Lucky had made a resolution after talking with Mobius at the bowling alley; he'd promised himself to do everything he could to convince Miss Minutes that he was agent material, come hell or high water. He would stop messing around and think seriously about his future, his career, his purpose.

After fight night, that is. He'd win fight night, then get serious.

Unless he got invited to another fight night, because he was so great at fighting. That was absolutely a possibility. He wouldn't be able to back down from an invitation. It would be a matter of honor, after all.

After hurriedly doing his homework the night before, when they'd come back to the dorms from bowling, Lucky could barely sleep, his mind filled with possibilities… and with Six. He'd kissed her on the elevator, almost without thinking about it. It felt natural, yet surreal, almost like it had happened before. It felt right. It felt… good. When he'd broken the rules before, it was mostly the thrill of doing something bad that made him feel excited, but this was different. Kissing shouldn't be banned from the TVA. How could anyone go through their whole boring lives, day in and day out, without ever feeling something that amazing at least once?

He'd slept lightly, his dreams full of urges he couldn't understand, feelings he forgot the second he woke up. Full of bare skin, deep moans, writhing bodies… far more thrilling than anything his brain could think of in daytime. He wished he could remember what they were about.

Lucky'd had the good sense to scrub the directions to Mobius' dorm off of his shirt, but not before copying it into the margins of his Employee Handbook. It was going to be the most amazing night of his life, he knew it. He'd totally smoke Casey, no problem, and be crowned king of fight night, everyone shouting his name… maybe Six would be so impressed she'd kiss him again.

"Good morning, L-7! Oh, already up, I see?"

Miss Minutes appeared on his nightstand again, like she did every morning, but even earlier than he expected. He faked a yawn and a stretch, to make it look like he hadn't been up for an hour beforehand, then nodded.

"Yep. I got lots of sleep, though."

"Good. Did your homework?"

"Uh-huh."

"The drill is basically the same," she continued, "But now, you get to eat breakfast upstairs in the cafeteria, so I'll give y'all a little more time to get ready. The proper order is to shower first, dress, eat breakfast, then brush your teeth."

"Okay," he said, trying to keep an exasperated sigh out of his voice. Why did she care what order he got ready in, as long as he got to class on time and didn't smell?

"Great! See you in class!"

"Oh, wait, Miss Minutes?"

"Yes?" she reappeared instantly on the nightstand, giving him an expectant look.

"I was just wondering… do you know what a gorilla looks like?"

"A gorilla?" she asked, surprised. "Why in tarnation do you want to know what a gorilla is?"

"Oh, I just heard someone say that they were pretty big and strong," he said innocently. "But… do you know, Miss Minutes?"

She disappeared for a moment, and her projection was replaced with one of a stout, hairy animal with a broad muscled chest and enormous arms, chewing on a piece of vegetation with its scary looking teeth.

"Gorillas are animals from Earth, time range approximately 7,000,000 B.C.E. to 2200 C.E. They are the largest primates on the planet, with the largest males weighing up to five hundred pounds. Being herbivores, they are generally peaceful creatures, but one gorilla is stronger than twenty adult men, combined!"

Lucky felt the blood drain out of his face. "Oh. That's nice," he croaked.

"Gorillas are native to the jungles and mountains of Sub-Saharan Africa-"

"That's okay, I don't want to know any more gorilla facts. Thanks," Lucky interrupted her quickly.

"Let me know if you've got more questions! Happy to answer them for ya'!" She gave him a wink, and then vanished again. Asking her how to fight probably wasn't the best idea, though he'd give just about anything to know how he was supposed to defend himself, after learning that Casey could crush him with the strength of twenty people.

Fight night had lost its luster almost instantly. He could still back out, like Mobius thought he should have done in the first place… but there was still the matter of honor. Lucky took a deep breath. He would go and face his fate like a man. Even if Casey ripped off one of his limbs.

Lucky shuddered and tried to put his imminent mauling out of his mind as he showered and dressed. By the time he was done, he was absolutely starving.

Up in the cafeteria, he spotted Six grabbing a plate of sausages. Lucky took some cereal and came up behind her, careful not to scare her and make her drop her food. The smile she gave him was warmer than any he'd seen on her face, with an undercurrent of something else running below, something he didn't have a name for. It was almost enough to make him forget that Casey was going to kill him tomorrow. They walked close and found a seat by themselves. Lucky searched around the crowded room but Mobius, to his chagrin, was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, neither was Casey.

