2nd Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

[endsthegame]

Ender woke up with his head cushioned on a pillow. His neck felt a little crooked. He must have slept badly last night; he couldn't remember what dreams he'd had. He sat up.

There was something heavy and metal stretched out against his leg. He picked it up. It looked a lot like a desk, but you had to push the sides up to see the screen, and touching the screen didn't do anything.

He pressed buttons for a while. He should probably get up and explore, but he couldn't see anywhere he wanted to go from here. The most important thing was that Peter wasn't here at all, and in the face of that, sitting quietly while he tried little patterns of code on the old computer seemed like a really nice way to spend his day.

He reached up to press his fingers against the comfortable weight of the monitor on his neck. It wasn't going to last.

[ ooopen. ]

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[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

And then about a dozen identical looking boys bounced into the room.

"HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! HI!" they all called out and the descended on the kitchen like a plague of locusts. "FOOOOOOOOOOD!"

[endsthegame]

Ender knew sometimes strange things happened. But there were a lot of him, and Ender found himself looking anyway. "I'm not sure if there's that much," he called after Jamie.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"Then we all have to go to the grocery store and get more!" one of the Jamies called out.

[endsthegame]

All those boys could make up their own playgroup. He wondered if that was lonely or not. Ender didn't know how to react, though, so he did as he always did and kept quiet. He did lower the top of the computer, though, and peered curiously at the kitchen. Would anyone pop out? What do they call themselves, he wondered. One and two and three, or did they just not think about names, like bees.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

And then a bunch of Jamies ran into the CR each with their own bowl of cereal.

"Hi!" One of the called out. "We're Jamie Madroxxeseseses."

[endsthegame]

"Hi," Ender replied, and folded his arms over his laptop. "Do you have any individual names?" They were like a pack, and that made the odds bad.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"Nope!" One of called out with a mouthful of cereal. "I'm Jamie. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he. And so is he."

[endsthegame]

"I'm not going to say hi to every one of you," Ender said.

He wasn't used to anyone being that friendly at him, let alone a whole pack of someone. He couldn't really think of anything special to say, but Jamie sounded friendly.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Watcha doin'?" a small blond girl dragging a fluffy pink teddy bear behind her asked.

[endsthegame]

"Programming this desk," Ender said. The girl looked familiar. He tilted his head to get a better look, pressing his hands to the top of his laptop. Oh, right.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Is it fun?" she asked diffidently as she hesitantly approached him.

[endsthegame]

"I'm pretty good at it," Ender said. Being good at things had kept Ender alive, had kept him smiling at his secret enemies, always inventing the methods that they used. He didn't know if that was fun, but he knew he was good at it.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Can I try?" she asked hesitantly. She didn't want to intrude.

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

"There's a lot of me," one of the Jamie's agreed. "Would you like some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs?"

[endsthegame]

Ender turned the laptop a little. No Peter, and no Valentine. He wondered if the people who listened in to his monitor every day were here, or if they'd just vanished, leaving it a dud.

What would happen if no one was listening?

"It's to make text dance across the screen," he said.

[endsthegame]

He wondered what it would be like to have so many of yourself. Did your brain spread out across all of them? Or was it just duplicated, leaving you with a thousand people who walked and talked like you, but learned other things, depending on where they went. What they did.

"Sure," he said. He was a little hungry.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She stopped clutching the bear with both hands and reached out hesitantly. Then, slowly, she pressed a key. Then snatched her hand back.

Then she leaned forward to see what had happened.

[endsthegame]

The letter 'l' appeared on the screen. The little typing mark blinked behind it.

"That's not even half a tag," he said. "Keep it between those." He pointed at the quote signs.

[momslilassassin]

Everything was so loud today. Ben didn't like loud.

He peered into the common room, blue eyes wide, and then made a beeline for the kitchen.

And stood there, looking up and chewing on his lower lip.

He hated being short.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"How?" she asked, staring intently and reaching out to poke another key experimentally.

[endsthegame]

Ender looked up from his desk again in time to watch Ben walk through. He studied the exit to the kitchen for a moment or two.

He should say something. He couldn't think of anything clever to say. "Hi," he said, to the kitchen.

[endsthegame]

"Use the arrow keys," he said, and pointed at the one pointing right.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She shifted directions and pushed the indicated key instead of the one she had been reaching for. "Oh!" she exclaimed.

[momslilassassin]

Ben gave him a little wave and went up on tiptoes to try to look for food.

That didn't help at all.

[endsthegame]

"The letter keys put letters on the screen," he said.

She didn't seem to know anything. That put him at an advantage. But he didn't mind if she learned.