Tunnels 03, Freefall

smile on his face.
    "Works a treat," he said. "Nice one, Drake."

    * * * * *

    The iron door to the cell slammed back against the wall with a skull-shaking crash. A man stood there, his gargantuan bulk almost filling the doorway.
    "Rise and shine darlin'," he said. "No use pretending you're still sparko."
    Although Mrs. Burrows had been conscious for some hours, she suspected someone might be watching her and hadn't moved from the damp lead shelf.
    The man's tone hardened. "On your feet, Topsoiler. Don't make me drag you out!" he bellowed.
    After she'd come to, she had felt incredibly ill, as if all her insides had been mashed up. She wondered what the device in the trolley had done to her. She couldn't remember much after it had started to make deeper and deeper sounds and the sides had suddenly flapped open, but one thing was for sure, it had give her the mother of all headaches. With the pain thumping in her temples and a foul tasted in her mouth, she'd lain there in the pitch black of the cell as she tried to take stock of her situation. The more she thought about it, the bleaker her outlook -- if she had one at all -- appeared to her.
    From the staleness of the air, there was little doubt in her mind that the Styx had take her below the surface, and that meant any chance of escape was highly unlikely. And the Styx certainly weren't going to send her on her way with a pat on the back. Not after the stunt she and Drake had tried to pull.
    Despite the bleakness of her situation, Mrs. Burrows wasn't as frightened as she might have been. It was a bit late for regrets now. She'd agreed to act as the cheese in the mousetrap knowing she might lose her life -- as the Styx were out to get her anyway, maybe it had only brought forward her day of reckoning. As she lay on the shelf and took deep breaths, she knew she had no option but to accept whatever fate lay in store for her. There was no use ranting and railing against the inevitable. At the very least, the deep breathing had seemed eventually to rid her of her headache.
    "That's it," the monster of a man grunted and began to stomp towards her, his hands extended.
    She sat up smartly.
    "Good morning," she said, seizing his hand and shaking it. "I'm Celia Burrows. What's your name?"
    Flummoxed by his prisoner's behavior, the man shook her hand back.
    "I'm... er... the Second Officer," he stuttered.
    "I thought you were a policeman," she said, peering at the dull gold star stitched into his jacket. "From your very fine uniform."
    "Why, thank you," he replied, letting go of her hand and puffing out his chest so that he resembled an over-inflated hot air balloon.
    Then he remembered what he was there for.
    "Come on. Get up," he growled.
    "There's no need to be so rude," Mrs. Burrows retorted. Manners maketh man."
    "I said--"
    "I heard what you said." Taking her time, she rose to her feet, adjusted her clothes, then stepped past him and through the door into the aisle outside. She took in the dim glow of a shielded luminescent orb above a wooden desk at one end of the aisle, and the open door at the other.
    "Where is this?" she asked, as the Second Officer joined her.
    'It's the clink."
    "Yes, that much I was certain of," she said, smiling at him. "But are we in the Colony?"
    "The Colony is several miles away. This is the Quarter," he replied.
    "The Quarter," she repeated. "I think my son said something about it."
    "Your son!" the Second Officer hissed, the pale skin of his face suddenly reddening. "Let me tell you about your son, Seth Jerome, or... or whatever his Topsoil name was."
    "Will," Mrs. Burrows put in. "Will Burrows."
    "Yes, Will bloody Burrows," the Second Officer said, his voice full of scorn. "that little tyke clouted me with a shovel, he did," the indignant man added, passing a hand over his almost completely bald scalp as if the injury still caused him pain.
    "Why? Were you a rude pig to him, too?" she asked, her voice all sweetness and light.
    "I..." he began, then his huge face went through a seismic shift and he snarled, "Don't you talk to me like--"
    "If you're the Second Officer, where's the First Officer?" she cut him short. "Having a breather back at the primate house?"
    The man wasn't sure quite what to make of this, but answered nonetheless. "He's on duty at the front desk. What's a primate house , anyway? Never heard of that before."
    "No, no reason you should have, but you'd fit right in there. It's a place up on the surface where impressive