Rolling over and sitting up, she looks back hoping to see him but he is nowhere in sight. Wistfully she hopes that he is on the other side of the cave but deep down she knows that is unlikely. Looking around she sees the blue sky and red sun overhead. Stunned by the vast differences in this world and her home she spins about agape the trees are dark green, their trunks rough, the color of dried blood they stretch up to the sky praying to a ceiling of the most brilliant blue and green. Her eyes burn from the brightness of it all and for the first time she feels small. Off in the distance she hears a sound like the cry of a child, yet bone chilling. It echoes off the rocks around her and eats at her heart.

She would never have thought that she would be an exile, but here she is on the surface and her hope of going home are cut off. Realization struck, she would need to learn to survive in this new world and that was not going to be easy. The horror stories of her youth fill her with dread. This was the dead world, where cannibalism was rampant; you freeze to death during the long night or died of thirst during the long day. If she believed all the stories this was the land no hope, of survival.

Standing up she brushes the foreign soil from her leather pants, her long chocolate brown braid hung over her shoulder to her waist, he blue eyes burned, being unaccustomed to the light of her surroundings. She realizes that this part of the planet must be in a day rotation. She had learned in school how before the big disaster that a single day was 24 hours, but this was no longer the case. Now the earth rotated at a much slower rate, days were now days long and not hours. In Cave City people still used the old time system but up here was another story.

As Rachel walked deeper into to forest she noticed she felt lighter, images of mathematical equations about the latitude and density effect of gravity came to mind but that is all theoretical. Setting the idea aside Rachel begins the task of finding shelter as the cry echoed once again around her and she wonders what kind of creature could make such a sound.

Picking up the pack she looked around the evergreen forest, Rachel had a good feeling about living on the surface. Considering the stories she had been told as a child the feeling should have been odd, but even the yearning cry that echoed around her, once again, seemed a comfort. Either way her life had been all about beating the odds, from surviving the death of her parents, to making it out of Cave City. Beating the odds had become her past time.

One thing was for sure it certainly was warmer up here than down in Cave City. Taking off her canvas jacket she tied it around her waist as she contemplated how she had ended up here of all places….

Rachel spots a mark weaving among the stores and cafés, her entourage of security marks her as someone important, although no one seems to recognize the woman, anyone with a brain knows better than to say no to Mitchell and his cronies.  Rachel wonders who this strange is, she seems oblivious to disparity between herself and those serving her.  As she stalk her target, waiting to grab one of the many bags being carried by the woman and guards, Rachel notices how otherly the woman seems,  her dark hair fall like black silk, highlighting her dark almond eyes, and high cheek bones,  but it is the golden glow of her skin that marks her as truly not belonging in Cave City.

Rachel had spent her whole life, digging her way through the Caves that made up her home,  Like an upside down pyramid, the larger caves at the top is where the poor like herself lived. The elite like the woman she was following, live is the newest caves, dug deep into the earth carved of stone and crystal. She always laughed to herself, when the elite called their caves the upper caves and hers the lower.  This had to do with status and not location, the rich would never concede to the fact that they lived below the poor.  If you believed the propaganda of Passadore, it was the poor that lived off the rich dragging them down.

Looking around,  even the opulence of the once might Crystal Cave with its translucent gleaming columns of gypsum towering more than 80 feet, to support the unseen ceiling had been darkened by Passadore’s reign, where once people could come and go between the caves,  now there were numerous check points, and gray, and green  glow worms replaced the once rainbow filled globes of light.  What once had sparkled in her childhood, seem dreary and somber.  Hope was wrung out of her home.

The woman had selected one of the most expensive cafés in the city,  casually setting her bags on the chairs, and ground around her table, unware to the watching eyes, of Rachel.  Standing at the corner out of sight of the guard, and behind Mitchell you had sat with woman,  Rachel spotted something she had not seen in years,  a full block of food solids.  How could the woman so casually fling about something so valuable? Waiting she watches  as the woman, and Mitchell are deep in conversation,  the walking casually by reaches down and picks up the bag containing the brick of food.  As she rounds the corner, briefly she thinks that she got away, then the shrieking of the whistle rebounds of the walls.  Looking back she sees the waiter and Mitchell chasing after her.

