Nemecene: The Epoch of Redress Read Online Free PDF Page A

the situation calls for it. And this was indeed one of those situations.
    Looking back at it now, I wish I had taken more notice of her flinch as she scanned the far end of our section. Under normal circumstances I tend to just chalk it up to her natural tendency to fidget, and that is exactly what I did in that moment. By the time I realized something or someone had caused her to instinctively widen her eyes for a brief instant, whatever it was was no longer visible as the lights grew dim, the ambient temperature dropped, and Eli squeezed my arm for what felt like an eternity.
    Some time passed before we could see daylight and leave the tunnel behind, plunged in darkness. Eli was breathing naturally again, yet she remained visibly shaken. I searched her eyes looking for the cause, but all I could see was that all too familiar emptiness after one of her nightmares. She brushed the incident off, in her usual tough girl way, and came up with some random lame explanation, which I pretended to accept. So that is where we left it as we continued the trip in silent contemplation.
    When we arrived at our destination, we fumbled our way through the crowd and started looking for an exit. There was a sense of urgency in our pace which seemed to draw attention to us, especially from the direction of the three GMU officers against the scanning wall. It was my turn to quicken my oxygen intake as visions of a clampdown and a quick shove into a transport back home polluted my mind. Surely Father would have noticed our flight by now, but it remained a question as to whether the authorities would give our disappearance any priority. After all, recent events of a more global concern were no doubt more pressing, or so I hoped. In any case, we never got the opportunity to find out. Just as the three officials started towards us, they were distracted by something else which pulled them into a fast pursuit in the opposite direction. As fate would have it, our opportunity appeared and we used the ensuing commotion to slip past the sensors and lose ourselves in the traveling mass.
    At last, it was time to test the months of twilight research and memorization against the physical terrain. The underground network we had used to gather painstaking details about our new home ensured we could find our way around easily enough, but the reality of actual experience proved to be quite a different story. While others were going about their daily routine, buzzing around from here to there, in and out of converted 21st century office towers, I was engulfed with a sense of awe and amazement at what I was witnessing around me. I could see Eli busily working with the maps in her mind to get us headed in the right direction, although the wonder in her eyes was also unmistakable. As was the case on the journey inward, if we were not careful, our emotions could betray us, so we tucked away our excitement, shared a quick lock-and-nod, and made our way straight to the hovertrain heading to our final destination. This was not a time to linger.
    What happened next is still a whirlwind of memory flashes. I remember navigating a maze of corridors, leading us outside onto what appeared to be a bridge on the edge of the world. Peppering the city, as far as the eye could see, were glass and concrete islands growing out of the water like the groves back at the cooling plant. Some were mirrored, reflecting all that passed, some were beautifully carved with remnants of color from days gone by, some were several stories tall, while others mere platforms with purposefully manicured gardens surrounding crystal structures. Looking down into the depths of the canals, my eyes could vaguely outline the glow of a glass building below the garden directly ahead of us. A rush of heat flowed beneath my skin as I realized what I was looking at, as I realized what had transpired here. Below the city lay a murky graveyard of foundations which were once buildings in their own right, long, long