The agent directed her, turn by turn, to the gymnasium (as if she didn’t know where the gym was!) where she was checked in with another green uniformed agent and given a tote with her name on it, and a paper package of something soft and flexible. She’d already torn it by accident before she got to her assigned “dressing room,” which was part of a bank of much cheaper and flimsier booths set up in the middle of the gym – the locker rooms were blocked by one of the very sturdy security booths they were using on the auditorium doors. The packet contained a new school bag, except blue and white instead of green and white, and a complete uniform; down to the socks and underwear. “Change your clothes, underwear too. Everything you’re wearing now goes in the tote, dress in the clothes in the package,” they told her.

  “What if it’s not the right size, or – ” Danielle tried to ask.

  “It is. You were measured at the final-decision medcheck,” the agent said. “Change all your clothes. We will be confirming it.”

  The new uniform was a pretty basic green T-shirt – not flag-green for once, more of a forest green – and matching green shorts with blue piping down the seams, worn under a pair of jeans and a button-down denim shirt. Danielle was skeptical that they’d fit over the shorts and T-shirt, but apparently everything was sized for that. The sports bra and briefs were pretty standard, but the socks were thick wool, like nothing Danielle had actually worn ever before. There was even a forest green hair scrunchie. She got dressed and put her things in the tote, then stuck her head out the door of the booth. “What about shoes?”

  “In the tote,” the agent said in no-nonsense tone.

  “Um, OK, but I didn’t get any new shoes, so – ”

  “In the tote!” the agent insisted.

  “There wasn’t anything in there!” Danielle protested.

  “What?”

  “The replacement shoes weren’t in the tote. I didn’t get any.”

  “Oh.” The agent rolled her eyes. “You’ll get fitted for boots at the next station. You’ll survive walking across the gym in sock feet! Come on, pack up the old stuff and hand it over.”

  Danielle handed over the tote with a huff. “As if the biggest thing I’d try to take was my school uniform,” she said. “The dress-event uniform even! Stupid thing doesn’t even have pockets!”

  The agent looked in, and flipped the pieces on top to the side to confirm that everything was there. “Oh, your shoes were already in,” she said, as if that was a mind-blowing revelation.

  “Well, I assume it’s going to the used uniform program,” Danielle said. “There’s no reason to send it there with shoe prints on the skirt, so of course the shoes had to go in first.”

  “Ah, right. Well. This way, now. Don’t forget your new bag.”

  The boot station was a similar exercise in low-grade hostility, or at least, lack of trust. They did go to considerable effort to make sure the boots were the right size, though. “Remember, be honest – you won’t have another good chance to get footwear until fall,” they kept reminding her, as if she might try to fake them out about whether the boots she was wearing felt right or not. Then she collected another paper uniform package. That agent told her it was extra underwear and to put it in her bag, so she did that and moved on. She saw another girl there tear open the paper and unpack everything; there were another T-shirt and shorts set in the packet, but not another pair of jeans. The other girl tried to make a scene about it, but the agents weren’t having any. “The denim parts are one per customer. Move along,” they said.

  Danielle was already moved along, in line for a mundane scanner of some kind, where she waited in line. “Why only one pair of jeans?” she asked her accompanying agent (or maybe she should be thinking of her as her guard). “How are we supposed to do laundry?”

  “In shorts and T-shirt,” the agent said. “It’s summer, the denim is to protect you from small thorns and things like that. You don’t need it just to stay warm.”

  “What about bad weather, though?” Danielle asked. “The Outside has unregulated weather, doesn’t it?”

  “Something to think about at the store tomorrow, I guess,” the agent said. “Move up.”

  Danielle caught up to the line; it moved slowly but consistently. Soon she was through the arch (“Stop. Hold your hands out to the side. Good – good, step through,”) and the agent was leading her through to a school bus parked on the playground (where vehicles did not belong, not that anyone in green uniforms seemed to care about where they did and did not belong that night). The bus gradually filled up, and as soon as all the seats were full, they left the school behind.

  That was another moment when it all seemed to crash down on Danielle. She wasn’t just leaving school for the quarter; she was leaving school forever. She wasn’t coming back to this school. She wasn’t coming back to any school. She might never get to go to school again! It wasn’t fair – she hadn’t even been allowed to graduate middle school! Sent were supposed to graduate high school. They couldn’t Send people with a “some middle school” education – it wasn’t allowed! What were they supposed to do when they Returned (if they returned) and didn’t know whatever it was that high schoolers were supposed to learn? “So much for pre-algebra,” she whispered. No algebra for her! That was important, though, wasn’t it? She was supposed to grow up and go to college for computer stuff. She would need algebra for that, wouldn’t she?

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  She didn’t have her data pad anymore. Were they getting new data pads? Did data pads even work Outside? It seemed likely that the Outside might not have good network signal reception. Had she watched her last stream-show ever?

