“What have I done?” I asked my friends after the crowd dispersed.

“She wouldn’t have beaten you, if you’d run,” George said.

I shot him an irritated look. “I’m aware of that. Note the ‘What have I done,’ not ‘What have you done?’”

Alexandra herself was in the middle of a crowd, accepting congratulations from her supporters. When she saw us looking, she flounced over.

“No hard feelings, yes, George? I would still like you to be part of my council. You are well-respected and Meghan was correct to note your expertise with organization and math.”

George took a step back from Alexandra. She was more than a foot shorter, so it was kind of like watching a bear retreat from a particularly energetic poodle. “Uh, sure.”

“And you, too, Meghan?”

“I won’t be able to make it to every meeting,” I said.

Alexandra rolled her eyes. “We all heard you drop out of the race. I understand this. Running things will be my full-time job, but I would appreciate your support.”

I’m sure you would, I thought to myself. But… it wasn’t like I didn’t want to have any say. I nodded stiffly. “Yeah. I’ll be part of the council.”

“Excellent. Excellent! Well, I have much to do. I will be in touch.” She swept away, lifting a hand and calling out to someone else.

“What have I done?” I repeated.

Priya shook her head, exasperated with me. “She’s not that bad, Meghan. I mean, sure, she can be irritating, but she’s done a lot to help out. She did help the Royal Woods people make it here. She’s been generous with lending Money and food to those in need. She’s incredibly smart, and she wants you and George on the council. Stop being so dramatic.”

I stared at Priya, shocked at her betrayal.

A commotion on the walls distracted me from arguing further. The sentries on the southeast side started pointing and shouting. Following their outstretched arms, I saw a dark triangle in the skies. It was small at first, but grew rapidly larger.

It must be that Arsenal pilot. Airman Stevens? She’d said she was coming out this way. We hadn’t had time during our brief stop at the Arsenal outpost for Pointy to do a full data exchange with their AIs, and supposedly Stevens had more details on that ruler… thing… Gavin had gotten for himself.

The last time I’d seen her flying, I’d been impressed at how quickly she’d moved. I’d prepared myself for that level of speed, but Airman Stevens was moving even faster now. Maybe twice as fast?

“Stand down! That’s a friendly,” shouted Major Fitzgerald.

He’d spoken none too soon. The glider continued blazing forward, but in spite of its speed, its stop was less abrupt than it had been the last time I’d seen it. It smoothly decelerated over the course of the last thousand feet or so, and I saw only the mildest tug against the passengers’ harnesses as the craft came to a stop.

The pilot was out of the craft near-instantly, saluting Major Fitzgerald while her passengers were still unstrapping themselves. I jogged over, but with the gathering crowd, I still missed a lot of her report.

“-enhance a previous ability instead,” she finished.

Major Fitzgerald nodded, face thoughtful. “And Colonel Zwerinski? Any word on when he’ll return?”

“Command wants him to remain in place at Fort Grove, sir. They judge that the situation in the area is still unstable.”

The crowd around us reacted poorly to the news, an unhappy rumble of complaints punctuated by a few ruder reactions, like a man who shouted “Bullshit!” The major’s only reaction was a slight frown. He ignored the discontented crowd.

“Very good, Stevens. Dismissed. Your group will be bunking down in Ms. Moretti’s quarters.”

We had quite a bit of space in our new living area under the Quarry, and while we’d been working to bring down our belongings from our home, we hadn’t finished yet. We didn’t have guest beds - all the spare mattresses in Autumn Hills had been claimed long ago - but we could give them a safe spot to roll out a sleeping bag. Sharing our quarters would make it easier for the AI accompanying Airman Stevens to confer with Pointy overnight, since Cassie preferred not to be separated from her friend.

I was a little uncomfortable, bringing strangers into our “house” to sleep, but the distinction was purely emotional. Safety-wise, we already had dozens of strangers sleeping right outside our “door,” which was only a fiction as barriers went. Helen had simply left open archways when she’d shaped the rooms, not bothering with the difficulty or awkwardness of stone doors. Eventually, I’d want something more solid in place, but for now we simply had a blanket hung over the gap.

“Airman Stevens! So good to see you again. Uh, it’s just the four of you, right? If you want, you can follow me to our quarters.”

“Call me Flip, please. Hearing ‘Airman Stevens’ makes me feel like I’m a rookie again.”

“Oh, sorry. Um, Flip?”

“It’s a long story. But yeah, please. It’s been a busy day. I’d love to get set up for the evening. Here, let me introduce you around - these are my gunners, Airman Miles Rogers and Airman Rod Smith. Finally, we have Lacey Spellman and her AI, Deskbot. Lacey is a civilian employee at Arsenal HQ.”

