"I don't think that I really..."

Brie trailed off.

"What?" Cassie asked, and Brie gulped audibly before continuing.

"I don't think I really want one of these abilities," Brie told Miss Benn.

Cassie took over. "Are you sure that we even have these 'specialties' or whatever? I'm not sure if I want one either..." Cassie added the last part half to herself, almost as an afterthought.

"We are absolutely certain. You won't be able to use your specialties yet. Almost none of the new children can when they first arrive." Miss Benn held out her hands for the sheets to be returned to her, which they were. "It requires a bit of training."

She grabbed a marker from her suit pocket and circled a line on each of the pages. Then the headmistress handed the sheets back, and Cassie blinked in surprise.

"Psychic communication? Like, I can read people's minds?" Cassie stared over at Brie intensely, but found that her mind was as full of her own thoughts as it ever was, no one else's. She frowned slightly, and then tried Miss Benn. Nothing. "It's not working."

You haven't been trained. Cassie jumped, quite literally, as she heard the words bounce through her mind. The chair she had been sitting on lurched sideways and the girl let out a shout.

Brie froze where she sat and stared at Cassie.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a whisper, and Cassie laughed.

"Yeah, um, I'm fine," Cassie said as she pulled herself off of the floor. "I just... thought I heard something."

The brunette glared over at Miss Benn, who was calmly waiting for Cassie to get back into her seat. Once Cassie was seated, Brie swallowed and pointed to her sheet of paper. "What does 'visual manipulation' mean? It sounds rude. I hope it's not rude."

"It means that you can change what people see. Think invisibility, or making your hair red," Miss Benn told her. Brie looked down at her hand and concentrated on it. Nothing happened.

"Which do you have?" Cassie asked Miss Benn, who smiled softly to Brie. Brie continued to focus on her still-visible hand in distress.

Miss Benn shook her head and sat down where she had been before. Brie finally gave up on changing her hand, looking over at the headmistress. Cassie furrowed her brow and pointed at the list again. "You said that the people with specialties are here, and you were able to speak in my mind. So you have the same thing I do, right?"

Miss Benn shook her head once more. "You could hear me because of your own powers, not mine. I have trained with Jasmine, one of our other psychics. I'm just better at opening my thoughts than most are."

I am not the one who has the specialty. Cassie tensed up and widened her eyes. She tried to send a question back, but the woman in the suit didn't not respond. So, she said it again, this time aloud.

"Do we get to meet the other kids here?" Cassie asked. Brie smiled and nodded, both girls excited at the possibility of meeting the other children.

Miss Benn waited a moment before answering, "Not all of the Specialties are children, you must understand. We have an age range from younger than you to nearly as old as I am. The answer, though, is that you may meet the other Specialties."

The girls looked to one another excitedly, Cassie clapping her hands giddily and Brie's eyes brightening, actually changing shades, as she smiled. Cassie gaped.

"Brie, you did it. A little, at least," Cassie whispered as she watched Brie's eyes turn back to their original color.

Brie frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your eyes, they changed!" Cassie exclaimed, and Brie gasped.

Leaving Brie to try once again in staring at her hand, Cassie looked at the list of specialties. Now each power held the possibility of a real actual person.

Miss Benn beckoned for Cassie and Brie to follow her as she stood and headed out of the room. "I have business to attend to, so Kimberly will be taking over again. She will show you around the facility and introduce you to some of the others your age."

True to the headmistress's words, Kimberly was waiting outside of the door. "Cassandra, Brianna! Do you understand now? Miss Benn has a way of understanding others. She can be very convincing."

Brie asked quietly, "What's your specialty?"

Brie and Cassie talked with Kimberly as they made their way back towards the elevator from before. This time when they got in, they traveled only a single floor up. Brie did not panic this time.

Kimberly smiled before answering, "Languages. I can speak almost twelve now. I learned Japanese as a second language when I was five and I just kept learning after that. It comes easily."

"That's so cool!" Cassie exclaimed, before pointing at Brie. "Brie can make herself go invisible! She just hasn't learned how yet."

Brie tucked her head down, looking at the floor bashfully. Kimberly just nodded and gave the shy girl a thumbs-up. "So, what can you do, Cassandra?" she asked.

"Miss Benn says that I'm psychic. It was crazy, she could talk in my mind and everything!" Cassie exclaimed.

"Well, technically you were listening to what was in her mind," Kimberly corrected. Cassie sighed, knowing Miss Benn had said that too. It had certainly felt like the words were coming from Miss Benn. "That's a bit odd, actually. Most of the time psychics come in pairs. Our other psych girl had a twin sister she arrived with. It's unusual that you don't have a twin or at least sibling."

