1.02

The first place Miss Eleina dialed was Cafe Crys­tál, Downtown’s pre­mier and only restau­rant. Before the sec­ond ring com­plet­ed, a hand scarred with a thou­sand lit­tle cuts and burns snatched the phone off its receiv­er.

“What? Carnelia’s miss­ing?” A gray­ing but still stout chef in a well-scrubbed white apron demand­ed answers over the phone. The woman had spent her active years bel­low­ing orders in sim­i­lar kitchens, but to be heard over the bang­ing and clang­ing of cut­lery she had to well and tru­ly shout. “Let me see if she’s here!”

The chef knew exact­ly why Miss Eleina had called her first. In this under­ground town with noth­ing to do, her kitchen was one of the few places where any­thing new was born. And Downtown’s lim­it­ed set of nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents forced some… cre­ative inter­pre­ta­tions of food. Luck­i­ly, if there was any­thing that Car­nelia loved, it was nov­el­ty. No mat­ter how nose-pinch­ing the aro­ma or lip-puck­er­ing the fla­vor, she always returned for sec­onds. The chef did not want to lose the most fear­less taste tester she had ever known.

The chef pulled the cord­ed receiv­er as far as it would extend and yanked open the met­al slid­ing win­dow that con­nect­ed the kitchen to the din­ing area.

Emp­ty. Even in the midst of an earth­quake, it still stung to see the restau­rant in such a state.

“She’s not here, Eleina!” shout­ed the chef into the phone. “Try the library inst--“

A tremen­dous crash cut her off as a huge rack of pots and pans fell to the floor. And by the time the noise cleared, all that was on the oth­er end was a dial tone

When the call reached Downtown’s com­mu­ni­ty library, the phone rang almost sev­en times before it was picked up. But not from lack of urgency on the answerer’s part. Hav­ing pro­tec­tive­ly flung his nar­row frame over the town’s only com­put­er, the librar­i­an had to stretch his bony physique painful­ly far to pick up.

“Car­nelia? Now, of all times?”

The aged schol­ar knead­ed his exceed­ing­ly large fore­head, which his long-reced­ed hair­line made all the larg­er. It was true, Car­nelia had been vis­it­ing the library a lot this past year, but he already had his hands full deal­ing with the dis­as­ter sur­round­ing him. Aside from the ones carved right into the stone walls, most of the book­shelves had fall­en over. The rest were on the verge. Books were being scat­tered and crushed all over the floor.

Damn. Right after he’d reor­ga­nized them via the Fog­gy Frac­tion­al sys­tem too.

The man snapped and shook his head. How dare he daw­dle when Car­nelia, that pre­co­cious girl, could be injured under his watch? Before her, no one had ever vis­it­ed the library, not even to swing by and say hel­lo. But she had. Even now, she could be trapped under a pile of books, strug­gling for breath

The librar­i­an paused, then glanced down at the com­put­er below him.

But of course. How could he have for­got­ten? Car­nelia had nev­er come here for the library’s hor­ri­bly dat­ed selec­tion of romance nov­els. She came here for the com­put­er and its all-impor­tant Net con­nec­tion. That was why they had got­ten along so grand­ly in the first place. She was seem­ing­ly the only oth­er per­son in Down­town who appre­ci­at­ed what a mar­vel the device was. If Car­nelia were here, she would have been pro­tect­ing the com­put­er with her body right along­side him.

“She’s not here!” the librar­i­an shout­ed into the phone, before cut­ting the call short.

Anoth­er book­shelf fell over. He ignored it. Damn the books. He had fought tooth and nail to con­vince that miser­ly vil­lage coun­cil to pur­chase this giant, mag­nif­i­cent com­put­ing device, and he’d die before he let any­thing hap­pen to it.

That being said, if she weren’t here, where else could she be? He cer­tain­ly hoped she was safe.

The recip­i­ent of the third call was the old­est of them all. A woman so wiz­ened and shriv­eled that she looked as if she had pet­ri­fied whilst watch­ing over the dense plots of fun­gi that grew on min­er­al beds in front of her. Her waist-length waders and rub­ber boots crin­kled and squeaked as the for­mer farmer, now ama­teur mycol­o­gist, slow­ly rose for the phone. The mask she wore muf­fled her voice when she answered.

“The girl?” she rasped.

Car­nelia didn’t vis­it here often. If she did, it was usu­al­ly a mat­ter of last resort. When she ran out of things to do she some­times came down and checked on a few espe­cial­ly pro­lif­er­ous vari­ant colonies of ecto­my­corhizal and talaromyces flavus. They were the clos­est things to pets the girl had around here.

The woman glanced around. The fun­gi were fine. The earth­quake failed to dis­turb them in their dark, dank bunker of stone.

As for Car­nelia…

…she wasn’t here.

And so the calls went on.

From the rip­pling algae pools around the periph­ery of Down­town, to the imports stall drop­ping goods all over Main Street, to even the rat­tling gate­house that barred entry into an ancient bur­ial under­hol­low-- Miss Eleina’s call went out to all of Car­neli­a’s usu­al haunts.

But no one seemed to know where she was.

So Miss Eleina called the one per­son in town who knew Car­nelia bet­ter than even her. The one who knew her usu­al haunts, as well as the not-so-usu­al ones. Car­nelia had asked her not to let him find out she had skipped class… but Miss Eleina hard­ly cared about that now.

The man in ques­tion picked up on the third ring, irri­ta­tion and strain audi­ble even through the old cop­per lines.

“What is it Eleina?” he grunt­ed, “I’m a bit busy secur­ing my sculp­tures here! I’ve already lost two!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s a ter­ri­ble incon­ve­nience, but I thought you might want to know that Car­nelia has skipped school, and no one can seem to find her!”

There was silence on the oth­er end for a sec­ond. Then a thun­der­ous crash.

“Fine,” he sighed, “I’ll go check up on her.”