"So I've worked out a system with our rooms," Camila announced to the rest of us.

   Rav, Dorian, Cami, Talise and I were currently converging in the only room we had booked for now in Sunshine Haven, the motel in the StirWall District that Tali's friend recommended.

   It was actually not a bad place. Aside from the fact that the two-story structure needed a fresh coat of paint to brighten the pale yellow colour it had assumed with age and some dusting here and there, the building seemed to be in good shape.

   While Camila and I had waited for Dorian and Rav to book the room upon our arrival and for Tali to come over from my house with my stuff she'd packed, I got a chance to survey the new environment.

   There was a medium-sized dining room on the ground floor that looked presentable enough to accommodate guests. Depending on the kind of booking one made, he or she had access to a breakfast buffet, lunch and/or dinner, I presumed. The laundry room could be found in one of the corners of the motel. There was also free WiFi.

   The room we were currently in was also okay. Its blue painted walls and rubber carpeted floor looked relatively recent. A medium-sized bed was situated at the centre of the room with a desk that carried a lamp beside it. The room also had a big enough closet against the wall around the right corner. The left corner had a door I was sure led to the bathroom and a fairly wide couch filled up the room's third corner.

"This may seem like it's from a pessimistic-inspired stand point," Camila carried on, "but you'll thank me later. I suggest our rooms be as separated from one another as much as they can be, but still at an adequate hearing range. Different floors, if possible. If the Yunies were to barge in here today, they wouldn't be able to get to all of us if we stayed far apart. Any commotion will alert the others to take off and relocate."

"Sounds good to me," Rav responded. "I'll take this room then. I've always been a first floor person anyway."

   Of course. Rav was the only one on Planet Earth who could declare himself to be a first floor person with a straight face.

"And I got a glimpse of some rooms on the ground floor on our way up that I think I'd like," Cami said.

"I'll pick the east wing area of the top floor. It seems pretty secluded." Dorian chipped in.

"What are you thinking, Beth?" Talise turned toward me. "Top or ground?"

"Um, about that," I frowned at the expression that suddenly glazed Camila's features as she spoke.

"Rav, Dorian and I are not really in the best place financially. As of now, we're relying on one credit card after someone thought it would be a great idea to invest in— what was it again, Rav? Remind me. No, you know what, remind all of us!"

"Hey, I was only trying to win more money for us!" he held up defensive hands with a guarded look.

"Money that hasn't come through." She scowled.

"Yet."

"It's okay, guys," I said with a shrug. "It's not like I was expecting you to pay for my room or anything. I've got my own money and the rooms aren't even expensive. I'll be okay."

"That's good to know," Camila replied. "But we really aren't okay. So much so that we need a little financial help."

"And by a little, we mean all your money." Rav had the nerve to smile after he remarked.

"What?!" Tali and I snapped in unison.

"Hear me out," Cami said. "It's not that we have no money or anything, but we have a better chance of surviving if we gathered everything we had."

"So how will this affect my living situation?"

"Since you are currently, our, well, biggest contributor, the least the rest of us could do is keep our doors open to you."

"What does that mean?" Tali queried, face scrunched in confusion.

"It means," Camila focused on her thumbs as she toyed with them. "Beth gets to sleep with all of us."

   My face contorted to reveal the confusion she just stirred up in me. Sleep with all of them.

   What did that even mean?

"Get your mind out of the gutter." Rav cast a smug look toward me.

"I wasn't—" I paused to palm my distraught face. "You know what? Never mind. How on earth am I supposed to share a room with all of you?"

"You can leave your stuff in my room," Cami told me. "And you'll spend each night with us in a regular sequence."

"That's a terrible idea." I scoffed. "Are you even listening to yourself?"

"No, what's terrible is you having a room for yourself now and having us all as roommates in the next few weeks when we get kicked out for being unable to pay," she replied.

"And why do I have to sleep with—next to everyone else? What's wrong with just your room, Camila?"

"Wow, Beth," Rav retorted with an eye roll. "Because Dorian and I are guys? Double standards, much?"

"What? No!"

   Okay, maybe.

   But would anyone really be comfortable sleeping in a room with a loud, sloppy, drunk kisser like Rav? And with Dorian...I just didn't want to, okay?!

"It's not like we have to share a bed or anything," Dorian spoke out for the first time. "So what's the problem?"

   Coming from the ever secretive, lying sneak. That was rich.

   Wait... maybe this was the perfect opening I needed. Sleeping with Dorian gave me a better chance to find out the mind-boggling versions of him that he constantly goes to many lengths to hide by lying. I could finally confront Dorian with solid proof he couldn't deny or downplay.

   This suddenly didn't sound so bad.

