Tunnels 05 - Spiral

bloody well do what Mr. Jerome has ordered.”
    “I told yer to leave my friend alone,” Cleaver exploded. “I’ve ’ad it with yer! Why don’t yer shut yer flippin’ cake ’oles and let ’im say ’is piece?” Cleaver roared, leaning forward over the platform and swiping at Mr. Pearson’s and Mr. Jerome’s ankles like an angry bear.
    As the two Governors hastily hopped out of Cleaver’s reach, the First Officer turned to the crowd. “If any of you think those people on the cart are
just
Topsoilers, think again. The woman who just spoke was talking sense,” he said, pointing at Mrs. Burrows, his eyes gleaming. “She was subjected to the worst Dark Light interrogation I’ve ever seen in my whole time as a policeman, and she came back from it. She didn’t crack . . . she didn’t tell the Styx what they wanted to know.”
    The crowd murmured.
    “And that man there” — he indicated Drake — “destroyed the Laboratories for us. He put a stop to all the Styx’s horrific experiments. I know because I was there. I helped him.”
    The murmur became even louder.
    “And the lad with them,” the First Officer declared, pointing directly at Will, “is Tam Macaulay’s nephew, and . . .”
    There was a collective gasp from the crowd — they knew what was coming next.
    “. . . and Sarah Jerome’s son.”
    Now people were cheering.
    “Sarah Jerome, a brave woman who stuck to her beliefs and resisted the Styx for so long . . . for so many years. We could do nothing to help her when she was brought back to the Colony, but we can honor her spirit now. We can do things her way, and never let the White Necks rule our lives again.”
    The crowd went wild. Filled with pride, Will wasn’t at all embarrassed by the attention he was getting.
    The First Officer raised his arms, and the crowd quietened. “So, Mrs. Burrows, what should we do now?” he posed.
    “You could appoint a committee to oversee the Colony — a temporary committee,” Mrs. Burrows advised. “You can hold an election later, but right now you need people in place who’ll get things done. Your own people — people you trust.”
    “Codswallop!
They
wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to run things!” Mr. Pearson shouted. “This is sheer lunacy! That woman’s a Topsoiler. Don’t listen to anything she says!”
    “First Officer, we want
you
to lead us,” a man suddenly yelled out.
    “Me?” the First Officer spluttered.
    As the suggestion gathered support, the First Officer waved the crowd to order. “But . . . it can’t be me alone. That wouldn’t be right.”
    “Pick Cleaver, too!” Gappy Mulligan screeched. Waving a bottle, she was perched on a rain barrel on the far side of the square and only just managed to stop herself from falling off.
    The crowd seemed to be completely behind this suggestion and jostled Cleaver until he clambered up onto the platform.
    That was when the whole structure tipped to one side, the table, chairs, and Governors sliding off. As their feet foundthe ground, to a man the Governors fled.
    The applause from the crowd rattled every window in the city. Cleaver and Squeaky took the opportunity to help themselves to a pair of the Governors’ discarded top hats and sported them proudly.
    “I wish every coup went off this peacefully,” Drake whispered. And he — like everyone else in Market Square — was filled with optimism for the future of the Colony. With no Styx to terrorize the population and with the opportunity to govern themselves, it would be a very different place to live.

    A mile away, on the outskirts of the city, Elliott heard the echoed shouts and cheers of the crowd, but didn’t know the reason for them. After Sweeney and Colonel Bismarck had failed to dissuade her from going off by herself, she’d sprinted all the way down to the South Cavern, not encountering a single Colonist or, for that matter, Styx as she went.
    And now, as she entered her old neighborhood, she slowed to take in the surroundings so familiar to her.
    The Colony was similar to an ancient but highly reliable piece of machinery that functioned day in, day out because its inhabitants kept it running smoothly. By and large, each Colonist knew his or her place in the hierarchy, and like cogs in the machine they all did what was expected of them.
    But this machine had evidently broken down. What Elliott saw around her was unprecedented chaos: streets strewn with foul-smelling rubbish, piles of wrecked furniture