Week 4 exercise number 2: 

 I want to become a person who __________  as often as I can.

Even though right now ________ makes it challenging.

One small step I can take to overcome the challenge is _________.

–Razandra’s therapy pamphlet by Dr. Sievinen.

Raz stared out through the five storey tall barrier that separated the babbling crowds of refugees from the Un. On the other side, a patchwork of spirals rotated slowly in every direction. Maroque had said that they weren’t clouds or waves, but they kinda looked like what Raz imagined tornadoes might be from up above. 

Today was a bit less swirlied than yesterday and the colors were extra pretty: peacock with extra reds. Maroque’s red. That had to be a good sign. Maybe he would return soon? It had already been twenty two days. They had to be returning soon.

A baby coughed behind her. The father made soft cooing noises. The station speakers started their loop from the beginning. Cal Toven was requested at section 12-K to pick up his familiar, 3-B was still blocked by ‘a minor warping incident’, and the law wizards still wanted tips on the mysterious spray-paint menace.

“It’s moving,” said Faham.

The computer queue shuffled forward. Raz gathered her and Allie’s backpacks, Allie picked up her portable sun-lamp, and Faham hurried to put away his pen and exercise paper into his plastic bag. Once the movement reached them they took two steps and sat down again. Only five people ahead of them!

“Ugh, sticky.” Allie wiped her hand on her new t-shirt.

Raz leaned this way and that, but the uselessly ornate metal support pillar next to them blocked her view of the Un no matter what. 

She settled back to people watching. Two opposite queues clogged the wide hallway. Theirs was for one of the three common use computers. The other, even thicker queue, was for a pawnshop tent some wizards had set up in the corridor. Most people were Earthlings. And most were also a little altered, though not quite as much as Allie or Faham. 

Some old man in a scruffy suit was having a big hissy fit about getting less for his watch than some girl got for a comic book. The young gold eyed Oorian woman and man behind the desk were helpless before his aggressive finger-pointing. Just watching made Raz feel embarrassed, but there wasn’t much else to do. 

She’d finished her therapy exercise and didn’t wanna disrupt Faham with his. So, she waited and watched the man’s face turn red.

His voice started getting louder, more grating.

The baby behind Raz started wailing.

Raz plugged her ears. Still eleven more in the queue for computers. She let her head bonk against the steel pillar behind her and let out a frustrated huff. This sucked.

It’s not like she was ungrateful. Being here was nice. Having a bed, showers (even if they had long queues), cooked food (bland but ok), and clean-ish toilets was big. And Allie had her sunlamp, and she and Faham had gotten pills to help with their warping. She didn’t need to fear being lost on an expedition or her friends dying. All she had to do was wake up, eat, poop, eat, and sleep. 

But sometimes she felt like all she could do was wake up, eat, poop, eat, and sleep. Like she was lost again, waiting for someone to find them and take them away from here. Except, somehow, here she felt like they’d been forgotten on purpose.

People in their queue stood up again. 

Faham said something to her.

“What did you say?” Raz took hands off her ears.

Faham’s antennae wiggled nervously from beneath his baggy hoodie. “I’m not finished yet.”

“Why– Oh.”

The queue kept moving. Previous users had left and the five before them split into a pair and another trio, claiming one computer each.

“IDs, little ladies.”

They were stopped at a rope barrier by the computer guard. A tall middle aged man with the nerdiest possible bangs and a corporate fleece jacket held his hand out. He gave Raz and friends an appraising look. 

“We’re together,” Raz said and handed him their papers.

“The angry houseplant is back.” He chuckled at his own… joke? “I remember you. Are you sure it’s been twenty four hours?”

Allie groaned.

“Twenty six hours,” Faham whispered from behind Raz.

“It’s been twenty six hours, sir,” Raz said.

He checked something on his pad with theatrical finger-strokes, then made an exaggerated aaah of discovery. “Twenty five hours and fifteeen minutes to be precise. Okay then. Step on through to my humble domain. You know the rules. No eating, no messing around, and always log out. You have fifteen minutes each. Enjoy.”

