Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

  It was impossible not to.

  Except for the BASTION helicraft taken to school, Lauren had never flown before. Not in a plane, and certainly not by clinging onto a person capable of flight spiraling into the air. She gripped Grace’s energy-armored shoulders, her nails not finding any purchase. Despite their sharpness, the strength of Grace’s outer shell won out. She had to trust her roommate not to drop her.

  She breathed way too heavily. What did they call that? Hyperventilating? Yeah. She was doing that. All around them was blue. The ground was some vague stretch of green down below. Her head kept snapping to it, despite her best efforts. Her hair whipped around her face, further disorienting her.

  Grace continued cruising upwards. Once they were off the ground, her glassy wings didn’t seem to need to flap to keep them moving, instead being propelled by some innate force Grace generated. Her face was behind a thick opaque mask that formed part of her outer shell, her facial features cast in a single unchanging expression.

  “Where is it?” Grace yelled to be heard. The lips of her mask didn’t move with her voice.

  “I don’t know!” Lauren screamed back. “It’s an island! Just keep going up!”

  They continued upwards into the clouds.

  It wasn’t long before a flaw in Lauren’s hastily-constructed plan reared its head. Her head began to swirl with dizziness, not just caused by the rapid movement. Her lungs tightened. Her panicked breaths became halting gasps. Pressure built behind her eyes.

  Grace crested above the cloud layer. She hovered in place for a moment, gently spinning to check their surrounds. More banks of clouds surrounding them like a fluffy, pastoral valley. It would’ve been a nice scene to appreciate for a moment, if Lauren wasn’t dying from a lack of oxygen.

  Grace finally noticed her spasming passenger.

  “Lauren, are you okay?”

  Lauren was decidedly not okay. She had run out of breathable air a minute ago. She felt her face grow red. The sun beat down diabolically harsh, frying her skin even as her internal organs felt like they were shutting down from cold. Blackness crept in at the edge of her vision. Her head pounded, threatening to burst.

  “We need to get you back on the ground!” Grace said.

  Lauren rallied her strength to clutch Grace. They wouldn’t get another shot at this. She didn’t trust Grace to communicate the situation alone. She’d just have to endure.

  “No,” she rasped. She couldn’t hold up her head anymore. It lolled over Grace’s cradling elbow. “Find the…”

  She ran out of oxygen to speak.

  Grace began flying horizontally. Lauren was barely conscious of her movements. She felt her heartbeat slow in response to the lack of oxygen. Her blood cooled. Hopefully a slowing heartbeat meant hibernation and not death. The blackness crept further in. Her limbs tingled. She could no longer move them, making them subject to the whims of Grace’s erratic movement through the clouds.

  Strange visions filled Lauren’s mind in the absence of oxygen.

  She walked through a forest she had never been in before. Massive red trunks of trees seemed to hold up the sky. Lucy skipped merrily up ahead on the fern-lined trail. The sound of her melodic humming reached Lauren’s ears perfectly, even from a hundred feet away. Lauren reached forward, trying to call out to her friend to slow down so they could walk together. Lucy didn’t hear her, or didn’t care.

  A raven landed on Lauren’s shoulder. It cocked its head and peered down at her with a crystalline blue eye. She looked up at it. Lauren fell into the darkness inside the ring of blue.

  She flew through space at a speed of millions of miles an hour. Distant stars trailed by. She didn’t need to breathe, or eat, or sleep. A star grew on the horizon. It became a flaming ball dominating everything around it. Blinding. Scorching. She thought she’d fall into it. Then she was past it. A ball of green and blue became the next object to take up her vision. This one she’d collide with. She held out her hands to try to arrest her speed. It was no use. She’d impact in—

  3

  2

  1

  Air filled Lauren’s lungs. She heaved so desperately it felt like her lungs would explode. She spent moments doing nothing but breathing, not registering anything else. She flailed, and that eventually came with the realization that there was a surface underneath to flail against. She was no longer held by Grace. It took time for her brain to spend the air on coherent thoughts. She clutched her fists against the ground and pressed her forehead to it.

  “Lauren… these people told us to not move and put our hands up…”

  The voice was Grace. Lauren shifted her head until she could see the shoes and legging-clad legs of her roommate. Her energy shell was down.

