The Tunnels of Ferdinand

by James Moloney

  ‘Whose blood is this, then?’ asked Dorian.

  ‘A Dfx’s,’ answered Ruben. ‘I saw it all from where I was hiding. A Dfx grabbed hold of her, and quick as a snake she stabbed him with a stick. Blood gushed out all over her, like a little red fountain.’

  ‘It must have been some stick,’ Dorian commented drily.

  ‘Oh, it was,’ the same boy continued, clearly impressed. ‘Half a metre long at least, and she’d sharpened the end down to a fine point.’

  ‘So you were trying to get away, Olanda. Had they declared you a Non-Cop B?’

  ‘No, I just wanted to escape from the dormitory,’ said the girl, growing more confident. ‘I didn’t care what was outside the walls. I didn’t care if they killed me. I just couldn’t live there another day.’

  ‘And you sharpened that stick to help you get free. Is that right?’

  She nodded proudly. ‘I knew I might have to fight them to get away. It was the only weapon I could make.’

  Dorian looked around the circle of faces, each head nodding slightly in turn to some question she did not need to ask in words. ‘You’d make a good Rat, by the sound of things.’

  She turned away from Olanda to look Berrin up and down. The look said she wasn’t terribly impressed with what she saw. ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you want to join us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Do you spend all your time in these tunnels? Doesn’t sound much different from living in the dormitories.’

  This wasn’t the answer they were expecting.

  ‘You can go back if you want,’ said Dorian bluntly.

  Berrin felt the hostility and knew he had said the wrong thing. But he hadn’t come this far to back down to anyone. ‘What do you do with those swords?’ he asked, pointing to the handle he could see protruding a little from behind Dorian’s shoulder. The other children in this chamber, whose names he hadn’t heard yet, all had one, he’d noticed, just like Wendell and Quinn.

  ‘They’re for more than slicing bread,’ sneered the girl named Vindy.

  But Dorian wasn’t their leader for nothing. She knew what Berrin was asking. ‘We do leave the tunnels when we have to. We make a nuisance of ourselves whenever we can. Up there, Malig Tumora has it all his own way. But it doesn’t have to be like that. There was a time when life was different. None of us was born then, so we can only imagine what it was like. But someone has to fight him and the horrible creatures he has roaming the streets up there. There’s no-one but us.’

  Berrin didn’t really know what a lot of this meant, but the way Dorian said it stirred the anger he had felt inside himself for years. He had heard it in the blood-spattered girl’s voice as well. He wasn’t very keen on living in darkness most of the time, but if that was what he had to do to make a difference, he would try it.

  He looked at Quinn again and that impish face reminded him of the Dodgem. What a ride — frightening, yes, but it had been fun as well. Berrin had never felt so alive in his life. He was underground, with no real idea of where he was or what dangers these odd children faced every day, but he didn’t care.

  ‘Yes, I want to join you.’

  ‘What about you, Olanda?’ Dorian asked.

  ‘Count me in,’ she replied strongly.

  ‘Good,’ said Dorian, who seemed relieved. ‘Now we won’t have to kill you.’

  FIVE

  The Legend of Ferdinand

  ‘YOU WEREN’T REALLY GOING to kill us, were you?’ Berrin asked when the others had left. There were only the girl, Olanda, and Berrin himself left in the chamber with Dorian now.

  ‘Kill you! Me!’ she said calmly. ‘No, I’d get Quinn to do that,’ she added without changing the expression on her face.

  Berrin was shocked all over again. Had he really been so close to death? Had his decision only a few minutes before saved his life? He was losing count of how many times he had almost died in the past few hours.

  Dorian saw his stricken face and laughed at him. Olanda was smiling too, to show she had known it was a joke.

  ‘Don’t worry, Berrin,’ said Dorian, as she put a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘We’ve killed Gadges and all sorts of horrible things but no people. But then again, we’ve never had a new recruit who refused to join us either.’

  ‘I think it’s better down here than on the surface,’ said Olanda with enthusiasm. ‘We can do what we like down here. Up there, it’s nothing but rules and the same thing every day.’

