“What do you mean ‘change of plans’? We agreed that she was just going to pitch changing teams!” Jessica asked, though without getting loud or moving to somewhere where Emma was going to see them. While she was annoyed at that agreement not holding, Nathaniel and Jade had both proven to be… not trustworthy, exactly, but good-intentioned? So far, at least. She was reconsidering that position.

“All I know,” he said, “Is that she changed something. This–”

He tapped the table twice with one finger, then laid his hand flat. “Tells me that she changed the plan in a way that she needs to tell us about. Nothing else.”

“Why would you even have a signal for that?” Jessica asked, bewildered. Ari and Lex had ways of talking that were a little strange, but they tended to use things that were… less discrete, if equally meaningless to outsiders.

That got her a strange look, followed by a quick shake of the head. “It’s also what we use for ‘play off me, but don’t add too much’ as well. Well, that and another couple, to vary it. But it’s not like, a psychic bond or whatever. So we need to wait for her to get here.”

Jessica sighed. She really, really hated trusting the well-being of her friend to two people she barely knew, and who seemed at every turn to have a good laugh out of leading people around.

When Jade left the table she was sitting at and came in their direction, it was a relief. She’d just waved, a lopsided grin on her face and with a wave that was a bit strange, but not enough so as to be off-putting– like someone pretending at social convention for convenience.

By the fact that as soon as she was out of sight of Emma, her face changed from that grin to white as a sheet, that may not have been intentional.

As she approached the table, her left hand made a motion that was a little strange, a fist mostly opening while moving upwards then bouncing back and forth across the long axis.

Nathaniel seemed to know what that meant though. “How bad?”

Jade winced. “Depends on them.”

“Guess.”

“Nothing if he doesn’t push their north, only a little if he pushes north out and stops.”

“Assume that what Jess told us is true.”

Another wince, this one much more noticeable. “Less competition..?”

Nathaniel’s head nearly hit the table. He stayed like that for a moment while Jade sat down next to him. He sighed heavily before pulling his head back up. “You’re going to take responsibility for this.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, can I cut in an ask what’s going with my friend, or should I just tell her that I told you something?”

Both of their eyes went wide, but Jade was faster to speak. “No! No no no, that would be bad. Uh. Tomorrow, after they lose, it’ll be fine. Um. Probably necessary. But um…”

She stopped talking there, and her brother picked it up, staring at Jade with narrowed eyes. “Assuming that the bomb she meant was the obvious one–”

“Plus the competitiveness, ‘cause of what we saw from him.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Okay. If you were to tell her now, she’d probably end up siding with Doug. And given what you’ve told us about him so far, probably not a great outcome. So I’m going to trust that Jade didn’t cross any lines–”

“Did. Fairly minor, she won’t notice.”

“Really?”

“Loopgame.”

Nathaniel coughed out a laugh, shaking his head. “She probably won’t, then. And for your benefit, Jess, that’s just her saying that part of the setup was admitting it was a setup to get someone to think about it more. Can be bad if it’s something that someone’s unsure about and it goes badly, so we try not to do that.”

She was glaring at both of them, now. They were playing games with people, and one of those people was her… she supposed maybe former, now? Best friend. “Why would you even do it in the first place? That’s fucked up. And the fact that you have a plan for if it goes badly makes me wonder why exactly I’m putting up with you two instead of ending this whole mess.”

Jade grimaced slightly. “It wasn’t really the plan. Sorry. But when you told us about Doug… Nathan could’ve managed it without making a mess of things…”

“Three months minimum, with Jess’s help, six without it. Maybe seven for suspicion. Ending would be messy no matter what, a little less so with prep. Doug seems like the type to keep closer tabs than he’d admit to.”

Jade seemed to perk up slightly at that, jumping back to the topic. “But as for putting up with us, we’re… probably the best option, for now.”

It was painful to admit, but as much as they seemed like a couple of schemers, they were probably also right. She had a head for some things, could string together a bunch of unrelated pieces to build a structure she wanted, could pick out the best path on an uneven surface in a moment, but she couldn’t ever manage people’s emotions over anything resembling the longer term.

Obvious, in retrospect, given–

Jessica aborted that thought before it could get anywhere. Emma was different, with a different set of issues, but she still didn’t know if she really liked her teammates anymore.

It was one thing to see them being eccentric or too-mindful when it was in the context of a game, but when they applied it to real life…

“I still don’t like it. You’re probably right. But I hate it. And you’re going to tell me exactly what to expect tomorrow.”

They both looked uncomfortable at that, glancing at each other. What she now recognized as partial sign language mixed with a word here or there fired off, both of them ‘speaking’ at once.

Nathaniel was the one to turn to her. “Well. You should be close to the room when they start arguing. And we should… Not be there. Well, Jade should be nearby, visible and away from an exit. Aside from that… You’re probably going to field their north laner.”

She noticed he didn’t include himself, but she’d had enough of playing their games and figuring out what it was they were talking around by now. She grabbed everything she’d brought, standing up.

“I don’t know what the hell you two think is going to happen, and I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Don’t call me, but I’ll be here tomorrow. For her sake, not yours.”

She made an effort not to storm out on her way back to the venue, where her siblings were, but it was a near thing.