“Why would security be questionable anyway?” Danielle asked.

  “The actual title is, A Guide to Privacy and Security Skills,” Agent Mike said. “Privacy Skills means sneaking stuff.”

  “It can, but it can also mean Skills for maintaining privacy in the voting booths like some of my colleagues were doing today,” Ranger Flo said, her face the very picture of sweet reason. “This book will emphasize the privacy Skills that are for privacy and security, like the title says. It’s not like I’m offering her a Class Guide to Spy, or Thief, or even Basic Sneak.”

  “I should hope not!” Mike said heatedly. “I don’t even know why we carry those!”

  “New Sent like my group don’t necessarily have tons of Classes open to us at the Dome,” Danielle said awkwardly. “Some people might think Basic Sneak sounds good for sneaking up on deer and wildcats, and if their other options are Basic Academic and Basic Clerk, well then they might end up really wanting a guide to tuning Basic Sneak towards the stuff they want to do, and away from even unlocking a Class called ‘Thief,’ you know?”

  The young agent opened his mouth to offer some heated retort, but Ranger Flo interrupted him to say, “Before you say whatever is currently on your mind, Mike, please remember that no one in Medic Falconer’s cohort has ever had the opportunity to take a Class-preparation course in school, or attend a Themed Skills training camp. Not one of them, ever.”

  “What? But how – why – ugh, I know that was one of the proposals last year. Didn’t they do any prep with them?!” Mike exclaimed.

  “Nope,” Ranger Flo said, her eyes going hooded and her expression sour. “Not a hint of those proposals got out of the committee rooms Inside before they left. Pre-Sending Security, you know.”

  Mike stared at her, aghast, then at Danielle, then at Ranger Flo again. Eventually, he finally realized his mouth was open and shut it, bracing his arms on the counter, and turning his stare thoughtfully downward.

  “I thought the ‘deal’ they offered me was bad,” he finally said. “What the stink. Half the cohort must have been stuck with nothing but Basic Academic, Basic Clerk, and – what, Basic Weapon Fighter, maybe? Because of gym class?”

  “Got it in one,” Danielle said. “I know several Basic Weapon Fighters who find their Class kind of embarrassing, but it was the least useless Class they had available. I think nearly anyone who got an option other than that took it, except maybe a few people who were actual martial arts athletes.”

  Mike looked up at the book Ranger Flo was trying to sell Danielle. “All right, I get why we’re stocking guides for some of the sketchier Basic Classes. I’m still questioning this sale, though.”

  “This book offers the best compromise available between a sufficiently general overview of security Skills to guide a young person's System into the right framework, and including enough specific unlocking information to actually be useful to the Skill Sharer who needs improved security,” Ranger Flo said.

  “She lives in the Rooms. The security there is as paranoid as it gets already,” Mike objected.

  “That can’t possibly be true,” Danielle said. “I can look right through the walls with Hostility Sense, or use Detect Mana Source and count the number of people in a closed room. Surely there’s some way to block that sort of Skill, or all the visual barrier Skills in the world would be irrelevant!”

  “Hostility Sense is super rare though, and only works if you’re hostile,” Mike objected.

  “It’s not rare in Camp Constanza, and I can’t help feeling kind of hostile towards the people that were throwing rocks at me this morning,” Danielle said.

  “It’s not rare,” Mike repeated disbelievingly.

  Ranger Flo frowned. “Based on what evidence, Danielle?” she asked.

  “Based on, I’m the third person just in my room to unlock it?” Danielle said. “Based on, everyone’s terrified of the Wolf Pack and nobody answers a door without using a Skill to see if the person on the other side is safe? Which I know because I use Detect Mana Source to see if anyone’s home, and I can see how they move. The Rooms might be hard to get into, but they’re not hard to see into. I have it on good authority that they’re transparent to mana bursts, too; and people can just camp outside a door easily enough. You can slide stuff in under the door; fine for passing notes, until someone figures out how to make a mana-casting scroll that works like a grenade, and light goes through those cracks too, so again, easy to tell which rooms have people inside. They’re not soundproof, either, and they have bad ventilation so smoke under the door would – “

  “Stop, stop, I get it! How long have you been thinking about this stuff??” Agent Mike demanded.

  Danielle blinked at him. “How long have we been talking?” He gaped at her. “I mean, some of it’s stuff I noticed before now, but most of the ways to bypass the security to hurt people I thought of just now, because we were talking about it.”

  “So, I take it you want the book, then,” Ranger Flo asked ironically.

  “Um, yeah, I think I talked myself into it. And the administrative one is for stuff like the door management Skills I was asking about for the Society and my hunting party, right?” Danielle asked.

