Synopsis: Crystalline

Himmel is a city that was created in 1875 to act as a social experiment between the German and English governments and placed somewhere underwater on the ocean/lake floor. It was a vast city created using the most modern of technologies available to be closed from the world for 250 years. Many of the world's brightest minds and most talented artists and artisans opted to leave their current lives and live in Himmel for the sake of science. Also for science, they have agreed to let their children and grandchildren grow up knowing nothing of the world above. They won't even know that there is anything other than this in the world.

While the rest of the world struggled through the next 250 years of famine and wars, Himmel became forgotten. Although some historians searched for the lost location of the city, othr ignored it completely, claiming that it was a publicity stunt put on by the English and German governments as a spectacle for Victorian audiences. The idea that they had actually held the technology to create and prepare such a city was ridiculous.

In 2125, however, Himmel opened once again. The clockwork mechanisms that had kept generations of people locked within a pseudo-Victoriana, utopian time capsule. The residents of Himmel now had the choice of remaining in their home, the only one they had ever known, or of reaching their arms out to the new world they had never met.

Tess had spent the last five years training as the assistant for a Guide. She hoped to be able to become one herself, someday. Guides led spiritual journeys of the mind and psyche, sometimes to a single persona and sometimes to many at once. They could help you reach into your own past and pull up memories long forgotten or to reach into a world beyond and create a universe you didn't even know you had within you.

One day, a frightening grinding sound is heard and Himmel experiences one of very few "earthquakes." Unbeknownst to all but the governor, the locks have released and Himmel is open once more to the rest of the world. The city is slowly falling apart and they must be relocated, but the governor does not wish to upset his citizens. He sends a note to his niece, Tess, explaining things, as well as a book: The Governor's Log. It is a journal that outlines the history of Himmel and was added to by each subsequent governor of the city. Tess must escape to the world above and find a "Promised Land" for the residents of Himmel where they can be safe in a new and very different world.

The world above, however, has been slowly decimated over the many, many decades by war, corruption, and famine. The main powers existing are Greenland, Canada, and Australia, all of which refused to take sides in the Energy War, a war of epic proportions. Tess will find a very modern world above that relies on new kinds of energy (all natural) and is slowly putting itself back together.

This is Tess' story.