"If you're looking for Mobius," said Six, somehow reading his mind, "He got some coffee and breakfast and left. He said he always has breakfast at his desk."

"Damn. I really need to ask him some questions."

"If it's about you-know-what, then I don't think he'd answer them here anyway," she said, trying a sip of black coffee and making a disgusted face. "It doesn't exist, remember?"

"Right. We're not going anywhere tomorrow at 24:00. Nowhere at all. Are you still mad that I'm dragging you along?"

She gave him the slightest grin through a bite of sausage. "I'm warming up to the idea."

Just then, Lucky caught sight of D-132, Sarge, and another girl from their class, not really walking together as much as Sarge was pitifully trailing behind the two girls. He'd occasionally catch up and try to walk next to D-132, but she didn't give him the time of day.

"Hey, hey D-132, did you pick a name yet?" Sarge's voice was tinged with a hint of desperation.

"Um, no."

Her answer sounded as unenthusiastic as she could possibly make it. When D-132 leaned over and whispered something to her friend, making them both giggle, Sarge once again fell behind the women, following them like a pathetic, lost puppy.

Lucky smirked at Sarge's dilemma and snuck a sip of Six's hot coffee, making the same face she had when she'd tasted it.

"Ugh," he grimaced. "Why is everyone drinking this stuff?"

"I don't know. It's almost as bad as the food blocks." She suddenly stuffed the rest of the sausage in her mouth and nodded towards the digital clock on the wall, which read 01:47. "Almost time for class. Come on."

"Why do we always have to hurry?" he grumbled, slurping the milk from his cereal, then dumping the bowl with all the other plates and silverware. Lucky felt like they were always getting herded around everywhere, either by Miss Minutes or by her deadlines and rules. 'Go here, stand there, don't touch anything, brush your teeth at exactly 01:30 or you'll get a demerit.' She didn't have to worry about getting anywhere on time, since she could project herself wherever she pleased. It was easy to forget she wasn't even alive.

That thought struck him so hard that he had to stop just as they were about to board an elevator.

"Lucky!" Six pouted, exasperated as the elevator doors closed without them. "Stop daydreaming, for once."

"Six, you know how they vaporized that robot on our field trip?"

"Yeah?"

"Isn't... isn't Miss Minutes technically a robot?"

"No, she said she was artificial intelligence. She doesn't have a robot body or anything."

"But that robot had artificial intelligence, too. I didn't even know he was a robot until he said so. He didn't have a soul, so they zapped him. Does that mean Miss Minutes does have a soul?"

"I..." she looked ready to brush off his question, then tilted her head and blinked at him. "That's... actually a good question."

"So I've only asked bad ones so far?"

"Well-"

Another elevator opening cut her off. They got on, stopped at their rooms to finish tidying up and gather their things, then got back on to join everyone else in class.

Lucky celebrated quietly when the grading hole spat his homework out with a green light and a '100%' at the top of his paper. Maybe there was some hope to still get that agent job. Perfect scores wouldn't be enough, though, not without that recommendation from Mobius.

Sarge took his place next to Lucky and violently stuffed his homework paper into his bag.

Lucky had barely even glanced at him, but Sarge scowled and grumbled, "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing, Sarge," he replied, with extra salt on his name. "You aced your homework, I take it?"

"Shut up," Sarge whispered, his face growing redder by the moment.

Lucky got such a smug sense of delight from seeing Sarge worked up in a place where he wouldn't dare throw a tantrum. He simply couldn't help pushing him further, to see just how far he could go. He scooted closer to Sarge, then nodded to D-132 sitting in front of him.

"You know she met someone else, right?"

All the blood that had rushed to Sarge's face suddenly drained away.

"What do you mean, 'met someone else'?"

"She met an analyst," he said as casually as possible, twirling his pencil in his fingers. "They went bowling together, had a great time. He's pretty handsome too, and tall, and strong. No wonder she likes him."

The scowl came back to Sarge's face. "You're lying, L-7."

"It's 'Lucky' now."

"That's a stupid name," he hissed, with an ugly grimace. "I'm not calling you that."

"I call you by your stupid name, you call me by mine."

That comeback didn't come out quite as smoothly as Lucky had intended it to, but Sarge didn't seem to notice.