Cassie just shrugged, though she wanted to contradict Kimberly. It was obvious from everything Miss Benn and she had said that no one knew about Joshua. She didn't know why this information had slipped through the cracks, but that was a separate matter. She wasn't going to give away her brother and cause him to be taken away as well. He would be safer if they didn't know about him, no matter how much she wanted to believe what Miss Benn had told her.

The elevator doors opened to an expensive room, much larger than the hallway they had left. It was larger, even, than the MPR at Cassie's elementary school. Plus, it looked way more fun to play in than school. Maybe this was the playground that Kimberly had promised back in the garage. It certainly looked the part.

There were some children running around the area below the metal-and-concrete ceiling, which was raised several stories above the ground. Most of the room was open, leaving the ceiling high enough that even a giant wouldn't bump his head. There were balconies around each story, winding around the outside of the room. From what Cassie could see, there were doors along each of the levels, at least a hundred of them.

Kimberly placed a plastic card into Cassie's hand, and the ID looked similar to those that were needed to board the school busses. On the card, there was a picture of her face, her birthdate: "September 19, 2153", and her full name: "Cassandra Amelia Gilligan". It also had other categories, but she stopped short at her name.

She suddenly realized why the organization might not know about Joshua. It was their last names. If they hadn't been careful, the project could easily have the twins down as unrelated because of their different last names. It looked like they hadn't been super careful, for here Cassie was. Standing without her brother in the middle of... a super hero training camp.

A band of teenagers sat on the bars of a towering jungle gym, chatting. The gym was not like one from a park, though, as this one was equipped with lifting weights and a trampoline. It looked straight out of a circus.

"Cassandra, would you like to meet Maverick and Nikola?" Kimberly called back, startling Cassie from her thoughts. Brie was already following Kimberly, who was walking toward the teens.

Cassie ran after them, catching up to Brie and sticking to her side. Two boys, both looking around fourteen or fifteen years old, climbed down from where they sat with their group. A blonde boy gave one of them a playful shove as they got down, but immediately clamped a hand to one ear and shouted at the boy who he had pushed. "Dude! Nikola, don't be a jerk!"

The Indian boy who had been jostled just grinned slyly as he joined the kids on the ground.

"Nikola, Maverick, you two are looking for something to busy yourself with, right? I heard that you were complaining you had nothing to do around here?" Kimberly asked, to which both boys protested. "No, no, no. I recall that both of you claimed to having completely mastered your specialties. So you have time to show the new kids around, right?"

The two boys grumbled uncertainly. Finally, one of them shrugged. "Fine, sure. We'll show the newbies around. That means we get to skip the last period right?"

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "I don't care. But make sure your teacher won't be mad, because I'm not vouching for you if you get into trouble." Then the young woman hurried away to the elevator, leaving Brie and Cassie with the boys.

"I'm Nikola." The boy who had been shoved spoke first. "Specialty is sound. Well, vibrations. I can make stuff be quiet or as loud as I want it to be."

Brie and Cassie remained silent, but Cassie glanced quickly to where the blond boy was sitting with the other teens. "Yeah, that was me. I made an alarm sound go off in his ear. His fault."

The other boy sighed exasperatedly, before introducing himself. "So by process of elimination, I'm Maverick. Techie. My specialty is pretty self-explanatory, unlike vibration-man over there," Maverick said, and Nikola glared at his redheaded friend.

"So, what's your diagnosis?" Nikola asked, earning blank looks from the girls. "You guys did get your specialties assigned, right?"

"Oh, yeah! I'm a psychic apparently, and Brie can go invisible." Cassie showed the teens her ID card.

Maverick asked, "Cassandra, huh?"

Cassie shook her head emphatically. "Cassie. Only the adults ever call me Cassandra."

"Well, Cassie, I guess we're your tour guides. I don't care, as long as it means that I don't have to go to class. I love mechanics but English is boring," Maverick told her. Nikola looked the new kids up and down.

"Neither of you can use your powers yet, right?" Nikola asked, and both girls shook their heads. He seemed relieved at that. "Good, I always hate it when the newbies come in and can already do all of that. Well, we'll show you around then drop you with some of the little kids."

"We're only what? Two years younger than you?" Cassie quipped back, frowning stubbornly.

"Three years for me. Two for Mav," Nikola said, ignoring Cassie's glare of distaste. "And I think you'll actually get along with Em. She's nice. Unlike you." Nikola looked pointedly at Cassie, who continued to stare at him with malice. She didn't like people who acted all patronizing. Especially when they were only three years older than her.

