[Pre-Fall] Chapter 0: Re-Orientation

The assembly ended and seniors dispersed to their assigned orientation duties. Wren headed toward the music wing, grateful for something concrete to do. Physical tasks. Normal routines. Better than having nothing to distract from Joe's overwhelming presence still echoing in her perception like feedback she couldn't tune out.

She still didn't know what she'd sensed - only that it had been real. Magically, impossibly real. And the twins were still there on stage when she'd looked back, perfectly still in their grey suits, radiating that same wrongness she'd caught from Nixon.

The music wing needed prep work: practice rooms unlocked, equipment checked, the upright piano accessible for anyone who wanted to demonstrate. Most freshmen who signed up for music wouldn't stay past sophomore year - they'd realize it required more dedication than they wanted to give, or they'd found their actual interest elsewhere. The ones who stayed were the ones who needed it.

Wren had been one of those. Piano first, then guitar and drums because her hands needed more ways to translate what her ears picked up.

Near the main entrance, a few other students were already setting up chairs and flyers about band and chorus schedules. Wren shouldered her skateboard and headed inside, trying to focus on the simple, manageable task of showing freshmen where things were.

"Air in Posterior." Minsoo says, just at the same time as the VP uttered the school’s most sacred words. She adds a little fart sounds for good effect, and for the benefit of those friends around her.

Once they’d seen to Joe, and assured that everything was okay, Minsoo slips away to organize the track where new students would be expected to show… well, if not their best times, then some pretty okay times.

Running under the morning’s sun would mean shedding the tartan shirt and headphones that were tying her whole look together. Underneath, a white track club Tshirt with last year’s year on the back, and black run-leggings underneath.

She gives the whistle that would be used to start the sprints a few practice blows before the freshies arrive. They hadn’t entrusted the students with a starting gun… for good reason!

Kyle throws a thankful glance Daniela's and Jonathan's way, taking note of their appearances so he can repay the favor in the future, and mutters a low "Thanks man" to Joe in passing as he gathers up his things. At least someone noticed him and was trying to be helpful. He wonders about the commotion with Joe but decides he doesn't know enough to just watches where Daniella, Johnathan, and Joe head curious to see how things will turn out. Making friends has never been easy but situations can be great at forming bonds. He hopes he gets more chances to bump into them.

Shuffling out with the crowd Kyle checks the schedule and notes he doesn't really need to be anywhere in a hurry as both the cross country team and the robotics club as set to host for the fresh men in the afternoon. As there is little to do for cross country he sighs in resignation as he heads towards the STEM section of the orientation, where he expects to encounter some members of the robotics club in the hopes that the summer has smoothed out most of the ruffled feathers from last years fiasco.

Joe found himselves sharing his own head, and none of them were used to the sensation. There was listening to the headmaster; there was watching the time; there was maintaining awareness of the hall, the seat under him, the students around him, the staff watching them; there was the subtle subconscious balancing of muscle tension that kept a biped sitting upright on the mostly flat surface of the chair; there was the inner other trying to fulfil the need to balance all these tasks; and somehow one himself that could manage all these tasks alone without thinking about most of it was now multiplied.
Each of himself, unprepared, tried to manage everything. There was no coordination. No strife, but chaos, like a sudden scrambling for control of several people trying to control a moving car simultaneously. No understanding of something totally new.
Predictably, none of them was succeeding. The body they shared couldn’t literally fall apart from confusion, but it couldn’t do anything purposeful either. Staying conscious and sitting upright were out of the question.
Then something outer - probed.
The inner other retreated suddenly, as if at the mere possibility of a touch horrifyingly inimical. Immediately himselves coalesced into one. Simplicity and familiarity of sensation struck with dizzying force, like a cold bucketful of vertigo.
Joe was sitting, a bit uneasily, in his seat. There were people around him, anxious. Their proximity, reassuring to some deep part of him. A new coherent thought surfaced.
No strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.
He forced his eyes open, regaining his posture, suppressing a wave of nausea.
Grey suits still staring
What happened
No! No no no NO!
He swallowed the turmoil, forced it down, sat upon it.
"Sorry. I’m okay." Fighting for normalcy, he tried to centre himself, wave off the helpful hands, dispel the sudden attention. Once the headmaster resumed speaking, his heartbeat began to calm.
Hell, that was embarrassing he thought to himself.
As the cold sweat dissipated, he realised that everyone else had an idea of where they were meant to be, but he hadn’t been around when those plans were being made, wasn’t a part of them. He knew he wanted out of the sight of those grey suits though. His rational mind came to the rescue. I may technically be a senior, but for practical purposes I’m as freshman as they come. Time to explore and learn. Maybe I can find the History department, or the library…

