“Now Hear This: A message to all members of the town council of Camp Constanza, from the Firmitatem Rangers Layer 1 Outpost. Your first council meeting begins in 30 minutes. Supper will be provided. Please arrive at the tents behind the catalog question tables within the next 30 minutes. In the future, you will call meetings yourselves, but for now, please respect the time of the Rangers and each other by arriving promptly. Thank you. Skill Ends.”

  Danielle woke up to a Now Hear This message for the second time in the same day, and sat up with a groan. She was definitely still tired, and her eyes felt hot and scratchy. Still, the headache had subsided. She used the bathroom and washed her face again, on the outside chance it would help with her eyes – only to notice, in the mirror, that she had a new red spot up against her hairline. She judged that discovery worthy of another groan – she must have gotten another bug bite while she was running through the ruins. Or was this one a real zit? She was taking proper care of her face, why did she have to get these red spots just in time to be doing the most public speaking of her entire life?

  Scrubbing at the spot with her one washcloth just made it start itching; definitely a bug bite then. Danielle sighed and settled for brushing out her hair in a way that might cover it, mostly. Then she had to get moving.

  The lines in front of the catalog question tables were long, now, stretching down the road on both sides and in both directions. Danielle spotted Zephyr close to the front of the line in front of building one, surrounded by girls.

  “Avoiding someone?” she asked, approaching him from the side.

  “Oh, don’t you start too,” Zephyr said. The sour look on his face spoke of someone at his limits, so Danielle didn’t push him. He was carrying a sports-team-branded reusable shopping bag with a faint pong of blood, which suggested he had snare-meat with him.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a whole thing about it,” Danielle said. “Just curious what you’re doing over here with a hunting bag.”

  “Didn’t you read the back of the catalog?” Zephyr asked. “They’re buying rabbit hides. The SA wants brown ones and the Rangers want green ones. I can’t treat the green hide properly myself yet, so I’m selling it now while it’s still good.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Danielle said. “I hope Akari thought to do the same – I came to ask questions earlier, and then I went for a run by myself because I was pretty stressed after this morning. I haven’t seen anyone else in the hunting party since. I think they were going foraging or something.”

  Zephyr frowned. “You went for a run alone? You shouldn’t do that, it’s not safe.”

  “Says the Scout,” Danielle countered, following along as the line moved up.

  A girl behind Zephyr smacked Danielle on the shoulder. “No cutting!” she exclaimed.

  “I’m not in line, I’m just talking,” Danielle said. “I got all my questions answered earlier.”

  “Oh, did you come out here looking for Party people?” Zephyr asked. “I haven’t seen any of the other girls either.”

  “I actually came out for the town council meeting,” Danielle said, resisting the urge to sigh. She glanced at the tents, and saw that they’d been rotated at some point, so that their flaps faced out between the lines now, and towards each other, instead of towards the four tables. “Huh. Are we actually meeting in there?” she asked, mostly talking to herself.

  “In where?” Zephyr followed her gaze. “Oh, in these tents? That would make sense, actually. I thought they just wanted us to meet here and walk somewhere else, but if they pull up the flaps where they’re against each other to make it almost like one big tent, we could wedge everyone in.”

  “What are you two talking about?” the girl behind Zephyr demanded in a whiny tone of voice.

  Danielle counted to five in her head, then offered the girl the best smile she could call up and a hand to shake, and said, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve actually met; I’m Medic Falconer, town council representative from building six. Who are you?”

  For a moment, the girl just looked at her hand like she’d never heard of shaking hands before, then reluctantly accepted the handshake. “Um, I’m Polly.”

  “Nice to meet you Polly,” Danielle said. “Who are the representatives from your building?”

  “I don’t know, they haven’t announced the results yet,” Polly said. “Wait, how do you even know if you’re a building rep yet?”

  “We know who we are because they told us with a Now Hear This message,” Zephyr said. “I didn’t even think about how everyone else was supposed to know.”

  “Me either. Line’s moving up,” Danielle said. The three of them shifted forward two steps. “It’s strange that they didn’t announce it yet, though. I mean, they told us – from my building, at least – hours ago, pretty close to the start of the care package deliveries.”

  “Maybe my building had to have a recount or something?” Polly suggested.

  Danielle shook her head. “No, I mean, they told the representatives from my building; if they told anyone else, though, I wasn’t included in that message.”

  “I know for sure the losing candidates got informed, too,” Zephyr said. “Terrance is mad. Like, really mad. Shouting and throwing things mad.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Who’s Terrance?” Polly asked.

  “One of the six elements for the Sending’s Systemist court,” Zephyr told her. “We had two of the six in my building, and only one made it into the town council.”

  “So you and Lithios are in then? Who else?” Danielle asked.

  “Peter,” Zephyr said. “Which is another reason Terrance is frothing. Oh, I’m up.” He stepped up to speak to Ranger Flo, who gave Danielle a quick wave before turning her full attention to Zephyr.

  “See you inside, then,” Danielle said towards Zephyr, then, “Nice to meet you Polly – let me through the line, please?”

  “Hey, I said no cutting, and I meant it,” the other girl objected.

  “I’m not cutting, I’m going to the tent,” Danielle said.

  “You say that now,” Polly began, darkly.

  Two girls back, someone called, “If you just want to duck through you can go in front of me!”

  “Thank you!” Danielle called back to her. “See you around,” she told Polly and moved back to slip through the line in front of the more accommodating girl. “I met you last night, didn’t I?” she said, from the other side of the line. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name – I got so many new names last night.”

