“I talked my way in here to watch the miracle happen while I ate,” Zephyr said.

  Danielle giggled. “This wasn’t a miracle,” she said. “This was just plain ol’ System Skills, and some noisy and stubborn cheese.”

  “Call it what you want,” Zephyr said, “but I’m pretty sure I just watched the girl who says she can’t affect people’s Systems give a certain Skill to literally 10% of the entire camp.”

  “Pretty near fifteen percent, actually,” the SA agent handling the tokens said. “What denominations do you want your profits in, miss? It won’t fit if we stick with 100s.”

  “I want them in,” Danielle paused as the room swooped around her. “Whoah. Uh, what was I – what do I want tokens in? Uhm, I want them in – in the box. Yes.”

  “He means, do you want 200s, 300s, or 500s?” Ranger Gretel clarified.

  Danielle turned to her and tried to think of some logical answer to that. “I want, uh. I want the mana that has to be tokens in one part, and the other mana in the other part,” she said. Part of her thought that wasn’t quite answering the question, but the numbers were getting a bit jumbled in her head.

  “Can we sell her another box?” the agent asked. “I can make the mana for tokenization fit in this box as 200s, which it mostly already is, and we can do the rest in 300s in another box, keeping it all separate as requested. What do you ladies think?”

  “That makes sense to me, but the box itself is 300 mana, right?” Ranger Flo asked.

  “Three hundred out of how much, again?” Ranger Gretel asked sardonically.

  “Considering that her memory seems to be going a little funny, I think making one box the project box and putting everything that’s not the project in another box sounds like a good idea,” Zephyr said. “The box might be a little pricey, but not as much as mixing up dedicated funds with discretionary funds – let me tell you, I’ve seen how it goes when that happens, and that’s a mess and a half for anyone.”

  “Let’s not make a mess,” Danielle agreed. “You can buy the second box with some of the mana that needs to go in it. Then it’ll still be in it! Sort of. Zephyr, am I making sense at all?”

  “You started strong, but then it got shaky,” Zephyr said. “You’re OK with buying a second box, though?”

  “Yes. Keep the token mana separate from the enhancing mana,” Danielle said.

  “I endorse this decision,” Ranger Flo said.

  Danielle sat swaying in her seat as another box was brought out of the side room (the quartermaster’s room?) and the SA man loaded one box with 180 tier-1 Skill tokens’ worth of mana in 200-mana tokens. Her mind got caught in a loop trying to figure out which numbers went with which tokens, but Zephyr promised he was keeping track, and Ranger Gretel agreed that it was correct. Then the other box got forty 300-mana tokens, and a 100-mana token was almost put in, but Danielle asked to put that one with her other 100s, and fortunately she managed to make enough sense that they gave it to her. She slid it into her token purse.

  Then there was a bit of an argument which she completely lost track of, but the end of it was that Agent Bea came back to say the official things that made the two boxes hers, and then they went into a green duffel bag along with the big thermos that had been standing on the table all night, and one of the little crates. “Just unload it in her room when you get there!” Agent Bea exclaimed exasperatedly.

  “Is that big thermos-thing mine?” Danielle asked bemusedly.

  “That’s the cold bottle you bought,” Agent Bea told her. “They don’t come smaller. Did you authorize this second strong-box?”

  “It’s for keeping token mana separate from mana tokens,” Danielle told her earnestly, which for some reason earned the SA man a skeptical look, but Zephyr and the Rangers managed to straighten it out. Danielle concentrated on finishing the juice in the Bottled Sunshine carton before someone took it away. (Was it still Bottled Sunshine if it was in a carton? Something seemed off, there.)

  “We didn’t go over her safe limit, right?” Agent Bea asked worriedly.

  Ranger Flo glared at her. “Oh, now you’re worried about safety! No, we stopped a good 20 mana short of the limit – but that still means she took in nearly two days’ worth of normal production in less than four hours, and she was feverish when we started. Also, easy to forget when you look at the pile of tokens she just made, but she is only level 2.”

  “Two times two is four,” Danielle said helpfully. From the looks everyone gave her, it didn’t help though. “Two levels times two mana traits,” she clarified.

  “Yyyes, of course. Let’s get you to a truck, discreetly if that’s still possible,” Agent Bea said.

  “Did I get my token book?” Danielle asked.

  “You can get more books later,” Agent Bea said. “Come on now, stand and see if you’re stable.”

  “Oh, wait, we actually promised her one to go with the apprentice Skill,” Ranger Flo said. “Hans reminded us.”

