Cuttlefish by Dave Freer

bricks and then knocked on one. It looked just like any other brick. Then they waited.
    A little later a platform slowly came down from the roof. It was nothing more than three planks with a brick facade underneath, and ropes at the corners.
    â€œI'll go up first,” said their guide, “to explain. Duke Malcolm's sappers have been a little problematic lately.” She took her lamp with her, and left them standing in utter darkness, with nothing but dripping and the sound of their breathing.
    â€œMother. What's happening? Where is she taking us?” Clara had asked, trying in this pause to make sense of a world that kept turning upside down around her. A world that showed that there were more secrets all around her than she'd ever imagined.
    â€œHopefully to catch a submarine to America,” said her mother. “My mother set up an escape route, oh, twenty years ago. Mind you in those days, the submarines had an easy passage. Half of London's tea came in by submarine, tax free. It's got harder.”
    America. Clara swallowed. That was a long way from Cork. “Will…will we be safe there?”
    â€œI hope so. Hush. The platform is coming down again.”
    It did, with their little gray-haired guide and her lamp. She was smiling. “Arranged. Up you go, dears.” She hugged them both and helped them onto the platform.
    â€œMy things. Our bags. My mother's notes…,” said Mother.
    â€œThey'll send someone for them. If they're not watched and can be brought safely, they will be. We have friends in very odd places. Don't you worry now,” said the gray-haired woman.
    Up they'd gone. The ragged, dark-haired, and white-skinned man waiting there looked as if he'd never seen the sun. He looked them over, coolly. “Come along then.” There were a number of pipes, passages, and tunnel-mouths up there, and he led them into one of them—much narrower than anything they'd been along before, and this time made of iron, too low to walk upright along—leading down.
    Stooped, they walked on. And eventually came to what was obviously another checkpoint, and an airlock. And that led out into a large underground space, the shadowy roof latticed with iron rafters. It was sparsely lit by gas flares, but busy with people and even a few donkeys, hauling carts. Somehow, that could only be a market there, by the voices touting wares. Coal, eels, and tea were being offered by the barkers. Set into the walls there were doors and even windows. It smelled of smoke and people, and was noisy with them, unlike the damp reek of the emptinesses they'd been led through.
    â€œWelcome to Charing Cross,” said their guide, dryly. “Passengers for Southwark or Temple Station should alight here.”
    â€œBut we do not have a ticket,” said her mother. “Where may we procure one?”
    It was obviously the right thing to say, even if it sounded quite mad. “Old Madge vouched for you, but you never know,” their guide said, putting back into his sleeve a narrow-bladed knife Clara had not even seen him draw. “Mick'll see you right, ma'am.” He pointed to another broad man, standing in the shadows. “He's the Irish conductor.”
    Clara was not sure if the conductor was Irish or if they were supposed to be. Both, it turned out, were the case. Mick detached himself from the wall. “Word was you were using a very old code, ma'am,” he said in a high, slightly lilting voice, at odds with his big square body. “I'd need to be knowing just who you are and what you'd be wanting. And there's a price.”
    â€œA price on ideals,” said her mother, dryly. “My name is Dr. Mary Calland. This is my daughter Clara. My mother was Dr. Clara Immerwahr. She told me to say that she'd bought a season ticket for us.”
    Square solid Mick blinked. “Well now. Jack Calland's wife and the old dragon's daughter. It's believed she got money out of the