“Alive?” Heather asked.

  “I will still be alive in five years, and I will have a much better plan for going forward by then,” Danielle amplified. “I will be alive and figuring things out and not depending on wild rumors to know how to live my life.” As a five-year plan for life and System development, it lacked something, but it was as much as she could put together right now.

  “Alive and well on your way to making a thing?” Sadie suggested.

  That was the other half of the rumor mill. “Everyone knows,” they said – hah! “Everyone” knew there was something besides just getting to base level 10 that was needed to become a Returned. What “everyone” didn’t know was what that extra something might be. Certainly, the high-level people in their home cities had lots of amazing abilities, System and otherwise, but “everyone” was unable to name an individual ability they all had in common. Some of the people in line insisted that Sent were given some object that they had to ‘charge up’ and physically return; others said it was something you had to make, and turn in to gain the right to Return. Still others insisted it was something in the System. Either it was something the System would give you at level 10, or it was something the government would give you at level 10, or it was something you would be able to do at level 10 to metaphorically ‘give back to the community that raised you.’

  The last suggestion almost made it sound like some kind of not-really-optional ‘donation’ – or a tax, really. A Returning tax? Danielle didn’t know what to make of it. One thing was for sure, though; whatever it was, it really did depend on level 10 somehow, because there were no high-leveled people with single digit levels in Firmitatem. That much was fact, not rumor: regular citizens under the age of 45 were allowed to level up to 3; level 4 was allowed for older people, or people with special permission. As a rule, people over level 4 left the sanctuaries and didn’t come back until they were level 10.

  Of course, it wasn’t an easy rule to break, even if someone wanted to. Leveling required mana, and there were only two ways to get mana. One was to wait and slowly absorb mana day by day, which would get you to level 3 about the time you were fifty, assuming you were Inside, and also levelled your Class (but who would leave their Class at level 1 – that would be such a waste). The other way was to kill things, triggering the sudden release of the mana bound up in their Systems – farm workers could theoretically level, in time, from the tiny mana bursts from harvesting potatoes. People looking to get extra mana for Class levels could volunteer at poultry farms, or go out to the protected campgrounds and go fishing.

  People, well. People had more powerful Systems than chickens or fish. Insiders didn’t kill each other for mana, though – Insiders who took it into their heads to commit murder had to set traps, or use slow-acting poisons (or attempt even less probable mystery-novel plot devices), or else they might end up with base level 4 at a young age and get exiled instead of sent to prison, or even executed outright. Execution was always extremely controversial, because that was another mana burst on its own, and even after 200 years, most people still hated to summarily end a human life when there were so few people compared to what the population had been before the meteor changed everything.

  Outsiders, by contrast, were reputed to be barbarically obsessed with murder and blood-sport as leveling mechanisms, even though they also absorbed anywhere from tens to thousands more points of atmospheric mana per week more than Insiders. For most Insiders, that was a distant concern, but Danielle was acutely aware, as she tried to find a decent utility knife in a neighborhood store, that it might be a much more significant concern for hopefully-temporary Outsiders such as Sent. How close might the nearest true Outsiders live to wherever she and her schoolmates were being sent to live? How much more mana, exactly, were they likely to absorb there? There were so many unknowns.

  She shook her head out of the clouds as they approached the food aisle, their bags already heavy with every first aid supply and over-the-counter medication that seemed even slightly applicable to them, plus the ‘campfire cooking sets.’ The groceries on offer were limited, to say the least – with a proper grocery store next door, it was just the basics, things that someone might throw in with whatever they were really in the store for. Of course, the other half of the aisle was snacks of every variety; crackers, cookies, fried chips, jerky sticks, dried fruit, nuts, hard candy, fancy gift chocolates, kid-tempting candy bars – all the unhealthy but tempting things that made it so easy to ignore boxes of cereal, cheap pre-loaded salt/pepper/herb shaker sets, canned chicken noodle soup, and so forth.

  Still, who lived in dormitories without having a few options squirreled away for sleeping through breakfast, or days when the cafeteria insisted on serving salad as if it was a main course? Heather was evidently thinking something similar. “We have to get crackers and peanut butter, right?” she asked.

