Tunnels 06 - Terminal

diamonds.
    ‘There’s nothing like coming home,’ Will puffed. He edged further out so that he could see the base he and Elliott had built in the branches of the nearby tree, and felt more than a twinge of regret. What he was actually thinking was, I wish we’d never left it in the first place.
    Although lives had been saved as a result of their foragingexpedition into the metropolis, part of him wished that he’d never let Elliott talk him into it. He didn’t like to admit to himself that there was some truth in what she’d said about him growing old and set in his ways. He recognised that he was different – he’d lost some of his taste for adventure. Perhaps the constant struggle against the Styx had beaten it out of him, but right now, all he wanted was his simple life in the jungle back again, with Elliott, and without any outside interference from the New Germanians or babbling bushmen.
    ‘Home,’ Will repeated, as he realised the significance of the word, and how very happy he’d been there with Elliott. With both the Ancients’ passage and the void sealed, neither he nor Elliott had any serious expectations that they’d ever return to the outer world again. This place, with their base in the tree beside the pyramid, and this world in the centre of the world, had become the best home he’d ever known in his short life. And as it now seemed to be coming to an end because of these new people in their lives, his heart began to race with a sort of panic.
    He’d earned this time with her. He’d done his bit in the fight against the Styx, and wanted to put all that behind him now. He felt so far away from his mother in the Colony, and his friend Chester. And as for Parry and Eddie, of course he wondered how they were faring in their search for the second Styx female. But he couldn’t help feeling all that wasn’t his battle any longer.
    ‘Hello! I was speaking to you!’ Elliott called, pulling Will from his thoughts. ‘You joining us today?’
    ‘Yeah, sorry … I was miles away,’ Will smiled, and hurried to catch up with her and Jürgen.
    Still lugging the crates, they climbed up the side of thepyramid. They stopped short of going onto the flattened upper platform at the very top, instead following the ledge around on the tier just below, until Woody brought them to a halt.
    ‘Back here again,’ Will said, surveying the very place where he and Dr Burrows had tumbled in when the Styx had surrounded the pyramid in a bid to capture them. ‘There’s an entrance here,’ he added for Jürgen’s benefit.
    ‘Yes, we were aware of that,’ Jürgen replied, as they all put their crates down. ‘The invaders didn’t get very far, did they?’ Jürgen noted, as he began to inspect the damage inflicted by the Styx’s attempt to blow a way inside the pyramid using charges. ‘Interesting …’ he said, passing his hand over what remained of the stones with the carvings on them, and then the underlying masonry that had been exposed, which was considerably darker in colour. ‘Do you see the difference between the two materials?’
    Although the outer facing stones had been blasted away, the supporting structure seemed to be completely unmarked.
    ‘Yes, it does look sort of … sort of new underneath,’ Will agreed. ‘And the Styx explosives took out what my dad called the moving stones , but there are still those to show where they were.’ He was pointing at a row of ten squares visible on the otherwise smooth surface.
    Woody let out what might have been a curse in the Styx tongue, although much of their language sounded precisely like that.
    ‘Will, he wants you out of the way,’ Elliott translated.
    ‘Fine,’ Will said, peeved by the bushman’s brusqueness. Nevertheless he stepped aside for Woody, who went straight to the squares. Standing on tiptoe, he began to touch them one after another.
    ‘My dad and I thought there had to be a combination to get in. We spent ages pushing the blocks in and out in different sequences to try to crack it,’ Will said, watching as Woody continued to touch the squares at lightning speed. ‘But I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing?’
    ‘We tried different sequences, too,’ Jürgen said, as he watched the bushman with rapt attention. ‘But the tribesman isn’t doing anything that can affect a mechanical linkage. This must simply be some sort of ritual before opening the door.’
    ‘So you’ve never seen inside?’ Will asked him