  “Is there a goat one?” Danielle asked. “I need a translation guide for goat. I got that Skill too.”

  “Gretel, did that make any sense to you?” Agent Bea asked tiredly.

  “Well, she did get the Skill, so she’s probably thinking if Falconry Apprentice needs a guide, then Goat Husbandry probably does too. Here, I know where that section is, I’ll grab them,” Ranger Gretel said, and disappeared into the books.

  Danielle stood, finding that she needed the help of her staff. It felt unbalanced again, so she repointed her mana usage back to her Oceanic pool, where a few new mana points had coalesced while she was working from her Riverine pool, and activated Flash Shield again. She was having enough balance problems without an unbalanced staff.

  Ranger Gretel and Agent Bea did something at the register, and two books were slipped into the green duffel bag. Zephyr sneaked a purple tomato while they were messing with the books, which made Danielle giggle, but she couldn’t entirely explain why, even to herself. Then Ranger Flo shouldered the duffel and led Danielle and Zephyr out to the parking lot. The two of them hovered awkwardly close to Danielle, but extra hands on her didn’t actually help her balance, and she managed to fend them off and keep herself upright on her own power. This time, Ranger Flo joined them in the back of the truck after speaking to the Ranger driving it. That was just as well, because Danielle was having a hard time untangling the belts without putting down her staff, and she was unwilling to put down her staff.

  She closed her eyes and rested on the way home, but Zephyr and Ranger Flo talked around her. Zephyr asked a question about why Danielle had been making tokens, and Ranger Flo told Zephyr that the Sending Authority targets for the Skills were 10% of the camp each for Detect Internal Temperature and Boost Recovery, and 40% each for Local Antihistamine and Sterilize Object. “Normally, it ends up being more like 20% for Boost Recovery, but your group ended up with over 40% insisting on it, and you’re a massive group to begin with, so we ran way over our supply. We always come prepared to give it out to up to 25%, but that’s considered kind of a worst-case scenario.”

  “I guess you’ve got a new definition for ‘worst case,’ then,” Zephyr said.

  “That’s a fact,” Ranger Flo said, “and now that we’ve got a proper survey of Healers in camp, we also know that you’re seriously short on classed Healers in general. Normally, we limit Detect Internal Temperature to only Healers, but we knew you were going to be a little short, so the instructions were that anyone who was willing to use it as a medic could have it for the asking. Last I heard, the camp’s percentage taking it didn’t even get up to 10% in spite of the soft line on who could take it. It’s going to make for a rough run, this first epidemic – for you and for us. We might have to bring in Healers from other posts.”

  “I have a great Skill for that,” Danielle said, opening her eyes. She pointed dramatically at Zephyr and said, “Activate Numeric MedVet Thermometer!”

  Text as tall as Danielle’s hand sprouted in front of Zephyr, reading “99.8oF” with an underline attached to another line that pointed to Zephyr’s sternum. It had a bold orange color.

  “Ooh, Zephyr has a fever,” Danielle said. “Not 102, though. Don’t call the Healers.”

  “That – what – that,” Ranger Flo stammered.

  “Huh. Is that one of those other tokens she bought?” Zephyr asked, looking down at the numbers.

  “No, I – did you hear what she was saying, outside the Dome, about renaming Skills?” Ranger Flo asked.

  Zepher waved his hand through the numbers, but they were just illusions, ignoring his hand as it passed through. “I heard, yeah. Before this, I always heard that Skills only changed their names when they evolved from one tier to another,” he said.

  “That’s what I always heard too,” Ranger Flo said. “But that does seem to be a rather nice variation of Detect Internal Temperature. I’ve met a couple classed Medics with a very similar version before, though their numbers were always white.”

  “I’m a classed Medic!” Danielle said with a grin. “I’m a Field Medic.”

  “Yes, you told me,” Ranger Flo agreed. “Anyway, she definitely didn’t get that from the token. You’d think the numeric version would be the gold standard, but the one they give out is actually – “

  “Lightsight MedVet Thermometer!” Danielle said, pointing at Zephyr again. This time all of Zephyr was highlighted with an orange aura. “Oh, it’s like an overlay. How are you supposed to tell a temperature from a color if it’s got all those other colors under it?” Danielle asked.

  Zephyr looked down at himself. “I don’t see anything new,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t,” Ranger Flo said, then sighed. “It’s a Skill-user only visualization. She’s asking a good question, though; the color temperature version of Detect Internal Temperature is easier to come by for some reason, but it’s a lot harder to get an accurate reading. It takes experience for people using that version to actually learn to report numbers from it, and even then, it’s just an estimate at best.”

