After two days of hesitation, Cassie calls the number on the card because even a small chance of getting answers feels impossible to ignore. Special Agent Tanner Briggs answers directly, confirms that Michael was the boy who contacted Cassie, and says he has an offer for Cassie. When Briggs insists the conversation should happen in person, Cassie chooses to meet at an FBI office, reasoning that the setting will help her judge whether Briggs is legitimate.

Briggs tells Cassie before the meeting that his offer is not about Cassie's mother, but Cassie goes anyway. Cassie suspects Briggs knows her mother's disappearance is the reason Cassie called, and Cassie wants to understand how Briggs knows about Cassie and whether that knowledge might eventually lead to help with her mother's case.

At the FBI office, Cassie reads details from a woman in the elevator, then encounters Michael, who greets Cassie with amused confidence. Michael leads Cassie through the office, probes what Briggs might have on Cassie, and admits that Michael expected Cassie to come despite warning Cassie not to. When Michael repeats that Cassie should not enter Briggs's office, Cassie realizes Michael has been in a similar position before, but Cassie chooses to go in anyway.

Inside the office, Briggs quickly identifies Cassie's habit of analyzing people and names Cassie as a Natural. Briggs explains that Cassie has an innate aptitude for reading people, a skill most people would need years to learn and still could not use as instinctively as Cassie does. Cassie challenges Briggs about how Briggs knows this and why Briggs cares.

Briggs reveals that Briggs convinced the FBI to search for teenagers with abilities like Cassie's because such natural aptitudes peak in the teen years and can be shaped. Briggs describes a unique program meant to train Naturals into people capable of doing extraordinary good. Cassie connects Michael to the program, and Briggs confirms it; when Cassie asks what participation would involve, Briggs asks how Cassie would feel about moving to Washington, DC.