Tunnels 04, Closer

passenger seat next to Drake, finally spoke up. "What do you think my wife's chances are?" he asked. "Tell me straight."
    "Okay, Jeff, but this isn't going to be easy for you," Drake said, as he changed gear. "She has some minor strategic value to the Styx, because of her connection to Chester, and hence to the rest of us. So, like bait in a trap, I expect she's back at your house in Highfield right now."
    "Really?" Mr. Rawls said, the optimism evident in his voice.
    "But don't get your hopes up. There are two options; the first is that I try to extract her again. But if I muff it and they take me alive, then you'll all be put at risk. So you wouldn't have just lost Emily, but both you and your son would fall into their hands too."
    "Right... and the second option?" Mr. Rawls asked hollowly.
    As they stopped at a junction, a small terrier on the pavement began to yap loudly. Drake glanced in the rear-view mirror.
    "Cat!" he exclaimed. Colly's head had popped up like a jack-in-the-box. She'd fixed her gimlet eyes on the dog and was making a low growling noise, her top lip hiked up to display her gleaming incisors. "Get that Hunter out of sight!" Drake ordered.
    "Steady, girl," Mrs. Burrows said, and the cat immediately complied, sinking down again.
    "You were saying," Mr. Rawls prompted Drake. "The second option?"
    "Yes. I did all I could to deprogram your wife, but she's obviously highly susceptible to the Dark Light. She might be useful to the Styx in the future, as one of their 'drones' or 'sleepers', or whatever you want to call them. My best guess is they'll keep her around for the time being."
    Mr. Rawls considered this for a moment. "So, really, we should leave her be. And there's absolutely no one else we can go to for help to get her back... and do something about the Styx?"
    "I'm afraid not, unless there's another autonomous group out there somewhere that I haven't heard about, and there may well be. But if you think about it, if they're any good, I won't find out about them anyway."
    "Quite," Mr. Rawls agreed, now staring at Drake. "So you're not even going to try to get Emily back, are you, because of the risk?"
    "Look, I'm not saying it's out of the question. I'm going straight to Highfield after I've dropped you off. I'll take a look -- from a distance -- but I have to tell you, Jeff, that I think we should let things ride, at least for the next fortnight or so," Drake said.
    "Yes, I see the logic in that," Mr. Rawls said. "Life and death... the checks and balances of my new existence," he added quietly. "How can you stand to live this way, Drake?" he asked.
    "Because, a long time ago, the Styx gave me no alternative," Drake answered.

    * * * * *

    In the middle of an anonymous housing estate, Drake drew up in front of a row of garages. As they all disembarked from the Range Rover, he lifted the door to one of the garages just sufficiently for them to duck inside. It was stacked high with cases of equipment, from amongst which Drake produced a pair of fold-out chairs, a single camp bed and some sleeping bags. Telling them all not to go outside for anything, he closed and locked the door behind him, then drove off.
    Leaving the car on the outskirts of Highfield, Drake went the rest of the way on foot, always keeping to the back streets. Putting on a pair of dark glasses, he finally emerged onto the High Street. With a glance at the museum where Dr. Burrows had once worked, he continued along, slowing slightly as he saw the Clarke's former grocery shop on the opposite side of the road, which had become a coffee bar. It wasn't part of one of the major chains, but a cheaply-fitted-out local effort proclaiming itself rather curiously to be ' The Village Coffee Shop ', offering 'Cut Price Internet Access' according to the signs taped inside the window.
    As he swung on his heels to go inside the newsagent's, he removed his dark glasses and then pretended to browse the magazines.
    The shopkeeper was giving Drake surreptitious glances at the same time as working through a list on the counter in front of him. As he became absorbed in his task and took his eyes off Drake, he started to singe abstractly to himself, "Dem bone, dem bones, gonna walk around."
    Drake moved to the central display in the shop where there was a selection of stationery and inexpensive toys. As he pretended to examine a padded envelope, he simultaneously felt the underside of a shelf in the display. Retrieving a note that had been stuck