"Well, at least we can check in with her physically – she's not actively resistant to System checks, as long as she knows they're coming," Healer Hart said encouragingly. "She even let me do one while arguing over whether or not we could tell her to stay away from building seven. Also, as Flo said earlier, she's not flat-out reckless; she may have determined to go to building seven against advice, but she took three people with her. One of them was even a classed Bodyguard!"

  "How did that happen?" Blanche asked. "By which I mean, how does a fifteen-year-old unlock Bodyguard?"

  Flo piped up, "They tell me they decided to train themselves to protect their org's Healer while she worked, and at least two of them unlocked it. One of those two took it with the care package mana, she said, because it felt like a better fit than Basic Weapon Fighter and her roommate had a whole thing going on with one of those Wolf Pack boys."

  “Please tell me ‘those Wolf Pack boys’ means a group that focuses on hunting larger game than rabbits,” the SA commissioner groaned.

  “There you go asking me to lie to you, again,” Agent Apira said dryly. “I’ve already reported this to your office. It’s a registered System org, led by Career-bearing Predators, dedicated to reaching high levels as fast as possible. Their leader may already have a visible mana mutation, but we aren’t positive because the entire org refuses to interact with us, or the Rangers for that matter, unless we’re giving out freebies.”

  “Please, please tell me that McPherson kid with the reputation isn’t leading it,” the senator begged.

  “I’m not up on the latest school-cavern gossip,” Bernard began, “but if you’re talking about councilor McPherson - ?” He paused, glancing at Agent Apira for confirmation.

  The senator interrupted, “No, no, his youngest is already in high school – I’m talking about the ironworks McPhersons.”

  Bernard gave the senator a very confused glance, then looked back to Agent Apira, who explained, “The senator is talking about councilor McPherson’s father,” she explained. “And his father’s first cousin, if I recall correctly, who happens to be on the city council of Caverna Calida.”

  “Wait, what?” the senator asked, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline.

  Bernard turned back to him. “OK, I see where the confusion came from now – what I’m trying to say is, I ran across a McPherson among the town council of Camp Constanza, and he came across as someone who had maybe fallen in with a better crowd than he’d been used to. He came into the meeting angry at someone, and pulling attitude; but his party members gave him a relatively gentle attitude check, and he straightened right up (literally, even) and stuck almost entirely to productive discussion for the rest of the meeting.”

  “System preserve me – that fast? Wow.” The senator shook his head. “Am I allowed to tell his father any of that?”

  “No,” the SA side of the table chorused. The commissioner said it in a resigned tone of voice; Agent Apira in a flat, repressive tone accompanied by an equally flat glare; the liaison exclaimed it urgently, as if she had to stop him from calling Scout Zephyr’s famous father that very moment.

  The senator folded his arms, almost an annoyed pout, and returned Agent Apira’s glare. “All right, all right, I get it!”

  “I suppose that is my cue to ask about certain other points of interest that might or might not involve mention of chil- ahem, young adults with aggressive parents who have the senator’s phone number,” Blanche joked. “Let’s go ahead and start with Systemist concerns, since we’ve brought up the McPherson clan. Does this Sending have a Court of the Elements yet, and have the recent System checks confirmed ‘elevated’ element shapers that ORAP should check in with at Fall Fair?”

  “Yes, quite a few of them actually,” Healer Hart replied smoothly, flicking to the right tab on his pocket data-pad. “We have, ah, seventeen percent of the Sending with tier 1 element shaping Classes right now.” A wave of minor exclamations went through the meeting, (mostly along the lines of “wow, already?!) and he continued, “While we originally expected this Sending to lag in that metric, it turns out that not only did a certain youth get sufficient advanced instruction to advance Stone Shaper in the Dome, but someone else figured out the trick in front of witnesses, and between one and the other, a lot of people that we’d normally have expected to take a month or three to catch on were instead ready and waiting to advance an elevated Class when the care package mana came to them.”

  “So we’ve gone from half the Sending having Basic Weapon Fighter to half the Sending obsessing over elemental Classes?” the commissioner asked with a frown. “That’s not good. They need survival Classes, and craftsmen.”

  “Neither of those is actually a full half,” Michael reminded him. “Basic Weapon Fighter is closer to a third, and seventeen percent is just a little over one sixth. Besides, there’s overlap – a lot of the ki- young people in this Sending took Basic Weapon Fighter because they didn’t have anything better unlocked, but immediately started work on trying to get something better unlocked. The Skill Sharer’s friend went to Bodyguard; others went to Hunter or Trapper. Ki- Sent who already had designs on elemental Classes figured out the last step and took it. Then they all took advantage of the care package mana to advance those Classes.”

