What happens on the dark planet as they seek the home of the dark thing?

In Chapter Six, the three women transport the children off their current planet to the planet of Camazotz. The planet is very similar to earth with the same kind of trees and weather. The three women tell the children that they have to leave them now and that they will no longer contact them. As they leave, they give them gifts: Calvin the gift of communicating with others, Meg the gift of her faults, and Charles Wallace the gift of his childhood. As a last gift, Mrs. Who gives Meg her spectacles and tells her to only use them as a last resort. They tell Charles Wallace that things will be especially dangerous for him, that they should never separate and that he should not think that he knows everything.

When they disappear the children begin to walk into the nearby town. Everything in the town looks very similar. All the houses are the same and all the children playing outside are wearing similar clothes. Meg notices that there is something strange about the way the children are playing, and then realizes that they are all jumping rope and playing with balls in an exact rhythm. All their movements are coordinated and the same. As they continue to walk through the neighborhood, Charles Wallace sees one little boy drop his ball. The boy’s mother than comes running out of the house, screaming, and grabs the boy and takes him into the house.

Charles Wallace grabs the boy’s ball and the three children go up to the little boy’s house to give it back to him. His mother nervously answers the door, assuring the children in their section “never drop their balls.” The woman screams that she doesn’t have to let them in if they haven’t shown her their papers, and she slams the door on them. They then meet a paperboy delivering papers, each paper being thrown in the same arc and landing on the same place at the step of each door. The paper boy tells them that they aren’t allowed on the streets during this time.

When Charles Wallace questions the paper boy, he tells them that “Everybody knows our city has the best Central Intelligence Center on the planet. Our production levels are the highest. Our factories never close; our machines never stop rolling. Added to this we have five poets, one musician, three artists, and six sculptors, all perfectly channeled.” Charles Wallace feels very disturbed by all this, though he can’t read the thoughts of the boy or anybody else in order to really understand what is going on. The paper boy then directs them to the CENTRAL Central Intelligence Center and the children take off.

After Charles Wallace and Calvin argue over whether or not the three women really know all that much about what they’ve sent them into, they reach the CENTRAL Central Intelligence. Charles Wallace, again, tries to read the thoughts of the people around, but he is unable to probe their minds. He assures Meg and Calvin that they’re not robots, but they’re not like normal people either. Charles Wallace urges them to enter the Central Intelligence Center, but Calvin stops them, telling him that he has another compulsion - this one telling him that if they enter that building something terrible is going happen.