Congratulations! If you’re hearing this, you’ve survived the first forty-five days of the Earth Maffiyir!

You have reached the second mandatory trial! You must pass the trial to be permitted to continue in the competition.

Contestants will be able to challenge this trial in groups of up to four. The difficulty will scale with the number of challengers, so think carefully before you choose to enter together.

Trial summons will be issued throughout the next three days, beginning immediately after the conclusion of this announcement. When you receive a summons, you will be allowed 38 seconds to place your skin in contact with other contestants’ skin. When your timer reaches zero, all contestants sharing skin contact with you or a person you are touching will be transferred to a shared trial. If you attempt to bring more than four challengers to a single trial, only the first contestant you touch will accompany you.

Face the challenges before you to grow in strength and earn rewards. Good luck!

I sighed as the Announcement finished, my feelings mixed.

On the one hand, I couldn’t forget the injury Micah had suffered during the first Mandatory Trial… but on the other hand, the Trial hadn’t actually been that difficult. My kids had accidentally upset more monsters than they'd needed to, and they’d still managed to beat it on their own! Micah was injured, an injury that still lingered, but they would have passed faultlessly if they hadn’t upset the bonefur. One of the routes had been filled exclusively with the first three monsters of the Maffiyir. Lots of them, yes, but it was just about the easiest possible test the aliens could have offered.

The Trials - or at least the first one we'd seen - seemed to be more about picking off the stragglers than threatening the frontrunners.

Emotionally, I was anxious. Intellectually? We were probably at less risk in another Mandatory Trial than if the aliens… the Soundless… had thrown something new at us.

It helped that we were still at the Arsenal, instead of packed into the overcrowded walls of Fort Autumn. The debriefing had finally finished late the previous night, and Colonel Yoshiro had asked us to consider remaining here for a few more days rather than travel at night or during a Deadline where we expected either a second Mandatory Trial or some other fresh horror.

I’d barely had to glance at George and Priya. “Absolutely. I have zero interest in being on the road and having our driver disappear on us.”

Priya had been quick to agree. “If it is another Trial, I’d prefer to do it here. Can we get someone extra to go in with George and Samar and Anju, or other people to accompany Arnav and me? It was hard to find people without their own dependents near Fort Autumn, but there are a lot more adults here.”

Colonel Yoshiro had smiled. “I will arrange it. Ms. Moretti? Will you want assistance as well?”

“Only if they change the group sizes. If it’s still four people, I’d rather be with my kids.”

And here we were. Four people, again.

At least we had plenty of space. We’d been “quartered” with the Turners in a medium-sized conference room, and even with the addition of three more adults to accompany our friends to their Trials, it wasn’t crowded. It would have been snug if the table was still present, but it had been removed long ago, broken into pieces and used to block windows.

I’d expected that the schedule would be similar to our first Trial, with us being taken early in the first evening, but no such luck. Instead we spent two fitful nights tied together, with Pointy carefully watching, waking us up whenever our twisting and turning broke us loose. It was a hassle, but I hadn’t known what else to do; what if the summons didn’t wake us? My kids weren’t going to face another Trial without me. No one in our area - even in the expanded area the Arsenal could Message - had been summoned yet.

“It’s gotta happen sometime today,” I said blearily.

“Technically, it does not,” Pointy said. “We could still be summoned tonight, or even tomorrow morning.”

I groaned. It was true that there wasn’t much we needed to do except sleep. We didn’t have any responsibilities: as guests, we weren’t among the defense teams the Arsenal had arranged to deal with threats that couldn’t be ignored, like D-Rexes. Staying busy was tough. There was only so much practice we could do in a single conference room, and venturing outside was out of the question when we could be whisked away at any moment.

The problem was more keeping the kids busy than staying busy myself. I’d gained Telekinesis at a high level of synergy, and it was something I could practice with even in a confined space. It was a power I’d dreamed of having since reading Matilda back in grade school, and there was so much to test out. George was able to give me a fair amount of pointers, but I really wanted to see how far I could push it. It turns out you can do origami via Telekinesis! Not something I’d use in battle, obviously, but good for practicing mental dexterity.

The kids’ abilities were less involved. Charged Surface wasn’t really something Micah needed to practice, even if it had been safe to do so in the conference room. Rapid Regeneration just happened for Gavin without his active involvement. Cassie probably could have practiced with Life Sense but… she was three. We played a few “Life Sense Games,” but her focus didn’t last very long.

Trying to prepare for the Challenge - which all of us except Anju, Arnav, and Cassie would be going to soon after the Trial - distracted us a little. We’d found some permanent markers and “decorated” some of the sheets we’d been lent with “Work together! The aliens want us to fight.” in the world’s four most common languages: English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish.

