Ahsoka didn't have to work on Sunday (and she couldn't, since her paperwork hadn't been approved yet), but that didn't mean Ahsoka was going to sleep in. She had woken up every day at 6:00 since she was five years old and she didn't plan on changing that now.

In the mornings, Ahsoka had taken to stretching. She wanted to get comfortable with her normal range of movement, which was limited due to her side wound. Today, though, the pain had reduced to a dull ache and she was able to grit her teeth through it now. She reckoned that she could probably manage a light jog today but not a full out sprint yet. It was progress, and it was enough for now. Ahsoka really hoped that by the time she saw some of her surface friends again she would be back to normal. If there was any such thing as 'normal'.

Afterward, she changed into a dark green top and a paneled skirt. Throwing more credits and food into her bag, she set off outside down the street but not towards the middle of the sector. She had a goal today: find a faster and less crowded way to travel between levels. Especially to go up. Ahsoka didn't really have a reason to go down right now. A bonus goal would be to find a hideout of some sort, but that wasn't as important.

There weren't many people out and about right now. She saw a few lonesome drunks wandering the streets, trying to get home despite their overhang. A couple of private vendors were preparing to open for the day, but everyone else was still in bed. The only other people that might be up right now were bounty hunters. Ahsoka didn't see any, though. Probably for the better, anyways.

So how am I going to find a way up? Ahsoka didn't have any resources, just her bag, and a blaster. There was no map, no layout to analyze. If she did have one, Ahsoka had spent enough time looking at holomaps that she could guess where a secret passage might be hidden and get it right almost every time. As it was, she had no such thing. All she could depend on was her mind, her eyes, and the Force.

I'm working without resources, she thought, just like that time I got kidnapped, after the Second Battle of Felucia.

If she was honest, it was good to have a mission again, even if it was as simple as finding a route. It was easier to move forward when she had a goal. It was probably what kept her going on Dromund Kaas for so long if she thought about it. Now, her plans were on a much smaller scale and really only affected her, but Ahsoka was in her element: she was problem-solving. No matter what had been in her past, she could always problem-solve. One thing at a time.

So she set out, trying a jog for the first time in almost a week. She felt her legs and lungs begin to burn, but she expected it with being out of commission for so long. She began scanning alleys, feeling for drafts, and searching for suspicious-looking hatches or walls. She also kept an eye upwards, since that was her desired direction.

Ahsoka saw a possibility before long. There were several large pipes that lead up and to the next level, and she could easily jump on top of them, being who she had been. She used the Force to leap up several stories and secretly rejoiced when her side did not explode in pain. There weren't words to express how satisfied she felt to be healing.

Once she was on the nearest pipe, she didn't bother to run. She walked along the top of it, following its path with her eyes and feet. This pipe, and many like it, ran up together to the top of the level, and then through to the next one. There was a hatch right next to where they exited, however. It was probably for maintenance, but it would work for Ahsoka.

She prepared to climb up the pipes, knowing it would be good for her recovery if she exerted herself a bit. She noticed that pipes were a little grimy, but upon closer inspection, she realized they were sewage lines. Okay, so not the most sanitary option. Ignoring it for the time being, she reached the hatch and opened it, crawling through and up to Level 23.

The passage was dark and poorly maintained. Ahsoka wondered when the last time someone had come up here had been, but she kept climbing all the same, and soon, she was...at a dead end. The pipes went up farther, but the rusty ladder she was standing on didn't.

Well, it's like I said yesterday, she consoled herself, beginning the climb back down. You can't expect success on the first try every time. I have to learn how to fail before I can start figuring out life down here. Go for Round 2, and Round 3 if you have to.

So she did. She circled around, searching along a 5 block circumference around her house, but nothing showed up. She saw more pipes, such as the sewage lines, but they were for filtered water instead. That hatch was a dead end too, though, so it didn't help her any. There were other paths that seemed like they might bring her in the right direction, but nothing went all the way up.

After several failed attempts at finding a way up, she decided to search a little closer to the middle of the sector. It wasn't where Ahsoka would have put a secret passage, but she needed to come at this from a different perspective. She was a little closer to her house now, but there were more residence buildings now and more people starting to walk the streets.

A thought passed through her mind. Maybe I should pay attention to them. Jedi Masters used to warn us all the time about how dangerous it was under the surface. If I can catch a glimpse of a bounty hunter or something... Ahsoka really wished she had asked Ventress about this. She would have known.

She began walking down alleys, especially the suspicious-looking ones. The difficult part was that even though Ahsoka knew what her goal was, she didn't know exactly what she was looking for. So far, hatches hadn't worked, and even a couple of walls that looked like hidden doors had ended up as disappointments. All she could really do was look and hope she would notice the right thing at the right time.

After about half an hour, Ahsoka decided that she needed a third method of finding this passage. She was about to head into the sector and start looking there when she stepped on a grate in the ground. This wasn't unusual but this grate, Ahsoka noticed, looked like it had been mishandled. Why would anyone handle a grate cover in the first place? She reached through the openings and pulled, and it lifted out of place effortlessly.

I've been looking up this whole time, she admonished herself, but maybe I should have been looking down.

Ahsoka could fit with plenty of room to spare, and the drop-down was about six feet. She took a chance and hopped down into it, pausing to see if anyone had reacted to her presence. When no one did, she used the Force to replace the cover and took a few steps to the left. She reached out into the Force and felt for other presences with her.

