The mottled black seagull spiraled in for a landing at the Old Meadow. A flying fish swooped up from the Lake and called a greeting. A dragon on the same approach path studiously ignored the gull. Jacine grinned to herself -- she'd defeated Carl last week in a shaping contest and he was still sulking over it. She landed gently on an outcropping of rock and settled her wings after a brief stretch and shake.

"Good Morning, Jacine," a ferret poked its nose up and rested a paw on one of the rocks, "You haven't been around for awhile -- busy?"

Jacine debated with herself for a fraction of a second and then switched her vision to the actual computer program codes and made an alteration in hers. In the VR Internet, the result was a pink haze extending over the lighter portions of her seagull. It was the closest she could come to imitating a blush. There was a smattering of applause from the assembled animals who had noticed her image freeze and looked to see what she was doing. Letting the color fade and switching her vision back to standard, Jacine resumed her conversation, "Well, uh." The hesitation was as deliberate as the blush and she added a delicate cough, "I've been with my boyfriend, so I guess you could say I was busy." Actually, they'd been visiting her mom and doing some sight-seeing, but Jacine wasn't about to mention that. What she had said was real enough though, as she was still in a very happy mood from the ’farewell’ 23 and she had before he Gated back to Island City just a few hours ago.

Her statement resulted in a low whistle from the ferret and some cat-calls from the other animals who'd been listening. A bear sat back on its haunches, "Now, why can't I have been so lucky?!"

"What," Jacine tartly responded, "to spend the week with my boyfriend?"

A wave of laughter followed this and the bear made an awkward bow to her. It's program fuzzed briefly in the accomplishment, but policy at the Meadow was no teasing about programs and no one commented.

Eli, the ferret, rattled on about local improvements and program discoveries, and Jacine was relieved of the need to hold up conversation on her end. She paid just enough attention to Eli so she could review his comments at a later date.

By the time that Eli had run out of things to tell her, most of the animals who'd been at the Meadow when she got there had left and new groups had replaced them. It was night for the Americas, morning for Europe, mid-day for Asia. and just winding up the business day for Japan & Australia. The variety in animals showed the diversity of the Earth's rotation. The cougars and bears of the Americas had changed to tigers and marsupials. Carl's dragon form was facing off with it's Asian counterpart and a flying elephant had also gotten in the action. It was a contest of programming skills, and as such was allowed. No real combat was allowed at the Old Meadow, and if people's programs attempted aggressive actions towards another program, they were booted off-line by little pink mice.

Jacine greeted some new arrivals and then spread her wings for flight. She still wanted to visit Sherwood Forest and Atlantis before she ran out of time. It was already too late for the Watering Hole -- the adults kept to certain times to avoid startling the children and Jacine's timeline had already passed by. The black gull had taken two flaps with its wings to test the air current (to check which program circuits would allow the easiest connections) when there was a disturbance by the Lake. A grainy, black & white program was fuzzing in a broken pattern. This usually indicated someone who tried to get access to the Meadow using a person program rather than an animal. Jacine folded her wings and watched curiously along with the other inhabitants of the Old Meadow. Even the Dragon Contest paused as the programmers waited to see if the new person would figure the requirements out.

The grainy program only lasted for a few seconds before blipping out and a beach ball with feet took its place. There was a unanimous groan from the watching animals and they turned back to their original pursuits. Jacine rolled her eyes and flew over to the beach ball.

"Kim, why don't you just program a reminder to yourself that the Meadow needs an animal shape?" Every 3 out of 10 times he came in, Kim forgot.

The beach ball bounced up and down on its feet. "I didn't actually forget this time, I was in a hurry. I was over at the Hole when Jack came in and told me you were here. I wanted to catch you before you left the Internet."

"In other words, you forgot." Jacine scanned the area with both types of vision and pointed a wing to a remote part of the Meadow. "There's some open bites over there." She flew and the beach ball bounced until they got there.

Kim didn't even wait for the gull's wings to fold down before he started, "Jacine, I'm worried about Digger."

"Why?" Jacine's attention focused very abruptly and narrowly.

