Tunnels 04, Closer

ropes tied around it, as if they had captured a wild animal.
    "Oh, yes, a security patrol caught this... this..." the Chancellor floundered before going on. "This man . He was skulking around the outskirts of the city, stealing food."
    As the soldiers tried to hold it back, the dark shape -- swathed from head to foot in cloth -- forged forward, straining against the ropes. Then it stuck out a thin, twisted arm, and hooked aside an overhang of greasy material to reveal a badly deformed face, covered in grapefruit-sized growths, and with eyes like peeled eggs.
    "He claims to know you," the Chancellor said.
    "Coxy!" Rebecca One exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
    Tom Cox sniffed loudly and pushed his crooked lips together before he spoke. "Ah, me friends -- knew you were still alive. I was sent to protect you."
    "To protect us?" Rebecca Two repeated skeptically.
    Rebecca One frowned. "You came down the Pore and thousands of miles, voluntarily?"
    "Course. Followed the Limiters, I did," Cox said.
    Rebecca Two was shaking her head, wholly unconvinced. "And you made the journey all the way to this city, cross-country?"
    "And you didn't melt in the sunlight?" her sister quipped.
    "Yeh... and I don't like it. Don't like the sun," Cox mumbled. "It's like Topso--"
    "So I take it you do know this person," the Chancellor interjected, wiping his palms on his handkerchief as if the very sight of Cox made him feel unclean.
    "Yes, in a way," Rebecca Two confirmed. "And he doesn't need the escort. Let him go."
    Yanking the ropes from his captors' hands, Cox suddenly surged forward like a lively steer. Still trailing the ropes after him, he advanced up the aisle between the seated soldiers.
    "New chums?" he said in his coarse voice as he flared his cankerous nostrils at the contingent of fresh-faced soldiers. Sidling up to the twins, he turned his unseeing eyes on the Chancellor, who was still regarding him with overt disgust. In a bid to get the proceedings back on track, the Chancellor was on the point of saying something to the Rebecca twins, when Cox croaked, "Allo, big boy," then blew a frothy kiss at him through his blackened lips.
    "This... this... this is Colonel Bismarck," the Chancellor stuttered. All heads turned to the man who had risen from the first row of seated New Germanians. With a fine example of a moustache, he was tall and balding, and he held himself with a very upright bearing. He bowed formally to the Rebecca twins with a click of his polished riding boots. "I'll leave you in his capable hands," the Chancellor gabbled, and jogged out of the tent as fast as his fat legs would carry him.
    "I'm to be your military liaison," Colonel Bismarck said, striding toward the easel. He waited as one of his soldiers unrolled and pinned a map on it. "Before we talk about protocols and how our personnel will cooperate in the search operation, I want to review the terrain with you." He tapped and held his finger on a feature on the map as he addressed the Rebecca twins. "This is the former pit head -- the entrance to the disused uranium mine where you were ambushed." Sliding his finger across the map, he was about to continue when Rebecca Two stood up.
    "There in the jungle... what are those?" she said, indicating the three golden triangles.
    "Those are large monuments, visible for some distance around," he answered. "They're ancient pyramids... but we don't--"
    "Pyramids!" Rebecca Two exclaimed, exchanging glances with her sister. "Is there anything else that big in the jungle?"
    "Not that can be seen above the tree line," Colonel Bismarck answered.
    "If we'd spotted them, we would have gone straight there, because they'll draw Dr. Burrows like a cavern mouse to cheese," Rebecca One said.
    "That's where we'll find the people we want," Rebecca Two told the colonel with complete certainty. "And that's where we should start the search."
    A ripple of agitation passed through the New Germanian soldiers.
    Colonel Bismarck looked at the map. "As I was about to say, we don't tend to venture into that quadrant. It's a high-radiation area, and it contains nothing of any strategic value." The colonel drew a breath. "And there's something else."
    "What?" the Rebecca twins asked in unison.
    As he stroked his moustache, he seemed reluctant to answer their question. "We've lost troops in there. Although we've never made any direct sightings of them, it's generally believed that the indigenous people still linger there --