"I don't believe it."

Dan had repeated those four words countless times in the past half hour or so. He and Keri were sitting on the edge of one of the school gardens, having just been dismissed by Hamish.

"Dan, I'm sorry," said Keri. "But let's face it, it's true. We don't really have much choice but to believe it."

Dan sighed, looking at Keri with his typical annoyed look. "It was a figure of speech," he said, as if pointing out the obvious. "But just think - we've saved countless lives! He can't just shut us down!"

"Apparently he can," Keri answered.

Dan stood up, taking a deep breath. With an air of forced patience, Dan said very slowly to Keri. "You can be so annoying, you know that? Yes, you're a great agent, but you can be so annoying!"

"Dan," Keri's voice was soft now, not at all confident and teasing as usual. "I know you're upset, but you've got to calm down."

Admitting defeat, Dan sat down again, his left hand immediately reaching into the garden, pulling out some grass to tear up.

"Dan, I need to ask you something," Keri's voice was still soft and timid.

Dan immediately looked up from his grass-tearing, seeing worry and hurt in Keri's eyes. He wanted to hit himself for being so self-centred, for not realising that Keri had lost so much more than he had. Dan had lost his job, but Keri had lost the best part of her life altogether.

"Go on," Dan said encouragingly, slightly taken aback when he saw that Keri's eyes were glistening with tears. Keri never cried, not even when she was nearly killed in the Shadow Games.

"Now that the MI High project is down, I've lost my foster home. They'll send me to an orphanage if I ask them to look after me."

"They can't do that!" Dan's anger bubbled up again. "KORPS will be onto you faster than you can blink. And you don't even have the lashes anymore so blinking doesn't help anyway!"

"So I was thinking," Keri said, brushing away her tears. "MI9's in a massive state of disorganisation ever since Stella got arrested. If I can slip under the radar, maybe they won't notice that I'm supposed to be sent to an orphanage."

Dan nodded. Keri always had great ideas.

"I need somewhere to stay, and it can't be Aneisha's because Mrs King would pick up on it and start prying, and Tom needs his privacy to be gaming, so I thought, maybe..."

"You can stay with me, Keri," Dan said confidently. "My parents will be fine with it. Service to the country and everything."

"Thanks, Dan." Keri gave him a grateful smile, and threw her arms around his neck. Dan returned the hug, smiling as well. He may have lost his job, but he would never lose his friends.

...

Aneisha and Tom were sitting on a bench in a corner of the school playground.

"I can't believe it," Tom said, looking at the empty screen of his game console. "Although I suppose Hamish didn't have a choice."

"I can't believe it either," Aneisha agreed. "Stella would never have shut us down. She would have fought for us."

"Neish?" Tom turned to look at her, only to see that Aneisha was looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. But she looked up at his voice and met his eyes.

"You wrote to Mandy about self-confidence? You were amazing today! Out of all of us, you definitely don't deserve this!" Now that Tom thought about it, Aneisha had saved everyone. And yet she had been dismissed along with the rest of them. It was so unfair.

"Tom, forget it, it's over." Aneisha went back to staring at her hands.

"But you wrote to her?" Tom persisted. "Why shouldn't you be self-confident? You work for MI9! You're brilliant!"

" I worked for MI9, Tom," Aneisha corrected him without looking up, her voice thick with a bitterness she had never felt before.

"And you were dismissed without justice," Tom said firmly. After a few moments for silence, he reached over and gently cupped Aneisha's chin, turning her head to face him. "Listen, you've been a brilliant agent, but more importantly, you're a great friend. Don't you forget it."

Simultaneously, the two ex-agents leaned forward and embraced each other.

"Thanks, Tom," Aneisha said into his shoulder. "You're a great friend too."

...

Frank had been instructed to immediately take what he needed from the base and move everything to his new office at MI9 HQ. He had signed a pre-written letter of resignation to Mr Flatley and waved goodbye to his caretaker's tools. With a sigh, he welcomed himself to the daily grind of paperwork from 9 to 5 at headquarters.

As he unpacked his things, Frank paused when he came across his prized photograph. The framed image portrayed Dan, Keri, Aneisha, Tom, Stella and himself, standing around the round table with Flopsy in the centre. They looked at the camera, smiling, confident and proud in their uniforms. Gone were those days of old.

Hamish had already been in with a gesture of sympathy and a stack of paperwork, which apparently contradicted each other, but that was life at MI9.

Collapsing into his new chair with another sigh, Frank tiredly reached up for the first form. He'd do ten forms, he told himself, then reread one of Stella's letters, then go back to paperwork. ...

Stark had been annoying smug about the news that MI High had been shut down. Hands rolled up into fists, Stella had to dig her fingers into her palm to prevent herself from throwing her food tray into Stark's face.

Once Stark had left, she collapsed on her bed, curling up on her side. The agents would be devastated. They were so young and so talented, with so much potential. How could Hamish crush them like that?

Aneisha was never a confident girl and MI9 had taught her to believe in herself. How was she coping now?

Tom had been hacking into the Mars rovers before MI9 recruited him and gave him an outlet for his skills. What would he hack into now? What trouble would he cause?

Dan was so close to joining the Runners, and would have joined in with Sky's free running unit if he were not a part of the MI High team. Would he end up as an illegal vigilante? He had so much energy and so much talent. Where would that go to now?

As for Keri, MI High had been everything for her. Where would she stay? KORPS was still after her. Was she even safe, at this very moment?

And Frank. Already distraught over the young agents, just thinking of Frank brought a sting of sympathy Stella's eyes. His team meant everything to him. Frank had an active mind and a compassionate heart. He had always had a passionate loathing for paperwork. 9 to 5 at MI9 gave no room to even visit the team. He would be all alone in a harsh working environment and separated from those he considered to be family.

And now, sparing a thought for herself, Stella realised that this meant that Frank was the only one in MI9 who believed in her innocence. As such, she would be here for an awfully long time. While Stella had discovered that being imprisoned meant that she was free of the paperwork and politics of HQ, it was so painfully lonely, and she longed to see her friends again, especially Frank

With no one watching, and no one to make judgement, Stella began to cry in earnest, smothering the sound of her sobs with her pillow. She didn't know how long she lay there, letting tears of pain, grief and worry soak into the poor-quality pillow. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep.

Her dinner lay on the table, forgotten, untouched and rapidly becoming cold.