Proof reading this chapter while working on chapter 36, I started to wonder how did I get from here to there story wise? Time for Marty's first re-read.

Chapter 11

Falling For You

Blue could not have wiped the broad grin off his face even if he tried (which he did not). All the worries he had felt over the last month had just melted away in one short conversation and it had not been as frightening as he had thought it would be. He would be able to go outside at last to see the world (part of it anyway) and with Professor Adisa's full backing. Blue was prepared to argue his case but he was more than pleased he would not have to. True it would be a year or more before the outer ramp was opened, but just the preparations for the event was something new and different; something Blue had not done before. Re-opening a tunnel sealed for over fifteen years, rebuilding surface vehicles and learning to operate them and eventually being able to see Mount Singgalang from the bottom looking up. And of course the ocean; Blue really wanted to see the ocean.

The light from the Work Tram headlamps bounced back from the reflective paint on the curved wall braces and shone back into Blue's eyes with a strobing effect. The regular flash of light always gave the young man a slight headache and the air quality this far underground did not help either, but the previous day's storm was now well and truly over, so Blue intended to open the surface vents while he worked. Not only would he have a soft breeze to work in, but if he was lucky the sound of the ocean waves may drift on down to him. Blue knew he would have to be careful though because the last time he had tried to get some fresh air into the tunnel, two Macaques had gotten into the complex and caused general havoc for over five hours; Professor Adisa had not been pleased.

The tunnel went quiet as Works Tram D shuddered to a stop near the L-41 marker post and soon the only sound to be heard over the dissipating echo, was the soft meowing of Princess Sabrina. Blue opened up the first cage door and the small tabby dashed out of the tram and began to eagerly explore her surroundings, but when he swung open the second door, Moon just sat in his cage looking like a fuzzy, white, disinterested fat sphinx on a green blanket.

"You lazy little turkey" Blue smirked as he reached in to remove the slightly annoyed cat.

It did not take Moon long to forgive the intrusion as Blue scratched the grey patch on the top of the cats head. The comical discolouration made Moon look like he was wearing a cheap feline toupee.

"See if you can catch anything today tubby" Blue smirked again as he put the cat down "Go on... KILL, MAIM, DISFIGURE!"

Blue turned on the trams flood light, pointed it towards junction box 37 and got to work.

"Let's hope there is only one overload in this section Moon" he informed the aloof animal as it jumped back onto the work vehicle's footplate, lay back down and purred itself to sleep.

"We'll be able to turn on the main power line to L section when we're done and have some proper light at last."

He opened the junction box door and removed an amp meter from his tool tray. It was not very common for a fifteen year old boy to be doing maintenance work on a high powered electromagnetic device such as this, but there were two slight mitigating factors to consider. The first was that Blue had been involved with the machine's maintenance, ever since he had learned to walk and secondly, he had no idea how old he really was. Before he could start testing for residual current, a slight clatter from the overhead vent caught his attention. Blue hoped it was just a mouse or rat because the last thing he wanted to deal with today was another Macaque jumping around the tunnel, screeching horribly and making a mess.

"Well Moon, it looks like I won't be opening the vents today."

The clatter began to grow into a loud thumping rattle accompanied by a high pitched scream and Blue began to realise that whatever was up there, it was too big to be a Macaque.

His eyes widened as the source of the noise burst through the overhead vent and fell towards him.

"Oh my God; it's a..."

It took Maynard and Emerson just under an hour to get organised; they had to walk back to the yacht before slowly moving it up to the floating dock using the electric motor. Emerson then got to work setting up two small wind generators and some solar panels to charge the batteries, while his father set up some of his home made water purifiers on the dock. They were a simple design with no moving parts and consisted of six black buckets with removable clear domes on the top; he hung a pan with several liters of seawater inside from the rim of each bucket and placed the domes on top. Now he could leave them for a few hours while the evaporated water condensed on the dome before running down and accumulating in the bucket underneath.

"I've been thinking about the tanker" Emerson spoke while he got on with his work.

"It's difficult not to with it looming ominously overhead" his father smiled.

"True, but if it ever was used to transport anything at all, then there must be a way in somewhere; like a door in the side..."

"There's nothing on the port side" Maynard noted.

"...or a deck hatch that we've missed..." Emerson continued.

"Could be."

"...or maybe... an underwater entrance."

"Hmm... far fetched... but possible" Maynard pondered "Of course it may have bow doors."

They both looked up at the front of the ship and wondered; one of the first things Maynard noticed was that something was missing.

"There's something missing" he declared as he walked off up the pier.

Emerson hopped off the deck of the Star Runner and followed his father up the beach. As they walked around the underside of the bow, Maynard inspected the rounded shape.

"What is it Dad?"

"Vessels this size normally have a huge bulbous protrusion below the waterline; it stops them from developing a massive bow wave that slows the ship, but not this one."

"You were right before Dad" Emerson realised "This ship was built with the express purpose of being run up on a beach. But was it meant to be this beach and if so, then why?"

"That is a question I would really like to have answered" Maynard nodded "Come on; let's go see if your sister has found anything interesting."

After walking around the long abandoned base camp for ten minutes, Maynard was beginning to get a little worried. They had both been calling to Calla but when she failed to respond, a detailed search was commenced. Emerson worked his way around the perimeter, while Maynard looked inside every flimsy building and abandoned truck hulk in the area, but neither one had any luck.

"You don't think she would have set off to investigate this morning's explosion do you Dad?"

"If she did..." Maynard fumed as he shook his head.

"So what do we do; wait here or go after her?" Emerson asked.

"We wait for now, but let's get ready to go anyway just in case."