As Wren moved toward the exit with her skateboard under her arm, she spotted Joe trying to extract himself from the concerned students around him. He looked steadier now, but lost - the way new students did when they didn't know where they were supposed to go.

She moved before overthinking it.

"Hey." Her voice came out quieter than intended. "You're new, right? Joe?"

He turned, and for a second she wondered if he'd felt it - her listening, her sensing that overwhelming presence. But his expression was just confusion and residual embarrassment.

"Music wing's this way if you're assigned there," she offered, adjusting her headphones. "Or I can point you toward... wherever you need to be. Orientation stuff."

Post-Assembly

"It's pair of posteriors Minz." Shawn slid into the seat next to Minsoo that was vacated with the commotion ,and made a crude grabbing gesture for buttcheeks to accompany her fart sound. It was annoying that he called her Minz, but then again Shawn pretty much made fun of everything and everyone. "But yeah that was a lot of hot air. How about the other pair of asses ay?" Shawn persisted as they all eyed the new guidance counsellors when they filed out of the auditorium at the end of assembly.

"Good thinking there, both of you," Coach Corbin's approving acknowledgement of both Jonathan and Kirk's quick reactions was for Jon an affirming contrast to the palpable displacement he felt being in the midst of the centre of attention. It was uncharacteristic of him to do so, but he somehow couldn't resist the pull to action this time, as if another part of himself was the one who actually responded. "Ever think about pursuing sports medicine?" He heard Corbin's ask, but the coach's voice sounded distant.

"Figured it out all by yourself?" Sera Knowles had sidled up to stand next to Torrance, who was still motionlessly staring at Joe, "Or calculating the odds?" She was teasing Torrance surely, as a fellow Math club member, and also watching to see if Myra, her teammate for last year's Math olympiad, was responding to the commotion the same way, for Sera often thought they were the real 'brainy' ones. So she was surprised to see Myra looking distracted, and followed her gaze to see Cass fussing about the entire Joe situation without being useful as Jon and Kirk were doing.

For Kirk was about to heft Joe up when Miss Heather, the school nurse arrived. Her maiden name was Slate, but everyone in school preferred to call her Ms Heather for that suited her gentle demeanor way more that a surname related to rock. Joe had regained his composure by the time Miss Heather was attending to him. She cradled his head to peer into his eyes for other symptoms when Joe was mumbling something about being okay in an attempt to brush off the embarrassing attention. "Stop fussing, stay seated young man. You can catch your breath first, but I want you down in my office for a check-up later." "I can take him there Ms Heather!" Cass the ever-helpful offered, even though she probably had a million things to do for freshman orientation. That was the same moment when Wren hovered nearby; she had some empathy for second newest student in their class (the newest being Sven, the Euro transfer student), when she finally overcame being overwhelmed by the sensory overload of the morning.

Assembly was over, and along with that the disconcerting sense for some that their trajectory this year might take shape in hardly predictable ways. The new counsellors might be the most obvious representation of what appeared out of place, but the strange sense of being slightly out of time as well could only have added to the paradigm of change.