 They gathered around the last computer in line, a black laptop with lights that blinked in a rainbow rhythm. Lights changed directions when they woke it up. The wizard antennae taped to it began crackling.

Allie glanced at the computer guard. “Creep.”

“A bit weird,” Raz agreed.

“Keeps staring at my face.” Allie glared at the man. He returned an awkward smile. 

“Maybe he’s curious about the leaves. They are…” Raz caught herself. “I like them.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Me too, I love their color. They look shiny purple to me,” Faham said, straddling the dirty barf-colored office chair. He typed in the password and logged on. The background was a crude figure painting of wizards named Association and Magogram shamed by a stick figure crowd armed with poop and tomato emojis. Allie snorted. Faham ignored it and opened the arcnet. 

“How shiny?”

“Very!”

Allie gave a thoughtful nod. “Neat.”

The homepage appeared, showing translated news articles about Magogram and general Oor happenings. One article featured a grinning Indian girl around her age under the title ‘Genius Refugee Becomes a Wizard In 40 Days!’ Maybe if they had time to spare, Raz would read it.

First, as always, they found the Healers Beyond Worlds page. A couple clicks deep, the page had a search bar where you could type names and find every rescued person’s contact information. 409,428,904 saved. 121 new rescues within the last 24 hours.

All three fell quiet, eyes glued to the monitor. Hundred or so wasn’t many, but there was a chance.

They started with Faham’s parents. No hits. Faham let out a small sigh.

Then other relatives. No luck again.

“I’d like to finish the exercise quickly,” he said, unenthused. “Can one of you type?”

“Sure.” Raz switched seats and let Faham return to staring at his paper.

Like always, a tiniest knot of hope tingled her tummy as she typed in mom’s name, hit enter, and waited for the computer to search. 

And, just like always, she felt a tiny executioner stab that hope when the search came back with ‘Missing’. Dad was missing too. As were grandpa and grandpa. And her uncle. And dad’s friend. Every name typed wiggled that knife a little deeper.

Allie didn’t have any luck either.

Raz logged into Allie’s HWB personal site first to put in her therapy exercise answers. Allie presented them.

“Easy,” she said smugly.

Her answers were: ‘is strong’, ‘weak shitty body’, and ‘train’. That explained why Raz had seen her try to do secret push-ups last night. Raz copied them into a message to Dr. Sievinen then switched to her therapy account. 

 “Hey, is it cheating if you help with this?” Faham asked. Raz glanced at Faham’s exercise sheet. It was full of crossed over answers. 

“Probably not, if we don’t give you answers.” Raz remembered Dr. Sievinen saying something like that once.

“I can’t decide on the first one. I thought about writing ‘wizard healer’ in there, but if forty percent ever resonate in their lifetime, and then only fifteen percent of them learn how to wonderfield, that’s like... “

“It might happen. Resonance sounds neat already,” Raz said.

“It might, but then I don’t know what to put in the other questions at all. And it doesn’t really fit the question. ‘I want to become someone who tries to become a wizard healer as often as he can?’ Doesn’t fit. Another idea I had was ‘person who learns magic everyday’, but like, it’s also impossible.”

“Maybe you can answer it later.”

“Yea, we only got half an hour,” said Allie. “Wanna see if that warped dude made a new video.”

“But, then you guys might move on to different exercises,” Faham protested. “I want to work on the same problem as you.”

“Bro, chill.” Allie chuckled. “We share enough problems already.”

Bro? Raz wondered if she could call Allie a sis, when a loud warning chime paused everyone in the hallway.

After wizard-speak, came English, “Requesting all non-essential staff to leave platforms one through two in section B. Section B staff, prepare to help master Maroque M. Magogram dock his isola.”

“Aaaaahhhh! Maroque is back!” Raz stood, ears open for more, but the rest of the announcement was in wizard-speak only. Something about healers. She grinned at Allie and Faham and started packing. “Maroque’s back! “And section B! That’s so close. Hey, let’s go welcome him before he disappears! We can return the exercise tomorrow, Faham.”

“But we didn’t even get to– ouch?” Faham glared at Allie.

“Let’s go,” said Allie, making a gesture Raz didn’t see well.

Faham sighed. “Alright, let’s go.”