September 2018: Run the Mountain

[marcicatverse]

Title: Run the Mountain
Author: marcicat

Fandom: Rise (2018), Power Rangers (2017)
Rating: T (language? the crisis of American youth?)

Summary: "I don't need superpowers, I need a steady income and a passing grade in History."

Note: Imagine an AU where Alpha did the logical thing, and called Eltar for a pickup instead of loading Zordon's brain into the ship and lurking around the Earth for a few thousand years. Because then Eltar's backup team would've come and collected Alpha, and the ship, and the bodies, and let's say they left the coins as a sort of combination memorial/apology for, you know, destroying the ecosystem, or whatever. (And imagine they were in Pennsylvania, because those Rise kids living in a High School Musical dystopia could stand a little mystical technology added to their lives.)

***


***

Gwen was starting to think they were going to just sit in awkward silence for the whole hour, but Jeremy dropped his orange. The new girl caught it without looking, and apparently that was enough to break the ice. "I saw you at the bonfire," he said. "You haven't been at any of the practices, though."

The girl shook her head. "Yeah, no. Not really a joiner." She paused, and then added, "Unless you're going to burn more school property in the parking lot."

"Are we?" Jeremy asked, sounding curious.

She glanced up when no one answered. Everyone was looking at her. "What?"

Jeremy shrugged. "I signed up for drama like a week ago, so I could put an extracurricular on my college apps. You've been in every play since freshman year. Are we going to burn more stuff in the parking lot?"

She looked down again. "Probably not."

"Too bad," Jeremy said. "It was kinda fun."

Gordy proved he was paying more attention than it looked like. He didn't actually look up, but he said, "If you wanted bonfires and shit, you should've joined the football team."

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that would've gone over well, the gay kid on the football team. No thanks."

For a half a second she was sure Gordy was going to say something, but he shrugged it off and looked back at his phone. "Whatever."

The new girl crossed her arms and stood up. (Her name was Didi; they'd been in three classes together in the last two years. Somehow she'd never quite stopped being the new girl.) "Look, are we done here?"

She watched Maashous take a deep breath. "I think we need to figure this out," he said quietly.

"What is there to figure out? It never happened; we don't know each other; let's never speak again."

She stood up too, because she might as well get some benefit from being taller than half the room. "How about that we all ended up in the same place, at the same time, without planning it?" The 'again' went unsaid, because she wasn't actually against pretending the first time never happened. "Or that I left this at home this morning and it showed up in my bag like it's following me?"

She held up the -- whatever it was; the disc thing that glowed in the dark like the world's weirdest nightlight. With varying degrees of reluctance, the others put theirs out in the open too.

Jeremy flipped his like a coin. "Your bag? Not your pocket?"

"You obviously haven't seen the pockets in girls pants these days," Didi answered.

"Yours was in your pocket," Jeremy said.

Didi raised her eyebrows. "Not that it's any of your business."

The bell rang before they found out whether she was actually planning to expand on that. (Gwen's guess was no, but she'd been wrong before -- a lot, lately.)

"Right, good talk," Gordy said, and walked out.

***

They all showed up the next day anyway. There was no awkward silence, though -- Jeremy barely got past the door before he blurted out, "So I'm pretty sure we have superpowers."

"No shit," Didi said. "It took you this long to figure it out?"

Jeremy stared at her. "My whole life is based around not having superpowers, so -- yeah. It's not like I'm regularly checking to see if I can lift cars or jump over buildings. If you knew, why didn't you say anything?"

"I thought everyone knew! They knew!" She pointed at Gordy and Maashous. Gordy looked angry, which wasn't unusual. Maashous looked surprised, which was.

"I -- didn't know for sure?" he said. "But I fell out a window and I was fine. I just figured -- resiliency? You can jump over buildings?"

"You fell out a window?"

Maashous shrugged. He and Gordy were determinedly not looking at each other, so there was probably more to that story that they weren't sharing.

"Anyway," Jeremy said, interrupting whatever non-communication was going on between them. "My mom says you're all invited for dinner. If you want. We eat at seven."

She choked on her water. "You told your mom?"

Jeremy seemed surprised to have everyone staring at him. "Um. Yeah? You didn't?" He looked around.

It hadn't even occurred to her to tell her parents. Why would she? The others seemed equally thrown. "No," she said.

"Hell no," Gordy added.

Didi shook her head. "Not a sharer."

"No one to tell," Maashous offered.

Jeremy hesitated, but finally said, "Well, offer stands." He pulled a sandwich out of his bag. "So, superpowers. On a scale of one to infinity, how worried should we be?"

"You shouldn't have told her about us," Gordy said.

"I didn't. I mean, I told her about the thing we're not talking about, because she's a lawyer and I don't want to go to jail. The superpowers thing was sort of unmissable. And then she just -- put it together." He shrugged, like it was no big deal. "She won't tell anyone else, if that's what you're worried about."

Before they could really get going, she interrupted with, "What do you think we should be worried about?" He was the one who'd brought it up, after all.

"Bad guys, mostly. Government experimentation, a little." Jeremy waved a hand back and forth. "Going to jail for theft, probably not much. Whoever these belonged to first coming back for them, kind of a lot."

"Why would there be bad guys?" Didi said, ignoring the rest of the list.

"It would be the classic response to individuals gaining unexpected powers," Maashous said. "An equally powered opponent appears to challenge them."

But Didi shook her head. "Only if you assume it's a superhero origin story. What if it's like, alien sociology experiments, or a test from God, or the fair folk messing around?"

"All of those things are made up," Gordy said flatly. "This is real life."

"You got superpowers from a magic coin," Didi said. "Which one of those seems less realistic than that?"

It was a good argument. It wasn't very helpful, though. "We should probably talk about it outside of school."

There was a knock on the door, and they all jumped. And of course she had to be the closest one. Obviously luck wasn't one of their new superpowers. Or it was, but having them all in one place cancelled it out somehow. She opened the door.

Tracey stood there with her hands on her hips. She didn't look surprised. "You know this room backs up to my office, right?" she said. "And these walls are not thick."

"Hi Ms. Wolfe," she said.

Tracey rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Don't Ms. Wolfe me, Gwen, you know better. I teach high school; I've seen weirder things than the five of you." She looked them over for a few seconds. "Start a study group," she said finally. "I'll sponsor you; you can meet in my office and off-site at a team member's house with parental approval. Don't fail anything."

It seemed too easy. "Just like that?"

"Weirder things, remember? Besides, don't let anybody ever tell you that teachers aren't just as petty as students. Getting one up on this administration? It would be my genuine pleasure."

***

They were required to meet only on school grounds for the first two weeks. It wasn't too bad -- they trickled into Tracey's office an hour before first period, and she dropped snacks and (occasionally) advice on them before disappearing to wherever she went when she wasn't in her office. The snacks, at least, were appreciated.

"You need to eat more," Tracey said. "All of you."

Jeremy nodded, but he didn't take his eyes off the bag of day-old bagels Tracey was holding. "Sure, absolutely," he said.

Gordy dropped into the chair next to him. "Tried that. Now they think I'm smoking pot. They'll probably adopt a drug-sniffing dog any day now."

"Your dad keeps giving these speeches at rehearsal about honesty," Maashous said. "I can't tell if he thinks you're corrupting me, or I'm corrupting you."

"Oh, it's definitely the first." Gordy tipped his chair back.

"Got you beat," Didi said. "Mine already drug tested me. Good news is whatever we have doesn't show up on a drug panel, or a standard physical."

"Gwen?" Jeremy asked. "What about you?"

She sighed. She didn't want to talk about it, but she hadn't been able to come up with a solution, either. "They don't think I'm doing drugs. They think I'm pregnant." Apparently her expression was grim enough that no one laughed. "And they think one of you is the father. They want me to quit the study group." That one was mostly her mom, but her dad hadn't argued against it.