Class began, and Lucky ignored Sarge and decided he needed to take extra detailed notes, just like Six did. It was harder than he thought, but Six made it look so simple. Lucky couldn't help but be a little jealous of Six's natural abilities. She really did seem to be a shoo-in for an agent's position, when he thought about it. She was bright, and bold, just as much as he was, and obviously more dedicated to her studies. The night before, Mobius had assured him that he would give a recommendation for them both. Lucky would be gutted if Six became an agent and he had to be stuck behind a desk as an analyst or an archivist. He'd never be angry at her for it, though. Happiness didn't seem to come easily to her, and all Lucky really wanted was for her to be happy.

There were lots of complicated, detailed things to learn in their lesson about the technology of the TVA, which Miss Minutes said would span a few days, since the chapter was so massive. Lucky tried to keep up with all the new terms and phrases, not knowing which ones were going to be important later; quark ion technology, temporal rendering systems, deep-cold fusion power, tempads, atomized artificial intelligence.

When that phrase came up, Lucky's hand shot into the air.

"You've got a question, L-7?"

"Are you powered by the atomized artificial intelligence, Miss Minutes?"

"I sure am!" she replied cheerfully. "The atomized A.I. lets me materialize anywhere in the TVA, without the aid of screens or projectors. It also allows me to access all of the TVA's vast library of information and send it to employee's tempads, if need be."

"Can you exist outside of the TVA?" Lucky stopped short of asking her if she had a soul to speak of, not just because everyone would laugh at a question like that, but because he felt it would make her suspicious.

"No, though agents and hunters are able to access nearly everything in the TVA from their tempads, no matter where they are in the timeline. We'll get into those functions in detail in another class."

"Where does the A.I. come from, though?" Six piped up without raising her hand, but Miss Minutes answered her anyway without a reprimand.

"It's spread all throughout the machinery and computers of the TVA. Now, we should move on to the temporal rendering systems, which allow us to make true-to-life timecells to house the more tricky variants…"

Lucky frantically started taking notes again, but scribbled a quick note to himself at the corner of his paper: 'Robots killed?' He hoped it would make sense when he looked at it later.

Near the end of the lesson, when the entire class was becoming visibly antsy, shuffling around and trying to put their books and notebooks into their bags as quietly as possible, Miss Minutes held up a finger, making herself huge on the projection wall.

"I've got an important announcement before you take off, y'all!" she said. "On the last day of the Null-week cycle, y'all will have your first big exam and in-depth personality testing. That's in just five days!" The class whispered nervously to each other as she continued. "Obviously, you don't have to study for the personality test, but you will for the exam. It'll take up the entire class period. Y'all should have been studying before, but if you've dropped the ball, now's the time to pick it up! Now, enjoy your off-day tomorrow, everybody! For all time… "

"Always," the class responded, then immediately broke into anxious chatter as the trainees flooded into the foyer.

Lucky and Six walked together, as always, and Lucky moaned dramatically and leaned into her, as if he was about to fall on top of her. She laughed and pushed him away.

"My brain melted in there, Six," he groaned. "My mind is jelly. How are we supposed to remember all this stuff?"

"I hope she's not going to ask questions about every single thing," she muttered, skimming her book as they walked, looking more anxious by the moment. "We have to start studying, Lucky. We can't put it off any longer."

"We will, don't worry," he said, giving her a reassuring smile. "We can study some tonight, and tomorrow, before… you-know-what."

"Before you tear Casey a new one," she said under her breath, returning his smile.

He was pleasantly surprised by her support, after she'd been so furious that he'd begged her to come. That meant she was expecting him to win… against a man who could easily squash him like a bug. She didn't know that, though.

Lucky puffed out his chest with pride. He would win. He had to, now.

Lucky and Six went back to the cafeteria together for a late lunch. The place was even more packed than it had been for breakfast. Lucky searched the room again, but still found no trace of Mobius, or the other agents he'd been hanging out with the first time they'd met. He pouted and pondered just going straight to Mobius' dorm and waiting for him to get back from work. That didn't seem like a good idea. It felt desperate.

Well, Lucky was desperate. He had to figure out another way to defend himself against Casey, though. They spent lunch in relative silence while Lucky racked his brain. Suddenly, he came up with an idea… perhaps not a surefire plan, but one that at least might lead him somewhere. Six couldn't know about it, though. She'd balk, or maybe even snitch on him if she knew where he was going.

