Tunnels 03, Freefall

breath, he glanced at his father to make absolutely certain he was being serious.
    "That's right," Dr. Burrows confirmed. To his continuing surprise, his son dissolved into howls of even more uproarious laughter.
    "I'm in big trouble!" Unable to stop himself from laughing and going weak at the knees, Will looked for a place to sit down before he fell over. But the tears in his eyes were making it hard for him to see. He chose a particularly greasy piece of fungus and slid right off it. But this still didn't stop him; rolling on the ground, he continued to laugh so much he had to hold his sides.

19

    After a short while, Will's laughter petered out and he fell into a sullen silence. Asking himself what he had found so funny, he ignored his father as he made several attempts to climb down from the mouth of the tunnel. The blast-damaged fungus simply peeled away in his hands as he tried to grip it. And even with the fungus removed, the rock beneath was slippery and treacherous due to the grease slopped over it.
    "This is hopeless," he mumbled, staring over at the space where the submarine had been. He sucked in his breath as he caught a glimpse of a Bright streaking across the void, thinking to himself how much it resembled a shooting star. "Make a wish," he said forlornly. It seemed everything was stacked against him.
    Then he leant as far as he could into the new crater, his lantern in his outstretched hand. If he'd been able to spot an outcrop or ledge to jump to, he might have taken advantage of the low gravity and chanced it. But the crater appeared to be so deep, it would have been tantamount to leaping into the void itself.
    "What now?" he asked himself. He needed a way to reach Martha and the others. He was counting on them having made it to the side passage she'd indicated. That's unless their way had been blocked by a Bright.
    "Plan B... I need a Plan B," he thought aloud, as he leant out and peered along the cavern wall to his left. If he could somehow get across to the main tunnel through which they entered the cavern, then he might be able to find his way back to the Wolf's Caves. But this plan appeared to be equally impossible -- aside from the fact that there was no way to climb the wall to reach it, he couldn't even see where the entrance had been. The explosion had concealed it altogether. And in the back of his mind Will was also concerned that he might have another of his strange episodes. Perched on a ledge next to a sheer drop wasn't exactly the best place for him to be right now.
    He shrugged. "Plan C, I suppose," he mumbled under his breath. At the very least he had to try to communicate with Martha and Chester. He began to call out to them, pausing now and then to listen.
    Dr. Burrows didn't off any sort of help as he lingered at the mouth of the cave and watched his son. Indeed, Dr. Burrows wasn't talking to him at all. As Will was getting no response from his friends and his voice was becoming hoarse, he gave it up as a lost cause. Leaving his father, he turned and went back down the passage, clambering over the fungus until he came to where he'd left his rucksack. Hoisting it up, he went even deeper into the passage to find himself a clear area of ground. There, he'd begun to unpack his rucksack when he suddenly stopped.
    "The virus!" he burst out. With everything else going on, he'd completely forgotten that he'd had the phials on him through all the shenanigans with the Rebecca twins and the subsequent explosion. "Oh, God, please don't let them be broken," he said quietly as he slid the hessian package from the leather pouch. He sighed an enormous sigh of relief when he saw the phials were undamaged. Putting them away again, he continued to unpack his rucksack, making an inventory of what he had with him. There was a small amount of food, but not enough to last two people for more than a few days at the very most. In a side pouch he came across the bar of Caramac he'd taken from Cal's body. Although Will had hidden it from Chester, he'd been planning to share it with him when there was something to celebrate.
    "Not today," he said disconsolately, tossing the bar onto the pile of food.
    As for water, he had a full canteen on his belt. At these temperatures it wouldn't last terribly long, but he wasn't too concerned because Martha always seemed to find fresh sources wherever they'd gone. As he moved his hand away from his canteen, it encountered the cutlass still tucked in his belt. He drew