Freshman Orientation

The 10th and 11th graders were the less lucky ones to have their timetable kick in with morning classes even on their first day. The freshmen naturally didn't. And the 12th graders, being the seniors, were tasked with taking care of the young ones in the morning, with the afternoon entirely dedicated to the extra curricular activities showcase. Each club and society had a booth in the large multi-purpose hall so that the freshies could spend their hours visiting each in turn to find out more about the rich student life. The sports and games teams were arrayed in the gymnasium level in the same building. Part of the fun was to bring interested freshies out on campus tour to see the facilities. Potential art students would have a chance to visit the gallery in the Art block, music and dance students the respective studios, history and literature students showed their favourite library hangouts, the science and tech students to various laboratories, even the math club had a room of their own where they presumably did mathy things. The entire orientation was student-facilitated, it was a way for the seniors to demonstrate their leadership and capability to manage tasks and people, while the teachers provided overall supervision and looked out for safety.

In the massive multiple purpose hall things were abuzz! Myra had arranged it such that the Math booth sat next to the Library Comm booth, so that she could man both at the same time. Sera Knowles was there at the Math booth as well, animatedly talking about statistics and combinatorics to a small gathering of students, surprisingly a good number of them were interested in numbers! The Art Club had lined up an entire corner with easels of their creative projects, and Jon dutifully hung around his own works. It seemd though that both Julian and Zarah, who was club chairperson, thought it a little beneath them to act as gallery guides to the newbies who wandered over. What annoyed them more was the occasional drone that buzzed too close near the displays, courtesy of the robotics club, who also had a couple of neutered 'battle' bots roaming the vast hall floor like mischievous roombas. Kyle might've done the same had he decided to bring Glitch to school on the first day. He still had the software loaded in his notebook if he wanted to muck around with it, and for that reason he hung out in the hall rather than at the gym one floor below.

That was where Minsoo was, at the Track booth next to the Cross-Country runners. The awkward thing about the sports and games booths was how their members all looked as if they preferred to be outside. They were congregated there for the convenience of the freshies, but you could tell the footballers couldn't wait to walk their first group of potential trainees to the field for tryouts, and the baseballers looked like they might dangerously hit one of their balls into the massed groups of 9th graders than into the batting net they set up. The exception were the basketballers whose hoops were at one end of gym floor; you could see a couple of freshman shooting some two-on-two with the seniors. Minsoo had already stuffed her shirt into her backpack, on the lookout for the next eager sprinter before Jake from the cross-country team snapped them up!

Back upstairs Wren, who had already visited the music rooms earlier to help set them up and who had helped to bring the flyers to the hall, was pottering about on the stage section of the multi purpose hall where the string section of the symphonic band was jamming. Their quartets had won the inter-school competition for the third year running, thanks to the highly talented Cyril Walden. She had walked with Joe on the way here, but left it to him to figure out whether he was angling towards Politicas, the history and politics hybrid club, or whether he wanted to talk to Myra over by the Student Librarian stand. As a recent transfer, Joe didn't have the longstanding membership with any of these clubs, although he did join in a bunch of activities that caught his interest last year. He could still make a difference this year if he wanted; a good co-curricular record was something very useful for college applications. Somewhere amidst the orientation was also Torrance.

---

No one would have noticed exactly what time Emily Walsh walked into the multi-purpose hall, and also the gym, with three of her middle school friends. They were all in matching orientation T-shirts and black shorts, outfitted this morning for their orientation games. Emily had curly auburn hair tied in blue-scrunchied pigtails, and wore white New Balance hi-tops. In her hand was a tall tumbler she was sipping from, and she had to catch up with her friends who made straight for the first booth in the venue excitedly, dragging each other in hand-in-hand, and immediately merged into the thronging mass of enthusiastic freshies.

It was 2.58pm.

The multi-purpose hall flow is busy with freshmen in small knots, clutching maps and schedules, all talking at once. Myra does to best to weather the storm and stear the chaos. She stands at the library doors with her satchel on one shoulder, oxblood coat open, and that calm, faint-smirk confidence that makes people stop fidgeting and start listening.

She gives them the short version first, what this place is for, how not to get eaten alive by deadlines, and why the library isn’t just books but a fantastic tool. She also folds the math club pitch in as a natural extension of the same idea: curiosity with standards. The freshmen laugh at the right moments. It’s working.