The Arsenal had backpacks for each of us. They'd stuffed them full of informational pamphlets rations, and trade goods. The trade goods were split between junk food and survival items. Each bag contained water purification tablets, bundles of paracord, camp knives, and other sundries. These could potentially be useful during the Challenge or Trial, but we'd been given permission to trade them away if we met someone who needed them.

We were definitely in a privileged position. We could wait in safety and relative privacy, with nearly every kind of aid we could wish. But all of that didn't keep my sleep from being interrupted over and over, as my kids’ motion pulled my limbs around, or someone’s nighttime thrashing snapped another piece of fabric used as a tie.

What are we supposed to do? I wondered. Metal shackles? How long until we’re strong enough to snap those in our sleep too?

Hopefully, the summon Announcement would wake us. Normal Announcements were hit or miss, depending on how tired the recipient was, but it seemed unreasonable for system Announcements to be able to go unheard. We’d know for sure after this Trial:the Arsenal had people on staggered sleep schedules. Someone would be sleeping when the summons arrived.

“I hope we’re grabbed before tomorrow morning. I want actual rest before the Challenge.” I stole a glance at the turtle. “Not that I think sleep will give me answers on how to handle it.”

Pointy shrugged, her shell bouncing gently. “What can you do? We do not know the shape that the Challenge will take, and your survival is your top priority.”

“Yeah, but…” I shook my head. “It’s just not very fair to you.”

Pointy smiled, one embroidered eyebrow lifting. “And what about my life has been fair, exactly? Do not worry about me, Meghan. I have made preparations. I have things to try.”

“And if those things fail?”

“Then I shall speak to you in another dozen days.”

There was a tiny waver in the turtle’s voice, so slight I almost didn’t notice it. I almost, like a fool, asked her how she could be so calm. She wasn’t; she was just putting on a brave face.

Instead, I lifted a hand to rub her plush shell and changed the topic. “It’s been fun seeing you run circles around the other AI, but I hope the advice we gave them helps.”

“I think it will. We have already seen some effectiveness. Once we figure out what works best, Colonel Yoshiro has said we may use the Arsenal’s communicator network to send out a list of standardized instructions.”

I snorted. “How to jailbreak your Information Assistant, a ten-step guide?”

“Essentially. Then… the real challenge begins.”

“And what’s that?”

“I have still not given up on getting the attention of the Maffiyir AI. The… story we wrote, with the Up-and-Downer lawyer… it gave me a lot of ideas. I’ll need help with most of them, though.”

I offered her a fistbump, my hand meeting gently with her two-inch plush leg. “I’m all in. I’m sure we can rope in the others we need. We owe you a lot… and it’s a fun project, besides. Let’s just get through the Trial and the Challenge first, though, okay?”

Pointy smiled. “You got it.”

…

I had just laid down that evening, resigning myself to another night of restless sleep, when the Announcement came in.

Not a Maffiyir announcement, a human one.

Trial summons issued in Muscle Shoals! Get ready!

I shook my children awake, untying the bindings that held us close. “Anyone need a bathroom break?”

Micah rolled his eyes. “We just went before we laid down, Mom.”

“Well, I don’t want you to have to go during the Trial.”

“You’re coming too, Mommy? Right?” Cassie asked.

I smiled at her. “As long as we keep ahold of each other, and away from anyone else.”

Cassie immediately attached herself to my leg.

“No, big girl!” I told her gently. “You need to hold onto my hand, okay? We have to touch each other’s skin.”

My largest two fingers were instantly clamped in a vicegrip. I clenched my jaw to keep from complaining. Enhanced strength really let her squeeze hard!

“Don’t worry,” Gavin said, brow lowered in a tough-guy expression. “I’ve got everybody.” My son wrapped his tail around each of our wrists in turn, a human rope tying us all together.

“Nice one, buddy!”

We still had to wait a little while before we were summoned, but near-constant Announcements from Arsenal staff kept us from getting bored.

Trial structure different, but multiple routes still confirmed.

Branching routes confirmed. Three branches to exit? Not confirmed for all paths.

Bladetail route offers branches to dark route and apep route. Apep route offers a choice of gasbag route or slime route.

Disregard previous message: trial layout is not consistent.

Summons detected in Athens.

Routes confirmed, no set order: bladetail, mobmu, slime, stabcrabs, hellbees, several unknown monsters of various types, dark, aqueous, fog, unstable ground. Dangers on environmental routes unknown.

No cycle one monster routes reported.

Avoid rocky patches on slime routes, extremely slippery!

Then, I got another message, one just for me: summons issued.

I double-checked my hold: Gavin and Cassie on one hand, Micah on the other.

“Keep a tight grip, kids! Here we go!”