No doubt someone like Vinny Lee could tell you about the full extent of the Cyberoom – the desks around the whole place, the holo computer Tails had recently installed in the center of the former computer lab, and the atmosphere of study.

I will spare you all that.

It's the size of a regular classroom. It's full of tech. It's in the center of the Hangar.

There. That's all there is to it.

When we reached the Cyberoom, Tails then hopped up to the main computer in the room. In my opinion, the computer he'd created out of the old ones resembled the main control panel for the TARDIS, or a holographic computer from Star Wars. (I had wondered if he'd reshaped the parts to fit, but Tails quickly disproved that. Apparently, technology wasn't as adaptable to his transforming abilities as ordinary items. Go figure.) The latter possibility was how it got its nickname from DJ – the Holo, which eventually stuck, as I didn't like saying holo computer twenty times a day.

He hit the power button and the screen flashed on. I say flashed on; it was more like it flickered into existence – like a holoscreen. How Tails had pulled that together – us human beings could only dream of such tech – was a mystery I was going to leave to the guy who made it. Besides, it worked, anyhow – and reflected well on us. Having tech like that around makes us look sophisticated, I suppose.

"What's the big news?" I asked. Vinny Lee began rummaging through his tote bag and pulled out a piece of yarn. That tote was chock full of stuff – some of it useful items, like duct tape and gum, but mostly bits of junk that didn't seem salvageable to most people. Vinny Lee, however, wasn't most people.

He examined the length of the yarn, smiled, and then tied it into a loop, which he began playing witch's broom with – essentially weaving the loop into the titular broom shape with his fingers. Naturally he would. He's always gotta do something.

Now Tails responded, typing as he did so. A list popped up on the Holo – something official looking, like on a US Census website. It looked like a listing of secondary schools, even though half of the names on the list were ones I'd never even heard of. "I was researching various private and charter schools in the area," he said in an even tone. "I heard that they have better academic turnout than the public schools and I was trying to find something that would prove it."

Amos rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. Prove that when half the families in Philly are turning to those alternatives because they don't trust the current public school system. You'd be saying something they already figured out for themselves – Ow!"

I'd punched Amos in the arm, just to shut him up. I mean, sometimes the boy needs a good smack somewhere to get him to pay attention.

Tails didn't say anything, but I could tell Amos was testing his patience. "Then I heard from Vinny Lee's father about Fairview High School." He clicked on its name in the list and a bunch of things popped up on the Holo – school bulletins, photos, and other documentation pertaining to that school, by the looks of it.

DJ and Vinny Lee exchanged looks. I guessed they'd been enrolled there and they'd learned that fact around the same time. Just a minor little detail they'd forgotten to mention.

After a few seconds of staring, Vinny Lee went back to his witch's broom game with the yarn. Typical.

"I researched the school and found out something interesting. The school was started as a place for children to become patriotic, God-fearing men and women. It was initially just evangelical –"

"Naturally it's some religion," Amos interrupted again.

"Would you shut up?" I yelled at him.

"I-yi-yi, woman! All right!"

I suppressed the urge to kick Amos in the shin. "Go on, Tails."

Tails took a deep breath, clearly irritated by all the confusion in the background. "It was initially just evangelical, but then expanded to include all Christians. And, last year, it updated its enrollment to include all religions – not just Christian traditions. Muslims, Jews – that sort."

DJ whistled. "That's going to be fun."

"What's all this about?" Sonic asked as he entered the room. There's always a sort of gravity within the room when he walks in. Even Vinny Lee looked up from his witch's broom.

I mean, sure, Sonic's pretty important in the world of gaming. Rival competition to Mario and all that. But among the avatars, he's the oldest, at least in age, and the one who was the closest to the Rainbow, the previous masters of the avatars.

He's also quite the looker, even by avatar standards. His quills weren't exactly slicked back, but they went far enough to be. This, combined with his attire – black leather jacket over a green t-shirt, blue jeans with a black belt, white gloves and red shoes with white straps for decoration – made him look like some '50s biker. Oddly, the look worked with his blue quills and emerald green eyes – and with the white stripe running down his throat. It was quite a striking look for him.

"We've been looking at Fairview High School," Vinny Lee said, laying his yarn in his bag while yanking out a paddle ball with a chip in the paddle. (Seriously, who throws away a paddle ball when all it's got is a chip? Talk about a waste.) He then began bopping the paddle ball around. Again, that guy just has to be doing something. "Tails just dropped last year's update."