  Lauren looked upwards. In between her and the sky, the glare of which was now lessened by some invisible barrier, were a dozen armored figures pointing gun barrels at her head.

  Lauren gulped a dry mouthful and held up her hands.

  The BASTION soldiers continued to hold them in place at gunpoint. Each in body and face concealing armor that barely even suggested their gender. Behind them waited blocky, uniform buildings with dark windows. Not much else of their environment could be seen beyond the wall of bodies. While they waited, Lauren dared slowly crane her head around until she could look behind her. A few dozen feet away, the paved surface abruptly ended to meet open sky.

  This was definitely a floating island, which had to mean Grace had managed to find The Nest. Now Lauren just had to make her case. Because she was so good at using words.

  Before too long, another armored solider pushed his way through the group. This one was helmetless, showing a strong face with merciless eyes. His hair was just grown past buzzed. He looked down on them.

  “You two are Rosewell students.”

  It wasn’t particularly framed as a question, but Lauren nodded. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to speak. She’d have liked to get off her knees and stand like Grace, but she also wasn’t sure if there was an open invitation for that.

  “Names?”

  “Lauren Boone,” she said immediately.

  “Grace Ayers,” Grace followed up. “Sir, I’m sure you’ve heard of me, I’m kinda one of the star students. I’m not a troublemaker at all, so that should tell you—”

  The lead soldier held up his hand, and Grace was at least smart enough to shut up.

  “Rosewell has been dealing with insubordination and now rioting for the past day, and you two then decide to fly directly to the most heavily secured government facility with zero clearance? Do you understand how much trouble you’re in? We don’t even have procedures for this.”

  Grace started up a whine upon hearing ‘trouble.’ “Sir, please—”

  Lauren cut her off, wanting to get to the point before they were drowned out and locked up. “Dodds is a double agent! She’s working against the school! There’s proof!”

  The lead soldier’s brow furrowed for a single moment. Then his expression locked up. He stood rod straight. All the other soldiers flanking him did as well. For their first time since landing, no guns were pointed at the two teens. The soldiers formed two lines, stepping away from each other. The lead soldier took the right side.

  A woman strode towards them between the rows. She was an older woman, but her exact age was hard to pin, even the decade. A bit of gray shined her neat hair. Her body was lithe and moved fluidly inside her thin toe-to-neck bodysuit. Even to Lauren, who didn’t know the first thing about military structure, it was immediately clear she commanded absolute authority over everyone else.

  The unhelmeted soldier saluted. “Director.”

  That started to get Lauren a clue. This was someone she needed to talk to.

  The woman called Director stopped in front of the girls and looked between them, her eyes keen and discerning.

  “You can stand up and put your hands down,” she said, putting a gloved hand on her hip. Her voice lacked any sort of imposing tone but had a natural gravity from its aged depth. “If I thought you were really a threat, your wings would have been clipped miles out.”

  Lauren rose to her feet while Grace put her arms down.

  “We’re not trying to cause any trouble,” Lauren started. “We were telling him…”

  The Director wasn’t listening, so she closed her mouth. The woman stepped forward, examining Lauren closer. A hand came up and cupped Lauren’s chin, turning her head side to side. The textured grip of her glove tickled.

  “You’re Hogan’s girl.”

  Lauren usually wouldn’t have appreciated the sudden contact and the association with the man she wasn’t on speaking terms with right now, but the Director’s unexpected examination caught her off guard. She let her face be guided, not pulling away.

  “I’m Lauren,” she said as her face was released.

  “…And I’m Grace,” Grace added, an edge to her voice at being left out of the attention.

  The woman stepped back and crossed her arms. Lauren noticed empty holsters crisscrossing her body. “I’m Evelyn Weiss, Director of BASTION. Would you mind explaining to me exactly why my school is in chaos down below?”

  Lauren started explaining the situation as best she could, the events of the last few days tumbling out of her mouth. Soon after she started, Director Weiss motioned for the girls to follow her. Her soldiers fell back behind them as they walked across the grounds of the floating island.

