Chapter Two: Unexpected Arrivals

Roddy winced as it happened again.

Rita had found a placid pool in which to tie up. It was underneath a broad metal grate which had afforded them both light and a view of what few stars could be seen from London. Unfortunately it had also turned out to be the centre of a busy road intersection and heavy vehicles would periodically drive overhead, displacing a fine shower of dirt particles and making a noise like thunder. Rita seemed unconcerned.

"When I said, 'find us some place nice to stay', I didn't mean that as a challenge, you know," said Roddy. "There's more dirt in the food now than seasoning."

"There was seasoning?" said Rita, with her mouth full.

Roddy sighed. "Good cooking really is wasted on you isn't it?"

"There was no seasoning, was there?" Rita grinned.

"Actually, no. Which means there is definitely more dirt in it." Roddy brushed some out of his hair. "Next time, I'll pick the bivouac, all right?"

"You don't like it here?" Rita sat back, not even trying to disguise the enjoyment she was getting out of Roddy's discomfort.

He flinched again. "Of course I do, Rita, it's tip-top. I'm just not sure about the wallpaper."

Her grin widened. He sighed again.

"Well, at least you've stopped throwing things at me."

"Only because I'm using them right now," said Rita. "Anyway, there's a few other things I could throw at you that are lying around pointlessly."

"Are you offering to throw yourself at me?" said Roddy, raising his eyebrows cheerfully. "Lying around pointlessly as you-"

He ducked as a particularly large truck roared overhead.

"As you...are..." he finished lamely. "Can we possibly find somewhere else to sleep? I don't think anyone could relax with that racket happening."

"What racket?" said Rita, sweetly. "Alright, alright. Gosh, where's your sense of humour now?"

She started up the boat, "Besides, I'm used to this kind of thing. If you want to be a great first mate, you're going to have to be able to sleep under any conditions, and sleep lightly at that." she winked back at him and allowed the boat to slowly tread through the water to their next destination. As they drew further in a darkened tunnel, the sounds of the traffic faded behind. "Roddy..."
"Hmm?" he asked as he looked towards where the sound came from. It was nearly pitch black in the tunnel, but the lamp that hung over the back of the boat cast a faint light around them.
Rita motioned towards his assigned couch in the back of the boat, "You can get to sleep. It may take me a while to find a place to stay, and I'm sure you need your rest."
Roddy looked at the couch and felt his eyes drooping from sleepiness. He nodded and sighed, "A long day of playing music, being tossed around by a raging river of death, and putting everything away afterwards has really taken it out of me. He turned his eyes towards her, "Are you sure you don't want me to wait until we pull over?"
Rita nodded and waved him on, "Yeah, I'm sure. I'll sleep in a bit." she crossed her fingers in front of her so he wouldn't see.
Roddy seemed to hesitate for a second, but then he shrugged and went over to the couch. He laid down upon it, and Rita hummed the song he was singing just before. She groaned and smacked herself in the head, which caused Roddy to lift his head, smile, and say, "I got it stuck."
Rita shook her head, trying hard not to smile, "Great, and I thought the slugs were bad enough."
Roddy yawned and turned towards the wall of the boat, "Well, I'm used to it, if you want me to be your first mate, then you'll have to be able to withstand my singing."
"Heaven forbid." Rita murmured, loud enough so he could hear, before she continued to steer the boat. She sighed, it was going to be a long night, but she knew they had to get Up Top soon. She wasn't worried about getting there, she was worried about getting back...

When Roddy awoke, there was already sunlight streaming through the grates overhead. He sat up with a start and rubbed his eyes. He'd been asleep all night! What was Rita thinking? He looked at the cockpit and shook his head. Rita was still standing at the wheel.
"Rita?"
"Morning, Roddy," said Rita, but there had been a small but significant pause before her head came up to answer and the words came too quickly. She must have been on the verge of drifting off herself. Roddy swung his legs out of bed and went to the cockpit.
"Are you all right? Please tell me you weren't standing here all night long."
"I wasn't standing here all night long," said Rita.
"Liar," said Roddy.
"You're hard to please this morning, aren't you?" Rita gave him a grin. "Look, don't worry about me. I've gone longer without sleep than this."
"Well, yes...but..." Roddy sighed. "If you're planning on doing it, at least let me know. I'm not as useless as you think I am, you know, I can get by without rest if I have to. You need your beauty sleep, Rita. As much of it as you can get."
"Such insubordination!" Rita raised an eyebrow. "That sort of thing can get a First Mate in a lot of trouble. You're lucky I don't have a yardarm for you to swing from."
Roddy shrugged. "I'm lucky in all sorts of ways. Seriously, though. We're a crew, which means we work together, right? Wake me up next time. That's all I'm saying."
Rita looked him over and sighed inwardly. He was right, which made it harder. But she'd let him sleep so he couldn't see her unease and she wasn't about to admit to that.
"Fine. Next time I decide to pull an all-nighter I'll definitely let you know so you can see for yourself what a non-event it is."
"I look forward to it," said Roddy, happily. "I'll get started on breakfast, shall I? Would you prefer cinnamon bread or French toast?"
Rita looked at him in surprise. "Well...the cinnamon sounds good. Do we actually have either of those things?"
"No," said Roddy, grinning. "I just wondered which you'd prefer. Didn't say we had any."
"Oh, very funny, Roddy." Rita shook her head and returned her gaze to the water ahead of them.
"I'm glad you think so, Captain," said Roddy. He flipped her a salute and left the cockpit, whistling a tune.

