Cassie hugged Joshua tight and Rachel tighter when they said goodbye. The whole of the sixth grade had gathered once again, this time to wish good luck to the kids who were leaving. Joshua was on his way to a city not too far from the east coat. Rachel's counterpart lived far closer than that, in a city only a few miles over.

Either way, the kids would be going their separate ways and would likely not see one another for over a month. Cassie was torn, as she was most certainly happy for Rachel and Joshua. They were running about like they had each won a million dollars. She was still upset, though, that she would not be going with them.

As Rachel and Joshua's group left the room, Cassie sighed and rejoined the other two-thirds of the sixth grade class. The room seemed a lot less crowded than on Counterparts Day, though there was still a level of energy about everyone. They had been promised some big information, after all.

"The complete lists of departures will be posted on the walls in one minute. The first list will be of those who just left this room. The second will be those leaving next Friday, and the third those the Friday after that." Mr. Crest's words caused several impatient students to rush over to where the lists had been the last time.

Those children were shooed back to the mass of the group, no papers up yet.

"Stay where you are for now, please," Mr. Crest told them, before being passed a stack of envelopes. "Could Terrance Fletcher, Gregory Jillian, Samantha Parker, and Felicity Samuel please make their way up to the front? All of the current members of room fifteen?"

Cassie at first stayed where she was at, given that her name had not been announced, but Felicity pulled her along.

"He said all members of fifteen, and you're part of the class," she rationalized.

But there was no envelope waiting for her. Instead, Mr. Crest shook his head and sent Cassie back empty-handed.

Felicity did not tear open her envelope like Terrance immediately did, instead holding onto it and bending at the edges nervously. When Felicity had yet to open the letter full minute later, Cassie snatched it from her. The other girl did not protest, so Cassie went ahead and tore open the envelope, pulling out the note inside.

"Dear Miss Samuel,

This letter is sent with the purpose of informing you of the facility number at which you should be present on the twenty-third of March, this year. You should arrive and report at noon or before, and prepare to remain for approximately a week and a half. You will be further notified if you are required to stay longer.

Thank you,

Carrie Julian

Director of Adolescent Correction Facilities"

After the first line, Felicity took the paper from Cassie and read the rest of it herself. She trailed off after the last word, not reading the address listed below the signature. With that, she folded the paper back up, slid it into its envelope, and tucked the whole thing into her backpack.

"Hey, it's the same thing the others got. Like I said, Felicity, you'll be there for the minimum time possible. Don't worry about it," Cassie said. Felicity nodded.

The two girls didn't move when the lists of students were tacked up and the waves of kids started. They avoided the masses of students who trampled through the room in a desperate attempt to see when they would meet their counterpart. Once the teachers gained control of the rowdy children once again, everyone marched back to their classrooms.

Terrance glared at the floor the whole way through the hallways to room fifteen, and the others from the room fifteen group were also in a relatively somber mood. Only Cassie and Felicity kept each other grinning, whispering puns back and forth along the way.

"I guess we'll be counter-parting ways soon."

That was the last joke Felicity could get out before Mr. Collins shushed them, forcing them to finish the last few steps in silence. In the classroom, their teacher gestured for everyone to take out their tablets.

"As we're synced to the other classes' schedule and the other teachers thought the rest of the children would be too excited to finish a lesson today, there's nothing assigned to do. So, I'm going to release an online link to each of you to play some math games." Mr. Collins tapped at his tablet for a moment.

Cassie glanced at the screen in front of her when the speaker gave the quiet ding of a received message. She rolled her eyes, knowing that "math games" were always some stupid thing where if you didn't type in the answer quick enough, you were informed that you lost the game. Some game that was. She waited for a little while before opening the link, flipping to a webpage with old arcade games instead. At least those were actual games.

After Cassie had been playing for almost a minute, Felicity reached over and closed the page. Cassie looked over to the other girl with a glare and a huff, crossing her arms and leaving her tablet lying on the table. This gave Felicity the chance to reach across and open up the math link, which filled the screen with a colorful, animated racetrack. Giving Cassie no chance to steal the device back, Felicity typed "Cassie" into a box that popped up asking for a screen name.

Then, shoving the tablet back into Cassie's arms, Felicity grabbed her own. In less than ten seconds, a second car had popped up beside Cassie's own on the screen. Cassie glanced over at Felicity for a moment, and her friend smirked. This was a challenge.

"Oh, you are on," Cassie exclaimed, checking that her own car had also popped up on Felicity's tablet.

It wasn't an extremely complex game, with no way to actually steer the racecars, and the only way to accelerate them being to type in the correct answers. So it really wasn't a game, anyway. It was far more entertaining seeing that multiplayer was an option, though. Perhaps that was why Mr. Collins acted like giving them the link was an actual gift as opposed to a mathematical curse. It would have been more fun to be let go home early, but no.

