Tunnels 03, Freefall

soldiers into two groups -- one to check the Pore, the other to comb the slope with stalkers.
    Drake had realized it was time to make himself scarce.
    Getting to the top of the slope undetected hadn't been difficult, and then he'd made his way out of the cavern. Once in the lava tubes, he'd moved cautiously, not least because he only had stove guns -- very basic firearms.
    But now, as he took a final sip from his canteen and replaced the lid, his mind was processing what he'd witnessed at the Pore. "Sarah," he said out loud, as he thought about how she'd taken the two Styx with her to the grave.
    Then it clicked.
    The high-pitched screams he'd heard weren't Sarah's at all.
    The screams had been those of young girls. The twins! Sarah had taken her revenge on the Rebecca twins! Knowing she probably had only minutes to live, and that her two sons had already met their fate, Sarah had found the perfect focus for her retribution.
    That was it!
    She had sacrificed herself to eliminate the twins. And he knew that the twins had had the lethal Dominion virus on them, as they'd been parading it around and taunting Will with it. They'd told Will of their plan to unleash it on Topsoilers, and implied that the single phial of Dominion was all they needed. According to Sarah, one of the twins had been handed the freshly replicated virus as she'd arrived in the Deeps. Drake was willing to bet that the phial was the only specimen the Styx had in their possession. So, possibly without knowing it, Sarah had just exacted her vengeance on what was most dear to the Styx, and had foiled their plot against Topsoilers.
    It was perfect!
    She'd achieved precisely what Drake had thought near impossible.
    Shaking his head, he took a single step but jerked to a stop as if a current had been passed through him.
    "Jesus Christ! What a fool I am!" he exclaimed. He'd completely overlooked something. It wasn't quite the perfect solution he'd first thought. Sarah had started the job, but it wasn't finished yet.
    "The Bunker," he murmured, as he realized that traces of the virus could still be present in the sealed test cells in the midst of the huge concrete complex. The Styx had tested the effectiveness of the virulent strain on a handful of unfortunate Colonists and renegades, and their dead bodies might still contain living virus. And Drake realized that the Styx would know that too, and that he would have to get there first to destroy what was left.
    He began to run, formulating a plan of action as he went. He could pick up some explosives from a secret cache on the way to the Bunker. It was likely there would still be Styx patrolling the Great Plain, but he had to get to the cells as quickly as he could. He was going to have to cut some corners -- this was no time for subtlety.
    Too much was at stake for that.

    * * * * *

    In the corridor of Humphrey House, Mrs. Burrows dithered, unable to make up her mind. There part of her that craved television just didn't seem to burn with its usual intensity that Saturday afternoon. She knew there was something that she wanted to watch, but she couldn't quite recall what it was. She found this vaguely disquieting -- it really wasn't like her to forget.
    Shaking her head, she took a few shuffling steps across the green, over-waxed lino in the direction of the Day Room, where the only television in the place was to be found.
    "No," she said, stopping.
    As she listened to the voices and the activity coming form different parts of the building, echoing and indefinite like sounds heard in a public swimming baths, she suddenly felt so very alone. Here she was in this impersonal building with its professional staff and an assortment of troubled people, but nobody really cared about her. Of course, the staff had a clinical interest in her wellbeing, but they were strangers to her, just as she was to them. She was merely another patient to be sent on her way when they decided she had recovered, another bed to be vacated for the next inmate.
    "No!" She thrust her clenched fist into the air. "I'm better than that!" she proclaimed loudly as an orderly marched briskly past her. He didn't even give her a second glance -- people speaking to themselves were the norm in this place.
    She swiveled on the worn heels of her slippers and scuffed down the corridor, away from the Day Room, as she fished in her dressing-gown pocket for the card the policeman had given her. It had been three days since the last meeting with him, and