Tunnels 03, Freefall

network? The secure message exchange that no one was meant to know about?"
    "Sure," Drake confirmed.
    "Well, somebody does," Sam said.
    "What do you mean?"
    Sam rubbed his brow. "I don't know why I never took it offline when everything fell apart, and I still check it every so often. A couple of days ago there was a message for you. It's got a lot of noise on it, but it seems to be from someone called Will Burrows. Does that name mean anything to you?"
    "Will Burrows..." Drake repeated in a low-key way, not reacting to the information, although his heart skipped several beats. "No, doesn't ring a bell, but thanks all the same. I'll dial in to the server and have a listen," Drake said. "And I'm sorry I crashed in on you like this. Good luck, Sam."
    "Before you go, can I do anything for you? Do you want something to eat? Sam offered, but Drake had already left.

    * * * * *

    "But the river continues up there," Will pointed out to his father as they trudged down the long quayside, dripping water from their soaked clothes and their boots squelching. "So shouldn't we follow it along?"
    "It might never hit the surface," Dr. Burrows said, shrugging. "Besides, look at these buildings... and the crane." He and Will stood and contemplated the structures in front of them. "This place has to be a loading bay for the journey down. Especially given that ," he added, pointing at a large arch at the end of the quay, its edges painted white.
    They both approached it.
    "Large enough to drive a lorry through," Dr. Burrows observed.
    "Not now," will said as he knocked on the brick wall that completely sealed it up.
    But Dr. Burrows was already striding purposefully off into the shadows. As Will caught up with him, he found his father next to a large double-sized doorway. Like the arch, the cast-concrete frame around it had been painted white.
    "Personnel entrance, most likely," Dr. Burrows suggested. It had also been blocked up and he pressed a palm on the surface. "Breeze blocks," he said. He tested several sections of the mortar which oozed from the joints between the grey blocks and looked a little like dried toothpaste, tugging at a piece of it until it came away in his fingers. "Sloppy workmanship. "This was done in a hurry."
    "So what now?" Will asked.
    "Unless we can find an alternative way out, it shouldn't be too difficult for us to knock through here."
    After a quick search of the buildings and the rest of the quay, they realized that this was their only potential exit.
    Dr. Burrows clapped his hands together. "Fetch the tools, will you?"
    Will returned to the launch and clambered down into it. He considered his two holdalls of equipment. If his father wanted to knock a wall down, he could think of a quicker way to do it. Messier, but quicker.
    "The tools!" Dr. Burrows yelled impatiently, and Will told himself it might be wiser to keep quiet about the explosives he'd squirreled away. Climbing out of the launch, he rushed over with the old canvas bag of tools that Dr. Burrows had helped himself to from the quartermaster's stores back in the fallout shelter.
    Dr. Burrows rooted around inside it until he found a long crowbar. He immediately began to work on the wall, using the tapered end of the crowbar to chisel out the mortar in the joints between the blocks. "Soft as icing sugar," he mumbled to himself, as it proved rather easy to dislodge. Having cleared enough of the mortar from around one of the breeze blocks, he rammed the crowbar under it and began to lever on it. "Here we go," he said when the block finally came loose, dropping at his feet. "We're through! And it's only one layer thick!"
    With Will at his side, he held his luminescent orb up to the opening. All they could see was blackness on the other side.
    "We need to widen this," Dr. Burrows declared, thrusting the crowbar into Will's hands. Before Will had an opportunity to reply, his father muttered, "I need some quiet time to think," and abruptly turned and left.
    "Think about what? " Will called after him, but Dr. Burrows pretended not to hear. As he squelched off into the darkness, Will knew his father was going for a nap, and that he would be left to do the donkey work by himself.
    "Nothing changes," Will complained as he started to work on the next block along. "Nothing ever changes."

    * * * * *

    Will cleared a hole wide enough for them to get through, then went to fetch his father. He found him stretched out next to the petrol stove, and half