World-Mart by Leigh Lane Page A

sense of excitement take over her.  She felt herself delving far beyond her comfort zone, but at the same time, she was on an adventure to somewhere unknown.  She knew she had to let go of everything that had made up her life as Virginia Irwin or she would go insane.  She told herself that she needed to embrace whatever the future had for her.  Corporate may have taken away her identity, but she was still alive.
    Virginia felt her wedding band, wondering what place it had in her new life.  The thought of discarding it was enough to return the lump to her throat, and so she moved it to her right hand instead.  It felt funny there, foreign.  It would take some getting used to, just as it had so many years ago when George first placed it on her finger and she swore her eternal vows.  She wondered if George had moved his band, yet, being just as much the false widower as she was the false widow.
    She hoped he would not grieve too long for her.
    The group came up to a parked shuttle at the end of a private line.  It sat silent and dark.
    “Thank goodness we don’t have to wait today!” Mary said , pulling open the shuttle associate’s door.  She got in, and after only a moment the interior of the shuttle lit up and the main door slid open.  Virginia followed the rest of the group into the shuttle, glad that she had more than just Anne’s vague directions to get her to her destination.  Anne had to have counted on her to stand out by the time she boarded the 70, she figured, because it is unlikely she would have found the place by herself.
    The shuttle slowly began to move, picking up speed as it rolled down the track.  Isaac and the other two deviants watched Virginia with an unsettling mix of suspicion and curiosity.  With Mary in the operator’s room, Virginia felt alone and vulnerable, and she smiled sheepishly as she glanced between the three sets of staring eyes.
    Despite the cold and the continuing rain, Virginia was glad when the shuttle stopped at another private stop and the door opened.  She hurried out before everyone else, looking for Mary.
    Mary powered-down the machine and closed the shuttle associate’s door.  Virginia and the others followed in silence as they trekked through a grove of wild trees.  Broken branches were everywhere, the result of nature’s wrath against the hapless, unoffending trees, and a direct path was not clear.  Mary obviously led by memory, directing the group through the weatherworn domain, and to a clearing marked by two large boulders.
    The group continued on, coming to the foothill lining a small cluster of mountains.  Mary found the mouth of a hidden cave behind a thick gathering of bushes.  The rocky entrance was cold and dark, and Virginia made sure she stayed close behind Mary.  Virginia felt uneasy in the darkness, unable to see how sturdy the rocky ceiling really was.  She imagined the earth above them collaps ing in on the tunnel at any given moment, trapping all of them in eternal darkness , and she hastened her pace.   As soon as they wound past the first bend they could see light, and by the time they found the main cavern, they could feel warmth emanating from an electric heater.  Virginia hurried out of the shadows, shivering as she moved into the warm, lamp-lit cavern.
    The large, rocky area appeared to be a study and stock room, with shelves of electronics and laboratory supplies on one side and several large and expensive pieces of equipment on the other.
    Ray King sat in an ergonomically correct chair in front of a monstrous desk, reading a file on his computer, a personal bodyguard standing on either side of him.  He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, but Virginia couldn’t tell for sure.  He didn’t have any gray hair, save a few rogue strands in his beard, but his face had a defined character that developed only with age.  He looked up as the group dropped their loot, noticing Virginia as the outsider that she