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press. Then I collapsed into the chair and turned toward my friends.
    My friends…
    I guess it had never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have friends here, although the intense competition among the Hunters for rankings had put me off at first. But now that I’d gotten things sorted out, I knew that there was a minority who took that competition way more seriously than our actual job, and then there were the rest of us. And the rest of us were not all that different from the Hunters at home.
    “Did you beat the storm in?” Trev asked as Dazzle spotted me, wormed her way over, and plunked herself down next to me on the overstuffed arm of my chair.
    “I was out with Archer and Knight, and we left before it showed over the horizon,” I said. “I checked: Knight’s in.”
    “Knight was the last one in, stubborn idiot,” said Dazzle, shaking her head. She’d let her pink hair out of the bun she usually kept it in, and it fell in untidy waves around her face. “I was just going on shift and got canceled. Good thing too; I was scheduled for the storm sewers. This thing wasn’t supposed to blow in until much, much later tonight, and we were only supposed to get the edge of it.”
    “It got stronger and faster and did a course change a couple of hours ago.” That was Regi, a tall, thin guy with a face like a bloodhound. “We’re in for a night. Probably longer. Oh, well, you can’t always predict what one of the big ones is going to do.”
    That…seemed odd. I’d never seen a storm do that back home. But no one else seemed to think this was out of the ordinary, so I let it slide without questions.
    “What about the people in Spillover?” I asked, looking at the others. Regi shrugged—not indifferently, just like I don’t know.
    “That’s what Knight was probably doing out so long,” Dazzle said finally. After the big Gazer Hunt that had ended so disastrously with the death of Ace’s brother, Paules, she’d warmed up to Mark. In fact, a lot of people had. “I bet he was passing on the warning and making sure they could get into some kind of shelter.”
    “At least when the storm’s over, we won’t have to worry about sweeping the storm sewers for a while,” Trev said as someone brought a tray full of drinks by and we all took one. I looked up at the person as I got mine, and realized with a start that not only did I not know her, but that she was wearing a uniform of a pale green tunic and matching pants. I smiled at her and she smiled back at me, after looking startled, and then took the now-empty tray and vanished into the crowd.
    That must have been one of the staff. It was the first time I had seen one of them, outside of encountering them in the Recreation Center. Everywhere else, except the Med Center and the Style Center, they were invisible. But before I could consider this further, more of the staff came sashaying through the crowd bearing huge round metal platters. Three of the platters got put down on the table in the midst of us, and as a delicious aroma wafted around us, I stared at what was on them in disbelief. The only time I had ever seen this food was in pre-Diseray vids. The legendary delicacy—pizza!
    Oh, we knew how to make it on the Mountain, but we never had the oven space or the fuel for the kind of hot fire needed to do so, and on top of that we lacked some of the ingredients. The others were not hesitating for a second. They were diving on the metal platters like they were starving, so I went for the one nearest me.
    Now, I was used to food down here being just a little disappointing compared to the stuff we ate at home—well, except for the food in the fancy places Josh had been taking me to. But this pizza…
    I felt my eyes widening, and then I closed them in pure pleasure. Before I knew it, the slice in my hand was gone, and I went back after another one immediately . Dazzle caught my eye as I grabbed that second piece, and grinned.
    “Oh. My. God,” I said, in answer