A/n: I am changing Max's alias here, so please do not get mad and shoot me down. All will be revealed in time.

INTRODUCING…

I was left alone for the first time in my life without a trainer, without one of my family, without even a stupid guard or doctor. And I was left alone in charge of three other transgenics not of my unit. This was scary stuff indeed.

I gave a curious glance at the building in front of me, mind awhirl trying to remember everything, not wanting to screw this up and look bad on my family and Colonel Lydecker. The building itself was larger than our Manticore facility for the sole reason it was at least fourteen stories high and was comprised of both the elementary, junior high and high schools together. They were joined together by courtyards and one huge building that was I would come to find out the gym and auditorium.

The only true difference, other than the useless parks and auditorium/gym, which separated it from Manticore, was that it didn't have the acres upon acres upon miles of miles of forest, training grounds, and obstacle courses.

"We're supposed to go into that?" Dante asked from beside me, and I become cognizant that I was being flanked. I glanced over, Nessie was beside my left, Petra right behind her with a reassuring hand upon her shoulder, and Dante was on my right leaving me at point in a modified wedge formation.

"Yup…think they can handle us?" I gave a wicked grin.

"I don't think they'll know what hit them with you two," Petra groaned good-naturedly.

I smirked, and took a look at the sign right there in front of some pretty expensive landscaping. Cameron & Eglee Elementary. Cameron & Eglee Junior High. Cameron & Eglee High.

"Cameron and Eglee must have been important," Nessie wondered aloud what I'd been thinking, she too looking at the signs, the farthest sign not far with our telescopic vision. She cast nervous looks at the sheer numbers of students and parents and staff coming in and out of the buildings or forming large or small groups hanging about the courtyards.

"Imagine, there must be hundreds of them," Petra murmured, keeping tactile contact with Nessie, rubbing her shoulders with his hands in soothing circles.

"But not all of them are Ordinary…what do you want to bet there's some more of us in there? Or even being dropped off right now, or registered? There might even be some 'local' cousins," I encouraged, giving Petra a look. Couldn't he see crowds made her anxious, crowds of ordinaries that is.

"Yeah, we might have to prove us Wyoming 'gens aren't pushovers like these water lilies here," Dante added and we all laughed at his bumbled expressions.

"Don't you mean, 'pansies'?" Nessie giggled, sidestepping a pair of chattering females with overloaded backpacks. The girls stopped laughing and talking to stare at the boys as they went past, and once they did, they put their heads together and giggled.

Our sharp hearing picked up what they were saying even as they were out of distance and whispering. It was interesting to hear they found our boys attractive. We four looked at each other in bemusement, shook our heads. Ordinaries.

"So…water lilies?" I prompted, setting us to laughing again, while I kept an eye out for Wes and/or any threat.

"Yeah…water lilies," Dante nodded. "Can't be pansies because they only grow where there's moderate rainfall. Water lilies because they were bred and grown here in beautiful, water world central."

"That's terrible, Dante," I shook my head, finally spotting our handler among the crowds.

"C'mon kiddies, let's not dawdle, we need to get you to class," he called out cheerfully and with a genuine smile. He and Amanda were pretty laid back and seemed to actually give a damn about us as people, not millions of dollars of research and development.

"Accents and flavor please," he said under his breath where only we could hear him, a subtle reminder to keep in character.

For the past five days, I'd had a crash course in Spanish culture and politics, listening to tapes and CDs to get the accent correct, learning about American culture so that if there were gaps in my memory about 'normal' school, it could be brushed off as me being foreign. It'd also help explain a few quirks.

I knew the others had undergone similar courses with varying nationalities that would seem natural for our ethnicities. Our cover story was we were part of a foreign exchange program and had the same host family, Wes and Amanda, coincidentally.

We followed Wes up the stairs leading up to Cameron & Eglee Elementary School, weaving in and out of the crowd to find the main office area off the main foyer which was as large as the mess hall back home, with just as many corridors leading away toward classrooms and storage closets and stairwells for even more classrooms upward. It was a large school.

