake told them to sponge some water into the boy's mouth. He coughed and spluttered, most of it dripping down his chin, but still managed to drink a good amount before he drifted off into a deep slumber.
"Chester, you watch him. Will, you're coming with me."
Will obediently followed Drake along the corridor. He felt a rising apprehension, as if he'd been summoned to the principal's office for a telling-off.
They entered a darkened area and then, through a metal doorway, Will found he was in a large room, where a single light orb suspended in the center of the ceiling burned brightly. The room was at least a hundred feet long and only slightly less wide. In one corner was a pair of bunk beds made from thick sections of iron, and every inch of the walls was draped with a mass of equipment. It was like some military treasure trove and, as Will's eyes roamed around, he spotted racks with huge numbers of strange cylinders like the one Elliott had tried to give him at the Place of Cross Staves. There were also some deflated gray suits that Will recognized as the ones the Coprolites wore, and all manner of webbing, coils of rope, and kit bags, all hung in neatly ordered rows.
As he continued behind Drake, Will spied Elliott between the two bunk beds. Her back was to him, and he could see she had removed her jacket and pants and was stowing them in a wall locker. She was dressed in an ivory-colored undershirt and shorts, and he couldn't stop himself from looking at her slim and finely muscled legs. They were smeared with dirt and, like Drake's face, they appeared to have a shocking number of scars on them, which stood out white against the reddish-brown of the dust that coated every inch of her skin. Taken aback at seeing her like this, Will stopped on the spot, but then noticed Drake was watching him intently.
"Sit," he ordered, indicating a place by the wall, just as Elliott emerged from between the bunk beds.
She had a strikingly feminine face, with high cheekbones and full lips below a fine nose. Will saw her eyes flash darkly as she gave him a cursory glance, then she yawned and ran a hand through her short-cropped black hair. Her arms and wrists were so slight that Will couldn't believe he was looking at the same person who toted the long rifle around as if it were merely a stick of bamboo.
His gaze fell on her upper arm, where there was a disturbingly deep indentation in her bicep. The skin lining the hollow was rippled through with jagged pink striations, and its surface was rough, as if melted candle wax had been dripped over it. Will's first thought was that something had taken a bite out of her, and a big one at that.
But everything he noticed about her was dwarfed by the remarkable fact that she appeared to be young , perhaps not much older than him. It was the last thing he would have expected, given her intimidating presence out on the Great Plain.
"OK?" Drake asked her as she yawned again and scratched her shoulder absently.
"Yeah. Going to take a shower," she replied, padding barefoot to the door without a second glance at Will, who stared after her, his mouth agape.
As Drake snapped his fingers in front of his face to get his attention, Will realized he had been gawping, and self-consciously averted his eyes.
"Over here," Drake said, more forcibly this time. By the wall were two sturdy-looking metal trunks, and they sat opposite each other on these. Although Will's thoughts weren't quite organized, he started to speak.
"I... um... wanted to thank you for saving Cal. I was wrong about you and Elliott," he confessed, his eyes flicking automatically to the doorway as he spoke her name, although she'd long since left the room.
"Sure." Drake waved his hand dismissively through the air. "But I'm not concerned about that. Something's going on, and I need to know what you know."
Will was a little taken aback by the question, and looked at the man with a perplexed expression.
"You saw for yourself what the Styx are doing. They're killing renegades by the dozen."
"Killing renegades," Will echoed, and shivered as he thought about the incident he and Chester had witnessed.
"Yes. I have to admit I'm not sorry to see some of them go, but we're also losing friends at a rate of knots. In the past the Styx left us largely to our own devices, apart from
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