"Do you want me to talk to them?" Tracey asked.

It wasn't the worst idea in the world. Except that at the moment, they were more likely to blame Tracey for her not getting the lead than they were to trust her as a character witness. She shook her head. "Maybe later, if they don't let up about it."

"You want me to meet them?" Jeremy asked. "They must already know you guys, right?" Maashous shrugged, but Gordy nodded. "I can be super gay around them, if that would help."

She smiled. "Thanks. I'm not sure it would, but thanks. So far they're sticking with acting like they believe me and probably going through the trash every day to see if I left a pregnancy test in there. I'll think of something."

"Can they make you quit?" Didi asked.

"Probably not." She made a face. "They're not exactly --" She wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. Presenting a united front? Talking? "I don't think they'll follow through," she said instead.

"So far having superpowers isn't that great," Jeremy said. She was pretty sure that's what it was, anyway; it was muffled by bagel.

Did grabbed the bag out of his hand and started passing it around. "Hungry all the time, total inability to sit still -- what's not to love?"

She didn't even like bagels, but she took one anyway. "We don't need much sleep," she offered. "That's kind of nice."

"Speak for yourself. I like sleep." Tracey tossed a jar of peanut butter towards Gordy, and Didi grabbed it out of the air. "The reflexes aren't bad, though."

She passed it to Gwen when she was done, which was a nice gesture. "Thanks. I can't eat peanut butter," she said, handing it off to Gordy.

"I wonder if we still have allergies," Jeremy said. "Not that I'm suggesting you test it. Obviously."

Maashous made a noise that was probably a cough covering up a laugh. Either that or he was choking, but he looked okay. "We already did," Gordy said. Maashous coughed again. "What? It was fine."

She looked back and forth between them. "Fine like you had no reaction, or fine like you didn't die?"

"No reaction," Maashous said. "But we didn't have anything to test that was anaphylaxis level. The powers seem a little -- variable, though. For injuries, at least."

Both of them looked a little shifty. "Did you test that too?" Didi asked.

"Maybe," Gordy said. Everyone stared at him. "Come on, we have super powers! You're seriously not even checking to see what they can do?"

Her brain started connecting the dots. "Is that why you fell out the window?" she said.

Maashous shrugged. "Not the first time. It was fine. Now we know."

***

She didn't think to text ahead until she was already there. Hey, she typed.

?

I'm outside. Can I come in? She was trying to ignore the fact that she could tell they were in the back corner of the house. She was sort of hoping it was the coins pinging each other like some kind of weird echo, because the alternative was probably that their new super powers were making them all psychic. But only for each other.

yeah

come around back

She rolled her eyes. She wasn't an idiot, of course she wasn't going to knock on the front door at -- she checked the time -- 2:43 in the morning. She was going to climb in the window instead, which was totally more acceptable.

Gordy and Maashous were both awake, more or less, and Maashous waved. "Hey," she said again, trying to convey without words that she didn't want to be at home, that the shouting was almost worse than the silence, that she absolutely did not want to talk about it. And maybe the coins really were making them psychic, because Gordy just cleared a space on the floor and handed her a stack of flashcards.

"Here. We were studying," he said.

Maashous threw a pillow at him. "I was studying. You were trying to beat your high score."

"You fell asleep," Gordy retorted. "I was being polite and not mentioning it." He handed her the pillow. "Just for that, I'm giving away your pillow."

"Thanks," she said. She flipped through a couple of the cards. "Spanish test?"

"Tomorrow, yeah."

They managed almost twenty minutes of actual studying before Maashous fell asleep again. "Now I feel bad about the pillow," she said quietly.

Gordy shook his head. "Don't worry about it; he always manages to lose it by morning anyway. He's got a thing about pillows."

"Yeah?" Given their newly expanded spectrum of weird, something like that probably didn't even register anymore. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. "I'm impressed he's sleeping at all; I haven't managed to do anything but doze since it happened."

"Really?"

He sounded surprised. She slouched further down the wall. Maybe it was just her. "Let me guess, you've been sleeping fine."

"Not fine, exactly," he hedged. "But a few hours every night, at least. Did you ask the others?"

She shrugged. It didn't seem like such a big deal when she wasn't lying in the dark by herself. "Tomorrow? When do your parents get up?" She should probably leave before then.

"Mom's usually up at four-thirty." He paused. "I'd say you can stay for breakfast, but --"

"You don't have to say it." People would talk, because apparently no one had anything better to do than gossip about other people's lives.

Gordy put his hands up. "I was just going to mention I'm technically still grounded, so I'm not supposed to have anyone over."

"'s fine," Maashous mumbled. "I'm not grounded. Stay if you want."

It was tempting. But she was already on shaky ground with her parents when it came to the study group, and she'd promised Tracey she wouldn't do anything stupid. "Maybe next time," she said.

"Where will you go?"

"Home, probably." Mornings weren't so bad. Her dad left early, her mom slept in. It was easier to pretend they weren't talking because they were just busy, in the mornings. "I'll see you at study group?"

"You better; you're on breakfast tomorrow."

She finished packing up her stuff and threw the pillow back at him. "I'll do the drive-through early. Not like I need to worry about waking up on time."

"Hey," he said, while she was perched on the windowsill. "We'll figure out the sleeping thing, okay?"

Right at that moment, she couldn't care less about sleeping. But the 'we' made her smile. "Yeah, I know. Don't fail your Spanish test."

***

Didi wasn't sleeping either. Or Jeremy. So either there was something about Gordy and Maashous themselves, or the Mazzuchelli house, or that they were together. Not together-together, but like, physically close by. Since the last one was the easiest to test, Didi showed up in the auditorium during rehearsal.

"I'm sorry, only theater members can be here at this time," Mr. Mazzu told her, not sounding very sorry at all.

"Yeah, it's study group stuff," Didi said. She sat down in the back row and opened a book, propping her feet up on the seat in front of her.

"Lou," Tracey said quietly. "Compromise."

He didn't look happy about it. But he was the one who'd started it, bending the rules for his favorites. He didn't have any room to object if Tracey did the same thing.

Gwen wasn't on the rehearsal schedule at all that day. (Most of them weren't. Mr. Mazzu's mid-life crisis didn't include an ability to schedule things, she guessed.) She snuck out to the back row as soon as no one was paying attention, and found Jeremy had beat her there.

"He's asleep," Didi said. "I guess it works?"

"You're not asleep, though."

Didi shrugged. "I have bio homework. Besides, someone has to keep watch, in case a teacher comes in."

She meant to pay attention to the rehearsal, or if she couldn't manage that, at least make progress on her lab report. Instead she woke up to a whispered conversation going on over her head.

"This is not a study group, Tracey. They're sleeping."

"Their books are out. They're bonding."

"They can't stay here."

"The school's open for another hour. I'll be here the whole time doing grading."

"Tracey..."

"Let it go, Lou."

The seconds stretched out in silence. "Is he gone?" Didi asked, and someone giggled.

"He's just jealous you got me into the auditorium voluntarily," Gordy mumbled, somewhere on her right.

Tracey gave a quiet laugh. "You get a pass for today. Nap time at school isn't a long term solution, though. Figure it out, study group."

"Somewhere more comfortable, I hope." That was Jeremy, she was pretty sure.

He was right. It was possibly the least comfortable place she'd ever slept. On the other hand, still nicer than not sleeping at all.

"Shh," Didi said.

More quietly, Jeremy asked, "Is anyone actually still asleep?"

"Gwen is," Maashous said, and then, "Maybe."

She yawned. "I'm awake. What's going on?"

"We're planning a sleepover," Jeremy said. "Come on, it makes sense. We need sleep, we need to study -- study group sleepover."

"I'm in," Didi said unexpectedly.

"Yes!" Jeremy held up his hand for a high five, and Didi leaned over her to return it.