  “At least 25% of the Sending is dual-Classed now, yes, which is nearly unprecedented at this stage,” Healer Hart said. “I suspect we’ll find that the Sending as a whole doesn’t stay ahead that much, though; instead, we’ll find the people that would have dual-classed later have gotten it out of their system (so to speak) and when they get to the stage where 25% dual-Classers would be normal, they’ll only be at, oh, 27% or something. The ki- young people took full advantage of the combination of the care package delivery and the ride to an Access Point, and a lot of the care package mana got used.”

  “You can just call them kids,” the Outstation One liaison said with a sigh. “We all know it’s true.”

  “Respectfully, ma’am, it is not true, and those of us who speak with the Sent regularly need to train ourselves out of insulting the Sent in that way,” Ranger Hart said firmly.

  Flo added, “Especially us Healers – it’s hard enough trying to heal a bunch of suspicious kids who think we might be trying to brainwash them into staying outside longer than they really need to without sending them into tantrums over how we refer to them.”

  Michael nodded. “They know they shouldn’t be adults yet, but a lot of them have also figured out that they need to step up and act like adults at this point, like it or not, fair or not. Remind them that they’re adults, they’ll generally respond by acting more adult as best they can. Remind them that they’re kids, and you get a high volume lecture on how the Inside decided they were adults and the Inside doesn’t care about their education or their ages or their lives, and next thing you know they’re too worked up to be rational about anything at all. Medical care included.”

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  “Let’s ask about that next,” Blanche said, though he was tapping notes as fast as the data-pad would register them. “What percentage of Healers did you find?”

  Healer Hart consulted his notes again, while Flo muttered, “Not enough.” The ORAP officer gave her a glance, but waited for the more official answer.

  “A bit under 7%,” Healer Hart said. “Hardly any Medics, though not none, and we also found a few people who somehow managed to pick up relevant Careers. We have high hopes that some of the un-classed volunteers who took Detect Internal Temperature and went around doing temp checks might have unlocked Class: Medic just this last week, but we don’t expect to see that work itself out into actual Class advancements for a while. I will say, I’m proud of the Sent Healers and other volunteers who worked with us to handle the epidemic. Most of them worked hard, even while they were themselves sick, and they did a lot of good even among Sent that aren’t in the mood to talk to Rangers these days.”

  “Don’t we normally see nearly 10% of a Sending take Basic Healer?” the BoP representative asked.

  Healer Hart nodded to her. “We do, normally; but like so many other things, youth first aid courses are usually directed at high schoolers. Medical Skills camps and Class-prep courses? High school. Camper’s first aid seminars? High school.” He shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure how even this many of them managed to have it unlocked; all the things we’d normally expect to result in unlocking Basic Healer are things they’re too young for!”

  “I suspect the preparation effect, personally,” the scryer said. “Medical supplies are one of the things people do typically think of when they’re being Sent, and necessities stores are great places to pick up those supplies.”

  “When I was doing my rounds the evening of final visits, looking for positive stories, I noticed some kids who did have early training trying to pass it on to groups of other kids on their last night Inside,” the SA’s public relations head commented. “There were several little study groups, in waiting areas and at both schools, with one more-informed youth using library books or first aid pamphlets from the stores to try to educate his or her peers. The one at Tree of Knowledge had a particularly big audience in the cafeteria when I came by. I don’t know how well trained she actually was, but if you put together a focus on medical supplies in the necessities store with the choice to spend your last hours Inside on what amounted to a first aid seminar, the preparation effect would probably be enough to magnify that into a Basic Class unlock.”

  “Basic Healer, or a few medical Skills, or all of the above, yeah,” Healer Flo agreed. “We can’t forget the effect of Detect Internal Temperature and Local Antihistamine, either; those can be foundation Skills to build up towards a medical Class or Career. Even better, since our Skill Sharer has helpfully volunteered to make them available for this catalog event that technically isn’t the seasonal fair, we may be able to overcome their relatively thin spread in this Sending, and put a few more people on the road to unlocking medical Classes.”

  “That’s encouraging. How about enhancing and mana-casting?” Blanche asked, keeping things moving.

  “Two confirmed advancements of Lesser Expand Volume already,” Healer Hart reported. “One advancement of Force Spear, with a friend who claims to have unlocked it, too. Only one confirmed advancement of Create Light Source so far, but a lot of questions about it; we’ll definitely see more independent unlocks by Fall Fair. Three advancements of Least Shield Charm, which is terrifying, but they’ll probably have the mana rolling in once they get some crystals to work with and start selling the things. There are lots of pox-bonus enhancements in Camp Constanza now, too, so any budding Enhancers that haven’t advanced their first Skill in the field yet will have plenty of inspiration to follow.”