  Berrin knew how she felt. It wasn’t just the mindless cruelty of the Dfx that had made him angry. Every day had been the same as the last and the boredom had been driving him crazy.

  Dorian saw that Berrin agreed, but she had a warning for them both. ‘Yes, it’s better down here. But it’s a hard life and you’ll find it strange at first. There are rules here too, I’m afraid. Have to be, or they would soon find out we’re down here. I’ll tell you the most important one right now.’

  She paused and drew a circle in the dust with her toe and then traced a slash through it from one edge to the other. ‘There are some drains that lead straight up to openings on the surface. Any noise near them can easily be heard up there, so we’ve marked the openings with a painted circle like this.’ She nodded at the shape she had drawn on the ground. ‘If you’re near one of these marks, don’t make a sound. Got that?’

  They nodded.

  ‘There’ve been Rats like us living in these pipes for years, but if Gadger Red and his lot ever find out we’re down here we might not survive much longer.’

  ‘That’s why you couldn’t let us go back up to the surface. We already know you’re down here,’ said Berrin.

  Dorian nodded, pleased that he had worked it out for himself. ‘The Gadges would get hold of you, and believe me, they would make you give away our secret.’

  Her tone sent a chill through Berrin’s body, and from the worried look Olanda gave him, he guessed she felt the same. ‘Who are these Gadges?’ he asked. ‘Wendell mentioned them, and Quinn too. And just before I came here I saw a strange shadow, or at least I think I did.’ It was only an hour ago but already it seemed part of a different life, his life before he joined the Rats.

  ‘Wait until you see the real thing — and you’d better hope they don’t see you. Gadges can talk and use weapons, and they can stand up and walk around like human beings. But when they chase someone they run like wolves, and if they catch you their jaws are stronger than a steel trap. They are all more than two metres tall and they have wide, powerful shoulders. They’ve killed three Rats in the time I’ve been here.’

  Berrin still had so many questions, but there was one that couldn’t wait any longer. ‘How did it all start? Who discovered all these pipes underground?’

  ‘Ferdinand,’ said Dorian with a hint of awe in her voice. ‘Have you ever heard that name before?’

  Both Berrin and Olanda shook their heads, so Dorian explained. ‘These are his tunnels, really. He stumbled on them by accident long ago — about the time you two were born, I’d guess. He escaped from his dormitory, like you, Olanda. He didn’t have to stab a Dfx to get away like you did, but the Dfx certainly chased him. Not just Dfx, but Gadges as well, and their monstrous pets. They had him trapped too, or so they thought, but when they closed in he was gone.’

  ‘Into a pipe. He’d gone underground,’ Berrin whispered under his breath as he remembered his own entry into these tunnels.

  ‘Yes, but they guessed where he had gone and followed him.’

  ‘You said they didn’t know any of us were down here,’ Olanda pointed out.

  Dorian put up her hands patiently to halt their questions. ‘The pipe was a 170, so even Dfx could follow him. They didn’t have any lights with them so they just fired their guns. The flashes from their muzzles picked him out ahead. If Ferdinand had kept to those big pipes they would have caught him for sure. But he was small and skinny, about your size, I suppose,’ she said, nodding at Berrin. ‘He scrambled into a sma
ller pipe branching off to the side.

  ‘They saw him go but they couldn’t go after him. The Gadges were also too wide at the shoulder to follow. So the Dfx just stood there pumping bullet after bullet into the darkness. Must have been murder on the ears. The bullets bounced off the concrete walls and one sliced a hole in Ferdinand’s arm. He couldn’t help it — he cried out in pain — but just as they started firing even faster, the pipe turned a bend and he was safe.

  ‘That wasn’t the end of it, though. He knew they wouldn’t give up until he was dead. He pressed his hand onto his arm and tried to wash his wound in the trickle of water that ran down the pipe.

  ‘That gave him an idea. He let the blood trickle into the water and then he cried out desperately, begging them to help him. He was pretending that his life was slipping away quickly. He kept up that shouting for ten minutes, and gradually he made himself sound weaker and weaker. Finally, he stopped altogether and they thought he was dead. He could hear them talking. “He belongs to the rats now,” one of the Dfx said as they were leaving.’