  “Correct.”

  “Are they ten each, then? That would add up to 100 even, which doesn’t round off the 50 but hey, 50 is round enough, right?” Danielle asked.

  “I’m getting 115 on the register,” Mike said, scanning the last two books.

  “That’s internal,” Ranger Flo told him. “The Ranger Service is internal-transferring the funds per the register; the prices I’m giving Danielle are between her and the Ranger Service.”

  “Your loss,” Mike said, closing the sale and handing Flo a receipt to sign.

  “It’s a minor discount,” Flo said, turning back to Danielle.

  “All right, 950 for the tokens and 100 for the books,” Danielle said, and wrote them onto the ledger page. Ranger Flo initialed it, and they got all the books slid into the bag on both sides. Danielle bent her knees to pick it up, expecting it to be extremely heavy with all the books, and almost threw it. Agent Mike laughed at her; Ranger Flo managed to keep it down to a smile.

  “Weight reduction on this one, too, huh?” Danielle asked. Come to think of it, the delivery guy had mentioned that.

  “Yep. Don’t forget your sewing kit thing,” Agent Mike said, pointing to the leather satchel that was still hanging over one handle of the handcart.

  “Oh – weren’t there supposed to be two of these?” Danielle asked.

  “If so, the other one will show up later,” Mike said. “They aren’t done making these yet. Was it supposed to be one of each type?”

  Danielle nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem; they probably haven’t started putting together the second type. The catalog stuff isn’t supposed to be needed for another two weeks, you know!” Mike said.

  “A fair point,” Danielle said. “I guess if they don’t deliver it, Agent Bea will have no one to blame but herself for my being mad at the Sending Authority!”

  Ranger Flo laughed at Danielle’s reference to Bea’s parting crack; Agent Mike just rolled his eyes. Danielle supposed there was a little rivalry between the two services.

  Danielle put on the kit on one side, her Decision Day bag on the other side, and arranged the duffel bag so it mostly lay across her back. She picked up the two Skill tokens off the counter and slid them into her bag with all the mana tokens. “Can I take these to the Dome on my way out?” she asked.

  “Please don’t,” Ranger Flo said. “You really have added a lot of new things to your personal System today already; the dizziness was probably from the new sensory Trait, but let’s not push it, all right? Wait a day or three before you take your new Skill tokens to the Access Point. Let that Trait settle. Let your Classes settle! Taking two new Classes this close together can make them come in slow and weak at first; give everything some time. Remember, you have five to ten years! Come on, I’ll give you a ride back to where we picked you up.”

  “All right,” Danielle said, letting Ranger Flo lead her back out to the truck (now empty in back). “What does it mean for a Class to come in ‘slow and weak,’ though?”

  “It means your Classes might not absorb mana as well as usual, and Class Skills might not be fully functional right away; they’ll have shorter durations or less powerful effects or take more mana to activate than they should,” Ranger Flo explained. She paused while they both got into the truck and got settled. “It’s rare for it to happen with individual Skills, but you can occasionally see it with really rapid Skill gain, and you have just demonstrated some really rapid Skill gain, so take it easy. If you don’t urgently need today’s new Skills, hold off on using them for a little while. Remember, the System took ten whole years or more to construct your first mana pool, Skill and Trait; and yes, that was at Inside speeds, but the point remains. It takes time. Pace yourself a little on what you demand it give you now; you’re still only level 2, and you can strain your System infrastructure. Besides, if you keep adding things this fast, you’ll end up with an early harrowing, and that is nobody’s idea of fun.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Huh. That makes sense, now that you spell it out that way,” Danielle said. “Is that something I shouldn’t repeat around Systemists, though? It sounds like something they wouldn’t like. Claiming the System is limited or something.”

  “Oh, well. They have some religious explanation for it that sounds completely different but means the same thing,” Ranger Flo said. “Something about the System discouraging greed, I think? So no, don’t repeat my exact explanation, but don’t worry about referencing the general idea.”

  “And maybe don’t tell them I just took like a dozen Skills today, either,” Danielle said. “Not that I actually thought that was a good idea. What’s a harrowing?”

  “That’s when the greater System gives your personal System a checkup and tune-up. They normally happen every four levels, and when you need one, it blocks your level-up until you get it. The other downside is, they hurt. Nobody exactly knows why, because it doesn’t seem to have any direct physiological effects. Whatever the reason, though, it’s very painful.” Ranger Flo got the truck in gear and moving, pausing to check the road as they pulled away from the warehouse. “Normally, the first harrowing happens after level 4 – that is, when it’s time to level up to base level 5. It’s not unheard of for people with multiple Classes to get harrowed after level 3 instead, though.”

