Danielle returned to her suitably unobtrusive seat, and went back to her maze, occasionally muttering to her instance of the System under her breath. In spite of all the "impossible" things the System could do, true mind reading didn't seem to be on the list. Everyone talked to their System sometimes, making sure that it got things right when it was trying to figure out what they were trying to do. Danielle didn’t need a Skill for escaping mazes (as far as she knew); she wanted the Skill she already had to work with her on making mazes. Doodling in a decoration or two, she muttered, “This is to help the player work out which quadrant they’re in if they get lost;” turning the paper back and forth, she reflected aloud that “It’s important to remember that the player’s point of view keeps turning.”

  People talking to the System (or their Systems, depending on how one thought it all worked) under their breath were as common as rock, so the ninth-grader in the next seat didn’t even twitch when Danielle whispered about the maze, let alone turn around to see what she was doing. From what Danielle overheard of that group’s discussion, they were engaged in a similar form of “cluing in the System” – they’d heard the rumors about the System paying attention to their preparations, so they were talking to each other about what they hoped the System would get out of the way they prepared.

  “I’m going to figure out what I need to survive, do those things, find some way to learn about what I need to have a good Return, and do those things,” Danielle whispered, reminding herself and her System of her goals. “I’m going to honor the God I believe in. My Instance is my own tool, and it serves God if I do; I will not neglect my own tools just to spite the Systemists. I will become the kind of person I want to be, not just the kind of person the Sending Authority wants me to be. And so help me, I will come up with a plan that has less philosophy and more steps to check off as soon as possible! I hate not knowing what’s going on.”

  She looked up at the displays, and saw Vanessa’s name in the big “report to viewing room” section just before it blinked off. Scanning the room boxes at the top, she found “Vanessa Vandere” in room 8. That was good news for her – Vanessa would be gone in about half an hour! Not such good news for Sadie and Heather, maybe.

  Lowering her eyes from the screen, Danielle jumped a little as she unexpectedly found the girl in the next seat actually looking at her. “What kind of person do you think the Sending Authority wants us to be?” she asked

  Danielle shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know, but they must have some kind of goals in mind with all this weird stuff they’re doing,” she said. “If it happens to overlap with stuff I’d want anyway, all well and good. I’m not going to just assume that whatever they want is best, though. I mean, I’m not going to assume it’s automatically worst, either. I’m just saying, I’m not going to be blindly herded in one direction if I can help it. Either I’ll go with my eyes open, or I’ll find a different path.”

  “It bugs me that they’re not telling us anything,” the girl whispered. “The only things they have on our schedule today are family visits and store visits; tomorrow, we’re supposedly going to the Access Point right after breakfast, and then hiking to the Rooms (wherever that is) and then, if the agent from Marble’s bus is to be believed, we’re on our own. Where in that plan is there an orientation, or Meditations before Awakening, or an explanation about Return requirements?”

  “It does sound suspiciously like there are a few steps missing,” Danielle said with a small frown. “Are meditations before Awakening a Systemist thing?”

  “Yeah – never been to one? An Awakening where the person getting Awakened was a Systemist, I mean?”

  “No,” Danielle said, shaking her head. “I haven’t really been to any Awakening ceremonies at all. I’m the oldest in my immediate family, and the second-oldest cousin, so none of my near family has awakened yet. Um, in my generation I mean, obviously.”

  “Ah. Well, for Systemists, we don’t believe in telling people too much about the higher levels of the System before they get close to them, so the Meditations before Awakening is important, because it’s the time when they’d tell you the next set of stuff. I think some other religions do something kind of similar, but I’ve never been to an Awakening that wasn’t Systemists, and even if I had, I mean, I’m definitely not old enough to be in on the Meditations. Um, unless other religions don’t limit it the same way – I don’t know. I’m just saying, they’re messing stuff up pretty bad for us, at least; it’s bad enough for everyone that our parents won’t be there, but for anyone who wanted to do religious stuff? It’s extra bad.”

  “That’s pretty serious,” Danielle said. “The government’s not supposed to be allowed to stop people from exercising their religion like that. How many rules are they breaking with us?”

  The other girl returned her tense frown. “Yeah, that worries me. I’m not even sure if this one is unusual for Sendings, though. Not that they haven’t done plenty of seriously unusual stuff with us, I just – it never occurred to me before it was me, but Sent always Advance at the Outside Access Point by the fence, and family goodbyes always happen Inside, so I don’t know how it ever works.”

  “Maybe your family will tell you stuff at the farewell visit?” Danielle suggested. “I mean, it’s a little early, but if you’re Advancing first thing tomorrow, it’s not that early.”

  “Oh, that’s true,” the girl said, perking up a little. “It’s unusual circumstances, so one day should definitely be close enough.”

