Frieda led Zoey to the cafeteria, which was buzzing with the lively chatter of students. Upon entering the chaotic lunchroom, Zoey subconsciously patted her hair in an attempt to smooth any flyaways, in case anyone paid any mind to her this period. Frieda stood at the entrance and scanned the area to see if she could find Virgil, Richie, or Daisy. Zoey stood next to her and did the same, though she was more focused on trying to find Richie and Virgil. At last, Frieda pointed somewhere around the corner of the cafeteria.

"Oh, there's Daisy."

Before Zoey could tell whom she was pointing at, Frieda was briskly walking towards the table in the back corner of the cafeteria. Zoey followed, making sure she didn't trip over any chairs as she struggled to keep up with Frieda. The cafeteria was extremely crowded; it was hard to not bump into anyone. At last, Frieda reached her destination and plopped down on the seat next to a girl whom Zoey assumed was Daisy.

"Hey Daisy," Frieda said. Zoey took a seat on the other side of Frieda and studied the two curiously.

"Hey Frieda." Daisy's eyes moved towards Zoey, noticing the new girl that had been trailing behind Frieda. "Who's this?" she asked.

Zoey opened her mouth to answer, but Frieda had already started talking.

"This is Zoey. She just moved in from Wyoming."

Daisy nodded respectively and outstretched a hand. "It's nice to meet you, Zoey. I'm Daisy, as you probably have already figured out," she said.

Zoey lightly shook Daisy's hand, then continued to watch the two interact.

"She's going to be in the journalism club with us. I convinced her," Frieda said, rather proudly.

"Ooh yay!" Daisy exclaimed. "We're always happy to have a new member. At this rate, there's no way the budget cuts will be able to touch us!"

Zoey observed Daisy. The girl had straight, thick dark brown hair that just went past her shoulders. On her face, she wore minimal makeup. She had tan skin and was wearing a red blouse with a daisy emblem on the front. Cute and simple. Zoey had to admit that both Frieda and Daisy appeared to be admirable people, and were obviously the preppy type. But she couldn't help but wonder why girls such as them were hanging around Virgil and Richie. They didn't seem to be the type of guys whom the preppies would be hanging out with. However, Zoey pushed the thought aside and decided to get food. She stood up from her seat, and glanced at the two girls, who were so engrossed in their conversation that they hadn't noticed her move. Zoey thought about telling them where she was going, but realized that they could probably guess where she was going without her interrupting their conversation. Still, she didn't want to come across as rude.

"I'm going to go get some lunch," she said. Sure enough, Frieda and Daisy gave Zoey as much as a nod before continuing their conversation about some latest news story that they would be putting together for the school newspaper. Zoey rolled her eyes. There were certainly enough interesting people at this school.

Speaking of interesting people, Zoey stepped into the lunch line (after taking some time to figure out where it started), only to find that she was behind Virgil and Richie. She noticed the familiar blue hoodie with the darker blue stripe running across the middle in front of her and silently chuckled to herself. Then she casually tapped the blue hoodie boy's shoulder, causing him to spin around.

"Ah, Zoey. Fancy seeing you here," the blond joked.

The mention of Zoey caused the guy in front of Richie to turn around as well.

"Hey Zoey. Glad you're here. Now you can finally enjoy the famous cafeteria food," Virgil chuckled.

Zoey smiled, but felt her stomach do a flip. She was familiar enough with Virgil to know he was being sarcastic.

"Thanks for reminding me. I'll remind myself to bring a sack lunch from now on," she muttered.

"Come on, it's not that bad. Everything just needs to taste better, that's all," Virgil said. "But seriously, the food is okay. Just stay away from the mystery meat. No one knows what they put in there."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, meaning every word of it.

The three slowly made their way to the front of the line where the food was being served. Richie picked up a plate with a brown blob of goop on it. Zoey crinkled her nose in disgust.

"Ew, what is that?"

Richie looked at Zoey, amused. "Roast beef. Need the protein. Geniuses like me need to keep our brains fully functional."

Zoey rolled her eyes at him, obviously not convinced. "Riiight."

After getting their lunches, the three friends made their way over to where Frieda and Daisy were sitting. The girls looked up and saw the rest of their friends approach them.

"Hey guys," Frieda said.

"Hey," the two boys replied in unison.

Virgil had barely sat down when Frieda started ambushing him with her Frieda-ness.

"Virgil! You have to tell me which story would be good for the newspaper."

Virgil glanced at Frieda, then at his food, then back up at her again. "Uh, can I eat my lunch first?"