  The bus pulled up to an imposing building, foreboding stone architecture declaring it a holdout from the days of the founding, when the cities of Firmitatem were new and not entirely unified. Eruditio Cavernus sanctuary had been using a different name back then – Danielle couldn’t remember it, that was history. Something-something Sovereign City, she thought; there had been a lot of “sovereign cities” right after the fall of the old United States. She wondered what this stone pile had been, when this was a sovereign city? Now, it had a name spelled out in wrought-aluminum letters over the main door: “Firmitatem Sending Authority In-Station One.” It was a place of dread; the last stop for Sent and Exiles alike before they were actually thrown out of the sanctuary.

  The bus didn’t stop nearest the main door, but pulled forward to a less prominent door, where they were met by more agents in green and taken inside to individual dormitories – tiny gray and white rooms, where all the furniture was built into the walls and floor. There was a partitioned washroom, but it didn’t have an actual door, or even a shower, just toilet and sink. There were open shelves, but no dresser. A padded half-oval attached to one wall was probably a seat; anyway, it was the right height for that. The sink turned on and off by a sensor, as did the lights. Nothing in here moved, nothing had exposed sharp corners, and there was absolutely nowhere to hide. It felt surreal. Even the ‘pillow’ on the bed was actually molded into the mattress somehow, leaving the blanket as the only moveable object in the entire place, excluding the bag of extra clothes she brought in with her.

  The door didn’t move either. It didn’t even have a handle. She was locked into a windowless room.

  Danielle put her bag on a shelf, took off her new boots and the denim layer of her uniform, and curled up in the blanket, more for comfort than warmth. She was shivering, but from fear, not cold. Courage is doing what needs to be done, even when you’re afraid, her mother’s voice whispered out of memory. Well, she’d done her best, but right now she was out of things she could do. Well, she could pray. You could always pray.

  Her prayers weren’t very coherent, though. Her brain spun from “help me figure out what to do about the school thing” to “help me choose a good Class when I Advance,” with frequent stops in the fog of “don’t let me die, don’t let me die, please don’t let me die,” and with so many overwhelming unknowns it quickly slid from an attempt to pray for help and guidance into a long, helpless crying session. The motion activated lights didn’t ‘see’ trembling and sobbing, and turned out early on, leaving her in near darkness – though someone had thought to place a night-light low in the wall across from the bathroom, stretching a bit of abstract art across the speckly dark-gray carpet in foreboding red and flame-orange; Danielle couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than full darkness.

  She fell asleep sobbing, then woke and used the restroom (which turned the light on). She had no idea what time it was. She managed to get a drink from the motion-sensor sink, not without some difficulty, then returned to the bed. Eventually, the light went out again, and she managed to fall back asleep.

  Some unknowable time later, she was awakened by an intercom. She couldn’t locate the speaker. It announced, “Good morning, Sent! It’s a bit after 8:30am. Please get dressed, use the restroom, and pick up your bags. Your rooms will open in fifteen minutes to release you to breakfast and equipment selection. We cannot guarantee privacy once the doors open, so please use the restroom immediately.

  Danielle did as instructed, then went and sat on the bed trying to finger-comb her hair as the warning repeated five minutes later, and again five minutes after that. At 8:45, the door slid aside on its own, disappearing into the wall. A cautious look into the hallway revealed an agent in uniform, carrying a box of white paper bags emblazoned with a donut shop logo. “Good morning!” she said loudly. “I’m sure it was a rough night, but today is the start of a new adventure. Make sure you have your bag and all your clothes and come on out. Breakfast is sausage and egg sandwiches and donuts, but you have to eat on the bus!”

  Danielle stepped out of her room. “Where are we going?”

  “To the necessities store,” the agent said, stepped over and palming a flat plate outside Danielle’s door. It slid shut again, and the plate lit up with a yellow border. The agent noticed Danielle looking at it, and said, “Yellow means it needs cleaning – like a hotel room when you check out.”

  “If you say so,” Danielle said. “Um, seriously though, the Necessities Store? After taking away literally everything we own, you’re just taking us by the store to pick something up real quick?”

  The agent laughed. “The rule is that you can’t take anything from your old life, not that you can’t take anything from Inside! Tomorrow, you’ll take whatever you get from the Necessities Store and carry it two miles on foot; at the end of the hike, you’ll be given a spot in the Rooms – they’re a bit more like dorms. You share with three people. Anyway, anything you manage to haul all the way to the Rooms, you get to keep; but it has to come from the Sending Authority or the Necessities Store, not your parents or your school or anything else.”

  “Oh. What kind of stuff are we getting from the store, then?” Danielle asked.

  The agent gave an almost theatrical shrug, and said, “Whatever you think is necessary, of course!”

  Another girl finally stepped out of a doorway across the hall. “How are we supposed to pay for it?” she asked.

  The agent stepped over to close her door. “The Sending Authority pays. You can have one of anything you can carry out of the store – only one, though, so everyone has a chance. You’ll get the full rules when we get there.” She raised her voice. “Come on, ladies, let’s move! You’ve got an early time slot at the store, don’t waste it!”

  One by one, all the girls in the hallway came out and had their rooms closed behind them. Then the agent led them to the bus, passing out breakfast bags as they boarded, and they drove off to – start their new lives? Prepare for the Outside without any guidance? In the end, Danielle thought frustratedly, they were going to do whatever the Sending Authority deemed necessary.