The one that goes well
She spots a girl hovering at the edge of the group, half in, half out, eyes flicking between the towering shelves and the exits like she’s looking for the safest route.

Nina Patel the freshman is quiet, sharp-eyed, a scholarship kid and absolutely terrified of doing something wrong in the wrong building.
Myra doesn’t make a big deal of it. She just angles her body slightly so Nina is included in the circle and asks, casually:
Are you here more for the library… or the math club?

It’s a small question, but it’s easy. Nina answers. Myra nods when it matters and gives her simple, practical advices to where the quiet study rooms are, when the librarian’s help desk is actually useful, which math club meetings are beginner-friendly. Nina’s shoulders visibly drop. She’s no longer lost; she’s placed.

The one that doesn’t go smoothly
Ten minutes later, a boy near the front, confident in that loud, performative way, leans back on his heels and stage-whispers to the kid next to him:
So this is like… Hogwarts, but for nerds?
A couple of freshmen snort. Someone else chuckles. The vibe tips toward tour as entertainment.

Logan Mercer, is a charismatic but mildly obnoxious. He is here to be noticed, jokes first, thinks later.

Myra turns her head slowly. The faint smirk is still technically there, but it goes colder—like a teacher just asked you to repeat what you said.
It’s a library Her voice is as pleasant as a guillotine. If you want attention, the theater club is down the hall. If you want competence, you’re in the right place.

The laughter dies a little too fast. Logan’s grin falters. A few freshmen suddenly find the carpet fascinating.

Myra moves on immediately, aiming for smooth and professional, because she refuses to let one comment derail the orientation. But she can feel the ripple she caused: not disaster, just a brief, sharp chill. She hates that. She wanted them welcome. She wanted them oriented. She did not want to make someone an example.

And as she keeps talking, about stacks and study rooms and math club problem nights, she catches Nina’s eye again, just for a second. Nina looks steadier now. More anchored.

So something went wrong… but someone also got what they needed.

Assuring Miss Heather that he will stop by her office, Joe escapes as soon as he can and gratefully accepts Wren's guidance. As they walk, he explains his working priorities; academically, he’s most interested in history and related social sciences, but from a recreational and personal development perspective he’s torn between gymnastics, running, and -for reasons he seems a little vague about explaining- some form of dance; he’s as interested in developing coordination as prowess, and isn’t sure what options exist. Joe makes sure to check where Miss Heather’s office actually is, but he also keeps an eye out for both his sister and the Techno Twosome; he really wants to warn her to be on guard against the two of them, and avoid them for the rest of the day if he can. This makes him seem a little distracted, eyes always over her shoulder or tracking movement of passers-by, but he absorbs what Wren shows him, asking with genuine interest about links between the music and dance departments, and eventually thanking her politely when they part ways.
Heading to the gym, he finds it busy, noisy, and competitive and works his way around the stalls, hoping to find that at least one of the options he’s interested in is the right balance of serious and approachable…
After that, he makes for the library and history spaces…

With the 'excitement' of the Assembly lecture behind them, despite it still being the talk of the day, the Senior Class all separated out into the various cliques and interest groups that artificially divided them. Jon had done an art study last year about how students came into Ashford looking for an identity to latch onto and how their choices differentiated them... for better or worse...along with a glimpse of what might've been. It had ended up being a way more involved project than he'd initially imagined and one that had made a few of his fellow students highly upset. He'd been warned about not directly depicting his fellow students but the pieces he submitted for the Study had skirted close enough that his subjects saw themselves in the piece but with enough plausible deniability to keep any heat from coming down directly on him.