  “And jerky,” Sadie said. “It’s small packages, but it’s still real meat.”

  “Yeah, judging by the stack of boxes, they’re expecting everyone to go for that,” Danielle said. “Peanut butter’s not a bad idea either, though.” She scanned the shelf. “There – they don’t have the really big size, but we can get regular and crunchy.”

  “Honey!” Sadie added, snatching a bear-shaped squeeze bottle off the shelf. “It’s a natural antibiotic,” she told Danielle. “Doesn’t go bad, and it’s the easiest sugar substitute there is in traditional food.”

  “All right, honey too, then,” Danielle said, packing a bear-shaped honey bottle and a beehive-themed honey bottle on opposite ends of her satchel, then adding a peanut butter next to each of them. “Oof, was peanut butter always this heavy and I just never noticed?” She moved it to her backpack.

  Heather put it all in her backpack, then went to peek at the endcaps while Sadie methodically collected one of each kind of jerky, and Danielle debated what kind of crackers to bring. “There’s more jerky over here!” Heather called. “Bigger bags, even!”

  Danielle went to join her. A store worker knelt next to the shelf, transferring bags of various jerkies onto the rack as fast as he could. “Oh, nice! I wonder if they always stock these, or if it’s special for us?” Danielle said, collecting packages of landjaeger, teriyaki sticks, turkey jerky, ‘tribal secret’ jerky (“that means beef jerky with traditional venison spices,” Sadie said scornfully), and pepperoni sticks.

  “We’re not actually allowed to put out anything we don’t carry normally,” the store worker complained. “It’s so stupid! The manager can order in extras of stuff we know will be popular based on previous times we did this – the store, I mean – but we couldn’t order, say, more kinds of canteens or whatever.”

  “Does that mean you knew ahead of time?” Heather asked, shocked.

  “Uh – ” the employee blanched. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

  Danielle lowered her voice to a near-whisper. “Did they tell you who, or how many? Or just, ‘we’re bringing in some people to do Sending stuff’ with no details?”

  “No details. We didn’t know you weren’t high schoolers, like normal, until we read the news this morning. That was a nasty shock, let me tell you.” The employee shoved jerky packets toward the back of the shelf with unnecessary force. “I mean, not as nasty as it was when you heard, I guess, but still. It’s not right, and I’m not thrilled they got us involved in it. I don’t know what else to do but just make sure you all get as much meat as you’re allowed to take, though. I don’t even know how Sent get food normally, but they say it’s all hunting and fishing and stuff.”

  Heather reluctantly took a package of the ‘tribal secret’ jerky. “This isn’t my favorite, but I guess he has a point about taking as much meat as we’re allowed.”

  “Yeah. However much food we bring, we have to assume that’s how long we have to figure out the hunting and fishing and stuff,” Danielle said grimly. “Let’s go collect the little packets Sadie pointed out.”

  Moving back to the rest of the food options, soup was left behind because it was too heavy for just one meal, and they couldn’t find any decent soup bowls anyway. They had a long debate about water bottles and beverages, but in the end, Danielle packed a filter pitcher with extra filters packed sideways in the top compartment and waxed-paper cracker tubes packed in the bottom. The whole lot was lighter than even one bottle of water or soda. The search for soup bowls and filter pitchers did at least lead them to the reusable utensil sets – thin metal on the business end with bamboo handles, they were so cheap that Danielle wasn’t sure the ‘disposable’ plastic utensils the school cafeteria used weren’t actually higher quality. None of those were available here, though; they’d been pulled from the shelves to prevent Sent from sneaking them out against the rules, and bamboo chopstick sets were hastily shelved in their place.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Sadie pointed out that for camping purposes, filter pitchers didn’t count as water purification, and that brought them over to investigate the camping supplies in the seasonal aisle. It was absolutely thronging with other Sent, but Danielle wasn’t impressed with the selection. Big, brightly colored towels looked good at first, but were far too bulky. Impractically oversized sun hats? No thanks. Inflatable balls and water toys? Bulky and not obviously useful. Family-sized tents? Far too bulky. She had some hope for the fishing section, but there wasn’t a single spool of fishing line left between the rods and the big, awkward fish buckets. Danielle almost took a bucket, but Sadie talked her out of it by putting her backpack into one and having Danielle carry it to the store wall and back. It was already hurting her hand, so she gave in. Also not found were any kind of water purification, flint and steel type fire starters, butane grill lighters (which had an empty space), or any kind of pocket or utility knives.