Frieda ignored him and pulled out three sheets of paper from the tote bag she had been carrying.

"Okay, so I have one about McGill's love life, or should I say, lack of it. Then I have one about how the custodians lie about cleaning the restrooms." Virgil made a face at the second one. "Or three, the mysterious but gross cafeteria food?"

Frieda pulled the last one out dramatically as if it were actually a serious news article. She spread the sheets of paper out in front of Virgil so he could look at them. Virgil studied them for a moment.

"Um, I'd say the third one. It's the most original," he said, then stuffed a mouthful of hamburger in his mouth.

It just so happened that at that moment, Daisy glanced at Richie's plate, then made a face as if it were toxic just to look at whatever was on it.

"Ew, what's that?" she asked.

Zoey couldn't help but stifle a laugh, seeing that Daisy's reaction to Richie's choice of food had been the exact same as hers.

"See, I'm not the only one that thinks that's disgusting," she muttered.

Richie playfully glared at her, and then waved his arms in surrender.

"Yeah, yeah, pick on the nerdy kid. I get it."

"What else are nerdy kids for?" she teased. Deep down, though, she found Richie's behavior quite endearing.

The five friends ate in silence for a few minutes. Zoey let her eye wander around the cafeteria. Besides all the noisy students in the cafeteria, a relatively large TV screen caught her attention.

"We never had those at our school," she said aloud.

The four friends turned their heads to see what she was looking at.

"Yeah, we just got those last year. I guess it's supposed to keep the lunch monitors entertained or something," Daisy said. "Yet the budget could afford that," she muttered to herself as she looked at the television in disgust.

As the friends were about to turn their attention away from the television, a red BREAKING NEWS icon appeared in the top left corner of the screen.

"Wonder what crazy news story they have today," Zoey remarked.

Her mother watched the news a lot, that is, when she was home, and Zoey seen the news enough to know it wasn't very exciting to watch. However, she saw that her new friends kept their eyes glued to the screen.

What's their problem? It's just the news, Zoey thought.

She watched the screen to see what was so interesting. No one could hear what the reporter was saying, but from the footage one could tell it was a bank robbery. Dakota Union Bank was being robbed, except the supposed robbers looked quite strange to Zoey. It wasn't people wearing black ski masks; what they saw was a young guy with flaming red hair wearing a t-shirt and saggy cargo pants throwing fire at the building, causing the side of the bank to explode, which left a gaping hole in the wall. The sight caused her eyes to widen in amazement and in horror.

"Who's that?" was all she could bring herself to say.

Frieda broke her gaze from the screen and turned to Zoey with a grim expression on her face.

"That's F-Stop, the old school bully. He now goes by the name Hotstreak."

Frieda appeared to be a bit reluctant to explain further, but still, Zoey wanted answers. Frieda talked about him as though she had seen a man who could make fire using his hands on a daily basis.

"But how can he do that?" she pressed.

"He's a Bang-Baby," Daisy said, as though it was the most trivial thing in the world. Zoey crinkled her nose.

"A bang-baby. What's a bang-baby?"

"There was gang fight down at the docks. The police came and these tanks of gas exploded. Every single person there breathed in the gas," Daisy explained. "They got all these awesome powers. Apparently the gas was mutagenic and could change a person's DNA structure."

Zoey just stared at her, speechless.

"Wow. And I thought Dakota was a boring place to live," she said.

Everyone was silent for a moment until Virgil stood up from the lunch table, with Richie following his example.

"Oh man, I really have to use the restroom. I guess my delicious cafeteria burger just went right through me."

"Me too," Richie said.

"Wait a second, where exactly are you two going?" Frieda demanded.

Virgil and Richie didn't say anything; they simply glanced at each other with unreadable expressions, and then ran out of the cafeteria. The girls watched them turn right as they left the cafeteria, which strangely, Frieda noticed, was the opposite direction of the bathrooms.

"Ugh," Frieda sighed. She turned to Zoey and Daisy, who were looking at her with confused and knowing expressions. "They always disappear like this all the time. They make some kind of excuse to leave, and then they're nowhere to be found." She slammed her fist on the table. "Just once I'd like to know where those two go."

Zoey shrugged. She thought their behavior was strange, but the bang-babies were really what were on her mind. Her head was slowly trying to process the idea of a bang baby, that something so science fiction-like could actually happen to a person. It wasn't enough just to have Daisy describe one to her.

She wanted to see one for herself, up close and personal.