"For the past several days, she'd been coming in to the Hole sulky and depressed. She came, but didn't talk. She spent a lot of time burrowed under the program layers -- in effect hiding from search programs. Even the other kids were coming up to me worried about her. She participated reluctantly in a shaping contest we held, and beat the pants off everybody, me included. We'd scheduled a teaching/training course for night before yesterday -- you know she never misses them." Jacine nodded. "Well, she never showed. Not even a message. We didn't hear from her yesterday either, and NightCat said that she hadn't been at school today in the Real World. Today I got worried enough to contact her parents, and they haven't seen her for over 24 hours. They've informed the authorities, but you know how that goes."

Jacine did indeed. The enforcement officials who got missing person reports weren't bad at their job, but they would never anticipate a thirteen year old girl to be as smart and wily as Jamie. Neither Jacine nor Kim doubted for a moment that Jamie had run away -- this had been building up for a few years as Jamie had gotten more independent from her parents.

"Okay. Hold on for just a few minutes, Kim. I'm going to check with a friend of hers and see if we need to look seriously." The beach ball managed a sort-of a nod, and Jacine froze her image at the Meadow. She switched program connections and tapped into the comset lines without leaving the Net.

"Hi. Obviously I'm Helen's image and I'm not here right now. Actually, I'll be out all week, so if you need to get ahold of me, try again after the 20th." The recorded message faded into a blip-screen pattern for messages.

"Blast." Jacine frowned. "Helen, I'm trying to locate Jamie. If you are checking your messages at all, please get back to me A-Sap." Jacine disconnected the comset program and flipped back through the circuits to the Old Meadow.

"Her best friend is gone. This makes things more difficult. I wouldn't really be worried if Digger talked this out. Now, however..." In the real world, Jacine paced. In the Internet, her seagull bobbed its head. "Alright. Kim, I'm going back to the real world. I might be able to get a line out of her parents and friends. You round up a posse gang and track down the programs she uses in the real world. We might be able to find her whereabouts that way." The Gates and the Comsets were tracked by the officials, but any of the programmers who could get into the Hole or the Meadow could circumvent that. Hiding from other programmers, was, however, another deal. They would be able to find her, for everybody left traces, but even with the knowledge programmers had, tracking the traces down was like putting together a grainy black & white 2-D puzzle -- half guess, part feel, and lots of thinking about how parts fit together. It would take awhile before any concrete answers came up.

Kim agreed and his beach ball bounced up and down until it bounced out of the Old Meadow program. Jacine flapped her wings and spiralled out, working her way in reverse through the programs, shutting the doors behind her and logging out the access lines.

Back in her house, Jacine stripped off the VR gear. Stepping out of the booth, she activated the comset in the computer room and entered Jamie's number. Mr. Conrath answered the call. He was still dressed, but was looking very tired. He greeted Jacine cordially enough but obviously didn't want to talk. That changed when he found out she was searching for Jamie and he told her all he knew; which didn't turn out to be much. Jacine had never been particularly impressed with either of the adult Conraths, but she respected him for staying up so late worried about Jamie. That respect switched to disgust when further in the conversation it turned out that he up because he was finishing work that had been interrupted when the local authorities had talked with him earlier in the day.

Arrghhh! Jacine signed off with him and then frowned at the chron readout. It was a little past 4 am. There's too much to do now. She settled in the chair and started the Discipline trance. It had multiple uses, and in this case, she chose to go without sleep and make up the energy reserves later. Sleep had more to do with resting the mind than the body, so a half-hour in trance could circumvent 7 hours of sleep. The body would need rest eventually, but Jacine would worry about that later.

Coming out of the trance, Jacine heard Wren's voice scolding her.

"Oh come on, Wren. I don't do it that often. And I'm worried about Jamie."

"You should be more worried about yourself. But I have a lead that you should know about." Wren was concerned but also resigned. Being mostly composed of programs and lots of silicon bites, she only had theoretical knowledge about human exhaustion and pain levels. Humans were always surprising her.

"What is it?"

"The parents of a classmate of Jamie's, Allen Garcia, filed a Missing Person report about the same time as the Conraths." The voice paused theatrically, "Actually, it seems the two children disappeared about the same time, but the Garcias filed their report several hours prior to the Conraths."

