Jason had a thought. He had accessed the display so maybe it had read that it was him biometrically in some way to provide security for each person. Exiting out of the market and going back to ‘Profile’ he was greeted with his own profile once again. Maybe the system would automatically switch to her when she used the display. The problem was that the girl was little. She was only around 4 feet tall and the interface was not only outside of her reach if she could stand right under it, there was a sink between her and the display. That wasn’t the only problem either. He didn’t know if she could read. It may pose a problem if she couldn’t if whatever solution he came up with precluded him from telling her what to push.

The room didn’t have anything in it that they could move and stand on to get her to the level she needed to use the display. Jason looked around trying to come up with some plan of action. Nothing came to mind immediately, but it’s not like he could just go on without figuring out a solution. He stepped away from the sink and sat on the bed next to the girl continuing trying to think about what to do. The girl looked at him questioningly, but didn’t say anything. After several minutes of Jason sitting there unmoving not saying a thing the girl pushed her finger into his cheek and continued to push until he almost fell over. Jason caught himself from falling, becoming visibly annoyed. He was about to angrily yell at her, but she spoke first.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wha-What do you mean ‘what’s wrong?’ The whole situation is wrong.”

“Ya, but why you been thinking sooo hard?”

“Trying t’figure out a way for you to be able to touch the screen.”

The girl looked to the sink, then back to Jason. She then hopped down from the bed, walked over to the toilet and crawled on top of it. This put her about head level with the screen though not very easy for her to look at and interact with it from there, she could definitely do so from there.

Jason was dumbstruck with how he had missed such a blatantly simple answer. He shook his head and face palmed, but got over his ignorance quickly. Getting back up, he positioned himself so that he could see the screen clearly, but more importantly, so that he could catch the girl if she fell.

“Ok. Problem 1 solved. Can you read?”

“Of course I can!” the girl looked at him angrily.

“A’right. touch here to open the menu… ,” Jason said pointing at the symbol in the corner of the screen, “... and select ‘Profile’. Then, select ‘Name’ and tell it your name.”

The girl did as she was told, stretching to tap the screen. She then glared at the menu before finally pressing the right option. While she was in her profile, Jason confirmed his suspicions about the ID Number system. They were assigned in chronological order of registration of barracks. This wasn’t all that useful information at the moment, but later it might prove useful as a measure of how quickly came to their senses in a situation that was alien to them. The girl’s profile also had her height and weight information, but there was no reason to pay any attention to this information. What Jason really needed to know is if she also had 100 credits. Thankfully, she did he discovered the needed information in her profile. Meanwhile, she finally decided which of the labels were ‘Name’, and pressed it.

“Please say your name,” the interface said.

“Rina Io,” the girl said excitedly, if not a little strained from trying not to fall. The text in her profile changed to reflect the new information that it was given.

“Is this the correct spelling of your name, Rina?”

Rina tilted her head to the side having a look of concentration on her face as she looked at the screen. She looked up and away from the screen trying to remember if what was on screen indeed was how her name was spelled. The moment was filled with the sound of Rina, “hrming” in various tones. Jason thought to help her, but truthfully he couldn’t. Not only for the fact that he didn’t know how to spell her name, but because it is possibly that him speaking could mess up the registration. Luckily, Rina suddenly grew a smile, said, “Yup! that looks to be right miss.”

The name on the screen locked in and Jason let out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t taken longer, or worse, asked him. He then instructed her to exit her profile, go to profile, and select the ‘Registration Pack’. The now familiar sounds of the dispenser rang out. He pull out a disc with no symbols on it like he had gotten earlier and handed it over to Rina.

“You might want to jump down before trying that out.”

“Okaaay~,” she said happily jumping to the floor with hop.

Rina held the disc out from her body and slightly above her head, her hands on either side of the device. “Rin rin Rina na ri~,” she said loudly, bringing the disc down to her chest, attaching activating it. The device’s material began to spread over her. Suddenly, she spun around and dancing, jumping and posing in various ways. As the material covered her legs she gave a twist, the camera in her mind focusing on and showing them give a small bling. Next, she crossed her hands above her head, giving the same slight shake that she did with her legs, perfectly timing her movement to match when the material covers her hands. The material reached her neck and began creeping up to her head. Knowing that it was almost done, Rina gave a strong pose, her arm outstretched giving the peace sign to Jason, her head turned to the side with tilt, and gave a wink and a cute chirp of a giggle.

“Registration in process.”

Rina held the pose as Jason looked at her a bit dumbfounded by what had just happened.

“Registration complete. You are now a J-Grade Scrapper. Trash Class.”

“Are… Are you ok?” Jason asked her, not knowing what to think.

Rina relaxed and gave a sharp nod of her head.

“Alright,” he said slowly regaining his composure, “Jump back up so we can get you your equipment.”

Rina climbed back up to where she had been previously and waited for Jason to direct her. He had her go to the Market and select the weapon called Cross. Not too sure what it was he handed the octogonal disc with a cross-like symbol on it to her. Rina placed it on her hip, activating it. The disc changed forms, growing a chain, attaching itself to the hip of Rina, while taking the shape of a simple cross, longer on one side than the others. When it was done forming she took hold of it and brought it up to eye level to look it over. It looked like your average cross, except for at the intersection of the cross was what appeared to be a gem stone embedded in it and in the back at the same point a slightly raised area that could be depressed.

