Soren almost couldn’t believe his eyes. Other Borrowers! They had barely begun their exploration of the apartment building and they found two others. This was amazing!

The trio looked at the faces of the two new Borrowers now that they were closer and their hip lamps were lowered. They certainly looked related. The oldest, a boy, had dark sandy blonde hair while the younger teen, a girl, had very light brown hair where it almost looked completely blonde. Both of them, however, had pale green eyes.

They glanced at one another with a slight nervousness before looking back to Soren, Dorian and Rey.

“Did you all just arrive?” asked the teenage boy. Rey, elated to see another Borrower and meet someone new, couldn’t help but step forward a few steps.

“Yeah, we did. Are you all residents here? How long have you been here? It’s really nice to meet you, I’m Rey. This is my brother, Dorian, and our oldest brother Soren,” said Rey with a big grin on his face.

In the back of his head, Soren was a little uneasy about sharing everything all at once. He moved forward supportively, but also to politely interrupt Rey. Soren stepped forward and clasped Rey’s shoulder with his hand. Rey glanced over at Soren and, seemingly picking up on his thoughts, fell quiet.

Soren smiled at his youngest brother before directing his attention back to the two new Borrower teens, who seemed to be relaxing in their presence.

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Soren. “I’m Soren. We didn’t catch your names.”

“I’m Atlas,” said the eldest Borrower teen. “This is my younger sister, Cali. We’ve lived here all our lives. Are you all migrating from nearby?”

Rey opened his mouth to respond when Soren squeezed his shoulder and, thinking fast, spoke up first.

“Something like that,” said Soren, giving a reassuring smile.

They exchanged a quick glance before lowering the lamp.

“Well,” said Atlas. “Welcome to the building.”

“Glad to be here,” said Soren, breathing a micro sigh of relief.

“You haven’t set up anywhere yet, have you?” asked Cali as she reattached her lamp to her hip.

“Set up? Um… no. We left our things on this floor and decided to explore,” replied Soren.

“All the way up here?” asked Atlas.

“Yes, is… that alright?” asked Soren. He started to get the feeling something was up. Had he said something wrong. Soren’s intuition seemed to confirm his uneasiness as the two teens exchanged another curious glance. It made Soren feel a little anxious. What was that look for?

“Well, we know of a few places you can live that are safe. But, first and foremost, you should come back with us to meet the others,” said Atlas.

“Others? There are others?” interjected Rey.

“Yeah,” grinned Cali. “I’m surprised you made it all the way up here without meeting anyone. They would have directed you to us anyway.”

“Oh?” asked Soren, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up slightly. He took a breath to calm himself. “Directed us to you? Why?”

“Ah, well, not to brag or anything, but our family is one of the founding families of this place. Could we walk and talk? We need to be getting back home,” replied Cali.

“Founding family?” asked Dorian as he readjusted the pack on his back.

“Yeah, we’ll explain on the way,” Cali chirped.

The two older teens began to lead the way back through the rafters. Just before they followed, Soren touched Rey and Dorian on their shoulders.

“Hey,” Soren hissed just under his breath. “Don’t mention how we arrived, okay? And especially don’t mention anything about Ashlynn.”

“What?” Rey breathed back disbelievingly.

“Just let me do the talking,” whispered Soren. “I’m getting a weird feeling, and we don’t want to cause trouble just yet.”

“You’ve got it,” muttered Dorian. Rey wrinkled his nose, like he smelled something bad, but nodded in compliance.

With that, they followed after the siblings through the rafters and along the beams of the ceiling. The whole way, Cali talked about the history of the building and how their family actually came to live there.

It turns out their great-grandfather was the one who came here when he was very young. He was immensely strong and cleared out a lot of debris in the walls. As she talked, Soren, Dorian, and Rey were astounded at the structures they were seeing. Between the rafters and some of the boards were Borrower sized bridges and stairs along the wall nails made of popsicle sticks, permanent climbing cords, and even a pulley system to bring borrowings from one floor to the next easily.

“Eventually, others immigrated and moved into the building. That is essentially how we got our community started,” finished Cali as she led the brothers into a massive tunnel that went straight up and down. The ends vanished into the darkness above and below and was far too wide for any Borrower to traverse.

Thankfully, there were places to walk around the beams. There was even a handrail to keep someone from falling off. All of these permanent structures boggled Soren’s mind. He didn’t think anything like this was possible for a Borrowing community. Building structures to last was something humans did.

“Woah!” said Rey as he leaned just barely over the handrail. “What on earth is this?”

“This is the elevator shaft,” replied Atlas. “This is how humans get from one level to the next without moving their legs. We have one too, but you have to be careful. Sometimes humans come in here when it’s broken and we have to pull everything we can away from the edges here.”

“That’s amazing!” said Rey. “Do you have a team of inventors and builders?”

“Yes actually,” said Cali as she stepped up to Rey’s side. “It’s a volunteer basis thing, but we all put in projects when we have our monthly meeting.”

“Monthly meeting?” asked Dorian. “There are that many Borrowers here?”

“Well, sure,” said Cali with a smile. “We have dozens of families living on the different floors. We’re always getting new people and, after a while, they become permanent residents too.”

“We’re a bit of an information hub. Part of the family business,” Atlas chimed in as he led the way along the handrail to a set of stairs. It was only now that the Borrower brothers began to notice slight shifts and movement along the main path. By the time they made it to another set of popsicle stick stairs, they had seen over a dozen new faces of Borrowers smiling and greeting them - the newcomers.

This was amazing. Still, Soren could not help but feel uneasy. It almost seemed too perfect. What catch was there?

“Soren, are you seeing this?” asked Dorian, eyes wide with awe.

“Yeah,” said Soren. “This is definitely something.”

“There’s a whole community just in this building,” said Rey, taking a couple of the steps two at a time on the way down. “We went years without seeing another Borrower family, and now there are dozens!”

“That’s the great thing about this place,” chimed in Cali as they reached a few levels down and walked down one of the other passages. “We’re always seeing new faces who eventually become family.”

They passed by a few open beams where it looked like there were stands of supplies available.

“What is that?” asked Dorian. Atlas glanced over and, seeing what Dorian was pointing at, smiled.

“Supply table. There are a few of us who either aren’t able to borrow or who need specific supplies that aren’t available on our floors. So, some groups here who know the ins and outs of nearly every apartment volunteer to borrow for others. They can help you get the thing you’re looking for,” explained Atlas.

“So, they volunteer to borrow because they like it?” asked Rey.

“Yeah,” confirmed Atlas. “They were trying to come up with a group name, but I don’t think they found anything that stuck just yet. The big thing with that group is that it’s voluntary. You’re not supposed to hold back supplies for trading or favors. If you’re a part of the group, bring something to the table, and volunteer to let others have it, you can’t expect repayment.”

“So, you don’t have to go out in the human world and borrow at all?” asked Dorian. Soren noted the hint of enthusiasm in his tone.

“I suppose not,” replied Atlas. “However, sometimes supplies are scarce and the Borrowers who need to be taken care of take priority. There’s a list you can get on for that though.”

Soren almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This entire Borrower community had rules and regulations outside of the normal Borrower code. Borrowing for fun to give the supplies to another? Were things really that good here? And for so many?

“We’re home!” called Cali as she suddenly made a turn to the left and opened a door that looked like it used to be a mobile phone case. “And we have some guests!”