After a full night's sleep, Rena got up early, showered, and put on the dress that she only wore on special occasions. Birthday parties. After-school events. There weren't many opportunities for her to dress up, and even fewer that she actually participated in.

But I'm trying a new approach, she reminded herself.

When she walked down the hall and into the kitchen, the rest of her family was already at the table eating breakfast. They too were dressed up. It was Sunday morning, and Rena hadn't gone to Consensus with her family in over a year. She'd argued that weekends were her only opportunity to sleep in, and her parents decided not to force the issue. It defeated the whole point of agreement. Since then, their normal routine was to eat a quick breakfast and leave quietly. Rena usually woke up to an empty house.

"Rena?" Marshall set down his spoon, eyes wide with concern.

Everyone turned to stare.

"You look nice," Clarine said. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

Rena nodded. "Together ... right?"

Clarine smiled.

"We have to leave in a few minutes," Marshall said. "Why don't you grab something to eat before we go?"

"OK." Rena already liked the feel of this new approach.

After breakfast, the family walked two blocks to the nearest transit station. Rena carried Suzanne the whole way so her mom could hold Gareth's hand, something Clarine didn't get to do as often as she liked. They passed dozens of other families along the way, all dressed up and heading to consensus like the Waites. It was strange and comforting at the same time to feel part of a larger movement. To Rena, it felt like walking to school in the morning, and in a way, that's what it was.

A school for all ages.

They had to wait ten minutes before the correct transit pod arrived at the station. Others came and went during that time, but they were the ones spiraling inward to the Center or outward from it. Rena's family could have taken one of these and ridden it for one revolution, getting off at a station about ten blocks inward, but it was faster to wait for one that ran through the radial tubes across the city.

Like the majority of the transit network, the switching station tubes were transparent. When the pod arrived, the sound of compressed air transitioned to a hum of electricity. One form of propulsion took over for the other as the pod diverted from the main tube and came alongside a moving walkway. The doors opened and only a few people stepped off. Then the waiting crowd moved quickly to fill up the pod before it reached the end of the loading/unloading zone. Fortunately, they all made it into the first pod.

Or else the Waites would've had to wait, Rena thought with a grin. Dal would have made fun of her for such a lame joke.

Fifteen minutes later, Rena and her family stepped off the transit system and walked another block to the community hall, a one-story, concrete building. Their pace slowed as they merged with dozens of other families moving up the front walkway and into the building through numerous metal doors that were propped open.

The lobby was even more chaotic, as citizens spotted others they hadn't seen in a week. Whereas everyone had been walking in the same general direction outside, they scattered in a hundred different directions now, crossing each other's paths and bringing the flow to a standstill.

"There's Kirti," Clarine said, still holding tight to Gareth's hand.

"You should go say hello," Marshall suggested.

The two of them had come to a complete stop, and Rena almost tripped over them. The family behind her was forced to split into two groups to get around the Waites. Rena apologized to them before looking back to her parents. "That's OK. Let's keep moving."

"Are you sure?" Clarine asked.

"Yeah. I can always talk to her at school. Let's go."

Marshall looked disappointed. But he turned around without commenting. Clarine followed. Rena hiked Suzanne further up on her hip and sidestepped another family before catching up to her own just inside the doors to the main auditorium.

The room was large and circular, with a floor that sloped gently downward so each seat had an unobstructed view of the stage in the center. Marshall headed down one of the aisles, looking for five empty seats in a row. He found them halfway to the stage and motioned for his family to slide in and sit down.

Rena went first and took her seat. She tried to set Suzanne down in the chair beside her, but her sister refused to let go.

"Alright then, you can sit on my lap."

Suzanne buried her face in Rena's chest.

"It's nice to have you here with us," Clarine said, putting her arm around Rena and giving her a squeeze.

Rena smiled, but between Suzanne's clinging and Clarine's hug, she felt a bit claustrophobic.

A few minutes later, the noise in the auditorium quieted. The lights dimmed. A middle-aged man in a white suit walked onto the stage and stopped behind a slowly-rotating podium.

"Citizens. Welcome! It's great to see so many familiar faces this morning. And if you haven't noticed ... quite a few new ones as well."

The audience laughed at this, though for what reason Rena couldn't guess.

"We are fuller than usual this morning, so if you wouldn't mind, please scoot in and fill up the empty seats in the middle. Let's make some room along the aisles for those still coming in."

The people next to Rena got up and moved over a few seats.

She stood again and shuffled over, trying to maintain her grip on Suzanne. The rest of her family followed. It took a moment for everyone in the auditorium to compress toward the middle, and then the noise quieted.

"Thank you so much," said the speaker. "I know you all value inclusion as much as I do, so I appreciate your patience."