"Dibs on not my house," she added.

"Right, okay." Gwen sat up carefully, waiting for a crick in her neck that never materialized. Probably the superpowers? "So we need a plan? My house is probably not the best choice."

She wasn't sure how much Maashous staying at the Mazzuchelli's was a secret people didn't know, versus a secret they knew but didn't talk about, or maybe it wasn't a secret at all but just not anyone else's business. But Gordy said, "Me and Maashous are already roommates, but we've got floor space," and no one seemed surprised.

Jeremy looked up from his phone. "And my mom says she's fine with it on a trial basis," he reported. "Which is good, because I'm really bad at sneaking out."

"It's not that hard," she said without thinking, and then tried to pretend she hadn't.

No one called her on it. Didi just nodded, and said, "We'll work on it." (She wasn't sure if she meant the blurting things out without thinking about it, or the sneaking out. Either way she was pretty sure it wasn't something they should tell Jeremy's mom about.)

They'd figure it out. The best plans were flexible ones, right?

***

Of course it wasn't that easy. It was like every stupid high school movie -- there was a party, there was a fight. She didn't see it, but the rumors were bad.

Does anyone know where Gordy is?

Not at his house, Maashous sent back immediately. I'm out.

??? Didi hadn't been at the party.

He's here, Jeremy sent. Sleeping. And then, Mom asked if he wanted to press charges.

????????????????????? And she obviously hadn't heard the rumors yet.

You should come over, Jeremy sent, which was probably a nice way of saying they shouldn't talk about it in the group text. Or maybe his mom had decided that meeting them as a group was no longer optional, now that things had escalated.

I'm on my way.

Five minutes.

I'll bring donuts.

It was technically morning by the time she got there, if you counted any time after midnight as morning. She spent a few seconds trying to decide if she was supposed to go to the front door, until it opened and Didi waved her in.

"Hey. You okay?"

She shrugged. "Probably not. It's been kind of a crappy day. Night, whatever. Is everyone else here already?"

"Yeah, I saved you a donut." Didi squinted down the driveway. "Did you run here, or did you park out by the road?"

"I don't have a car." Plus she had more energy than she knew what to do with, recently.

"In that case you can have my donut too. Come on, everyone's in the living room."

'Everyone' turned out to include not only Jeremy's mom, but also two cats, both perched on Maashous, who looked like he was mostly asleep already. She assumed Gordy was somewhere underneath the pile of blankets on the sofa. "Gwen's here," Didi announced, completely unnecessarily.

"Hi," she said. Jeremy's mom stood up, and she tried to figure out what you were supposed to say to the parent of someone you had sort of become friends with after you accidentally got superpowers together. "Thank you for having us."

"You're welcome any time." She turned and looked at the group. "Now, you may not need much sleep, but I do. I'm going to bed; Jeremy knows where everything is; anyone who's here at breakfast, we'll talk then."

"Was that a threat? Or does she want us to stay for breakfast?" Didi said quietly, after she'd left. "I'm confused."

"She wants you to stay," Jeremy said.

Either they'd covered the explanations before she'd gotten there, or they were all ignoring them. It was a little disconcerting how much she didn't care which one it was. She looked around. "Are there really donuts?"

Didi disappeared into what was probably the kitchen, and came back with a box. "Help yourself. I'm sleeping -- there's still a few hours before we have to be up again."

Jeremy tossed her a pillow. "There's more blankets behind the sofa. I have to finish the rest of the trig homework, but I can go in the other room."

"No," she said automatically, and then blushed. "Sorry. You can if you want, obviously. It's just -- it's nice, to have everyone together."

"The light's not going to bother me," Didi said. "And it's clearly not bothering them." She pushed Gordy's feet out of the way and curled up in the corner of the sofa. "Do your math; we'll figure out the rest later."

She looked at Jeremy, who shrugged. "Fine by me."

There was quiet for a few minutes, just the sound of calculator keys and breathing, and she ate a donut. Okay, two donuts. Finally she said, "It's weird, though, right? That I -- I don't know, like I feel better when I know where all of you are?"

"A little, maybe?" Jeremy didn't look up from his book. "Pretty sure they're a set, though, so it probably makes sense. Maybe yours is the leader coin."

She pushed sprinkles around the bottom of the box with one finger. "So, what if one of us goes on vacation? What about after graduation? What even is the point of these stupid powers?"

"You really want to borrow trouble that far in advance? What if a meteor hits the earth tomorrow and we all die?"

She flicked a sprinkle at him. "What if aliens come back for their super-coins and want to know what we've been doing with them? I'm just trying to think of the possibilities." And it was easier to think about possible-but-unlikely superpower-related issues than the day-to-day stuff.

"Well, we haven't started a superpowered crime spree, which seems positive. On the other hand, we have no idea if the aliens would be pro-crime or not, so it's probably a toss-up." Jeremy shrugged. "I don't know. We just -- figure it out as we go, I guess."

***

'We'll talk then' turned out to mean 'I'll feed you breakfast and not ask any awkward questions.' She was really starting to like Jeremy's mom.

"Your parents know where you are, right?"

Gordy looked up from his coffee. "They know I'm 'staying with a friend.' Why?"

Maashous had his head down over his phone, but she thought he rolled his eyes. "So I can make sure we're telling them the same thing."

His phone chimed almost as soon as he set it down. "'Are you with Gordy?'" he read. "Am I with you?"

Gordy shrugged. "'Yes,'" Maashous dictated, and put the phone back down.

"Do they actually believe that?" Didi asked.

"Mine don't," she said. "But they think I got drunk at the party and don't want to admit it. 'Staying with friends' is code for 'sleeping it off.' Maybe they'll finally be convinced I'm not pregnant."

Didi handed her a granola bar. "In that case you shouldn't wear Jeremy's sweatshirt when we go pick up your stuff. I have a jacket in my car, if you want."

It had turned colder overnight. She took the jacket, and the offer of a ride. (Jeremy's mom was taking the others to school via the Mazzuchelli's house, which was a conversation she was simultaneously intensely curious about and glad to be missing.) "You don't have to come in," she said.

Didi parked the car carefully and looked over at her. "Do you want me to not come in?"

She stared at the house. Her dad's car was still in the driveway, so they were both home. "I want you to not be interrogated by my parents."

Didi shrugged. "It's fine. What's their thing -- are they like, college-career parents, or Julliard-Broadway parents?"

"More like 'go to college to meet your future husband' parents," she said. "Not like it worked out so great for them."

She didn't really want to talk about it, and Didi just nodded. "Got it. Let's do this."

They walked in on an argument that she didn't want to hear. It cut off abruptly when she pushed the door shut with a little more force than necessary. There were a few awkward seconds of silence. "I'm going to get my bag," she said finally.

She didn't wait around for anyone to reply, and five minutes later she was back downstairs and ready to to go. "I don't want to be late," she said.

"We were just talking about your study group," her mom said. "You should have told us you had three of the top ten involved; that's wonderful."

She looked at Didi. Three of the who? "We don't talk about it a lot," Didi said, and she nodded, hopefully looking like she agreed, and not like she had no idea what Didi was talking about.

"We should get going so we're not late," Didi added, already moving towards the door. "It was nice to meet you!"

"What was that all about?" she said, once they were safely back in the car.

"In my defense, I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"You said your parents didn't want you hanging out with us in study group. I just wanted to -- shift their perspective, so they don't think we're pulling you down, or whatever." She kept her eyes very deliberately on the road. "It's not like it really means anything, but you get your picture in the paper. I thought they might like that."

She took a deep breath. "Probably, yeah. But I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"The top ten -- you know, academically, GPA stuff. You're in it. Me and Jeremy too. You really didn't know?"

"I really didn't. Why do you know?"

"I thought everyone knew."

Didi had thought they all knew about the superpowers, too. "Is there anything else you think we all know, that we probably don't?"

