Tunnels 06 - Terminal

Officer helped her.
    Mrs Burrows nodded and sniffed again. ‘Just another rainy day in Highfield.’ As she stood at the window, her hand touched something pinned to the new window frame. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.
    The First Officer pulled off the old dog-eared photographthat one of the builders must have come across and pinned there. ‘It’s a daguerreotype of a very old lady wearing thick glasses, with some cats.’
    ‘They call them photographs in this century,’ Mrs Burrows said, adding quickly, ‘This old lady … does she have white hair … with wiry, odd-looking curls?’
    The First Officer brought the photograph closer to see. ‘She does,’ he confirmed.
    Mrs Burrows nodded. ‘Ah, I know why this place is so familiar. I bet you that’s Mrs Tantrumi. She lived in one of the almshouses around here, and chances are it was this one, because the Styx obviously had a quick way to reach her if they wanted her.’
    ‘Mrs Tantrumi?’ the First Officer asked.
    ‘Yes, she was a Styx agent. And the old witch is the reason I was caught on Highfield Common and put through all that Darklighting,’ Mrs Burrows replied, her voice bitter. Then something dawned on her. ‘And, do you know, the luminescent orb that led my husband Roger to discover the Colony was found under this house. This is where it all started!’ She looked fondly at the First Officer. ‘You and I would never have met if it hadn’t been for that.’
    The First Officer nodded, keen to focus on the job in hand. ‘So what now? Do we go outside and investigate wh—’
    ‘No,’ Mrs Burrows said abruptly, her head snapping back towards the window. ‘God, no! Quickly, get back through that door!’
    ‘Why, what is it?’ the First Officer asked, more than a little confused at what she’d evidently picked up with her supersense.
    ‘There’s nobody left alive in Highfield … but there are things out there that I’ve never smelt before.’ Mrs Burrows waspushing the First Officer back towards the door. ‘And if just one of those things gets into the Colony, we’re all done for.’

    ‘Do you think we’ve done this right?’ Elliott shouted from inside the decontamination tunnel. She and Will had spent hours at the top of the tower slotting the aluminium sections together in different configurations until finally the double skin of dark-green outer rubber could slide into place over it.
    ‘I don’t know … I think so – it looks as though it’s more or less there now. It would have been so much easier if it had come with instructions,’ Will said, as she joined him and they stood back to take in the long tent-like structure. ‘Okay,’ he said, going to the crates. ‘Now we fit it out with this stuff.’
    They began to install the shower and bank of ultraviolet lights. They had a general idea of how to do this because they’d seen what the decontamination chamber had been like in the New Germanian hospital, so all they could do was to try to reproduce it in this portable version.
    ‘I rigged up something just like this in a tunnel years ago,’ Will said, as he connected a lead acid battery similar to that from a car so it would power the small bank of ultraviolet lights.
    Elliott’s task was equally involved because she was trying to work out how to install the shower using the many feet of tubing and a hand pump.
    Finally they thought they were ready for a trial run.
    ‘Hit the switch,’ Will shouted from inside the tent, and was bathed in the light from the ultraviolet panel as Elliott did as he’d asked. ‘That’s fine – turn it off!’ He moved down inside the tent until he was in the first compartment. ‘Okay, now try the pump.’
    She began to work the hand-operated pump, giving it her all. She was watching the blue germicidal fluid pulse hypnotically through the tube system when she became aware of Will’s shouts.
    ‘Stop! Stop! That’s enough!’ Will’s face appeared at the mouth of the tent, his face and white hair dripping with the blue fluid. ‘I just knew that was going to happen,’ he spluttered, but nevertheless he looked very pleased. ‘Well, it all seems to work.’ He looked at Elliott. ‘So, are we going through with this?’
    She nodded vigorously.
    From the very start he’d known there was no way she was about to chicken out and, despite his reservations, there was nothing on – or in – Earth that was going to stop him either. He couldn’t wait to find out if the silver square