"It only works with AGILITY, really."

I was back in the suit. The rush of its power was becoming something I could live without less and less. Putting it on again, Baltizar's words about how the suit was as much a prison as it was a tool, I understood better. Each time the suit returned to me, I appreciated better the way I had missed it. How would I enjoy the world around me that was devoid of the information the suit fed me? My skin was more sensitive, my hearing more acute, my sight more detailed. And my power. How could I spend the rest of my short life moving myself around with my pathetic human muscles after tasting this?

"What?" I said. It was the voice that had spoken to me.

It said, "Whatever game you played to tweak your stats. I don't want you to go getting any wrong ideas. You can't sit around playing imagination games and expect to see POWER or CUT bounce on up."

I understood what it was talking about. I felt my face shift beneath the helm, my eyebrows rising in anticipation. I called up the HUD and there it was, plain as day, AGILITY 1.0.

I said, "I just added 0.6 to AGILITY... By the Oracle..."

The voice seemed put out for some reason I couldn't explain. It said, "Like I said, that won't work with the other attributes, and it won't work with AGILITY beyond the first level. You've noticed, haven't you kiddo, how different attributes flex differently? The BEAM involves flexing a muscle outside yourself, pushing something up the blade. SHIELD is something you feel in your skin, the skin you share with the suit. POWER is in your bones. But it's not really, it's the suits fields running through you. AGILITY is about integration with the suit, about lining all those delicious little synapses of yours up so they speak the same language as the suit. Part of that, the first part of it, is mostly in your brain, not the suit. The first level of AGILITY can be increased without wearing the suit, but that's it. Not that I can ever recall seeing someone push it all the way to 1.0 that way, but there's a first time for everything."

"What's got your goat?" I asked.

The voice said, "What's got my... Nothing's got my fucking goat, shithead. Are we going to get focused on the job at hand here? That white robe is going to say something useful sooner or later, we should probably be listening."

Mario was indeed speaking, waxing on and on about very little to the crowd. The crowd seemed to be paying as much attention as I was.

I said, "Why didn't you tell me I could flex AGILITY outside of the suit."

The voice laughed, a little dryly, maybe a little embarrassed. "You know, honestly... I forgot."

"You forgot?"

The voice was more abrupt this time. "Hey, I got my own shit going on."

While we spoke, my eyes had been taking in the vast structure that had been erected on the arena floor. The tower was an impossibility. Something like this could not conceivably have been constructed in so short a time. Then again, with Order raised in the arena for construction, miracles were possible.

The thin soared upwards. It was a colossus, I tried to estimate its height and gave up. It was incalculable. It was broken into, what a quick count told me, was ten sections. Each section was slightly narrower than the last so that the tower grew thinner and lighter in tiers as it rose up and up. Each tier seemed to have been equipped with its own challenge. Some of the levels seemed challenging, like a sheer flat surface with nothing but scantily arranged jutting pipes for handholds. Some of the tiers seemed downright terrifying. From here I could see the demonic forms of fiends scurrying unnaturally around on the outer surface, constrained to their own level somehow. Bursts of blue flame exploded at interval at a point further up.

My mind reeled as I imagined what other nightmares would be waiting.

I swallowed hard. My left wrist throbbed dully beneath the armor of my suit. Though it had been treated, the pain lingered. I flexed my fingers, willing them to move smoothly. AGILITY was a boon that would serve me well here, but my left hand would be a hindrance to balance what I had gained.

The others were arranged in a line for the cheering crowd. The excitement was high. This was a spectacle of a contest and one that would provide a terrific view for the spectators. Not even Lance seemed to be taking this challenge lightly, I could see the set of his jaw. He was intimidated by the trial as much as any of us.

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Lauren and Katya stood alongside each other. Their heads were slightly tipped toward each other and I could see their lips moving. A friendship had sprung up there faster than I imagined. I had to wonder, was it me against two parties? Gideon and Lance had allied before, Lauren and Katya seemed united now. I wondered what our time together would mean if we were in conflict. What would it mean to them? What should it mean to me?