The long silence didn't fill her with confidence. "Like, in general?" Didi asked. "Or about something specific? Because that's a really vague question."

So that was a yes. "How about specific to the superpowers?"

"I think the coins may be making us psychic, but just for each other."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh. Yeah, I did know that, actually." She frowned. "We should probably talk about that."

"And I think there's another one."

"Wait, what?"

***

"Look, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just --" Gordy gestured around the room. "How would we find them? Do we want to find them? Do they want to find us?"

She and Gordy had a matching free period. Jeremy joined them whenever he could get out of class, and Didi claimed she was doing an independent study. Maashous just showed up, no explanation offered.

"It's not like we can go around asking people if they found a magic coin that gave them superpowers and a psychic bond," Jeremy said. "That would be weird."

Didi made a sound like she was choking on her water. "We are not calling it a psychic bond," she said.

"You really think 'we're psychic for each other' sounds better?" Gordy asked. "It doesn't."

"Says you."

"Yeah, and I'm thinking it too. Really loud."

"It's not telepathy," Maashous said. Then he looked up. "It's not, right? I can't tell what anyone is thinking."

"It's not," Gordy said.

Everyone else stayed quiet. She looked at Didi, who was looking at Jeremy. Who was looking at the floor. Well, if he wasn't going to say anything.

"It sort of is," she said. "Like telepathy, I mean. For me." She could see Jeremy nodding out of the corner of her eye. "I can't tell what you're thinking right now."

Maashous took a deep breath. "But you can sometimes?"

"When I came over that night, I could tell where you both were in the house."

Didi nodded. "I could tell when you got to Jeremy's last night. And I could hear you when you thought 'really loud' at me just now. Which -- rude, by the way."

"Sorry," Gordy muttered.

Didi waved it off. "Don't worry about it."

"Um. I can hear you," Jeremy said, and then coughed. "All of you, yes. Right now, yes. Yes, that too." He blushed. "No, not all the time."

She thought she should probably feel surprised, but instead it seemed like confirmation of something she'd already known. She did feel bad that Jeremy was probably getting bombarded with variations on 'can you hear me now' inside his head, though. He'd switched to looking at the ceiling. "Yes. Yes. No, I don't know why. Look, just -- everyone think quietly for a minute."

She'd been trying to keep one of the songs from the show in the front of her brain, but she did her best to lower the volume. "Is that better?" Maashous said quietly.

Jeremy sighed, and rubbed his temples. "Yeah. Thanks. It started a couple days ago, like a radio playing really low. Background noise. It wasn't until today that I figured out what it was, and it got louder."

"So it's getting stronger," she said.

He threw up his hands. "I don't know! Maybe it's reacting to something I ate, or the phase of the moon, or I'm slowly going insane -- if one of you got a manual to go along with your mystical coin, I wish you would share it, because I have no idea."

Didi caught her eyes and raised her eyebrows. She shrugged. So telepathy made people cranky -- no shock there. Jeremy shook his head, and she tried to think more quietly.

"So we need to figure this out. We can do that," Didi said.

"Is it better or worse when we're all in the same place?" Maashous asked.

"Better? With everyone together it's more jumbled, more like white noise." He paused, then added, "I told you it just changed today, how would I know how far away it works?"

Gordy tipped his chair back. "How loud is loud, is my question -- do we need to skip school? Because I would be fine with that."

They were about to run out of time to decide. She leaned forward. "You're in classes with at least one of us for the rest of the day -- what do you want us to do?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes, apparently in response to something someone was thinking. "Of course I'm not going to tell anyone anything. Just do whatever you normally do -- okay, not that. My brain hasn't exploded yet, so let's just -- go to class. Take it one decision at a time."

***

They joined Jeremy in the 'yeah, it's definitely telepathy' camp one by one, over the course of the afternoon. By the time she abandoned rehearsal for the back row of the theater, there was a more or less constant background conversation pinging back and forth between them. None of their brains had exploded.

*Can you still hear me?* Jeremy was slouched down, with his feet up on the seat in front of him.

Gordy's "voice" sounded just as clear as the others, despite being on the other side of the school at practice. *Literally nothing has changed since the last time you asked.*

*So that's a yes?*

*Yeah, it's a yes.*

*We can all still hear you, Jeremy.* Their new psychic connection (or whatever they wanted to call it) didn't seem to have a one to one feature -- it was group broadcast or nothing. Which made it weird to think there might be another one out there, but maybe less likely, too. None of them could figure out how to turn it off, now that it was on, but they definitely weren't getting anything from anyone other than each other.

*We should test it. See how far away we can get.*

*It looks really weird that none of you are talking, by the way.* Maashous was still in the lighting booth. He waved when she looked up at him.

*Yeah, why do you think I'm hiding?* Jeremy sank lower into his seat and covered his head with a sweatshirt. Didi tried to cover up her laugh with a cough, and pretended not to notice Mr. Mazzu glaring in their direction. *But the more practice we get thinking at each other on purpose, the less everything else is bleeding through. Worth it.*

It was true. She was sometimes getting an overlap, like one of them thought something and then tried to edit it, but the mental background noise was all but gone. *It would be nice if we knew why it was happening at all.*

*We're leveling up.* Maashous had his eyes on the stage, but he was obviously paying more attention to them than whatever was happening up there.

*Coach is letting us go early; I'm on my way.*

She started to nod, and stopped herself just in time. *We need to work on not reacting to things that no one else can hear.*

*Or just wear headphones.* Didi shrugged. *Especially if they're wireless, who's going to know the difference?*

Gordy chimed in again as he walked into the theater. *Not to bring up things no one wants to talk about, but should we?*

"Hey," he said out loud, dropping into the seat next to her.

*What, like 'what happens in study group stays in study group,' that kind of thing?*

There was a chorus of groans, but an overwhelming sense of *yes, of course, no question.* They were already keeping one secret for each other; adding more wouldn't change that.

*Yeah, that's nice and all, but I was thinking more like cheating on tests.*

Huh. She'd been more worried about being distracted at stupid times. Maashous was the first to respond. *We're a study group, right? We should just actually study together.*

Jeremy flipped his highlighter around his fingers. *That would give us a logical reason for knowing the same things.*

*And give some credibility to the study group name.* She managed to resist the urge to nod again. *Tracey did say not to fail anything.*

*Sounds good to me. Both, I mean. Studying together and/or using our psychic powers to cheat on tests.*

*Seriously?* Maashous was finally on his way down, and Didi started pulling snack bars out of her backpack to pass around.

*Seriously, this is high school, not thunderdome. Besides, we're a team. Also, studies have repeatedly shown that collaboration is a more useful skill to develop than competition.*

*Really?*

Didi shrugged. *I have no idea, but it sounds good.*

*Heads up, Mr. Mazzu incoming.*

She tried to look studious as she stared at her open textbook. History, right. Three chapters and an essay.

"Hey Dad," Gordy said.

Mr. Mazzu sighed. "Will you be home for dinner?" That seemed -- fine. She wondered what Jeremy's mom had said to him.

There was a burst of noise in her head, like everyone had something to say but was trying not to broadcast it.

Out loud, Gordy said, "Yeah. I'll text after study group." And then, *It's fine. Nothing's going to happen.*

She looked up in time to see Jeremy watching Mr. Mazzu walk away. *Sure.* He didn't sound convinced.

*It'll be a good chance to see what happens when we're further apart.*

***

Famous last words.

What happened was that they couldn't get their brains to stop thinking that more distance meant a need for more volume, so they spent hours unintentionally shouting at each other until they were all desperate for quiet. She'd snuck into the Mazzuchelli's around midnight just to get some relief.

"Make a note," Gordy said quietly. "Next time Didi gets an idea about testing our powers, let's just -- not do it."

"Are they almost here?" Maashous said. He had his arm over his eyes.

