Last, there were about three minutes of choppy, grainy film that had been shot insideItex’s picturesque German headquarters. It showed me squaring off against Omega, poster boy for pathetic losers. It showed the riot that some of the clones had started, and the crowd of angry kids breaking through the castle wall.

It showedAri dying.

The film stopped, and the dimmed lights brightened. Shades lifted automatically, revealing the large windows again.

Now I was in a totally rotten mood. It was bad enough that I was all dressed up like some fashion geek, but I’d managed to not think aboutAri for about five minutes, and then I had to watch him die all over again. I snuck a glance atJeb, who was white faced, one hand clenched tightly around a pencil as he stared at the table.

“You six are most impressive.” A woman in a tailored gray skirt-suit stood up and poured herself a glass of water. She smiled at us, but it was the kind of smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“We’ve asked you to come here today because we’re very interested in your future,” said an older man. “We- the American government, that is- didn’t know of your existence until quite recently. Now that we know, we want to protect you and also explore whether we can be useful to each other.”

They were certainly putting their cards on the table. Usually there was a lot of mumbo jumbo about how special and unique we were, et cetera, but what they were always really getting at was: Can we make you do what we want you to?

So far the answer had always been “Nope!”

The man paused, looking at us one by one, as if waiting for a response. He got none.

“One waywe could be useful toyou would be for us to create a school, a place where you could live safely.” A younger blond woman was talking to us, but clearly her words were aimed atJeb and my mom. Like they made decisions for us or something. “You’re very gifted at survival, but there are significant gaps in your education. We could fill in those gaps, help you realize your full potential.”