He saw the same thing in the incoming freshman class as he had before. Everyone looking for someone to become, something to latch onto and incorporate into their root identity, somewhere to belong. The high-pitched buzzing and whining of a drone hovering overhead brought him back to the present and out of his own head. He looked up at the white and blue plastic noisemaker as it looked down at him, or rather its operator did through the gimballed camera slung underneath. Jon shot a glare up at the drone as it slowly rotated ten feet above the Art Club table and displays. Whether it was a display of dominance or a cry for attention Jon really couldn't tell but he could pinpoint exactly who was piloting the noisy craft. Allison 'Ally' Branch...Ashford's own eSports prodigy and attention sponge. She really hammed up the 'goth girl gamer' vibe and used it to deflect any kind of responsibility for her generally bad behavior as just 'edgy humor'. Jon watched the drone dip and move as if it were going to 'accidentally' ram into parts of the art displays around the club tables. She was baiting him. Perhaps Jon had gotten back on Ally's radar after the incident with Joe during the Assembly. Maybe it was just plain bad luck that the Art Club and Robotics had been placed close to each other. Either way, getting noticed by Ally was always more trouble than it was worth and definitely going to make senior year more of a pain in the ass.

On the upside, though, it seemed like the incoming freshman class were more hobby-minded than in past years. Lots more new students came by the Art Club table and a more diverse crowd at that. Having a community seemed to be pretty important to the new freshman class, at least as much as finding an 'identity' to latch onto. That was a pleasant and welcome surprise!

Kyle looked around the room and was both impressed and amused. The student council had clearly put a lot of though into the preparations for today, the effort paid off. The booths were are clearly labeled and easily identified from almost any angle allowing any interested freshmen to easily locate where to go to find their interests. What had not been taken into account was just how chaotic and childish freshmen could be.

The swarming masses of excited freshmen were clearly only partially listening to their assigned guides/mentors. Many handled it nicely, a simple exertion of authority, assertive personality, or persuasion allowed the seniors to corral their overexcited wards. However others had less luck. Kyle noticed that some of the likely carefully organized tour groups were dissolving or merging. Some seniors only had one or two, while others had over 10 and were getting overwhelmed by the sheer disinterest of the teens they were supposed to be helping.

Noting one group of unusual size Kyle spotted Zane, who he had shared a class with last year, and some other senior he didn't recognize trying to keep what was clearly at least their two groups and some others that had come together. The group was dominated by about a dozen girls that were clearly all good friends who had gotten together despite likely being split into multiple groups for the tours. Getting up from where he sat Kyle made his way to the group and slid up next to Zane.

"Looks like your guys got steamrolled" he comments to Zane, with an amused tone. Zane just responded with a glare but before he could say anything Kyle offered to help out. After a bit of negotiation between Kyle and the two group leaders, a much smaller group set out with Kyle in the lead and the students who wanted to check out other clubs and activities that they would never likely see if they remained with the group now driven by the girls clique.

Walking from booth to booth and explaining things as needed Kyle though this smaller group wasn't too bad. Kyle always operated better with smaller groups and had a tendency to hang out with either younger or older people so he began to relax a bit and get into the role of tour guide and advisor. That is until he spotted Glitch.

He had left the drone locked up at home to avoid any drama on the first day but somehow it had gotten itself all the way to the school and by the look of things it was executing a search pattern, probably for Kyle. He still did not know what was going on with the thing but it had often showed up and followed Kyle around over the summer. Fortunately he had taken to keeping a remote with himself at all times. Whipping it out he activated the remote and set it to tether the drone while the kids were distracted. With a sigh of relief he noted that Glitch responded quickly and actually complied, something that did not always happen.

Now with the drone and three freshmen in tow Kyle made his way around the campus, picking up one of the official senior guide sheets that someone had set down and apparently forgotten at one of the booths. Not quite what he had planned on doing but deciding to make the best of it since he acted on the impulse to help out, Kyle chatted with the three younger student as they walked around the campus, visiting places of interest to them and that Kyle, or the guide sheet, thought they should know about.

"Hands off, Jake! These ones are mine!" Minsoo says, reaching for some freshies with some exaggerated friendliness. Her and Jake had to fight over the newbies, and this year seemed to be going well for the track runners. It was friendly competition, until the inevitable question of running through cow-shit pocked fields arises from some well-meaning freshman.

