When Ty awoke, his moonbeam had been exchanged for a dim sunbeam. Ty was accustomed to waking up in unfamiliar places, and so the fog of sleep lingering in his brain only briefly prevented him from realizing he was still bereft of pants and that a fetching blue jelly girl was admiring him atop the stone tablet he had originally landed on.

Siona had resumed her handmaiden pose, bum nestled on the heels of her feet, hands folded over gracefully rounded thighs, but she had not regained her modesty. “Afraid I had been a dream?” she asked with a wry smile.

Ty finished tugging his pants back on, embarrassed. “I don’t dream.” He cast her a wry, sidelong glance, “And besides, you’re more realistic than any girl I’ve ever met.” Siona glanced down shyly at the compliment.

“Siona…” Ty said, listening to himself pronounce the name. Its bearer nodded slightly.

Ty felt like his bashful self-consciousness toward the beautiful girl was leaving him, and he realized that he was beginning to feel attached to her even though he knew little about her.

“How old are you?” He asked.

“Dunno.” Siona said with an apologetic shrug.

“We’re a pair then, I don’t know how old I am either.” Ty chuckled slightly and leaned back to look through the lighted shaft in the ceiling and paused for some time. Siona quietly regarded him. When he continued, his tone was distant.

“Some of the other scavengers brought things with them when they left the city. Documents, books, even some of their lousy tech. I couldn’t. They told me to wait for nightfall before running and I couldn’t even do that. Once I looked out that maintenance shaft and saw light – real light – I couldn’t do anything but run. Run or go mad.”

“City?” Siona asked. Ty nodded.

“You’re pretty old if you don’t know of them. Oh, not that that’s bad-“ Siona only smiled, complimented at Ty’s flustering, and it made Ty feel better.

“The cities have been around as long as anybody can remember. For most of my life I believed that every human being still alive lived in one. I know there are others, in the city it’s one of the few things we’re taught about the outside world, but I’ve only ever seen the one I’m from.”

“Inside about… two million people live underground. They spend their lives doing assigned jobs, fixing and running the city tech that feeds the city and keeps it warm and all that. Nobody knows how the city tech really works, not even the puppeteers – er, that’s what we call the leaders of the city once we’re out. Anyway, the cities are so old that nobody who knows how they were built or even how most of their tech even works has been alive for centuries.”

Siona was beginning to look distant as well, staring at Ty. When she spoke, it was soft and admiring. “What did you do there?”

Ty looked away. “Nothing. I don’t talk about it, ever.” Siona flinched slightly. Ty sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s just, the past. You know. Anyway, now I live with the scavengers. Nobody knows why, but there’s enough ruins and abandoned tech lying out in the desert to keep the docs busy for the rest of their lives. I play around with new stuff for the Docs so they know how it works, and they feed me and give me stuff.”

He smiled in pride. “It’s not an easy life, but it’s mine. It has certain advantages, too. Like falling down lethal caves and rescuing beautiful lost girls.”

Siona opened her eyes wide for her second as she realized Ty was talking about her. She blushed, smiling, and began to pick idly at the tablet she was sitting on. “That happens often, eh?” she said, being coy.

“Only once so far.”

Ty stood up and stretched and pretended that he hadn’t noticed Siona admire him doing so. The ceiling of the circular nook they were in was more than ten feet over his head. Ty looked up again through the shaft above him. It was straight and lined with jagged volcanic rock. The other four shafts that emptied into this room showed no more promise of being a viable escape route.

“How do we get out of here?”

“We need to go to the temple. There’s food there, for both of us. And we may be able to find a way out from there.” Siona sounded a little dreamy, like she was planning a long, but fun trip and it made Ty a bit apprehensive.

“How far is this temple?” Ty gathered his things, cussing at the broken sand boot. He tried to balance on the remaining working one with no success. Discarding them both, he resigned to go barefoot.

“Well, it wasn’t far, but a lot has happened since I-“, she cut herself off, “since I last checked.”

“Lead the way, fair maiden!” Ty said. He was beginning to notice that Siona swooned at his compliments, and he resolved to pay them at unexpected times.

“This way!” Siona chirped, pointing as she rose, seeming disproportionately excited. Ty marveled briefly at her shapely legs; she moved with a precision and grace that was unearthly. Siona headed toward one of three tunnels leading from the chamber. It angled downward steeply.

Ty took his eyes off Siona’s bottom and shapely back long enough to glance behind him at the discarded sand boots. “Doc is going to kill me.”