"You won't be able to if it's not your quest! But you can all go together," says the little one, "we did."

"Oh, that's quite lovely, thank you!"

She grabs at the sides of her shirt nervously, as though reluctant to reach for the key.

There's another shimmer.

Jane takes the key, and unlocks the book.

The book opens. There is an illustration of a trowel, and some words that start with "ഈ അന്വേഷണത്തിന് രണ്ട് സെറ്റ് ആളുകൾ ആവശ്യമാണ്." and go on like that. Sam turns the book so she can frown at it and puzzle it out. Eventually she says, "It says you need two sets of people, before you can take the trowel and go on your quest, and then you will... destroy the... Unwritten Book... and the world will be saved?"

"Two sets? Are we supposed to go too?"

"Uh, maybe? It's not like I can take Malayalam in school..."

-huh. The 'Unwritten Book'. That sounds like an actual clue, if it's not just BS wrapped in a convincing package.

"How old did you say you were?"

"Our body's eleven and Sam is fifteen."

"Nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Jane. The body's around 64 but I'm 50. What's your name?"

"Palisade, but we all have to look like Emmy in public."

"You can control it? Sweet. We got the upgrade when we got our other powers, so it just matches whoever's up front. Sam, are you alright with me taking Palisade and the rest of- them- on a quest?"

Sam winces. "I probably shouldn't be, but their last one turned out fine? How bad an end of the world are we talking here?"

"If the eye doesn't look at you, you just have to avoid the rioters. I haven't even heard of this 'Unwritten Book', though, so it could get worse."

"If the eye doesn't look at you?"

"Things it looks at disappear. I don't know where they go. Don't think anyone else does, either."

"...that's bad. How do you avoid it looking at you?"

"By staying indoors. And having good luck. I spent nine minutes out in the open, and I was fine. It doesn't get rid of buildings. People, animals, cars...nothing bigger than that, yet. We're an hour into this. I can't really promise you this is a good idea."

"It does sound pretty scary. Maybe the quest will send us places to get things we need? Oh! We could bring umbrellas?"

"...sure, that sounds great."

Hopefully, the quest involves hopping around to find more resources than an adorable eleven year old.

"Why don't we find some umbrellas?"

Jane offers Palisade her hand.

"Sam can I have twenty dollars for umbrellas," says Palisade.

Sam locates twenty dollars in fives and singles and a Sacagawea dollar and hands them over and Palisdae trots across the street to a CVS, which does have umbrellas. She doesn't take Jane's hand.

Smart kid. Jane retracts the hand smoothly. Hammerhead is already getting pre-emptively mad on The Girl's behalf, but she thinks the rest of them should can it if they don't want to take a turn.

"It works on clothes, so coats won't help, but I haven't seen it delete anyone with a hat yet. It might not even work on everyone in here. Some of us have superpowers."

"What kind of superpowers? When I'm not looking like Emmy I can fly and Clair can breathe underwater and Zix has some weird senses he's still figuring out."

"Most of them have one- at least the ones who front. Don't know about the ones who stay further down. Flying, throwing fireballs, telekinesis...there are 64 of us in here. You?"

"Wow, we only have five." Umbrellas. Four of them. Sam is waiting outside the store.

"Hammerhead, Penny, and Baby Doll are the ones that front most, besides me, but you should watch out for Karen and Dr. Harrison. Karen is the only blonde, and Dr. Harrison has a white streak in her hair and blue eyes. They're bad news."

"Wow, okay. We're very easy to tell apart when we're not pretending to be Emmy, I'm a griffin and Clair's a mermaid and Zix is a space alien. Dawn doesn't front but she's an angel."

"They look different inside, but up here, everyone just changes how the body looks. We got the superpowers after we already existed, so everyone was used to making it work with Kay. I don't even look different- I was always the primary, since the last one retired. Hey, Sam," she adds as an afterthought.