"Hey, have you seen Sarah? She’s supposed to be here by now." the athlete asks her rival, checking her sports watch - and not for the first time. Sarah was supposed to help wrangle the new sign ups away from Jake’s table with Minsoo, but so far there was no sign of her.

Multi-Purpose Hall

Myra's gaze landed on Nina only for a split second, for while Nina appeared more affirmed, there was someone else in the periphery of her vision who seemed to cringe when they heard Myra's less-than welcoming retort to Logan. Myra as a senior, knew she really ought to have known better, but Logan was certainly too smug for his own good. The person Myra noticed was an auburn-haired freshie, curls in pigtails, whose cheery smile alongside her three friends seemed to fade as she hesitated to approach the Math Club booth. Myra was confident that a few choice words from her would allay this girl's trepidation, but she had to take the initiative to approach her quickly before the young one retreated into the safety of the buzzing crowd.

It was 2.58pm on the hall clock. When you turn to interact with the girl, you find that --

The Tech / Robotics Club zone saw a busy surge in excitable freshmen, enough for Kyle to peel some off Zane's throng. Kyle had to admit that Zane was much more a whiz at engineering and building drone models than Kyle, but when it came to people, Zane simply couldn't assemble them together as effectively. Kyle led a group over to the Art Club displays where he spotted Jonathan being way more socially engaged with the young ones than he ever was in their class. Jonathan had covered for him earlier, and it seemed only right for Kyle to return the favour; it was obvious that goth gamer Ally was using her drone to mess around with the exhibits. Surely Kyle could whisk up something, maybe with Glitch's help, to drive her drone away? In the corner of his eye he saw a quartet of girls latch on to his tour group, led by an auburn-haired girl in curly pigtails, hi-top sneakers, and a cheery smile. Jonathan spotted Kyle's group nearing his displays, but he also saw Ally's drone seeming to be on a flight path aimed directly at the pigtailed girl.

It was 2.58pm on the hall clock. When you turn to intervene with the girl, you find that --

Gym

Joe had chosen the more boisterous of the two venues to start his own personal tour. He had arrived too late in the semester last year to commit meaningfully to some of these extra-curricular activities, and in all honesty he felt torn between his physical development, deeply tied to the Way that he had begun to practice, and his deep abiding interest in the things of the past. The set-up of all the booths was pitched at those three years his junior with their over-bright designs, cringey slogans and fellow enthusiastic seniors 'selling' at the top of their lungs as sportspeople do. Joe expected the multi-purpose hall upstairs to carry the same orientation atmosphere. He had no doubt his own sister would find these way more stimulating.

Thankfully he spotted a familiar face; Minsoo, at the Athletics booth, was his classmate, and she looked like she was about to lead a group of students out of the gym, and presumably to the outdoor track, for tryouts. Minsoo looked like she was all about to challenge her freshie juniors to a little race to the track to see who got there first, although Joe caught her face to reveal a flash of annoyance when Minsoo checked her watch. For Minsoo was waiting for Sarah to relieve her duty at the booth, but Sarah was nowhere to be seen.

What Minsoo did spot though as she craned her neck were a quartet of girls, led by an auburn-hair girl in curly pigtails and high-tops. Not quite the right running shoes, but seemingy ready to join Minsoo without having inquired at the booth yet. Would Minsoo stop them from joining in? Joe saw them too, and wondered if he should say hi to Minsoo before she turned her attention to the girls.

It was 2.58pm on the gym clock. When you turn to pay attention to the girl, you find that --

Joe catches Minsoo’s look of searching annoyance; he doesn’t know what’s annoying her, but she apparently has her hands full, so he’ll simply jog up beside her… "Minsoo! Need a hand?"