"Figures." Jacine chewed on a track pen. "This could be bad."

"Bad? Why? I thought humans liked companionship and a show of loyalty." Wren seemed to be genuinely startled.

Sighing, Jacine started typing a message to be relayed to Kim. "I don't know. Something Helen was saying: Jamie normally goes off and sulks, but around peers she has to show off. I'm not the person you should be talking to about human relationships. They're almost as much a mystery to me as to you."

"Than what are you doing heading and directing the search?"

The question startled Jacine so much she sent the message before she finished it. She started the message again with an apology fronting it, as she answered Wren out loud. "I have no idea. I guess, as abysmal as I am, they're worse."

"Now that's a scary thought!"

"Thanks, Wren." Jacine sarcastically commented as she sent the message suggesting to Kim and the other programmers to try tracking Jamie through Allen's trace. She glanced at the chron readout again, "Do you think it's too late to call the Garcias?"

"I'm reading activity in their home."

Jacine reached for the comset again, then paused. "Wait a second. That's in Island City!"

"Yes..." Wren trailed off, but that single word managed to convey embarrassment.

"What are you doing in Island City?"

"I'm working on something over there. It was a simple matter to divert some of my attention to check on it."

"Uh huh." Glancing at an optical pickup near her, Jacine didn't push further -- she knew when she'd gotten as much out of Wren as the computer would tell her. She called the operator and connected though the comset to the Garcia household. Mrs. Garcia answered the phone promptly and they talked for almost an hour. Compared to Mr. Conrath, Mrs. Garcia was a fount of information and was keeping close contact with the authorities searching. Another development was that Allen's younger sister had seen him leaving the school with Jamie, but hadn't told anybody because she was afraid of getting him in trouble.

"Hold up there--" Jacine blinked in amazement, "You spoke with Mr. Conrath about all this? But I just talked with him and he didn't mention anything!"

Mrs. Garcia gave a long-suffering sigh. "I don't think there is any doubt in anybody's mind as to why Jamie ran off. I do wish Allen hadn't followed her, but I'm not blaming Jamie at all."

"Uh, right." Jacine finished up the call and then sat back to sort through the information. Unfortunately, although she now had a good idea of what had happened on that day, it didn't help too much, except in the way of negatives, to finding the teenagers now.

"Argh." Jacine muttered in frustration. She typed a query to Kim and received back the info the programmers had assembled. Tracking Allen had been much easier than tracking Jamie, and once a pattern had been established, they could also find evidence that Jamie had used the same codes, just hidden much better. The teenagers had Gated to various places around IC, including over by Helen's place, but after eight hours of activity there was no trace of either person. Jacine studied the coordinates of the last Gate. I don't like the looks of this. I need to talk with Helen. The chron readout read almost 6 am. Sam would have the best idea where her sister is, but they don't start work for another three hours.

Gathering the information she had so far, Jacine assembled it into hard sheets. Then she retrieved her compuset and plugged it into the main computer lines. Jacine sorted through the info currently in it and tossed out (stored in the main banks) any info she didn't think she'd need. Then she transferred Island City regional plans, geographical maps -- corrected for what Helen had mapped out so far in the tunnels, all info on the updated Skeeter plans, survival guides, Gate control mechanism blueprints, first aid instructions, and she'd started on the mono-rail repair line access ports when Wren interrupted -- literally, she blocked off the feed lines on the transfer. Jacine looked behind her.

"What's up, Wren?"

"Don't fill that too full. If you're going to Island City to search directly, I think I have to come along."

There was silence as Jacine stared in amazement. "But Wren, why?" As far back as Jacine could remember, Wren never left the house in just the compuset that hooked on Jacine's belt, though Jacine sometimes offered.

"Oracle says I need to."

"Oh." There was again silence as both Jacine and Wren thought over what this could mean. Oracle got his name for a reason, and even Miranda Mendi did not know how he came up with his rare prophetic statements.

