Alex's POV

As I shuffled across the lawn of Lane Tech, I shuddered a little. For the rest of the summer we had been keeping tabs on those students and teachers. Three days ago, all the seventh grade teachers that were supposed to teach former 305 students were suddenly fired by CPS. There was very little news coverage or general information about it, so little that it almost seemed suspicious.

Like the new students, we could find very little about the teachers. They did all have birth certificates, but other than that, we couldn't find anything else. But right now, that was the least of my worries. As Evan T, Ella and I entered the gargantuan building, we began to truly grasp the gravity of our situation. Our new school.

Some would even say our new life.

"So guys, make sure not only to take in the school, but also find out what we can about our teachers and classmates," Evan said. I nodded. Our schools orientation was the last out of Whitney, Bell, Taft and Lane, but we still knew almost nothing. Because of this, the other 305-ers were counting on us to find some much needed info.

"Maybe one of us could lead a teacher out of the room while someone else goes through their stuff!" Ella pondered, a little too excitedly.

Evan began to shake his head, but I disagreed. "That's actually not a bad idea," I said. "I mean, we'd have to carefully lay out a plan, as well as a backup, and we'd probably need to get some other people in on this. And we'd definitely need to do some recon to find out what we're looking for, as well as who we're dealing with and the set up of the classroom, but once we have all the variables under control it should be easy to–"

"Alex." Evan interrupted. "She's gone.'

"Crap," I muttered.

We dashed through the hallway after Ella. After accidentally knocking several students onto the ground and even managing to break the door off a locker (don't ask), we finally arrived at our homeroom. Evan and I were panting uncontrollably, but Ella looked as if she had just finished a relaxing walk through a park.

"So here's the plan," she said. "I get teacher our here, you go in and steal stuff. Got it? Good." Before I could get a word out, she walked into the classroom. I saw her say a few words to the teacher, and then they both walked out. I stood there shocked for a moment before Evan pushed me in.

Before I knew it, I was standing in front of my teachers desk. Thankfully there was no one in the room when I entered. Slowly, I reached to open the desk drawer. I tried to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge. Damn it, I thought. It was locked.

I was beginning to panic. I tried another drawer, but this one too was locked. I stole a quick glance at the door and saw that Ella was struggling to maintain my teacher's attention. Note to self, I thought. Find out her name.

After trying every drawer on the desk, I realized that there was no way for me to get in there. I began sweating in nervousness. I turned around and saw a file cabinet. I tried the first drawer, but it was locked. Fortunately, I saw a drawer in the middle had a paper sticking out of it. Someone must have just closed it recently. Sparing no time, I yanked it loose. But as I did, I heard the unmistakable sound of tearing paper. My teacher heard it too. She spun around to look into the classroom. I ducked to the floor just in time.

From under the desk, I saw Ella make a last ditch effort to distract my teacher. I seized the opportunity and made a mad dash for the door. I slipped out as stealthily as I could, and then broke into a sprint. I heard her yelling for me to stop. I tried to cover the back of my head as I ran. A few seconds later I turned around a corner and down the stairs. I didn't stop to catch my breath until I was outside of the building.

*****

"So what did you find?" Evan asked. "Anything useful?" I removed the torn piece of paper from my pocket and showed it to him. He looked at it for a moment before a confused expression came over him. "What does any of this mean?" He asked. I shook my head. None of the writing made any sense. "Can I have a look at it?" Ella asked. He shrugged and handed the paper to her.

"'Edna Krabakkel,'" Ella read, So that's her name, I thought. "'Protocol 3D-5 has been acknowledged and initiated. Extraction will take place September 6th. Communications will be severed August 31st. Please take precautions on your end to ensure this. D–' And then it stops. You guys were right, I can't make heads nor tail of this." She tossed he paper back to me. "I wonder what 3D-5 means," Evan pondered.

"Hey, wait a minute. Don't you remember there being a code like that attached to the student and teacher files we looked at?" I queried. "For the kids, it said 1A then a number for new Bell 305 kids, 1B then a number for the non-305 kids in our class at Lane, 1C for the non-305ers at Whitney, and 1D for those at Taft." Evan and Ella both looked shocked. "Man, you're right!" Evan realized. "Then for the teachers..." "2A, B, C, and D," I finished.

"So assuming that the pattern stays the same, we can infer that the third of these events is going to happen at Taft... uh, what's the date?" As Ella pieced all of this together, I realized something. "Yesterday. Today's the first of September. Whatever's going to happen began yesterday."

There was a shocked silence. I didn't really know why we were silent. I mean, if we were right, then that meant that something like this had happened twice before in the past two months. But still. Something about the note. The word "extraction" was also extremely off-putting. I thought about 3D-5. We knew what the 3D meant, but I didn't have a clue about the 5. 

"I-I'm going to call Dyanara. She goes to Taft, so we should warn her." Evan and I stayed quiet. Several seconds passed. After a little bit, Ella put down the phone. I began to ask, "She didn't pick up?" Ella shook her head in response.

As the bell rang from inside, not one of us moved an inch. We were all deep in thought. What did the note mean when it said "communications will be severed" and "extraction"? What was going to happen at Taft? And what about the mysterious number 5?