Torrance joined the finishing setup for a couple booths for clubs he was a part of. Technically. He always helped with whatever activity the group was participating in, but was never really a part of the group, just a little apart. It's not thst he was disliked just... faded into the background of peoples memory or consciousness. He had the benefit of only having a partial in-class schedule this year and last, and being able to use that time for clubs, having tested out of most of the classes he had desired to.
He never really took the speaking seat at any of the booths, and noone thought to ask him to, but they were thankful for the help. While both were technically clubs, the science club wasnt much more than a group study hall with intermittent projects. The programming club was an actual club with events and an competition each semester.

Spotting Jonathan being harassed leaves a sour taste in Kyles mouth, he never did like bullies of any sort, but he then smiles to himself as an amusing thought crosses his mind as he flips out his remote and scrolls a moment before toggling a subroutine to activates as he directs Glitches camera first to Jonathan then to Ally. Smiling he puts away the remote and resumes guiding the kids towards the art booth and pointing out some of the exhibits he finds interesting. He is curious about the newcomers but figures pointing it out will just cause them to react. Better to just let it happen so long as the girls don't cause trouble. Mixed groups can make boys behave better or act out. Chucking again to himself he decides to wait and see.

He is mostly on auto-pilot as far as the art booth in concerned and quickly draws over one of the senior art students to give their shpeel as his attention is on the drones and Ally. He has designated Jonathan as Glitches base and Ally as the goal with the other drone as both the opponent and "ball" and engaged Glitches soccer program. While glitch didn't always obey, it did excel at games and given the option would always play one. Kyle just hopped he had set the parameters correctly so Glitch would fly close but not actually hit the other drone. That could cause problems, but with the stage set he was curious to see how it turned out.

Plus this seemed like a great time to try and flex a bit of his new ability. Kyler visualized the entire thing and focused as he pressed a few buttons on the remote hidden in his pocket to interfere with Allys drone controls, just a bit, to make the angle, just right. If this worked properly he bet he could get Ally to "over steer" her own drone, with a bit of nudging at the opportune moment, right into some of the streamers strung around the place and . . . Well the important thing is that it was all just a 'random accident' and if it helped Joe, all the better.

Hello there... Myra is trying center herself

Jonathan was holding an impromptu Q&A from the group if incoming freshmen about the types of art classes Ashford High offered and whether the Art Club took regular outings to the various museums nearby in the city. He did his best to answer the thousand and one questions the new class seemed to have, fielding them pretty much by himself given the lack of help from the others manning the booth. Introspective artists tended not to do well with public speaking... That sort of thing never bothered Jonathan much, if at all, and it generally fell to him to be the spokesperson where the Art Club was involved.

He leaned back on the table in front of the Art Club tent, arms folded as he answered questions from the freshmen milling around the displays. He kept one eye and ear on the freshmen and another on the drone buzzing about. Ally was cagey and crafty about when she caused trouble; careful to to terrorize the freshmen but to distract them when Jonathan was talking and threatening the displays when only he was watching. The 'cat & mouse' attention seeking behavior from Ally & her drone was something that Jonathan could metaphorically let roll off his back. The sudden drone dive at the freshman in pigtails and her friends was not...

Unaware that Kyle had programmed his own drone to run interference and more concerned with Pigtails, Jonathan did the only thing that came to mind. Grabbing a tarp from the table next to him, he tossed it at the drone to catch it in the plastic sheet emblazoned with the Ashford school colors and keep it from plowing into the small crowd of freshman. The plastic sheet barely captured the buzzing drone, forcing it to the ground but just barely... The little machine struggled under the tarp, threatening to somehow free itself and escape. Jonathan rushed over the secure the tarp, and the drone, to the ground. "You guys okay?" he asked the pigtailed girl and her friends. He flashed them a reassuring smile as he folded the drone up into the tarp and picked the bundle up.

"Hey, that trick was sick...grabbing it outta the air like that." one of the freshmen boys remarked amongst hesitant giggles.

"For my next trick, Imma make that drone disappear." he meant that he was about to take it back to Ally and the Robotics Club. The drone had ceased buzzing inside the tarp, whether because of signal loss or to preserve the electric motors or more delicate parts, so Jonathan reached inside the tarp to retrieve it.