She'd already stolen his pillow. "Close. A few minutes, maybe?"

(Jeremy hadn't been kidding about not being able to sneak out of his house. He'd told his mom where he was going, and she'd driven him to meet Didi halfway there.) Sure enough, she'd barely dozed off when they both climbed in the window.

"Why aren't we using the door?" Jeremy whispered.

"Any time the door opens the light comes on," Gordy told him. "It's easier to use the window than disconnect it."

"Less suspicious, you mean," Didi said, and Gordy shrugged.

"That too. Blankets are on the chair. Help yourselves."

Jeremy immediately shook out a blanket and curled up between her and Maashous. "Oh, that's better. Just -- quiet." If there was a bright side to the whole evening, it was that at least the flip side of the distance-volume issue was also true. The closer together they were, the quieter their mental voices became. Her headache had finally faded to something close to manageable.

Didi tossed her a blanket and lay down on her other side. "So, add that to the list of things we need to figure out. After we sleep, hopefully. How much are you parents going to freak out if we're all still here in the morning?"

"All of you?" Gordy asked. "Probably less than if it was just one. But if they ask, Maashous invited you. I'm technically still grounded."

There were a few minutes while they all got comfortable, or at least as comfortable as they could on the floor, in a space not exactly designed to sleep five. And then there was quiet. And then -- "Does anyone else think these powers may be more trouble than they're worth?"

It wasn't that she wanted to seem ungrateful. It was just -- she hadn't exactly been looking for more complications in her life.

Jeremy sighed. "Right? Like, they're cool, but I don't need superpowers. I need a college essay. And a car."

"Speak for yourself," Didi said. "They're kind of growing on me."

Maashous snorted, but quietly. "Please, you'd take decent job prospects over superpowers in a hot second."

"Sure, but a month ago they both seemed impossible, and now one of them is real. It's a bird in the hand thing."

Gordy groaned, and pulled a blanket over his head. "Can we talk about the crisis of American youth in the morning? Please?"

Nobody said anything. She could hear a clock ticking, somewhere. *Did you really just say 'the crisis of American youth'?*

*Sleeping now. Talking later.*

*Right.*

*Shhh.*

***

She woke up when someone knocked loudly on the door. "Your father's gone in early for a meeting; I'm taking the girls now. Don't be late, okay? Text us when you leave."

She tensed, but Maashous shook his head. *She won't come in.* Out loud, he called, "We will, thanks."

It must be Gordy's mom. "Is Gordy there?" she called back.

"Yeah," Maashous said.

More knocking. "Gordy! Proof of life!"

"Yeah, I'm awake," Gordy called. "School, text, I got it."

"All right, we'll see you later, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Bye Mrs. Mazzuchelli!"

Didi held up her hand with a thumbs up. *That was easier than I thought it would be.*

*It's too early.* Jeremy curled further under the blankets. She was pretty sure he'd taken one of hers at some point, and possibly Maashous' as well. *Sleep now, school later.* From somewhere under the blanket pile, his phone alarm started going off. *Noooooo.*

"If we get up now we can stop for breakfast on the way to school," Didi said.

That was true. On the other hand, there weren't that many options between them and the school, and she was already tired of fast food. "Tracey will feed us."

"Two breakfasts are better than one."

Gordy yawned loudly. "There's food here," he said. "I think. Cereal, at least."

They shuffled out to the kitchen, with Jeremy still looking half-asleep. "Why are you so tired, anyway?" Didi said. "Did you not sleep?"

Jeremy shrugged. "A little. Weird dreams."

She looked at him carefully. He'd been the first one to figure out the telepathy thing. "Weird like you're developing another psychic power, or weird like you were trying to sleep in a strange place?"

Another shrug. "I don't know -- weird like weird. Unless aliens are going to show up on the doorstep, not psychic powers, though."

The doorbell rang. "No way," Didi said. Everyone stared at each other.

*Do you think it's aliens?* The thought came in stereo.

"Come on, guys," Gordy said. "It's not aliens. It's probably a delivery person, or something."

"At six o'clock in the morning?" she asked.

"Why would aliens ring the doorbell?" Gordy countered.

Maashous cleared his throat. "Is anyone going to get the door?"

Gordy was the obvious choice, since he actually lived there. It would be pretty awkward if it was a neighbor, or something, especially since they were all still in their pajamas. Gordy rolled his eyes, but headed towards the front door anyway. *I seriously doubt it's our neighbors. They have some kind of feud with Dad.*

*He's not that great at making friends, it seems like. No offense.* The rest of them were still in the kitchen, but Maashous was the only one still eating.

*You think? Okay, it's not anyone I recognize, at least.*

*Cop?*

*Really, that's where your brain goes?*

*Oh, like yours didn't.*

*Why would it be a cop?*

*Why would it be an alien?*

She heard the door swing open. "Hi, can I help you?" Gordy said.

The reply was clear. "I bring greetings and felicitations to the Rangers of Earth. I am Trey, of Triforia."

"Oh," Gordy said faintly. *Guys? Help?* "That's nice."

*Invite them in,* she thought loudly. There was no point in getting the whole neighborhood involved.

Gordy cleared his throat. "I mean -- thank you. Would you like to come inside?"

***

The alien seemed as uncertain of them as they were of him. Her? Them? Trey settled awkwardly into one of the chairs, and they all stared at each other for a few seconds.

*What the heck does Rangers of Earth mean?*

*We could just ask.*

*How much do we want to make it obvious we have no idea what we're doing?*

*I think that's going to be clear no matter what we do.*

"Hi," Jeremy said finally. "Nice to meet you. Would you like breakfast?"

Trey looked even more awkward. "Is that -- a requirement?"

"No, no, of course not," Jeremy said. There were a few more seconds of silence.

*This is painful. Somebody save him.*

Gwen leaned forward. "We appreciate your greetings and felicitations. But we have no idea what you're talking about."

"With regards to -- breakfast?" Trey said hesitantly.

"With regards to rangers," she clarified.

"And Triforia," Didi added.

"Ah," Trey said.

Maashous cleared his throat. "Also, we have a prior obligation, in about an hour." *Sorry guys. If I have any more unexcused absences they won't let me graduate on time.*

"Right, that too," she said. *It's fine. We should all go.*

If anything, Trey looked relieved. "Yes, of course. Perhaps we could schedule a time to meet later in the day."

*Wait, should we be letting an alien run around unsupervised all day?*

*Realistically, is there anything we can do to stop them?*

It was a fair point. "Sure," she said. "That sounds good."

"Let's meet somewhere else," Gordy said. *We are not introducing an alien to my parents and sisters.*

"My house should be fine," Jeremy chimed in. "I'll confirm. How should we reach you?"

"I attempted to create a communications link with your center of operations when I arrived, but was unable to do so. Based on the -- local technology, I assume you have the link shielded for security?"

*Our what?* It echoed around her brain like it was coming from multiple people at once.

*Do we have a center of operations that no one told me about?*

*Maybe the school? Awkward.*

She ignored Trey's question, along with the assorted commentary, and held up her phone. "We just use these," she said.

*And the psychic powers.*

*Maybe don't mention those.*

*Yeah, I've seen that movie. Never admit psychic powers.*

Trey nodded slowly. She was pretty sure the expression they were seeing was 'when in doubt, agree with the natives until you have more information.' "Of course. May I?"

What the hell; why not. She handed over the phone. Trey took it carefully, and she tried not to look as surprised as she felt when his hand was suddenly covered with a glove. The phone lit up, briefly, and then went dark. "Thank you," Trey said, passing the phone back to her. "When should I contact you?"

*No rehearsal today.*

*We're doing a team run after school, but no practice. Shouldn't take longer than an hour.*

*Four?*

*Works for me.*

*Do we think aliens know our time-keeping system?*

"Four o'clock," she said firmly, not willing to get into the question of alien time systems. Trey had figured out how to get to Earth, locate them, and speak English. Local time probably wouldn't be an issue.

