Tunnels 03, Freefall

specimens like you go to eat bananas. And it's very popular -- crowds come from all around to watch."
    "I like bananas," the Second Officer said, his mood lightening as he smacked his lips together.
    "Thought you might," she murmured under her breath.
    As they reached the doorway at the end of the aisle, she held back for a second to glance at the other cells.
    "Have you got anyone else in here... Drake or perhaps Leatherman?"
    "No, you're the only one at the moment," the Second Officer said.
    Dismayed by his answer and thinking the worst, she allowed herself to be escorted from the Hold and into the whitewashed hallway beyond. Although her eyes were still adjusting to the bright light after the gloom of her cell, she caught a flickering glimpse of the main entrance of the police station. She saw the front desk where another policeman, a younger version of the Second Officer, was craning his head to get a look at her. But the Second Officer shepherded her hastily to the right where there was a corridor with a row of closed doors.
    "My mouth is very dry -- I'd really like some water," Mrs. Burrows said.
    "Better to have an empty stomach," the Second Officer advised her, nodding slowly, "before the Dark Light ."
    Mrs. Burrows didn't like the sound of that at all. She tried to remember everything Will had said about the Dark Light and his interrogation as they passed down further corridors, the sound of her footfalls on the polished flagstone floors a delicate counterpoint to the Second Officer's heavy clumping ones.
    Then she saw an open door up ahead. Light was flooding from the room. She squared her shoulders and readied herself as the Second Officer steered her inside.
    The first thing she laid eyes on was a single chair -- a chunky affair made of stout, age-darkened timber. It was in front of a table, on which was some type of device that she immediately assumed was the Dark Light itself. But she didn't dwell on this as there were two Styx, in all their frightful glory, standing behind it. She'd seen them in Leatherman's surveillance film, but she'd never been this close to the people who, according to Will and Drake, were evil personified. Other than the two Rebeccas, she had to keep reminding herself. But these were adult Styx, and she couldn't stop herself from staring at them. She took in their starched white collars atop their coats of the blackest black. She saw the sheen on their dark hair, and their putty-colored faces so gaunt and stern. She saw the eyes that seemed to burn with an otherworld intensity and which froze her blood.
    The Second Officer had helped her into the chair and passed straps around both her wrists, securing them to the arms of the chair. She'd been so mesmerized by the strange beings that she only really became aware of what the Second Officer was actually doing as he began to fasten each of her legs in place. She tensed her forearms against the thick leather restraints, realizing that she was well and truly in their power. Then the Second Officer looped a strap around her forehead, pulling her head back against the headrest. Because of the design of the headrest, with two padded clamps on either side, she had no option but to look straight ahead where the two Styx were waiting on the opposite side of the table.
    She heard the Second Officer take his leave and the door close behind him. Then she was alone with the Styx, and the loudest silence she'd ever known permeated the room. The bizarre men simply stared at her, their intent pupils glinting like highly polished black diamonds. She suddenly had the feeling that at any moment someone was going to shout "Cut!" and she'd see the cameras and production crew... that none of this was actually happening but was merely a scene in a film. She caught herself. No! The old Celia Burrows was trying to surface -- this was precisely the way she would have once dealt with the situation. She had to face her demons. These demons.
    They suddenly moved, swiveling so that their rake-thin bodies were arched towards each other. Gesticulating jerkily to each other, they broke into a language that Mrs. Burrows had never heard the likes of before. The closest thing she found to compare it with was pieces of paper being torn up. It was ugly, and set her nerves even more on edge.
    "Why don't you just get it over with?" she declared, her tone defiant. "Do your worst, you pair of cadaverous scarecrows."
    They ceased their exchange and turned to her.
    "As you