Tunnels 04, Closer

program. Some small corner of her frontal lobes -- the seat of her memories and her conscious will -- had embarked on the mammoth task of piecing the rest of her gray matter back together again.
    But the neural pathways hadn't reconnected quite as they had been before. She found her sight had been impaired to the extent that she could only just differentiate between light and dark. However, as if to compensate for this disability, there were some surprising benefits to the new, Mark II Mrs. Burrows.
    She found that she had virtual mastery over many aspects of her body, like she'd never had before. Although she'd felt each jab of the pin made by the doctor, she was able to isolate the pain and show no reaction to it. But this was only a fraction of what she was capable -- she could reduce all her physiological processes, including her heart rate, to such a low level that she barely needed to draw breath. And in conjunction with this, she could raise or lower her body temperature, making herself break into a sweat or her breath come out as clouds of condensation. She told herself it was as though she'd exceeded the levels of control her Yoga master had said only the most advanced practitioners could hope to attain.
    But there was yet more. There was something truly inexplicable. While her eyesight was so poor, in place of this she had another faculty. Whether it was because of a heightened olfactory sense, or whether some long-forgotten animal ability hidden deep in the recesses of the brain had been switched on, she didn't know. But she found she had something akin to an early warning system for people. She could literally smell them.
    She was able to distinguish between people familiar to her and strangers, even if they were just walking past in the street outside the house. And she could tell what sort of mood they were in -- angry, sad, bored, happy -- it didn't matter -- she could detect the whole gamut of human emotion. A biologist might have speculated that she'd developed the ability to read the pheromones that people emit -- the airborne chemosignals that play such a central role in the lives of other animal species as they utilize them for communication and in their behavioral patterns. But Mrs. Burrows wasn't a biologist and had no knowledge of this; she was just content to develop her new sense, which seemed to be growing more potent by the day. She was also certain that it would eventually help her escape from the Colony. And the way things were going in the Second Officer's home, that day might not be far off.
    So now she didn't need to hear the argument going on in the kitchen in order to know that it was still in full flow. She could smell the exasperation and frustration radiating from the Second Officer's mother and sister -- it was so strong it made her wince. And she could also sense the Second Officer's indignation and the slight emanation of fear from him as he made a valiant attempt to defend himself against the verbal onslaught.
    Rising from her bath chair and stretching her limbs each in turn, Mrs. Burrows sighed. "Ah, that's better," she said, adding, "Come here, Colly."
    The Hunter instantly went to her side. Mrs. Burrows had spent a great deal of time with this cat, and it was as if Colly recognized that this human's unique abilities matched and even surpassed her own -- for her Hunter's sense of smell was also incredibly well developed. It might have been this, or something on a more bestial level, that had forged the bond between them, but the cat did exactly as Mrs. Burrows told her.
    Mrs. Burrows extended a hand until she found the cat's large head. "Let's take a stroll around the room. I need the exercise," she said.
    With Colly as her guide, Mrs. Burrows followed beside her, avoiding the pieces of furniture and all the while talking to her. For it had been a lonely time for Mrs. Burrows, forced to pretend she was still in a coma whenever Colonists were near.
    And, of course, the cat could tell nobody about the startling changes that had come over the new woman in the house.

9

    Chester shifted his position to ease his limbs. He was sure it had to be about time that Martha brought him some food and water. He didn't know how long it was since she'd last opened the door to check on him -- the hours crawled slowly by, with nothing to differentiate them other than his bouts of desperation and crying.
    Except there had been something.
    There'd been noises that he couldn't quite place -- the