Rena realized she hadn't left a seat open beside her. Now there was a stranger sitting on one side and Clarine on the other, with Suzanne on her lap. Rena must have looked panicked.

"I can take her on my lap," Clarine said.

Suzanne clung even harder.

"That's OK. I've got her." Rena smiled and took a deep breath.

"Every citizen knows the importance of voting," said the speaker, his amplified voice filling the auditorium. "Our laws depend upon our agreement. Our economy depends upon our participation. This morning, I'd like to talk about two aspects of voting that are often overlooked. To introduce these topics, I'll go straight to the source of our inspiration—which I believe is something all of us should be doing on a regular basis. One of our beloved Founders, Abigail McCormack, pioneered some of the very first algorithms governing our rating system. And in one of her early manifestos on social interactions, she had this to say ..."

The speaker now looked down at the hologram of text hovering above his hand. The same quote also appeared in the air above his head, large enough to be read by the whole audience.

"For consensus to be an accurate representation of current humanity, and the method by which we become a truer version of ourselves in the future, requires two things—that it be frequent and informed."

"Hmm," Clarine mumbled, nodding her head.

"Frequent and informed," the speaker repeated. "Abigail goes on to explain these two requirements, but before that, notice how much is packed into this one sentence. Consensus is supposed to be an accurate representation of humanity's current state of knowledge. This is her assumption, right from the start. And yet, in our day, we tend to overlook this. We excuse ourselves from the responsibility of giving our input. Of participating. A responsibility to our fellow citizens. It's a foundational idea, and she mentions it in passing, as if this is already understood and acted upon."

A few people in the audience voiced their agreement.

"Furthermore, consensus is the method by which we, as humans, will become a truer version of ourselves. Again, there's an assumption here. This statement implies we are not currently the truest version of ourselves. But through our interactions and our agreement, we will continue evolving. Truth will emerge from within. And the process will continue into the future."

"That's right," Marshall whispered.

"Isn't this wonderful?" the speaker continued, motioning to the text floating above his head. "Even though she lived many generations before us, there was obviously something very special about Abigail ... and all the Founders. You can see it in the way they communicated. They were able to look beyond themselves so effectively, that what they saw became the vision we aspire to. A goal that is still waiting for us in the future. Such insight!"

A round of applause went up from the crowd. Marshall and Clarine both clapped. Gareth was looking up at something on the ceiling, bored. Rena was grateful to have Suzanne on her lap. It prevented her from having to clap in agreement with everyone else. After all, her new approach didn't mean she'd blindly follow the crowd. Just that she wouldn't make an argument out of every small thing.

The text above the speaker's head updated with the next passage. The speaker looked down at his hand again and continued reading.

"Firstly, as an individual, I am prone to change my perspective. What I believed yesterday has been proven wrong to me today, and so on. Therefore, any valid vote should, by necessity, carry an expiration. For who among us can possibly see beyond what is right in this moment?"

The speaker paused to let the words sink in. When he continued, his voice was much quieter. "Our votes expire twenty-four hours after they're cast. This is part of the system's design. As you can see from Abigail's writing, the purpose behind it is to ensure our laws and our individual ratings stay current. You see, voting was never intended to be a one-time thing. Or even a once-a-week thing. Most of us will walk out of here today, and we'll go home and vote. But the sad reality is that tomorrow ... we won't. And the day after? Well, we're too busy, right?"

Clarine nodded.

"I'm as guilty as anyone," the speaker continued. "Sometimes it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day for the things I have to do, let alone the things I'm supposed to do. But then I stop and ask, 'Who am I living for? Myself, or my fellow citizens?'"

"Hmm," Marshall mumbled.

The speaker walked to the edge of the raised platform. The room was silent, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "The temptation to be an individual is always there. But we have to fight against it. We have to take those tendencies and channel them toward giving our individual perspectives to the whole. That's the only place where they have value."

The text updated again with the next passage, and the speaker kept reading.

"Secondly, and worse yet, I am prone to forget the reasons why I held a particular perspective in the first place. As an individual, I would prefer to make a determination and have that be the end of it. It is this lazy habit that others will keep us from falling into. Consensus forces us to remember, to reconsider, and to do so often."

Suzanne suddenly decided to climb into Clarine's lap. Rena was grateful for the relief, but the suffocating feeling persisted. Perhaps it wasn't caused by the crowd after all.

"What's implied in her words is that there is some level of consensus prior to voting. Agreement through education. And that is what we are here for today. To stay informed, or to become so if we are not already. So as we break up into groups, let us have open minds. Let us do as Abigail instructed. Remember how we have voted in the past. Reconsider our votes and the assumptions that brought us to them. Discuss these things with others and find agreement. Then we will be prepared to go out and vote. Not just today ... but tomorrow and every day afterward. Frequent and informed. Thank you."