Cassie tapped her pencil against the desk in front of her, blaming her pre-algebra assignment for the fact that she could not find it in her to focus on the class. Math could hold her attention for maybe five minutes before she resorted to twirling her pen and using her desk as a drum set. She was mindlessly rapping on her desktop when she felt something, like someone staring at her. She turned.

As soon as she realized that it was Joshua, Cassie turned right back around to the front of the class again. Impossible as it might seem, she would much rather deal with math than with her brother. After a bit, she hazarded a peek over her shoulder, but he was pretending to sleep in boredom.

"Cassandra?"

Cassie froze and peeked up to where Ms. Velma was frowning, arms crossed and waiting for an answer.

"Cassandra, please pay attention. Which variable are we solving for?"

Cassie frantically tried to scan the whole board, not even sure where exactly she had stopped paying attention. The board probably had the answer somewhere on it, right?

After a moment of silence, Joshua stood up. "It's probably x. It's like always x."

"Thank you for your input, Joshua. Please be seated."

He sank back into his chair and the teacher turned back to Cassie. Just in the nick of time, a tiny slip of notebook paper sailed onto Cassie's desk.

"Cassandra, what's your answer?"

"You have to solve for 'm'," Cassie read from the note clutched in her hand. Ms. Velma nodded, only looking a little surprised that Cassie could tell her the answer, and turned back to the touchscreen display. She didn't give Cassie so much as another look.

Cassie twisted in her seat and smiled back to Rachel, sitting a few seats back. Rachel laughed silently and mouthed, "You owe me." The rest of class was one near miss after another as they passed notes back and forth. When the bell finally rang to release the students, Joshua and Rachel waited impatiently for Cassie to pack up her bag. The instant all of them escaped the classroom, Rachel was whispering excitedly to the twins.

"Guess what?" she hissed.

"Why are you talking so quietly?" Cassie shot back, only to have Rachel tug her to the edge of the hallway. Joshua followed along, raising one eyebrow at Rachel's excitement.

"Inside word is that we get the test results tomorrow!" Rachel said, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "And then we would get to meet them like next week, and... I don't really know, but we finally get our CPs!"

Cassie smiled before Joshua pushed her out of the way, looking as though he was about to start dancing for joy. It was reasonable that he was feeling energetic, Cassie decided, but this was a bit overboard. The sixth graders had taken their counterpart tests on the first day of school six months ago, and every moment since since had been filled with all the impatientness a sixth grader could muster. Which was a lot.

"What or who exactly is your 'inside word', Rach?" Cassie asked, grabbing her friend's hand and leading her out to the schoolbus stop. Not even a mysterious inside guy was worth getting in trouble for missing their ride home.

Rachel waited a moment before answering hesitantly, "Just a kid. Friend of my sister's. She said that the high school was prepping their upperclassmen for watching some of the meetings between CPs. Some psychology course or whatever. Point is, we get our results back!" She poked Cassie in the back and rested her head on her friend's shoulder. "Aren't you excited?"

"Of course I am. I just don't want to get my hopes up and then be disappointed if it's not tomorrow." Cassie pulled the ID card from her back pocket when they reached the front of the bus line. Both of the other kids did the same, and Joshua pushed ahead of Rachel to get directly behind his sister.

"Cassandra Gilligan," Cassie said as she slid her ID through the reader mounted to the bus door. The microphone nearby caught her voice confirmation and a moment later the door swung open.

"Joshua Gregor." Waiting for Rachel to catch up to sit with her, Cassie saw the look that Joshua gave her as he said his legal name. She sighed. Not this again.

Her sibling had never once agreed to switching his last name to one of their foster parents'. He said that it was important to "keep tradition" or bloodline or something. Cassie thought it was annoying that he made a big deal out of it, seeing as he didn't even keep the second half of their last name. After changing her name the first time, back when she was pretty little, it had never seemed like a big deal to do it again. It helped her feel more like the newest set of foster parents were really her own. Joshua's refusal meant that the twins had different last names, which was occasionally very annoying.

"Rachel Costa."

The kids rushed to the back of the bus as soon as they were all on, first to claim the only seat that could fit three people. No one else ever actually wanted the back seat so it really wasn't a big deal, but they always ran anyway. Just like every other school day, everyone else paired off on the rest of the benches while Cassie, Joshua, and Rachel scrambled to the back.

Rachel paused dramatically before asking, "Who do you think everyone got paired with?"