Jacine got up and rummaged in a cabinet. "In that case, I'll have to add on more memory, and I think extra ports and hookups would be useful. An audio system is already attached -- try it out and see if it's adequate for you. A solid protection case. A monitor relay system. Scanners of a more extended nature." She gathered the necessary equipment and started making changes. Wren made suggestions and corrections where needed. Both of them were nervous about Wren being placed in such a limited facility. Her basic personality, memory, and problem-solving functions would fit on, but Wren was use to being able to access nearly anything she wanted to, having open communication range, sensors beyond the scope of any human imagination... .

"And I'd probably better take BC along also. It's not finished, but even a partial Sniffer Skeeter could prove useful." Jacine checked the Skeeter's circuits and made some alterations so it would be functional and adaptable.

Four hours passed before they were ready to start. Jacine activated the comset and called Dr. Helding at the main RCF center. The screen cleared and showed Sam sitting in front of a console, entering data.

She looked up, "Jacine. 23 just left this area, I'll transfer you back to the scan center."

"But that's not..." Jacine trailed off in frustration as the screen flickered and then cleared again.

23's face brightened as he saw Jacine, but his attention remained mostly focused on the track-ball he was manipulating. "Jacine! I'm a bit busy right now, but I could call you back in--"

Jacine cut him off. "I actually wanted to talk with Dr. Helding -- she transferred me over here, could you transfer me back?" Jacine realized that she was being too abrupt and softened the impact with the smile that she reserved for Craig-23.

When Jacine was transferred back to Sam, this time she spoke before the doctor could transfer her again. "Dr. Helding. I need to find out where Helen is. Do you know?"

The doctor had, in fact, been reaching out to the transfer controls again, but she paused at Jacine's question. "Helen was taking a trip with a, uhh, 'friend' of hers. I don't know where they were going, but I don't expect she'll be back for another few days. Can it wait?"

"No. It can't. You don't know at all where they are?"

"Not at all. I don't even know who it was she left with."

"Feldercarb." Jacine tried a different angle. "Maybe she left some hints in her room, can you get me access?"

Dr. Helding straightened up in indignation, "No!" She paused, and then said in a less indignant voice, "Actually, I really can't -- Helen never gave me her access code."

"Okay. I'll try something else. Bye." Jacine signed off with a preoccupied look.

Jacine drummed her fingers on the console. "Well, that tears it. I only wish I hadn't alerted Sam for no purpose."

"I'm sure she has better things to do than to consider you breaking into her sister's quarters. Are you ready to go?"

Hefting her pack and snapping her fingers for the Skeeter to follow her, Jacine went out the door and locked it securely behind her.

Looking around the room, Jacine frowned at what it told her. Helen normally kept her quarters fairly neat, and Jacine had been there often enough to tell what was different. At the moment, anybody could have guessed something was amiss from the two suitcases sitting on the floor. One had been opened and rummaged through. The other was still shut. Jacine went over to the comset and activated the messages. Sure enough, there was one from a teary-eyed Jamie. So Helen must have gotten it before she left. There was another one from a very indignant, but handsome, man, wanting to know why Helen was standing him up. Jacine converted the readouts to program codes and started to figure out the receiving time of Jamie’s message versus the time Helen actually read it.

Wren interrupted, "You should probably let me do that, while you look for other clues."

"Oh. Right." Jacine blushed slightly in embarrassment -- she’d forgotten Wren was there. She hooked the connectors and let Wren interact with the computer. Since she already had an idea where Jamie had gone, Jacine checked to see if Helen had the same idea. Yes. The Emergency Packs are gone. Two of them. Helen must have taken one for herself and one for Jamie. She didn’t know about Allen. Jacine picked up the last two and hefted them. Grimacing, she put one down. The pack she had brought from home was already heavy, she’d never manage two extra ones in the Tunnels. Turning back to Wren, she waited for information.

Wren had been waiting until Jacine’s attention had returned to her and spoke as soon as it did, "Jamie called at about 4 pm two days ago. Helen picked up the message at about noon yesterday."

"So, we’re about 24 hours behind Helen." Jacine drummed her fingers then disconnected the relays between the computers and put the compuset back on her belt. "That means she hasn’t found them yet. Or..." Growling slightly to vent her frustration, Jacine headed out of Helen’s quarters. She carefully locked the door behind her as she left.

Whispering in sotto voce, Wren asked, "So where are we going now?"

