"Sex!" a fifteen-year-old, thin, short, red-haired astigmatic girl exclaimed. 

A very long second passed. 

"Thank you!" came a shout from the other side of the crowd. 

Two more very long seconds passed, as the group came to terms with this. Then a few of them chuckled a bit, quietly, shyly, to themselves. Then a few more. They started giving each other looks and laughing a bit more out loud. 

"I've always wanted to shout that," the girl explained, a bit more quietly. 

"Yeah," confessed Edison, followed quickly by similar responses from a young man at his right. 

"Or just sorta launching into a stand-up routine," continued the young man.

"How about just running up and kissing a guy you think is cute?" a brown-haired giggle threw in. 

"Oh yeah, that one I think about /all/ the time," he replied. 

"You do, do you?" word-palindromed the brown-haired girl. 

"Oh, my, yes," he replied drily, "except I suppose it's usually cute /girls/."

"Ah, I see. That's good," she said, looking thoughtful. 

"I like to think so." 

"Do you?" 

"Oh yes. Do you?" 

She answered by crossing the room and kissing him, quite passionately, for about twenty seconds.

Edison and most of the others looked at them, and then tried not to look, and then tried not to look like they were looking at them, and then tried not to look like they were trying not to look at them.

"Now that's a good example," said the sarcastic young man calmly, who then faltered a bit and suddenly found he was having a hard time remembering how to breathe. "Wh-what's your name?" 

"M-melissa... uh, you...?" She was looking down, hiding her tightly shut eyes and blushing. 

"Um, it's Brad......um, I'm Brad......wouldn't you like to be a Brad too?" he offered weakly. 

She looked at him, still embarrassed. Gingerly he took her hand and shook it politely, and then they just stood there, looking at each other.

Edison didn't know what to think, but suddenly felt that he was either going to run home in two seconds or really really get to like these people. 

"Ahem, uhm, maybe we all oughta say who we are, okay?" began a young, strong man with a nervously reassuring look in his eyes. "I'm Kim, uh, I live in San Diego, California, where I got a girl and a college." 

There was a pause of looking around, saying "Hi Kim," and wondering who would be next to speak. 

The girl whose exclamation had started the conversation spoke with a grin. 

"I'm Ila, that's I L A, not E Y E, not Y, just Ila, like it sounds. Okay? Okay. Um, like, I'm good at these computer project thingies, and go to high school back in Oregon. And that's all. You." 

She pointed to Edison, who started uncomfortably: "Edison, like the lightbulb guy, yeah, and I go to a very boring school in upstate New York. And I'm bored. And ... I've never seen anything happen like that before... but what the hell, I like it." He grinned, almost comfortable now. 

"Yeah, me too," Brad spoke up. Melissa, at his right, just smiled a little shy smile at him and looked down. 

"Elaine, and that's all," spoke up a calmly sad-looking Asian young lady to Melissa's right, "and, ahem, if you two want to do anything else I promise I won't look." she slowly smiled. 

"Well, /I/ will. Hi, I'm Robert. Don't ask. That's my motto. You don't want to know and neither do I. That's my other one. Take it easy." 

"Melinda, I'm gonna go to 12th grade and I can't wait to get through it." spoke up a tall, independent-looking American Indian young woman. And the introductions continued.

Presently it was 4:50 and the rest of the group had finished introducing themselves. Everyone was preparing for the beginning of the first part of the game. The girl whom Edison had talked to, who had introduced herself quite hurriedly as Lora, walked out the door and followed the signs to the door marked "Ladies." It slid open and she walked in. The moment the door closed she noticed Melissa sitting on the counter next to the sink. 

"Hi, Lor," Melissa said quietly, breaking out of her thoughts. 

"What the hell did you think you were doing back there?" demanded her friend with an amazed smile. 

"Jeeze, I don't know! I /like/ him!"

"You just met him! He says three sentences and you French him," Lora exclaimed. 

"He's cute. He's funny. ...okay, so I was being silly."

"Very silly." 

"Listen, Lor, I wouldn't be calling /me/ silly if I was you."

Lora stalled for time by walking over to the sink and sitting next to Melissa. 

"Over there, talking in terms of the story with that guy you've never even seen before..."

"I've seen him before," she said quietly. 

"...you should know that it's bad manners to talk about the story like it is a story and about the plot like that. What did the authors tell us?? 'Never interrupt the flow of Edgewise with comments about the fictionality of the events...'"

"He brought it up."

"Come on, you didn't have to talk to him like that. So he messes it up a little; you could have ignored it. It makes the whole thing look less realistic, don'tcha remember all those lectures?" 

"Realistic? You call timetravelling games 'realistic'??" 

"It could happen and you know it. It's not the point anyway." 

"Okay, so I've been a little silly too. Happy?" demanded Lora with a smile. 

"Yes. Very. You?" Melissa giggled a little. 

"Yeah... me too..." she smiled and thought a little. "But not as much as you, I bet. /You/ got kissed." 

"I still can't believe I did that..."

"Yeah, me neither. Couple of rule-breakers, huh?" 

"Sure... listen, Lora," she turned to look at her friend seriously this time, "how come you're in this trip? I thought--" 

Two computer-synthesized bells sounded a five-minute warning. 

"We'd better get going," said Lora. 

"Uh-huh," replied Melissa, watching Lora disappear around the corner. She shrugged. The question of why Lora, who had been restricted from the Games because of her affiliation with Erkonn, was suddenly allowed to join them would have to wait. Knowing Lora, which Melissa had only been doing for a day now, she probably wasn't exactly allowed to do any such thing.