  They did find stainless steel mess kits – the package showed a plate that looked like it wanted to be a pie tin when it grew up, a slightly deeper but smaller diameter version labeled ‘soup bowl,’ a straight-sided metal cup that could probably double as a one-cup measure, and a set of all-metal utensils in a protective sleeve (presumably to protect the camper or their pocket or backpack from the points). Sadie pronounced it worthwhile for the knife alone, even though it was clearly a butter knife. Danielle said it was worth it for the plate and bowl, since they hadn’t found any other reusable dishes (aside from a selection of coffee mugs and lidded ‘commuter beverage cups,’ that is).

  They also found camp stoves, which Danielle wasn’t entirely happy about. The stoves themselves were mostly rather bulky for the space they had available. She also didn’t think they could carry enough of the fuel cans to keep the stoves working for five weeks, let alone five months (and that was even if they were allowed more than one). Sadie finally said, “Look, we’re not taking five months of food either, but we are taking enough for start-up and emergencies. This is our start-up and emergency fire, OK?”

  After some comparing back and forth, they finally went with the tiny “tank top” burners that went on squat cans of mixed fuel, rather than the spray-paint-looking butane cans and the almost homey looking stove burner devices that used them. It was a matter of space; Danielle and Sadie were unwilling to give up the backpack space for the larger units, and while Heather was, she wanted their fuel cans to be interchangeable more than she wanted to have the more normal-looking burner. Danielle also found packages of long campfire skewers with wooden handles, and snagged one of those. They were way too long to go into any of her bags, but they were light. “I can carry one thing in my hands,” she said, and then Sadie pointed out a shelf of “Camper’s Cordage: use for pitching tents, suspending food supplies, etc.” and everyone needed that in each of the two colors available. The colors turned out to be size indicators; one was thicker cord than the other. Danielle got both of their labels into her checkout envelope, then cut off a bit of one to tie the long skewers to the outside of her backpack.

  The camper’s cordage was a relief to find, but the lack of fishing line still felt like a problem. They went back to the regular camping section to see if any was left back there, but again found only an empty spot. There was a small kit with a variety of hooks and lures, and Danielle packed one of those, carefully sliding it down between the frying pan and a journal – flat things next to each other, round things nested as close as they could get; the backpack was getting rather full and the satchel was going to require creativity to hold anything else of substantial size. She did some repacking, showing Sadie and Heather how she was doing it and giving them advice as they went. The more fragile-seeming bottles of medicines and first aid supplies got wrapped in the hand towels. Anything that could handle being outside the protective packing blister it was sold in got stripped and packed away more tightly.

  Danielle found what she considered a more practical ‘camp stove’ in that section, though it barely deserved the name – it was a tripod with a ringed burner-top, meant to go over a can of solid fuel. It packed flat, and the ‘canned heat’ cans were smaller than the gas cans that went with the backpacking burners. Sadie complained that it would run out even faster, but Danielle pointed out that the tripod-burner could go over any fire; it didn’t have to be just one specific fuel, like the others. That convinced the other two to pack them, and then they went looking for some alternate fire sources.

  The home decor section provided them with pillar candles, votive candles, and jar candles (“Worth it twice over because of the glass jars!”). Heather spent a few long minutes debating scents, but Sadie just took what was nearest. “It’s all burning wax, which is the part that matters,” she said, and went around to the next aisle to find reusable shopping bags. She came back and passed out sets of shopping bags designed to stuff into little pouches and carry in a purse between uses. Danielle grinned at the combo pack with food-themed prints and put them in her hip pouch; a smaller set of pet themed ones went into the corners of her satchel, and an individual bag with the Nelson’s store logo she opened up and used to hold the trash she’d been putting in pockets and the mini-backpack, freeing them for things she wanted to keep.

  “We’re not going to be able to fit the actual first aid kits,” Heather said worriedly, looking at her two main bags.