Rita rolled her eyes and turned back to look through the tunnel. The water that sloshed around the bottom of the boat seemed to get louder and more irritating. She tried to slow the boat down, a slight pain was forming behind her forehead, but the sound continued, getting louder as the boat travelled further down the tunnel.
It was then that she saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
"Subtle..." she murmured as she felt the Dodger jerk about through the rougher waters, "Roddy, you might want to hang onto something, I think we're about to have quite a ride."
"What was that?" Roddy asked as he stuck his head out of the hatch for the engine room, "I can't hear you over this tumultuous water."
"Ha ha ha." Rita did her best to unmask her sarcastic tone and grasped tightly to the steering wheel of the ship, "Just brace yourself, I don't want to be fishing you out of the water, from what I remember from a slug rumor, you're not the best swimmer."
A hint of red came to her companions cheeks, and she nervously cleared her throat, "Well, anyway, like I said, you better hang on. I'm sure that wherever this tunnel leads, it's not going to be easy."
Roddy nodded, and went down below. Rita watched him going and sighed. She knew that the tunnel most likely was a pipe that led to a river or lake. What she didn't know was how high it was...she prayed that the Jammy Dodger II will survive the fall and land belly-down.

Rita was not one to simply sit back and let fate deal its cards. When it came to matters of personal survival, she had no compunction about spiking the deck a little, or, if it came to it, kicking over the table and beating an escape through the window. As irritating as the water in the bilges was, it might yet save them. She span a small brass handle, opening the seacocks and allowing water to flow into the Jammy Dodger II's bilges. It sank noticeably in the water before she span the wheel shut again.
"I'm not sure if this is one of those things I should be alarmed about," called Roddy from below, "But there's rather more water below the deck than there used to be."
"I know, don't worry about it," replied Rita. "It's ballast. It'll hold us steady and keep the keel pointing down. Water in a boat isn't always a bad thing."
"Well, that seems a touch counter-intuitive, but I have all the faith in the world that you're not as stupid as you look."
Roddy grinned to himself and set about securing everything in the engine room. It would be a shame to have to tidy it all up again if Rita was right about what lay ahead. He sealed down the last of the lids and wandered back on deck.
"Didn't I tell you to hang on?" shouted Rita, above the rising sound of water.
"Yes, but there's more to hang on to up here!" Roddy moved to join her and then took stock of the tunnel. The arch of brickwork terminated just ahead of them.
"I say, is that-"
He didn't have time to finish. The boat went off the edge, displaying all the aeronautical ability of a sandbag. Rita's controlled flooding succeeded, and the keel remained steadfastly vertical as the boat plunged into the pool below, engines screaming as the propeller left the resistance of the water. Roddy had time to realise that his feet had floated free of the deck before they slammed down again and he landed spreadeagled across the hatch coaming.
"How you doing back there?" called Rita, dusting herself down.
"There are hypothetical circumstances in which I could be worse," muttered Roddy, pushing himself to his feet. "Where are we?"
Rita looked around, her eyes widening in surprise. Daylight shone down from multiple vents set into the sides of a vast cylindrical brick chamber- one of Bazalgette's overflow weirs. But what had attracted her attention were the buildings that crowded the water's edge, so close that the roof of one was the front veranda of the one behind it. Rats moved to and fro between them, the ripple of conversation echoing in the chamber even above the sounds of the waterfall.