And with that said, they returned to the Star Runner to equip themselves with more camping and survival equipment.

Blue's head throbbed as he slowly regained consciousness, but that was the least of his problems as he could feel various points of pain. There was one in his right shoulder, in the small of his back, and on his right calf. There was also the constant annoyance of the cat licking the right side of his forehead, but it was the tip of the long shafted insulated screwdriver, digging into the skin under his chin that had him most concerned.

"Err... ouch?" he half enquired.

"QUIET!" the strange girl holding the improvised weapon ordered sternly "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Blue lay quietly for a moment as he pondered what this strange person had said.

"ANSWER ME!" she screamed in his face.

"You just told me to be quiet."

"WHO ARE YOU?" she barked again.

"Err... I'm Blue."

"I didn't ask how you were feeling" the wild girl sneered "just tell me who you are."

"As I said I'm... that is to say, my name is Blue and I live here. Hello, what's your name?" He tried to smile cheerfully but the girl just dug the screwdriver another half millimeter into his skin.

Blue's mind was racing faster than Calla's heart; it dashed from thought to thought but each one was nothing more than a dead end. There was a girl kneeling on his chest, but that was impossible. There were no other people in the area he thought, but that was clearly wrong. He noticed straight away how beautiful she was, but he'd never known anyone else under thirty five years of age before, so how could he trust his own judgement. He wanted to ask her so many questions, but she did not seem inclined to answer any of them. Indeed he was beginning to wonder if he could see out the rest of the day with most of his blood still on the inside of his body. If he could keep him blood, he would then declare it to have been a very good day.

"Err... could I get up now?" he asked "Please?"

"Why; what are you going to do?"

"Nothing special" Blue tried not to startle the girl with the weaponized electrician's tool "I thought I'd stand up, check my sore leg and then put Moon back in his cage before his tongue removed all the skin from the right side of my head."

"What happened to your leg?"

"You fell on me, remember?"

"What are you doing sneaking around down here" Calla asked through gritted teeth.

This strange young girl seemed to be just firing any question she could think of at Blue; he guessed she was confused, but did not want to admit it so she simply tried to keep the upper hand by keeping him mentally busy and off balance.

"I was just checking the junction box; we had some atypical fluctuations down this end during the last launch and... hang on a minute, what do mean sneaking? You're the intruder here" Blue noted.

"JUST SHUT UP AND ANSWER THE QUESTION" she screamed in his face.

"There you go again" Blue sighed "I can't shut up and..."

"SHUT UP" Calla decided to stick to the first option so she would have a chance to think.

She looked around and did not like what she saw. In bright glow of the floodlight, she could see the tunnel was quite big with a round ceiling about ten meters above her, but on each end it just disappeared into total darkness. Calla had fallen so far down, she was surprised to find she was not greatly hurt or even dead. Fortunately for her the vent had been created with an unusual J-curve slope design. As her heartbeat began to slow, and her breathing returned a little closer to normal, Calla decided to try being more reasonable instead of threatening.

"If I let you up will you take me back to the surface?"

"No!" he declared adamantly.

"Why not?" Calla was mildly stunned.

"It's not that I don't want to, but I can't."

"I just want to get back to my family" Calla's voice cracked a little.

"Family; you mean there are others up there?" Blue asked excitedly.

"Don't be stupid, of course there are others up there; do you think I could have sailed here by myself?"

"Well... I don't know... it's... all so confusing. We recommence the launches, there were fluctuations in the primary grid followed by a mild overload, then a pretty girl falls on top of me and holds a long shafted insulated screwdriver menacingly under my chin; it kinda makes it hard to think straight."

Calla suddenly leapt off of Blues chest and backed off; she had not expected this stranger to call her pretty.

"Y-y-you stay away from me" she declared while still holding the screwdriver threateningly.

"Okay, if you say so" Blue held up his hand as he slowly sat up "But you're the one who..."

"SHUT UP!" Calla shouted.

That was when Blue finally realised that he was not the only one with injuries; the strange young girl was holding the screwdriver in her left hand, but it did not seem natural for her. The pain on her face was now very clear to see, and he began to realise how scared she was.

"How's your arm; does it hurt much?"

"M-my arms fine; YOU STAY BACK!"

Blue crossed his legs, remained seated and even closed his eyes so as not to appear too threatening "Your right handed, but you're holding the screwdriver in your left hand. You're obviously in more pain than I am so if I wanted to run away, I could; if I wanted to overpower you, well let's just say I'd have a fair chance. Now I understand that you're scared..."

"I'M NOT SCARED!" Calla protested.

"Really!? I would be if I'd just fallen into a strange place and broken my arm."

"It... it's not broken... at least I hope it isn't... so just take me back to the surface, or you'll see how far you get trying to overpower me."

"Look, I'm sorry I said that, I was just trying to point out that I wasn't trying to hurt you; I never was."

"So you will take me back?"

"Please let me explain..."

"There's nothing to explain; will you take me back, or won't you?" her voice dripped with menace.

"As I said before I can't, but not because I don't want to" Blue tried to stave off the girls anger "You see, I've never been to the surface before; there are vents and things, as you recently found out, but the closest I've come to being outside is looking out of the mountain top structure at the end of this tunnel. I'm sure someone back at Mission Control will know what to do and we could get your arm looked at while we're there."

"Mission Control?" Calla looked back quite puzzled "What is it exactly that you do down here anyway?"

"High Orbit Equatorial Supply Launches" the boy answered her in a very casual manner.

"Oh... of course; how could I not have realised?" the young girl stated sarcastically.

Looking at the date, I should get one more chapter up before Christmas but I'm not sure as I am working on a little surprise for you all.

Clue; it involves the Thorston twins.