Tunnels 04, Closer

along. His parents had been returned to him. "Mum and Dad," he murmured to himself, then began to hum to the tune on the radio.
    The process to deprogram his mother had been a lot less fraught, greatly helped because Mr. Rawls also took part. Chester couldn't stop grinning to himself as he thought about the moment his mother's eyes had lit up and she'd finally recognized him.
    After that, he'd sat with his parents for as long as Drake had allowed him, telling them how he and Will had stumbled across the Colony and the events that had followed. To start with they'd looked at him in horrified disbelief, but their own experiences helped to persuade them that what Chester was saying was true. Although it was rather hazy in their minds, they both had vague memories of being overpowered, and then of ghoulish me shining intense purple lights in their faces. And their recollections of events following this incident were also a little unclear to them, as if they were unable to tell what was real or what they'd dreamt.
    But they were both so overjoyed that their son was still alive, they were just about ready to believe anything -- that and the fact that they were still absolutely terrified by Drake, and wouldn't have dared to question anything he'd said.
    Now that the spell of the Dark Light had been broken, Drake wasn't taking any chances. He wanted Mr. and Mrs. Rawls kept under lock and key for at least the next forty-eight hours, and the bald mechanic had eventually agreed to sleep at the premises to keep a close eye on them. In fact, after Drake offered him another diamond, he said he was going to move his 'missus' into the arches to wait hand and foot on Chester's parents.
    "It's weird," Chester said to Drake. "I thought about being back with my parents all the time I was underground but, you know, I'd almost given up hope." Then he thanked Drake yet again.
    Drake nodded. "Don't mention it. I couldn't just leave them under the Styx's control."
    "But will they really be all right? Has the Dark Light stuff all gone now?" Chester asked.
    "Reversion therapy isn't a science -- you never know what else in the psyche has been tampered with. But the Styx might not have gone too deep, and we've certainly taken care of what we know about."
    "You did the same for Will, didn't you?" Chester said.
    "Yes, with him it was a death wish triggered by heights, so it was sort of handy I cottoned onto it when we were up on the roofs in
    Martineau Square
    . I forced him to visualize the outcome if he jumped -- made him face his hidden demon -- and it did the trick, eventually," Drake replied. "He broke the impulse. Strong kid, that."
    "He is," Chester said. "And the most stubborn person I've ever met." Despite his fatigue, Chester was beginning to think clearly. "But what will happen to my mum and dad?" he asked. Although his parents were safe for the moment, they couldn't stay in the lock up indefinitely.
    "I'll move them somewhere else tomorrow. They're in the same boat as the rest of us now -- there's no way they can ever go home," Drake said, then glanced at Chester. "Do you think they can lead the sort of life we do?"
    "They haven't got a choice, have they" Chester replied. "Until we beat the Styx."
    Drake nodded. "Talking about the Styx, you can't breathe a word to Eddie about any of this. How's your neck feel? I did my best not to leave any bruises. Let me have a look."
    Chester opened his shirt to show Drake.
    "No, you're fine," Drake said. "I don't want Eddie to pick up on what we've been doing."
    "So you don't trust him completely?" Chester asked.
    "I don't trust anyone completely," Drake replied. "And we've got to get the story straight in case he asks anything. We drove around for a while -- that'll explain the mileage on the car if he checks -- then we zipped over to Regents Park for a walk, where you had some lunch followed by an ice cream." Drake leant over to release the glove compartment in front of the boy. "Take the wrapper in there and drip some of the melted ice cream down your front -- make sure it shows."
    As Drake continued to drive, Chester followed his instructions -- rubbing the wrapper on the clothes he'd put back on after he'd changed out of his school uniform.
    "You said we had lunch?" Chester inquired wistfully. He realized that with everything that had happened during the day, he hadn't had anything to eat for hours.
    Drake gestured at the glove compartment. "You'll find some sandwiches in there too. Tuck in,