Jacine responded in a normal tone, "Over to 23’s. I want to pick up ZH. And if we’re going into the Tunnels, I need a partner. I’ll see if Michael can get off work early."

There was a worried note in Wren's synthesized voice, "Why do you need ZH?"

"Umm. If they're trapped in the Tunnels by rocks falling on them or something, I might need some heavy-duty stuff to get them out, and ZH would be quicker than sending back to the City for help."

"I'm reassured. That's logical."

Jacine grinned as she suddenly realized what Wren had been thinking, but didn't say anything more as other people walked by her.

In the quarters that Craig-23 lived in and she shared when she was in town, Jacine scowled at the comset and then turned it off. She swung around in the swivel chair. "Frack." I guess I should have expected it, I was just counting on them being there. The HL-1 team had driven out in the morning to pick up some Refugees and hadn’t come back yet. Too much time has already gone by. I’m worried about Jamie and Helen. And Allen, too. Feldercarb. Interlacing her fingers, Jacine searched for a solution. Her thumbs chased each other around and around as she thought.

Making a decision, Jacine activated the comset again. Then she turned it off. No, I better talk to him in person. Putting on her pack and carrying the other one, she snapped her fingers for the two Skeeters, BC and ZH, to follow her. CL started to as well, and Jacine had to pause to disable its motion sensors.

Down two corridors and to the left. Jacine knocked at a door. It slid open and Ty looked at her in surprise, "Jacine! Hi. What are you doing here?" He peered down the corridor to see if 23 was around.

"Hi Ty. You’re home on leave for awhile, aren’t you?"

"Yes." Three years in the RCF Academy had done Ty good. No longer a gawky adolescent, he responded to authority and emergency, even when he didn’t know what was going on.

"I have a problem..." Jacine outlined the situation and handed him the extra pack.

Ty looked at it for a moment, "Jacine, I don’t know anything about climbing around caves. Wouldn’t it be better if you waited for Michael?"

"You’ve had Wasteland training. You’re fit enough. And there’s another problem with waiting for full RCF personnel: What happens if authorities get wind of this?"

Ty sucked in his breath. "Shut down. No way would they let a security breach like the Tunnels stick around."

"Exactly."

Going back to his room, Ty came out again with a pen and view-foil. Jacine’s mouth quirked as she recognized the pen as the ’walking’ variety she’d invented ages ago for a novelty store. Ty started to write a note to his parents. Stopping, he looked up at her, "What exactly is it we’re going to do, since we’re not rescuing a kid in the tunnels under Island City?"

Jacine laughed. "Say that we’re going ’spelunking’," she suggested. "Michael will know what it means, though he doesn’t know of the Tunnels." She paused for a long time. "I’ll leave a coded file in 23’s computer under ’spelunking’ that will tell more details."

Ty looked at her dubiously, "Will they think of it?"

Shrugging, Jacine started entering and transferring the file. "If we’re gone long enough to make them worry, they’ll try a lot of things. But I’m hoping that Jamie and Helen are somewhere close in."

"Watch your head."

Ty ducked under the overhang. "Where’s BC?"

"Over there." Jacine directed her helmet light to the left. The little spider skeeter was waiting at the opening of a narrow crack.

"They didn’t go through that!" Ty regarded the size of the crack in dismay.

Jacine crouched down next to the spider skeeter and hooked a relay into her compuset. She made a couple of adjustments. When she disconnected the wire, the skeeter started to scamper around the ground, pausing here and there to take a better reading. It settled down in a waiting position at a larger opening at one side of the crack.

"You’re right. They didn’t go through that." Jacine sounded apologetic, "BC is still in the experimental stage. This is a bit more of a rigorous field test than it was scheduled for."

Ty looked at her dubiously.

