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the doorknob and it opened. Niri gestured for Annette to enter first. Annette stood there in shock, she was about to enter the former home of one of her biggest heroes.   She couldn’t remember how to tell her feet to move forward.
    “Well, come on girl, I’m letting you stay,” The voice grumbled, “Temporarily!”
    Annette shoved herself across the threshold and was rapidly disappointed to see that the room didn’t look much different than the one at her foster parent’s house. There was a twin   bed set into a niche in the wall opposite the door, a wardrobe door built into the wall at the foot of the bed, a media screen centered in the wall to the right with a long desk under it. A bathroom door opened in the left-hand wall. Actually the room was smaller than Annette’s old room. For the first time since Niri showed up on her couch, Annette began to think this really was happening and wasn’t a dream. “It’s so small,” she whispered practically under her breath.
    “But, spunky!” The voice chimed in from speakers all around the room.
    Niri laughed, “Room, you know you could ask to be downloaded into an android body.”
    “Pshaw! Then I wouldn’t know what to do with myself! Besides, I can’t leave Corrine’s place all undefended from that twit!” The voice replied.
    Niri nodded, “Well, this is Annette, please take care of her.”
    “Do I have to feed her? Water her? Please tell me she is litter box trained!” The voice asked.
    Annette’s eyes opened wide, Corrine’s room was making fun of her! She didn’t know what to do, so she let her mouth go, “I’m housebroken, if you please! And, if it’s so horribly inconvenient for you, I do know where the cafeteria is to feed and water myself!”
    “Hmm, so I’m not the only one that’s small but spunky! I don’t think there will be a problem here   Ms. Everett! You may go.”
    Niri smiled, patted Annette on the back, and left. Annette stood in the middle of the room for a while. She couldn’t decide whether she was awake or not. Here she was alone in Corrine Dayton’s old room, she might have heard her foster parents’ minds earlier and shock beyond the other shocks, she might even get to be a factor after all. If this was a dream, she was going to go with it!
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    Yllera tossed another cd into the shimmering event horizon of her stasis loop. Then dropped four on her mattress. She’d already promised them to her roommates. She glanced at her shelves. All that remained there were the required textbooks the bookstore wouldn’t buy back. She would donate them to the book exchange shelf downstairs, maybe they’d save someone else the expense next semester.   Her closet was bare of all but the clothes her roommates had asked for.   Yllera glanced around the room, essentially she was packed. She reached over and un-clamped the loop from its hover module and disengaged the clasp. The shimmering puddle-like event horizon collapsed and she tucked it into the appropriate pocket of her factor pack. Then she pressed the button on the back of the hover module to disengage the mechanism and retract the supporting arm. It joined the loop in the pocket which she zipped closed.
    Yllera gathered the books up in her arms and unlocked her room. On her way out the door she felt light headed. She leaned against the door jamb for a moment, and the feeling passed. It was probably just nerves over the recall to Sanctuary. Yllera stepped out into the common study room she shared with her three other roommates. They all looked up at her she smiled back at them. “Have at it, I’m packed!”
    “Aren’t you taking anything?” Heather asked eyeing the small knapsack Yllera used for a factor kit-pack. Heather was an ex-cheerleader who’d had the good sense not to pledge a sorority, deciding to get educated not inebriated.
      Yllera thought briefly about telling her friends that she’d packed what she wanted in the extra dimensional