"You know what, Rav? You're right." I nodded in agreement. "That was shallow of me, I'm sorry."

"Great!" Camila clapped to silence Rav's incoming response. "You'll be with me tonight."

"And I'll be all yours tomorrow," he said anyway, making it a point to wiggle his eyebrows and throw a not-so-subtle wink my way.

   That didn't trigger goosebumps of disgust all over my skin at all.

"Can we focus on our fake profile for my application for Visitation Day now so we can submit it already?" Talise turned to Camila. "I want to get home as soon as I can so that I can track Zavlon's system and act fast when the algorithm selects the malware infused file."

"Yeah, of course. Let me just get my laptop and show you guys what I've been working on so far."

   As Rav and Tali helped Cami search through her packed stuff for her laptop, I turned to Dorian.

"Hey."

"Hi." I took his neutral tone to be a good sign.

   Maybe I won't have to use the sleeping arrangements as a means of prying into his private life of lies after all. Maybe he could at least tell me something about what happened on the roof with the explosive camera. I decided to go for it.

"You seem better now," I said. "No ashy hands or anything."

Well, I couldn't just dive headfirst into my "Why the lie about the camera close to your face?" and "What happened to you after the explosion?" questions now, could I? I had to show a bit of compassion at least.

"That's because I am." Same tone.

"Good to know." I nodded. "Now we talk about what happened on the roof, right—"

"Yeah, good," he didn't give me a chance to finish, rather using my previous statement against me.

   It didn't take much to read into how dismissive that sounded.

   Jerk.

   Guess we were back to square one. What he didn't know was that he'd just made my urge to uncover his secret truths a whole lot stronger.

   Ignoring the empty look he shot my way, I walked over to my bag and retrieved the comic book I'd packed earlier in the morning. I could feel the same pair of eyes on me as I took a seat on the only couch in the room. Flipping through the comic, I could only hope to be so engrossed in the pages that my thoughts would be relieved from Dorian's stupid face etched within them.

"Beth, come on," Tali said. "Camila says she's almost done with the profile."

   I tried to ignore the frustration that arose with having to set down my book and join everyone else.

   Soon, we were all gathered around the little desk that came with the room with eyes fixed on Camila's papers splayed out on the table.

"After going through the records of previous visitors that Zavlon had posted on its website, it came to me that the algorithm was not as unbiased as we thought. Far from it actually," Camila stated, while sorting out the papers. "There's a pattern with the visitors I've looked into so far. It seems to have evolved over the years."

"So what's the current pattern?" Rav asked.

"It seems as though Zavlon Academia has finally hopped on the diversity train." Cami responded.

"The most recent visitors so far all screamed, 'white guilt', 'white guilt', 'white guilt'."

   I fixed my stare on Camila's handwriting on the papers. She was right. Her notes revealed not just the names of the visitors of the past but also their ages, occupation and races. The number of Caucasians was overlapped by a staggering amount of black people, Latinx, Jewish, Asians, you name it.

   I noticed how in each selection for the week, there was always the inclusion of at least one or two students from high schools and colleges in the Classic Suburb districts.

   And I understood why perfectly.

   I guess Zavlon Academia began with baby steps toward diversity for a while through its Visitors before eventually taking the big leap, also known as yours truly. An underprivileged, dark skinned female living in one of the most impoverished districts in the state was just whom they needed to prove how 'woke' they were.

"Talise," I said. "You don't have to do this, you know. We can still make time to figure out something else."

   If anyone knew how it felt to be treated like a charity case at this very moment, it was me. I couldn't predict how she was going to be treated for her Native American status, the fact that she lived in Ridgeton and attended Ridgeton High, but I knew I didn't want her to find out.

   The thought of a fellow minority in areas beyond race, especially one I loved, going through the similar treatment I'd faced didn't sound like such a good idea anymore.

   The look Talise directed toward me was proof that she not only knew, but understood where I was coming from in what I said. She gave a smile that the others could have easily missed.

   As much as I didn't want to, I understood that smile to mean only one thing; that I didn't have to worry. That in this situation, it was actually worth it.

   I sighed. This wasn't right.

   But she wasn't wrong.

"Why don't you all back up so that I can give you the copies of our false profile?" Camila, still seated in the desk, looked over her shoulder to shoot us all a frown, proceeding to complain about how stuffy this room already was.

   She waited until we departed from the desk and found our respective positions around the room to hand over her copies. The various areas of where we were standing/sitting in the room slipped into silence as we all skimmed through the page for the identity that was going to get us— well, Talise —into Zavlon Academia.

A/N: Thank you all so much for your support! Please take time to vote and comment your thoughts!

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