"About the all-open registry?" Sonic asked.

"Exactly," Tails said. "And no one in the room's sure how it'll play out."

"Quite interesting, I bet," Amos commented dryly.

"Amos is right," I said, hating myself for agreeing with the Jew. "You're talking about enrolling people who are from a religion as far from Christianity as Saturn is from Earth. That's gonna be tough to finagle. What made them think of that, anyway?"

"Probably Maryland. You mean you didn't hear?"

The others' expressions turned grim. Vinny Lee missed his paddle with the ball.

I knew perfectly well what Amos was referring to. A lot of people in Maryland were up in arms over a school's decision to end opt-outs – and they weren't just Christians, either. Quite a few of those who weren't happy had been Muslim. Although all of this was starting well after Fairview's decision. Had they been preparing for that possibility? Now that was unlikely, but it did seem like a weird coincidence.

Tails began typing again. Yet another list of names, again none of which I particularly recognized, popped up on the screen of the Holo. "A whole lot of people jumped on board when it came out," he said over the click of keys. "I'm seeing ten enrollments for the last school year out of the Muslim class."

"And how can you tell that, smarty?" I asked. There was looking at names, yes, but no way was there a method for telling one's religion simply by their name. If there was, I didn't want to find out what that method was. I thought it rather… judgy.

"Cross-references."

I didn't probe any further. Tails had a tendency to nose into areas he shouldn't when he was hacking – things like the Social Service or the Pentagon. I didn't really want to know what he meant by cross-references. Besides, when the fox starts scoping the net to satisfy his curiosity, it's best not to ask too many questions anyway.

"Hey, what's this?" Amos asked, pointing toward another file on the Holo.

Tails frowned. "Huh. Guess I downloaded more than I bargained for."

Again, I decided not to ask how he'd picked up that download. Possibly it had been piggybacked on last year's, but I found that incredibly unlikely. I was pretty willing to bet no one at Fairview would be so careless – or even stoop so low as to do it deliberately. It was also unlikely Tails had accidentally downloaded it along with last year's files, but by a slimmer margin than the first option. Even avatars could fumble, I knew that much. Nobody's perfect.

He clicked on the file and another list showed up.

"So, you're enrolled in Fairview?" I asked DJ and Vinny Lee. "You didn't mention that."

"Wasn't sure how to break it to you," DJ responded. "You and Amos – I didn't know where you were getting placed. How are we going to play it?"

I could see where DJ was coming from. If we wound up going to different schools, it would be quite the hitch to our vigilante work. Bad enough school always keeps us busy. If Animorphs was any indicator, we'd have to be insanely good schedulers to be able to juggle our mission and school. It'd be even worse if we wound up in different educational institutions. How could we tweak it if we were in virtually different places?

Me, I'd been in alternating school modes – homeschooling and religious schools for Muslims – but I wasn't sure how I could handle a school day. I wasn't even sure I could get in a finer school with my less-than-stellar grades. The long hours my mom had used to make me work did not help my academic record at all. DJ, on the other hand, could possibly get into some elite private school if she wished. I hated how the elites get the good stuff. It was a good thing DJ didn't make a habit of using her credentials as a nepotism baby extensively. That would have been way more annoying.

"We could wait until after school," I suggested. "Show up and do homework together. Then –"

Prrr-eeet!

"Amos! I'm trying to have a conversation here!" I yelled at Amos, who was presently with Tails – even in spite of the fact that he had as much a knack for bothering the fox as he did me. (Don't even ask me how he does it.) He was studying the list that had popped up. "What are you whistling to us about, anyway? About the thing with school –"

"You guys might not even have to wait after school to meet up," Sonic said, studying the list as well. Had he been listening in to our conversation? Goodness, for a blue speedster, that guy could be sneakier than Vinny Lee when he wanted to. "Look."

What? I glanced at the second list.

The second list, as it transpired, was the list for Fairview High School's enrollment for the upcoming school year – and it was still updating. How Tails had wound up with a list whose updates were carried over to the Holo, I didn't know (or want to), but I wasn't surprised by it, either. This was his tech, after all – incredibly quick and reliable, always probing for anything pertaining to our mission.

Or, apparently, pertaining to us.

Because I noticed a pair of names in the list. Like with most listings of students, it was arranged alphabetically by last name. Between Darrow and Dashner I spotted Darvosky, Amos. Probably what Amos was getting worked up about. But that wasn't quite as surprising as the name I spotted at the top of the Fs:

Fadjir, Imira.