The patrolling Rangers stopped by Danielle’s group, and the darker-haired woman said, “Hello miss. I can’t help but notice you have an active Skill on your staff, there. Would you be so kind as to tell me what it is?”

  Danielle sighed. “It’s Flash Shield. Would you be so kind in turn as to tell me how you detected it?”

  “Mana Sight,” the Ranger said. “Isn’t Flash Shield tier 2?”

  “Oh, of course – something anyone at all might have. I should’ve thought about that,” Danielle said. “And yeah, it was recommended to me as a tool for not being thrown up to base level 3 before my safety month has passed. I’m having some issues with the Wolf Pack sys-org, you see.”

  “Oh! You’re the – uh, Medic Falconer, right?” the other woman exclaimed. “The Healers won’t stop raving about you and your Healer friend.”

  “That’s me,” Danielle said with a lopsided smile. “So, um. How many of you are here, today?”

  “No idea – dozens, for sure,” the second Ranger answered. “Oh, are you wondering about the – ” her partner elbowed her sharply. “Ow.” She paused to glare at her partner. “Don’t worry, not everyone on election support, catalog distribution, or care package duty is going to try to talk to you individually. Just go see Healer Flo at the questions booth out on the road when you’re done voting, OK?”

  “I can do that,” Danielle said. “Thanks. I was wondering.”

  “No problem. We should get moving again, though,” the Ranger said, and moved off with her partner.

  Heather watched them go. “Is it just me, or are all the Rangers in sight women?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” Cassy said. “Probably because all the Sent in this area are women too.”

  Akari laughed. “If we’re calling ourselves women now, anyway.”

  Cassy wrinkled her nose at Akari. “You know what I mean. We might still be fourteen or fifteen, but buildings five and six are all female. Over behind seven and three, the Rangers are probably all men. I wonder how long they expect it to last?”

  “I’d put my bet on ‘as long as everyone’s too mana-poor to buy rooms,’ if I was them,” Heather said. “I’m pretty sure the Reggies are already saving up.”

  Danielle almost choked on her tea, and had a coughing fit while Heather rolled her eyes and asked, “Oh come on, did you seriously not notice?”

  “I noticed they were sweet on each other, but I wasn’t exactly thinking in terms of – of rooming together,” Danielle said. “We’re fourteen! Advancing us early doesn’t actually make us instantly mature enough for – I mean I know they aren’t exactly – ugh, it just wasn’t even on my radar.”

  “You aren’t going to flip out about it now, are you?” Heather asked.

  “I don’t have time to think about it right now,” Danielle said, “so no. Also, I’m not sure there’s anything religiously wrong about saving up for a room, I’m just – it just feels like we’re too young to even be thinking about that, and now I’m wondering how many people are thinking about it anyway, and whether that’s going to be a thing the town council will end up having to deal with. I mean, do we need marriage laws to go on the town charter, this year?”

  “Maybe you don’t need marriage laws at all, because you already agreed the charter shouldn’t be religious,” Heather challenged.

  “Firmitatem has marriage laws! We probably want to obey them, we’re technically a city of Firmitatem, right?” Danielle insisted. “I don’t even know what they are, really, it never seemed relevant to my near future before! There’s a license, right? And some kind of medical check thingy? Would the Rangers do all of that, or are we supposed to be doing licensing?”

  “There must be an answer,” Akari said. “Most Sent are already old enough to marry when they first get Sent, this can’t be the first time someone in a Sent camp-town has asked this stuff.”

  “Right – right, that’s true,” Danielle said. “Maybe once there’s a town council, they’ll give the councilors some information on this kind of stuff. Yeah, so we can have things set up in time for the review at catalog time, right? That’s probably why they’re pushing the council vote now.” She took a deep breath, then another.

  “Look at you, having panic attacks on behalf of the town. You aren’t even on the council, yet,” Cassy teased.

  “That’s a good point. Maybe this legal stuff is all Lauren’s problem!” Danielle said hopefully.

  “Because she’s Reggie and Reggie’s hunting party leader?” Sadie asked.

  “What? No, because she’s a good candidate for town council,” Danielle said. “She’s good at organizing people – look at the deer hunt, and the trip to the Access Point. I might nominate her, if that’s how this works. Do you think the Rangers even know we have political parties? I’m not sure if I think that’s obvious enough that it has to be normal, or if it might be a surprise to them.”

  “Now Hear This: A message to all Exiles of Firmitatem on layer 1, from the Firmitatem Rangers Layer 1 Outpost. The time is now 7am. All residents of Camp Constanza are requested and required to gather on the side of their residential building further from the road to vote for district representatives to the town council. Anyone failing to attend the vote forfeits their vote. Anyone who can be shown to have interfered with someone else’s ability to attend the vote shall be incarcerated for one week (per person impeded) at the Firmitatem Outside District prison. Rangers are beginning a room sweep momentarily. All residents are to gather for elections behind their own building of residence; candidate nominations will be starting now. End Skill.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Time to stop worrying and start doing,” Akari said.

  Danielle nodded and drained the last of her tea. One of the Rangers was on the little platform, tightening a bolt on something attached to the front railing. Three more railings ringed the platform, and the short end nearest Danielle was partly taken up by two stairs for access. It wasn’t very tall. The Ranger pocketed her wrench, and flicked a switch on the box. “Building six, can you hear me?” she asked, her voice booming out of the box.

  “Oh, an electronic speaker!” Heather said with a laugh. “I didn’t expect that somehow.”

