Chapter 8

Jacob.

I sat watching as the old woman went digging through her things, she would grab something look at it and toss it aside, eventually she found what she was looking for, She walked to me handing me two scrolls, one was an ancient map, the other was some kind of binary code, I tried to make sense of it but I couldn't, I went back to looking at the map, if I was reading it right it led no where near the signal, I frowned at that, I only had so much time, I couldn't waste it on fools errands. The young girl entered the train car while I was looking at the map, she whispered back and forth with her grandmother, before coming to me.

"She says I take you." She said pointing at the map I held, her english not as practiced as her grandmother.

I nodded to her smiling. "That is my understanding, My names Jacob" I said.

"I called Wenna, hurry now" she said and grabbed the map from my hands, stepping to the door.

I looked to the wise woman who nodded for me to go, I turned and followed the young girl, She grabbed a pack that was outside the train car and a spear, she waved for me to follow her. I shrugged and fell in step behind her, we walked back to the tunnel we had come from, she stopped and moved to a grate on the floor she opened it, she reached for one of the lights hanging on the wall near by, removing it from the fixture, It stayed lit, I could detect the power from it but had never seen a light of that design, it was familiar yet alien at the same time.

"Down" She said looking at me, she put her legs over the end, and started to climb down.

I looked down seeing the ladder that was there under the grating, I waited for her to go further down then copied her, my pack barely making it through the grate, we climbed down for several minutes before we stopped in a dark corridor, the only light from her lamp, even with my enhanced sight I could not see very far.

"Dark Ones not find tunnels, something they don't like here." She said heading down into the strange shaft.

I followed scanning the walls with my sensors, I could detect minerals in the rock that I could not identify, interesting. We walked for several hours before she stopped to pull something out of her pack, she sat down to eat, I looked at her.

"Hungry, rest, sleep" She said eating a strange looking meat.

I looked around, from what I could see the tunnel still went on for someways, from the slight decline I could detect we would go farther into the planet.

"Wenna, I don't have time to rest, how much farther?" I asked.

She looked up thinking.

"4 days" She said.

I shook my head.

"Wena, I don't have that much time, how far can we follow this tunnel?" I asked.

She seemed to think.

"3 days, it splits off toward strange things, several paths." she said.

I nodded thinking.

"Wena, Ill tell you what, How about I carry you while you sleep, I will wake you when I need to know where to go?" I asked