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  “I should make tokens of my version,” Danielle said. “For next time.”

  “Yes, but some other day,” Ranger Flo said. “You might be feeling pretty overstimulated right now, but you need to rest.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired,” Danielle agreed. “Itchy, too.” She activated Local Anesthetic on the part of her shoulder where the seatbelt was rubbing. “Oh, oops, I’m dry again,” she said.

  “That’s OK,” Ranger Flo said. “Right now, being dry is better than being capped. Was that Local Antihistamine? It’s fine to use that on any spot that’s too itchy to let you sleep.”

  “OK,” Danielle said, and closed her eyes again.

  The other two were quiet for a few minutes, before Zephyr asked, “So, if she ate two pounds of cheese, and some number of those purple tomatoes, and still didn’t go past the three-times-base-production limit, um. How much – ?”

  “I can’t tell you that, and you know it,” Ranger Flo said. “That’s personal System information. They really shouldn’t have let you sit and watch her work like that to begin with. Can we trust you not to go making noise about it in camp?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I get why she said what she did, when she was first telling us about the Skill sharing and her elevated elemental Class and stuff, but I get how being too famous can be a problem, trust me. I’m not even bragging about my own stuff to them anymore. Uh, speaking of which, I hope you understand that stuff I was saying about Lightning Shaper is confidential. My party’s got party rules holding them accountable, but I’d like to hear you, um,” Zepher trailed off.

  “Confirm that I’m going to hold your possibly-heretical Class choice in confidence, just like, say, Danielle’s mana production numbers?” Ranger Flo filled in.

  “Yes. Exactly. Even from my parents, because I know my dad likes to throw his weight around,” Zephyr said.

  “Ah, yes,” Ranger Flo said. “We’ve heard from him already, as a matter of fact. Funny thing about being Sent though; you’re not a minor anymore. Legally, at least.”

  Zephyr groaned. “Well, that’s something. If it’ll help, I authorize you to tell him I took Storm Shaper. You know, if he keeps bugging you for updates or whatever.”

  “I’ll pass it along if I’m permitted, but frankly, I’d get in trouble from my superiors if I gave any information about a Sent person to anyone Inside. Except for certain official reports, anyway. Right now, we’re still sticking to normal rules about that, which state that only people with Returned Citizen clearance or higher are allowed to receive information from Sending camps.” Ranger Flo shifted on the bench, then asked, “Did you really, though? If you don’t mind telling me.”

  “What, take Storm Shaper? Yeah, that’s my ‘cover’ Class. I didn’t unlock it until after I took Lightning Shaper, which makes me wonder if that’s actually why it’s so rare – I mean, do you need an elemental lightning Skill to take Storm Shaper?” Zephyr paused and rustled – shaking his head? Shrugging? “Something’s super messed up with some stuff I was taught. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve passed a threshold without having access to the Courtyard’s information for it, so there’s stuff I just couldn’t be taught before, or if it’s something way bigger. I, uh, suspect something way bigger though.”

  “You’re not the first Sent to encounter that issue,” Ranger Flo said. “Keep in mind, though, the stress of the Sending tends to make a lot of people rather, um. Let’s say volatile, especially early on, when it comes to religion. If you don’t want to have people treating you like a threat to their sanity and all they hold dear, try not to rub in your revelations too much or too fast – or maybe even at all – to the rest of your fellow-believers.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I got that already. That political stuff – did you know, they actually tied me to a bed and tried to make me join their political party? Idiots,” Zephyr said.

  “Mm. Normally, I’d never recommend anyone work on any Skill or Trait that was likely to get you in trouble with a government, ours or any other, but in your specific situation, something to resist casual System inspection is probably a good idea. I encourage you to ask the System for something you can selectively take down, though, as Danielle here is already doing,” Ranger Flo said.

  “I advanced those Skills you said I needed for it,” Danielle said, without opening her eyes. She felt Ranger Flo jump a bit. “Sorry for startling you. But yeah, I need a Mana Veil but for my Interface and stuff, but one I can lift when I need someone to see my interface like when I’m trying to prove I have the Skills I have, or for government stuff, or whatever. So you said level those Skills, and there I was at an Access Point with mana on hand, so I leveled them. The old ones, not the new unsettled one.”

  “Oh, good.” Ranger Flo said. “Heh, I keep thinking you’ve fallen asleep.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired,” Danielle said. “I’m probably not going to fall asleep sitting up unless I actually try, though. I have Resistant Consciousness.”

