Roderick Gordon: Deeper

The boys exchanged nervous glances, and then Cal pulled himself higher up on the end of the car.

"Can't see a thing," he said.

"I'll try over here," Will suggested, and, passing hand over hand, he moved himself to the corner of the car to try to get a better vantage point. Here he squinted down the side of the train, but he couldn't make out anything more through the smoke and darkness. He returned to where the two other boys were perched. "Do you think they're doing a search?" he asked Cal, who merely shrugged and looked anxiously behind them.

Without the slipstream to cool them, the heat was almost unbearable. "Man, it's sweltering," Chester whispered, blowing through his lips.

"That's the least of our problems," Will murmured back.

Then the engine juddered to life again, lurching forward in a series of fits and starts until it was once more under way. The boys remained where they were, hanging doggedly on to the side of the high car, and were soon resubmerged in the thrashing tumult of noise and the soot-heavy smoke.

Deciding they'd had enough, they jumped down and returned to their blind, although they continued to keep watch from over the tops of the crates. It was Will who spotted the reason why the train had stopped.

"There!" he shouted, pointing as the train chugged along. Two huge iron doors were opened back against the tunnel walls. They all stood up to see.

"Storm gates!" Cal yelled at him. "They'll be shut again after us. You'll see."

Before he'd finished speaking, the brakes squealed and the train began to decelerate. It came to another juddering halt. There was a pause, then they heard the cranking noise again, this time from behind them. It culminated in a percussive thud that made their teeth rattle together and the whole tunnel quake as if there had been a small explosion.

"Told you, didn't I?" Cal declared smugly in the lull. "They're storm gates."

"But what are they for?" Chester asked him.

"To stop the full force of the Levant Wind from reaching the Colony."

Chester looked at him blankly.

"You know, the windstorms blowing up from the Interior," Cal answered, adding, "kind of obvious, isn't it?" He rolled his eyes as if he thought Chester's question was absurd.

"He probably hasn't seen one yet," Will intervened quickly. "Chester, it's like a thick dust that blows up from where we're going, from the Deeps."

"Oh, right," his friend replied, and turned away.

Will couldn't help but notice the look of irritation that flickered across his face.

As the train began to move at speed again, the boys resumed their positions among the crates. Over the next twelve hours, they went through many more sets of these storm gates. Each time, they kept on the lookout in case one of the Colonists got it into his mind to come back and check on Chester. But no one came, and after each interruption the boys settled back into their routines of eating and sleeping. Aware that sometime soon they would reach the end of the line, Will began to get ready. On top of all the loose light orbs he'd already squirreled away in the two rucksacks, he packed in as much fruit as he could. He had no idea where or when they'd find food once they were in the Deeps, and was determined they'd take all they could with them.

He'd been in a deep sleep when he was rudely awoken by the sound of a clanging bell. In a state of groggy confusion, his first thought was that it was his alarm clock waking him to get ready for school. He automatically groped over to where his bedside table should have been, but instead of the alarm clock, his fingertips encountered the grit-covered floor of the freight bed. The mechanical urgency of the bell hammered him fully awake, and he jumped to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The first thing he saw was Cal frantically putting on his socks and boots as Chester watched him bemusedly. The harsh ringing kept going, echoing off the walls and down the tunnel behind them.

"C'mon, you two!" Cal bawled at the top of his lungs.

"Why?" Chester mouthed to Will, who could see the haunted look on his friend's face.

"This is it! Get ready!" Cal said, securing the flap on his backpack.

Chester looked at him questioningly.

"We've got to bail out!" the younger boy yelled at him, gesturing at the front of the train. " Before the station."

On a train very different from the one carrying her two sons, Sarah was on her way to London. She didn't allow herself to sleep, but for much of the time feigned it, half closing her eyes in order to avoid any contact with the other passengers. The car became increasingly crowded as the train made frequent stops on the final stretch. She felt distinctly uneasy. A man with a mangy beard had boarded at the last of these stops, a wretch in a tartan overcoat, clutching a motley collection of plastic bags.

She had to be careful. They sometimes passed themselves off as tramps and down-and-outs. All the hollow-cheeked countenance of the average Styx required was several months' growth of facial hair and a generous pasting of filth and it became indistinguishable from those poor unfortunates that can be found in the corners of any city.

It was a clever ruse, allowing them to man surveillance posts around the busier train stations for days on end, monitoring the passengers passing through. Sarah had lost count of how many times she'd seen vagrants loitering in doorways, and how, from under matted hair, their glassy eyes would probe her with all-seeing black pupils.

But was this tramp one of them? She watched his reflection in the windows as he produced a can of beer from a grubby shopping bag. He popped it open and began to drink, slopping a good measure of it down his beard. She caught him looking directly at her, and she didn't like his eyes — they were jet-black, and he squinted as if he wasn't quite used to day-light. All ominous signs. But she didn't move to another seat on the train. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself.

So she gritted her teeth and sat still until the train finally drew into St. Pancras station. She was among the first passengers to disembark and, once through the turnstile, she strolled unhurriedly over to where the kiosks were located. She kept her head bowed to avoid the security cameras dotted around the place, holding a handkerchief to her face when she thought she might be in range of any of them. She stopped and hovered by a shop window, observing the tramp as he crossed the main concourse.

If he was a Styx, or even one of their agents, far better she remain in a crowd. She weighed her options for escape. She was debating whether she should jump on an outgoing train when, just a few feet away from her, he stopped to fumble with his bags. Then, swearing incoherently at a man who happened to brush against him, he started toward the main doors of the station in a stumbling gait, his arms outstretched as if he were pushing an invisible shopping cart with a bum wheel. He left through the main entrance of the station.

By now Sarah was almost certain he was a genuine tramp, and she was eager to be on her way. She picked a direction at random, headed off through the crowd, and then slipped out of the station by a side exit.

Outside, the weather was fine and the London streets were full. Just the way she liked it. It was better to have a healthy throng of people milling around her — safety in numbers. The Styx were less likely to pull anything in front of multiple witnesses.

She set off at a fair pace, heading north toward Highfield. The rumble of the busy traffic seemed to coalesce into a single continuous beat, which was conducted through the pavement to the soles of her feet, until she could almost feel it resonating in the pit of her stomach. Strangely enough, it put her at ease. It was a comforting and constant vibration, as if the city itself were alive.