  She turned back to her group, then, and Danielle turned back to her notepad, and her waiting. Vanessa exited the visitation rooms area, and went through the east door. Perhaps an hour later, Mallory did the same. People came in the back door in busloads and left through the side door one at a time. Danielle frequented the snack bar, used the restroom off a hallway that mysteriously ended in a light-devouring black wall (what were the chances that wasn’t a high-tier Skill of some kind? What were they hiding behind it?) and occasionally tried asking someone if they’d heard any new information or rumors. Hours crawled by; it was late afternoon when the screens finally demanded, “Danielle Falconer, report to visitation room 7.”

  Danielle went through the door and into a short hallway that led to a tee intersection. The crossing hallway had clearly numbered doors on the opposite wall labeled rooms 1 through 5 on her left, 6 through 10 on the right. Immediately opposite the entrance hallway, an agent in green stood with a data tablet. “Danielle Falconer?” she confirmed. Danielle nodded, and she gestured to the right. “Room 7. You have half an hour. Please leave immediately when your time is up; I’m sorry it’s so short, but we have over a thousand people to get through only fifty rooms in one day.” Danielle nodded and walked down the right hallway. She could waste time chatting with the Sending Authority on the way out.

  The door to room 7 opened to reveal a tiny room with only one chair, pulled up against a narrow shelf facing a mirror. “What is this?” she asked, looking around. She tried to go back into the hall to ask the agent what was going on, but the door was locked. “What’s going on?!” she yelled, pounding on the door once.

  “Danielle?” her father’s voice came, sounding worried but also tinny, clearly coming from some sort of speaker. She turned to try to find the speaker, only to discover that the mirror had turned into a window – or a screen. Well, that explained why the chair faced it.

  “I thought this was going to be a family visit, not a family vid-call!” Danielle said angrily, though she approached the screen. “Can you see me all right?”

  The other side of the screen/window looked like a very similar tiny room, maybe with better chairs, certainly with more of them. An agent in green stood in the back corner of that room, behind her parents; in front of them, closest to Danielle, were Timothy and Eva, and Lydia standing on a chair. Micah was in Mom’s arms.

  “It’s not a vid call,” the agent said. “It’s just a window that can go opaque.”

  “Great, thanks for the information, go away,” Danielle said. “Hi Eva! Looks like you don’t have to be stuck in the same school as me after all!”

  Eva looked like she’d maybe already been crying, and she almost burst into tears again at that greeting. “I’m sorry I said I didn’t want to be!” she said. “I don’t wanna be all alone in middle school after all!”

  “Aw, don’t take it that way,” Danielle said. “You’ll still have all the friends you made in Awakening School with you. It’ll be fine. Um, how are you all doing?”

  “I ate pizza!” Micah announced.

  Danielle laughed. “Good for you, Micah. What about you, Liddy?”

  “I had pizza too,” Lydia said uncertainly. “Are you OK? Did they treat you good after you left?”

  “They treated me all right,” Danielle said. “They had us sleep in these weird little rooms last night where nothing moved. It was kind of cool in a way, how everything worked by sensors or just didn’t have to move, instead of having knobs and levers and handles – ”

  “Dan’elle eat pizza!” Micah interrupted.

  “Nah, I had a sandwich for lunch,” Danielle said, even as her mother shushed Micah. “Anyway, I’m fine, stuff’s just weird.”

  “When are you coming home?” Lydia asked, leaning forward to put her hands on the window, as if she could push through it.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I don’t know, Lyddie,” Danielle said. “Nobody will say how long I have to be Outside. Maybe until you’re done with high school!”

  “That’s a long time,” Timothy said. “Are you going to come back as a mutant?”

  “Timothy Falconer!” Danielle’s mother objected. “What did we say about being rude during the visit?”

  “What? I was just asking!” Timothy protested.

  Danielle chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll be going mutant, no,” she said. “The idea is to be high level, so my System can shrug off high mana levels and I won’t be in danger of mutation, right?”

  “That’s right,” her father said. “High level people can live Inside or Outside without having to worry about mutations. The Sending Authority doesn’t want to make mutants, they want to make high level citizens, who can return and use their high tier Skills for the Inside.”

  “Um, about that,” Danielle said. “Can you tell me what kind of Skills I’m supposed to be getting?”

  “No,” the agent said emphatically. “No one is allowed to tell Sent what Skills to choose.”

  Danielle rolled her eye. “Agent, why are you still there? Go away.”

  Her dad chuckled. “He’s still there because they’re paranoid about families trying to kidnap back their kids and hide them in their attics. Ignore him. They want all kinds of different Skills and Traits; don’t worry too much about it right now. You’ll get a new System Career when you Advance, since you’re not going to be a student anymore – well, not for a while. You might want to go back to school when you Return, depending on what you choose to do while you’re Outside.”

