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I stared out at all of the heads hunched over their food, reaching across the table to get closer to their friends as they conversed. This was the last time I would be sitting in this cafeteria with these people. Well, that was what I expected, anyways. The way this whole Intel Initiative thing was worded made it sound like we wouldn't be coming back.

Of course, not coming back made it sound like we'd be dying along the way. Somehow this didn't seem right to me - data eating was indeed something that was related to conflict and war, but it wasn't really all that dangerous in general. Then again, maybe there was something important that I'd been missing to begin with.

I closed my eyes momentarily, letting the buzz of all the other students fill my ears. Even though I'd been hearing it every week day for years on end at the point, it almost seemed an unfamiliar sound. I suppose it was because I had never really given myself reason to focus on it before.

As my eyelids split apart from one another again, I looked over to my normal table to find that I was the last one to be arriving over there. Already Ronnie was sitting there, leaning her chin on her hand as she stared over towards me. But she wasn't the only one - Nell and Ianto were both sitting at the table, right across from one another.

I stood there for a moment, rather surprised to see Nell and Ianto there. I was so used to being just with Ronnie that it threw me off guard. But then she started shaking her head and gesturing for me to come over. I guessed that she didn't want to wait for me any longer. Her lunch remained untouched, as if she were waiting for me to come along before she started eating.

I took a big breath in through my nose that made my shoulders heave. Then I felt prepared to make my way over to them. There was something that simply felt wrong about the atmosphere around me. I passed it off as it being related to the fact that it was my last day. Our last day, really. There were four of us who were spending our final lunch at Ross together.

"Wow, Parr," Ronnie said the moment I was within earshot of her. "You certainly stood there doing nothing for a long time."

"I'm sorry if I was trying to think," I replied.

"Oh, you were thinking?" Ronnie asked, giving a smirk. "I never would have guessed."

"It does happen sometimes, Truitt. I promise you that much."

Ianto cleared his throat, trying to grab our attention in his own sort of way. Ronnie and I both glanced over to him, anticipating what he was about to say.

"It's our last day at Ross," he said. "Do you think we should do something to...you know, leave a legacy?"

"Making a mark on the school," Nell added in, rephrasing what he had said. "Sounds interesting enough to me."

"The little Parr is thinking about causing trouble?" Ronnie said, surprised. "I never would have guessed that one for sure."

"No, not trouble," Ianto pressed, grimacing slightly. "I don't know, it just feels like we should do something."

"I definitely agree," Nell replied, a great smile perched upon her lips.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific before I agree to anything," I said. "I mean, what if we do something that ends up making us lose our ability to be in the Intel Initiative?"

"I said no trouble." Ianto wore an enormous frown on his face. Of course, this look on his face was not an unfamiliar one to me at that point, but it didn't make me feel any better about it. "We wouldn't be doing anything that would get us into trouble."

"But if there's not the risk of trouble, then it probably won't be all that fun," I said, sighing slightly. "If we're going to do something on our very last day at Ross, then it has to big."

"We're already known for doing crazy things," Ronnie chimed in. "We'd have to top it all."

"That just sounds like a whole bunch of trouble, and I'm not willing to get involved in any of that," Ianto said, his lips seemingly perpetually stuck in a frown.

"Maybe we just shouldn't do anything, then..." Nell said, her voice somewhat quiet. "It's better than just fighting over it all, right?"

"Personally, I'm always up for a good little battle," Ronnie replied. "As long as I got enough sleep in the last night."

"It's not that kind of fight, Truitt," I said.

"I know that, Parr. I'm not an idiot."

"Never said that you were," I replied, putting my hands up in the air.

"Come on. Let's just stop fighting, okay? Fighting isn't helping anything, that much is for sure. I mean, we haven't gotten a thing done."

Nell was acting as a peacekeeper of sorts, which I didn't really find all that strange. I always thought that had she not gone into data eating she would have made a good diplomat or something like that. She was certainly intelligent enough for that sort of job. But of course, she was here with us.

She must have gotten into this Intel Initiative the same way Ianto did - code writing. While Ronnie and I found our fortes elsewhere in the data eating program, they excelled in one of the most difficult and vital parts of data eating.

"We really are the best of the best, aren't we?" I said, sounding rather prideful even though I knew I was in the lower part of "the best."

"No need to sound so surprised," Ronnie replied, letting out a single laugh.

"Do you think people know about this whole...thing already?" Nell asked, leaning forwards. "I've tried to just go about everything as normally as possible, but I still feel people might have noticed. I mean, everyone had heard about it earlier on."

"But no one knew a thing about it," Ronnie protested. "Maybe they had heard little rumors about it, but they hardly knew anything. Not even it's name."