Even if Cassie had been allowed to go home, she would be left without the company of either her twin or her best friend. She could only hope that both of the other kids would learn enough from their CPs in two weeks and not request to extend their trips. Rachel would likely try to stay as long as she could, given that her counterpart was an animal trainer. Cassie knew that she would give anything to be around the animals for even a day longer. Cassie sighed. Life would be incredibly dull without Rachel and Joshua.

In the math game, everything started out easy. Like, kindergarten easy.

"One plus three? Seriously?" Cassie sighed at the first problem, looking over to Felicity.

Felicity didn't look up for her screen for more than a second, shrugging before continuing to tap at her own tablet. When Cassie looked back down, she found that her friend was more than halfway through the first lap of the racetrack. Meanwhile, she had done absolutely none of the problems, not even one plus three.

Cassie rushed to put in her answers, and found that the questions got progressively harder as she made it through the track. Single digit addition became multiple digit subtraction in a matter of problems, and then those became basic variable problems. Felicity was done long before Cassie was. Cassie demanded a rematch.

Every time that a match was completed, the loser would immediately call for another game to be played. When they were told to pack up their tablets, the score was 17 to 12 with Felicity in the lead. All Cassie could do for her wounded pride was declare that she would have been the winner, had it been an grammar game instead. Felicity just nodded and laughed agreeably, before screenshotting their scores and saving it to her tablet.

"Cassandra, I've been given a notice for you. Please stay for a few minutes after class," Mr. Collins told Cassie as the students gathered their things together to leave. Cassie nodded, hugging Felicity goodbye as she left with the others. It would be a while before she saw her again, probably about a week and a half if the letter Felicity got was correct.

The room was incredibly quiet compared to the cheers of victory and groans of defeat that had filled it before.

"What did you have for me, Mr. Collins?" Cassie asked, adjusting the satchel over her shoulder.

"Oh, I have a notice that you should report to the front office in about ten or fifteen minutes. It didn't say why. I expect it involves your missing counterparts file." Cassie's mouth fell open and she jumped up and down several times before stilling herself. Mr. Collins finished, "But as they aren't going to be wanting you up there for a little while, I was wondering if you could give me a hand with putting the classroom back into place?"

Cassie nodded, slinging her backpack off of her shoulder before setting it neatly by the door. They placed all of the desks in one of the corners before heading to the door and turning off all the lights. The room already looked like it hadn't been used in months.

"Why aren't you going to be using the room anymore?" Cassie asked, looking around before picking up her satchel.

Mr. Collins told her, "Oh, all of you will be rejoining your original classes. I believe most of the others from this class are due to arrive at the facilities Monday of next week, so this room is done for this year."

Cassie nodded, before gasping as she remembered, "Hey, do you think its been ten minutes?"

"I believe it's been just over fifteen, so I'd say it's fair to go check." Cassie immediately took off down the hallway towards the front office. "You can't be running in the hallways, Cassandra!"

The front desk was just down the hallway from the entrance to the building, so Cassie had a clear view of the busses heading out when she went running over to the offices.

"Dang it, I'll have to call Mrs. Gilligan." Cassie glared outside, watching as the busses pulled away with most of the kids who had not yet left for their counterparts.

Still, her mood was not dampened for more than a moment, given that perhaps they had her counterpart folder. Cassie stayed in the hallway for a few minutes more than she might have needed to, solely because she needed to calm down a little. She did not want to walk into the office shaking like an excited Chihuahua. So, she ran back and forth down the hallway, her satchel abandoned next to the office's closed door.

When the sixth grader finally felt she was ready to present herself with some dignity, she slipped her bag back on and opened the office door. Cassie looked around for a moment as she let her eyes adjust to the surprising darkness that engulfed her. She did not close the door behind her, seeing that the glow behind her was all the light she had by which to see.

"Hello? Hey, It's Cassie... Cassandra Gilligan? You called me up here?" Cassie looked around the room before focusing in on a woman sitting on a chair a few paces from her. How weird to be sitting in the dark. "Hi! Are you from the program? Do you have my file?"

Cassie turned to flip on the lights to the room, but when the ceiling lights flickered on, she found that there were no other people in the room waiting for her. Instead, there was just that woman, dressed mostly in black, with a red and silver patch on her shirt in front of her heart. The woman, who stood with her weight to one side, in a pose that Cassie could only describe as sarcastic super-heroine, also held something in her left hand. Cassie felt her chest tighten and took an involuntary step backwards.

The elementary-schooler let out a scream and took off out of the room, away from the woman dressed in black. Away from the cold stare that the woman was wearing. Away especially from the handcuffs that the woman was holding onto, clipped to the side of her belt.