  “Heh, no problem. I’m Latisha, losing candidate from building 1. I’m glad to hear you’re going to be in there, honestly,” the girl said. “The whole nominations and speeches thing this morning was just weird – I know we didn’t have a lot of time last night, but it felt like nobody knew what we were doing.”

  “We didn’t know how the Rangers were going to do things anyway, so even if we’d had more time to prepare, we didn’t have enough information,” Danielle said. She gave a rueful shrug. “I’m not that excited about being all involved in doing government, if I’m honest, but hopefully I can at least remember to get the process stuff straightened out so next time we’ll all know what to expect ahead of time, at least in terms of how to present candidates and vote and so on.”

  “Good luck, then!” Latisha grinned and gave Danielle a thumbs up.

  Danielle smiled back and returned the thumbs up, even as she turned towards the tent. There was a bored looking Ranger standing next to the opening. As Danielle approached him, he focused on – no, above her? He raised an eyebrow, then looked down to her face, and said blandly, “Come on in, councilor, you’re a bit late.”

  Danielle paused in front of him. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Org status with the town,” he said, still with a studied blandness of voice and face that Danielle didn’t quite find believable.

  “So, See System Info?” Danielle probed.

  He nodded. “Head on in, Miss.”

  Danielle hesitated, wishing she didn’t have to be there, but finally nodded back and slid through the flaps.

  Zephyr had guessed right; the other pair of flaps had been rolled up out of the way to make a double sized enclosure. With no boxes or voting equipment cluttering up the interiors, there was space for a surprisingly large oval of blue and green cushions. The tent Danielle had entered by crackled with frustrated wards, unable to perform their functions with one of their ports tied open; mana swirled around control nodes along the frame, sending feelers towards connection points that refused to connect. It was an annoying sound/feeling, so Danielle moved towards the other tent, which was comfortably quiet.

  There were sixteen cushions, nine of them occupied. The Ranger from the first Saturday – Bernard? – was sitting at the quiet end of the oval, and the Systemist boy Danielle thought must be Lihios was sitting on the opposite end, his back to the tent flaps where Danielle had entered. The centermost points of the oval were occupied by Arabella on the girls’ side (well, the side closest to buildings one, five, and six anyway) and a boy Danielle didn’t recognize on the far side. Between those four cardinal points were three seats each.

  Next to the unknown boy, Marc was sitting, staring broodingly into space. Ember and Brooke were sitting on the unknown boy’s other side, leaving an empty cushion between Brooke and Lithios. Gideon and Peter were sitting together to Arabella’s right, also leaving an empty seat between them and Lithios. Danielle found herself standing uncertainly between Ranger Bernard and Arabella, trying to work out if there was some formal arrangement to the seats, or if it was just people sitting wherever they wanted.

  The Ranger leaned back to squint at the space over her head, and like the Ranger outside the tent, he quirked an eyebrow at her when he finally turned his attention to her face. “Welcome, councilor Falconer,” he said. “Sit wherever seems best to you.”

  Well, that was no help. Danielle finally sat next to him, less because it seemed “best” and more because she just wanted to be as far as she could get from the annoyed tent flaps and their questing mana. A moment later, the (blessedly silent) tent flaps behind the Ranger opened, and Cassy came in with Sarah Wheatley, the former student council president. Cassy immediately sat next to Danielle, and Sarah sat next to Arabella, which filled in that quadrant of the oval and seemed to please both of them and Arabella, too. That left four seats.

  Beside Danielle, the Ranger looked at his watch, and said, “Activate Now Hear This. Message to Ranger Layer 1 Relay from Bernard Piper. It’s a quarter after and I’m still missing people; please last-call the town council for me.” A moment later, she heard the usual Now Hear This guy in her head, saying “Now Hear This: A message to all members of the town council of Camp Constanza, from the Firmitatem Rangers Layer 1 Outpost. Your first council meeting is being delayed by late arrivals. Please proceed to the tents behind the catalog question tables immediately. If you aren’t there already, then you are fifteen minutes late and counting. This meeting is not optional, ladies and gentlemen. If you don’t show up, they make decisions without you. Skill ends.”

  “I’M COMING ALREADY, IT WAS A LONG LINE!” Zephyr yelled from outside. Danielle chuckled, while Lithios and Brooke frowned.

  Seconds later, Belle entered from behind the Ranger, and immediately behind her was Danielle’s worst nightmare: Vanessa. Belle immediately made for the empty seat between Brooke and Lithios, while Vanessa stood looking around the oval. She was almost behind Danielle, who turned back to the center quickly.

  While Vanessa was making up her mind, Zephyr entered from the same end Danielle had, glanced around, muttered a sarcastic “oh, great,” and sat on Lithios’s other side. That left Vanessa the choice of the seat next to the Ranger, or the seat next to Marc. The tent flap next to her opened again, and another boy stepped in. That apparently made up her mind, and she sat next to the Ranger.

  The last boy sauntered in as if he owned the place, and Danielle realized she needed to upgrade her definition of “the worst nightmare.” This was the third boy from the trio of Wolf Pack boys that had tried to demand a rabbit tax from the Sunday hang-out a week ago. He grinned when he saw the empty cushion and casually took a seat. “Hey, Marcus, good to see you,” he said, and made as if to slap Marc’s shoulder.

  “Do. Not. Touch me.” Marc said, without so much as glancing in his direction.

  The Wolf boy paused, then set his hand down behind himself and leaned back, a picture of casual relaxation. “Whatever you say man,” he said. “I didn’t know you were so,” he paused for effect and winked at Danielle’s side of the oval, “touchy.” Arabella laughed, but Danielle, Cassy, and Peter were all aiming hostile glares at the boy.

  The Ranger sighed. “Off to a good start already, I see."

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