We were scheduled to beam down at 1100 the next day. I skipped the morning talks and stayed in my quarters, preferring to be alone. Sebastian had picked a journalist to accompany us, to film the school and whatever speech he wanted to give. I made it clear that I would say nothing. I was not going as a prop or a mouthpiece. I was going because I needed to know if Sebastian meant what he said. And because I needed to push back at the darkness that was threatening to suck me in.

I met the party in the transporter room. Sebastian stood off to the site of the transporter pad while Picard and Will were by the console. They all turned as I walked in.

"Are you ready?" Sebastian asked.

"As I'll ever be."

"I just explained to Minister Grey," Picard said, "we'll be monitoring the transport and contacting you after you beam down. We'd like to avoid any accidents."

I blinked. I had already spoken with Will where he fervently swore that they would not let the transporter beam be diverted again, but it was nice to have the backup from Picard, and in Sebastian's hearing. The conversation with Will had not been entirely pleasant.

He had come to see me that morning early, after I had spent a restless night tossing and turning.

"I'm against this," he said bluntly as I brushed my hair at the table.

"Why?" I asked tiredly.

"I don't trust Grey."

"I don't trust him either, that's why we agreed I would check in while I was down there."

"It could be a trick."

"For what? He doesn't need me now that I can't shapeshift." I put down the hairbrush and stood up to face Will.

"Still…" He trailed off. "You're putting yourself in a dangerous position for no reason."

"I told Captain Picard that I would help him with this. That's what I'm doing."

"He didn't mean this."

I sighed. I knew he was right. "I have to see it for myself. The school. I was in one of those camps when I was a teenager and I have to see what it's like now."

"You're putting too much on yourself."

"Well, if I don't do it, who will?"

"The Federation. We'll do an appraisal next year when we consider their joining request. We'll know then if he's kept his word."

"So, what, we just let those shapeshifters stay down there for another year until the Federation decides to show up?"

"It's not your job to save them. You're upset that you lost your shapeshifting powers and you're turning yourself into a martyr."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't have to be their savior."

"This has nothing to do with my powers," I snapped. "I'm trying to protect people from going through the same thing that I went through. That's it."

"You're trying to avoid facing the truth. You've always had your shapeshifting to hid behind and now you don't and you're scared. But you don't need to prove yourself to anyone, least of all to Grey."

"I think this conversation is over. I'll meet you in the transporter room later."

"We'll keep a lock on you while you're down there. And we'll monitor to make sure the beam isn't diverted again."

Will left.

I stood there fuming.

Back in the transporter room, Picard didn't wait for a response but instead nodded to the transporter operator. Sebastian climbed up to the transporter pad and I followed.

"Energize."

We teleported down to a courtyard. The architecture around us looked old and was a far cry from the sterile concrete of where I had been kept as a teenager. There were trees and flowers growing around us, with green showing between the bricks of the walkway. There were several doors leading into the building that surrounded us.

"Riker to landing party."

I fished the communicator out of my pocket and pinned it on my shirt.

"Tasha here."

"Everything okay down there?"

"So far, so good. We're at the school in a courtyard."

"Keep us posted. Riker out."

I tapped the communicator.

"This way," Sebastian said. He led the way into one of the doors and we found ourselves in a large hall. At the far end was a door to the outside with window on either side. Rising to our left was a wide staircase. Several doors lined the walls around us. One of them opened and a man and a woman entered the hall. A floating camera followed them.

"Tasha, this is Riley Evans, a reporter, and Io Cole, the director of Lawrence School."

I stopped dead in my tracks but Sebastian continued talking as he walked to meet the two newcomers.

"Riley, I thought we could start with an introduction and then give a tour of the facility. You can cut it up later to show tonight."

I caught up with the group and shook bother of their hands.

"This is Tasha Lawrence," Sebastian continued. Riley nodded.

"I was at the Unification Day speech. You put on quite a show."

"Thank you," I said numbly. Lawrence School?

"I'll start with a shot of you and Tasha, and then we can bring Io into it," Riley said, pulling out a device. The camera hovered behind him.