  Lauren took it in as she stumbled over her words. The Nest was bigger than she expected. They started at one end of it, and after a few minutes of walking she still couldn’t see the other end. Buildings formed rough blocks across the surface, some of them reaching heights of five or six stories. Some of the buildings resembled bunkers. Suited agents and more armored soldiers moved from entrance to entrance with purpose like lines of ants. Many of them nodded to the Director as they passed. Evenly spaced around the perimeter were huge guns and batteries, scanning the horizon back and forth. Helicraft and other flying vehicles landed and took off from fenced landing zones. Cargo elevators rising from the ground suggested there was even more to the hive under the surface. Over it all was some sort of bubble that kept oxygen and the worst of the sun out.

  “And the riot was just to disrupt Dodds,” Lauren said, coming to the end of her story. They were walking to an imposing black building near what she guessed was the middle of the island, one of the tallest to be seen. “I had Grace fly me up here.”

  “Without any protection to yourself, meeting us in the death zone at 8,000 feet,” the director noted. “That was a brave risk.”

  Lauren glanced at her arms, puffy and mottled with deep sunburns. She was too embarrassed to admit she didn’t understand there was less air and more extreme temperatures the higher they went.

  “I figured I’d survive,” she said. “Nothing’s killed me yet.”

  The director snorted a chuckle. She reached the entrance to the dark building, typing in a code to have the doors slide open.

  “Do you believe me about Dodds?” Lauren asked. The older woman had given no indication while Lauren unspooled her story. “Lucy said there’s proof in her accessing Adam’s place? I don’t know how that works.”

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  They followed into the chilled lobby. Director Weiss pointed to seating, and Lauren planted herself without thinking. Grace sat beside her.

  An assistant-looking agent appeared beside Weiss, her movement so smooth and sudden it was like she was part of the building. Weiss muttered, just barely audible enough for Lauren to catch it.

  “Assemble everything Dodds has been up to. Files, transmissions, encryptions, programs, especially the ones she thinks we don’t know about.”

  The assistant nodded and was away.

  Weiss turned back to the girls. To Lauren specifically.

  “Yesterday you defied orders and went underground to rescue a classmate from the subterrans.”

  Lauren gave a short, uncertain nod.

  “That must not have been easy,” Weiss said.

  Lauren shrugged. “Losing her was the hard part. Going after her was easy.”

  Weiss respected that answer. “You rescued a peer in need, you saved lives, and you kicked those subterran bastards’ teeth in, when it jeopardized your own position to do so. And not even a day later, you’re taking risks to save the day again.”

  Lauren felt some pride in her actions, put like that. She sat up straighter. Grace opened her mouth, probably to try to take some credit, but couldn’t seem to quite figure out how to get there.

  Weiss turned to enter further into the building. “You sit tight, girls. I’ll take it from here. We’ll get this sorted promptly.”

  “Thank you,” Lauren found herself saying. “Thanks for listening.”

  Weiss turned back and offered a smile. A scar on her chin stretched. It reminded Lauren of her own facial scar.

  “Someone has to.”

  She left. Lauren already liked her immensely. She bloomed with inner warmth, actually feeling a bit like a hero for once.

  Grace stood, exuding irked energy. “I’m gonna get some air.”

  “Weiss said to wait here,” Lauren said.

  Grace flipped her hair over her shoulder, looking down at her condescendingly. “Oh yeah? You follow orders when someone pats you on the head like a good doggy?”

  Lauren scowled.

  “I promise I won’t upstage you by breaking more rules. I’m just going right outside.”

  The doors slid open for Grace. They were only closed for a moment before they opened again. Lauren expected Grace to be turning right around, but it wasn’t her.

  Hogan walked in, dark-suited as ever. His short pale hair freshly ruffled by the wind. His watery eyes blinked, surprised to see her.

  “Lauren.”

  Her warm feeling faltered. She folded her hands between her legs and pointedly looked away at seeing her one-time guardian. Of course he’d be up here and not down in the city doing his job.

  He stepped toward her across the small lobby. “Are you alright? What’s going on with the school? Are you in trouble?”

  “No, for once I’m not in trouble,” Lauren said, facing him defiantly. “Your boss is on it. We’re rooting out a conspiracy to destroy Rosewell. I guess it’s a good thing I stayed there after all.”

  He cocked his head, searching for her meaning.

  “I don’t…”

  It burst out of her. “Did you tell Dodds I don’t belong at the school? That I should be moved for monitoring?”

  Hogan was caught on the backfoot. “…After the first week? Lauren, I told you, someone wants you to be here. They’re putting you in danger. I was trying to keep you safe…”

  “I don’t need you to protect me,” Lauren spat out. “I’m not your daughter.”