Sprinting down the wide corridors of Crystal cave she looks for the narrow break, between two buildings carved of stones,  squeezing between the buildings in a space no wider than her shoulders,  she finds the crack that will lead her to Obsidian Alley. 

Taking a deep breath, to shore, her against the claustrophobic corridor darkness envelopes her, cutting off even the dreary greenish light of Crystal.  Clinging to her bounty,  Rachel knows that this one brick of food solids will bring her enough Metal and maybe a Stone to live for a year.  No one cares if the stuff tastes like crap, it was better for you than the slop Passadore provided in the food lines,  or a miner could buy.  Only the elites had enough to buy hydroponically grown food, even as the poor farmed it for them. 

As Rachel transverses the channels between caves, she thinks of the woman,  is she was so careless with something so valuable she deserved to have it stolen,  but the one thing that keeps nagging at her mind, was who the hell was she.  She seemed so out of place at the café, even her polite smile, and chatter seemed forced.  Well, maybe she has some since and realizes just how much of a dingbat, Mitchell is and is only putting up with him for show. 

Finally the crack opens to a very large cavern, the walls are pitch black and shine like glass.  The ceiling is lite with glow worms, is blue and pink casting a beautiful rainbow of colors that dance about the market place.  When she was a teenager, Obsidian was under construction and was going to be an additional market place, littered about where the starts and stops of stone built shops, but for unknown reasons, Passadore had stopped construction, and collapsed the main entrance to the cave.  Over the years, it had become a black market, for people like her, to trade what they had stolen or earned for other goods they needed or wanted.  One could trade goods for goods, Metal or Stone for goods, or Food allocations for goods, anything could be used as currency down here.  Weaving her way the packed main floor, merchants of all kinds crowded the place with the hastily built stalls,

Obsidian had become the main market for Cave Rats like herself,  those who refused to work in the mines, or the farms, or be servants to the rich. She made her own way, stealing what she could from the rich, taking any job she could that would earn her enough metal to give her an inch of freedom from Passadore’s  tyranny.  There were some, that would say that Cave City was better off for, Passadore’s leadership, those were not the people that worked the mines, or lived in the lower caves, who survived on the food lines alone.  Those were the elites, who lived in the cave dug on the backs of hers, those that lived on the bones that died building the city.  But now, the builders were not revered, the ones that ruled, and controlled the food lines, or controlled the thermal generators, that heated and provided power to the caves.  She saw better than most the divide that was eating away at her home.

Pushing through the throngs of people, Rachel felt at home,  people shouting and bickering about goods and services, the smell of fried bat, and other food waifed through the air, as she made her way to the stall of Will LaBelle, the one man that would have the connections she needed to get the best price for her food-solid. 

Will had been one of the first merchants, in Obsidian, as such he had claimed and maintained one of the first stone built stores, though only partially finishes, it roughhewn stone entry way made it stand out from the other stalls.  As she entered, the main room of the shop, every item was in place, all the goods were organized just so, even as they filled every inch or shelf space.  Looking around there was everything from the pottery Will was known for, to clothing, and rare earth finds, anything a cave rat could want could be found on these shelves or the back storeroom. 

Currently Will was engaged with a rock of a man, who had a bag of scavenged goods from the highest of the lower caves.  As she looked at the man’s loot she saw only one thing is the lot that Will would want,  but he would take it all, to gets his hands on the battery,  even if it was dead, it would be worth a small fortune.  Waiting for him to finish his deal,  Rachel walked over to the pair of leather pants she had been lusting after, for more than a month.   While keeping an eye out for the guards,  Rachel never knew if she could trust Will.

