Spent the last 10 days working on another story so it's good to be back with this one. Also good to be in an air conditioned house as it is 40 degrees Celsius outside.

Chapter 15

Hats and Cats

Emerson sat in the dappled shade of another kind of tree he did not recognise and fanned himself with his hat. This was the kind of day where all activity would normally be undertaken early in the morning and in the evening only. While the sun was high, the heat was far too oppressive to do anything physical for any length of time.

"I find it hard to believe she could have gotten this far" he noted to his father sitting beside him.

"She is fit" Maynard admitted "but she's not stupid so I find it harder to believe she would have even tried to get this far. No matter how curious she is, Calla just wouldn't simply run off in an unfamiliar place without a word or a reason; and that's what has got me worried."

"So what do we do now, go on further?"

"No; we go back, but we split up. You head off the road to the left about ten metres and I'll go to the right. Take it slow and see if you can find any signs or clues, but hopefully she'll be sitting on the boat by the time we get back."

"But wouldn't she have sent up a flare if she'd..." Emerson stopped when he realised his father was already aware of that fact, but was still holding out hope for a minor miracle.

Deep underneath Calla's family, Sarah Spencer had commandeered a small electric buggy and driven her young companions back to the staging room. Much to her surprise, Calla began to feel apprehensive as they approached the work tram but she managed to relax a little by telling herself she would not have to go back down the dark tunnel. When they arrived, Princess Sabrina was found asleep in her carry cage but she sprang back to life when Blue approached.

"That's a big noise for little cat" Calla smiled.

"Yeah she definitely wants out but she'll have to wait till we get to the farm; you can't trust the Princess to stay put" Blue noted.

"Where's the Moon? Sarah asked when she noticed the other cage was empty.

"Oh he probably wondered off to find some peace when a rampaging mob of engineers started chasing Calla across the room" Blue informed her before he called the cat's name.

"You seriously can't expect a cat to come when called" Calla smirked; she had known too many pet cats back in New Zealand.

As if Blue and Moon had planned specifically to prove her wrong, the large white cat stepped out from behind one of the storage racks an wandered slowly over to the trio. Blue opened the door to his carry cage and set it down.

"It's going to be a struggle getting him in the..." Calla started to say.

She stopped talking when the cat walked up to Blue, rubbed against his leg as it passed by and moved on into the carrier.

"What the..?" Calla exclaimed.

"He's a very mellow cat" Blue noted as he placed the cages onto the buggy for the next leg of their short journey.

Sarah Spencer drove the small group trough an exit on the far side of the store and down another tunnel in the underground labyrinth. As they travelled, many people walked or drove by and every last one of them stared at the young girl sitting next to Blue. The news about Calla had raced throughout the complex very quickly, but everyone she passed looked as if they felt especially fortunate to be in the right place at the right time just to see her. Her first impression of Blues home was of a big tunnel connected to a few expansive rooms and a collection of small offices but the further they travelled, the more uncertain she was about the true size of the complex.

As the vehicle continued on its way, they turned far too many corners for Calla to keep track of where she was and she soon realised she would be completely lost without her new friends. They past by many large roller doors and each one had a huge number printed on it with a sign on the right side of the door frame. The signs only gave her minor clues as to what was going on inside the rooms and as the cart sped by, she read words like Preparation, Long Term Storage, Processing, Formation, Re-purposing, Manufacturing and many more. None of what she had discovered so far though, prepared her for the wonder of their current destination; one of the underground farms.

Blue picked up Moon's cage as Calla alighted with the lighter one.

"Let me help you with that" Blue offered "Your forearm is still swollen."

"Back off lover boy" Calla sneered "there's nothing wrong with my left arm so you just take care of your cat."

Sarah tried to hide a snortish laugh while Blue just stood there in mild shock.

"Lover boy?" he wondered out loud.

"Don't act all innocent; I've seen the way you've been looking at me."

"How have I been looking at her?" he asked Sarah.

"With a kind of wonder and fascination" the doctor replied.

"Sounds about right" Blue nodded his head.

"So you admit it" Calla accused him.

"Well... yes" the young man did admit "I've never known anyone like you in my entire life; I've certainly never met someone younger than me. Is it wrong that I find you fascinating and intriguing?"

Calla said nothing as she just stared at him for half a minute; her eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"SHUT UP CREEP!" she declared again and stormed off through the double doors at the end of the parking bay.

Sarah Spencer sank to her knees, laughing uncontrollably as Blue's face went totally blank.

"Why is she so angry?" he asked Sarah when she finally managed to bring herself under control.

"Oh Blue, you've been living with scientists and engineers far too long" she smirked.

"Where else was I going to live; and you haven't answered my question."

"She's angry because you did not react like a boy with a crush on a girl normally would."

"She did crush me a bit when she fell out of the vent; is that what you mean?"

"No Blue" Sarah smiled "a crush is when you have feelings for someone."

Sarah's statement confused poor Blue even more.

