Danielle slept poorly, waking several times from a nightmare of which she remembered nothing but the sensation of falling and a desperate loneliness. The third time, she dug out her watch and put it on, just to make sure it wasn’t so close to wake-up call as to make it worthless to go back to sleep, but it was still only four am. When she woke at 5:30, she got up and ready for the day, and packed her towel by tying it around the handles of the Nelson’s bag to keep it more nearly closed. She noticed that Heather and Sadie had already taken the two travel soaps that still had their wrappers.

  The wake-up call at 6:00 came in the form of a System Skill; the voice of the verbal Interface reciting “This is a wake-up call to all persons named as members of the 2337 Firmitatem Sending: it is six am, time to get up. You will be evicted from your dormitories at six thirty. This is a wake-up call – ” the message repeated, with no way Danielle could discern to turn it off, until it had gone four times all the way through.

  Danielle told Sadie, “I’m ready – I woke up early from a nightmare. I’ll be out in the hall.” She then camped in the hall and asked all her friendlier neighbors if they were keeping their wrapped soap, and if she could have it for her first aid kit if they didn’t want it. She only got three of the little soaps that way, but it saved her from having to wrap up the wet one they’d been using. She wasn’t too upset about the people who reconsidered leaving it behind when she mentioned keeping it with the first aid kit, either. For all she knew, one of them might be doing first aid for her someday!

  When the other two came out, Heather still looking bleary and half-awake, Danielle stopped begging for soap and headed down to the cafeteria with them. To their surprise, the regular serving line was closed, and instead a line of buffet carts had been rolled into the wide hallway. An agent called out, “Get in line and grab a plate! It’s your last meal as an Insider, and you have a busy day, so eat hearty – but don’t make yourself sick! You have a small lunch and a late dinner ahead of you!”

  The food was an interesting mix of breakfast and lunch foods; a brunch buffet. It would have made sense if they were eating late, but at six in the morning it felt odd. Danielle and her dormmates were just getting to the front of the line when another Skill-based message came through, warning that anyone still in their rooms would be ejected – and it ended in a countdown. Everyone in line turned toward the hall leading to the dorms when the countdown ended in screams, but the agents overseeing the line barely blinked.

  “Stay calm, the Healers are already up there, and will see to anyone that was really hurt. Chances are, most of them were just scared awake when the ward sent them out the doors. You can have as much brunch as you can eat before seven thirty – but it’ll be a bad night if we’re not running Awakenings by nine, so move efficiently, please!”

  Danielle heaped her paper plate with scrambled eggs and stuck an orange in the Nelson’s bag; then she realized she probably wasn’t going to get utensils, and added chicken tenders and tortillas. Sure enough, the only utensils offered at the end of the line were paper napkins. There was nowhere left to sit in the cafeteria, but the Sending Authority people had a solution – they sent people to sit in the gymnasium, where they’d laid down tarps to protect the floor from spills.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Danielle awkwardly rolled her food into burritos, though Heather scoffed that “whatever those are, they don’t count as burritos!” Danielle just shrugged and wrapped one in napkins to keep it closed and hopefully somewhat warm while she ate the other two. Sadie ate fruit and toast and strips of crispy bacon arranged with the toast as sandwiches. Heather used toast to scoop roasted vegetables into her mouth, and ate a pulled pork sandwich. “I bet we won’t eat pork for a while,” she said, “pigs are supposedly vulnerable to parasites and stuff, so who would want to hunt that?”

  That was enough to send Danielle back to the food line, her wrapped chicken-and-egg “not a burrito” hidden in her Nelson’s bag when Heather wasn’t looking. This time, she made a pair of neater and more planned breakfast burritos with lots of bacon, more scrambled eggs, a little of the vegetable hash, and just enough cheese to help things stick together a little. She wrapped up one of those, too, and slid it into the bag before Heather ever saw it.

  Three burritos (or whatever Heather decided to call them) did make for about as substantial a breakfast as Danielle could handle, so when the Sending Authority agents started calling for people who were done to come get final medchecks, she was ready and willing to go. Heather had already declared herself done, and Sadie was willing to wrap up a bacon sandwich and hide it in her bag so they could toss their plates in the trash and go get in line.

  Unfortunately, they got separated there. The Healers doing the checks hit them with two Skills each, and turned them over to individual guides. The guides then walked them to separate busses, according to some list on their data pads. Danielle’s guide turned her over very formally to a bus driver wearing the green uniform: “I present Sent of Firmitatem Danielle Falconer; she is present, clean, geared, and in good health.”

  The bus driver gestured to Danielle to climb aboard. “I receive Sent of Firmitatem Danielle Falconer,” she told the guide, once Danielle was past her and settling her bags in a seat. The guide nodded and went back for someone else.

  Half an hour later, it was becoming obvious that the busses were being loaded alphabetically. Alex came aboard about halfway through the process, looking bad; from the red eyes, he’d probably been crying during or right before his med-check, and judging by the bags under them, he hadn’t slept much (which probably didn’t help with the crying). His gear was in the uniform satchel and a reusable shopping bag from Everyday Drop In. A colorful beach towel peeked out of the shopping bag, looking ironic and out of place amid the sober mood on the bus. The tennis twins arrived one right after the other and took the first seat together. The bus got crowded, and some people had to rearrange. Danielle ended up squeezed against the window end of the bench while Anna Finch tried not to drop anything into the aisle.

  Anna wasn’t usually a bad sort, but she tended to run in the circles Vanessa favored, so the two of them pretended to ignore each other. She had a rather large purse, which Danielle approved of, but no less than three of the reusable shopping bags, which Danielle suspected would be a problem on the long hike they’d been told to prepare for. Well, maybe they were light; regardless, it wasn’t Danielle’s problem. If the Sending Authority wasn’t telling them what to do, who was she to tell people what to do? Besides, it was too late to make changes now.

  Everyone knew when the last person was on the bus, because the bus was full, and because a Sending Authority agent in green came up the stairs last of all and stood holding on to the pole that supported the divider behind the driver’s seat. The agent counted heads, and toggled the bus radio. “Bus five is ready to go, with all prescribed Sent confirmed aboard,” he reported. The radio replied, “Bus five is confirmed for departure through the southwest tunnel.”

  The agent turned to the passenger area and announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now traveling to the Outside.”

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2