The voice in my ear said, "You're taking quite the risk, strange one."

I replied, speaking more comfortably now that I was alone in the wilderness, alone with the voice for the first time. "What do you mean?"

"It sounds like there's a chance you'll be ejected from the competition by letting her go back alone," the voice said.

I walked slowly along the bank of the river. I was in no hurry. For the first time I was standing in the suit without a pressure. The die was cast. Either Lauren would make it back first or she wouldn’t. Either her return would qualify me for the next round or it wouldn’t. It was suddenly strange to find myself to not be in panic mode. To just be calm. But the calm was nice.

My eyes settled on a flash of color on the opposite bank of the river. I squinted. The blues and oranges of a kingfisher had caught my eye. It was still, perched on a small branch, watching the water with intensity.

With a burst of wings the kingfisher dove. It struck the water with more violence than something so small should have been able to accomplish. The water erupted into a spray as the bird lifted off again. Droplets cascaded from it, back to their source, a beam of light spearing through them, making them stand out. It was perfect beauty.

As I focused on the bird, I concentrated. Again, don’t get too excited. Sensory attributes level easily. Especially getting them to level 1. It’s more like turning on a feature of the suit than gaining an attribute. As I stared at the bird a graphic flashed before me: Sight 0.0 flickered, faded, and then Sight 1.0 flashed into place. I observed the bird again but with new eyes. What had been a vague blob of color and movement became crystal. I could see each individual water droplet clinging to its feathers, I could see the hairs of each feather, I could have counted them. I could see the pupil of the eye of the minnow that struggled in its beak..

I looked around the forest. Seeing it with new eyes. The distraction of this, and the success of this, only served to make me feel more calm, more detached from the frenzy of events that passed that day.

The voice in my ear broke the silence. "You've gained another attribute. Impressive."

I smiled. "It's a start. But I need more if I'm going to survive this competition."

The voice said, "If you're still part of the competition after the girl gets back without you, that is. You're acting strangely. Why aren't you rushing to get back there? There's a chance you'd get up there before the other team, then you'd have to count as being part of the winning team. You're dawdling… I don’t understand."

I smiled slowly, trying to harness the peace I was feeling. "Sending Lauren back ahead of me was the obvious choice. I'm still too clumsy in this suit. I don't really think there's any chance I get back there before the other team."

The suit said, "You could still be on your way back up there."

I smiled softly, said, "But is there any reason for it?"

The voice paused. It gave me great pleasure to make it pause, to find it uncertain.

The voice said, "You have a scheme of some kind, a plan. I can feel it. You sent her back on purpose so you could be alone with me."

I nodded, said, "In part. I want to know what you are."

The voice giggled as it was wont to do, but there was a doubt in the giggle this time, the confidence was lesser. "I'm a ghost."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I said, "A ghost in my mind. Am I imagining you? I never hear you when I'm not in the suit. I thought for a while that you were a feature of the suit, some kind of assistant that helped rookies learn how to use the equipment, but the more I talk to the others, the more it's clear to me that you don't talk to them."

The voice was a little bored, a little petulant. "They're not very interesting, not very interesting at all."

I paused. "So you interact with them as well?"

"I can feel them," the voice said. "They don't interest me in the slightest."

"Not even Lauren or Lance? They are far ahead of me in terms of ability with this gear."

The voice was disgusted. "Not in the least, especially not that boy! He is as uninteresting as any I have met."

I said, "What are you?"

The voice was gaining comfort and confidence again. "You'd love to know, but not yet."

I took a deep breath. "How do I know you're not just a symptom of some madness I'm experiencing?"

The voice said, "I've told you things about the suit that you didn't know, things that helped you."

I stared down into the water, seeing a large trout moving tentatively. Its scales shimmered with iridescent colors, each fin and gill moving with graceful precision. The clarity of my new vision allowed me to see the fine details of its scales and the gentle ripples it created as it swam.

"Maybe you're a demented part of me recalling details from my tutors that my conscious mind cannot."

The voice cackled louder. "Maybe I am, but the point is I've helped you this far. Does it really matter what I am if I can keep you in the competition, help you win the suit?"

I sighed, kicking at the bank with my armored toe. A lump of mud fell into the slow-moving water at the edge of the bank, dispersing in swirling clouds that distorted the clear reflection of the sky above.

The voice, now more confident, said, "You need me, Tiberius. Accept that for now. Focus on the competition. Win the suit. Then we can explore these questions further."

The voice grew annoyed. "You won't be in the competition if the rules dictate you need to get back with the girl!"

"First of all," I said, "if the rules dictate that, then I'm already out of the competition, so that's nothing to worry about. I can't catch them now. Second of all, it was a team competition. I'm fairly confident that it doesn't matter when I get back. As long as I see our smoke in the sky before theirs, then I'll be through to the next round. Third of all, if I continue the way I'm going, just scraping through again, as I am now, second to last, sooner or later, and probably sooner, Lance, Lauren, Gideon, Katya—one of them will knock me out."

The voice was curious, still annoyed. "Then what are you doing?"

I concentrated and brought up my attribute scores on the HUD. My current scores displayed:

Combat Skills:

* Beam: 1.0

* Cut: 0.0

* Power: 0.0

* Shield: 0.3

* Agility: 0.0

Passive Skills:

* Sight: 1.0

* Scent: 1.2

* Hearing: 0.0

* Spectra: 0.0

* Strength: 0.0

"I'm focusing on what really matters," I said. This had been on my mind from the moment I told Lauren to go back without me.

The voice giggled. I hated that giggle. It didn’t belong on a being like this. It said, "You think you can level up enough to secure your place?"

"I have to," I replied. "If I don’t, I won’t just lose this competition—I’ll lose everything. I need to leverage these moments, these quiet times, to build my attributes. The one thing I’ve exceeded at is gaining attributes. That's my best chance."

The voice considered my words, the curiosity evident. "You're an interesting one, Tiberius. I knew you were, from the first moment."

"I don't have the luxury of panic," I replied, watching water droplets slide off a leaf into the river, each ripple seen in perfect distcinction from its fellows. "I've seen what panic does. My father’s been living on the edge of it for years, hiding it behind whiskey and wealth.”

The voice said, "Are you going to tell me what you're doing next?"

I stared at the display on the HUD. I answered voice absently, my mind elsewhere. I said, "I’ll do better than tell you what I’m doing… I’ll show you…"