After Six and Lucky got back to their dorm, Six spun on her heel and looked up at him with a gleam in her eye.

"So," she asked demurely. "Do you want to go to your room, or mine?"

"For what?"

Her face fell and she scoffed grumpily. "To study!" she whined.

"Oh. Um, Six… we can do it a little later, right? I'm really tired." He stretched and yawned loudly, to get his point across. "I was going to take a nap for a little while. Why don't I go to your room in… let's say an hour?"

"Okay, fine," she said, rolling her eyes. She swung her bag at him and gently smacked him in the legs. "But you'd better come over. If you don't, I'll find you. We are studying today, that's a threat."

He chuckled at her. She gave him one last glance as she swung her pack over her shoulder and left down her hallway. Lucky waited until she'd closed her door, then went straight back into the elevator. He pressed the button for the Division Nine terminal. This plan was even riskier than copying his homework for Six, or even nearly starting a fight in the cafeteria. If he got caught, he had no idea how harsh the punishment would be.

Lucky stuffed that anxiety back down as he got to the terminal, nodding casually to a couple of engineers as they took the elevator back down. He put his hands in his pockets as he approached the round terminal desk, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, like he wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to.

A bored looking receptionist peered up at him through his thick horn rimmed glasses. He pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard of his tiny, orange, round computer, just like the ones they had in the training theater.

"Can I help you?" he droned.

"Yes… can you tell me where the film archives are?"

"Film archives? What's a hatchling need with the film archives?"

The lie came to him as easily as breathing, almost without thinking. "It's for my homework."

"Hmmph, okay." The receptionist waved his hand vaguely to the side, without looking at anything in particular. "Go right. Then make another right at the fifth hallway. Go about a dozen doors down, then there'll be a long stretch with no doors, then you'll see a door on the left that says 'archive storage', if you hit the courtroom, you've gone too far."

"Thanks!"

Lucky took off down the hallway, trying not to walk too fast and look suspicious. Lying to that receptionist was easy… almost too easy. It gave him a bit of a thrill to know he could do that, make people believe whatever he wanted. He could do it all the time.

Not to Six. Even though he'd lied to her about taking a nap, he decided he would eventually tell her what he'd done. After he'd done it, of course. It wasn't really a lie, just… a delayed truth.

He found the door to the film archives, which opened for him when he passed his badge through a rectangular swipe. It beeped, then opened to a cavernous, cement warehouse, no bright tiles on the floor, no posters or brutalist embellishments on the wall. Motes of dust floated through the air, catching the light from the bare fluorescent bulbs buzzing on the ceiling. The room was filled with giant black circles hanging from racks like densely packed sides of beef in a freezer: the reels of film Miss Minutes had shown them yesterday. Off to the side of the room sat a few dozen orange machines, with two metal arms sticking out of them and a small screen in the front. The ground around them was littered with little bits of film.

Lucky gingerly stepped through the aisles, able to easily pull a bit of film out of the end and see the cells on each frame as he held them up to the light.

To his chagrin, they all seemed to start at the beginning of life, with a mother holding a newborn baby variant… nowhere near what he was looking for. He thought perhaps he could find a variant that was good at fighting, and learn from them. It would be useless, though, if he had to unroll miles and miles of film to find anything worthwhile.

Suddenly, a noise startled him. The door opened, and Lucky darted behind the shadow of a huge hanging reel as an archivist walked in. She sighed deeply with her hands on her hips, searching the vast aisles of film. Lucky held his breath as her gaze passed over him. She couldn't see him hidden in the darkness. If he made a single noise, though, he was certain she'd hear. The place was soundproof against the commotion out in the hallway and everything echoed.

He stood perfectly still as the archivist took a tempad out of her pocket and scrolled the screen with her finger.

"Irani Rael… where are you, Irani… ah!" She tapped a button on the screen, scrolled again a little more. "3479, 3480, 3481. Aisle 28, rack F-V."

She mumbled the aisle and rack position to herself as she left to the other side of the storage room. Lucky let himself breathe slightly. He peeked around the film reel he was hiding behind to see her struggling to pull down a reel. If he moved quickly, quietly, while she was distracted-

That thought was cut short as she hefted the reel off the rack by herself and let it thump loudly against the floor. He put himself back into position, hoping he'd get another chance soon. The dust was making his nose itch.