"Okay, guys and gals, first stop is to drop off the little people, that means not you Pete," Wes quipped, holding the door open for all us to troop on in, no pun intended. Five days had accustomed us to some of Wes's little quirks, one of them being how he would always use the funkiest phrases.

There was a platinum blonde woman behind a tall counter, phones ringing softly in the background, mixing in with the hum of computers and muted conversation. Several adults were in with their charges…or did they call them offspring? Children? Parents with children, I think. Or guardians. Human relationships seemed so complex and varying.

"Well, hello!" the lady flashed her teeth at us or more so, at Wes; they were so absolutely white and perfectly straight I suspected they were fake. Or a really good bleaching job. They didn't seem…natural.

I felt a frown forming between my eyes and stood up a bit straighter, unconsciously moving slightly forward and to the side to take point, covering my comrades. I discovered that Dante had had a similar reaction; only he had moved close enough to brush against me.

Nessie edged toward me as well, while Petra looked like he'd love to join the mini-pack but was uncertain how that would appear for a supposed C.O. to huddle. Nessie saved him from any embarrassing admissions by letting go of my arm and clutching at him, making him her protector and comfort.

"Hello to you too!" Wes replied ever cheerfully, drawing the attention off us.

I don't know, something about the way she smiled…it raised invisible hackles and made me want to snarl back. Too much teeth flashing for my animal instinct not to react to a perceived threat? My eyes narrowed as I realized she was checking Wes out in a not-so-obvious-quite-obvious way. She wouldn't have flirted if Amanda were here with Wes.

"What have we here?" she only gave a cursory glance our way, double-taking when she caught sight of the boy's unusual eyes.

"Foreign exchange students," We answered glibly, and you could practically see her interest pique.

"Really? How wonderful!"

"Could she sound any faker?" Dante mumbled under his breath.

"Give her a few more sentences," I muttered back. Nessie coughed and turned into Petra's side, and he buried his smile in her hair. To an outsider it would look like he was comforting a scared little girl. Very smooth.

"I'm Ms. Binker, the receptionist," she cooed at Wes, batting her eyes and leaning down to show hints of her cleavage. I was amused to see some disapproving looks from several waiting mothers, one was even covering her daughter's eyes, and sending death glares in the receptionist's direction.

"Does she have a death wish?" Nessie murmured into Petra's side, easing herself away but staying within the circle of his arms.

"Amanda would eat her for breakfast," Petra agreed, stroking Nessie's hair.

"Good thing she already ate; Ms. Binker would give her indigestion," Dante snorted. Thankfully the adults weren't paying attention and couldn't hear our side-conversation, Ms. Binker was trying to get Wes to fill out some forms.

"…Just need you to fill these out, mister…?" she was saying.

"McCabe, and thank you, but my wife Amanda already filled out the forms last week," Wes answered with a bright smile, eyes sparkling. "I just need to pick up the kid's schedules. The younger three are attending here and the eldest is going to the junior high."

"I see," a great deal of enthusiasm had been sucked away in light of Wes' "marriage" and she was once again back to her original state in disappointment.

"Names?" she inquired, heading toward a stack of papers.

"Katarina Murrieta, Evanescence Corazon, and Dante Mondego."

"Say what?" Her look was startled for a moment before she did an admirable job of pulling herself together.

"Katarina? Evanescence?"

"Katarina, is me," I piped up in Spanish-laden English, affecting a bright, cheery smile.

"Evanescence…my da and ma named me cause I'm so bubbly!" Nessie added with a Welsh accent, looking so innocent harder hearts than Ms. Binker couldn't resist.

"Yes, well…" she cleared her throat; uncomfortable and embarrassed in light of her shot down advances. "Beautiful name."

"And what would your name be, handsome?" she asked Petra as she pulled some papers out of two stacks after tapping some commands on the computer and reading what it brought up.

