Tunnels (38 page)

The base of the stairs was badly damaged by a massive pillar that had crashed down and shattered it, and at first the boys were forced to clamber up several broken sections. Once they had reached the steps, it wasn't much better; they were slick with black weed, and the boys nearly lost their footing more than once.

They climbed higher and higher up the stairway and, forgetting for the moment how ill he felt, Will stopped to take in the view from above. Through the haze, he caught sight of a building topped with a huge dome.

"That's the spitting image of St. Paul's Cathedral in London," he puffed, getting his breath back as he peered at the magnificent domed roof in the distance. "I'd love to have a closer look," he added.

"You've got to be kidding,"
Cal
replied sharply.

As they continued, the stairs eventually disappeared into a jagged arch in the rock wall. Will turned for a last glance at the emerald strangeness of the
Eternal
City
, but as he did so he slipped from the edge of the step, tottering forward onto the one below. For a heartbeat he faced the sheer drop in front of him and cried out, thinking he was about to plunge down it. He clutched frantically at the black tendrils covering the wall. Handful after handful broke off, then he finally managed to get a grip and steady himself again.

"Hey, are you all right?"
Cal
said, now at his side. When Will didn't answer him, he became increasingly concerned. "What's the matter?"

"I… I just feel so dizzy," Will admitted in a wheezing voice. He was panting in small, shallow breaths — it was as if he were breathing through a clogged straw. He climbed a few steps but came to a standstill again as he broke out into a racking cough. He thought the coughing fit was never going to stop. Doubled over, Will hacked away and then spat. He clutched his forehead, soaked with rain and clammy with an unhealthily cold sweat, and knew there was no way he could hide it from his brother any longer.

"I need to rest," he said hoarsely, using
Cal
for support as the coughing subsided.

"Not now,"
Cal
said urgently, "and not here," Grabbing Will's arm, he helped him through the archway and into the gloomy stairway beyond.

There is a point at which the body is spent, when the muscles and sinews have nothing left to give, when all that remains is a person's mettle, his sheer single-mindedness.

Will had reached that point. His body felt drained and worthless, but still he slogged on, driven by the responsibility he felt toward his brother and his duty to get him to safety. At the same time, gnawing away at him was the unbearable guilt that he'd let Chester down, let him fall into the Colonists' hands for a second time.

I'm useless, completely useless
. The words ran in a loop through Will's mind, over and over again. But neither he nor his brother spoke as they climbed, grinding their way up the never-ending spiral staircase. At the very limits of his endurance, Will pushed himself on, step after painful step, flight after flight, his thighs burning as much as his lungs. Slipping and sliding on water-drenched stone treads and the stringy weeds that clung to them, he fought to suppress the dread realization that they still had far to go.

"I’d like to stop now," he heard
Cal
pant.

"Can't… don't think… I'd ever… get going… again," Will grunted in time with his plodding steps.

The excruciating hours crawled by, until he had lost track of how long they'd been climbing, and nothing in the world existed or mattered to him except the grueling notion that he had to take the next step, and the next, and so on… and just when Will thought he'd reached his limits and that he couldn't go any farther, he felt the faintest of breezes on his face. He knew instinctively it was untainted air. He stopped and sucked at the freshness, hoping to lift the leaden weight from his chest and relieve the interminable rattle in his lungs.

"Don't need it," he said, pointing at
Cal
's
mask.
Cal
removed it from his head and tucked it in his belt, the sweat running down his face in rivulets and his eyes rimmed with red.

"Phew,"
he exhaled. "Hot under that thing."

They resumed the climb, and it wasn't long before the steps ended and they entered a sequence of narrow passages. Every so often they were forced to scramble up rusted iron ladders, their hands turning orange as they tested each precarious rung.

