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calmed herself, confident her lords would come, if she called. The Rogue AI that possessed Joss Beckwith was the enemy that her family fought. She didn’t know much else, and didn’t care to know. For some reason, on the day she had come to Sterling, a Rogue penetrated its computer systems and infected the body of a student. No way this is a coincidence, she thought. No way. I’m going to have to talk to this kid, Joss, to find out.  
    “I was wrong,” she heard herself say.
    “What?” Kimberlee replied in a hush.
    “It’s starting earlier than I thought.”
    “What’s starting?”
    “I have to go to the bathroom.”
    She hurried out of the auditorium to a bathroom in the lobby. She ran into a stall and shut the door. She breathed deep and steadied herself by repeating a centering mantra. There she was, she knew, an oddball sitting on a toilet, talking to herself. She heard the bathroom door open and the voices of two girls chattering about what happened. They had no idea what was lying just down the hall in a clinic bed.
    After flushing the toilet, and taking one more calming breath, Simone left the stall and washed her hands. The two girls looked like freshman. They wore their sweaty, gray band shorts and tees, and stared at her like she were a celebrity, or an escaped convict—she couldn’t tell which.
    She rushed right by them.
    She hurried down one of the primary corridors—closed metal lockers embedded in the walls to either side—and exited out the main campus building. When no one was watching, she snuck into the adjoining clinic.  
    The lobby was empty. She waited until the right moment when the nurse behind the counter was distracted, then crept down a narrow hallway. She followed a heaviness in the air that she couldn’t describe, almost as if she could smell where to go. It was as if she’d just walked into a sauna. For a moment it was hard to breathe. Simone paused, wondering what that could be ...
    She picked a random door. She found a boy sleeping. She recognized him instantly from the sheets she’d read on Sterling’s Alters. Joss Beckwith looked normal enough: skinny, big head of wavy hair, good looking but natural. He was their star computer guy, and everyone in Sterling apparently knew him. She’d read his sheet and listened to Kimberlee talk all about him, so she didn’t have to ask about his packages. He had that special something about him you just knew meant he was smart, real smart.
    Joss lay peacefully in bed. Someone had put a bandage on his forehead and left palm, and covered the rest of him up with a hospital gown.
    He opened his eyes and saw her standing over him. “I know who you are. Saw you come in.”
    “You look like you’re in trouble,” she said.
    “You want to know what happened? I bet everybody does.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I found an AI trying to break into Sterling’s system. I attempted to snag it, and it counter attacked. Tried to fry my brain.”
    “Sorry to hear that.” She sat on the edge of his bed. “I was also wondering ... if it’s not too rude ... if you could tell me why you’re at Sterling. Your dossier didn’t say too much about ... your issue.”
    “My issue?” he replied, as if she’d just asked him if he liked to jerk off to midget porn. “You want to know why I’m at this school for Tranz rejects?”
    “Yes.”
    “Christ, you’re forward.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “Let me give you a little advice, new girl. Around here we don’t  tell  people we just met. In fact, most of us don’t talk about it at all.”
    “I need to know.”
    “Why?” He saw her glance at his bandages. “You know about AIs?”
    “Well, no; but yes, but not like you ... I mean—”
    “Then whatever.”
    “I’m an Altertranshuman Entity Channeler and Summoner with a telekinetic control problem. At least that’s what the Consortium shrinks say.”
    “Then you should be careful. Channeling’s dangerous.”
    “I know what it is.