  With the way Hogan suddenly looked, you’d think Lauren stood up and slapped him. He reeled back, blinking. He suddenly looked quite sad and aged. It was enough to make Lauren bite back whatever else was about to come out of her. Her shoulders slumped. Something she had said had struck a nerve.

  “…I know,” Hogan said. “I know you can look out for yourself. I’m glad.”

  He sobered into a calm professional expression, the same way he had looked when Lauren had first met him.

  “You and I need to talk, soon,” Hogan said. “When your… current troubles with the school are over.”

  “Why?”

  “Developments,” Hogan said.

  “You mean with your case against Dr. Smythe.” Lauren’s tone was nothing but bitter. She had long given up the idea of Hogan finding her sister. It was on her, now. To be fair, he had told her he couldn’t find Rachel. Just not the why.

  “I think I’ll be able to clear some things up,” Hogan said. He hesitated, rocking back on his feet. That didn’t seem like him. “I needed to double check some things before dumping it on you. But now I think it’s time.”

  He couldn’t meet her questioning gaze. She just shrugged, wanting to be done with him. “Fine.”

  Still, he hesitated. “Lauren… be careful around Weiss. She means well. Most of the time. But if she’s giving you attention, it’s because she wants something from you. She knows how to get what she wants.”

  She kept her head turned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said before leaving. “I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this.”

  Lauren crossed her arms. She didn’t need his pity. The doors whispered open with his leaving.

  . . .

  Helicraft descended from the sky in a downward spiral, casting shifting shadows onto Rosewell’s campus. Lauren welcomed the sight of ground, real ground, that would soon be underneath her feet. She hung from the edge of the belly of one of the lead craft, her hand clutching a support handle. Director Weiss sat strapped in behind her, along with what Lauren assumed were six of her personal guard. Their armor was subtly more advanced than the rank and file, having vented faceplates and thinner construction. Weiss had personally invited Lauren to ride with them. She took that as a good sign. Together they loaded up and left The Nest with fifty or sixty other soldiers, probably roughly equal to the amount Dodds had brought to bear against Lucy’s rebellion.

  Lauren could see them now, in the last hundred feet of their descent. The students that had fought for her and Lucy kneeled in the muddy grass, surrounded by the forces that had brought them down. Terry and his friends stood with BASTION soldiers holding net launchers and other suppression tools. They stood guarding their classmates. No blood had been spilled. Lucy’s rebellion was a gentle one. A diversion. Still, Terry’s crew stood over their classmates like they had won something. Marcellus, Earl the ogre, Vinny, Jonas, and Ernest all milled about keeping an eye on them. Terry himself, tall, handsome, athletic, looked particularly smug about having sided with Dodds. Maybe he just looked that way in Lauren’s mind.

  Couldn’t go to save a classmate, but he could side with Dodds over them. Some logical part of Lauren knew he was working with the information he had. But she still couldn’t help but see him as a traitor. Too perfect to risk anything. None of them knew Lauren was risking everything to save their lives. Lauren could have led with bloodshed, ripped open the doors of administration and dragged the traitor out by her hair. But she was doing things the right way. Lucy’s way.

  Their helicraft touched down, soon followed by the others. Grace landed under her own power. Rotors slowed. Belts unbuckled. Lauren removed a breathing mask attached to the interior and stepped out of the belly onto soft grass.

  Dodds had already broken off from her pack and was waddling towards them. Weiss slipped out of the craft. “Let me handle this,” she murmured to Lauren gently. Lauren nodded.

  Dodds tucked some hair behind her ear. She had become unkempt, clearly flustered by the events of the day. She attempted a professional smile as she approached.

  “Director Weiss,” she greeted. “Thank you for delivering our wayward students back to us. Lauren here,” she said with a wag of her finger, “has been causing us nothing but chaos and trouble for the past day. She’s been extraordinarily effective in subverting her fellow students, rallying them to her mischief. I imagine she’s weaved you some sort of story about how I’m a tyrant because I’m working in the best interests of everyone’s safety?” Dodds laughed. It sounded strained even to Lauren. “I’m surprised she managed to turn even Grace, who has otherwise been such a model student.”