"Petra Pietrov," Petra's tongue rolled the accent like Russian candy. "But I am told, that you Americans prefer nicknames, so you can call me…Pete."

One of the older girls in the waiting room sigh, and I exchanged another look with Dante, as Nessie was glaring in her direction. Human females were strange creatures indeed.

"Katarina Murrieta, Evanescence Corazon, and Dante Mondego," Ms. Binker announced, brandishing three sheets of paper in the air in a voila gesture.

"Here are the schedules for this semester, the next page is for the second semester, and there's copies of the building layout with emergency exits marked, each highlighted for the individual student's classes."

"Thank you so much, Ms. Binker, you have been most helpful," Wes layered it on with all the charm of a snake, taking the papers and somehow managing to kiss her extended hand in the process.

I raised an eyebrow at the gesture, but followed my handler in awe; a Master had truly been at work today.

" 'Katarina? Evanescence?' " Dane mimicked in a scarily accurate falsetto. I reached over and smacked him on the arm, giving a glare that was tinged with mirth.

"Evanescence is a lot better name than Ms. Binker," Nessie sniffed haughtily, nose and chin raised in the air. Wes finally stopped trying to hid his reaction to our antics and laughed aloud.

"I seem to have corrupted you," he teased as he led us expertly through a crowd of parents dropping off children.

"No, sir, we was already corrupted long before you," Petra grinned.

"Pete made a funny!" I teased him, surprised when he flushed red. I was fascinated, but we'd reached our first stop.

"Dante, this is your stop," Wes remarked as we stood in front of Room 29. For a moment, the five of us stood and just stared at the steadily filling up room with chittering youngsters and weepy parents. This was it, the time had finally come, and I don't think until that moment any of us really expected us to be doing this.

Dante swallowed and I touched his shoulder in an instinctive offering of strength and comfort to a pack brother. The past five days, while not without their tensions or aggravations, had merged our four different personalities into something similar to a unit mind. A mini-pack if you will. They would never truly be the family that Unit 2 will always be, but perhaps, friends and comrades and something closer than that. And that was okay.

Petra and Nessie touched him also, commiserating. None of us liked being alone; call it a throwback to animal DNA or whatever, I'd seen even humans get this way. Perhaps our animal blood just let us express it more freely. Whatever it was, we were pretty casual touchers and made us feel better with the contact.

"Well," Wes cleared his throat, moving aside as a smilingly apologetic mother and her son squeezed through to enter the room. "This is the fourth grade, all aboard! Go get 'em, Tiger"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Dante drawled in a French accent imitating an 'American' one. His eyes sparkled with that play of mischief, and I had a sudden foreboding at the calm way he was taking this. I had to keep back a groan.

"Behave," I hissed before he started for the door.

"Aww…"

"I mean it."

"You're just jealous because you can't have any decent fun without me," he laughed at me, while I put on a mock-pout, affecting hurt and watching him enter the room with a smile on his face and a proud hitch to his step.

I smirked when just as he was about to disappear from our line of sight, he turned back and waved, and I caught a hidden message.

You behave too, he signed to me and I nodded in acknowledgement, grinning.

"Let's get you and Miss Loch Ness to class so Pete won't be late, eh Kitty Kat?" Wes teased, and I rolled my eyes. Ever since Amanda had come up with the Katarina alias for me, Wes had been making fun of it, making "cat" jokes. He'd also taken to calling Nessie, little miss loch ness or miss Scot or any other culturally pathetic nickname he could think of, which was quite a bit actually. Granted, some were humorous but this was going on six days now. Enough was enough.

The good thing was that Nessie and I would be in the same class. I hadn't been keen on going to class alone, though I wouldn't have had a choice, but it was comforting knowing that I'd have someone I was partially familiar with and actually liked.

Perhaps this school dealio wouldn't suck as bad as seemed to at first. Yeah, right. This was a Manticore approved and endorsed option from the Committee itself; this was going to suck so badly.