To Danielle’s bemusement, they ended up unloading in a neighborhood shopping district. The area seemed entirely too mundane to be the first – well, second – stop on a path to the Outside. It was a strictly average commercial lot, backed by one of the massive structural reserve columns that bounded the neighborhoods and held up the roof of the sanctuary caverns. Under that looming wall of stone, a large Sanctuary Grocers store took up the center of the shopping strip, flanked on the left by a Fixit Hardware store and a Uniform Universe, and on the right by Idle Hands (a craft and hobby shop) and Nelson’s, the necessities store. The Nelson’s had a large sign reading “Closed for Private Function” over the door, and two agents in green standing guard outside. The Sending Authority had even taped off part of the sidewalk outside the store with bright green police tape.

  In the bus, the agent stood up in front to give instructions. “Finish your breakfast quickly, you can’t take it into the store,” she began. Danielle grimly popped the last bite of donut into her mouth – she’d suspected as much, but the woman could have told them that up front. She continued, “Here are the rules: today, you may choose whatever products you think valuable from the necessities store. You may only have one of each product. If there are two brands or sizes or what have you, you may take one of each, but the register will refuse to enter a second identical product code. Now listen up, this part is critical: Whatever you take today, you have to be able to carry it out of the store without any disposable bags, and to keep it through the Sending, you will also have to carry it on a two-mile hike tomorrow. There is at least one large hill. If it's too heavy, and you drop it on the way? It’s gone. Plan accordingly!”

  The agent paused while some of the girls on the bus muttered to each other. “The other thing to keep in mind is, this is just about it. We’ll give you a few pieces of fundamental survival gear tomorrow, most notably some cold weather gear, and you’ll get a bed in a shared room at your destination. Your room and your footlocker in the room will be System-warded to open only for the right person, so if you get it to the room, it’s reasonably secure. You will not have a chance to get more manufactured goods for several months after that, however; whatever you need, find it now. That’s why we go to the necessities store.”

  “Why not a real department store?” someone asked.

  “Too much choice paralysis, and too much big stuff,” the agent said. “It doesn’t work out well, so we don’t offer it anymore. Necessities stores are the most balanced option – they have a good selection of critical survival supplies like medical and first aid materials, a few food basics, some household tools; at this time of year, most of them even have some camping equipment. You don’t want to carry much beyond that – remember, it’s not secure until you carry it two miles on foot. Hold further questions until I finish now: there are a few items that are restricted beyond just the “one per product code” rule.

  “First, you may only have one packaged first aid kit, because everyone needs one of those, and the store could run out if we let you take one of each type. Most of them are pretty similar anyway. Second, everyone wants gemstone jewelry when they go into a high-mana area, because the crystals can attract wild enhancements. The necessities stores we work with all have a small jewelry counter, but you may only have one crystal-bearing and one non-crystal-bearing item from that department. Third, you may not take packages of disposable plastic dishes or utensils; there’s no recycling service in the Outside. You also may not take any alcohol or controlled substances. Finally, you are allowed to claim electrical devices, but be warned that electrical service at your destination is minimal; you won’t have anywhere to plug things in, at the Rooms, and the only batteries you’ll have for the next five months are the ones you carry out there tomorrow. All right, now are there any questions?”

  A girl all the way in the back wailed, “Why are you doing this to us?!”

  The agent sighed. “I’m just a basic agent, Miss, they don’t tell me all the details. Are there any questions about the necessities store?”

  “How does it get paid for?” a less overwhelmed girl asked.

  “Ah. You take it to the checkout line, like any shopping trip. You can use shopping carts or baskets while you choose items, but I don’t recommend it; you need to have a feel for how much weight you’re choosing. Don’t worry about causing trouble, using the bags we gave you for shopping; they know what you’re coming in with. If a thing isn’t actually for sale, you can’t choose it, by the way, so no trying to claim the shopping carts to take! Anyway, the workers at the registers will check you out, making sure you keep to the one-of-each rule, and give the bill to the Sending Authority at the end.”

  “So it’s free?” someone said.

  The agent snorted. “Not at all – the State is paying for it, and they get their money from the citizens. It’s all going to be paid for; just not by you or your families, directly. Anyway, it’s just about literally the least they can do for you considering they’re sending you out of the sanctuaries.”