  “Ah – no, you probably won’t just drift off sitting up, then,” Ranger Flo agreed.

  “Danielle, I want to apologize for telling people at the Dome about Light Shaper,” Zephyr said.

  “All you said was, I said I was going to take it,” Danielle said. “Ember could’ve told them that, so it’s public information. Besides, it helped. So you’re forgiven, and also you’re not in trouble with the party rules.”

  “Thanks,” Zephyr said. “I mean, I thought I’d be OK on the rules front, or I’d have heard about it through the System by now. I wasn’t sure if you’d feel more like it helped or more like I told, though.”

  “It beat telling them what I really took,” Danielle said. “I was too dizzy to think fast, so yeah, it helped. Now all the Systemists who were going to be worked up if I didn’t take a shaping Class can believe that I took it on the same day they got to take theirs, and that’s probably good.”

  “Did you actually take it at the campout?” Zephyr asked.

  “Nah, I did it yesterday, when they had me in here to make Now Hear This tokens,” Danielle said. “Heh, I wasn’t expecting to be back so soon.”

  She could feel that Zephyr had turned towards her on the seat; he was probably staring at her. “When you told that agent yesterday that you got the wrong token by accident. Were you really just giving back a token because you already had the Skill?”

  “Oh – yeah. I had to have it to make the ones for the rest of you,” Danielle said. “The other Skill Sharer was being difficult. But then I didn’t want people asking why I was the only one not getting a token, so she sold me another Skill token, and I got it by trading back the extra Now Hear This token. Sneaky, huh?”

  “I thought she seemed awfully calm about getting tokens mixed up,” Zephyr said. “What did you actually get from her? Wait, was it the exact thing you said you did get by accident?”

  Danielle still didn’t open her eyes, but she did grin. “Yep! Boring admin Skill. Nothing for a Sent to be jealous of, right?”

  “You bought it for some reason, so probably wrong,” Zephyr retorted.

  Danielle giggled. “You’d have heard about it pretty soon. It’s a Skill that’ll let me set door permissions on our party-owned room. Well, party-rented. You know what I mean. It’ll make it so we don’t need the Rangers to help us with it.”

  “Whoa. Will you be able to adjust the door to Tom’s room so we can stay after the two weeks?!” Zephyr asked excitedly.

  “She will not,” Ranger Flo said repressively. “She doesn’t have due authorization to alter tags on personal rooms. However, the doors at the Rooms can only take four renter authorization tags at once, and as a leader of your party with the right Skills, she’ll be able to adjust which four members of your party have authorization on the org’s room at any given time.”

  “It’s like how Now Hear This only lets you message people in your own org,” Danielle said. “Anyway, the org room is going to have not-bed stuff, but I kept one bed in it, in case you need it. We might not be able to use the room much before Fall Fair though. Hard to explain.”

  “I dunno if it’s that hard to explain,” Zephyr said. “We can’t use it because – oh, because using it would be hard to explain. That’s what you meant, isn’t it.”

  “Yep.” Danielle yawned. “Wow, I’m tired.”

  “Obviously don’t tell anyone she made the Now Hear This tokens,” Ranger Flo said.

  Zephyr laughed. “You’re tired too. I can’t go telling people she made any tokens if it’s secret that she’s even a token sharer. Er, Skill Sharer. What time is it, anyway?”

  Ranger Flo shifted – looking at a watch? “It’s about 10:30. Full dark and then some – depending on what time you got up, very late indeed. Agent Apira asked me to add Danielle to the org room if she could walk well enough for it, since it’s easier to move around while everyone’s locked down, but frankly it’s late enough I’m worried that I’ll be needed back at the lines for people suffering from exhaustion.”

  “You’re taking Zephyr to Tom’s room, right?” Danielle asked. “I can come with you, and then we’ll be close. It won’t take long.”

  “You put the org room in building 1?” Zephyr asked.

  “Yeah, it’s boy and girls,” Danielle said.

  “Oh, uh – oh! Right, so it won’t be weird to have our mixed party there,” Zephyr said. “You’re kind of hard to follow when you’re tired, Danielle.”

  “Fever doesn’t help,” Danielle muttered. “Anyway, it’s next door. Easy to mix up.”

  “Oh, wow. Well, no, that won’t take much longer, then.” Zephyr chuckled. “And it’ll give us a chance of using it a little before Fall Fair!”

  “Yeah, ‘zactly.” Danielle yawned again. “If we’re careful.”

