Tunnels 03, Freefall

twin's show of affection was short lived. "Yuck! That's revolting!" she cried, spitting because she'd got fungus juice on her lips. She reversed her grip on the scythe and then threw it with a deft flick of her wrist. Ten or so meters away a small clump of fruiting bodies sprouted from the floor of the fungal shelf. The scythe turned end over end once during its flight, then sank deep into the ball on the end of the stalk. It was probably no coincidence that the ball was roughly the same height as Will's face would have been if he'd been standing there.
    "Good th ot," the lisping twin congratulated her sister as the fruiting body rocked backwards and forwards from the impact. "But there's no if about it. We are going to find a way out of this pla th e," she added.
    "I know that," the lame twin said. "Now, for God's sake try to stop lisping, and let me see your arm." She helped her sister from her long coat, then gently probed her shoulder. "Yes, it's out of the socket all right. You know what happens now." She handed the Styx lantern to her sister, who tucked it tight under her armpit. Then the lame twin stepped to her side, and positioned her hands so that she had a firm grip on the upper part of the dislocated arm, on the humerus. She took a breath. "Ready?"
    "Ye th ." The lisping twin shook her head, and frowned in concentration. "Sorry, I meant to say yes ."
    With a swift motion, the lame twin slammed the arm down against the girl's body. The humerus pivoted over the cylindrical lantern, and the arm went back into the socket again with a small cracking sound, as if a twig had been snapped. Despite the immense pain this must have caused, the girl didn't as much as whimper.
    "Done," the lame twin said. "It should be okay now."
    "Want me to take a look at your leg?" the lisping twin offered, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead.
    "No, it's just a str--" She stopped in mid-sentence as she caught sight of something in the darkness high above them. She jerked her head towards it. "Look!"
    The lisping twin swept her lustrous black hair from her face, and screwed up her eyes.
    "Yes, I've got it. A light."
    "It can't be the remains from that rocket. It could be--"
    "A luminescent orb--"
    "Or maybe... a lantern... one of our lanterns?"
    Unspeaking, they both focused as gravity brought the point of light towards them. When it was roughly level, they saw that indeed it was a light, and that there was a man attached to it.
    Neither twin needed to consult the other; they were both thinking precisely the same thing as they barked orders in unison, in their nasal Styx language.
    Although he was some way away from them, the Limiter heard them. He heard them loud and clear, just as he'd understood when the older Styx had commanded him to jump to his death. And, in freefall a little way above him, a second Limiter also heard the orders from the twins. Unfortunately the third Limiter, the senior officer, had taken his life with his scythe several kilometers above. The two surviving Limiters had been contemplating the same course of action, there being no reason for them to go on living. But now they had a new directive, and a very real reason to stay alive. With the skill of a pair of skydivers, they angled their arms and legs to guide themselves towards the fungal outcrop below the twins' vantage point.
    The lisping twin smiled at her sister. "Fortune favor th the righteou th ," she said.
    "It does, indeed it does," the lame twin said, touching the phial of Dominion virus around her neck. The lisping twin also put her hand to her phial, but this one was different -- it contained the vaccine for the virus.
    There was no need for any further communication between the Rebecca twins; they spun on their heels at precisely the same moment and headed to the rear of the fungus shelf. They both wore the same grins. Now that they had the two soldiers at their disposal, they knew that their chances of finding a way out of the Pore with their deadly cargo had increased considerably. Things were looking up.

5

    At that early hour there was very little traffic in the Hampstead streets as Drake drove past St. Edmund's Hospital and up Rosslyn Hill. He swung the Range Rover into Pilgrim's Lane, racing down its full length until he reached the end and slowed to a crawl. He parked next to a strip of the Heath known as Preacher's Hill, where the long grass and few trees were rimed with frost, making them appear as though they had been dusted