I nodded politely to the two gunners and promptly forgot their names. Other than their grown-out buzzcuts, you could have stuck either into a videogame as a template for a generic soldier. Tall, but not ridiculously so, somewhere around six feet. Muscular. Military uniforms. I’m sure I could have told them apart if I cared to, but… it was low on my priority list.

Lacey was a little more interesting. She was older, somewhere in late middle age, with just a few wrinkles on her face and a little gray in the roots of her brown hair. Someone had found her some fatigues to wear, but I could tell they weren’t hers. Not only did they bunch oddly, the name “Wojcik” was embroidered on the nametag. I was guessing whatever she’d worn to work on the day of the apocalypse wouldn’t have been compatible with the flight over here. A small humanoid robot balanced on her shoulder, one hand resting on the side of Lacey’s head. Deskbot was about eight inches tall and red, white, and blue. He looked like he’d started life as an action figure, and I knew Pointy would envy his articulated joints.

I sighed. “It’s getting close to the kids’ bedtime. Lacey, is it okay if we leave Deskbot with Cassie tonight?”

She nodded absently, looking frazzled. “As long as we both stay inside the Fort, the distance should be small enough to prevent him from shutting down during an overnight separation.”

I’d really been asking if Lacey minded, but I suppose that was a silly thing to ask an adult; it’s not like she needed to cuddle her robot to sleep, and letting Deskbot and Pointy confer was the basis for this trip. Rather than explain my silliness, I stepped into our quarters and nodded. “Awesome. The kids and I will sleep in the back area, and then you guys can set up your sleeping bags here near the door.”

Lacey dropped her sleeping bag, passing Deskbot over to me with hands I realized were shaking. She didn’t even seem to notice when he froze in my grip. “I’ll set my bag up later. I was not meant to fly. Can’t believe I’ve got to do it again tomorrow morning. I’m gonna see if I can hunt down someone who hasn’t drunk up all their liquor and find out how much Money it would take to convince them to part with some. Flip, I know you need to chat with Meghan, but… you boys care to join me?”

She was looking at the two gunners, not my boys. They were quick enough to agree, and the trio wandered off.

“I’ll be just a moment,” I told Flip.

Getting the kids set up for sleep didn’t take too long. I was concerned that Gavin would pester Flip about taking him flying, but he was more interested in telling her about his flight with Anju, and he let me herd him toward his bed afterward. Both boys were tired, actually. Micah had roped Gavin into helping him with a Money-making scheme during the election, offering to freeze or chill the water in people’s water bottles for a fee. Micah, like me, couldn’t accept the Money himself, which was where Gavin had come in. Gavin had been a good salesperson and tired himself out chatting up potential customers. Micah had worn himself out overusing his ability. He’d managed to avoid falling asleep on his feet, but he was tired enough not to protest an early bedtime.

To my relief, Deskbot came to life almost instantly after I set him down on the floor and began introducing himself to Pointy.

In the entry room, Flip had spread out everyone’s sleeping bags. She was sprawled out on hers, arms making a pillow behind her head. She’d taken off her flight helmet, and resplendent on her forehead was a brilliantly shining crown. Where Gavin’s had been a thin pale band of shining metal, hers was broader, with a brighter glimmer that cycled through multiple colors, rippling like an oil slick.

“Wow,” I said. “I knew you were a ruler, but…”

Flip raised a hand as if to touch her crown, but missed. The object, insubstantial, cut through her knuckles as she rested her fingertips too high on her head. “Yeah. I grabbed all the prizes from my Challenge.”

“All of them?”

I must have sounded critical, because she winced. “After I heard the rules, I thought ‘People are gonna kill each other.’ So I just grabbed everything and jetted up into the tangle above the arena. I took a few blasts getting up there, but most people couldn’t follow me. The two who did… they were slow. It was easy to keep away for a couple minutes until the prizes were claimed, even injured.”

“How’d you even carry everything?”

“Telekinesis. It synergizes pretty well with Flight, you know. But yeah, I stole everything. That’s a lot of what’s kept me busy the past couple days. Doing wide-range flights, plonking down stores in any of the little towns around here that didn’t have any. Arab had one already, and so did Guntersville, but Hartselle needed a Shop. Moulton. Rogersville. Ardmore. Elkmont. Last one was… uh…” She slapped her forehead, struggling to remember. “Hillsboro, I think.”

“Not in Huntsville?” I could hear the skepticism in my own voice. “Things were… pretty bad near Research Park.”

“Nah, command thinks we’ve got Huntsville covered now, or we will soon. Transport’s gotten harder, but a lot more Shops popped up after the last Challenge, and people are gathering around them. I don’t think there’s anywhere in the metro that’s more than two miles from a Shop now.”

Her voice was almost aggressively casual. I felt bad for picking at what was obviously a sore spot, and changed the subject. “So, you got six ruler tokens? Gavin said he could have 144 followers, so you can have… what, nearly 1,000?”