  Grace hunched, not sure which power she should be drawn to between Dodds and Weiss. Not sure if her gamble siding with Lauren would pay off or fail spectacularly.

  Dodds took another step forward, soldiers who had been with her coming to collect the girls.

  “Allow me to take these two off your hands…”

  “Director Weiss!”

  All heads turned to the side. Headmaster Knapp came stumbling their way as best she could on her heels. Like Dodds, she looked frazzled.

  “Director Weiss! I’m glad you’re here. This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. Please…” Knapp reached them, out of breath. Her round glasses were smudged. “Please, Director,” she gestured to the kneeling students, “please let them stand. They didn’t intend any harm. This is all an unfortunate misunderstanding that together we can get to the bottom of.”

  Dodds’ lips curled as she regarded the headmaster. “A misunderstanding? These students attacked BASTION personnel on restricted government grounds—”

  “These grounds are the students’ home! For so many of them to lash out like this, they clearly felt threatened by something. We need to open a dialogue—”

  “A dialogue? You want to talk with them? Is that why you took shelter in administration while they were rioting? Do you really feel safe—”

  “QUIET!”

  Both Dodds and Knapp jumped slightly at Weiss’ command. They obeyed, shutting their mouths. Still standing behind Weiss, Lauren smiled privately that someone was finally around who could shut Dodds up. And she had a feeling the day was about to get even better.

  Weiss spoke in her commanding contralto. “Neither Lauren nor Grace will be taken into custody at this time. Unlike the rest of you, I believe I have a complete understanding of this situation. In lieu of no one else being able to, I will be taking charge of the situation.”

  Weiss strode between the two women, both looking uncertain of what was about to happen. Lauren followed with Weiss’ personal guard. She felt powerful, standing behind the no-nonsense woman with her implicit approval. And for the first time in a while, she felt like someone was truly listening to her.

  Weiss walked until she came to a stop in front of the crowd on the lawn. Faces looked up at her, some from crooked angles underneath tightened nets. Lucy, Harper, Thalia, Ike, Anika, Maggie-Lou, Billy, Kenny, Nathan, Jay, Edward, and Reagan, surprisingly enough to Lauren. She wondered what exactly happened on that trip. The trapped students looked up at Lauren for reassurance, worry and fear in their eyes. Lauren gave them a small nod. They’d be vindicated.

  Looking at Weiss from an upright position were all the school’s guards and the students that had taken Dodds’ side. Terry saluted the director. Lauren shook her head.

  Weiss surveyed everyone gathered as her troops from The Nest filed in behind her. When she spoke, she looked out to the horizon in the middle distance.

  “I’m very disappointed in you,” Weiss began, speaking to the air over the students’ heads. The words stirred everyone gathered except for Lauren. Weiss began to pace back and forth. “This school was meant to be a sacred institution. A place for discipline, learning, and improvement. A safe place for heroes to prepare for a very unsafe world. Trust was invested in me to make this a safe place. That trust has been broken. The dream, for now, is broken. Because insidious elements have infiltrated this place. Scum from the dregs of society.”

  Dodds stepped forward, her chin high with confidence. She thought these words were bolstering her point. In her mind the director was speaking for her. Lauren savored her look.

  Weiss shook her head as she paced. “I am ashamed that these rogue elements have been left to fester for so long. And that it required such a brazen act for my attention to finally be brought to it. For those of you who are here for honest reasons, who were brave enough to stand up to the forces of chaos, I wish to sincerely apologize and thank you for your bravery.”

  Terry nodded curtly, also thinking the words were for him.

  Weiss sighed a deep breath. “All I can do now is assure you that I am home now, and I will be sorting out my house promptly. For those of you who wanted to ruin this place…” She opened a wrist panel built into the sleeve of her bodysuit. A small keyboard awaited her touch. Her steely eyes surveyed the scene one last time.

  “…Welcome to hell.”

  She pressed a button. The ranks of BASTION guards broke as half of the ones standing over the defeated students began to spasm. They faceplanted onto muddy grass, their weapons dropped. The BASTION personnel left standing watched their comrades fall but didn’t dare move.

  Dodds had gone from confident to panicked in a blink. Her mouth parted, but no words came out. She tried to step back. She bumped into one of Weiss’ personal guards, who had maneuvered to stand behind her. A needle entered her neck before she could react. She swooned to her knees, then fell on her side into the mud.

