Tunnels 06 - Terminal

asked.
    ‘The doctor believes so. Although you’re not quite out of the woods yet. There’s always a risk of infection, which is why you’re dosed to the gills with antibiotics, and he’s left some drains in place.’
    Jiggs pointed at the clear plastic tubes that hung over the side of Will’s mattress.
    ‘They come from me? Can I see?’ the boy asked, peering down at his front.
    Jiggs blew through his lips. ‘Are you sure you want to?’
    Will nodded.
    ‘Okay,’ Jiggs said, lifting the sheet aside. He peeled back a large rectangle of bandage-like material that was across Will’s body. There was a massive incision all the way from the boy’s breastbone to his midriff, held together with monstrous black stitches that looked as though if you cut them he would simply burst open. And then there were the tubes running from inside the incision.
    ‘Oh,’ Will said. He hadn’t expected it to be so dramatic.
    ‘Yes, and I apologise that the incision isn’t neater, but I only had my old pocket knife on me at the time,’ Jiggs said.
    Will looked up at him, but the man was smiling.
    ‘Only kidding,’ Jiggs laughed. ‘You’re going to have one blinder of a scar there to show the girls wh—,’ he added, catching himself as he realised how Will must be feeling about Elliott.
    Jiggs put the bandage back in place, then laid the sheet over Will again. ‘Actually, old man, you’re a bit of a rarity, because as far as we know, nobody else who’s been impregnated by the Styx has ever survived.’
    ‘Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?’ Will said.

 
     
     
    Chapter Twenty-one

    ‘ T here she is! Kill the little bitch!’ Hermione screeched, trying to get up at the same time as jabbing one of her pincers in Elliott’s direction.
    The combination of the ever-burning sun and the incredibly fertile soil at the centre of the world meant that the bare earth in the fields around the tower hadn’t remained bare for long. It was covered with a green baize of grass, new shoots and tiny unfurling fronds. And dotted over this, like so many black skittles, the Styx had suddenly appeared when they’d been transported from the surface.
    ‘Get her!’ Hermione yelled. Most of the Styx were completely disoriented and in the same state as she was, falling onto all fours as they’d materialised in a blur of crimson. But it didn’t take the resilient and toughened Limiters more than a few seconds to pull themselves together. Many already had their rifles to their shoulders.
    They opened fire, the rounds striking the tower around Elliott. She was only too aware that Eddie and his former Limiters would be out there somewhere in the field too. They were hopelessly outnumbered by the other Styx, and obvious targets.
    By bringing the trident down on the ground outside St Paul’s, not only had Elliott thwarted Hermione’s plan to send out the Armagi into the rest of the world, but she’d also passed an effective death sentence on her father. Elliott told herself that she’d had no alternative. And wherever he was in that plain of green, there was absolutely nothing she could do for him right now – she didn’t even have her rifle with her.
    But it wasn’t the only death sentence that Elliott had dished out. Hermione and Rebecca Two, along with every other member of the Styx race, were all going to be dead in a matter of days. None of them had been inoculated against the supervirus that was still present in the inner world.
    Straining her eyes as she tried to find her father, Elliott remained in the entrance to the tower, standing there in a shepherd-like pose, the trident resting on the ground by her side.
    Although she showed no fear as more rifle shots began to land around her, she wasn’t going to push her luck, not while she still had a task she needed to complete.
    ‘Kill that half-breed!’ Hermione wailed again, falling as she tried to run towards the girl.
    Elliott merely gave the Styx woman a small bow of the head, then took a step back into the tower. As the door whisked shut, the pile of rocks that Will had thought were a safeguard against it doing precisely that were immediately pulverised.
    As Elliott began towards the lift, she took a moment to look around the entrance chamber. After she and Will had gone, the bushman had evidently lingered on in the tower for a while, from the remains of all the fires he’d lit inside it. There were small piles of burnt roots beside which Elliott could