  “Is there any way to know who we’ll be rooming with?” the girl in front of Danielle asked.

  “Ah – right, your school is the one that had the riot. Sorry, if things had been a little calmer, you’d have started that process last night. Here’s what’s going to happen: there’s a table just inside the door. At some point, stop by there and give the agent manning the table a list of names of people you’d like to room with. They will not be able to give you final answers; but all rooms have four beds, and if we compare lists and find groups of four where all four requested each other, it’s a pretty good bet that they’ll end up together. When things aren’t as clear-cut, they’ll still do their best. We have a good program for finding the best room matches from the set of lists.”

  “What if our roommates aren’t in the store at the same time as us?” a girl close to the front asked. “How are we supposed to coordinate stuff?”

  The agent shrugged unhappily. “You just have to do your best with the information you have. The people from the school that started last night won’t have their final room assignments yet either.”

  Danielle frowned. More than one school had people being Sent? That wasn’t normal. Of course, not much about this was normal. The girl in front focused on a different aspect of it, and exclaimed, “It’s not fair! I wasn’t rioting, I was sitting quietly in my seat waiting for them to tell me where to go!” Danielle doubted that; no one had stayed in their seats long except the ones that folded up and had breakdowns.

  “This is a mana control sending, Miss,” the agent said. (How had Danielle done that whole research project and never heard the term ‘mana control Sending,’ she wondered? Did it mean something important?) “None of it is your fault, none of it is fair, and none of it is negotiable. I’m sorry – I know it’s harsh. That’s the way it is, though. Everyone drop your trash in the can next to the driver on your way out, and make sure you don’t forget anything. You’re about to become adults, and that means you have to step up and take responsibility for your own things – not to mention your own lives.”

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  The agent shepherded her busload of girls inside, where they found the store already bustling with other girls and boys. Everyone here seemed to be from Tree of Knowledge, though it was hard to be sure in the chaos. Store employees stood guard over piles of boxes here and there – one passed out first aid kits, not even trying to keep any on the shelves. Another made a token effort to shelve canteens, not speaking to the Sent or even looking at them, really, but readily handing canteens from the box to anyone that spoke to him.

  Between the cash registers and the main aisle, a store employee had set up two stacks of large boxes like a booth and was simply trying to keep each stack topped off with tubes of sunscreen; she upended a smaller box on top of the red stack as Danielle watched, then grabbed another and cut it open, dumping it on the yellow stack. The colors of the tubes made it clear the two stacks were different, and the students – the Sent, Danielle reminded herself – streaming by mostly seemed to be taking one of each. The store employee chanted, “Don’t forget sunscreen, it’s a critical health and safety item Outside; Don’t forget sunscreen, it's a critical – ” she didn’t seem to stop repeating that for anything, and paused her constant piling up of the two types only to thrust the red kind at anyone who didn’t take it on their own.

  At the jewelry counter, everything was protected by the display cases. Sent stood in line to request their one gem item from a gray-haired woman in a store uniform; a Sending Authority agent stood in the circle of counters, not helping with the line, keeping any eye on everyone. Danielle immediately decided not to go there until she’d handled some of the more urgent needs. She started walking towards the back corner of the store. Nelson’s necessities stores usually had a pharmacy back there, and the first aid supplies and medications would be in the corner closest to the pharmacy window.

  “Danielle!” a welcome voice called, and Sadie waved at her from an aisle. Heather was already there with her. Danielle joined them, a feeling of relief washing over her. They both seemed all right – alive, alert, no major bruises or bandages visible.

  “Danielle, you’re the packing expert,” Heather said. “Help us figure this out! These bags are just – just not nearly big enough – what are we going to do?”

  Danielle blinked at her. That was a good point, actually, but the answer was obvious. “This place has an aisle for clothes and accessories, right? Do they sell any kind of purses or school bags?”

  Heather’s eyes widened. “Ooh, why didn’t we think of that?”

  “Back corner,” Sadie said. “They even have backpacks, usually, but not many of them.”

  “Better move quick, then,” Danielle said. “What are you looking at here?”

  Sadie gestured to a section of shelving in front of her. “Not all the camping gear is in seasonal. It’s bulky, though.”

