Danielle added her Necessities Store notebook to her bag – the one she’d been using before she got the Planner Trait – then filled the water bottles for the boys, and when her roommates still hadn’t arrived, she added a can of beef barley soup and her first aid kit to the bag and headed out to building one. Her mana ticked up – one point available. She desperately wished she had enough to activate Flash Shield, but she needed nearly another hour for that. Or a purple cherry tomato, but she hadn’t found any in the room.

  As she approached the end of building one, Ezra suddenly called her name, and clambered up the retaining wall with his staff in hand. “Danielle! You’re here! Guess what!” he called out, jogging past the end of the building to meet her in the grassy “yard” that surrounded the building. “My staff got enhanced! I saw Heather’s enhancement, and I really like it, so I prayed and asked the System every day to please give me the same one, and look what I can do now!”

  He raised his staff over his head, then threw it hard, high and parallel to the building, spinning end over end. He stood with his hand still held up and out, but the staff seemed to be flying just as anyone would expect from that throw. Danielle was just about to ask what she was supposed to be seeing when it started spinning back towards them. She took a cautious step back, and was about to call for Ezra to do the same, when the staff made one final revolution and smacked into his upheld hand, perfectly parallel to his grip, without even grazing his finger tips. “Is that awesome or what?!” Ezra exclaimed, turning to her with a grin.

  “That’s – you threw the staff, then activated a returning enhancement?” Danielle asked. “That is awesome. You could really hurt someone if you did that in the wrong place, but in a certain kind of fight it could be a very impressive maneuver, and when it comes to plain old playing with boomerangs, this has it all over the plastic toy ones.”

  Ezra laughed joyfully. “It really does! Don’t worry, I won’t do it where I don’t have a clear space to throw without hitting anyone.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Danielle said. “Let’s head for Tom’s room, though, I’m hungry. You can show the other girls after the party meeting.”

  “Where are they?” Ezra asked, looking back toward building six.

  “Late getting home from foraging,” Danielle said. “I hope they’re OK. None of them can send a Now Hear This, though, so if they just lost track of time they couldn’t tell me.”

  “Huh. Well, um, let’s go around the long way, and give them time to catch up,” Ezra proposed.

  Danielle chuckled. “I’m afraid they’re a little further behind me than that. Let’s go the short way, and get our suppers cooked before they show up, so they can start theirs right away.”

  “That makes sense, but, um. Can we go around the long way anyway?” Ezra asked uneasily. He glanced back towards the near end of the building.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” Danielle asked.

  Ezra shifted his weight nervously and gestured vaguely with his staff. “Well, probably nothing. Gideon’s taking care of it! It’ll be more nothing-y if you stay away from it, though. I think.”

  Danielle shifted her grip on her own staff, wishing again that she had a second point of mana to activate Flash Shield. “Look, you’re making me nervous now, and I’d feel better if you just told me what was going on,” she said.

  “Well, um. You remember how you were talking about Vanessa when we were camping, and we could hardly believe you were talking that way about someone from Bible study?” Ezra asked.

  “Yeah, I remember. Gideon wanted to just walk away without even telling me about the dream,” Danielle said. “I, um. I wasn’t exactly showing my best Christian forgiveness and so on,” she admitted. “Vanessa’s just been my enemy for a long time, and it feels like she just – look, let’s not get into it. Why are we even talking about this?”

  “Well, um, you said how hanging out with Gideon would get you in trouble with her, remember? And Gideon didn’t believe you at first, but then after the town council meeting, he came home and said he couldn’t believe how she was acting and it was so childish and maybe you weren’t exaggerating as much as he thought,” Ezra said.

  “Yeah, she kept trying to disrupt my illusion that I was using to let everyone have a visual of what we were putting together,” Danielle said. “Ezra, why are we talking about this right now, instead of going to supper?”

  “Well, she came to talk to Gideon, and if we go around this end of the building, we’ll run into them,” Ezra said. “And if she really hates you that much, and you kind of hate her back that much, it seems like it might turn a boring conversation into a fight.”

  “Ah. Complicating your plan, if we come around the long way, she’ll see me with you, and we’ll have to walk more than halfway along the building where she can see us,” Danielle said. “What if we walk around the building up here on the grass, and ignore her and Gideon’s conversation, and just get into Tom’s room as fast as possible? And maybe you get to go first, so she doesn’t see you with me and get you involved in this?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Ezra said in a low voice, looking down. “Vanessa treats me like I’m just an extension of Gideon. If he’s not around, she ignores me like I wasn’t even there. Even if I try to talk to her.”

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  “Ah. Of course if Gideon is around, since he’s popular and has a leadership position, she’s super nice to you where he can see it and be impressed?” Danielle guessed.

  “Yeah, but when she doesn’t think we can hear, she calls me Gideon’s retard,” Ezra said, twisting his staff against the ground. In an even lower voice, he added, “She’s not the only one. I hate it so much.”

  Danielle sighed. “OK, well, if you don’t want to have to walk past her alone, I don’t blame you. Let’s just go quietly and quickly and trust Gideon to handle his conversation with her,” Danielle said. “Hopefully she’ll be too focused on him to take proper notice of us.”

  “OK, but if she does notice, you have to keep going and not stop to fight,” Ezra said.

  “I promise. Let’s go,” Danielle said.

  They approached the end of the building again, and now that Ezra was being quiet, Danielle could hear them. “Gideon, you just, you can’t hang around with Danielle like that!” Vanessa said, sounding oddly desperate.

  “Vanessa, we’re just talking around in circles, and you’re making me late to meet my hunting party,” Gideon said, sounding tired and put-upon. “We were doing medical rounds in building seven, which is too dangerous for anyone to do alone. It wasn’t happy-fun hangout time. Even if it was, what is it to you who I hang out with?”