Mario was blabbing away, his voice amplified to a booming level that filled the arena. I tried to keep one ear on what he was saying, but my main focus was on bringing up the menus on my HUD. I needed to examine my status and flex my attributes, promoting growth as urgently as possible.

I quickly reviewed my attributes:

* BEAM: 1.7

* SHIELD: 2.2

* POWER: 0.1

* CUT: 2.0

* AGILITY: 1.0

The voice arose, its tone amused and jaded, teasing, patronizing. "You're getting places, Tiberius. Lance still has a lead on you in some attributes, but that lead is entirely due to his free day with the suit. You're closing the gap very handily... I see you were flexing the BEAM during the last day's contest. I hadn't even noticed. That could be an especially valuable power to employ today. And I have a feeling that you are the only contestant with a full level of AGILITY, which should give you a huge advantage over the others."

I barely whispered, "Yeah, but my bum left hand will more than negate that. What am I supposed to do? I can't climb well with my left hand, and I can't fight well with it. I either hold my sword in my left hand and fight like a duck, or I keep my left hand free for climbing and probably fall and break my bones."

The voice said, "AGILITY can more than make up for that if you develop it further."

I hissed, "I've got two hours! You think I can raise it to level 2 in that time?" My voice rose slightly in volume. I had to calm myself to lower it again.

The voice said, "You know, in the time before The Fall, there was a man, sort of a merchant like your father, who used to say, 'Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.'"

I rolled my eyes. Then the voice exclaimed, more genuinely than I was used to hearing it, "What's this? Oh my, Tiberius, you raised POWER from 0.0 to 0.1. You've been a very impressive creature throughout this exciting little affair, but I never expected such, even from you... I wonder... Could you achieve a level in POWER before The Choosing is completed? Hardly..."

I said, "I was flexing it while running the corridors the last day. What does it do?"

The voice said, "Your tutors won't have wasted your time telling you about POWER. It's not reasonable for a contestant to invest attention in it. It's too hard to level up."

Annoyed at the entity's ignoring my question and entertaining itself with its musings, I said, "What does it do?"

The voice said, "It's a root attribute that governs your ability to focus the suit's inherent ability to alter the fields."

I said, "Like the Footfield?"

The voice said, "The Footfield is a very crude expression of the suit's ability to manipulate order. We don't have time now, I suppose, but if you left the COMBAT attributes menu and inspected UNIQUE, you might find things in there that become available once POWER levels."

I gritted my teeth. "You still haven't told me what POWER does."

The suit said, "It doesn't matter for now, but if you can, flex at it while you climb the tower. If you can reach 1.0 in POWER, then the competition essentially becomes yours."

I paused, Mario still blabbing, the crowd still cheering. He was gesticulating and parading, waxing on with a sermon. Once he started on the rules of the competition, I would need to listen more closely. "I can hardly focus on POWER when you've already told me to try and increase AGILITY and BEAM."

The voice said, "Oh, they're all good. Does it matter, really, as long as you're increasing something?"

I snarled, less quietly than I should, "Of course it matters! Today's challenge has specific requirements. Look what's in front of us! The Tower of Babel must be 200 feet high!"

The voice said distractedly, "312 feet high, actually. The last 12 feet are the parts above the painted line."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves

I noticed the crowd hushing slightly. I marveled at the way the suit fed my senses; it was like it piped the information past my ears directly to my auditory nerves. I could almost reach out and hear the breaths of individual spectators if I wanted to. Mario had raised his hands. For a terrible moment, I thought he was about to drop the flag and start the race, that in my distraction, I had managed to miss his description of the rules. But even as I watched, he boomed, "And now, dear citizens of Boston, children of the Oracle, we move to our explanation of the specifics."

The crowd hushed, fairly obediently. There were still plenty of people cheering, talking. They were fatigued by Mario's rambling; they wanted action and blood, victory and defeat. But for now, most of them were silent, understanding the rules of the next contest would heighten their excitement, enrich their drunken chatter during the evening's festivities.

Mario began to speak.