Spy School: Zoe or Erica?

Unknown Identity

Walking out of the gym, I took the pebble-sized marble out of my hand. Rolling it around, I walked over to the lunchroom, where dining was to be held at noon.

In the corner of my eye, I spotted Erica walking a few hundred feet away. Turning towards her, I walked forward to say hi, but suddenly realized that she had disappeared in thin air right before my eyes.

What? I thought. This was followed by a voice of "Hello," from behind me.

I shrieked, jerking backward and turning around at the same time. Behind me was Erica, with a tiny smile playing on her lips.

"Will you please stop sneaking up on me like that!?" I shouted. "I swear the only reason you do it is that you enjoy seeing us cry in surprise," I muttered.

Erica smirked, then motioned me to follow her. "I need to show you something," she said, turning around and whipping her raven black hair into my face, giving me a whiff of lilacs and gunpowder. I swear she did that on purpose.

Following her, I walked towards where she was heading. On the way there, I caught sight of a few people holding... were those white pebbles? Where are people getting these things and where are they coming from?!

Heading to the general direction of the Hale building, I saw a stream of girls walk out, giggling. I avoided them with Erica, who's expression was still unreadable. Not like that was unusual.

Another student walked out of the Hale Building, face completely red. Whatever was happening in there, I didn't want to know. But if Erica went, well... that meant that it had to be something of importance.

Walking in, I passed a student who was talking to himself. What exactly was happening in there?

Erica walked to the front desk, in which Alexander Hale was standing behind. He was taking white sticky pebbles from a line of students that were at his desk. Now I'm actually curious. 

Each of the students were handing them in, and then it looked as they would walk over to a printer and take a piece of paper out of it. Then they would look at the paper with mixed emotions.

Alexander, who was beaming, looked over to Erica. 

"Hi Dad," Erica mumbled, then motioned me to get into the line.

My curiosity won over me. "What's happening here?" I asked Erica.

She hesitated for a second, then said "Have you heard of the royal banquet?"

"Royal banquet? No." I said. 

"Well, MI6 is hosting a banquet for their academy and for our academy also. It's a cross-celebration for the eradication of SPYDER, at least for now," she said. "It's going to be located at the Royal Albert Hall in London in three days."

"What does that have to do with all of this?" I said.

"Well, they're assigning partners for the banquet," she said, stopping.

"...and?" I said.

"Well, you're supposed to spit on your white marble, and it will suck up the DNA. Then, after giving it to Alexander, he will print out a sheet of your best pairings based on the similarities and relations with the other student's DNA. Basically, he's finding your top list of soul mates for the banquet."

My stomach sunk. "So you're saying that people are basically getting a list of potential dates?" I said uneasily.

"Well, if you put it that way, then yes, but let's not go there. Just call it a temporary partner for now."