Tunnels 04, Closer

along it, Drake glanced at the wall of the building beside them. A good three stories high, its entire surface had been carved with a huge relief of a procession of fierce-looking bearded men. Their long hair flowing out behind them like unruly snakes, they were dressed in loincloths and carrying spears. "Glad we don't have to tangle with that mob," Drake commented to Eddie, as they emerged from the last of the dark water. Drake held back while Eddie crept to the corner of the building, where he crouched down to survey the way ahead with his rifle.
    "Clear," Eddie said, and they walked out into one of the wide avenues Drake had only glimpsed from a distance. But now he was actually inside the city, he caught his breath as he took in what lay around them.
    "Jesus Christ! It's Land of the Giants !" he exclaimed. He couldn't believe the incredible scale of the place. The doorways of the buildings were several times the height of any normal man. All the temples and palaces appeared to have been constructed by a race of phenomenally tall beings. And in sheltered areas along the edges of the avenue where the wind didn't penetrate, patches of shifting mist trailed over the ground, moving like the long lost ghosts of the former inhabitants of the city.
    Drake and Eddie traveled down several avenues, keeping to the sides where they were forced to climb over chunks of fallen masonry from the buildings. Every so often, Eddie called a halt as he checked ahead. On one of these occasions, Drake spied something in a clearing several hundred meters away.
    "Is that the Prisoners' Platform Will told me about?" he asked, indicating a structure raised high in the air on multiple stone piles. On top of it were vague human forms, all in various contorted attitudes as if they had been fashioned from a light-colored rock. "He said those are real people, who've become somehow fossilized," Drake added, as he used his telescopic sight to examine the petrified bodies, and the remains of manacles and lengths of rusted chain still attached to them.
    Eddie didn't answer as he waved Drake on. They entered an echoing building with a marble floor, climbing flight after flight of stairs until they could go no further because the way was blocked. Instead Eddie took them down a corridor and out onto a balcony. "This is a favorite observation post for the Division. They often station a couple of men up here. Take a look," he offered.
    "I can see why," Drake said. From this vantage point he was able to look down on the layout of the city, and was struck again by just how extensive it was. He gazed across at the large domed building, which Will had also mentioned to him -- it really did resemble a second St. Paul's, although this one had been built many centuries before the Topsoil version Drake knew.
    "May I?" Eddie asked, and Drake drew back to let the Styx scrutinize the avenues below. When he was satisfied he couldn't see anyone, they retraced their steps down the stairs and into the open again, where Eddie led Drake into some sort of flooded underpass. "Watch it in here," he warned, taking out his Styx lantern.
    Drake didn't ask why, but turned his torch on and held it beside his rifle. He wished he could have worn one of his light-gathering lenses, but it would have been impractical under his gas mask. They'd gone several hundred meters when something rolled at them through the water, throwing up spray behind it. Eddie reacted with lightning speed, and leapt back. As it kept coming for them, he trod straight on top of it.
    It ruptured into a pulpy mass of flesh, as if a slug the size of a pumpkin had been squashed. Through a rend in its thick black skin, its exposed body organs were visible -- they were leaking a dark purple liquid, which mingled with the stagnant water.
    "Whoa! What the hell is that?" Drake exclaimed.
    Eddie rolled it over with his boot, so they could see its ferocious teeth. "The Scientists believe it's some sort of unique fungus which has evolved in this city. It's carnivorous, and it's capable of locomotion."
    "You don't say," Drake gasped. "Anything else I should know about? Flying mushrooms, for example?"
    "No, they can't fly," Eddie replied in a flat voice, as if he thought Drake was being serious.
    They resumed their journey, eventually coming to the city wall where Drake called a halt. "I reckon this is as good a spot as any. Time to see if my wireless detonator does what it's supposed to." Unbuckling a pouch on his belt, he