Jacine caught the look and smiled, "Well, I’m also hoping that when Helen caught up to the kids, they’ll start being more straightforward on their marks -- and that they haven’t bio-degraded yet." The biodegradable florescent marks had been one of their problems. Helen, Jamie, and Jacine were so familiar with the beginning parts of the Tunnels that they no longer marked the area until they had gone deeper in. And the area was too often covered for the Scenter Skeeter, BC, to individualize the most recent trail. So Jacine had to guess where Jamie was likely to go. Helen had apparently done the same thing, and early on, they started to run into her florescent pink markings. But the marks were inconsistent. The biodegradation was suppose to take place after 25 hours, but that varied depending on how thick a mark was made and the conditions on the rock where it was marked. To make sure they could get back, without worrying about what would happen if their green florescence faded, Jacine and Ty had been unrolling sturdy thin floss-string. That way also, if they had to double-back and try a different tunnel, they could gather up the string and not have marks on five tunnels at one time.

"The trail’s been straight for a long time now."

"Umm." Jacine continued limping forward.

Ty reached out and caught her arm. "Hey, Jas. Stop for a minute and rest. We’ve been in here for five hours."

Jacine wavered to a halt and looked at him dully. "If I stop, I’ll fall asleep."

"Jas. You can’t keep going like this. One thing they taught us in the Academy is that taking the time to rest is more important than continuing a search with less than perfect awareness."

She sighed quietly. "You’re right. But I’ll try something else instead." From her belt, Wren gave a sound of protest.

Ty looked down, "What was that?"

Jacine grinned, "Computer hiccup -- it does that now and again." She sat down carefully and stretched her leg out in front of her. She had to admit, it felt good. Before she lost concentration, she focused into her trance state and started sorting memories. Flipping through them at a rapid rate, the memories were placed in the appropriate files according to her visualization technique. When the short-term space had been cleared out, Jacine evaluated her awareness level. It was much better, but there was still some physical fatigue. There were a couple of ways to deal with that, and Jacine hesitated as she choose. Finally, she took the simplest route and simply shoved the knowledge of the fatigue away until the body would respond as if there was none. Not a good choice, but it’ll do for now. There’ll be plenty of time for collapsing later.

Opening her eyes again, Jacine stretched. Checking the chron readout, she found she’d been in trance for ten minutes. Ty wasn’t in sight, but BC was still in the same position. Jacine checked the readouts on ZH and fiddled with some circuits. Wren gave her a low lecture on the follies of humans, while Jacine ignored it. When the computer stopped her tirade abruptly, Jacine looked up and saw a light coming from down the tunnel.

When Ty got closer, he looked at her in surprise that she was up and alert.

Jacine gestured, "Shall we continue?"

They reactivated BC and moved on.

"Cliff."

"How far is the drop off?"

"Don’t know."

Ty edged up next to Jacine and looked for himself. The light on his helmet disappeared in the blackness below. "Are you sure they went this way?"

"Umm." Jacine backed away from the edge and snapped her fingers at BC. The spider Skeeter scrambled over to her. Hooking up the connector circuits again, Jacine compared readouts. "Yep. They went down there. Feel like climbing?"

Ty looked over the edge again, "Why did they go down there?"

Deciding to evaluate the question seriously, even though she knew Ty had meant it as rhetoric, Jacine sat back and closed her eyes. Pulling out memories of the Tunnels and comparing it with the map she’d drawn in her head took some time. When she opened her eyes again, Ty was sitting down eating the trail rations.

He saw she was back and said, "Warn me when you do that, Jas. I talked to you for minutes and panicked before I realized what you were doing."

"Sorry. I’m so use to it, I forget. But Craig also complains sometimes."

Ty exclaimed in surprise, "23 actually complains? About something about you? Never in anybody else’s presence!!!"

Jacine blushed from head to foot and could feel the heat radiating. At least I’m not cold anymore.

"So, did you figure out why they went down there?" Ty was ready to go back to the search. After Jacine had finished memory searching, she found that she was hungry as well -- and about time considering it was past 9 pm and they had started searching about 2 pm. So they both had a meal of trail rations and canteened water while they talked about things unrelated to the search.

Leaning back against the cave wall, Jacine folded her hands into a triangle. "I think so. A long time ago we found this one cavern down this way... It was really pretty, stalactites and stalagmites, veins of quartz on the side of the walls. By the readouts on BC, Helen was either with them at this point or very close to them. They either decided that as long as they'd come this far they might as well see it, or that was one of the places Jamie had been heading all along."