"That is acceptable. Until then." Trey nodded, then touched something on their wrist and disappeared. Literally disappeared.

"Wow."

Didi stepped forward and waved a hand through the space Trey had occupied. "Huh. Now that -- that would be useful. You think we can figure out how to do that?"

Gordy looked at the clock. "Not fast enough to get to school on time. Let's go."

***

By some miracle, they made it. She had her notes out, but most of her attention was on Maashous and Gordy bickering quietly back and forth about verb conjugations over the psychic radio.

Suddenly Didi's voice interrupted. *You are not going to believe this. Get this -- Rangers are like, superheroes on other planets. There's powers and costumes and all that.*

*Where are you? I thought we were waiting until this afternoon to talk to Trey.*

*Independent study.* Didi sounded distracted. *And yeah, we were, but I got bored, and it turns out Trey wasn't that hard to find. They set me up with this easy-reader version of Ranger history; it's wild. There is a LOT of fighting in here.*

The teacher was staring at her, so she leaned more studiously over her notebook. *Are you safe?* She could probably get away with faking sick for the rest of the day.

*Oh yeah, definitely. Trey's like an intern or something. Pretty sure they were punked into coming here; they weren't expecting to actually find anything.*

*Intern with cool powers?*

*What are they going to do now that they did?*

*Have you figured out the teleporting yet?*

The questions overlapped, and she flinched from the noise, then tried to cover it by dropping her pencil on the floor. *Shh.*

*Wait, are you in class?*

The teacher was looking at her again, so she didn't roll her eyes. Wasn't that why they'd all showed up at school? *Yeah. Where are you?* Maybe she'd get an answer other than 'independent study' the second time around.

*Tracey's office. She got Trey signed in as a guest and everything. Have we considered the possibility that Tracey is an alien?*

There was silence for a few seconds. *Jeremy?* she prompted finally.

*Wait, what? Why me?*

Gordy chimed in with, *Seriously? You had a prophetic dream about aliens showing up this morning. What else have you got?*

*Nothing that has anything to do with Tracey being an alien.*

Which meant there was probably something else. There was a long pause, while she tried to look like she was paying attention to whatever the teacher was writing on the board. Finally, Jeremy said, *Look, I know we said what happens in study group stays in study group, and all that. But I'm trying really hard here not to blurt out anything I may or may not have sensed, dreamed, or guessed, because I have no idea how much of our experiences with these powers are universal right now.*

Which meant there was definitely something else. Probably multiple somethings. *If we're voting, I'm pro not blurting things out,* Maashous offered. *For the record.*

*Pretty sure we won't be able to keep that up forever,* Gordy said.

*I'd settle for until we graduate.*

'And never have to see each other again,' went unspoken, but she was pretty sure it crossed all of their minds. The powers, though -- that threw a wrench in things. Hopefully Trey could provide some answers. She looked at the clock. Seven and a half hours to go till four.

***

"Here's a question -- why didn't you expect to find anything?"

Jeremy's mom hadn't seemed surprised when they showed up with Trey. It was hard to say how much she was going for plausible deniability and how much she just had work to do, but she'd left them alone in the kitchen with boxes of pizza and a reminder to text her if they went anywhere. The fact that "anywhere" suddenly included an alien spaceship and/or outer space apparently wasn't an issue.

Trey looked up from an untouched slice of pizza. "What?"

Gordy waved at Didi. "She said you didn't expect to find anything. But you said everyone knew the coins were here. So?"

"I expected to find the coins," Trey said carefully. "It is -- unusual, for new Ranger teams to be chosen when the galaxy is in a period of peace."

"The whole galaxy?" she asked, trying not to sound overly skeptical. Earth couldn't even manage it on a single planet.

*Yeah, that sounds fake.* They were getting better at only reacting to the parts of the conversation that were happening out loud.

"Relatively speaking," Trey acknowledged. "Ranger teams are typically involved in higher level actions."

"The really dangerous shit," Didi translated.

*Guys, did we accidentally join an army? I don't want to be a child soldier.*

*You're 18, so that's not really an option at this point.*

Trey hesitated, then said, "At times. Also diplomatic endeavors, along with scientific discovery."

*Do you think they offer health insurance?*

"So it's Star Trek," Gordy said. "With super powers. Still not clear why you weren't expecting us. You must have scanners and stuff, right? Surveillance? Keeping an eye on the neighbors?"

*Are we going to believe them if they say they don't?*

Trey looked more awkward than ever. "Ah. Well, there are numerous factors to consider, in any observation-based system."

Didi cleared her throat to interrupt, and Trey looked relieved. "Yeah, so apparently Earth is where a bunch of hinky stuff went down when the coins ended up here in the first place, and now we've got a 'reputation' even though that was literally thousands of years ago. Nobody wants to be the one who has to go check on the weird haunted planet, so nobody pays much attention to the scans. Trey's here on a bet."

*Wait, really?*

"I never said bet," Trey protested.

*Definitely a bet.* Didi shrugged. "It was implied."

Jeremy leaned forward to pull the pizza box closer to his plate. "Did you really just use the word hinky in a non-ironic way?"

*Do you think Trey doesn't eat at all, or is it just the food we've offered so far that's a problem?*

"How would you use hinky in an ironic way?"

*Would it be rude to ask if they're going to eat their pizza?*

"I don't know, that's why I was asking you."

*Yes.* Maashous pushed his own plate towards Gordy. *You can have mine.*

If no one else was going to go for the obvious question... She looked at Trey. "What's the bet?" she said. She saw Gordy trade plates with Maashous out of the corner of her eye.

She wanted Trey to be trustworthy, because they didn't exactly have a ton of options when it came to verifying information. The more they talked, the more chance they had to either learn something valuable or catch them out in a lie.

"Nothing that could bring harm," Trey said quickly, as if that was at all reassuring. "More along the lines of a -- noteworthy experience."

*Bragging rights?*

*Sounds like.*

"Right," she said. "So you're here, and you found us. What now?"

***

After the food was gone, and Trey had teleported back to wherever (still no explanation of how that worked), they moved to the living room. The cats reappeared, bee-lining for Maashous, who mostly looked resigned to it.

"So," she said.

"I don't trust them," Gordy answered immediately.

"Well, no," Jeremy said. "But I'm not sure we really need to."

Didi paused in her not-at-all-stealthy sneaking up on the cats. "What do you mean?"

Jeremy shrugged. "Trey's not offering us anything, or asking us to do anything. And we're not asking them to do anything. Even if none of us are being 100% honest, there's no real motivation to deceive with malicious intent. What would be the point?"

"It would be funny?" Gordy offered. "Mess with the Earthlings?"

"Interplanetary candid camera? Seems like a lot of work," Maashous said.

She was pretty sure they could keep going back and forth all night, so she waved the tablet in the air to interrupt. "For what it's worth, I agree with Jeremy. I'm not worried about Trey."

That got everyone's attention. "But you are worried," Didi said.

"Did you read this part about the coins?" she asked, waving the tablet again. Trey hadn't exactly been willing to leave their own reader behind, but Didi managed to screen-shot a significant amount of it by the time they left for the evening.

"I was focused on quantity; I just grabbed anything that looked useful." Didi leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen. "Why?"

"According to this, the coins are connected to this -- 'power' thing, which could not be more vaguely described, and which may or may not have some kind of sapience. Anyway, I think that's why we're psychic now and Jeremy's having prophetic dreams. The coins are supposed to make us bond as a team so we can 'fulfill our potential.'"

She stopped there, unable to come up with a way to say 'it says there's a magic ritual' without it sounding ridiculous. Gordy frowned. "I thought we knew it was the coins already."

"Plus we're doing way better with the psychic stuff."