  ‘But he wasn’t dead, was he?’ Olanda prompted Dorian.

  ‘Oh no, far from it. Ferdinand was alive and determined to fight Malig Tumora and his beasts. He started to collect other children who wanted to do the same. He remembered what that Dfx had said and so he called us the Rats.’

  ‘He must have had a plan though, this Ferdinand. I mean, what’s the use of living down here —’

  ‘All right, Berrin, I know what you’re on about,’ Dorian answered sharply. ‘You see, Ferdinand had something that we don’t have. He could remember the Time Before.’

  ‘Before what?’ Olanda asked.

  ‘Before Malig Tumora took charge of the city. Ferdinand knew what that evil man had done and he wanted to see the old ways return. He saw that these tunnels could help him do it, help him fight and hide. He crept out each night, looking for other children who refused to live under the madness that Malig Tumora had forced on us all. Slowly, he built up a band of followers, all children like himself, small enough to squeeze through the smaller pipes where it was safest.’

  Berrin’s mind raced ahead. The Dodgems, the swords, the strict rules the Rats lived by … Ferdinand must have devised them all.

  As though she had read his thoughts, Dorian went on. ‘We owe everything to him. He wants us to act as a force against everything Malig Tumora is trying to do on the surface. That’s why we go up there as often as we can, cutting power, and killing the horrible creatures he uses to control the city.’

  ‘You’re the saboteurs! I’ve heard the Dfx talk about you. They fear you. They think you’re phantoms.’

  ‘Because they have never seen us. That’s why. They don’t know who we are and they don’t know where we come from.’

  ‘This boy Ferdinand,’ Berrin began, as another question leaped into his mind. ‘If you are the leader of the Rats, Dorian, where is he?’

  ‘Can’t you guess what happened, Berrin?’ asked Dorian. ‘You were brought here by Wendell. Didn’t you notice what had happened to him?’

  No, he didn’t know what she was talking about. Olanda looked equally puzzled.

  ‘What happened to him? Did the creatures on the surface capture him?’

  ‘No, not Ferdinand. He was much too smart for that. There was something that he couldn’t avoid, though. It happens to all of us, and it will happen to you two one day. He couldn’t measure down any more.’

  ‘Measure down?’ Berrin remembered that Wendell had used those words. They must have a special meaning for the Rats. There hadn’t been any chance to ask Wendell earlier, not with a patrol of Gadges so close. So he asked Dorian now.

  ‘It means he became too big for the pipe system,’ she told them. ‘He couldn’t fit easily through these tunnels any more. Only the larger-sized pipes, and he knew that if he stayed in those, one day the Gadges would hear him and come after him, and this time he wouldn’t be able to escape into the smaller pipes.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He left. We don’t know for certain, but we think he made it into the countryside, outside the city. He’s there still, leading all the other Rats who have grown too big.’

  ‘That’s where Wendell has gone.’

  ‘Yes. He was the leader before me. One day, I’ll have to go too. With Wendell it was his shoulders. With me, it will be my hips where I get stuck.’

  ‘It’s dangerous up there. Wendell seemed like he wasn’t sure he would make it.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, but he’d kill himself rather than be captured. When it’s my turn, I might have to do the same.’

  SIX

  Silent to the Death

  THEY WERE STILL THINKING about the prospect of being captured when Quinn came in, carrying a loaf of bread. The aroma was enough to torture their noses. ‘I got this for you two. Are you hungry?’ he asked Berrin and Olanda.

  ‘Always,’ Olanda replied eagerly.

  Quinn tore the loaf in two and gave her half. The rest he offered to Berrin, who ripped a huge chunk out of it immediately. He hadn’t eaten anything for hours.

  ‘It’s still warm,’ he said with his mouth stuffed full. Not that anyone cared. Once he had swallowed, he asked, a little more politely, ‘Where do you get enough food to feed all the Rats?’