  “Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Vanessa asked indignantly. “Friends don’t let friends ruin their reputations!”

  “In that case, I guess I should’ve stopped you from making that ridiculous scene at the council meeting, where you tried to stop Danielle from putting up a whiteboard for us,” Gideon said.

  “She was showing off!” Vanessa insisted venomously. “I hate how everyone just lets her show off – where does she get off acting all high and mighty all the time?!”

  “I don’t know, Vanessa, I’ve never seen her do it,” Gideon said. “She really wasn’t acting high and mighty at the council meeting either. She literally let everyone in the council boss her around, after all, adding words and removing words and so on for hours. I’m still amazed she didn’t run out of mana.”

  “And that’s another thing!” Vanessa said. “She didn’t run out of mana – and people at the prayer meeting were saying she used a privacy Skill for hours at the Access Point, too! How was she doing that, huh? She’s hiding something!”

  “She’s level two, her Skills probably last longer,” Gideon said flatly. “Come on, Vanessa, what’s so terrible about having longer-lasting Skills or a Trait or something?”

  “It’s showing off!” Vanessa insisted again.

  Gideon sighed. “Vanessa, I understand that you don’t like Danielle, and I understand that you don’t like her showing off. However, you have not given me any reason to believe she’s engaged in wrongdoing.”

  Danielle walked quickly down the stairs, gesturing to Ezra to catch up to her. She suspected her Speed Improvement was showing more than she should be letting it, but she wanted inside the room before Gideon accidentally sent Vanessa away at just the wrong moment and they literally ran into each other.

  “Showing off is wrongdoing!” Vanessa tried. “It’s pride, and that’s one of the deadly sins!”

  “Are you praying for her, then?” Gideon asked. “Also, are you watching yourself to make sure you don’t fall into sin of your own? I forget where it says that – something about not getting too worked up about the sinful people around you and forgetting to watch yourself. Do you remember it?”

  “What? Um, you’d have to be more specific,” Vanessa said. “Look, I’m not asking much, I’m just saying, don’t hang around with her!”

  “You don’t think trying to control who I spend time with is asking much?” Gideon said. “Who do you think you are, to decide who I do and do not get to hang around with? Go away, Vanessa, I’m hungry and I’m supposed to be meeting my hunting party to make supper. Don’t you have your own supper to make?”

  “It is not supper time just because Danielle says so in her stupid Now Hear This messages!” Vanessa insisted hotly. “I can have supper as early or late as I want!”

  “You can, but I agreed to meet my hunting party for supper at a certain time, and you’re making me late,” Gideon insisted. “Let me go already.”

  Danielle knocked urgently on Tom’s door, and bit her lip, forcing herself to stay still and not tap her feet while she waited. It really only took a few seconds. Ezra caught up with her just as Zephyr was opening the door.

  “Danielle! Where’s everyone else?” Zephyr asked.

  “In, in, in!” Danielle said, pushing past him. Ezra crowded in behind her, and Zephyr closed the door.

  Behind her, Danielle heard Vanessa saying, “Not until you promise me you won’t hang out with Danielle anymore!”

  Gideon’s reply was cut off by the door, but it started with, “No. You don’t get to make that decision – ” Danielle presumed the end of that sentence was “for me.” She pressed her ear to the door from the inside, waving a hand to shush Zephyr’s concerned questions, and heard him add, “ – believe the things she was saying about you, but every time I’ve seen you since, you’ve decided to prove one of them true. You really need step back and take a hard look at the way you’re behaving concerning her, Vanessa. And you need to get out of my way!”

  Vanessa replied, “Hey, come back here! Gideon! Stop! I’m not done talking to you!” the voice was coming closer. Danielle drew a sharp breath and ducked into the bathroom just in time for Gideon to knock on the door.

  Zephyr opened the door again. “Gideon? Hey, come on in – what’s going on out there?”

  Danielle heard Vanessa’s voice, still there at the door apparently, saying “Oh – you’re that one Systemist!”

  “Really? That’s all you remember? I introduced myself at the council meeting, just like you. Vanessa Vandere, right?” Zephyr replied. “What are you doing here, though? This isn’t a council thing, it’s our hunting party.”

  “I’m trying to talk some sense into my old friend, Gideon!” Vanessa said indignantly. “What good do you think will come of hanging out with Systemists, Gideon?!”

  “I think I’ll get to eat supper, if you’ll back off and let the door close,” Gideon said.

  “Well, I won’t! I won’t stand for this, Gideon!” Vanessa exclaimed.

  “Why not? I didn’t hear you inviting me to supper,” Gideon said. “Or to hunt or train together, or to the Access Point – ”

  “Nobody invited me to go there either!” Vanessa interrupted.

  “Gosh, I wonder why?” Zephyr asked sarcastically. “It’s almost like you’re a hyper-controlling religious bigot.”

  “Like that Brooke girl, huh?” Gideon asked dryly.

  “Yeah, like that!” Zephyr agreed. “I don’t know why anyone invited her either, to be honest. Hey, back off lady, you weren’t invited into this room.”

  “Hey! Get out of my way!” Vanessa said indignantly, then, “HEY! How dare you! I –” Then there came the sound of the door closing, and a muffled cry of outrage from outside it.

  “Danielle? You OK in there?” Zephyr asked.

  Danielle opened the door and came out into the sink area. “Yeah, I just didn’t want to get caught up interacting with her. I promised to be somewhere at eight, and if I got into the middle of that argument, who knows how long we might have still been there, arguing. Can you message the rest of our party’s girls, and warn them she’s hanging around? I’m a bit mana-dry right now.”

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