  Ranger Flo fell silent. Danielle paused to think before asking another question, only to notice she actually had minimized System messages blinking for her attention. What could that be? She opened them, and saw her Light Shaper level one choices. “Oh, uh, about that thing with not taking Classes too close together,” she asked, “if I had, say, unlocked a Class I super definitely want, and I wanted to take it while I was by an Access Point – “

  “Nope, not stopping. We’re at the gate anyway,” Ranger Flo said.

  “No, I know, but say I went with some of the other town council people to use their Now Hear This tokens, but it was tomorrow – well, Monday probably – my actual question is, would it help to take the Class while I’m there, but not settle the Skill choices? Or would that make it worse?” Danielle asked.

  “Makes it worse,” Ranger Flo said. “Always settle any System choices as soon as you safely can. Open choices are unanchored mana in your body. Now roll down your window, so they can clip your wrist band off.”

  Danielle rolled down her window and stuck her arm out to have the wrist band removed, giving the Ranger a polite nod even though it was the same man who had threatened to taze her. Once they got moving, though, she turned to the choices she had (somehow?!) overlooked in the Dome.

  “Please select level one options for Class: Light Shaper.

  ? Choose one trait from: Spectrum Awareness (T1-L1) or Skin Photosensitivity (T1-L1)

  ? Choose one trait from: Rapid Pupil Adjustment (T1-L1) or Flash Resistance (T1-L1)

  ? Choose one skill from: Illuminate Object (T1-L1) or Intensify Light (T1-L1)

  ? Choose one skill from: Light Writing (T1-L1) or Lightbeam Bending (T1-L1) or Light Lensing (T1-L1)”

  Danielle wasn’t sure what any of those were, though some were less obscure than others, so she spent most of the ride back to the ruins reading descriptions. Skin Photosensitivity would make her able to detect light with her skin, which sounded like another sensorium Trait, and it wasn’t clear to Danielle how it would be useful to her. Spectrum Awareness had an odd description, but Danielle thought it amounted to a way to figure out what wavelengths of light were involved in whatever light she was seeing; it was expressed in her System more as an enhanced color sense. That sounded like it would at least be interesting, and possibly help her understand the differences between Thermal Vision and Infravision better, so she chose that.

  Rapid Pupil adjustment was about adjusting faster to bright or dim lighting, which did sound useful; but Flash Resistance would keep her from being blinded by bright flashes – like the one from Flash Shield, so that was her choice, and didn’t require much further thought.

  Illuminate Object was like Cassy’s light scroll; it would make something glow. At level 1, there wasn’t much more to it, but it promised more control at higher levels. Intensify Light would normally make a small light brighter, but promised dimming and color shifting options at higher levels. Danielle dithered a few minutes over that choice, because Illuminate Object wasn’t so different from Create Light Source in some ways; but she finally decided that Illuminate Object was probably a better choice for her goal of figuring out grow lights, even though both had possibilities in their “greater control at higher levels” promises. Assuming the other Skill was properly unlocked, it was on the medium-priority list for eventual advancement.

  Light Writing was, in almost all ways, redundant to Skill: Illusions. It would be easier to learn, if she hadn’t already learned to use Illusions; and it would allow for a slightly larger display area, if Illusions wasn’t already a level ahead. It might even be easier to draw symbols with it, as long as they were strictly line-based, and didn’t have any 3D surfaces to represent, like the fire symbol did. In the final analysis, it wouldn’t do anything for her right now. Lightbeam Bending would allow her to shine lights around corners – not at a very acute angle, at first, but leveling would make it more flexible. Light Lensing would focus a beam of light like a physical lens would. Danielle was sure there must be uses for that besides starting fires, but she couldn’t think of them in the moment, and Lightbeam Bending just plain sounded cool, so it won out.

  “We’re here,” Ranger Flo said a few minutes later. “What are you thinking about?”

  “My new light Skills, and whether I made the right choices, and whether it might ever be worth it to go back and pick up the ones I didn’t choose,” Danielle said. “I’ll be honest, I kind of took it just to make the Systemists who know I’m unlocking element stuff happy. I’m pretty sure I can go without using those Skills for a week or two, no problem. I’m mostly hoping it eventually boosts my light enhancing abilities though, or maybe my illusions, so I can really use them theatrically again, like I did when I first awakened.”

  Ranger Flo cocked her head a bit. “What’s stopping you from doing that now?”

  “Besides a crippling fear of Vanessa Vandere that is feeling increasingly irrational by the day?” Danielle asked with a self-deprecating laugh. “Mostly the feeling that people around me have grown out of my little illusion-assisted kid stories. It’s still a great communication tool when Vanessa’s not around, though; you know what they say about a picture vs a thousand words.”