"I have feelings, you have feelings, everybody has feelings."

"Err no Blue; I mean... well you see... she thinks you're kind of... in love with her."

"Why on Earth would she think that?" Blue wondered.

Blue followed Sarah as she walked off to find Calla, while the Rockhopper Penguin of Confusion made a blitzkrieg attack on Blue conscious mind. They found the young girl standing on the other side of the double door, staring with her mouth wide open. In front of her was another giant tunnel, just as high and wide as the Staging Assembly Area, but at least five times as long. It was filled with many different kinds of crops and the distinctive sounds of chickens somewhere in the distance.

"Are you okay?" Blue asked the young girl who seemed to be spending more and more of her time recently, being stunned.

"Where did all this come from?" she asked, still stunned.

"It's always been here" Blue noted.

"Well not always" Sarah Spencer corrected "but it has been here a long time."

Calla snapped back to attention and hurried after Blue and Doctor Spencer as they wandered off between two rows of plant racks several stories high. As she looked up between the capsicum and tomato vines growing in front of her, Calla gasped once more when she saw the sunlight overhead.

"We're back on the surface; I can get out from here" she exclaimed excitedly.

"I'm afraid were still over a kilometre bellow ground" Sarah informed the young girl.

"But I can see daylight up there" Calla stated.

"True it is daylight, but it's being reflected down here from hundreds of solar collectors, through large tubes and into diffusers" Sarah explained.

"I understood very little of what you just said" Calla admitted "and I didn't see anything that could be a solar collector when I was up there."

"Do you know what a solar collector looks like" Blue grinned mischievously.

"Shut up smart ass" Calla sneered.

"Come on you two" Sarah sighed "play nice. There are no collectors near the shore because a Tsunami would wipe them out and risk flooding the base. But even if you were inland, they are very well camouflaged so it's highly doubtful you would notice one unless you were searching intently and knew what to look for. They're even designed to close up if our radar picks up any approaching aircraft."

Calla walked further along the row of plants, taking in her surroundings. Looking through the vine branches she could see an entire wall with various beans, some varieties of onion spouts, small bushes that could have been the tops of potato roots and many other plants growing in containers all the way to the roof. The rows ran for about 30 metres before opening out into a wide area the entire width of the tunnel, where some kind of grain crop was growing. Blue put down the cat cage he was carrying and opened the door, allowing Moon to wander out and literally stretch his legs. Taking the cue from him, Calla did the same. The Princess sprang out of her cage and hurried over to the Moon, who just stood up and trotted off with the little tabby in hot pursuit.

"The Princess is barely more than a kitten really and still loves to play" Blue smiled as he explained "but the Moon has a few more years under his belt and just wants to be left alone."

"Okay you two; Farm Seven is safe from rodent infestation again so we'd better get over to the AV room before Professor Adisa blows a gasket" Sarah declared.

As they wandered back to the double doors and the electric buggy, the trio passed a tall Indonesian man who started to greet them, until he saw Calla and froze.

"What the..." he began.

"I get a strong feeling I'm gonna here that phrase many time over the next few days" Blue nodded.

"Here we go again" Calla sighed.

"Doctor Henry Deming, this is Calla Linwood" Sarah introduced them.

"Where did she come from?"

"Where do you think?" Sarah pointed up "Don't worry about it too much Henry, but listen out for a big announcement in the next hour or so."

"A big announcement; about what?" Henry begged.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be waiting for it as well" she grinned "Come on you two."

"Hey... I've got a question" Calla asked as the trio drove away from the indoor farm "Why do you call these cats THE Princess and THE Moon?"

"Oh, that happened quite a while ago" Blue smiled as he reminisced "Their names were originally Sabrina and Moonlight. One day I noticed when Sabrina's playfulness got too much for him, Moon would take every opportunity to sneak off and hide. Whenever Princess Sabrina noticed his absence, she would start searching everywhere for him amongst the plants. I thought she looked like a tiny tiger hunting for prey and so one day I wrote a little story about a tiger princess who would hunt at night by the light of the moon, and then would spend most of the day searching for where the moon had gone when the sun rose. In the story, she eventually found the moon in a high mountain cave where he was hiding from her because she was so wild and her claws were so sharp. I called the story 'The Princess and The Moon'; get it?"

"You're weird" Calla declared.

"Says the girl in the funny hat" Blue threw back.

"HEY! I need this hat for protection from the sun."

"If you have noticed yet, you're underground?" Blue smirked.

"Shut up cave boy" Calla pouted but did not remove her hat.

Okay, it's true the names of most chapters are weird and don't make much sense, but there was a reason for this one. I always write the chapter first then proof read it and look for a name and when I noticed it contained chat about both kitties and head gear, I instantly thought of my favourite movie musical High Society. At the Jazz Festival, Bing Crosby opens the song Now You Has Jazz with the line "Dear gentlefolk of Newport, or maybe I should say hats and cats..."