Eventually they reached a steeply angled shaft no more than three feet wide. They hauled themselves up its pockmarked surface using the thick, knotted rope they discovered hanging there (
Cal
was certain his uncle Tam had rigged it up). Hand over hand they went, their feet finding purchase in the shallow cracks and fault lines as they climbed. The incline became steeper, and they had a heck of a job to scrabble over the remaining stretch of slime-covered stone, but despite losing their footing a few times, they finally reached the top, hauling themselves up into a circular chamber. Here there was a small vent in the floor. Leaning into it, Will could see the remnants of an iron grating, long since rusted away.

"What's down there?"
Cal
panted.

"Nothing, can't see a darn thing," Will said despondently, squatting down to rest on his haunches. He brushed the sweat from his face with a raw hand. "I suppose we do what Tam said. We climb down."

Cal
looked behind and then to his brother, nodding. For several minutes neither of them made a move, immobilized with fatigue.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," Will sighed and swung his legs into the vent and, with his back pressed against one side and feet hard against the other, he began to see himself down.

"What about the cat?" Will shouted after he had gone a short distance. "Is Bartleby going to be able to cope with this?"

"Don't worry about him,"
Cal
said with a smile. "Anything we can do—"

Will never heard the rest of
Cal
's
sentence. He slipped. The sides of the vent shot by, and he landed with a large splash — he was submerged in an icy coldness. He thrashed out with this arms, then his feet found the bottom, and he stood up and blew out a mouthful of freezing liquid. He found he was chest-deep in water, and after he'd wiped it out of his eyes and pushed back his hair, he looked around. He couldn't be certain, but there seemed to be a dim light in the distance.

He heard
Cal
's
frantic shouts from above. "Will! Will! Are you all right?"

"Just had a quick dip!" Will shouted, laughing weakly. "Stay there, I'm going to check something out." His exhaustion and discomfort were ignored for the moment as he stared at the faint glow, trying to make out the vaguest detail of what lay ahead.

Soaked to the skin, he clambered out of the pool and, stooping under the low roof, crept slowly toward the light. After a couple of hundred yards, he could clearly see the circular mouth of the tunnel and, with his heart racing, he sped toward it. Dropping more than three feet off a ledge he'd failed to notice, he landed roughly, finding himself under a jetty of some kind. Through a forest of heavy wooden stanchions, draped with weeds, he could see the dappled reflections of light on water.

Gravel crunched underfoot as he walked into the open. He felt the invigorating chill of the wind on his face. He breathed deeply, drawing the fresh air into his aching lungs. It was such sweetness. Slowly he took stock of the surroundings.

Night. Lights reflected off a river in front of him. It was a wide river. A two tiered pleasure boat chugged past — bright flashes of color pulsed from its two decks as indistinct dance music throbbed over the water. Then he saw the bridges on either side of him and, in the distance, the floodlit dome of St. Paul's. The St. Paul's he knew. A red double-decker bus crossed the bridge closest to him. This wasn't any old river. He sat down on the bank with surprise and relief.

It was the
Thames
.

He lay back on the bank and closed his eyes, listening to the droning hubbub of traffic. He tried to remember the names of the bridges, but he didn't really care — he'd gotten out, he'd escaped, and nothing else mattered. He'd made it. He was home. Back in his own world.

"The sky,"
Cal
said with awe in his voice. "So that's what it's like." Will opened his eyes to see his brother craning his neck this way and that as he stared at the stray wisps of cloud caught in the amber radiation of the streetlights. Although
Cal
was sopping from his immersion in the pool, he was smiling broadly, but then he wrinkled up his nose. "
Phew
, what's that?" he asked loudly.

"What do you mean?" Will said.

"All those smells!"

Will propped himself up on one elbow and sniffed. "What smells?"