  Lauren looked to Weiss for permission. Weiss nodded.

  Lauren took her time walking up to the paralyzed mole. She crouched down, moving her by the shoulder until Dodds’ eyes stared up helplessly at her own. Lauren cocked her head. She leaned in.

  “You should never have threatened my friends.”

  A single tear welled in Dodds’ eye. Lauren smiled seeing it.

  . . .

  Dodds and her traitorous guards were gathered and led away. Nets and cuffs were pulled off the rebellious students. Their cause suddenly broken, Terry’s gang of loyalists seemed lost on what to do. Some of them were gracious enough to help up the other students. The neutrals gradually came out of hiding once it became clear the conflict was over. Students buzzed with discussion on Dodds’ sudden arrest, who knew what, and how. Kenny preened while he explained the events of the past few days from the expedition’s perspective. Knapp spent some time talking off to the side with Weiss.

  Lauren helped Lucy up and hugged her. She was feeling uncharacteristically generous with affection. She went down the line, hugging each student who had rescued her and helped aid her escape. At the end of the line was Reagan.

  “You better not,” Reagan warned.

  Lauren nodded, glad there was still some mutual resentment between them and her world wasn’t entirely upside down.

  Weiss and Knapp came forward, and all heads turned to them.

  “I think it’s safe to say that the events of today were quite shocking,” Knapp said to the student body. “Obviously, we’re all going to need some time to process exactly what has happened and discover the full extent of things. I think it’s safe to say class is canceled for the rest of the week while students and faculty recover and recuperate.”

  A small cheer went up at this.

  “Whether you acted against Dodds, stayed hidden, or even assisted her unknowingly, none of you are in trouble. I’m proud of each of you for doing what you thought was best. Going forward, I ask that no one harbor any resentment to anyone else for what occurred today. We are each alive, we are each safe, and that’s all that matters. We are one school, one force for good, and we will not be divided.”

  Some nodded at that, but it wasn’t as unanimous as the cheer. Most of the previously neutral students had rallied around Lauren and Lucy’s rebels once it became clear they were in the right. That left Terry’s group of boys a smaller island. The factions remained.

  People broke off to shower, rest, eat, or whatever else they wanted to do with their sudden day off. Lauren caught Weiss before she had a chance to leave.

  “…Director Weiss?”

  When the director turned to face Lauren, she was worried it would be with a bothered expression. But Weiss’ expression warmed seeing Lauren. She reached out and squeezed Lauren’s arm.

  “There you are. The hero of the day.”

  Lauren shook her head. She wasn’t used to praise. Especially not from someone so important.

  “It wasn’t me. I couldn’t have done it without my friends.”

  Weiss looked at them over Lauren’s shoulder. Lauren also looked back, seeing many of them watching their conversation.

  “Friends are good. They get us over the finish line,” Weiss said. “What can I help you with?”

  “Oh, I just wanted to ask, what’s going to happen with Dodds now?”

  The older woman gave a smile that was both wicked and comforting. She put her hands on her hips and leaned down slightly to be on Lauren’s level.

  “Now… we do some enhanced interrogation,” Weiss said. She looked Lauren up and down. “You want to help?”

  Lauren was taken aback. “…Me? You want me to help?”

  Weiss came around and put her arm around Lauren’s shoulder. Again, she didn’t mind the contact. Weiss took her in like a confidant. They started walking together.

  “I already have a good feeling about you, Lauren. I had a good feeling about you since Hogan first told me about you.”

  “Hogan told you about me?” That was a dizzying thought, the director of all of BASTION getting a report on her.

  “Of course he did,” Weiss said. “He cares about you.”

  Lauren swallowed down some guilt at snapping at him, and avoiding him for weeks.

  “The truth about this school is,” Weiss said quietly to her, “it’ll make some fine heroes, I’m sure of it. And heroes are important. But they aren’t everything.”

  They stopped near the dorms. Weiss was dropping her off. She released her arm.

  “What else is there?” Lauren asked.

  Weiss smiled a private smile. “The ones like us.” She straightened. “I’ll send for you tomorrow. Keep your calendar free.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Lauren said.

  The director left to rejoin her troops. Lauren was left in the shadow of the dorm building, wondering what she had in common with such a powerful woman.