It was true. At least when they were all in the same room, they could keep it to a background hum. (She still wasn't looking forward to trying to be across town from each other again.)

Didi tapped at the screen to make it bigger. "It's the fulfilling our potential part you're worried about, right?"

"Yeah -- fulfill our potential as what? Soldiers? Superheroes?"

Gordy shrugged. "Interplanetary diplomatic envoys? Might not be so bad."

She nodded an acknowledgement. "I'm just saying, someone else with powers like this sent an intern to a planet they think is haunted with no backup. And the coins are influencing us a lot more than before already, and now suddenly we have this--" She waved the tablet again, and tried again to think of some way to say 'magic ritual' without actually using those words.

"We can all hear you thinking it," Didi said. "And yeah, it seems a little suspect."

"So -- options?"

"We could do the thing," Gordy said immediately. "Get it over with and deal with whatever happens next when it happens."

Realistically, they were teenagers who'd gotten superpowers by accident. How likely was it that whatever happened would be weirder than that? On the other hand -- "The downside being that we have no idea what it will do," she said.

Jeremy said, "We could wait. See if we could get any more information about it."

"Downside being we have no idea what that will do either," Didi pointed out. "If the coins keep leveling us up, we may just wind up with more problems."

Maashous leaned forward, but he didn't actually look up at anyone. "I'm not saying we should, but -- we could walk away," he said quietly. "Give Trey the coins and be done with it. None of us asked for this."

There was silence out loud, and a cacophony of noise in her head, as everyone reacted to that. Maashous held his hands up. "It's an option, that's all I'm saying."

"I say we do the thing," Didi said finally. "The not-a-magic-ritual thing."

"Are we voting?" Jeremy asked. "I vote yes."

"Yeah, I'm in," Gordy said.

She looked at Maashous. He looked at her, and shrugged. "Sure."

"Really?"

He buried his fingers in the cat's fur, and took a deep breath. "Look, there's things I'd rather not share, same as anyone. But it doesn't seem fair that right now Jeremy's stuck carrying everyone's secrets just because some alien technology decided to give him extra psychic powers. And I'd rather do the thing than talk about it with everyone, so sure."

"What about you?" Didi asked, and then everyone was looking at her. (And everything they were trying not to say was echoing in her brain. She was pretty sure the coin itself was pushing, even.)

"First we tell Jeremy's mom," she said. "Then -- okay. Yes. Let's do it."

***

She blinked awake, and spent a few seconds staring at the ceiling. She could feel the others as a comforting hum in the background.

*Well, that was a hell of a thing.* It might have come from her, or possibly she was just expressing the general consensus; the thought echoed back to her with varying shades of agreement.

*How long do you think we were--?*

She wasn't sure they'd ever be able to find words for it. Whatever it was. But they'd done it, and it seemed -- good. Probably.

*Definitely good. Except I'm hungry. Someone's hungry, at least. Do you think it's still Saturday?*

One of them was going to have to get up. Or all of them.

*Dibs not it.* Gordy hadn't even opened his eyes, and she tossed her pillow in his direction.

*Leaders lead,* was Didi's sleepy advice from the other side of the room. *I vote Gwen.*

*There's a cat on me,* offered Maashous.

Something pinged in her head, and Jeremy sat up. *Trey's coming.*

*That carried over?* Didi sounded intrigued. *Could you do that before?*

*Bigger question -- did anything else carry over?*

They all looked at the door a split-second before it actually opened. Trey leaned in cautiously, and she waved. "I see your quest was successful," Trey said.

Jeremy's mom didn't bother lingering in the doorway -- she was in the room and hugging them all before she could figure out how to reply to Trey. "Trey tells me congratulations are in order, so congratulations! How are you feeling? Everyone okay?"

"We're good," Jeremy said. He looked around. *We're good, right?*

"You may change your mind about that. It's Monday. Morning, so let me know if I need to call the school for any of you not being there."

*What?*

"What?"

*We need to--*

*Maashous has to--*

*Who has the--*

There was a rush of chatter as they all thought over each other, then scrambled to figure out if they could manage a school day with stuff they'd only planned to last through Friday night. She got a general sense of 'you explain, we'll be right back' and was suddenly alone with Trey and Jeremy's mom.

"So that's a no on calling the school, then?" Jeremy's mom said.

"Maashous can't miss any more days," she explained. Besides, they'd had time to make a few plans while they were questing, or whatever they were going to call it. No time like the present to get started.

She could hear a running commentary from someone in the back of her head -- probably Jeremy; he was surprisingly good at narrating for all of them. *--definitely not going to have time for showers; Gordy says he can braid your hair if you want; I can do a shirt that's your color or one that's stylish, but not both, sorry; Didi wants to know if you want her to finish your trig homework.*

She looked at Jeremy's mom, ignoring Trey for the time being. They hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what the whole questing thing would entail. A little warning would have been nice. "Has everything been okay here?" She didn't say, 'Did anyone's parents give you a hard time,' but she thought it was probably understood. *Yes to braiding and trig; I'll take the pink one, thanks.*

"It's been fine," Jeremy's mom said. "No trouble. You all -- you're good?"

She hesitated. She was good. It felt like everyone else was good too, but it didn't seem like she should just assume. *Are we good?*

*I'm good.*

*Ask about breakfast.*

*Can I be good and confused at the same time?*

*I'm good. Your trig is done; it's in the front pocket.*

"We're good," she said. *Thanks.* "Um -- breakfast?" She still didn't actually know what time it was. If they didn't have time for showers, did they have time for breakfast?

Jeremy slipped into the room and tapped her shoulder. "I'm tagging you out," he said. "Didi and Gordy have your stuff upstairs. We'll get some food together. No peanut butter." *We've got this,* he added silently. *What do you want to do about Trey? Meet up this evening?*

"Thanks." *Yeah, sounds good.* There was a buzzing in the back of her head. *Can you feel that?*

*I've been ignoring it.*

*Same,* echoed back from the others. That was -- probably not a long term solution. On the other hand, it was working so far.

***

"You want me to what?"

She sighed. "Look, you don't have to. Maashous knows some of the band players who are looking to get something like this on their college apps."

If anything, Lilette's expression got more confused. "I'm not saying I won't do it; I'm saying I genuinely have no idea what you're asking. We're doing the play. They can't stop us."

"This year," she said. "They can't stop us this year." *Someone else please come rescue me.*

*Robbie thinks we're overreacting.* She could almost see the eye roll that went with Gordy's thought.

"I'm a senior," Lilette said. Then she frowned. "You're a senior. What do you care?"

*I'm on my way.* Maashous didn't clarify who he was headed for, but it felt like he was getting closer.

"What do you think is going to happen after this year? We do this play, it pisses off a lot of people, and whoops, the theater program just happens to get cut out of the budget. Then what happens to Maia, and the twins, and--"

"Who?" Lilette interrupted.

She tried not to sigh again. "The rest of the troop. Not everyone's a senior; you know that, right?" Mr. Mazzuchelli talked about them looking out for each other all the time. It was pretty much the only time she actually paid attention. Just because he was bad at it didn't mean the rest of them couldn't follow through.

"So you think we shouldn't do the play? Seriously?"

Isn't that where they'd started the whole conversation? She shook her head. "No, I think we should do the play. The administration can only cut the program when everyone stops paying attention. I think we should make sure people don't stop."

*Robbie's on board. Did you know Didi can cry on cue?* Jeremy sounded smug.

She wondered how obvious it was that she was more engaged with the conversation happening in her head than the one in front of her. *Does Robbie even know Didi's not in drama?*

"I don't think so. He thought my name was Joshua.*

Maashous walked by like he just happened to be wandering in their direction. "Oh, hey. Did Gwen tell you our idea?" He stepped up next to her side, probably too close, if Lizette's raised eyebrows were any indication. They could work on that. Or not.