“What’s this?” Rina asked looking to Jason.

“The description said that it had the ability to heal. I’m not sure how, but I figure it’ll help us if you were a healer for now. It looks like we can change equipment later if need be, but being together and having someone that can heal will give us an advantage over everyone else,” Jason explained.

He went back to look at the market and looked through the J-Grade sub-menu beyond the previously free options. The 6 previously free ARMS were all now 50 credits. Further down the list he found several other options that, from what he could tell, were essentially cosmetic items with stats that indicated that they gave minor resistance to different types of damage. He scrolled through and found a simple black hoodie and bought it for 10 credits. Before taking it from the dispenser he continued to look through the other options. He found several options that put together were similar to a magic girl outfit and had Rina alternately purchases the pieces with him so that their credits were equal, both having 80 remaining. Afterwards he grabbed small jewel like objects from the dispensers which appeared to be the equipment he had purchased, but he had no idea how to make them work.

Rina enthusiastically hopped to the ground and put her hands out for Jason to give her the jewels. He wanted to hold onto them until he could figure out how they worked, but given how quickly she solved the earlier conundrum, he handed off all the jewels that were meant to be her clothes to her, only keeping the one that was supposed to be his hoodie. Without fail, she brought a jewel to her chest, her hands in the shape of a heart, and happened to tap it to the center of the symbol on the disc on her chest. The jewel that was in her hand flashed and dissolved into twinkling dust. Around her waist a yellow mini skirt with a black hemline took shape. The next 3 jewels formed a black corset over a yellow blouse with puffy short sleeves. The material on her arms began to suck back into the device then formed into long fingerless gloves. The last jewel she used took the shape of a boot with a yellow foot. She now thoroughly resembled a magic girl.

Having observed her, Jason tapped his jewel to the disc symbol. The material bulged out into the shape of a sleeveless jacket with a hood on it. He took a look at the result and was satisfied with it. There were pockets in the jacket which he filled with the disc he had previously put in his backpack. It would be easier to access there while staying hidden till he needed it. Once finished with getting themselves something to wear he sat on the bed to think about what they were going to do next. He wasn’t sure what the next move should be. If they stayed where they were they’d be fine for a while, but eventually they’d run out of credits to buy rations and then what? They could leave for the next area, but who knows what is there. Did he really want to take a child with him into god knows what? And even if he did there was still the question of when to leave. Leaving now certainly had the advantage of being first, but like with all firsts the risks were higher due to the lack of knowledge about the situation. Not only that, but it was getting later in the day. Did that matter? They hadn’t eaten since they got here and who knows how long Rina was good to go. There were beds here. It was guarantee of safety. One night wouldn’t make a difference, but he knew that with that thinking he could easily fall into the trap of saying, “tomorrow,” day after day only to never leave.

Rina had none of these thoughts as she pretended to be a magical girl facing an evil monster. She was full of energy. Pointing the cross at Jason she shouted, “Moon Healing Magic,” making the gem in on the cross light up and create a glow around Jason. He felt a tingling on his skin and the sores that he had earlier fade away. He looked at her and grinned.

“I see you figured that out.”

“Yup!” Rina nodded proud of herself. “Magic just requires belief.”

“Ahhh,” he responded, doubting her, but she had to be right in some way. After all she had figured out the last several things immediately that he had trouble thinking of how to solve. They weren’t obvious in his practical world, but in Rina’s world of imagination things operated essentially how they should. In a magical way. Magic wasn’t real, he thought, so whatever it was it was just technology designed to appear magical. It definitely wasn’t actual magic he told himself. It was hard to convince himself of this matter, having just seen Rina cast a spell, but there was no reason to believe that the facts of reality had been upturned along with life and the world that now was missing thousands, if not millions, of people.

“When are we leaving?” Rina asked, wanting to go explore what other marvels this place had.

Jason was stunned by this question. He wasn’t expecting her to want to go back out into that mess, but now that she had directly posed the question he quickly came to a decision.

“Lets go now.”

Getting up, he went over to the display and ordered up 10 liquid rations and 10 food rations before instructing Rina to do the same. He put all but a set of ration packs for him and Rina in his backpack for later. He handed off one set to Rina and kept the other to eat for their dinner.

“Let’s eat and do whatever we need to do first. Don’t want to get out there and have to turn back if we don’t have to.”

The two ate their meal and used the facilities in the barracks before exiting. Having regained their composure, they now saw that there were differentiated walkways on the ground seeming to point the way to their next destination. The guess was as good as any other anyways so they followed it till they found themselves at a door with green light above it and a button to the right. Jason pushed it causing the doors slide to open. Beyond the doorway they found a room that was smaller than their barracks, but large enough for them to stand comfortably in. When they entered, the doors slid shut automatically and they felt as if they were moving upward. It seemed like they had found an elevator.