  “Speaking of being careful, I believe we’re about to pull into town, and it’s entirely possible that people who added Classes tonight could have Improved Hearing, so let’s not talk secrets anymore,” Ranger Flo said.

  “Can I ask about this fleet of people-carrier trucks instead, then?” Zephyr asked.

  Ranger Flo snorted. “They’re not dedicated passenger vehicles, it’s just an equipment setup for our utility trucks. The benches and belts can be unbolted and replaced with equipment racks at need. We have to pull some in from other stations, too, to move whole Sendings like this. Fortunately, we started that process last night, when the first Inside volunteer tested positive.

  “Oh no – are they going to be OK?” Danielle asked.

  “They’ll be fine; they’re Insiders, they’re all level 2, and none of them has any mana traits, or even mana Skills. It’s not the disaster it can be for second-summer Sent, getting it at level 5 or 6. Some of them are actually excited, because the disease comes with automatic authorization for extra Skills,” Ranger Flo said. “It’ll give them a leg up in their job paths, maybe put them a few months ahead on getting to base level 3.”

  “None of them are 3 already?” Zephyr asked.

  “Level 3 volunteers were rejected,” Ranger Flo said. “The high risk of disease is yet another reason new Sent don’t come to Summer Fair. It’s bad timing for the volunteers, but this was one of the risks they were warned about.”

  “Think any of my family members snuck in? Or snuck out, as the case may be,” Zephyr asked.

  “Depends on if a Haco McPherson is a relative,” Ranger Flo said in an ironic tone that said she knew the answer.

  “That’d be one of my second cousins, yeah. How’s he doing these days?” Zephyr asked in similarly ironic tones.

  “Judging by the amount of flirting he does, he’s looking to start a family,” Ranger Flo joked. “We’re here, everyone out.”

  Zephyr laughed and helped Danielle disentangle herself (and her staff) from the safety belts. The two of them helped Danielle out of the truck, which she was prepared to admit she needed, then down the stairs. Ranger Flo saw Zephyr into Tom’s room, reminding him that the lockdown was still on and he was required to stay in until further notice – “possibly morning, at this rate,” Ranger Flo said. Danielle waved at Tom and Jordan over his shoulder, happy to see that Jordan had been allowed to shift rooms already.

  Once that door was closed, Ranger Flo left Danielle leaning against the wall long enough to tell the truck driver to meet them at building six. Then she took Danielle on a walk, hitting the org room, room 1013, and then around and up the back stairs and down to 2013, and around to 2002, and only then over to building six where they got the door to 6013 opening to Danielle as well, before finally going around to 6024 – and then, Ranger Flo tugged Danielle one more door down and did 6022 before letting her go in and collapse on her bed.

  “Are you all right?” Heather asked in alarm.

  “She’ll be fine, as long as she takes – well. As long as you help her take care of herself,” Ranger Flo said. “She’s probably going to be delirious tomorrow, though. You’ll need to make sure she takes her Fever-Ace every six hours and stays hydrated, and eats the soup from the supply crates. Speaking of which, she is likely to be sick longer than everyone else, so Agent Apira granted her a second crate to be sure she doesn’t run out. I’m going to use Weaken Disease on her out of my own mana in a moment, and from here on out, have her use Boost Recovery once per day with supper. Here’s the extra soup and Fever-Ace; here’s a cooling thermos she bought to keep a supply of cool water available (also good for practicing Sterilize Object, hint, hint), and I need you to open your footlocker for me, Danielle.”

  “Why?” Danielle asked.

  “So I can put your token boxes in,” Ranger Flo said, as if that were obvious.

  Danielle supposed it was the obvious thing to do with token boxes. She got up just long enough to hold open the footlocker and see Ranger Flo set the two boxes inside, topped with two books, then crawled into her bed again. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said.

  “That’s fine,” Ranger Flo said. “I do need just a moment of Akari Lang’s time, to finish activating the door to 6022.”

  Danielle heard Akari say, “Oh, wow, she really got that all set, then?” and the sound of the door closing, and then she heard a loud bleating in her mana sense, and it meant “take care of us!” so she promised to take care of them if she ever met them; and then she was asleep and heard nothing else until an alarm clock went off in the morning. It was the battery-operated alarm clock, and its blatting brought any number of other unpleasant sensations – heat! Was she in an oven?! Her whole body itched. Her head swam, and her vision was obscured with clouds of colors and even non-colors, whatever those were.

  Danielle groaned. “Ooh, boy, now I’m sick,” she said.

  Her only answers were three more groans.

  was "trying to say something."

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