The archivist rolled the reel down the aisle, then stopped it in front of one of the orange machines. With a grunt, she placed the reel on the bottom metal arm, then found the end of the tape and fed it into the back of the screen and around onto the second metal arm. She then sat on a stool in front of the machine, pressed a few buttons, and the screen came to life, lighting her face. The sound of the machinery rolling the film slowly forward mixed with the sounds of a baby crying coming from the screen. She pressed another button, and the film suddenly spun much, much faster, curling itself around the smaller arm in a tight coil.

"Here we go," she said to herself. "Her father's death. That's an important one."

The tape stopped, she pressed a few more keys, and the machine cut out the long curl of film that she'd fast-forwarded through. It dropped to the floor, slowly uncoiling itself, years worth of some variant's memories that would be thrown away.

Lucky was starting to get antsy. How long was this going to take? He couldn't wait around forever for her to go through miles of film. At the most inopportune time, his nose started to water from all the dust floating around. He sniffed a little too loudly, and the archivist stopped the machine and looked toward his hiding spot.

"Hello? Someone else in here?"

Lucky couldn't hold back the sneeze as it exploded from him. The archivist suddenly met his gaze, her face turning stoney as she left her editing machine and walked towards him.

"What in the world are you doing?" she asked him angrily. "Trainees aren't supposed to be in here!"

He racked his brain for a better lie than the one he'd told the receptionist. That guy didn't know any better, but the archivist certainly would.

"I… um… Quibble!"

"Quibble?" she asked. "You mean Adam's cat?"

"Yeah! He ran off and got lost. I saw him run in here."

Her face changed instantly from anger to concern. "Oh no! Poor baby! Can I help you look for him?"

"No!" he spurted loudly, then continued with a dismissive chuckle. "No, no, it's all right, I almost had him, it's just that you scared him with all the noise. I can get him, but it has to be quiet in here."

She nodded and spoke warmly. "Okay. I guess I can put it off for a little while. I've got some filing to do, anyway. Good luck! Oh, poor kitty cat…"

He smiled brightly at her until the moment she turned away and walked out the door. The second the door was closed, he rushed to the machine she'd been editing with. It was stopped on a frame of a young girl crying, looking down at a dead body in a coffin. That must have been the 'father' that the archivist was talking about.

The buttons weren't labeled with anything he could understand, just weird, arcane symbols: triangles pointing different directions, a square, two parallel lines. Lucky gingerly pushed one of the triangles and the film began again, but with the images and sound going backwards.

"No no no!" Lucky frantically pushed another button and the film went forwards, but much, much too fast, the voices sounding like unintelligible squeaks, the images flying by. He groaned and pressed all the buttons, one after the other, until the machine made an awful grinding noise and a huge wad of crumpled up film fell out of the back of it.

Lucky backed away slowly, staring at the mess he'd made. There was absolutely no way he was touching any of it. He feared it might burst into flames, too.

Obviously, his plan had been a bust. He was about to leave and run back to his room when he heard a shuffling noise in the back of the archives, followed by a muffled pounding, like something hitting a sheet of metal.

"Hello?" he called out into the aisles. Nothing answered. He moved carefully down the aisles, trying to pinpoint the sound, which was quickly growing quieter. At the very back of the warehouse, next to the wall where a vent had been opened, lay a flash of color on the floor that caught his eye. He picked up the metal object, red and crinkled, turned it over in his hands. As he did, a drop of something fell out of a hole in the top of it. The liquid smelled sugary, very fruity and pungent. It was a can of something that had been crushed beyond recognition.

Lucky shook the last drops out of it and put the can in his pocket. He peered into the large, square hole in the wall, where someone, or something, had taken off the metal grid on the front of the vent and laid it to the side. The hole was pitch black, but if he listened very closely, he thought he could hear the muffled pounding noise again.

"Hello!" he called into the vent, which reverberated loudly, startling him. It would be big enough for him to crawl into, if he dared… but he didn't dare. Not then. He had no way to light his way through the tunnel.

The whole thing was very, very odd. There was no reason for the vent to be open, and there was definitely something sneaking around in there. But what? A shiver of excitement ran down Lucky's spine. This was his very first mystery to solve. If he could prove that something strange was afoot, then surely Miss Minutes would be impressed and he'd be guaranteed the agent career he wanted.