Will LaBalle was an anomaly,  the only person she knew with a Shop in Crystal Cave and a Stall in Obsidian, he managed to walk in both worlds,  that of the elite and the lower cave and he never seemed to get his hands dirty in either world.  Sometimes it seemed like he was doing everything possible to shed his lower cave pedigree, but then other times it seemed he liked walking in both worlds.  She can only hope that today he was willing to use his connections to help her unload her latest score.  

It is not unusual for Will to work his Stall in Obsidian, on first sight one would never guess he was a potter by trade,  he was just too dame clean, but his cleanliness was not the only thing people noticed about Will, at six feet tall,  with strawberry golden hair, and striking ice blue eyes, his appearance made him stand out, but in Crystal he stood out as well, but there it was because of the smudges of clay under his finger nails, and his clothes where just a shade to shabby in the brightness of Crystal.   Turning, Will smiles knowingly, “Yeah, if you are here for what I think, then just turn around and leave now.”

“Come on Will, you know you can trade it here, or in Crystal.  The goods are solid.  Here just look.” Dropping the bag with the goods on the counter, they tumble out.
 

“Well, I can see what all the commotion is about now.  This is more than basic food solids. It has been fortified with antibiotics, antioxidants, and trace minerals.  I have never seen this high a quality food solid.” Will says thumbing the label

“See, its good stuff.  150 silver, and it’s yours.”

Laughing,  “Yeah, this is like nothing I have ever seen, but it is too hot to take.  For more than 50 silver.”

“What are you kidding me,  you can sell this for at least 3 gold twice what I am asking for. “ Rachel replies snatching the package up off the counter, as she turns to leave.

“Fine, how about 1 gold,  and those leather pants.  Come on,  you were looking at them again when you walked in.”

Rachel turns back to the shelf with the pants,  “Bastard! Let me see those pants.”  Setting the goods back on the counter,  Rachel picks up the softest, most supple pair of leather pants she has ever seen, though soft as silk they are going to wear like iron.  Taking the pants, she tries them on, one more time, and this time her ragged jeans are tossed into her bag, she has made up her mind.

Will smiles as Rachel walks out still wearing the pants,  “Okay! Looks like we have a deal? Only catch is that you need to hold the goods until I contact my buyer, then you can make the drop.”

Turing around in surprise, “Oh! No! That’s too risky.  I am sure the Guards know that it was me that stole this stuff and will be looking for me.”

“My informant says, they only know that a young girl stole the goods, they don’t have your name yet.  See you will be fine.  Go to Overlook, and wait I’ll have someone contact you there.”

“Come on! There has to be another way.  JC will be pissed if he finds out I am holding stolen good in his place.”

“Rachel you worry too much.  I’ll throw in another 25 coppers.”

“Fine but if the buyer does not show up by curfew, I am out of there.”

“That will not be a problem. 

Vina looks over at Iliana, “Well we made it out alive, but we need to decided what we are going to tell President Stanton.”

“What do you mean what we are going to tell her. We are going to tell her everything. How the citizen’s a Cave City are under the rule of a mad dictator, how the rebellion has started and that we need to help them, because they have every thing we could ever need.”

“Really that is what you want to tell the President. How are you going to explain your part in the uprising, or how up promised to help. Though I liked the Browns, I know a lost cause when I see one. And Cave City is a lost cause.”

“No it is not, Rachel, Andrew and the others will prevail.” Iliana exclaimed as the POD burst through the atmosphere.

“Really, I know that is what you want to believe, but JC is more than likely dead, and so are the others. Passadore won. He will never agree to work with us or the President. And you knew that we need these supplies sooner than later, we have to explore our other options.”

“Well if you truly believe that maybe we should just head straight on to the next colony.” Iliana challenges.

“Iliana that would not be wise and you know it, we have not gone through treatment to with stand the bends sickens that is cause by the depth of the other Colony. It was always the plan to return home and report what we learn. “

Slumping back in the seat Iliana looked out the portal, gone was the rock of the caves, or the brightness of the skies, they were now in space deep black stars sparkled off in the distance to far to travel yet they always seemed close enough to touch. Then as they came over the horizon, she saw it home.