Tunnels 03, Freefall

now."
    "I understand, Celia." Nodding, the matron smiled at her, adjusting her wiry grey hair, which was gathered into an immaculately-arranged bun.
    Mrs. Burrows smiled back. What the matron didn't need to know was that Mrs. Burrows was damned if she was going to leave it entirely to the police to find her missing husband and son. She was convinced that the unidentified woman who had come to see her was the key to what was going on, and might even be Will's abductor. The police kept telling Mrs. Burrows they were 'on the case' and 'doing everything they could', but she was determined to begin her own investigations as well. And she couldn't do that in here, with just a public payphone at her disposal.
    "You know it's my job to advise you to speak to your counselor before you leave, but..." said the matron, glancing at her wristwatch, "that wouldn't be until Monday, and I can see you've made your mind up. I'll get the release forms from my office right now for you to sign." She turned to go down the corridor then paused. "I have to say I'm going to miss our little chats, Celia."
    "Me, too," Mrs. Burrows replied. "Maybe I'll come back one day."
    "I hope not, for your sake," the matron said, continuing on her way.

    * * * * *

    "We've got to find Elliott," Chester said as he took a few reluctant steps.
    "Hold on a second." Will started to lift an arm and then made a noise, as if he was in great pain.
    "What is it?" Chester asked.
    "My arms, shoulders, hands," Will complained. "Everything hurts like hell."
    "Tell me about it," Chester said, as his friend managed to raise his arm all the way to his neck with another stifled moan.
    "I want to see if this still works." Will began to untangle the night vision device, which had been pushed down around his neck during the fall.
    "Drake's lens?" Chester said.
    "Drake?" Will gasped, immediately stopping what he was doing. "Remember what the Rebeccas said -- do you think they were telling the truth, for once?"
    "What... that it wasn't him you shot?" Chester asked hesitantly. It was the first time he had spoken to Will about the shooting on the Great Plain, and he felt distinctly uneasy now that he had.
    "Chester, whoever it was that the Limiters were torturing, I honestly think I missed him by a mile."
    "Oh," Chester mumbled, as Will looked thoughtful.
    "If they had caught or killed Drake, the Rebeccas would have rubbed my face in it," Will reasoned.
    Chester gave a small shrug. "Maybe he didn't escape them, and they've got him somewhere. Maybe it was just another of their nasty little lies."
    "No, I don't think so," Will said, his eyes bright with hope. "What could they get from lying about that?" He looked at Chester. "So, if Drake did survive the ambush... and somehow got away from the Limiters... I wonder where he is now."
    "Maybe he's holed up somewhere on the Great Plain?" Chester suggested.
    "Or maybe he went Topsoil. Don't ask me why, but I had the feeling he could go to the surface any time he wanted."
    "Well, wherever he is, we could really do with his help now," Chester sighed as he scanned the darkness. "I wish he was down here with us."
    "I wouldn't wish that on anyone," Will declared earnestly, grunting as he worked the device over his face. He positioned the strap over his forehead and tightened it, then adjusted the flip-down lens so it was directly over his right eye. He found that the cable had become unplugged from the small rectangular unit in his trouser pocket, and made sure it was connected again before turning on the device. "So far, so good," he exhaled as the lens began to glow with a muted orange iridescence.
    Closing his left eye, he looked through the device, waiting for the image to settle down through a helter-skelter of static. "I think it's okay... yeah, it's okay... it's working," he told Chester as he got to his feet. The headset revealed the full extent of the fungal shelf to him as if it was bathed in a citrus glow.
    "Jeez, Chester, you look really weird," he chuckled as he surveyed his orange-hued friend through the lens. "You look a bit like a badly-bruised grapefruit... with an afro!"
    "Don't worry 'bout me..." Chester said impatiently. "Just tell me what you see."
    "Well, this place is flat, and it's pretty big," Will observed. "It looks sort of like... well..." he hesitated, searching for a comparison, "as if we're on a beach right after the tide's gone out. Sort of smooth, but with a few dunes."
    They were on a gently rolling plateau