Tunnels 04, Closer

the layout down there, why don't we just sneak in and do a mother of a demolition job on the Citadel?" Chester proposed. "You could take all the Styx out in one fell swoop."
    Drake nodded again. "Good question, but it's not that simple. Ever gone into a room with a bad infestation of cockroaches -- I mean a really bad one -- and switched the light on?"
    "No, I haven't," Chester said.
    "Well, I have, many times. Even if they're all over the floor, you can only stamp on a few of them, because they disappear, just like that," Drake said, with a click of his fingers. "They shoot back to their hiding places, where you have absolutely no hope of finding them."
    "Right," Chester replied slowly as he pictured the scene.
    "Well, it would be just the same with the Styx. You might manage to kill a handful of them, but the rest would just vamoose. As you know, there are quite a few operating on the surface at any given time, anyway."
    "It wouldn't work, then," Chester put in.
    "Isn't it better to know where they are, down there in the Colony, rather than scattered all over the country, where they might become even more active -- if that's possible? And besides, how could you live with yourself if any Colonists got caught up in the attack? It's inevitable that at least one civilian would lose his or her life in the size of explosion you're talking about."
    Chester popped the last piece of cone into his mouth. 'Yes, but wouldn't it still be worth it?"
    "So you could live with what politicians call 'collateral damage'? The death of innocent people?" Drake put to the boy.
    Chester chewed thoughtfully. He could see exactly what Drake was saying, although he wasn't sure if he agreed with it. "But if we prevent maybe millions of Topsoil deaths because we've stopped them spreading something like Dominion, then I wouldn't feel too guilty about it. Of course, it would be awful if any Colonists were killed, but overall it would be a good thing to do. The right thing."
    "The right thing," Drake repeated, then looked at Chester. "There was a time I might have agreed with you. But not anymore."
    "Oh," Chester mumbled, unsettled by the intensity in the man's voice.
    "This is for you." Drake reached into his pocket and handed Chester a mobile phone. "Tuck it away and, whatever you do, don't let Eddie see it," he said. "We're going back to the warehouse now, and on the way I'll tell you what I want you to do."

24

    The front door shook on its hinges, the pounding on it so excessive that nobody could fail to hear it -- not even in the rooms at the back of the house.
    "Ooo's that?" complained the Second Officer's mother from the kitchen.
    Mrs. Burrows, propped in her bath chair, already knew that it wasn't a neighbor calling around so early that Sunday morning.
    The pounding on the door came again, more impatiently this time.
    "I've got me 'ands full in 'ere! Get it, someone -- might be Mrs. Evans with the needlework she wants doin'," the Second Officer's mother shouted. She always rose before her son or daughter each morning, but she was even earlier on Sundays -- a special day throughout the Colony when they might splash out on a choice cut of meat for their midday meal, rather than their weekday fare, the slimy pennybun mushrooms.
    Indeed Mrs. Burrows could smell the fresh rat as it began to cook. Eliza would have bought it at the market the day before, and likely as not it wouldn't be the sightless variety, but hog-standard sewer rat, because they were less costly. And Mr. Burrows would reap the benefit because rather than the usual fungal slop, she would be treated to a thin broth made from boiling the stripped carcasses.
    "Coming... coming," Eliza called as she stomped down the stairs, annoyed that she'd been interrupted while doing her hair. She was still trying to arrange a few wayward strands as she opened the door.
    "Oh!" she said, soft as a sigh.
    The old Styx was standing there, his chin raised as he looked to the right and scrutinized the other houses in the terrace along the side of the street. His young assistant was hovering directly behind him, and on the pavement there were even more Styx -- ten of them, all so similar in appearance that Eliza couldn't tell them apart. The way they were observing their surroundings with small, jerky movements of their heads made them resemble a recently alighted flock of birds. But these were terrifying birds of prey. Eliza also couldn't help but notice curtains moving in the houses opposite as