Chapter 7

Jenn woke slightly confused. "I'm in a rainbow colored jail cell," she thought."This must be some dream No, wait a minute. This isn't a dream, I'm in jail on a weird planet that my friends and I got transported to, walking through this mysterious gate we found in our backyard. Wait, that can't be true. I must dreaming. I don't know. It doesn't really matter.""

"Hi," said the guy sitting on the bunk across from her.
"Who are you?" asked Jenn. "This guy's pretty cocky," she thought.
"I'm CEWL," he said. "But more importantly you are the greatest. I can't believe they put you in here with me."
"Cool?" asked Jenn.
"Of course I am. If you need proof.."
"No, that's ok."
"You're so amazing. I can't believe you've been able to stand up to them for so long.".
"What do you mean?"
"Well you're one of the yellows. It takes quite a few years to become one of those. And without registering you'd have to stand up to them an awful lot in order to avoid getting arrested."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're yellow. And you're one of us, so obviously..."
"I still have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
"Quit playing games. You can't be from around here and have just innocently stumbled upon this. Nobody just wanders into Rome. Most travelers avoid this place, no matter how inconvenient."
"Well, I did.
"What?"
"I just wandered in here. So you better tell me what'sgoing on."
"Oh boy," he sighed and looked around the room. Then he took a good look at Jenn again. "It's kinda complicated."
"I need to know."
"In Rome everybody has a ranking."
"That explains why I thought there was a caste system,"she interrupted.
"A what?"
"Never mind."
"Anyway, you earn points based on favors you do for people. You store these points on a credit card. Then when you have enough points you can use them to get other people to do favors to you."
"Like money," interrupted Jenn.
"No! Anyway you're rank is based on how many points you have. Orange is the upper 4th, yellow the second 4th, then blue, then green. In order to keep and use thesepoints you have to register with the town office. It's almost impossible to live here without any points or rank and it's even harder to gain them without registering."
“So, basically this is a place where people's value is based on how much money they have? Some paradise."
"No! It's about earning goods and services by helping others."
"Whatever," she paused and let this sink in. "So if not registering is suçh a hassle why do you think so highly of it ?"
"Because when we register, they can keep tabs on everything we do. Who our friends are, what our beliefs are, where we work, pray, go for a cup of coffee, what we eat for dinner, etc.
"So?"
"If they decided they don't like us or they find something we did they don't like, they have all the power and we have none."
"Maybe. I don't know. This is all kinda new to me. Who is this "They" anyway?"
"The Roman Senate, of course," he looked at her, puzzled.
"Where did you say you were from, anyway?"
"I didn't," she leaned back against her bunk and lookedat her cellmate. He was about average height- 5'9" or 5'10"- with long shimmering hair. Like all the people she had seen so far he had rainbow colored skin. His shirt (which clashed with his body) was a yellow, orange, blue, and green striped shirt with a big black question mark on it. He was also wearing faded khaki shorts. Now she understood his weird shirt.
"What kind of name is cool, anyway?" she asked.
He laughed. "CEWL is not my name. It's the name of the organization I'm a member of. It stands for Community of Elitists Without Licenses. My name's Matt.”
"I'm Jenn."