Tunnels 03, Freefall

you didn't."
    "Why would I want to do that?" she replied. "There's nowhere for me to go."
    Will noticed Chester had clenched his fist, and was worried what he might be about to do. Just then an amazingly powerful gust of wind swept through the garden, ruffling the plants in their beds.
    "Feels like a levant's blowing up," Rebecca said.
    As a shutter banged somewhere in the shack, Will spoke quietly. "Every time one of those winds comes along, something terrible happens."
    "Oh, great," Chester muttered.

    * * * * *

    The wind raged around Dr. Burrows and the Rebecca twin. Caught in an exposed position in the middle of a wide tunnel, there was nowhere they could go to escape it as it grew more and more fierce. The small campfire between them was almost extinguished by the violent flurries, but they were hardly able to see this anyway as a sandstorm of black dust suddenly enveloped them.
    Dr. Burrows had rolled onto his front and wrapped his arms around his head to protect his face from the dust. As he lay there, spitting grit from his mouth, he finally admitted to himself that he'd had about all he could take from the Styx girl. The pressure from her to come up with results was relentless. He couldn't just click his fingers and somehow find a feature that tied in with the map on the stone tablets. It made him livid. He was an archaeologist, not some scout in the mould of Davy Crockett.
    And to cap it all Dr. Burrows felt thoroughly intimidated by the Styx soldier. Just under the surface of everything the girl said there was the veiled threat that the ghoulish soldier was going to do him harm. To say that made Dr. Burrows feel extremely uneasy was an understatement.
    Talk about a complete reversal of their parent-child relationship. Now Rebecca was the one who was calling all the shots -- he had no say in anything. No, it had got too much for Dr. Burrows. So much so that he was willing to take his chances on his own. And, most importantly to him, Rebecca had forgotten to take the tablets away from him for 'safekeeping' as she put it. He patted his pocket to assure himself they were there, and smiled.
    Knowing the impenetrable cloud would mask his movements, he began to crawl slowly along the ground and away from the fire. He made sure he hooked the water bladder as he went -- he would need it to keep himself going.
    After a short while, he stopped crawling. He still couldn't see very far in front of him, and the wind filled his ears as he listened. Deciding that there was no way that his departure could have been observed, he got up and began to walk. Nearly bent double from the force of the wind, he walked straight into what felt like a man standing there.
    Next to the man there was a vague smear of light, and in this light he glimpsed a face between the thick swirls of dust. He realized that he'd walked smack bang into the Styx Limiter, and that Rebecca was standing right next to him.
    "Did you get lost?" she yelled over the squall. Grabbing his arm, she spun him back in the direction he'd come from. "It's not clever to move around in this," she added. After a few steps she sat down, pulling him with her. "Don't want to get yourself hurt, Daddy, do you?" she said.

15

    Will was packing the last of his kit as Chester came out on the porch.
    "It's the weirdest thing..." Will began, looking mystified.
    "What?"
    "Well," Will said as he pulled his headset from a side pocket of his rucksack and regarded it. "I just tested this to make sure it's ready... and it's completely dead."
    "Are you sure?" Chester asked.
    "Absolutely. Not even a glimmer," Will replied.
    "Perhaps you left it on or something, and the element burnt out," Chester suggested.
    "No, I've taken really good care of it," Will answered. "I hope your rifle scope is okay -- at least one of us need to have night vision."
    Chester fetched his rifle and pointed it down the garden.
    "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed, lowering the weapon to examine the scope. "It's not working either." He turned the knurled focus ring on the scope, and tried it again. "Nope. Zilch!" Frowning, he looked quickly over at Will. "You don't think the Rebecca twin..." he tailed off.
    Will considered this for a moment. "Nah, it can't have been her. I know she's been off her tether, but my headset was in Elliott's room, and there's always one of us in there."
    "Well, if it wasn't her," Chester said, shaking his rifle as if it might make the scope function again, "aren't these things powered by