“Then our lives are ruined,” Emily said. Cement was supposed to be dangerous with blackmail and such. He could use what little information Handshake had gathered on her to make her work for him. Or maybe do worse things. Emily couldn’t imagine what kind of things, but she was certain they were horrid.

“Yeah, in that case, I say we fight them.”

Emily buried herself deeper into her chair. Could she?

“I think . . .” she began at last, “that we could maybe, um, try to take the drive back instead? Without having to, uh, fight?”

“Okay,” Teddy said.

“You’re okay with that idea?” Emily asked.

Teddy nodded and turned a page in her book. “Yeah, of course, Boss. It’s your idea, yeah?”

Emily nodded slowly. It was that. “We’ll need to be a bit stronger, I think,” she said.

Teddy perked up. “Are we going to spend some points?” she asked. “I don’t have any skills to spend my points on, though.”

“Ah,” Emily said. “You don’t?”

“Nope. Just my base skill. I’ve got two upgrade points, but nothing to use them on,” Teddy said. “Can’t wait to do something so incredible that I get a new trait for my bear power. I bet it will be something amazing. Like a nose able to smell capitalism or something.”

“Uh,” Emily added. “That sounds . . . nice.” She cleared her throat. “Status.”

She had the one point she could spend to unlock a secondary power . . . skill thing. And seeing as how she might need it soon . . .

Do you wish to spend a Skill Slot point on the Power: Sister Summoning?

“Yes,” Emily said.

New Skill unlocked!

Sisterportation has been added to your Power’s Skills!

Emily didn’t feel any different when the notifications left. Then again, gaining the power at first hadn’t felt strange either. “Status.”

That was a little different. Her Create Sister skill had ranked up and she now had a new skill . . . or maybe a trait beneath that. And the point she’d spent was now gone. “There’s a way to see what a skill does, right?” she asked Teddy. She vaguely recalled doing that for her own skills once.

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Just say ‘status,’ then the name of the skill.”

“Status . . . Sisterportation.”

Her opened status screen shifted over to the side and a new box appeared before her.

“Huh,” Emily said as she finished reading the description. “What does voice command mean?”