Roddy looked around in amazement. When he thought he had seen everything in the sewers, something like this would just pop up and smack him right in the face. Just as he thought this, he took a step forward and a loose floorboard flew up and whapped him on the snout.
"Good grief!" he shouted out as he rubbed the sore appendage, "I have to be careful on what I think of from now on."
He didn't hear Rita snickering, as he thought she would. Her eyes were looking around in amazement and slight worry, and as he wondered about the reason, she spoke up, "I don't see how we could get out of here...The only way that I can see is up that pipe." she pointed behind her to the tube that they had just came out of, "But I guess we can worry about that later. We can at least see what kind of place this is."

Mr Malone looked at it critically.

"It isn't that I don't understand the principle, Jasper, it's that I don't understand the way it works."

"It's not that complicated," said Jasper, pointing to the diagram on the desk with a piece of stick. "Look, transmission is just a matter of lines of sight. We put one on the clock tower and it'll basically cover the whole city. Simple as that. J, B&B Consultants are on the job. We're sharp and kicking bottom. Your worship." He grinned.

The newly-elected mayor of Ratropolis looked at his friend and rolled his eyes. He was still getting used to the title. The chains of office were draped over the back of the chair as they stood in the mayoral office discussing the plans for Mayor Malone's first major project- equipping the city for the 21st century with its own phone network. Salvage teams had been scouring the pipes for weeks to find enough lost mobiles.

"One transmitter for the whole city?" he said sceptically.

"Technically it's a relay, not a transmitter." Jasper waggled a hand. "It's an important difference but not one you need to worry about."

"Why not?"

"Because you have me here, remember? I didn't come all the way from Monaco to confuse you with the intricacies of modern telecommunications."

Mr Malone laughed. "I'm still not happy about one whatever-it-is. What happens if it breaks down?"

"We switch over to the Emergency Back-Up Device," said Jasper simply. "Or Devices, I should say."

"What are they?"

"Bruce and me on opposite sides of the city," volunteered Bruce One, who was attempting to balance his chair on the back two legs. "With megaphones."

Bruce Two gave a thumbs-up sign. Mr Malone sighed and gave Jasper an appealing look.

"What was that you were saying about the intricacies of modern telecommunications?"

"They're big megaphones," said Bruce One, defensively. He demonstrated with his hands, overbalanced and fell over. Mr Malone watched him for a while until Bruce Two helped him up again.

"You ask for me, you see what you get." Jasper shrugged.

"I really do," said Mr Malone, pointedly. "So far the only thing that's gone right has been building those red boxes to put the phones into."

He pointed at the thing standing in the corner. A mobile phone had been built into a red and white box, the keypad forming one of the walls.

"Why red?" Bruce scratched his head.

"We tried building a blue phone box, but it started making funny noises and then disappeared," said Mr Malone. "Red is safer."

"I thought red ones went faster," said Jasper, grinning.

"Not these ones. Nobody is going to pinch these, I can promise you that. Security, that's the ticket. And getting them to work."

"Look, I've explained this to you already," said Jasper. "But I can do it again."

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not, I'm being paid by the hour aren't I? Most of the phones you've salvaged can use the thing the humans call…greentooth?"

"Bluetooth, mate," said Bruce One.

"Which is what I said," said Jasper briskly. "Anyway, that doesn't need line of sight but it also means that it's an open network. Everyone will be able to hear what everyone else is saying and you won't be able to have private conversations."

"Sounds like home," said Mr Malone, attempting to keep up.

"Right, which is why I don't think we should use that. Line of sight transmission only, which is why we need to put a relay on the clock tower. Are you all right, Mr Mayor?"

"I'm fine." Mr Malone sighed. "Just a simple scrap merchant trying to make my way, that's all."

"You could always take a break," said Jasper. "You let Roddy and Rita go, didn't you? I can take care of this."

"Yes, but they needed it. It was a hard campaign. It'll do them a world of good to get away from it all."

"Right," said Jasper noncommittally. He and the Bruces had witnessed enough of Roddy and Rita's last holiday to be under a slightly different set of illusions.

"They'll be fine, mate," said Number One Bruce. "When are they not?"

Bruce Two whispered something into his ear.

"Apart from those times."

Rita piloted the Jammy Dodger II along the waterfront. Roddy stared around them in amazement.

"I never even knew this place existed," he said.

"Neither did I," said Rita. "I don't think anyone back home does." She looked at her companion and smiled kindly. "Are you sure that plank didn't hit you too hard? You should probably put something on that face."

"What's wrong with my face?" said Roddy defensively, and almost immediately wished he hadn't. Rita grinned as she accepted the straight line that was handed to her.

"What's wrong with your face? It's inside out and upside down, that's what's wrong with it."

Roddy waved off the playful insult. "I haven't heard any complaints from you about it," he said.