He didn't have the time or the tools to solve this case, though, at the moment. He needed Mobius to help him. Lucky was almost unable to contain his joy as he ran to the door, then forced himself to calm down as he power-walked through the hallway.

Lucky couldn't remember Mobius' dorm floor off the top of his head, even though he'd written it down twice. He needed to go back to his room and find the page of the book he'd written it on. Lucky's head was filled with imaginary scenarios of triumph as he boarded the elevator to his dorm. Even if he didn't win fight night, he'd definitely get the job he wanted. He bet he'd be the first trainee to ever solve a case before even getting assigned. Everyone would know who he was before he was done with classes. The name 'Lucky' would be legendary throughout the TVA, the smartest, coolest, cleverest agent who'd ever-

His thoughts were derailed violently as he saw Six standing next to his door, glowering at him. Her expression could melt steel.

"Did you take a nap somewhere else?" she asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

Lucky stammered and sputtered, his mind wiped blank, no lies coming to him like they had with the archivist and receptionist.

"Wait," he said, finally, "It hasn't been an hour yet. Why are you here?"

"My highlighters were dry, so I came over to see if I could borrow yours. I pounded on the door, but you weren't here," she added darkly, crossing her arms across her chest.

Lucky swallowed hard, then rolled his eyes and shrugged. The jig was up. He was going to tell her eventually, anyway.

"Fine. But you can't tell Miss Minutes, okay?"

"Getting into even more trouble? Why am I not surprised? You know I won't tell her," she added glumly, as if she wanted to tattle a little, anyway.

He led her into his room, then told her everything, from finding the archives to ruining the editing machine with his ignorance. Despite how mad she'd been, to his surprise, she giggled when he mentioned he'd busted the machine.

"What's so funny?" he asked. "That's the least amusing thing that happened. I could still get in huge trouble for it, you know."

"That's why it's funny," she chortled.

"Here's the weird thing, though," he continued. "After all that, I heard something at the back of the room, so I went to the back wall and found this." He pulled the crushed can triumphantly out of his pocket, still smelling faintly of berries and chemicals, now slightly sticky.

Six stared at him blankly. "You found trash."

"Yeah."

"Why are you excited about finding trash?"

"Because it was right next to an open vent, where I heard the monster retreating."

"The monster?" Six's mouth turned up in a slow grin.

"It has to be a monster," said Lucky, putting up a finger like he knew precisely what he was talking about. "Because what else could crush metal like this? Why would it have to sneak around in the vent instead of using the door?" he tapped the side of his head. "Think about it."

She did, for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Maybe it was one of the engineers working on the vent, and they left their drink behind?"

"I… oh," Lucky muttered, deflated. That admittedly made a lot more sense than his monster theory. He perked up again. "But the can!"

"Is it really that strong?" she asked, taking it from him. Six carefully started to pull and crunch the metal back a little to its original shape. There were yellow letters on the front. The bit she'd revealed looked like a 'T' and an 'A'. "It's really not hard to bend it," she said, handing the mutilated can back to him. "A person could do it."

Disheartened, Lucky took the can from her and put it into his desk. "You're probably right. It's nothing," he grumbled.

"It could still be a monster," she responded, with a smirk on her face.

"Don't patronize me, Six," he said, and her smirk disappeared. "Sorry. I just really thought I was on to something."

"It is kind of weird," she admitted. "There were no other people around? No helper robot thingy?"

"Nope, nothing."

"Maybe it is a secret passage, or something."

"No, it's dumb. Never mind."

She sighed and scooted closer to him on the bed. "I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, Lucky."

"I was going to tell Mobius, see what he thought about it, but… I don't know… he'll just think I'm stupid, probably."

"You should," she said encouragingly. "Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's not. Don't just give up right away."

He looked into her deep, green eyes for a moment, then smiled. "Okay. You're right. I will. But after we study. I need all the help I can get."

Six pulled her notebook out of the bag she'd brought with her, then opened it on the bed, spilling dozens of rectangular pieces of paper out of it.

"What are those?"

"They're cards I made," she answered, shuffling them around and organizing them into piles. "They have a question on one side and the answer on the other. I was going to sort them by color, according to subject."

"That's a good idea," said Lucky, fishing around in his drawer for his highlighters.

They spent their evening together, Lucky happily helping her color her flashcards, the sting of his hurt pride dissolving in Six's welcome company.