Tunnels 05 - Spiral

more than a gray shadow. She slid her hand up his arm.
    “You know, you’re very special,” she said.
    “Don’t wha’ever y’do light a mash in here,” a low, slurred voice advised. “Bad bad mishtake.”
    Stephanie squealed.
    Will spun in the direction of the voice, whipping up the orb to see who was there. The room was large, with row upon row of racking shelves, which housed all the weapons and explosives in the Complex.
    “Who’s that?” Will demanded, trying to sound as confident as he could. “Who is it?”
    “Jusht little ol’ me,” the voice rumbled, still slurring. “If you light a mash, we’ll all be blowed up. Cos of the munishuns.”
    Will stepped toward the source of the voice, Stephanie now clinging on to him, terrified.
    The light from the orb fell upon a man slumped lopsidedly on some sacks.
    “Sparks!” Will exclaimed. “What the heck are you doing here?”
    “Shame thing you four are,” he drawled. “I jush wanted to be on my loneshome-woneshome.”
    Will and Stephanie were looking down at him in astonishment. Sweeney’s shirt was unbuttoned to his stomach. What appeared to be two small metal terminals sprouting from his sternum were connected by wires to an industrial battery at his side, which he was hugging. Sweeney followed their gaze to it.
    “Yesh . . . don’t really have to charge myshelf up like thish,” he said, his eyes slow-blinking as he spoke. “Butsh I thought I could do with a top up of the old resherve cells. Jush in cayshe.”
    “Sparks, you sound really weird,” Will ventured. “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
    “No, shir! Never touch the shtuff! It’sh the extra juice — hash thish effect, shometimes. Makesh me a touch woozy,” Sweeney replied. He attempted to sit up, but didn’t get very far. “Y’know . . . I earwigged everyshing you were shaying.”
    “Everything?” Will said, throwing a quick glance at Stephanie.
    With his free hand Sweeney tried to point at them, his arm swinging wildly. “Yesh . . . and lishen . . . if the worsht comes to the worsht . . . and we cash in our schips” — grimacing, he shook his head with comic gravity — “then we
should
all throw ourshelves in those water tanksh. Nearly drowned onesh in a shubmarine. Not shush a bad way to go. Better than shuffocation.”
    “But, Sparks, we’re going to get out of this place. It’s not over yet!” Will said, shocked to hear the old soldier talking that way. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
    “Shure I’m shure. Now take the weight off, shonny. Schtay with me a while. Tell all your friends to join ush, too.”
    “But there are only two of —” Stephanie began, falling silent as Will caught her eye.
    “Of course we’ll stay with you,” Will said. He pulled some of the empty sacks over so that he and Stephanie could sit on them. Although there was plenty of room on the sacks for the two of them, as Stephanie adjusted her position, her leg touched Will’s. And she left it there, while Will tried his best to have an exchange with Sweeney, who was making very little sense.

    “Can I ask what name your booking’s under?” the spritely receptionist in a pink tracksuit inquired.
    She pulled a pencil from her tightly curled hair, allowing herself a curious glance at the confident young girl standing before the desk, a handsome if dopey-looking chauffeur at her side.
    Then, twirling the pencil between her thumb and forefinger as if it was a small baton, the woman used the mouse to scroll through a page on her computer screen. “I assume it’s for a relative? Your mother or father perhaps?” The receptionist had seen the top-of-the-range Mercedes draw up outside, followed by a coach, so it was clearly someone important. And since they didn’t take children, the reservation couldn’t be for the slip of a girl in front of her. “If you can ask them to come in, we’ll make sure their room’s ready.”
    “That’s neat,” Rebecca Two said, watching the trick with the pencil as it helicoptered around and around in the receptionist’s hand.
    “Oh, thank you. It’s something I picked up from an old boyfriend,” the receptionist said distantly. She was intrigued to find out who was about to grace their exorbitantly expensive establishment, but when she reached the end of the booking schedule on her computer and saw that there were only a few regulars yet to check in, she frowned. “We are terribly full at the moment. What was the name of the