She frowned, "The only thing that bothers me is that the readings are still at least a half-day old. If they were going to the cavern, that's plenty of time to turn around and come back."

Ty laughed, "I wouldn't worry so much about that: Most normal humans have to sleep sometime."

"Oh." Jacine blushed in the dim light.

Deciding to get back to work, Jacine snapped her fingers for the two Skeeters to come to her. BC was a 'spider skeeter' and would have no problems getting down the cliff on its own. Jacine attached a glow lamp on it and sent it down ahead of them so they could have some light -- and to know how far down they would be going. ZH was a 'sphere with legs', larger than a normal skeeter, and a bit on the heavy side with all its augmentations. Doubting it could get down by itself, Jacine and Ty rigged a harness for it.

Ty looked over the edge when they both heard the beep that indicated BC had gotten to the bottom. "That's not so bad. Only about 30 feet down."

Jacine grimaced, but didn't dispute his statement. Instead, she hooked her ropes to ZH and she and Ty lowered it down. When it was on the ground, she deliberately dropped the rope and they listened to it swish down. Then they attached the rope from Ty's pack to a stable iron ring that Jacine and Helen had installed the first time they'd come this way.

As they did that, Jacine frowned. "If they came this way, why didn't they have a rope attached?"

"Maybe they free-climbed it."

"Well, Helen does like to do that. And Jamie's a natural squirrel. But they have Allen with them, and I don't think he'd ever been spelunking before. 30 feet is a long distance for a beginner."

"When we get to the bottom, we'll find out."

Jacine grinned. "Why, Ty! You're turning quite practical."

Ty laughed, "It's all the bad influences around me."

"Uh huh." Jacine sat down on the ground and started adjusting her left boot. For climbing, she had adapted a method of not using her left leg much except for support. Going down was much easier than going up. Rappelling was a well practiced technique. For asending, if a rope was attached, she used her arms as the primary strength base. If there was no rope... things got trickier. Jacine shut down most of the servos that kept her balance around her calf and ankle, then she locked the braces around her knee, preventing movement and forcing support onto her upper leg and hip.

Ty watched curiously as she did all this, but made no comment.

Since Jacine had more practical experience in climbing, she went first. They had no problems getting down. When Jacine got to the bottom, she moved to one side, readjusting her boot. Ty spread out in a search pattern to look for clues. Neither reactivated BC yet.

"Hey, Jas."

Jacine glanced over, then stood up and hobbled to where Ty was standing.

Ty looked at her, "I think we found out why they didn’t climb back up."

"I think you’re right." Sighing, Jacine squatted down and examined the discarded packaging for an auto-splint. The packaged foam fit into a compact little can, easy for carrying in an emergency kit. When it was sprayed out and around a broken limb, it formed a securely rigid, but soft, cast. It also contained anti-bacterial ingrediants to help prevent infection while getting the person to a real hospital.

Directing the lights around the area, Jacing found where they had sprayed the splint on. She looked over the rements and muttered numbers and lengths as she tried to figure out who the cast was for.

Eventually, she looked up at Ty, "I think the splint was for Allen. It’s too long to have been for Jamie, but it doesn’t look right for Helen either. I wish I knew what Allen had looked like. But it’s probably a sure bet that even if one of them went back up and attached a rope, Jamie and Helen wouldn’t have been able to pull Allen up. And considering he’s a young teenager in a large city, he probably doesn’t have enough skills to help them out too much."

Ty nodded in agreement, "Climbing is not something that’s emphasised in P.E. classes, especially not with just upper arm strengh." He paused, then asked, "So if they couldn’t get back by going up the cliff, how would they have gone?"

A very startled expression developed on Jacine’s face, "I have no idea! Oh dear. That could be a problem. Did Helen take a map with her? Did we ever write out a map this far in? She definately caught up with them at this point. But... Hold on a minute, Ty, and I’ll think about it." Jacine settled down against a cliff wall and closed her eyes.

Ty watched her for a minute, then got up and started looking around the general area, using the green floresent as marker rather than the string.

