Tunnels 05 - Spiral

were shouts from outside the police station and someone mounted the steps, taking them three at a time. The man reached for the counter as soon as he came in, propping himself against it as he tried to catch his breath.
    “You have to come — been an accident,” he wheezed. It was one of the Colonists from the Quarter, a shopkeeper called Maynard. He peered with disbelief at the scene that greeted him — the former First Officer, in his sweat-stained shirt and with his suspenders hanging from his waist, holding court with all the prisoners as they supped from their tankards of Somers Town whisky. Maynard met Cleaver’s eyes, but when the grizzled visage smiled back at him, revealing his darkened stumps of teeth, he quickly looked away.
    “Wass all the rumpus ’bout?” the former First Officer drawled, trying to pull himself up in his seat.
    Maynard frowned. “It’s my son — the magic’s got him. I need your help.”
    “I don’t work here anymore,” the former First Officer said, thrusting his tankard in the new First Officer’s direction and managing to slop drink over himself, which elicited giggles from Squeaky. “Ask Patrick.”
    “Patrick?” Maynard asked. “Who the heck is Patrick? And what’s going on here?”
    “It’s all right, Maynard,” the new First Officer said as he emerged from what was now his office. He tried again to recall the former First Officer’s name, but it wasn’t there, so he pointed instead. “He’s taking a break, so I’ll be in charge for a while.”
    “Mole flaps!” the former First Officer exclaimed, his expression pained. Cleaver and Squeaky dissolved into roars of laughter at hearing him use the swearword. Even Gappy Mulligan, who everyone had assumed had passed out from the drink, because she was lying under the table, began to cackle. “Nope, I ain’t never coming back,” the former First Officer insisted. “Never, never, never.”
    “Never,” Squeaky added in his nasal squeak, laughing.
    “I heard you say ‘magic,’” the new First Officer asked. “What do you mean?”
    “No such fing,” one of the other prisoners commented, and was shushed immediately by Cleaver.
    “Listen t’the man,” he urged, in his rumbling baritone voice.
    “My boy and me and some others were planning to go through a portal, and up Topsoil to collect a bit of food for everybody. We’ve got some Topsoil money left, and we figured we’d use it to buy a few basics: bread and milk and the like. There’s almost nothing left in my pantry, you know,” he said.
    The new First Officer nodded sympathetically. “I know how it is. We have to do something, although we should get ourselves organized first. But what do you mean by ‘magic’? What happened?”
    “I’m telling you — it’s Styx magic,” Maynard insisted.
    “You’d better show me,” the new First Officer said, taking his truncheon from the peg on the wall and then going through the open counter.
    “I’ve got to see this magic for myshelf,” the former First Officer slurred. He had somehow managed to get to his feet, all the prisoners rising with him — even Gappy Mulligan, although she was swaying unpredictably from side to side and singing softly to herself.

    Danforth had restored power to the main circuits, so the Complex was no longer lit by the emergency lighting. After her examination, Elliott had gone straight to her quarters and refused to come out, despite Will and Chester’s best efforts. So instead they took it in turns to bring her food and drink.
    On one occasion, when Will had turned up with a mug of tea, he found her before the full-length mirror in the wardrobe door, simply rocking up and down on her feet as she looked at herself.
    “Are you OK?” he asked, as she continued to regard her reflection.
    “I’m not sure I know who I am anymore,” she said to him. “I thought I knew, but I don’t.”
    Before Will had time to ask what she meant, she fixed him with her piercing dark eyes. “Do you think differently about me now?” she said, stretching an arm above her head in a balletic movement. Then she let it flop at the elbow, so her fingertips touched the bandage across her back.
    “Of course not,” he replied without hesitation.
    “But Danforth found early signs of the Phase in me, and that makes me feel like a monster. It makes me something ugly.”
    “That’s just silly —” Will began.
    “But you don’t look at me in the same way now,” she interrupted.