"Food… all sorts of food… and…"
Cal
grimaced. "sewage — lots of it — and chemicals…"

As Will sniffed the air, thinking again how fresh it was, it occurred to him that he hadn't once considered what they were going to do next. Where were they going to go? He'd been so intent on escaping, he hadn't given anything beyond it a second thought. He stood up and examined his sodden, filthy Colonists' clothes and those of his brother, and the unfeasibly large cat that was now nosing around the bank like a pig searching for truffles. A brisk winter wind was picking up, and he shivered violently, his teeth starting to chatter. It struck him that neither his brother nor Bartleby had experienced the relative extremes of Topsoil weather in their sheltered, subterranean lives. He had to get them moving. And quickly. But he didn't have any money on him — not a penny.

"We're going to have to walk home."

"Fine,"
Cal
replied unquestioningly, his head back as he stared at the stars, losing himself in the canopy of the sky. "At last I've seen them," he whispered to himself.

A helicopter drifted across the horizon.

"Why's that one moving?" he asked.

Will felt too tired to explain. "They do that," he said flatly.

They set off, keeping close to the bank so as not to be noticed, and almost immediately came upon a set of steps leading up to the walkway above. It was next to a bridge. Will knew then where they were — it was
Blackfriars
Bridge
.

A gate blocked the top of the steps, so they hastily clambered over the broad wall beside it to reach the walkway. Dripping water on the pavement and freezing in the night air, they looked around them. Will was seized by the dreadful thought that even here the Styx might have spies watching out for them. After seeing one of the Clarke brothers in the Colony, he felt that he couldn't trust anybody, and he regarded the few people in the immediate area with mounting suspicion. But nobody was close., with the exception of a young couple walking hand in hand. They strolled past, so involved with each other that they didn't seem to pay the boys or their huge cat the least bit of attention.

With Will taking the lead, they climbed the steps to the bridge itself. Arriving at the top, Will saw that the IMAX cinema was to their right. He immediately knew they didn't want to be on that side of the river. To him, London was a mosaic of place, each familiar to him from the museum visits with his father or school expeditions. The rest, the interconnecting areas, were a complete mystery to him. There was only one thing to do: trust in his sense of direction and try to head north.

As they turned left and quickly traversed the bridge, Will spotted a sign to King's Cross and knew instantly that they were heading the right way. Traffic passed them as they arrived at the end of the bridge, and Will paused to look at
Cal
and the cat under the glow of a streetlight. Talk about three suspicious-looking lost souls — they stuck out a mile. Although it was dark, Will was painfully aware that a pair of young boys soaked to the skin and wandering the streets of London at this late hour, with or without a giant cat, were likely to attract attention, and the last thing he needed now was to be picked up by the police. He made an attempt at concocting a story, rehearsing it in his mind, just in case it happened.

'
ello
, '
ello
, '
ello
, the pair of fictitious policemen said.
What '
ave
we 'ere, then?

Uh… just out walking the… the…
Will's imagined response came to a faltering stop. No, that wouldn't do, he had to be better prepared than that. He started again:
Good evening, officers. We're just taking the neighbor's pet for a walk.

The first policeman leaned in to peer curiously at Bartleby, his eyes narrowing as he grimaced in open distaste.
Looks dangerous to me, son. Shouldn't it be on a leash?

What is it, exactly?
the second imaginary policeman chimed in.

It's a…,
Will began. What could he say? Ah yes…
It's very rare… a very rare hybrid, a cross between a dog and a cat called a… a
Dat
, Will informed them helpfully.

Or is it a Cog, perhaps?
the second policeman suggested
drily
, the glint in his eye telling Will he wasn't buying a word of it.

Whatever it is, it's bloody ugly
, his partner said.

Shhh
! You'll hurt his feelings
. Suddenly, Will realized he was wasting his time with all of this. The reality was that the policemen would simply ask for their names and addresses, then radio in to double-check them. And they'd probably be found out even if they tried to give false ones. So that would be it. They'd be taken back to the station and held there. Will suspected he was probably wanted for abducting Chester, or something equally ridiculous, and would likely as not end up in a juvenile detention center. As for
Cal
, he would be a real conundrum — of course, there wouldn't be a record of him anywhere, no Topsoil identity whatsoever. No, they'd have to avoid the police at all costs.