Even Joshua scoffed slightly at the question, and he was not focusing much on the girls talking beside him. "We can get paired with literally anyone in the country, why would you think that we could guess the matches?"

"Hey, only people who're thirty, and only if they don't have a police record," Rachel defended herself. She huffed and turned to face Cassie, glaring one last time in Joshua's direction before ignoring him entirely. "Hey, Cass, I betcha Terrance Fletcher's CP is a crook."

"No way. Maybe Gregory Jay's, though," Cassie reasoned as she peered down the rows of chattering students. "Imagine the look on his face when they say he has to go off to the correction building to make sure he doesn't grow up and kill someone."

Cassie enunciated her story by pretending to stab herself through the heart, sinking into her seat dramatically. Rachel let out a shriek of laughter before quieting slightly when a robotic voice from the speaker in front of her issued a noise warning.

Rachel continued to giggle into her hands for a moment before becoming quite serious. "What do you think she's gonna be like?"

"Who, your counterpart or mine?" Cassie asked, leaning closer to her friend so she could toss Joshua's feet off of the seat beside her.

"Yes. I mean, both. Either. I don't know," Rachel stuttered, finally just shrugging and sighing in dismissal.

Cassie hummed. "Well, they've got to be like us, so they'll actually be able to help with decisions and stuff. So, my counterpart is probably someone who was a foster kid. Maybe has a twin, definitely a sibling of some sort." Joshua snorted at that. "I don't know, really. What do you think yours will be like? Someone that who used to be like you are now."

There was a larger question behind the more benign ones: What do you think you'll be like when you grow up?

Rachel closed her eyes, tilting her head as though she were intensely studying the floor. Her lightish-brown hair fell across her brow and Cassie waited as the dark-skinned girl thought deeply. When she finally opened her eyes, Rachel was wearing a Cheshire grin. "She'll be great at math and atrocious at spelling. Not too good at sitting still; loves animals and super super super super super bad at drawing."

"Fair enough," Cassie agreed. "I'll say that there's no way either of our CPs can draw more than a stick figure."

Rachel grabbed her navy backpack off of the floor and tugged a sheet of paper out of her binder, passing it to Cassie. "I don't know, Cass, you were pretty good at art a couple years ago."

"Why do you still have this?" Cassie groaned, staring at the sketch from the girls' fourth grade year. It looked indubitably like a dismembered zebra.

"I will never throw away that unicorn. It is flawless and beautiful." Rachel snatched the picture back and tucked it away safely behind a plastic cover. "Ugh, I can't wait for tomorrow!"

Cassie nodded enthusiastically. She pushed aside the worry that Rachel was off by a day and they would be left empty-handed. Cassie knew she had a tendency to overthink things, and why focus on that? The three kids all stared out of the bus window and tracked the silver and tan whizzes of buildings passing. Cassie was dying to say something, and likely so were the others, but it would be easier to talk when they were back at their houses and wouldn't be scolded by a speaker. For the moment, Cassie counted down to her departure from the bus.

The city was arranged into blocks according to the purpose of the buildings, which each had a uniform blueprint with no deviation based on usage. It was supposed to be effective or something. The library was enclosed in the same shell as the bakeries and fashion shops and cinemas—multistory buildings made of shiny metal plating. A perfectly trimmed oak tree was planted at every street corner, next to the plaque with the building's code.

Scanning the signs, Cassie searched for the one labeled L-10, the beginning of the residential area. That was where they would make their first stop. All kids from blocks L-1 through L-20 would get off to either walk or take one of the shuttles to their houses. Then the bus would move on.

When the schoolbus hit its first stop and a half a dozen kids jumped up with their bookbags in tow, Cassie began her daily mental countdown. It would be five blocks until her brother and her own stop, and then one more after that for Rachel.

"Hey, Rach, are you coming over to hang out tonight?" Cassie prodded at her friend's shoulder.

"Nah, I think I have to go to a dinner party." Both girls stuck out their tongues and exchanged a glance. "One of the elemenos invited my mom. I have to go with her."

Cassie groaned. "Oh, don't go do that. They're almost all snobs and I'm way more fun to hang out with."

Everyone knew that the people who could afford to live in blocks L through O were the ones with political power and money to spare. So far, Cassie had yet to meet a kid from that area who wasn't convinced that he or she was the ruler of everyone.