To her surprise, she actually felt quite a few. None of them were very close to her, but now that she focused, she sensed people on many levels in the ventilation system, not just the one she was on. She realized that most of the people had one thing in common: a certain level of indifference.

Well, that makes sense. Just mind your own business, and act like you know what you're doing.

Ahsoka had gotten good at acting. She remembered how, on Zygeria, she had been almost a complete failure at pretending to be a slave. She even cringed when she remembered some of the things she had said. Only when she needed to pretend in order to survive on Dromund Kaas had she nearly perfected the art of lying convincingly. She had managed to fool Sideous, to a certain degree, and Tyrannus too. The trick was to leave in just enough of the truth that you could twist reality to support your imagination.

She cleared her face of emotion and set off down the passage. For about a hundred meters, she passed two people. One was an older man, clearly in a hurry somewhere, and didn't pay the slightest attention to her. The second was a female, but she was clearly up to something. She had lots of weapons and gear strapped to her and a mask covered her face, so Ahsoka couldn't tell who she was, or even what species she was since the lighting in the passage was less than stellar. The female's eyes had swept over Ahsoka, but must not have felt threatened by what she saw because she passed without saying a word.

After a few minutes, the passage opened up to a perpendicular walkway with a railing. Ahsoka leaned over the railing, and what she saw blew her mind.

It was like a shaft, but much bigger, and it wasn't circular either. It spanned from as far up as Ahsoka could see down to the bottom level of Coruscant, and it was at least a quarter kilometer wide. The walkway Ahsoka was standing on ran along with Level 22, and it extended farther than Ahsoka had traveled under the surface. On the opposite side of the chasm, which represented a cliff, in a way, another walkway faced Ahsoka, with an opening even to the one she had come from.

Along the wall, ladders ran up and down between levels. It looked like every level had a walkway. She crawled up the nearest one to Level 23, which she then realized was spray-painted on the cement wall. All the levels had a marking to show which one they were called.

On the next level, Ahsoka looked around again, walking to the railing to stare down the chasm. How did this place even exist? Who had built this place and why? And how come she had never heard of it on the surface?

Ahsoka laughed and shook her head at her last question. She had no reason to hear of it on the surface. She hadn't needed to know about it. It was another example of how much she didn't know about life down here.

Still, it was so remarkable, and Ahsoka wished that she had learned about it sooner. She kind of wanted to show someone, maybe Rex or Anakin. They would have been as fascinated about it as she was now, but she dismissed the idea. It wasn't like she could just drop by the surface, walk into the temple or board a cruiser, and interrupt their work. They had their own lives to lead.

"First time?" A familiar voice called from behind her. She turned to face the speaker, a ginger human that was a little older than Ahsoka. Then Ahsoka realized that it was Journey, one of the bench hands from the shop. It was the male who was courting Thyla, if she remembered correctly.

"Am I that obvious?" She asked him, and Journey moved to stand beside her.

He chuckled. "It's just a small thing that I've seen over a few years, but the Chasm always impresses people who haven't seen it. It even impresses some of the people who have, every once in a while."

"I can see why," Ahsoka remarked, glancing once more out at the sight. "Is it really just called the Chasm?"

Journey shrugged. "Maybe. It's what I call it. I've heard a couple of others call it that too."

"How did it ever get built?" She asked. "Who put a giant shaft in the middle of the Lower Levels?"

"Well, it's not completely a shaft. Not anymore." He looked up and pointed to the levels above them. "It doesn't go all the way up. It only goes to Level 50."

"So that's why I never knew about it," Ahsoka murmured. "You said 'not anymore'?"

Journey walked away from the railing and jumped up to a ledge that also seemed to function as a bench. "My family has been here for a while. More generations than I care to remember, but they also have a tendency to be history freaks. Back when Coruscant was first taking off, about 900 years ago, this was a shaft that ran all throughout the planet, between all levels. And see how far it goes?" He pointed to the side, and Ahsoka nodded. "It eventually goes all around the sectors. It's like a giant road that goes everywhere you can imagine."

"That's incredible! But why did anyone ever build over it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, but it comes in handy now. When they built the next levels, they added elevators, but the people who lived in the Lower Levels kept coming here. Eventually, the surfacers forgot about it, and now it's like a secret. If you're brave enough to come here, you get to bypass all of the sector traffic."

Ahsoka raised a white eyebrow at the human. "'Surfacer'? That's what we're called down here?"

"Would you prefer 'rich stuck-ups'?"

She rolled her eyes, and Journey chuckled. "No, I guess not. And not all of us are stuck-ups."

He raised a finger at her. "Them, not us. You aren't a surfacer anymore."

"I just moved down here."

"If you know about the Chasm, then you're not a surfacer. And for the record, not all of us are trigger-happy drunks, but keep your head down while you're down here. Bounty hunters like to use the Chasm to avoid the feds."

Ahsoka nodded. "Got it. Can't say I blame them."

"Neither can I," Journey admitted. "They probably won't be a problem for you, though. Not with your track record."

Ahsoka laughed, although she knew he was right. Her track record might not have prepared her for living in the Lower Levels, but she had seen and dealt with her fair share of bounty hunters and then some. Once she was back to full strength, a bounty hunter here and there wasn't going to be a problem.