By the time late afternoon began giving way to evening, the beach house was filling up again.
The people who had gone into town returned first, carrying bags of snacks, drinks, and various things that had apparently become essential sometime between leaving the house and getting back to it. Not long after, the beach group came wandering up from the shore, sun-warmed and sandy, adding their own collection of towels and beach gear to the growing mess around the house.
For a while, everyone simply drifted around, comparing what they'd bought, talking over the afternoon, and figuring out what they wanted to do with the rest of the evening.
Then, Maya climbed onto the living room couch and clapped her hands together for attention.
"Okay! Announcement!"
A few conversations died down. Others didn't. Maya whistled loudly this time.
Eventually, enough people were looking at her that she nodded in satisfaction.
"We are taking a break."
Ethan frowned. "From what?"
"From Magnus's System. Effective immediately: no more System talk tonight. No powers. No quests. No menus. No experiments. We are on Spring Break, and Spring Break means we act like Spring Break."
That got everyone's attention.
"Seconded," Nicole said with a shrug.
"Absolutely," Camila agreed.
"I did not agree to this," Ethan said immediately. "We have so much left to test. Fortuitous Alignment alone—"
"Ethan." Maya pointed at him. "No!"
"Oh, come on!" He gestured vaguely at Magnus. "He's a real-life superhero."
Magnus blinked.
Ethan continued before anyone could interrupt. "Like, actually. He has superpowers. We know they work. We've seen them work. And we're just going to decide we're not interested in that for a while?"
"You're making it sound like we're putting Magnus in a box," Alex said.
"No, I'm saying this is probably the coolest thing that's ever happened to any of us." He looked around the room. "Aaron, help me out here, bro!"
"Actually, I'm with Maya." Aaron shrugged.
Ethan gasped. "Traitor!"
"It's not betrayal, it's work-life balance." Aaron shook his head, amused. "I'm not saying we shouldn't be interested. I'm saying taking a break could actually be good for us. We've all been thinking about this nonstop. Sometimes you need to step away from a problem for a while. Let your brain relax, and you come back to it with a different perspective. You might notice something you weren't seeing because you were too close to it." He adjusted his glasses. "There's actual research suggesting stepping away from a problem improves the eventual solution. The brain needs downtime to make new connections."
"He's using science to be lazy!" Ethan pointed at him, unconvinced. "I respect it, but I still don't like it."
"Well, that's my reason anyway." Aaron shrugged. "But I suspect most of these people just want an excuse to party."
"Exactly! We're all on the same page!" Maya clapped her hands together. "Democracy."
"You didn't actually ask anyone," Ethan pointed out.
"Representative democracy."
"That's not what that means."
"It's close enough."
Ethan sighed. "Fine. What are we doing then?"
Maya held up a hand. "Before that." She turned toward Magnus and Alex. "To restate the rules: No System talk tonight, especially from you two! I mean it."
Alex leaned back against her chair. "We've already wrapped up Jade's quest, so we don't have a deadline hanging over us right now."
"Yeah," Magnus agreed, raising both hands. "I'm… genuinely fine taking a night off."
Maya blinked. "Damn! You two worked fast."
Several people echoed this sentiment.
"Actually, this one is all thanks to Jade." Alex tilted her head in Jade's direction. "We were mostly just there for the ride."
Jade simply shrugged. "Figured we should get it out of the way. Easier to enjoy the rest of Spring Break in peace."
"Great! Anyway…" Maya said, hopping down from the couch. "Spring Break activities. I'm thinking games. Something with teams. Anyone?"
Camila looked toward the beach through the open doors. "Actually, I've got an idea."
That got several people looking at her.
"Three-legged race," she said. "On the beach. In the dark. This is clearly the best and only correct answer."
"That sounds like how several people are going to get injured," Rachel said.
"That's the fun part."
"I'm a pre-med student, so I want that on record before anyone gets hurt."
"Duly noted," Maya said. "And moving on!"
Magnus leaned toward Alex and whispered, "How does a three-legged race count as Spring Break partying?"
"Apparently we're at the age where crippling ourselves for entertainment qualifies."
"I thought that happened around forty or fifty. You know, midlife crisis and everything."
"Well, we all could be having our quarter-life crisis right now."
He thought about it, then apparently decided he wasn't going to figure this one out and just shrugged.
Miguel, meanwhile, was already moving toward the cabinet where the med kit was stored. Aaron turned a second later, planning to do the exact same thing, but then he saw Miguel and smiled faintly before turning back to the group.
***
Within minutes, everyone was heading toward the beach.
When they got there, Miguel and Aaron set up a phone stand, using the phone's flashlight to mark the finish line thirty yards away from the start line, then started the video recorder so they could check each pair's places later. Maya, meanwhile, was taking charge again.