  Sadie nodded. “They didn’t use one the first day,” she agreed.

  The crowd turned to face the platform and quieted down. “Good morning. I’m Ranger Anna, and I’ll be facilitating your election process today. Since you haven’t done this before, we’re going to put you through a standard procedure, and if you don’t like it, your council can decide on what to do next year,” the Ranger said.

  “Here’s how this year is going to go. We’ll start by letting people come up here and nominate people. You’ll get in line, and give a little spiel about who you think should be nominated and why. If at least three people from different rooms support your nomination after the spiel, then your candidate gets a box in the voting tent. When you’re done offering suggestions, or when we run out of boxes, we’ll give each candidate a chance to speak briefly for themselves. After that, we’ll move on to voting. Each person will be given three voting balls when they get to the tent – a green 2, a blue 1, and a black 0. The person you think will be the best representative gets the two-point ball. The person you think is second-best gets the one-point ball. The candidate you think is the worst choice gets the black ball, which removes a point. When everyone has voted, we’ll count points, and the three candidates with the highest totals become your building representatives.”

  Low-voiced conversations rumbled through the crowd. Ranger Anna paused for a moment to let people have their reactions, then continued. “We’ve heard there are political parties in play; so I’m going to start by inviting any party leaders present to come up and present their party’s primary candidate for your building. After that, we’ll take whoever’s in line. We will not be hearing multiple speeches about the same candidate, so if your candidate is already on the list, we’ll ask you to sit down. So! Five minute break now while parties send their representatives to your right to register with Ranger Miriam, and everyone else who wants to put in a nomination can line up to the left.”

  “I think I better move right,” Danielle said, standing up. “Where are my fellow Organizers, here?”

  Akari stood uncertainly behind her, then said, “I think I probably have to let the Rangers handle security today, but keep your Flash Shield up, all right?”

  “Yes, don’t worry, I won’t just leave my staff lying around,” Danielle said, slipping the lanyard on her wrist to make sure. She hurried off before Akari could say anything else.

  There were a good dozen people converging towards Ranger Miriam, including Lauren and Candice. Danielle stopped with them, as others also converged in pairs and trios, only two going directly to the Ranger.

  “We should have chosen candidates last night,” Candice said.

  “I didn’t expect them to call on the parties! How did they even know about the parties?” Lauren exclaimed.

  “What she said,” Danielle said, pointing to Lauren. “But also, who should we nominate, Bethany or Lauren?”

  “You!” Lauren said.

  “Don’t want it,” Danielle said. “What would anyone even say about me in a speech?”

  Candice shrugged. “What would we say about Lauren or Beth? Convince us, and maybe we’ll let you try to convince everyone else.”

  “I can say that I’ve seen Lauren effectively organize groups of people twice this week alone, once for a major hunt and once to explore for the location of the Access Point,” Danielle said. “She’ll make a good town leader because she’s already a good leader.”

  “What about Bethany?” Lauren asked.

  Danielle shrugged in turn. “I’m not sure what to say about her, but she seems the charismatic sort that might have an easier time speaking for herself. Um, we could honestly say that she saw that the existing parties weren’t, um, offering the kind of leadership that many of us want, and instigated the creation of our party to fix that?”

  Lauren and Candice looked at each other. “Do you want it, Lauren?” Candice asked. “Because Beth is great when she’s aimed the right way, but she’s not always as good at aiming herself the right way as she was last night. She’d have to be managed, and that could get problematic.”

  “I – but – you know you’re probably going to get nominated anyway, right Danielle?” Lauren asked

  “Maybe, but I don’t have to help,” Danielle said. “Seriously Lauren, I think you’d do a better job. You network well, and I really just don’t.”

  “All right, you do the speech and I’ll accept the nomination,” Lauren said.

  Danielle nodded. “I guess I get to do the sign-up, then,” she said, and headed for the Ranger.

  She was fourth in line, but the first girl finished just as she arrived. “All right, go over by the platform, and we’ll call on you in a few minutes,” Ranger Miriam told her. “Next?” She asked each girl for her name, her party’s name, and the name of their candidate. Danielle wasn’t sure why the first girl had taken long enough not to be done while she and her fellow Shade Tree Society Organizers were panicking; she and the other two girls ahead of her got signed up and sent towards the platform very quickly. Ranger Anna gestured them back behind the longer line stretching out from the stairs.

  To her annoyance, the girl who had been behind her in line with Ranger Mirriam promptly cut in front of her at the new line. Danielle was about to say something, when she had second thoughts, and simply moved back a step, then another. When the next girl came, the girl who cut actually told her, “The line starts behind me!” The new arrival glanced at Danielle in confusion, but Danielle just gave her a slightly predatory grin and stepped back invitingly. She was now sixth out of seven in the “party line.”

  “Why are you smiling like that?” the girl who was now next to her in the other line asked.

  “I just thought of a lame pun,” Danielle told her. “We’re the party line, hehe.”

  “People are cutting in front of you, and you’re grinning over lame jokes?” the other girl asked incredulously.

  “I can present my candidate just as well last as fourth,” Danielle told her with a wink, just in time for the actual last party representative to hear her.

  The one instigating the cutting gestured the new arrival into line ahead of Danielle, and she shrugged and took the spot. “You’re nuts,” she told Danielle.

  “I’m getting the last word,” Danielle told her, perhaps a bit smugly. “Among the parties at least.”

  “What?!” the girl instigating the cutting exclaimed angrily.

  “No backsies!” Danielle told her, and several of the girls in the other line laughed.

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