Wren had walked with Joe to the multi-purpose hall, pointing out where different clubs had set up their booths - Politicas over there, Student Librarian stand near the math tables. He seemed to be figuring out what interested him, so she left him to explore and headed to the stage section where the music tables were set up. The elevation gave her a bit of distance from the mass of freshmen flooding the hall below. She unlocked practice rooms, checked equipment, arranged flyers about band and chorus schedules. Simple tasks. Manageable.

Something going well:
The one-on-one conversations were working. When freshmen wandered over individually or in pairs, actually interested in music rather than just checking boxes, Wren could handle that. She'd shown three different students the practice rooms, demonstrated the upright piano for a quiet girl who admitted she'd been taking lessons for years, helped a nervous boy figure out if he wanted guitar or bass. Small groups. Genuine questions. Simple answers about schedules and auditions and whether you needed to read music to join. That she could do. A freshman with dark curls and careful hands had just finished playing a few bars of something classical on the piano. "That's really good," Wren said, and meant it. "You should definitely audition for ensemble." The girl smiled, relieved, and Wren felt something settle. This part was okay. This part made sense.

Something not going smoothly:
But the multi-purpose hall was getting louder. More students arriving. More voices layering over each other. The robotics club's drones buzzing overhead. Someone's phone blasting music from the art corner. The basketball game in the gym below creating rhythmic thuds that traveled through the floor. And underneath it all - that hum. The one that had been following her since summer. The one that had crystallized in the auditorium when she'd put her headphones on. It was getting harder to ignore.

Wren's hand drifted to her headphones, still around her neck. She wanted to pull them on, create that bubble of silence, but she was supposed to be helping freshmen. Being normal. Doing her job. The hum built. Not louder - deeper. Like the building itself was resonating at a frequency just below hearing, and her entire body was picking it up. She pressed her palm against the stage floor for a moment, trying to ground herself. Breathed carefully. Counted beats like she would when keeping time. *Just sensory overload. Just too many people. Just first-day chaos.* But her hands were starting to shake, and the careful normalcy she'd been maintaining all afternoon was fraying at the edges.

Just like earlier in the auditorium when Torrance watched and evaluated Joe's dizzy spell correctly but did not see the need to commit to and express an opinion, at the orientation booths Torrance contributed where he saw fit but still stood detached from actually committing to pitching and canvassing. So while he still stood near the row with all the science and tech-related booths, none of the freshmen, and there were certainly a whole swarm of them, noticed him enough to approach him.

"It's that RBF of yours Torrance, you gotta lighten up!" Jennifer chuckled as she stepped around him to speak with two nerdy-looking boys who made a beeline for the Info Tech Club booth. But truly, no one approach him ...

... until a group of four girls made their way in his general direction. Three of them were oblivious to him, but the one in front, an auburn-haired girl with curly pigtails and hi-top sneakers, looked him straight in the eyes as she skipped forward, as if she wanted to speak only with him.

It was 2.58pm on the hall clock. When you contemplate whether to speak with the girl, you find that ...

Wren's connections with those who approached the music booth were genuine. The younger ones who came forward were truly passionate about their skill, and spoke with their craft in a way that transcended words. If she were freer, she would have loved to sit down and jam with some of them, but today it was way more important to answer their questions, show them the facilities, and help manage the slots for those who wanted to audition.

But the crowd felt never-ending. The cohort intake was four hundred students, and while they came in waves downstairs in the gym and also up here, and even though they had spread themselves out throughout the hall, the stimuli was incessant, the queues were constant, the questions were enthusiastic and never-ending. Wren couldn't see herself shirking her responsibility, so when she saw a quartet of girls approaching, with the one in front, an auburn-haired girl with curly pigtails and hi-top sneakers, sliding herself onto the piano seat and her three friends standing around her, Wren figured engaging them in conversation wouldn't be so pressurising as they seemed to be self-sufficient. Perhaps some moments of shared playing could help her centre herself.

It was 2.58pm on the hall clock. When you see the girl about the place her hands on the keyboard, you find that ...