Finding Alexandra wasn’t difficult. She’d only been mayor for a few hours, but she’d already convinced Helen to excavate her an office right near the ramp to the Quarry. It didn’t have a door yet, but she’d found a way to hang her “VOTE ALEXANDRA” sign over the doorway, making the identity of the new space obvious.

The inside of the office was mostly barren. There were a few folding chairs set against one wall. A couple of teenagers I didn’t know were trying to reconstruct a small bookshelf that had apparently fallen apart as it was carried over. Alexandra sat in the one piece of permanent furniture, a cushy leather roller chair. Her elbows rested on the armrests, and she had one eyebrow raised as she listened to some kind of rant from Major Fitzgerald, who stood awkwardly a few feet away, irritation clear on his face.

He finished speaking as I entered the room, and Alexandra shook her head. “I must disagree, Major. It is you who appears not to be respecting my authority. I recognize your position as an officer of the US Army, but that does not put you in charge here.”

“Under martial law-”

“Which does not apply.”

“You don’t have a police force!”

“True. For now. However, I must note that you do not command any forces either.”

“The Fort Autumn guard forces-”

“Are organized by and answer to Tamara Zwerinski. In the colonel’s absence, she is our head of security. It seems she is willing to accept your advice, so I suggest you advise her. Unless, perhaps, you are willing to sign our charter?”

“You know I can’t-”

“Then I do not see what we have to discuss. Meghan, what brings you here?”

“I just found out that we’ve been kept in the dark about a lot of info about Specialties and Abilities.”

Alexandra blinked. “Specialties?”

I stared at her. “You’re kidding. I let Colonel Zwerinski know Specialties existed almost three days ago. He didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. “Major Fitzgerald has Mental Speech. Since his arrival, he has handled almost all communications with the colonel and the Arsenal, although our own person is still doing the daily Announcements. I take it these… Specialties… are important?”

“Hell yes! I would have told everyone immediately, but I assumed you already knew.”

As one, Alexandra and I spun to glare at Major Fitzgerald. He wilted slightly under our combined gaze, but quickly rallied. He drew himself up proudly, as if to deny the moment of guilt and weakness. “That information will not be relevant for some time. No one in the area is close to getting a ninth ability, let alone a twelfth. Our information on Specialties at this point is based solely off our one example. The Arsenal will have more data in a few days, so I judged it better to wait until then.”

“You arrogant moron,” I said. “Haven’t you ever heard of planning? Synergy?”

I thought he’d been standing straight before, but he gained an extra half-inch of height as he stiffened at my insult. “Of course. Once I had a full understanding, I would have-”

“I’d give you some credit if you told people you’d have more information about Abilities soon, so they might want to wait a few days before making new choices. But you didn’t, did you?”

“Getting a Specialty for their twelfth Ability shouldn’t affect people’s choices for their fifth Ability.”

I rolled my eyes. “So, since you can’t see a way for the information to matter right now, there is no way it matters? We’re making life-and-death decisions here, not planning a grocery list. And honestly, if you can’t see how finding out they won’t get to make a new ability choice at the thirteenth threshold would affect the choices people make today, you’re dumber than a box of rocks.”

I wished Carlos had been in the room to hear that. Or Priya. Or George. Or, really anyone who’d ever touched a game with any kind of skill tree.

Major Fitzgerald hesitated, looking uncertain. “I just received that information a few hours ago, when Airman Stevens landed.”

“And yet, you still did not share it,” Alexandra interjected. “Meghan, I believe I am picking up something of a picture here, but could you share more specifics?”

I gave her the rundown. The teenagers stopped trying to assemble the bookcase to listen, and Alexandra’s face grew darker as I spoke. When I finished, her fingers were making creases in the chair’s leather armrests. “We might only get eleven choices? And those choices may influence this super-Ability, this Speciality. That changes a great deal; we will all need to rethink our options. The bookcase can wait, girls. Fay, fetch Doris. Let her know we need to do an extra Announcement. Yashekia, please draft up the text. Meghan and I will look it over when you are done.”

Both girls nodded, setting down screwdrivers. One immediately bolted from the room, and the other rooted around in a tote bag for a notepad and pencil.

I had no issue going over the wording of the Announcement, and I would have been happy to do so if asked. But no, Alexandra couldn’t ask, could she? She just volunteered me. Still, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t worth fighting about. I pushed down my irritation and took a seat in one of the uncomfortable folding chairs.

The major stood uncomfortably for a minute, his eyebrows knit in confusion. It was clear he hadn’t expected how important we’d all find this information, and he seemed embarrassed to have withheld it. Finally, he shook his head. “Mayor Alexandra.”

If her eyes were cold, her voice was positively frosty. “Yes. Major.”

“I apologize for my oversight with this information, but you are making a mistake by attempting to challenge my authority. The authority is not mine alone, but shared with our entire military and the government of our great nation. I urge you to reconsider.”

His words didn’t seem to move her. “Challenge? It is you who takes anything other than absolute obedience as a challenge, Major. We are on the same side. Simply because we won’t ask how high when you tell us to jump does not make us enemies. Work with us and I think you will find we will work with you.”

Major Fitzgerald frowned at that, but didn’t argue further. He left.

Shortly thereafter, the teenager brought text for me to check over, in handwriting shockingly neat for something written so quickly. How had Alexandra found her helpers? Maybe they were friends of her daughter. They seemed awfully competent for teenagers. Reading the message over, it occurred to me that Specialties might not be the only information I'd earned at the Trial that hadn't been communicated. I listed off the rest. They were aware of some things, but not all, and I couldn't see any rhyme or reason to what information had made it through.

The Announcer arrived and had to wait a few minutes as we adjusted the message to incorporate the extra info. It was frustrating - I'd risked my life for this news, and the Arsenal wasn't even prioritizing spreading it? Flip had seemed aware of all of this and more, and she hadn't been shy about sharing. Maybe it wasn't "the Arsenal" to blame, a monolithic entity, but the people who were part of it. Communication was difficult, and we were all used to cell phones and computers. Maybe things were getting lost in the forced game of Telephone that came from taking our technology away.

Maybe.

It didn't exactly excuse things, even if it explained them.

They needed to do better, but that was on them. I could let them know there were problems, and that it was hurting people's faith in them, but there was no way an outsider could crash into their bureaucracy and do anything other than make it worse, even if I'd wanted to.

As the message we’d agreed on started echoing through everyone’s minds, I slipped away.