"You were one of the ones spreading those rumors, Truitt," I said. "Don't count yourself out."

"It doesn't matter about what the rumors were about, rumors have to be started from somewhere. They turned out to be rather truthful as well, yeah?" Ianto piped up.

"In other words, someone knows something about it," I said mostly to myself, thinking aloud.

"Or someone thinks they know something about it," Ronnie added in. "They could have just had a lucky guess. Little more than lucky, though..."

"What if it has something to do with the Reforms?" I asked. In order to be taken a little more seriously by those around me, I straightened up my posture and removed my elbows from the table. People never seemed to listen to me when it came to the Reforms. To be honest, I didn't understand why it kept happening - it just did.

"Not everything has to do with the Reforms," Ronnie sighed.

"No, hear me out on this," I replied. "One of the Reforms was focused around creating the data eater program to begin with, remember?"

"Yeah, that's right..." Nell began. "I remember reading about it."

"What if there's a part of the Reforms that we don't know about that has to do with this?" I asked. "What if they're reforming the Reforms?"

"Now you're just spitting out nonsense," Ianto said. That's just like my little brother, always being such wonderful backup whenever I need him most.

"Seriously, though," I said. "Come on. One of you take out your glass phone and we can look up the Reforms. Then we can check to see if there's a place where something might have been left out."

"But why would they leave anything out?" Ronnie replied, shaking her head. "The whole point of the Reforms is to make life for the general public better. Leaving something out from the general public doesn't seem to make sense."

"Alia, listen to Ronnie," Ianto advised. "I think she has the right idea about all of this."

"I don't need to listen to Ronnie," I scoffed.

Nell ended up joining up on my side - this was rather shocking to me, but I certainly wasn't going to push her support away. "No, I'm actually interested in what she's got to say," she said. "Maybe we should do what she said and look up the Reforms."

"Fine, I've got my phone with me," Ronnie said. "Parr's the only one I'll trust to mess around with it, though. She's already done enough damage already, I guess it doesn't matter if she does a little more."

"Sounds like Alia," Ianto said, smiling slightly. "Sounds just like Alia."

I reached over and plucked Ronnie's glass phone right of her hands, giving her a slight smirk as I pulled up the Internet and started searching away. It only took me a few moments in order to locate a list of the Reforms of 2016 online, but it took me longer in order to find what I was looking for.

I knew where it was supposed to be and an approximation of what it said, but I was looking for specifics. We had learned about the Reforms pertaining to data eaters at school, but I only remembered the outline of what it was.

"Here. I finally found the piece on the new organizations. Well, not new anymore..."

"No need to explain yourself, Parr. Just keep going. Lunch only lasts so long," Ronnie said, heaving up her shoulders into the air in a pseudo-sweet sort of look. She just managed to be so good at being herself that it was almost painful - almost no one appeared to be as comfortable with themselves as Ronnie was with herself.

She peered over my shoulder in an attempt to help me find the part on data eaters sooner. I kept on scrolling as much as I could, hoping that it would show up soon. This was taking far longer than I had expected, but I was far from willing to give up on it.

This had been my idea, and I was going to go all the way with it and avoid looking stupid. I was surrounded by some of the smartest people I knew, after all.

"Oh look, they're talking about surrogates here," Ronnie said, her voice dry.

"Oh, please," I replied, rolling my eyes as I turned around to face her over my shoulder. "Once again, you would not be here today without part of the Reforms. You could take that very literally for this part of the Reforms."

"I know, I know, the Reforms have completely changed my life."

"I think Alia's trying to say that the Reforms have allowed for your life," Ianto said, his voice soft. He was trying to avoid Ronnie getting upset with him - and I couldn't blame him for that. While she had never gotten angry with him in particular, we had seen her explode on other people before. It was never a pretty thing, that was for sure.

"Because I was born through a surro, I know."

"You know, I always that it might be interesting to be a surro," I began.

"No!" All three of my companions at the table called out their answer simultaneously, making my lean backwards in my seat slightly.

"I just said it might be interesting," I replied, shrugging. "Ianto can vouch for me - when I brought up the subject to Mom, she had the same sort of reaction."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with being a surro," Nell said with a sigh. "It's just that you're capable of more skilled jobs that can get you more money, you know?"

"The name data eater sounds much better than surrogate anyways," Ronnie said. "I mean, most kids don't grow up wanting to be a surro. That sounds like some sort of foreign animal. No, kids grow up wanting to be data eaters."

While I was fairly sure that those sitting around me wouldn't want to listen to anything more about surros, I couldn't help but think about it further. The surrogate program had always interested me - it went hand in hand with the equal rights part of the Reforms.