  “Indeed I do,” Ranger Flo said. “I also know that new Sendings tend to get starved for entertainment. Eventually, people will make their own musical instruments, and games, and even toys; but early on, a good story is worth a lot for morale. That said, it’s time for me to get back to work, and time for you to get back to your room and take a nap before your town council meeting. Eat your apples, maybe; finish that canteen of orange juice. Take good care of yourself, OK?”

  “Oh, uh, I will – but I forgot, the canteen isn’t mine! Can I drink the rest of it now, so you can take it back to Agent Bea without anyone else wondering how I ended up borrowing one?” Danielle asked.

  Ranger Flo chuckled. “Bea already charged it to Mike’s Sending support discretionary account, since he was the one who said you couldn’t have a plastic bottle. It’s yours now – and considering the pile you’re hiding in your room, I don’t think anyone will actually notice, not even your roommates. Just make sure you clean it thoroughly, orange juice is pretty sugary, and it’ll grow all kinds of stink if you don’t wash out all the sugar.”

  “It’s fine, we’ve got good soap,” Danielle said. “I’ll just make sure to wash it before anything dries on and gets difficult.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you tonight,” Ranger Flo said. “As long as nobody has a medical emergency in the meantime, anyway!”

  “Will you be at the meeting?” Danielle asked in surprise.

  Ranger Flo shook her head. “Just at the question tables, like Bea. Bernard will be running the meeting – you’ll recognize him, he’s the one who ran the first meeting, too.”

  “Oh, the guy with Improved Hearing?” Danielle asked, as she belatedly opened the door and started getting herself and her bags disentangled from the safety belts and out of the truck.

  “That’s him! Don’t worry, he’ll keep things on track,” Ranger Flo assured her.

  “Thanks. Have a good afternoon,” Danielle said, closing the door. She crossed in front of the truck (just like the school bus, coming back from Family Choice extracurricular activities) and headed down the usual side street at a jog. Behind her, Ranger Flo got the truck moving again, and followed the maintained roads back toward camp.

  Danielle jogged until she got within sight of building two, then activated Bubble of Silence and Active Camouflage and continued into the woods as usual. The back of the building was quiet except for a delivery man on the second-floor balcony, just knocking on a door with his luggage cart full of care package duffels. Danielle jogged across the grass, wishing she had been able to use the Step Light token; but that was probably paranoia talking. She made it to her room in time to open her door nearly at the same time as the girls above, and stepped inside, closing the door as quietly as possible. A moment later, she realized her Skills were still active, and maybe she hadn’t needed to worry about door sounds; but it was better to be too cautious than too careless.

  Her roommates were still out; it hadn’t really been that long – an hour perhaps? An hour and a half? She hadn’t checked the time at the beginning, or at least, didn’t remember it. Danielle finished the orange juice and washed the canteen as promised, then refilled it with water. She took the two boxes of canvas satchels out of her green duffel bag, and reloaded it with the care package books, the metal tins, the flower pots, the hard hat (why had they been given hard hats?) and the fishing gear. She took a moment to unroll the cloth thing, and discovered a patriotic green, white, and blue hooded sweatshirt, amusingly oversized for her, with “Give Peace a Chance” silk-screened across the chest. She supposed she’d be happy enough to wear it when the weather got cold, but that wasn’t likely to be soon, so it went into her footlocker. The catalog (and the apology note from the Ranger bookbinder) went into Danielle’s satchel.

  The duffel bag and boxes went under the bed, which required a little rearranging so they didn’t block access to the bamboo. The tokens floating around the bottom of Danielle’s bag all went into the token pouch – thirteen 300-mana tokens and five skill tokens, plus the ten-point token that had already been there; the pouch was almost full. This was what it was really for, though, so it was fine.

  Danielle was on the ground on account of having moved things around under her bed, then, so she sat with her back against the leg of her bed and ate one of the apples and the cookie from the lunch box. She finished off the canteen full of water, too, and then had to use the bathroom, which required getting up, which felt just unreasonably effortful. She refilled the canteen just so she could have water to take another dose of Fever-Ace, and once she had indeed taken the pain reliever, she flopped down on her bed. “Well, I looked through the care package already,” Danielle said to the empty room. “If I take a nap now, then I’ll have done two of the things I said I’d do if I was back first!”

  A nap sounded like a very good idea, especially since she was already on the bed. It was a low-effort plan. It might even help the headache!

  As Danielle drifted off to sleep, her last thought was that the walls were singing. Had they always done that?

  someone. Too bad whoever it is didn't get to put a note in the packages!

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