Ender took both children to work with him in the morning, because what else could he do? At least Fixer-Uppers would give both of them something to do - especially for Valentine, who seemed to get bored easily with normal children's games. Ender supposed he and his sister had never been good at that, either. (Peter-proof buildings didn't count, for obvious reasons.)

Though Peter had sure loved his buggers and astronauts.

"So after this, will we just disappear?" Olhado wanted to know. He was curled up in one of the chairs. "I still don't understand portals."

"I don't think anyone understands anything that happens on this island, Olhado," Ender said, sighing. "You come, you go, and we all assume you return to the exact same worlds you came from. Some of you come back, so I guess it's not too terrible an assumption to make."

"I wonder if it's random chance," Valentine contributed, glancing at Ender's back. "I don't think it is. I think we might be here for a reason."

Ender jammed a hand into the innards of the device he was working on. Emotional blackmail? he wanted to offer, sardonically. "Or maybe everything just happens and we sort it out afterwards," he said.

And so on it went, at least until Olhado decided to take a dump of the video files he'd racked up in his eyes and-- Well. This weekend was not shaping up to be one good for Ender's myriad issues.

[[ open! Warning: some disturbing imagery in the comments. ]]