"Joshua, get with me on this. Rachel is going to one of those elemeno dinner parties tonight with her mom. Tell her that it would be way better to come over to our place or video call us or just call us or text us or... I don't know, send us messages in Morse code than go to that!" Cassie jostled her brother, who straightened up and looked Rachel dead in the eye.

He looked completely serious before stating, "I have no clue what Cassie just said. I wasn't paying attention. Whatever she wants you to do, do the opposite."

"Are you serious?" Cassie fumed as Rachel dissolved into another fit of giggles, the bus coming to its third stop. "Whatever, but when you're bored out of your mind, don't go saying that I didn't warn you."

Rachel took several deep breaths to calm down from her laughter and then turned Cassie to face her again. Cass had turned away in a huff when Rachel started laughing at Joshua's comments. "I'll try, okay? I can't exactly tell my mom that I'm not going to go because the elemenos are snobs and I hate them."

Cassie let her face drop into her knees, muttering something that sounded like "that's exactly what you should do". The bus shuddered to a stop a second later. Joshua pulled on Cassie's ponytail lightly, tossing her the floral messenger bag with her books in it.

"We'll see if we can video chat instead of you going to the elemenos, okay? I'll make sure that Cassie doesn't die or something if you don't call," Joshua called back as he ran ahead of Cassie off the bus.

Rachel yelled, "Sounds good!" He probably hadn't heard her over the chaos of everyone leaving. She smiled to Cassie. "See ya tomorrow, latest."

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, Rachel!" Cassie hurried after Joshua.

Her brother was waiting by the curb when Cassie slid her keycard through the bus's reader to check out. Their house was all the way in building Q-17; the kids had more than a couple blocks to walk. They didn't have passes for the shuttles that went up and down the number rows, after all.

The school provided transport down the alphabet rows, so they took those. However, the shuttles through the number rows were costly and pretty much not helpful at all unless one was in a rush. So the twins went on foot. Bags slung over one shoulder, each of the brunette students talked as they walked side by side.

"Why are you looking forward to getting your CP so much? In such a hurry to ditch me for a month or two?" Cassie asked, knocking her satchel into Joshua's. Her brother responded by bumping into her with one shoulder.

"Just wanting to see how someone like me gets along when they're grown up. It'll be neat to see him," Joshua said.

Cassie knew the feeling. When they had first taken the test, she wanted to know more than anything else what her counterpart did for a living. She had no clue what she wanted to be when she grew up, but if someone that was just like her had become a veterinarian, maybe she would like to be one as well. Cassie was less looking forward to the fact that being assigned a CP meant going to visit them for a good while. Most kids ended up staying for a maximum of two or three months—and some stayed for as few as a couple weeks—but that was a long time to be away from friends and family. Cassie hated her brother at times, yeah, but she was not excited about being apart for so long.

The siblings carefully crossed each of the streets, making their way to their foster parents' building. Cassie knew that as soon as they got back, she would have to fight Joshua for the computer to check her messages. Even though Rachel was one street further into the neighborhood than Cassie, she was often the one to arrive home first. Instead of the seven blocks that Cassie and Joshua had to walk, Rachel had a mere two. By the time the twins reached home, their friend would likely know whether she would need to attend the (certainly boring) party.

The Gilligan's lived on the fourth floor of the first building of block seven. Because it was only floor four, the twins headed for the stairs. Unless someone was really old, really needed it, or lived on like floor ten, the elevator was as useless as the shuttles. The metal box moved about as fast as a snail did, so the twins raced up the staircase instead.

Joshua unlocked the apartment's door with the key hanging around his neck, letting his sister in before relocking it.

"Hello, Cassandra! Hello, Joshua!" A woman's voice sounded from the kitchen, and Cassie shouted back, "Hello, Mrs. Gilligan!"

Layla Gilligan had asked many times that they not call her "Mrs. Gilligan", claiming that it made her feel old. But it was weird to call her Layla, and it was far too soon to call her mom after only three months there. So until further notice, she was Mrs. Gilligan.

Joshua tugged Cassie after him as they headed back to the bedrooms. Even though they technically had separate rooms, both siblings tended to spend most of their time in Joshua's because of the computer mounted in the corner. Mrs. Gilligan had promised to get Cassie one to match, but Cassie had refused fervently. The only time they really used the computer was for gaming or video chatting with Rachel, and Cassie would feel bad about Mrs. Gilligan using the money for something she definitely did not need.