*I thought you were in class.*

He gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. *Finished my quiz early. Bathroom break.*

"You know about this?" Lizette asked.

"We talked about it in study group," Maashous confirmed. He paused, and his voice turned hesitant while his mental presence stayed sharp. "It's just -- theater is the only reason I stayed in school. It would suck if other kids didn't get that, you know?"

Lizette softened. "Of course. I totally get it. What do you want me to do?"

Maashous looked down at the floor to hide his smile. She leaned into his shoulder as he explained (again) what they wanted to do. *That was amazing.*

*It's not like it's a lie, exactly. I can cry on cue too, but I thought it might be suspicious since Didi already used that one.*

*Hey, it's a classic. Worked like a charm.*

*Do you think we can count this as practice for our potential future careers as intergalactic ambassadors?*

*Maybe focus on graduating first? And figure out the teleporting thing.*

*You know, I think Trey might be using the spaceship's technology for that, and not innate powers.*

The bell rang, and Lizette waved to both of them when she turned to go. *What, like Star Trek?*

*You brought it up first. Makes sense, though.*

*So you're saying we need a spaceship.*

*I'm definitely saying I want a spaceship. I wonder if Tracey has one.*

*Dare you to ask.*

*Gwen should ask; she likes Gwen.*

She slipped into her next class. *After rehearsal?*

*You're on.*

***

They did the filming during lunch, in the band room, because Maashous hadn’t been exaggerating about knowing people who wanted to help. They'd work on getting as big a spotlight on the school as possible, and she was just as happy to turn the whole thing over to them. She wanted it to work, but there was only so much she could handle.

Luckily she was in the back of the room. *I'm taking a walk.* She kept it quiet so she wouldn't disrupt anyone's concentration.

*Please take me with you,* Gordy sent back immediately.

They snuck out together, with Maashous covering their exit by knocking over one of the music stands. *Thanks.*

*Any time.*

Of course they ran into her dad before they'd gotten more than a few steps. He narrowed his eyes at how close they were standing, or possibly at her shirt, which pretty obviously hadn't come from her own closet. "Let's talk in my office," he said.

She crossed her arms, and nudged Gordy. *Sorry. Should have stayed in the band room.* Her dad's office was on the other side of the building; she absolutely was not going to follow him all the way there like a misbehaving duckling. "Dad. We have class."

*It's fine.* Gordy didn't seem upset, but Didi's mental voice was still a welcome interruption.

*What's going on?*

*Ran into my dad. He just did the 'we need to talk' thing at us.* She hoped she didn't make a face when she thought that.

"You have time. I'll write you a note," her dad said.

*You want help?*

*Maybe?* She thought about the last conversation she'd had with her dad. And then she thought about the last conversation Didi had with her dad. *Probably?*

Gordy took a deep breath. *I officially apologize in advance for pulling the team card.* He said, "Coach, come on. There's no problem here."

*If it works, it works. Believe me, in my family we all know where we rank compared to football.*

Her dad pointed a finger back and forth between them. "You're going to tell me there's nothing going on here?"

Gordy shrugged. "Nothing but study group. We were at Jeremy's all weekend; his mom was there the whole time."

*Along with an alien, and we spent most of the time unconscious, doing a superpower quest thing.*

She could tell Gordy was trying not to smile. *Yeah, I wasn't exactly going to mention that part.*

Her dad narrowed his eyes. "Study group. Right."

"Look, I know I'm not the most likely person to be in a study group." Gordy stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. "It's just -- nobody's gonna recruit me off the bench, you know? And I get it -- you have to give the players with the best chance the best chances. They deserve it. But this is my chance. I'm not going to mess it up."

She was impressed. *You're very good at that.*

*Yeah, well, it's not all a lie. That helps.*

*Incoming.* Didi walked around the corner. "Oh, hey," she said. "I was just looking for you. Do you have time now to go over the proofreading notes for that essay?"

She was wearing Gordy's jacket. *Well, that will confuse him, at least.*

"Coach?" Gordy prompted. "We good?"

*Right? Plus it's got big pockets.*

Her dad still looked suspicious, but all he said was, "Make sure you get to class on time."

*Looks good on you. Ever considered joining football?*

"Will you be home for dinner?" It took her a second to realize the question was directed at her.

*Ha. Not a joiner, remember?*

"Yeah," she said. She'd have to go home at some point, right? And they weren't meeting up with Trey until later.

*You did pretty all right with us.*

*Yeah? Thanks. You too.*

***

*Do you think Tracey has the sixth coin?*

*No. But I think she knows where it is.*

She kept her eyes on her plate. Dinner was -- awkward, but no one was yelling yet, and they were still at the part of the meal where they could pretend they weren't talking just because they were busy eating. The silent conversation about spaceships and superpowers was a welcome distraction.

*I think it's with the spaceship.* She had no idea why Didi would think that, but Jeremy agreed, and they'd both been right about stuff so far.

*The spaceship Tracey refused to confirm or deny the existence of,* she pointed out. And Trey had only stuck around long enough to say goodbye -- called back to Triforia, or so they said. Either way, it wasn't like they had another spaceship available to do scans, or whatever else spaceships could do. She passed the salad across the table. *Okay. Suggestions?*

*I think we can use this.* It felt like Jeremy was doing the mental equivalent of poking at the place the buzzing was coming from. *Triangulate, maybe.*

The words came with a sense of them all being far apart, and then moving closer. She took a minute to be grateful that whatever they'd managed to do over the weekend came along with better volume control at a distance. *Weekend project? Anyone think we need to do it faster?*

Nobody seemed to think 'finding the hidden spaceship' was an emergency, which was good, because she had a paper due Thursday that she hadn't started. As a bonus, the paper was a good reason to excuse herself from the table before things got any more tense.

She headed for her room, but it was just a stopping point on her way to to where Didi and Jeremy were waiting outside. She was pretty sure the push to be close to each other would fade after a while. Eventually. Probably.

Didi chimed in before she could get too deep into that thought. *I vote we make that a problem for future us. Also, we have sandwiches.*

She couldn't help laughing. *Sandwiches are good.* She finished stuffing things into her backpack and pulled the zipper shut. *Gordy?*

*Coast is clear. Mom and Dad are at the school, and my sisters think it's 'cute' that Maashous is having friends over.*

*I bribed them with candy.*

*Smart.*

It was easier than she thought it probably should have been to climb out her window and drop to the ground. She sprinted to Didi's car just to keep the adrenaline rush going, and Jeremy met her with a hug and a laugh. She let her eyes close once the car was moving. "Hey, do you mind a detour?" Didi asked quietly.

"Fine by me," she said. *Driver picks the route.*

*You'll need to write that paper eventually,you know.*

*I can do it at rehearsal tomorrow.*

"We're here," Didi announced, easing the car off the road.

She blinked to get her eyes to adjust, but it still looked like an empty lot and an abandoned building. "Come on," Didi said. "It doesn't look like much from down here, but the view from the roof is worth it."

Maashous and Gordy appeared out of the darkness next to them. Gordy waved. *We've got to figure out that teleporting trick. Running didn't suddenly become fun just because it's easier now.*

Maashous was staring at the building. *I used to come here all the time.*

*How do you think I found it?*

Jeremy squinted towards the roof. "You used to climb up there before you had superpowers?"

"Well." Maashous shrugged. "Not at night, usually."

It wasn't quite as hard as it looked, once they got around to the back -- Jeremy carried the sandwiches, and Didi spread a blanket out. "There."

She looked up. *Wow.*

It was a clear night, and the stars were -- "Wow," she repeated.

*Right?*

She wound up somewhere in the middle of the blanket, tucked between Didi and Gordy. *Good sandwiches. Better company.*

She reached out a hand, and found Didi reaching back.

*You were right about the view.*

*It's the same stars as before.*

*Yeah. But they feel closer, now.*