  “We could do worse than training up three high-level armor enhancers,” the TaIR representative commented.

  Agent Apira nodded. “We’ll be offering the people with Shield Charm some additional training this winter, as usual.”

  “Those numbers seem awfully low for such a big cohort,” the senator interjected. “Shouldn’t you be seeing more than one or two of these?”

  “Sir, this isn’t a triennial report – it’s still the first month, here!” Healer Hart retorted. “It’s an excellent sign of things to come that we have any enhancers at all, so early on!”

  “I agree,” the TaIR representative piped up. “Even Lesser Expand Volume is a very useful Skill, and the sooner they start working it up to higher levels, the sooner they’ll unlock its greater variants and the rest of the down-stream Skills that everyone wants access to.”

  “All right, everyone cover your mics now,” Blanche said. There were a lot of rolled eyes and carefully silenced expressions of amusement – not quite laughter, because it wasn’t funny so much as ironic. No one covered any microphones. Blanche gave a sardonic shake of his head, then continued as if anyone had actually followed his instructions, “All right, now give me the names of the Sent we already know I need to be sure to catch up with at Fall Fair.”

  This was the part that was technically a rules violation. On the one hand, ORAP really did need to open files for Sent with high-value Skills. On the other hand, the point of reporting names in the meeting instead of just sending him an email was to let people who could leak the information with plausible deniability hear any news worth sharing regarding the children of the rich, famous, or otherwise powerful. Predictably enough, the town council contained a few of the important names: Lithios Stele, Zephyr McPherson, Brooke Lochland, Belle Silverton, Arabella Klein. Cassiopeia Stellana’s parents weren’t as pushy as some of the others, but they were rather important Returned, and the government was already feeling the results of their sudden shift from patriotic to semi-hostile.

  Terrance Sylvan hadn’t made the town council, but he was officially the most-elevated Wood for the town’s council of the elements. No one dared to comment on his status as the only important name on the court of the elements that didn’t overlap with the town council – after all, this “off the record” report was very much being recorded. Likewise, no one mentioned McPherson’s absence from the court of the elements. The Healers didn’t bring up his insistence of being called “Scout Zephyr” instead of “Mr. McPherson, either.” Since this was theoretically the ORAP heads-up list, though, Flo could and did mention that he’d advanced Class: Storm Shaper – that was a high-value, high-power, exceedingly rare Class. Michael didn’t know if the fire-obsessed McPherson clan would be excited about that, but by all rights they should be. Michael thought it was also interesting that the Class had somehow not made Scout Zephyr the town’s most elevated Wind – or would it be Water? Maybe the kids (Sent!) weren’t sure either.

  Other names came after that; Kenneth Abel, and Rillian Levine, Tallulah Rivera and Candice Sandoval – all children of commercial powerhouses. Reed Lago and Ainoa Wood were the children of more big names in the Systemist community. If they didn’t actually have abilities that warranted ORAP’s interest, someone would still suggest that they seemed like “someone to keep an eye on,” and offer an anecdote from the epidemic or the council vote, ostensibly to justify the interest, really to give whoever was leaking the information something to say. Miss Wood had been at the camp Healers’ meeting, and acquitted herself honorably helping out with the epidemic – even though she’d also taken a second, completely unrelated Class with her care package mana. Mr. Levine had “Organizer” status with one of the town’s political parties. A few people were legitimately mentioned because of actual Skills to watch: Valerie Sharpe, for example, the potential volume enhancer. The TaIR rep wrote down that name too.

  Eventually, everyone that ORAP really needed to look into had been mentioned, and everyone that was here to bring up little “safe” stories about children of powerful parents had said their piece. The senator, ironically, was starting to look bored as Blanche took notes on the less-famous names.

  “Mr. Dunning, can ORAP do the rest of this later?” he finally asked. “Not that I doubt all of these people will be very important to the future of the state, but – ” he actually paused to yawn. “Excuse me. It is after midnight.”

  “I’ll email you the list as I have it recorded,” Healer Hart said.

  Blanche nodded. “Station Manager Apira, if you would do the same?”

  “Naturally. Let’s get our Healers back on duty,” Agent Apira said. “I’d like to think none of the Sent could possibly be out this late, but – well. I’m more realistic than that.”

  ? BoP - Bureau of Personnel

  ? TAIR - Trade and Internal Resources

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