I opened my mouth to protest but Sebastian beat me to it. "Miss Lawrence is here only as an observer. She won't be in the broadcast."

Riley drew Sebastian away to stand at the base of the staircase and Io followed. I stayed where I was, looking around the room. It looked old. The doors were made out of wood and there was paneling on the walls. Seeing the others were occupied, I chose one of the doors and walked through it. I found myself in a long hallway. The doors had cutout windows and I peered in as I passed. The first one was a classroom, with rows of chairs holding children in their teenage years. A woman at the front of the class was pointing to a screen showing mathematical equations. She looked up as I peered in and I quickly moved on.

The next room was teaching geography, judging from the map on the screen. The next room was empty and I was about to pass it by when I spied a huddled figure in the corner. I drew closer to the glass. It was a girl, her hair falling into her face. She was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. I checked the hall in both directions before I slowly opened the door. The girl's head jerked up as I entered and she hastily wiped her red eyes. She looked like she was around fifteen.

"Hey," I said softly.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice sounded choked and as I got closer, I saw a few more tears leak from her eyes. I stopped a few meters away.

"I'm Tasha," I told her. "I'm just visiting."

She fixed me with a stony stare.

"What do you want?"

She sniffed.

"I saw you in here and was worried," I said. I did not have much experience interacting with children and was not sure what the best approach was here. But I could not, in good conscience, leave her alone. Not when I was trying to figure out what kind of place this was.

"We don't get many visitors," she said. She shuffled to her feet. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of blue pants. She stuck her hands into her pockets.

"I'm here with a friend," I told her. "I wanted to see what it was like here. I used to live in a place like this when I was young."

"Are you a shapeshifter?"

I hesitated and then decided that honesty was the best policy. "I used to be. I had an accident recently and I can't do it anymore."

The girl's eyes widened. "I didn't know that could happen. Hang on, I know you. You're Tasha Lawrence. You were on the news broadcast."

I winced. "Yeah."

"We watched you in down time a few days ago. You saved Grey."

"I did. They let you watch the news?"

"We all had to watch the speech. I thought it was going to be boring but then you showed up. Ivers said you must be really good to shift as fast as you did."

Her eyes welled up with tears again and she yanked her hands out of her pockets to wipe them.

"Why are you crying?" I asked, mildly alarmed. It had been going so well.

"It's Ivers!" she burst out. "He was supposed to go with me to the dance with me but he's going with someone else."

I couldn't help but stare. "Wait, they let you date here? You have dances?"

The girl nodded wetly. "It's next week and I already spent my replicator rations on a new dress. Now I can't go."

"How often do you have dances?" I asked, feeling lost.

"Once a year!"

"Maybe you can go with someone else?" I suggested.

She shook her head. "I love him," she said blearily.

"I'm sorry. Hey, maybe you can show me around?"

The girl wiped her eyes a final time and they finally started to look dry. "Can I? Everyone will be so jealous? I'm Kella, by the way."

"It's nice to meet you," I told her.

She led the way out the door and I followed.

"So these are all classrooms?" I asked her as we walked.

"Yeah. There's five of them. We have five classes each day and lunch."

"What do you do after class?" I asked.

"We hang out in our common room."

"Common room?"

"Yeah, it's in our dorms. There's twenty of us in each dorm and we all share a common room."

My head spun as we exited the long hallway and Kella led me through a door and up a staircase. At the top, we entered a hall and she pushed open a door on the right.

I found myself inside a comfortable room with couches and chairs spread throughout. There was a large screen on one wall. At the far end was a window. I picked my way among the chairs and looked outside. There was a long driveway leading from the front of the building out to a road. All around us was a forest.

"Do you ever leave?"

Kella shook her head. She had plopped herself on a chair and was sitting with one leg hanging over the side. "No, but we can go out into the woods. I don't like it. It's dirty."

I had a feeling that my new friend was something of a diva.

"What do you do for fun?" I asked. "Since you can't go anywhere."