  ‘We steal it, of course,’ said Dorian proudly. ‘From the surface mostly, or wherever we can get it. The bread comes from a large bakery run by Dfx. Years ago, Ferdinand found a way in through a manhole in the basement. We never steal more than a few loaves at a time. That’s the rule. As long as only one or two loaves go missing, those slow-witted Dfx will just keep blaming each other.’

  After he had scoffed the entire half-loaf, Berrin felt a weariness taking hold of his body. It was night, after all, and by this time he would normally have been asleep for many hours. He tried not to show it, but the occasional yawn gave him away.

  ‘You’re tired,’ said Dorian when she noticed. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where we sleep.’ She looked at Olanda, frowning at the sticky blood that was hardening onto her skin and clothes. ‘Quinn!’ she called into one of the tunnels. ‘Get some water and let Olanda pick out some clean clothes from the store.’

  Quinn’s face appeared soon afterwards. He sniffed to show he thought this task was beneath him, but led Olanda away all the same.

  Once they were gone, Dorian dropped onto her hands and knees and crawled into another of the narrow pipes that led off the large chamber. Berrin followed her into the pitch blackness, and after a few minutes they emerged into an identical chamber, this one with only a dim light bulb shining above them.

  There were odd bundles suspended on ropes between the walls, but in the poor light Berrin couldn’t see what they were.

  ‘You’ve never been in a dormitory like this one, I’ll bet,’ Dorian whispered brightly.

  There were no beds, at least none that Berrin could see. ‘Do we sleep on the ground?’

  ‘No, Rats never sleep on the concrete if we can avoid it, and not just because it’s cold and hard. No, we sleep in these.’

  She pointed to the hanging bundles, and only then did Berrin realise what he was looking at. Bodies, human bodies.

  ‘Those things are called hammocks. A bit tricky to get into the first time but very comfortable.’ She found him an empty one and helped him in. Just as she had promised, it was a surprisingly comfortable way to sleep. She went to her own hammock in the corner, leaving Berrin to drift off.

  He might have gone to sleep immediately if Olanda hadn’t turned up, cleaner now, and not quite as eager for rest as he was. She had trouble learning the delicate art of climbing into a hammock, so Berrin slipped out of his own and helped her.

  ‘Did you ever imagine there could be a place like this?’ she whispered, once she was settled.

  ‘Not even in my dreams,’ he answered as he clambered into his own bed again.

  ‘I’m going to be the best fighter the Rats have ever had,�
� said Olanda, with a determination that Berrin could only admire. ‘I like the look of those swords the Rats carry. I want to get one of my own, as soon as I can. Those Dfx made our lives so miserable up there on the surface. I’m going to make them pay.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, hoping he sounded as fearsome as she did, though he wasn’t entirely sure he meant it. ‘Those Dfx are horrible. But I don’t think they decide much for themselves. It’s this Malig Tumora who tells them what to do.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Olanda, who sounded rather disappointed that she wouldn’t be spending the rest of her life carving up Dfx with her new sword.

  Berrin lay back with his hands behind his head for a few moments while he pondered another difficult question. He whispered to Olanda again to see if she knew more than he did. ‘Olanda, what happened to children in your dormitory when they grew older?’

  ‘They disappeared. Every week, some names would be called. They had to go off with the Dfx …’

  ‘… and they never came back, did they?’ Berrin finished, guessing what she had been going to say. ‘It was the same in my dormitory.’

  ‘Do you think they fed them to monsters, like the Crocodilian that nearly ate you?’

  Berrin had asked himself the same question many times in the middle of the night, just as he was doing now. ‘No, that wouldn’t make sense. There must be some place they are taken to. Something they do.’

  IN THE MORNING, THE two new recruits started their training. Dorian called for them, carrying two helmets with lights attached to the centre, just like the other Rats wore. ‘Here, these are yours now. Don’t lose them. You’ll never find your way around without them.’ She led them out into the tunnels, where Quinn was waiting with a Dodgem.

  ‘We’ll teach you how to drive one of these first.’

  ‘I’ll show them,’ Quinn volunteered eagerly.