Humor!
“That normally gets more of a reaction. You’re not a squeamish one, are you?”
Jim shook his head. “Not since Bristol. It got pretty bad, when the Invaders finally realized we weren’t going to be pushed out.”
“You’ll fit right in here, then,” Alex said as she banged on the door. “They don’t shift easily, either. — OI! PSBs on the other side!”
After a minute, a slot on the door opened, to reveal a goggled face. “There’s a doorbell, you know,” the presumed doorkeeper said. “We’ve had the electric in since ‘76.”
“Oh, really? When did you rewire it so it wouldn’t run twenty thousand volts through you?”
The morlock snorted. “’79, of course.” She looked the two of them over. “You lot official?”
“Not yet.” Alex tipped her a wink. “And we’d like to keep it that way. Savvy?”
Jim couldn’t actually tell because of the goggles, but it felt like the morlock was giving them a jaundiced stare. “Right. I’ll let the mayor sort you lot out. Step back.”
As they stepped back, Jim leaned over to Alex. “‘PSBs’?” he murmured.
“It stands for ‘posh surface bastards,’ Sir James. The morlocks don’t care for anyone who can’t have a good laugh at themselves. Besides: it shows I’ve been down here before.”