  “We will – we’ll open them up and put some of the other first aid stuff inside,” Danielle said. She contemplated her own bags. “We should probably do that next, though. That and, um, feminine stuff. That’s another thing where we can’t easily take a five month supply, but we should get at least one.”

  “Oh yeah. Yikes, that’d be such a disaster – and we’ve only gone one pair of pants, too,” Sadie said.

  “Well, three with the shorts, but still. We need to go through our personal care checklist again,” Heather agreed. “Wait. Hairbrushes! We don’t have any hair stuff yet! Can you imagine trying to make your own hairbrush in the woods?”

  “OK, brushes and hair ties, feminine hygiene, first aid kit line, in that order,” Danielle said.

  Hairbrushes were a quick stop, though they spent some time choosing hair ties. Scrunchies were an obvious choice, but hair ‘rubber bands’ seemed like they’d be useful for more than just hair, so they packed those too. Heather got a metal hair clip as well (“I’d get the prettier plastic one, but it might break on the way”). Sadie tried to find something more like her usual hair ribbon, but finally gave up and just grabbed a particularly small and delicate fashion scarf from the accessories aisle instead. Danielle took a large pack of bobby-pins for the wire, “and to pinch things, or clip things – look, they’re small, and I just think they’ll be useful, OK?”

  In the feminine hygiene aisle, they found a green-uniformed agent guarding the supplies they were after. She gestured for quiet, then almost whispered, “It’s a secret from the men, but we’ll be giving you an enhanced item to deal with this stuff. It’s more practical in a lot of ways – safer, even, because even a faint scent of blood can attract some dangerous things. If you want a small package for backup or other uses, it’s allowed, but don’t waste a lot of space just worrying about managing the blood.”

  “Wow. If those exist, why isn’t everyone using them?” Heather asked.

  Sadie made a disgusted sound. “Enhancements are expensive,” she said.

  “It’s not that,” the agent whispered, forcing them to lean it to hear her. “They also keep you from getting pregnant, and most women don’t want to be infertile.”

  “Oh. Ooooh,” Heather said, “most Inside women don’t, but we’re going to be Outside.”

  “Where it would be super unsafe,” Danielle continued the thought, “and that’s besides the fact that we’re not old enough to be even considering that.”

  “You will be, before you come back in,” the agent said. “Pregnant women and babies are the people that need to avoid high mana areas the very, very most, though, and you’re not going to have the option of avoiding Outside mana concentrations until you get to level 10 – so use the enhancements we give you, and don’t gamble with your first offspring. And whatever you do, don’t tell the men – boys – you know what I mean. Most of them, it’d be fine, but there always end up being a few who just hear ‘no consequences,’ and – well, they’re wrong, there are still consequences.”

  Danielle gave her a confused look, then glanced at the others. They both looked serious, in Heather’s case even a little scared. “What – ?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Sadie interrupted.

  Heather and the agent both laughed, if quietly. “Um, I’m already older than you, Sadie,” Danielle reminded her.

  “Later, anyway,” Sadie said. “Just grab an emergency backup pack and let’s go.”

  “Um, actually, let’s come back to it,” Heather proposed. “When we know how bad our space problems are, after doing the stuff that has lines.”

  They divided their time in the line for first aid kits between writing a proper list of personal care necessities and discussing rumors with the other people in line. Danielle, at least, also discussed the personal care list with anyone who would talk about it; she figured, they might remind her of something useful she hadn’t thought of, or she might do the same for them. For the first time in months – could it even be years? It might have been years; for the first time since she’d come to understand that Vanessa would punish her for making friends, she didn’t bother asking herself if anyone was ‘safe’ to talk to, or in the wrong clique, or discreet enough. She drew in anyone she could.

  “Hey, if we’re going to brainstorm, let’s make it a full-up Outside style ‘emergency weather’ storm, not just a little Sanctuary Weather Simulation Authority sprinkle with atmospheric rumbles from the public address speakers!” she told a trio of listeners whose names wouldn’t come to her. They all looked surprised, then one of them laughed, then another, and soon the whole line was laughing about her kind of stretched ‘brain storm’ analogy.