Sami got up to her feet but was instantly thrown to the floor again. A ugly or at least someone that looked VERY ugly was staring at her inspecting her. She crawled closer to Ai, "Who are they?" she whispered

"Uglies? No, they're too old. They're older than us!" Ai whispered back.
One of the older Uglies began to speak, in some rough guttural language she didn't understand. His tone was that of an interrogation, and he seemed to be asking a question and demanding an answer.

Sami used her fingers to show the peace sign, she had researched it some time ago and thought it was pretty cool.
"Peace" she said hoping they understood.
But instead they tied rope around their hands and man-handled them into a foul smelling room/house/thing.
They slammed the door shut and left Sami and Ai.

"OK... I guess we're gonna miss the party over at the Crims' place tomorrow night then..." said Ai quietly, trying to make the situation slightly more relaxed, but it didn't work. She was still terrified.
"This stinks."

Sami really didnt care about a party, she found this rather exciting.
"Cheer up! we have made a discovery! We have found other living things beyond the city grid!" Sami said standing up and exploring the place.

"I suppose you're right," said Ai. "But what do you think those people are? If only we had a hovercam..."
She rummaged in her pockets and pulled out the remains of her old hovercam. It was completely broken. She'd been menaing to get it fixed, but had never got the time.

"Hovercam? that's old stuff! here put these in your eyes." she pulled out two pairs of contact lenses and put one in her own eyes. "Special truly hidden cameras! My uncle's invention.
"We can still see but everything is recorded! so if we ever go seperate ways we can watch each other's adventures!"
Sami laughed and started to examine the room. "It also gives light to the eye so you could say we can see in the dark!"

"Wow! Then when we get back we can put the records on the feeds and be famous! We could probably even start our own clique, we'd be so famous." Ai stuck her own contacts in and looked around their room with her new enhanced vision.
It was unlike any room she'd ever seen before. It was smelly and dark, and full of sacks. She opened one of the sacks. It was full of potatoes. Real, frshly dug potatoes! She'd never seen one before, but she knew what they looked like from the holograms she'd been shown in her Ugly days. She picked one up and examined it at all angles, making sure her eye camera took it all in.

"Wow this place is amazing! Actual real food." Sami found a sack filled with apples, nice red apples. She bit into one... "OMPrettyG This is amazing! they have left us in heaven!" Sami cried with joy and finished her apple.
The door opened...

"Do not touch those!" shouted an Ugly man in the doorway, speaking with a terrible accent, and obviously not a native speaker of the Pretty language.
"You can speak our language?" asked Ai, jumping back from the potato sack. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Ai Suzuki!"

Sami dropped her apple, luckily she had stuffed some in her sack. To bring back to the city, as proof. "Er hi, im Sami Loveday. You are?" Sami could see a younger man standing behind the older one, they both had the same squint looking eyes and thin lips, obviously father and son.
She waved to the younger man, he grinned. A ugly grin...

"It is true, father," said the grinning man, also in a terrible accent. "The Gods whose language we learn do exist."
Gods? Ai thought, her eyebrows rising. Well, she wasn't going to contradict them if this assumption on their part was keeping her alive!
"Goddesses of beauty, please forgive our hunters' vioent means of bringing you here. They acted out of ignorance," said the older man, bowing low.

"Er sure no problem..." Godesses? WOW this was more than Sami had ever hoped for. "I suppose we ...er... appologize for disturbing you like this."
Sami moved to the side to grab her knapsack but the man was quicker, with lightning speed he took the sack and slung it over his shoulder, "Let me carry this for you" he siad in the awful accent.
"Thanks." She smiled, he smiled back with crooked teeth.

Ai was looking forward to VIP treatment in this Ugly settlement.
"Of course, you must be goddesses!" exclaimed the younger man as they walked out into the light. Ai remembered that they would not have been able to see very well inside, unlike them. "Your hair is the colour of berries, and yours the colour of plants!"

"Why thank you." Sami replied, to be honest she didn't really like the idea of being treated as such an important person, they didnt know that soon the specials would be after them once Sami placed all this on the feeds.

Ai wasn't quite sure if being told her hair was the colour of plants was a compliment... she knew her hair was green!
"How many people live here?" she asked.

Sami was just wondering the same thing,
"You are godesses you must know; we keep ourselves hidden in many numbers." The father said more serious this time.

"We don't know everything!" Ai exclaimed. "That's why we're here - we're travelling."
She was careful not to deny that she was a goddess - she didn't want to get killed.

Sami shot Ai a look... beggin Ai not to speak so suddenly.
"Yes we travel, to meet the people of this beautiful world. We seek to know everything about them, but even gods and godesses do not know everything." Sami spook calmly and soothingly trying to calm these two men down.

Ai saw the begging look in Sami's eyes and gave her the smallest of nods, knowing that her new friend was warning her to be more careful.
"We shall have a feast tonight to honour our Goddesses!" said the older man, and he turned and called to the other people around in their own, harsh language. Ai assumed he was saying something similar/

The men left them to wander around the little town/village thing. Sami took this opportunity to talk to Ai.
"Listen, ive had an idea, we have pictures from our eyes as proof but what if we invite two of their people to come an join us in our 'realm'? Even more proof, and they could become pretties... and we'd be soooo famous cuz we found a new species. What dju think?" Sami took hold of Ai's arm, she was getting excited about her idea.

Ai wasn't so sure. "Maybe the Specials already know about them. And what if they don't want to be Pretty? I think that's probably why they're here - they're descendants of people who ran away from the City because they didn't want surge."

Sami understood Ai's point of view, "But i mean come on we'd be soooo famous! Think about it, we could be the youngest uber famous pretties! like we had surge a wekk ago and we'd be sooooo famous..." Sami got excited and attracted some unnessecary attention. She smiled and waved at the people who were looking at them.

The people Sami waved at looked awed. Ai stifled a giggle.
"Yeah, you have a point. Our face ranks would be in the top thousand! And these people would follow us anywhere, I bet. But who to take with us?"

"Well i thought we could talk to the chief, see what he thinks and then see who wants to come and the chief gets to pick... what dju think?" Sami whispered,