Sam had been worried that Purna might take the hard line, dismissing Jin as a casualty of war and proclaiming that, though the situation was regrettable, it was not worth risking all their lives simply to rescue a girl who was not even prepared to handle a weapon.
However, he had underestimated her. Unless she had some ulterior motive (the stash of weapons in the armoury maybe?), she wasn’t entirely the hard-nosed pragmatist he had taken her for. True, she had told them earlier that she had joined the police force because she wanted to help people who couldn’t help themselves, but Sam had assumed her noble aspirations had waned in the wake of her dismissal from the force and the general disillusionment with life that she had suffered since. It was good, therefore, to see her so outraged, so impassioned, so concerned for Jin’s fate.
‘We’ve got to get her out of there,’ she had said. ‘If those fucking animals harm her I’ll never forgive myself.’
When Xian Mei said she thought she might know a way to get into the police station, Purna leaned forward eagerly. ‘How?’
‘In the hotel where I worked,’ Xian Mei said, ‘there was an old sewer outlet in the basement laundry. Someone told me that the tunnels ran right under the main street, and that at one time you could gain access to every building from below if you wanted to.’
‘At one time?’ repeated Purna. ‘You mean you can’t any more?’
Xian Mei shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not an expert. But this is the
‘It’s worth a try, though,’ Purna said. ‘The vulnerable parts of buildings are always either above or below. And unless you can climb walls like Spiderman or you’ve got access to a helicopter …’
She let her words hang in the air. Sam nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘We might be able to gain access from the supermarket,’ Xian Mei said. ‘We should look for the lowest point.’
It took them less than five minutes to find what they were looking for. The warehouse floor was concrete but inside the supermarket itself they found a fire exit tucked away behind the frozen foods section. Beyond this was a short corridor leading to a door that led outside and a set of stone steps to a basement area, which had not been used in a long time, except as a dumping ground for some old and rusting shelf fixtures. A couple of minutes’ searching resulted in the discovery of a circular iron manhole cover in the corner of the stone floor, crusted with moss and gunge.
Sam tried to lift it, but it was fixed solid. ‘We need something to lever it up,’ he said.
Xian Mei walked over to the shelf fixtures and dragged out a metre-long V-shaped metal bracket. ‘What about this?’
‘Perfect,’ said Sam. ‘There any more of those in there?’
Xian Mei found another two and they set to work, first scraping away as much of the slime and moss as they could from around the rim of the manhole cover, then ramming the metal edges of the brackets into the thin gap between cover and floor and applying their collective weight to the other ends.
After ten seconds, there was a creaking groan and the manhole cover started to rise. As the gap widened, they rammed their brackets in further to gain more purchase, and suddenly the cover tilted up and over like a hinged lid, clanging to the ground with such force that Xian Mei had to jump out of the way to prevent her foot getting crushed.
They all recoiled from the fetid smell that rolled up from the hole in the floor.
‘Jeez!’ Sam exclaimed, clamping a hand over his nose and mouth. ‘You think any of those things are down there?’
‘Don’t see how they’d get down there, or why they’d want to,’ said Purna. ‘They only tend to go where the fresh meat is.’
They peered into the hole, but it was pitch-black. ‘Anyone got a flashlight?’ asked Sam.
Purna pulled a face and shook her head. ‘They’ll probably have them in the store upstairs. Damn, I should have thought of that.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ Sam said. ‘You can’t think of everything. I’ll go get one. Be right back.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Purna.
Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
‘Because that’s what they always say in horror movies just before …’ She made a sharp
Sam grinned and disappeared. Two minutes later he was back, preceded by the circular shining disc of a heavy-duty flashlight.
‘Quiet as the grave up there,’ he said, and again flashed his teeth in a grin. ‘Guess I shouldn’t say that either, huh?’
He shone the flashlight into the hole, to reveal a circular stone tube like the inside of a well, the walls covered in green-black slime. Despite the light it was too dark for them to see all the way to the bottom. Iron rungs were set into the wall, and Sam dropped to his knees, reached down and gripped the first one to test how strong it was.
‘Seems OK,’ he said.
He went first, stopping every now and then to shine the beam of the flashlight down into the darkness. It was awkward descending with their weapons, especially as the rungs were slippery with slime, but they managed somehow. The deeper they went, the colder it became, the air heavy with the stench of rotting vegetation. Eventually Purna said, ‘I hear water.’
Her voice echoed hollowly off the walls. When the echoes had died away, they all heard the sound of rushing water below. They continued their descent, the sound getting louder, until at last Sam called, ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘What can you see?’ Purna asked.
‘Moving water. Not much else. Wait, there’s a kind of ridge at the side, like a raised path. Looks kind of narrow.’
‘But passable?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
A minute later they were standing at the bottom of the ladder, catching their breath. They were standing in a square stone tunnel on a slippery, wet, narrow sidewalk, beside which oil-black water flowed like a river, glittering and rippling under the flashlight beam.
The tunnel stretched straight and unbroken in both directions. Pointing against the flow, Sam said, ‘I guess we go this way?’
Purna nodded and they started to walk, their feet splatting in puddles of water.
‘It don’t smell like sewage,’ said Sam.
‘I don’t think it is,’ said Purna, ‘but I wouldn’t wash your face in it.’
‘I’m not sure it’s supposed to be flooded like this,’ said Xian Mei. ‘It could be because of rising sea levels. There are lots of internal waterways and swamplands on Banoi and they all link to the ocean. These tunnels may have just taken some of that extra water on board.’
‘You mean this is sea water?’ said Sam.
Xian Mei shrugged. ‘Well, that’s my theory.’
‘Damn,’ Sam said. ‘Shoulda brought my fishing rod.’
Walking along in single file, they lapsed into silence, the flashlight beam slithering and jerking ahead of them. Passing another of the vertical shafts which linked the disused sewer tunnels to the surface, Xian Mei said, ‘There are five buildings between the supermarket and the police station, so the sixth shaft we come to should be the one we want.’
They walked on, passing another shaft and then another. Suddenly Sam stopped.
‘What’s wrong?’ Purna asked.