"Oh, there's lots of stuff. I'm in an art club. We put on shows a few times a year. Ivers," she continued, rubbing her eyes, "is in a band with some of our friends. They're playing tomorrow night."

"That sounds fun."

I sank down into one of the blue chairs.

"How long have you been here?"

"A little less than a year," Kella said. "I was at a different place before this but it wasn't as nice."

"Do you miss your home? Your parents?"

"Sometimes!" Kella said brightly. "I haven't seen them since I came here. But they weren't very nice when they found out I could shapeshift. So I think I'm happier here."

"Do they let you shapeshift?" was my next question. I noticed that her wrists weren't sporting Dominic' silver bracelets that prevented shifting.

"Yeah, we have a class on it. It's okay. My favorite is when we get to swim in the pool. I'm really good at being a fish."

"That's impressive." I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against them. Hearing from Sebastian that things had changed was one thing. Seeing it with my own eyes was something else. But here was Kella and, despite her teenage crush on Ivers going awry, she seemed to be perfectly content here.

"That's how I look when I'm upset about a boy."

I looked up and found Kella studying me. "No, not a boy," I said. "Just taking everything in. It was a lot different when I was younger."

"You didn't have common rooms?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to get into it with the girl, so I stood up.

"Thanks for showing me around," I told her. "I need to find Sebastian again."

"Sebastian?"

I bit my lip. "Sebastian Grey. We came together. He's doing an interview about your school."

Kella hopped up.

"That's so cool! Are you guys friends?"

"Sort of."

"Is he the boy you're upset about?"

I shook my head. "Nope, not at all." I frowned. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

Kella looked down at her feet. "I was upset."

I shrugged. "You do you. Thanks for the tour."

Kella leaned back in the chair and kicked up her feet. When I glanced back at the door, she had flipped the screen on and was watching something.

I shook my head as I walked back out to the hall. I trailed my hand along the wall as I walked, feeling the imperfections under my fingertips. My thoughts floated back to when I had been fifteen. I had spent my days either locked in my room or forced to undergo therapy sessions where the dangers of shapeshifting were drilled into my head. I should have asked Kella whether she had to go to a counselor. I was turning around to return to her common room when I saw Sebastian, Io, and Riley approaching.

"There you are," Sebastian said. "Had a good look around?"

I nodded. I turned to Io and really studied her for the first time. She had grey hair that was tied in a tight bun on the back of her head.

"Do the kids here go through any counseling?" I asked her.

"Some of them. The ones who have trouble adjusting or being away from their parents. We have kids here as young as eleven and it can be tough on them. The older kids are less likely to ask for counseling."

"They're not forced into it?"

Io frowned. "Of course not."

"Are there adults here too?"

"They're in a different wing," Sebastian told me. He was looking impeccable in a grey suit. I noticed the camera hovering off Riley's left shoulder and wondered if this was being filmed. "They have their own classes for trades."

"Like what?"

"Manufacturing, computer skills, administrative work, to name a few," Io answered.

"How many of them are there?"

"There are sixty-five children and thirty adults."

"The kids seem happy here. I talked to Kella," I said in response to Io's enquiring look. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

"She should be in class."

"She was upset about a boy."

"Yes, Ivers. All the girls like him now that he's in a band." She shook her head. "I'll have a word with her."

"Shall we continue the tour?" Sebastian asked. The camera zipped behind me and I turned to find it filming the group of us. I glared at it and slipped behind Sebastian.

"The next common room should be empty," Io said. "Let's not disturb Kella."

I followed them into the next common room. When we entered, I watched as Riley filmed as Io and Sebastian explored the room, with Sebastian asking and Io answering questions about the number of students in each dorm and how they spent their time. I kept myself behind the camera.

The drone of voices faded out as I leaned against the wall. This place was certainly better than I had expected. True, the children weren't allowed to leave the grounds but that was probably the same as it was at any other boarding school. The school was isolated but I couldn't blame them, not considering the popular anger toward shapeshifters.

Maybe I had been wrong about Sebastian.