  Danielle looked closer, and realized Sadie was standing in front of a shelf with boxed sets of metal pots and pans – or more properly speaking, one pot, one pan, one grating with little feet that the box labeled a grill, and two all-metal skewers with their ends bent into rings for handles. On the one hand, all the pieces looked a little on the small side; on the other hand, they were called “campfire cook sets” right on the box. “That’s a load off my mind,” she said, grabbing one. “I was wondering how we were going to cook anything if all we had to choose from was plastic necessities store junk. I’m not letting this out of my reach now that I’ve seen it!”

  Heather nodded. “It’s bulky though. We tried putting one in the satchels, and it doesn’t really even fit – it’s not just that it doesn’t fit around the socks and stuff, its smallest direction is just a lot bigger than the satchel’s smallest direction.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Danielle said, hefting the box. “Not too heavy, for metal – must be plain aluminum. Come on, grab yours and let’s head for the bags.”

  “Um, we were hoping we could room together, actually,” Heather said, a bit shyly. “So, um, we could share.”

  “Well obviously rooming together would be ideal, but we can’t count on it, so – I mean, when we get down to optional stuff, sure, we can work out who has the most space and toss in just one, but if we get split up by the algorithm, we all still need some way to boil water, and that means a pot, right? Besides, these are so small, they might only hold one serving of soup at a time!”

  Sadie and Heather glanced at each other and grabbed a box each. Danielle nodded to them, and they headed for the back corner of the store. Calling it a “clothing section” was basically a joke; it focused on bare-bones basics, things you might need in a pinch. There was one small hanger section of adult-sized T-shirts with tacky pictures, bins of basic socks and underwear in the very most common sizes, a rack of nylon stockings in various sizes and colors packed in plastic eggs for some reason, and then it was into the accessories. That selection promised to be more useful; a selection of hats and fashionable scarves, for example, included cloth sun hats for campers. Better yet, in the very corner were a selection of purses, handbags, satchels, a couple of soft-sided brief cases shoved to the side even though the shelf tags suggested they’d recently taken up more shelf space, a rather large pile of hip bags currently taking up most of the briefcases’ space, and best of all, some genuine student-and-traveler friendly backpacks.

  There couldn’t have been more than a dozen backpacks on the wall, in only two styles. Danielle hoped someone would be able to restock them – but she didn’t hesitate to snatch one of the larger backpacks for herself immediately. The smaller ones featured popular stream-show character art, and were probably aimed at neighborhood-school students. The larger ones were probably there mostly with college and trade-school students in mind. Their feature tags trumpeted their durability, well-padded pockets for data tablets large and small, high carrying capacity – well, Danielle didn’t have access to data pads, large or small, but she would take ‘high capacity.’ She also took a navy blue purse in a backpack-looking style, and a dark green hip bag that almost matched her new T-shirts and shorts.

  “Greedy much?” Heather asked, trying on another of the large backpacks.

  “Right now? Yes. I’m greedy for medicines and bandages and camp cooking gear and anything else that looks like it can be used or abused as survival tools. They said we’re getting bedrooms – have you heard anything about kitchens? Or even restrooms?” Danielle asked.

  “My bus heard the bedrooms have bathrooms attached,” Sadie said. “The agent said, don’t bother carrying toilet paper, that’s one of the things they provide.”

  “Ah – that is very good to hear. So, here’s what I’m thinking: backpack on the back, satchel to the side, hip pack unfashionably worn in front, mini-backpack in front too, maybe a second satchel to the other side?” Danielle said, putting on her picks. “Hm. Satchels kind of have to go under the backpacks, but it feels OK that way.”

  An agent in green startled her into an actual leap and spin that almost left her sprawling across the floor, when he broke in with, “The Sending – whoah now. Steady,” he grabbed her arm before she could fall, holding painfully tight just long enough for her to get her feet back under her. “Sorry. I was saying, the Sending Authority gives you a satchel for the stuff they pass out on Decision Day – which is what we call it when we take you to the Access Point to Advance. Yours is tomorrow. Anyway, you’re thinking smart here, but leave room for the satchel we give everyone. It’s not exactly a bag of feathers, but we make sure to give that particular stuff to everyone for a reason. Also, it’s a sturdy bag.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Danielle said.

  “Sure. There’s precious little I can say at this stage, so it’s a pleasure to have a chance to make myself useful,” the agent said, and moved on.