The basic idea was that since all marriages were legal throughout the country, those who could not conceive by themselves could use a surrogate mother in order to have a child of their own. While the program for surros was very personal for each individual, it was still run by the government. It had been created in the Reforms to begin with, after all.

Their job was to have children. The women who got involved typically had other jobs outside of it, but they did receive payment from being a surro as well. It had always fascinated me as a child that someone would be so willing to help others and would have their child for them. Since I had many friends that were born from surros, it just made sense to me.

Ronnie, as an example, had two fathers and therefore was born from a surrogate. She had DNA from both of her parents - but neither one of them bore her as a child, of course. That's just not how the biology worked out. Like I said to her, she literally would not exist without the Reforms because of the surro program.

"Okay, moving on," Nell said, making sure to keep our conversation going onwards. She didn't want us getting stuck on the topic of surros - we had more than enough time on it anyways.

"I'm getting into the equal rights portion now," I called out, continuing to scroll down. I always smiled a little bit when I saw this part. It was always difficult for me to believe that people were persecuted for what gender they were and who they loved, so seeing that people were able to get over this prejudice just made things seem a lot brighter.

"I'm fairly sure the part on data eaters is just another section below that," Ianto said, his eyes tracking up to the windows in the cafeteria. He stared out the window as he spoke, allowing himself to dissolve into thought whenever he wasn't talking to any of us.

"It looks like you're right," I said, scrolling through the section. Sure enough, I started seeing words about data and deletion and warfare.

"Only took you ten minutes," Ronnie scoffed.

"No, be quiet," Ianto said, his almost whisper tone voice snaking over towards my ear. "Alia works better if she has quiet. I want her to find this as quickly possible."

"Then...why are you talking, Ianto?" Nell asked, letting out a slight giggle.

"I don't need quiet," I said. "It's just nice for me to have quiet. You can't argue with that, can you?"

After I said this, my surroundings quieted down significantly. This was most certainly the effect I had been looking for. Now I could allow myself to focus on what really mattered. The words were all familiar to me now that I was looking over them again.

"Ah, here it is!" I said happily. My eyes ran through it almost greedily, trying to find any sort of words that might be suspicious enough to be hiding something behind them. All I wanted to know was about what this Intel Initiative was about. The thing was, I was going to be finding out soon. Nevertheless, I couldn't wait to find out whatever was going on.

"Have you found anything?" Ianto asked, his anticipation getting the better of him.

But no matter how many times I looked over the passage, I couldn't find anything that stuck out to me. Nothing seemed to be missing, and nothing seemed to be hiding anything. My gut feeling that there would be some sort of secret within the data eater section of the Reforms had been wrong. Somehow I felt that my gut feeling would end up failing once again.

"Never would've guessed," Ronnie said, snickering.

"Not now, Truitt," I replied, irritated. About a minute went by without talking - Ronnie and I were just being stubborn. Nell and Ianto didn't want to cause any more trouble. But soon we starting speaking once again.

"You know how you were talking about how we should make our mark on Ross Academy before we leave it behind in the dust?" Ronnie asked, swinging her feet to the table top. She knew that even if a teacher spotted her, she wouldn't really get into any trouble. It was all of our last days, and any punishment for such a small thing wouldn't have an effect on her life.

"Yes," Nell responded. "I don't think I could really forget, what with how it ended up getting us into a fight."

"We don't have to worry about it," Ronnie said. "Not one bit. You see, we've already made our mark on Ross. Every. Last. One. Of. Us."

Ianto looked to be rather shook up by this when he asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, we've been here."

Ronnie was met with a ring of blank stares. Not one of us understood what she was talking about.

"We were here at Ross. Just by going here, we've made a difference. I mean, once we get through with this Intel Initiative thing, everyone is going to remember Ross through our names. 'That Parr girl, she went to Ross.' You see?"

I rolled my eyes slightly. "Truitt, I can't help but think you didn't think this through very well."

"I've been thinking about it this entire time," she protested.

But as I shook my head, allowing myself to let out a laugh, I started to realize that Ronnie was sort of right. I kept this to myself - if I had just ridiculed her for being wrong, it would seem stupid of me to admit that she was suddenly right.

We had made our mark on Ross. Now it was just time to spread that mark elsewhere.

A/N What a labor of love this story is! Even though very few of you have been reading, I'm still very happy with how this is turning out. That, and I am also quite far ahead on my writing. I can't say I mind that, not one bit. Hopefully now that I'm entered in a contest I'll be able to gain more readers! We can do this, my lovelies!