When Jacine finished searching her memory for any indication of where Helen and the kids might have gone, she was in a grim mood. It didn’t help matters to not see Ty anywhere around. Getting up, her bones creaked. "Ouch," she said softly. Some calisthenics might be in order. Neck and shoulder muscles were particularly stiff, and Jacine worked them with limbering motions. Her legs were sore, but there wasn't much she could do about them -- walking for hours on end wasn't something that could be massaged out.

Ty still wasn't back by the time she finished, so Jacine started following the green floresent markers. As long as the trail followed the direction the others headed, Jas rolled string and kept the Skeeters with her. When the trail finally diverged, she left both Skeeters and string, and followed by herself.

She’d only been following the trail for a few minutes when Ty came around the corner and met her.

"Jas! Wait 'til you see it! Come on." He grabbed Jacine's hand and started back the way he'd come.

Jacine laughed with amusement, glad to see some spark of enthusiasm in their very long search. She followed, with only a slight protest for him to slow down.

Ty lead her to a point on the caves where one wall had crumbled inwards, revealing another section beyond. Letting go of her hand, Ty ducked into the new section. Jacine followed, and her laughter died.

The area beyond had been cut out with laser drills. At one point, the lasers had gotten too close to the natural tunnels, which is why the wall had collasped. The laser formed tunnel bent in a wide arc, until they could not see beyond the curve. On the inner edges of the ceiling was long metal tubing, apparently portuding into the solid earth as well. At regular intervals along the tubing were flat columns that rose from the ground to the edges of the tubes. Each had a blinking red light on its middle, and access panels.

Jacine absorbed all this, standing stock still. Ty was eagerly talking about more of the same down the laser tunnel for at least thirty feet. Suddenly, Jacine bolted as fast as she could from the area and back into the natural caverns. She ran until she tripped over some of the lose rock. Raising herself to her knees, Jacine didn't try to get up any further, but started keening softly, her eyes shut, but tears starting to trickle down.

Ty followed her, concerned. "Jacine? Hey, Jas. Jas?" He took her by the shoulders and shook her, but other than a brief interruption of the keen, it had no effect.

"Try slapping her." A voice from the area of Jacine's belt spoke.

Looking down, startled, Ty asked, "What?"

"With hysterics, slapping sometimes works. Of course, you never know with Jacine. If that doesn't work, I'll try a shock."

The voice came from the compuset. Ty didn't question it further, but tried its suggestion, not gently, but not hard enough to leave a bruise.

Jacine drew in her breath in a gasp, and it came out as a sob. Her eyes opened, but she didn't focus on anything. "All my fault. It's all my fault."

"What?" Ty tightened his grip on her shoulders, "Jacine, what are you talking about?"

"All those people dead. Three in the RCF, dozens at the stores, who knows how many at the ECC. All my fault."

"Jacine!" Ty practically shouted her name.

She blinked dully and switched her gaze at him. "All these years, I knew these tunnels existed. I knew and didn't tell anyone. And all this time that's where he's been. They searched the city. They seached, but didn't find. Because he's been here all along. I knew, but I didn't want my fun stopped. I wanted my private spots. I wanted! I wanted and they're dead!"

The voice from the compuset spoke again, "Jacine, don't be ridiculus. It's not your fault!"

Halfway though her second monolog, Ty had realized what she was on about. He tried his own bit of reassurance, "Jacine, no-one would have connected the two. Heck, for the past year in the RCF Acadamy, all we've heard about every morning lecture has been the Sabatour. And I never even made the connection, even after seeing the work down there."

Jacine looked even glummer, "You haven't seen as much of his work as I have. How could I not have realized--"

"Jas, do you blame the Tritan Monorail for not stopping at the Kaltor Station?"

"What?" The question came from both humans, and Jacine was distracted from her grief.

Wren explained, now that she's gotten her human's attention. "Jacine, you think along one-track lines. Until you come onto a new thought. That's why you can be such a sucessful engineer, your concentration and recall are not normal. But it also means you won't be thinking of something that's not connected with the thought pattern you're on. The Tunnels and the Sabatour are on two separate tracks."

That's not very reassuring. "Thanks Wren, but--"

"But what are you going to do, now that you know about it?"

Okay, that is helpful. Jacine looked up at Ty, "I was planning on sending you back anyhow..."