  “I might want to get my high school diploma, for one thing,” Danielle grumbled. “What can you tell me about Advancing? I’ve never even seen it happen. Is there anything special I need to know?”

  “It’s not going to define the whole rest of your life, that’s what you need to know,” her mom said. “It’s not hard to add Careers; that’s one of the things people do to slow down their System Growth, if they find themselves moving too fast. Whatever Career you get from your Advancement, use it for as long as it’s useful, and if it stops being useful, don’t be afraid to move on to something else.”

  “That’s right,” her dad agreed. “You’ll get a Career that reflects your actions and goals as the System has understood them up to now. Advancing before finishing high school means that you might get something strange, or something that feels like less than you want; don’t let it throw you off. Even if you get a rough start, it’s just a start. The great thing about being Sent is, you won’t have any limits on how many Skills you can take, or Traits. As long as you get to level 10 in the end, you could have twice the normal Inside limit and it’s all fine and legal. That means you can afford to explore a little, and change your direction if you need to, so don’t be afraid to pick something and try it out now.”

  In the background, the agent muttered something about “good advice for a change” and “finally” something. Danielle ignored him.

  “OK, that’s a good thing to keep in mind, and I will,” she said, “but I meant stuff like, how does it work and are there any gotchas I have to watch out for with it?”

  “There shouldn’t be,” her dad said. “Sendings use a different Advancement token, but only the SA and the Returned actually know the details. I gather you’re supposed to get a little more than the usual, but the agents we’ve spoken with tell us they’re not allowed to answer questions.”

  “I, um, looked up the voluntary Sending stuff on the net,” Eva said. “The benefits page there said that you get a Class when you advance, so, um. Maybe there’s that.” She fidgeted as everyone looked at her.

  “That was very resourceful of you, Eva,” their mom said.

  “Yeah, thanks Eva!” Danielle said. “What else did it mention?”

  “Um, you get a Class when you advance, the thing about being exempted from System ability limits, and then a bunch of stuff about job training and stuff that might not be the same for a regular Sending,” Eva said. “It wasn’t very helpful, really.”

  Danielle sighed. “Well, thanks for trying, anyway. I don’t have a data pad anymore, so it’s not like I can look at the netsite for myself.”

  “You can’t? That’s awful!” Lydia exclaimed. “How are you supposed to watch stream-shows?”

  “I guess I’ll have to catch up when I Return,” Danielle said. “Keep a diary or something and write down the good ones for me, so I know what to download when I get a data pad again, all right?”

  “A-all right,” Lydia said, then squinted suspiciously at Danielle. “Wait, are you giving me homework?”

  Everyone but Lydia laughed at that – even the agent in the corner failed to completely suppress a smirk. Lydia gave an offended, “Hey!” and leaned back from the glass to fold her hands and pout.

  “Haha, don’t worry Lydia, I promise not to grade your list or diary or whatever,” Danielle said.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to keep a diary or something?” Eva asked. “I know you’re not allowed to write home, but it’d be cool to at least read about your adventures when you get back.”

  Danielle smiled. “I’ll try if you will! I have a good enough journal for it, at least.”

  “I would like that, too,” her mother said.

  “Better get a family set of journals, then, because I’m not going to let you all read my diary if you don’t let me read yours!” Danielle teased.

  Her father grinned. “We’ll stop at the necessities store for notebooks on the way home,” he said.

  “I’ll start one for Micah,” her mother added. “He can crayon on some of the pages until he learns to write!”

  “No fair!” Lydia exclaimed, “I want to do crayons in mine, too!”

  “You know how to write, though,” their mom negotiated, “so you should do some writing, too. You don’t want to have a baby-journal with nothing but crayon drawings, do you?”

  “Welll – ”

  “Of course not,” their dad chimed in, “You’re not a baby! You’re about to start second grade! Your journal should have writing under all the pictures, like a book!”

  Danielle smirked a little, watching her parents double-team her little sister. “A picture book about your life sounds kind of awesome,” she said.

  Lydia squinted suspiciously at her.

  “Really! I’m not going to be able to vid-call you every week like I did at school. Coming home to a book you wrote and colored by yourself about all the stuff that happened while I was gone would be really neat! Something to look forward to, you know? And you can look forward to reading mine, and we won’t forget to think about each other.”

  “It’ll be a long book if we have to keep writing until Lyddie’s done with high school, though,” Timothy said. “We might run out of space before then.”

  “It can be more than one volume,” Danielle said. “You gotta pray for me, even if you don’t want to write down the stuff I miss out on. I don’t know how it’s all going to be, but I probably have a lot of hard work to do, to get food Outside and level up nine times and all that stuff.”

  Her mother glanced at her watch. “I think we should pray for you right now,” she said.

  “But Mommy, we can’t hold hands through this stupid window,” Lydia protested, slapping the window to emphasize her point.