"Okay! Pairing up. Couples pair with their significant other, obviously. Singles—" she pointed around, "—figure it out among yourselves. Chaos is allowed. Encouraged, even."
Everyone dissolved into loose negotiation. The couples didn't have a problem with Maya's suggestions — Rachel and Aaron paired instantly, as did Camila and Ethan, Carmen and Miguel, and Maya and Chloe. The singles sorted themselves with slightly more debate: Tori claimed Priya specifically so she could "keep an eye on her phone situation," Nicole and Jasmine paired with the shared energy of two people who found the whole exercise mildly ridiculous but were participating anyway, Valeria and Katie ended up together by process of elimination, and Jade was walking toward Sofia.
Alex looked around, glanced at Magnus, then:
"Sofia."
Sofia looked over. "What?"
"Team up with Magnus."
Everyone paused.
Sofia blinked. "Wait, what? Aren't you—"
"I'll pair with whoever's left," Alex said, waving a hand.
"Alex, no!" Maya's voice cut in as she pointed at Alex. "You agreed. No System talk tonight!"
"This isn't System talk, this is just…" Alex paused, visibly searching for a way to finish that sentence that wasn't System talk. "…optimal team composition."
Sofia looked between them. "Right, and this has nothing to do with you trying to create situations that help with his trust building with me?"
"That is extremely System talk," Maya said at the same time.
"It's strategic pairing based on complementary skill sets, that's just good—"
"Babe." Magnus squeezed her hand lightly. "You good?"
Alex exhaled. "Okay, fine. It's partially for the monthly quest, too. But I can multitask."
"Sure you can!" Sofia snorted. "It's honestly kind of sweet, in a deeply unhinged way."
"Thank you, I think."
"That said," Sofia added, already moving to stand beside Magnus, "I'm not opposed to actually being his partner. Purely because I think we'd win. Not for any other reason."
Magnus looked at her. "You sure?"
"I said what I said." She shrugged. "Now come on! Let's just figure out which leg we're sacrificing."
They tied themselves together while the other pairs did the same. There was a fair amount of arguing over whose leg should go where, followed by several increasingly questionable attempts at walking in sync before anyone had even started.
"Rules," Jade announced from one side of the line, after having paired with Alex. "First team to the flashlight wins. No sabotage of other teams. Falling doesn't disqualify you, but you have to get back up unassisted by anyone outside your pair."
"Also," Camila shouted, being the furthest out on the other side of the line. "No untying yourselves. No carrying your partner. No cheating."
"Define cheating," Maya called.
"If you have to ask, don't do whatever it is you're thinking about. That's probably cheating."
"Hey!" Maya protested, indignant.
"What's the prize?" Ethan called out.
"Pride," Jade said.
"That's not a prize."
"It's the only prize you're getting."
Ethan grumbled, then was pinched by Camila.
"Ready?" Jade called out.
Everyone shuffled into position.
"On three?" Camila called from the other side.
"On three," several people echoed back, already bracing.
Magnus glanced sideways at Sofia. "You have a strategy?"
"Obviously," Sofia said. "Step together on three, and every time I call 'in,' lean into each other instead of pulling apart, and completely disregard the concept of individual dignity."
"That's not really a strategy."
"It's the only one that works. Trust me."
"One. Two—"
"Three!"
The entire line lurched forward. For the first few seconds, nobody had anything resembling coordination. Camila and Ethan went down almost immediately in a tangle of limbs and laughter, taking Rachel and Aaron partially down with them in a chain reaction nobody quite understood afterward. Maya and Chloe took an early lead through what could only be described as suspiciously professional coordination. Nicole and Jasmine turned out surprisingly competitive for two people who were reluctantly participating. Valeria and Katie somehow remained upright without stumbling the whole race. Miguel and Carmen somehow ended up going sideways for a good portion of the time. Magnus and Sofia found an actual rhythm somewhere around the halfway mark.
"Oh," Magnus said. "We've got this."
"Don't jinx it."
They made it several more steps.
Sofia glanced around them, then at the finish line. "Maybe we should speed up."
"That sounds like a bad idea."
"Trust me!"
She sped up.
They both stumbled.
Sofia burst out laughing as they managed to stay upright by sheer luck. "See?"
"No!" He shook his head. "This is just luck."
Then they were moving forward again anyway.
In the end, they didn't win. Maya and Chloe crossed first, then Jasmine and Nicole took second. Magnus and Sofia did come in third, though. Which was already better than anything he'd ever expected.
"Not bad," Sofia said, still catching her breath.
"For a strategy that wasn't a strategy."
"It worked, didn't it?"
Behind them, several people had stopped trying, laying down on the sand and laughing at nothing in particular.
Magnus sat down on the sand and stared up at the evening sky — already turning dark, with the moon rising and full of stars he'd never really get this clearly back on campus — and thought, not for the first time this Spring Break, that moments like this were what made his post-System life worth living.