She laughed, a barking mirthless sound. “Hah! That’s what you’d think, right? It should’ve been 864, but each token after the first only gives half the benefit. When I left the Challenge, my limit was 504 followers and 14 vassals.”

“Vassals?” I repeated. “How is a vassal different than a follower?”

She rolled over, resting her chin on one arm. “Followers are just… anybody. But if someone who’s already a leader becomes a follower of another leader, they count as a vassal. It reduces the number of followers they can have by quite a bit. They can only lead a quarter of the people if they’re subordinate to another leader.”

“Well, that sounds like shit. Why would anyone be a vassal? Is there any reason to be one if you’re not strongarmed into it?”

“Yeah, some.” She hesitated. “What did your son tell you about the ruler stuff?”

“It takes a twelfth of followers’ Money and lets them earn 25% extra Points. They can each send him a Message once every twelve days. He also said something about a picture of dots, but…” I shrugged helplessly. “He’s six.”

Flip frowned. She opened her mouth, shut it, then pushed herself into a sitting position, face furrowed in thought. “Okay. So… first off, the dots. That’s actually a rough tracking system. There’s no associated map - or at least, I don’t have one yet - so it’s not as useful as it could be, but it’s still pretty dang handy. If I focus on any follower or vassal, I know which dot is theirs, and I’m always central on my map.”

“So you can always find any follower.”

“Yeah. I might not be able to direct others to their location, but I always know which way to go to get closer.”

I snapped my fingers, “And the Messages! If they get into trouble…”

She smiled. “You betcha. They can call me in like a missile strike.”

I smiled back, slightly uneasily. Being able to call for backup was definitely a good thing, but Flip’s analogy forced me to realize that it wouldn’t always be monsters that put followers in danger. It didn’t make the Message functionality any less valuable, but it did seem like it would help escalate conflicts. If two groups had a disagreement, they’d be nervous around each other. If each group of nervous people could call in heavy hitters to back them up, they’d be much more likely to come to blows.

“You don’t have any ability to Message other rulers, right? Ones who aren’t your vassals?”

She shook her head.

Yeah, that’s about what I expected; why give us a tool for cooperation and diplomacy when you could give us one that encouraged conflict and misunderstandings?

As I mused, Flip started speaking again. “I can send out Messages more frequently to my vassals and followers. I can do a mass-Message once every day, and I can send two Messages every twelve days to any given individual. My vassal rulers can Message me once a day as well. So, another ruler becomes my vassal, it opens up lines of communication.”

“You have vassal rulers, then.”

“Doesn’t seem right, does it? I didn’t join the US Air Force to spread monarchy.”

“It’s not really monarchy… right?”

Flip looked glum, the harsh light of our alien Light Source casting deep shadows across her face. “I don’t want it to be. I’m still following orders, and most of the brass is acting normal. General Candlish, though… this whole Eagle Initiative? The plan to dump points into people until we could get an air-capable scout and transport? It was her baby, and she won’t look me in the face anymore unless I’ve got my helmet on to hide this stupid crown. I’m not looking forward to her hearing anyone call me ‘Queen.’”

“Can’t you just tell them not to?”

She laughed. “That’s the best way to make a new callsign stick; tell someone not to use it.”

“Oh… it’s other pilots calling you Queen? Not your, um, followers?”

“The followers did too. I’ve told them to cut it out, so they don’t call me queen to my face. They probably still do among themselves. It’s quick and clear and easy.” Flip rolled her eyes, and I nodded with understanding. We were living in an ongoing emergency situation; most people valued ‘clear and quick’ over ‘doesn’t hurt feelings.’

“How many vassals do you have?”

“Four, so far. One from the Arsenal to test things out, and three I found as I was overflying the region. They were happy enough to sign on for the chance to stay in contact, even with the extra taxes on their Money.”

“How much extra?”

Flip grimaced. “Double. Money taxes go up to a sixth of what followers take in. Their direct ruler still gets a twelfth, and the other twelfth goes to me. Points are a little more complicated… it started out as a pretty small bonus, like a 29% chance to double Points earned instead of a 25% chance, but that increased a little again when I got my Specialty.”

I’d been lounging against the wall tiredly, but I went bolt upright at that. “Whoa, whoa! Burying the lede, aren’t you? You have your Specialty?”

Flip looked startled. “Yeah, I got it yesterday. I actually made it over my thirteenth threshold just before I came out here. You didn’t hear?”

I shook my head, a little angrily. “The colonel must have found out about your Specialty after we’d already left Cozy Grove. Major Fitzgerald apparently doesn’t consider us worth keeping in the loop.” If Tammy or Priya or George had heard anything about that, I was sure they would have mentioned it. I was half-inclined to go yell at the major right now… but Flip had more answers I needed.