Over the past ten years, since they were two, Cassie and Joshua had lived in a total of four foster homes. The latest two had both been in the same town, which they had not left since third grade. Cassie was one hundred and ten percent behind remaining in-town, seeing as her best friend was there and she was well settled into the school.

"Hey, video call Rachel, would you, Joshua?"

"Yeah, sure."

Joshua brought the keyboard out, setting up the pullout desk underneath the wall-mounted screen. Cassie ran into her room and tossed her book bag onto her bed before rushing back to find Joshua clicking repeatedly on an icon of Rachel's face.

"Is that working for you?" Cassie asked, watching as her brother continued to tap the mouse. Another minute of lag and the call opened, Rachel's face popping up with a ringing noise that was quickly replaced by a grinning elementary-schooler.

Rachel smiled. "Hey, guys! Turns out that Saffron actually wants to go to the elemeno party, so I get to chill here and have PB&J or whatever."

"Tell your sister that I love her and she's going to regret ever thinking about that party," Cassie called from Joshua's bed, where she was sitting crisscross.

Rachel just laughed and shrugged. "She likes that sort of stuff. Sitting around doing absolutely nothing and talking to people who secretly hate you," Rachel stated, nodding solemnly.

Joshua moved the chair from the desk out so he was in the same camera shot as his sister. "Hey, Rachel, wanna play Call to Battle Online while you and Cass talk?" That was the main reason Joshua liked hanging out with Rachel, from what Cassie could tell. Those two would play their stupid first-person shooters for hours.

"You just won't play me because I always wipe the floor with you, Josh," Cassie said, crossing her arms.

Joshua ignored his sister, who was looking very smug where she sat cross-legged on his mattress, and especially ignored her choice of nickname. While Cassie always went by her nickname with friends and any adults who were willing to call her it, he preferred to hold onto his whole name. He had a real obsession with proper names.

Rachel nodded. "Sure, I'll play you."

Cassie sighed and splayed out over the bed, rolling off onto the carpeted floor a moment later. Once Rachel got into gamer mode, she did not return for at least an hour. So Rachel would not be really focusing on talking even if Cassie could draw her attention from battle plans enough to chat at all. Joshua logged onto his online account to begin battling as Cassie slunk out of the room. (It was these times that Cassie half-wished she hadn't denied the extra computer. Then she could log on and kick Joshua and Rachel's collective butt.)

"So, Rachel says that maybe we'll be getting our counterparts assigned tomorrow," Cassie told Mrs. Gilligan, joining her in the kitchen. "So if she has her facts straight that'll be awesome."

"Oh, that's great, sweetie! Then it should be under a week before you get to meet her, then." Mrs. Gilligan shoved a dish full of food into the oven and closed the door before turning around to face Cassie. "Cassandra, you really have got to let me bring you in to get your hair cut before your meet your counterpart."

Cassie ducked her head as her guardian tried to braid her long and completely untamed hair. Granted, it was more tamable than Rachel's curly and uncontrollable locks, but it was still uncooperative. "Okay, okay. If they give our results tomorrow then you can take me wherever and get my hair cut, as long as it's long enough for a ponytail."

Mrs. Gilligan hummed happily as she buzzed around the kitchen, and Cassie soon headed back to her room to finish the homework. The work was annoying, but didn't last long, as about half an hour later Mrs. Gilligan called out both Joshua and her for dinner. Michael Gilligan walked in just as they walked out, and waved hello before dropping his briefcase in his office.

"How's school, you two?" Mr. Gilligan asked the twins as they all ate their suppers, the sun setting outside of the western window. Cassie and Joshua exchanged a meaningful glance before Joshua answered.

"Great. Rachel thinks we get our counterpart results back tomorrow."

Mr. Gilligan nodded, raising one eyebrow. "So you'll be getting their file, or..?"

"Yeah, I think so. Then we get to meet up in a few days. At least, that's what she thinks," Cassie filled him in, gesturing to where Mrs. Gilligan sat.

The atmosphere of the meal was padded with idle small talk, and when everyone was done Cassie scampered back to finish her math homework for the next day. If what Rachel had said was true, they wouldn't need to worry about turning in the work, as they would be too busy with the nonsense of Counterpart Assignment Day. Cassie wanted to be prepared anyway.

So Cassie finished the worksheet and tucked her tablet back into her backpack. She was almost completely ready for bed when she remembered one last thing. Grabbing the tablet back out of her bag, Cassie sent Rachel one last message before slipping under her covers for the night: "Good luck on CP Day tomorrow!"