Brie tapped Cassie's arm and rolled her eyes dismissively towards the teens. She asked, "Well, then why don't you show us around?"

They only made a few stops during their short trip around the circular room. The first was next to the playground where the older kids had been before, now gone to their classes. The room had mostly emptied and only a few other Specialties remained.

A voice quipped out of nowhere between Cassie and Brie's ears, "You're allowed to practice physical specialties, like flying and strength, here. Won't matter to either of you two, but it helps my friends get into a flow with their specialties."

Cassie tried to call something over to the boy, but found that her words came out without a sound. "Be quiet, newbie. You wanna know where you're supposed to practice?" Cassie nodded. "Well, we're the lucky ones. We get to practice wherever. Equipment is just so none of the Specialties end up destroying the place messing with their powers in the commons."

Brie and Cassie remained silent as they made their way to stop two, one of the doors that formed a circle around the walls of the ground floor. "Classrooms are here. We have both boring classes and specialty training. You won't be doing any classes until at least tomorrow."

Though there were still things she was curious about, Cassie stayed quiet. She didn't really have much choice in the matter and could ask someone more conversationally inclined later. For the moment, they headed over to the single apart of the room that was neither door nor wall nor playground. Maverick gave the brief description of "cafeteria" before they moved on. Cassie supposed that was self-explanitory.

The last place they stopped was with a group of younger children. They were not all younger than Cassie and Brie, but most seemed younger than Maverick and Nikola at least. Cassie's best guess for the most of them was around thirteen. The only exception was a little Hispanic girl who Cassie wouldn't have guessed as older than eight.

"Hey, Em."

Cassie was surprised to find that the smallest girl was the one to respond to Nikola's words, looking over with a smile.

"Hey, what's up?" the girl asked, to which Maverick pointed at Brie and Cassie.

"Newbies. Can you take care of them for a while? Kim gave us a pass out of class... Well, kinda, so we're gonna go see if we can get some leftover dessert," Nikola said, shooing Cassie and Brie towards the younger girl.

"You shouldn't call Kimberly 'Kim'. She asked you not to," the little girl scolded the teen. Then she sighed and waved the boys off. They rushed away. Cassie looked at the little girl standing in front of her.

"I'm Emily Rivera. You can call me Em. Nice to meet you," Em introduced herself, holding out a hand to Cassie. Cassie shook it, still looking curiously at the child.

"I'm Cassie. That's Brie."

Emily nodded, and turned to the kids behind her. A girl with blindingly white hair stepped up and introduced herself as Eve, a taller girl with black hair and green eyes called herself Skye Hill, and a blonde girl gave a smile and the name of Rose West.

Brie remained completely still and silent, looking at the kids around her. Cassie remained just at quiet, but couldn't stay quite as still. She bounced one foot impatiently. There were still questions she wanted to ask, but she didn't want to irritate Em or the others.

"Hey, Eve," Em called to the girl with piercing eyes and bright hair. Eve cocked her head and nodded. "I'm gonna go show Cassie and Brie where their bunks'll be. I'll be right back, okay?"

The older girl nodded, before going back to what she had been doing before—passing a jolt of electricity through the playground and returning it harmlessly to her palm. Cassie stared, mesmerized, until realizing that Em and Brie were about to run off without her.

"So, Em. No offense, but you are not twelve years old," Cassie told Em once she caught up. Em laughed lyrically.

"You're not wrong. I'm actually ten, which makes me the baby around here," Em said, shrugging. "My specialty just popped up sooner than most. I got taken in two years ago, before they even ran my CP test. I have... well, for lack of a better term, x-ray vision. It's not actually x-rays, though."

The group headed up a staircase leading to the first level of the balconies. "This is the girls' floor. There's a room for each power type, so Brie will be with the other vis-manip girls. Cassie, you'll be bunking with Jazz. She's the only female psychic we have here. Actually, only psychic at all."

Cassie and Brie nodded as they looked over the balcony, out into the room. The doors to the classes started to open as the last period was released. All Cassie could do was stare as children, teens, and young adults came tumbling from the rooms. A young boy dashed through a crowd to avoid waiting (quite literally dashed through them, he passed straight through their bodies). A girl closer to Kimberly's age flew over the heads of some of her classmates, high-fiving one as she passed him by.

Brie just looked down at her hand again and sighed. Cassie watched the children below with a growing excitement overcoming her. There was one thing that she couldn't get out of her head as she looked at the friends playing below.

How would she get out of here and back to Rachel and Joshua? Even worse, did she want to?