Tunnels 04, Closer

was as if something was on her mind, something was troubling her. And when I got up an hour ago, I only turned my back on her for a second and she'd gone."
    "Oh, no," Chester whispered.
    There was a moment of silence as neither of them spoke.
    "Dad, you can't stay there," Chester said decisively. "You've got the keys for the car Drake gave you -- go to it right now and meet me where he said. Don't stop for anything."
    "But... I can't leave... not without knowing where Emily is," Mr. Rawls disagreed, his voice trembling. "What can we do?"
    "Nothing, Dad. There's nothing we can do. Either she's just miffed about something and she'll come back when she feels like it, or..." Chester didn't finish what he'd been about to say, the words dying on his tongue. "Just get out of there and do what Drake told you -- meet me at the RV."

    * * * * *

    Mr. Rawls followed his instructions and, half an hour later, pulled up several blocks away from the warehouse in the old estate car Drake had recently bought. Mr. Rawls' face was grim but he still managed a weak smile as he spotted his son waiting for him.
    "So what's the plan?" he asked as soon as Chester slid into the passenger seat.
    "Same as it was. It hasn't changed. We have to do exactly what Drake told us," Chester replied.
    Mr. Rawls opened his mouth to object, then closed it, shaking his head as if all this was more than he could handle.
    "But, actually, there is one thing," Chester realized. "You can't go anywhere near the hotel after you've dropped me off."
    "No, I... I... what if Emily comes back?" Mrs. Rawls replied. He was really flustered now.
    "Listen, Dad, if everything's fine, then she'll wait for you. But if something's wrong and the Styx have got control of her again, that's the last place you want to be." Chester was trying to sound as composed as he could, when just below the surface he was in as much turmoil as his father.
    But Chester also knew, when it came down to it, Drake was the only person who could help, and there was absolutely no way he was going to fail him now. "We should go. Take a right here so I can show you the warehouse. Later on, when we're finished, you have to come back to the flat and stay there, where you'll be safe. You'll need these," Chester said, passing the keys to his father.

    * * * * *

    "We could sell tickets for this one, we could," on of the Scientists commented to the other, as they stood either side of the inspection table on which Mrs. Burrows had been laid. Both men wore the regulation scarlet lab coats edged with black piping, and on their breast pockets were numbers, the means by which they referred to each other.
    One-Six-Four, the Scientist who'd been speaking, was a stooped man with a long, pink face and a lugubrious manner. "This Topsoiler's a minor miracle. She was roasted good and proper under a whole bank of Dark Lights, and yet here she is, heart still beating... still drawing breath... quite remarkable."
    He adjusted his glasses and regarded his colleague over Mrs. Burrows' body. Two-Three-Eight, his junior by some twenty years, was a shorter man with a much livelier disposition. Whenever he spoke, it was in rapid bursts, as if he was articulating his thoughts the moment they occurred to him. And he was, by all accounts, a rising star in the Laboratories.
    "Surprising," Two-Three-Eight agreed, as he scrutinized Mrs. Burrows with his small eyes, eyes which missed little.
    Mrs. Burrows' clothes had been removed and a gray sheer draped over her. Two-Three-Eight leant forward to examine her arm, then moved down to her calf, humming frenetically as he poked and kneaded her with his stubby fingers, so roughly he left red marks on her skin.
    "For someone who has been cataleptic as long as is claimed, the subject exhibits minimal wasting of the muscular tissue. I would have expected a far greater degree of muscular atrophy consistent with her current state would you not agree?" Two-Three-Eight burst forth in one, unbroken stream. As he drew breath, he glanced up at One-Six-Four, wrinkling his piggy nose distastefully, as if he didn't like what he was seeing. "The Colonists who took her in have been subjecting her to any form of manipulation or treatment because I would have said that some kind of physiotherapy must have been administered in order for her to be in this condition?"
    One-Six-Four took a step back, wondering if the verbal volley from the other man had come to an end, or if more was on the way. Two-Three-Eight