"Weren't you just listening?" said Rita.

"Now why would I have been listening to you?" grinned Roddy.

"Who nose?" Rita grinned back and tweaked Roddy's sore nose, causing him to wince.

"All right, I'll soak a rag in some water," he said. "So how do we get back?"

"Get back?" Rita looked at him in surprise. "We only just got here! You think we should just run for home before finding out about this place?"

"Yes," said Roddy. "There's a thing called-"

"It can't be that bad, Roddy, not if people live here. It must be safe."

Roddy sighed. "I was about to say that there's a thing called tempting fate, which you do often enough to make me jealous and don't seem to learn from. But never mind. I think you just crossed that particular Rubicon."

"You're a little obsessed with the idea that I keep jinxing us, aren't you?" Rita smiled. "It's becoming almost old hat."

"Old hat?" Roddy smiled back and wagged a finger semi-seriously. "Rita, in the scientific community, when they notice that something is happening again and again and again, repeatedly, they don't call it 'old hat'. That's referred to as a pattern."

He looked around. The town covered one side of the immense chamber. The pipe they had arrived by occupied the opposite side. One of the other sides was a black wall, sheer and patchy with dark slime. The other wall was…well, missing. A concrete wall rose out of the water for a few feet and stopped abruptly, forming a low fence against the great subterranean void which loomed beyond it.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"It must be a weir," said Rita. "The local sewers overflow into it. It's sort of a holding pen for excess water. When it gets high enough it'll overflow that concrete barrier, which must go back into the main sewers."

"So that's our way home?"

"Again with the going home! Where's your sense of adventure, Roddy?"

"I left it in the engine room and forgot which cupboard I put it in," said Roddy.

"You leave anything else down there?" Rita raised a cheery eyebrow at him.

"No, no. But I stumbled across a small, withered prune-like object that I guessed was your sense of humour. Since you're getting along so well without it, I dumped it overboard." He smiled innocently.

"Don't make me order you to go and get it, then," said Rita, glaring with mock anger. "I wouldn't want to have to fish you out again."

Roddy scratched his head. "I don't remember the last time you gave me an order. I mean, a proper, formal, Captainy order. Not just an if-you-know-what's-good-for-you directive."

"Are you impugning my command, Roddy?" said Rita.

"I never knew your command had ever been 'pugned, ma'am," said Roddy, keeping his face carefully blank.

"I'll give you 'pugned in a minute," she muttered.

"Really? I'll look forward to it." Roddy looked around. "Not that I don't enjoy the cut and thrust of what passes for conversation with you, but I really think we have bigger concerns."

"Like what?"

Roddy stared. "Are you in your own little world over there? We don't know where we are or how we're going to get home!"

"In challenge lies opportunity, Roddy," said Rita, wagging a finger.

"No, in challenge lies challenge," said Roddy, staring at her. "And then challenge. In fact you'll find it's just challenge all the way down. 'In challenge lies opportunity'? Next time you'll say that things which don't kill you make you stronger."

"You mean they don't?" Rita grinned.

"Now you're just being contrarian," said Roddy, sighing.

"No, I'm not." Rita winked and turned the wheel, bringing them towards a jetty. "Prepare to tie up. We'll go ashore and see what we can see."

Roddy picked up a coil of rope and tied a loop in one end. He watched the jetty approach and draw level as Rita put the engines into reverse and let them drift closer on the thrusters. Roddy swung the loop once or twice and tossed it out, letting it fall neatly around the mooring post. He grinned with satisfaction and blew on his fingers. Rita secured the bow rejoined Roddy as he carefully balanced a plank to bridge the gap.

"After you," he said.

Rita nodded and looked around the deck, pausing to pick up the grapnel and line.

"You never know," she said. "With particular-"

"With particular emphasis on 'you'," said Roddy wearily. "Meaning of course, me. Now that's something which deserves the label, 'old hat'."

"Old hat?" Rita suppressed a laugh and wagged her finger at Roddy. "Roddy, in the scientific community, when they notice that something is happening again and again and again, repeatedly, they don't call it 'old hat'. That's referred to as a pattern."

"Touché," said Roddy. "So you think we'll need it?"

Rita sighed. "I don't know, Roddy. I really don't."

Roddy nodded glumly. She straightened up and adjusted the rope around her shoulders.

"All ashore who's going ashore," she said. Roddy followed her across the plank and paused to look back at the Jammy Dodger II. Resplendent in red and white, it was the only familiar, comforting presence in the great, strange weir.

"Come along! Keep up!"

Roddy smiled to himself. Maybe the boat wasn't the only one after all.