The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Classes, lunch - chicken again - and quiet mumbling, classes. The group of people that sat with her on breaks walked with her to the door, and from there most of them broke off. Alice walked out with her, saying something about her parents that Lura didn't quite catch. She mostly ignored Alice's babbling anyway, at least until she said something that couldn't just be answered with "uh huh."

"Where do you live again?"

Lura blinked and pointed. "Down that way. Earson."

"We can share a shuttle then." Alice hurried toward the stops, and Lura smiled a bit despite herself. There was something innocently pleasant about Alice. In a world of quiet calm, she always tended more toward cheerful- a bubbly personality shining through.

Up ahead, Alice had flagged down a driver. The weather had abandoned deceptive and was now simply cold; the wind was beating her hair against the sides of her face. Seeing her again, Lura remembered that Alice never went home on her own. Usually an older sister came and got her. Everyone assumed it was because of oversuspicious parents, but no one had ever asked.

Lura suddenly realized how little she knew about the girl stomping her feet by the shuttle.

It was strange, though, because it wasn't strange. She was close with Valsee, but on further thought could not think of another close friend she had. That she had ever had. The people at school were nice to her, and to each other, but they didn't hang out outside of school. It had been months before they had figured out that one of the girl's mother had died, and aside from the expected condolences, no one ever mentioned it.

They settled into the shuttle, side by side. It wasn't one of the free ones, either. It had comfortable seats, heating that worked, a driver that smiled in the rearview mirror before starting off. Her parents would never shell out the cash for that, whether it was cheap or not.

Alice was still rubbing her hands together. "I need new gloves," she admitted.

"What happened to your other ones?" Just a few weeks ago, Alice had come in with a new pair of soft mittens. They'd been nice enough to notice, prompting several small glances from the girls nearby.

"I guess I lost them. I thought I put them with my stuff, but I must've left them on a shuttle or something." She blew air into her palms. "My parents are making me wait until they get new clothes credits to get some more. To teach me a lesson or something," she said, and shrugged.

The conversation faded away then, and they both looked out the windows. The driver took his cue and turned on soft music to fill the silence.

Despite her earlier thoughts, it occurred to Lura that there was probably a reason people weren't close anymore. They used to be; she was sure of that. But imagining the complexities of navigating so many emotional relationships made her head hurt. No, this was better.

She looked out the window and watched the buildings go by.

Eventually, they started passing the apartment units that filled so much of the cities these days. The units were government owned. They were what you got when you worked for the city, or when you didn't have any money, although in most cases that was basically the same thing.

In the past, when they were first being built, when some were still privately owned, they had had reasonable numbering systems. The numbers reset from block to block, and in the biggest ones climbed well into the hundreds.

Now the city's units were standardized, and the numbers were replaced with five or six digit ids. She had heard that soon they were going to have to start using seven.

Lura could remember her mother telling her to practice counting as they passed the buildings, and them over-emphasizing every syllable: "eighteen thousand six hundred twenty THREE."

She could also remember the day when she'd tried to start their chant, and her mother had snapped at her to shut up.

She watched the units go by now.

427 851, 427 318, 427 912, 427 656, 427 892, 427 759...

The shuttle slowed down and stopped outside 428 919.

"Bye, Lura!" Alice said, already halfway out. "I covered you too. Have a good weekend!" She turned and rushed up the pathway to the door of the apartment, and the driver pulled back onto the road. Lura turned around to watch her longer, bewildered. There was no way that Alice lived in the units. Her parents could afford better than that.

Not to mention, it made Alice wanting to share a shuttle even stranger. This was one of the most roundabout ways to reach her house, and surely it was more expensive.

Alice disappeared inside a door. Lura turned back around.

It was none of her business, either way. Besides, something more important was bothering her. She just couldn't pinpoint what it was. Her band vibrated and she made a conscious effort to slow her breathing. Too late, though. That was going to show up.

Her anxieties peaked when the shuttle pulled up to her house. It wasn't that late yet, but the lights were on inside. A car was parked on the driveway. One of the wilting flowers by the door had been completely trampled by a passing foot.

Her parents were home early.