  “It’s OK, God will still know who you mean,” Danielle said.

  Eva moved up and put one hand against the glass. “We can pretend a little,” she said. Danielle nodded and put a hand against the glass in the same spot.

  The rest of the family gathered closer and held hands, and her mother led off, praying for Danielle to stay safe, and have wisdom, and stay safe, and level up well, and stay healthy, and stay safe. (Danielle was tempted to make a joke about noticing a theme, but she kept her mouth shut so her siblings wouldn’t think she wasn’t taking it seriously.) One by one, Lydia, Timothy, and Eva added their prayers, mostly pretty generic and also heavily safety-themed, because none of them knew enough about anything else to pray more specifically.

  Her Dad closed, and he put a different spin on it; he thanked God for giving Danielle the opportunity to get to high level, and prayed for God to help Danielle resist bitterness, and grow into someone honorable, and kind, and generous. Danielle was a little offended that he was worried she might not be those things, but then, she’d been joking with Sadie about being greedy just that morning. She supposed if it was hard to get food outside, it might be easy to turn into someone who had a hard time sharing. Her father ended by praying for her safety in all kinds of different ways; physical safety and mental safety and emotional safety, and he even prayed for her System to stay safe! Danielle wasn’t sure how a person’s System Instance could be endangered, but she still appreciated the sentiment.

  “Five minutes,” the agent by the door warned.

  Danielle’s mother blinked away a tear, and said, “All right. Your dad kind of said it all last night; we know that you are a capable young woman, so work hard at whatever you do, and remember that we love you, and I’m sure you’ll grow into a woman we’ll be proud to call our daughter. When things are hard, pray and do your best and trust God to get you through to the other side, and know that we’ll be praying for you too, as best we can.”

  “I will, Mom. I promise,” Danielle said, trying not to choke up.

  To her surprise, Eva promptly dissolved into sobs, which set of Lydia and Micah. The agent in the back corner sighed, and Danielle shot him a venomous glare. “It’ll be all right, Eva,” she said. “I love you, and when I come back, I’ll still love you, and you’ll have a high-level sister!”

  “I l-love you t-too,” she choked out between sobs. “I-I’m just s-scared.”

  “What are you scared of?” Timothy asked. “You’re not the one going Outside!”

  “I’m scared I’ll never see her again!” Eva blurted out.

  “Well don’t be,” Danielle said. “First of all, I’m going to survive and come back at level 10. Second of all, even if I was wrong about that, we’ll see each other in heaven in the end, right? So there’s a backup plan that nobody and nothing can mess up. But probably I’ll see you in ten years. It’s long, but it’s not forever.”

  Eva nodded and sniffed, and tried to at least cry quieter, but Danielle could tell she was going to need more than five minutes to calm down. “I wish I could give you a proper hug,” Danielle said. “I guess Mom will have to do it for me, like we used to do when I vid-called home from Awakening school.”

  Eva chuckled through the tears, and their mom did too, even though Micah was more-or-less screaming in her ear. Lydia tried to hug the window, which didn’t work very well and got an unfortunate smear on the glass, but was cute and heartwarming anyway.

  Danielle took a hard breath, and said, “All right everyone. This is goodbye for now. I’ll see you when I get level 10, and until then, I’ll keep up the journal thing. Think of it as the slowest letter ever to get stuck in the inter-state mail!” That made Dad laugh, at least. “I will see you again if it’s in my power to make it happen,” she promised them all, very seriously.

  And then she went out the door with a cheerful wave, two minutes early.

  And then had to pause and wipe her eyes, because getting out without letting Lyddie see her cry was one thing, but actually calming down enough to see where she was going was something else. She leaned against the wall between doors, and willed her tear ducts to lay off so she could see. It didn’t help much. “Please, God, don’t make us rely on the backup plan; let me see them again here on earth,” she whispered.

  A sense of peace bloomed in her awareness; not pushing out the grief, but making it more bearable. Danielle took a deep breath, then another. I’m going to live, and I’m going to see them again, she thought. She got the tears under control, and stood away from the wall, ready to continue back to the entrance. Then she blinked in confusion at the blank wall ahead of her, and glanced at the nearest doors.

  She turned around with a laugh; she’d been so distracted, she’d actually walked the wrong way! She walked back towards the agent standing at the intersection, who gave her a mildly curious glance. “Sent Falconer, right?” the agent asked.

  “Yeah. Someone might need to clean the glass in room 7, especially on the family side,” Danielle said.

  “They will, don’t worry about it. Thank you for leaving promptly when your time slot ended,” the agent said, tapping at the data pad. “You’re signed out of the room; keep an eye on the boards when you sit back down, you’ll probably be called soon to get on a bus to wherever they’re putting you for the night.”

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2