"Hold on," DJ said. "What are you –" She saw the current Fairview roster. I could tell from what she said next. "Wait, you too? You and Amos?"

I wasn't sure how to answer her. There must have been some mistake. I couldn't possibly be able to get in. Why would my family enroll me with my grades? Or even try? I was almost convinced they'd given up on me. Or had someone sponsored me? I didn't think about that possibility – dared not, as I was as much abandoned by my own community as in my family. More importantly, why hadn't anyone mentioned this to me?

I turned to Amos, who was studying his name in the list. The fact that I was attending school with my annoying Jewish friend was only the smallest of my aggravations. "You don't seem so surprised," I said to him.

"Yeah, my mom put me in a lot of charter schools growing up." He said this the way one might say, I was brought up in the church – like this was a normal thing.

"You did say she didn't trust public schools, right?" DJ said. "The time we first met."

I didn't recall hearing anything of the sort. On top of being a pain in my rear every time, Amos had also been one of the first people DJ had met upon her arrival in Philly. It made me jealous of how much more time he'd spent with her. Apparently she knew him enough that she knew his family's educational preferences.

"I did say that," Amos replied. "But Imira, though? Fairview has got to be top-of-the-line. It'd be tough for her to get in. How did she manage?"

"Could El Vórtice have arranged for that?" Vinny Lee asked, leaning on one of the desks and setting down the paddle ball. I swear, he enjoyed moving around. He also didn't seem so shocked that he was in Fairview. His family wasn't exactly high class. Then again, he'd known about this well before I had.

Tails shook his head. Out of the avatars, Tails had quite possibly the most innate understanding of the Vortex, the semi-divine being who'd created the avatars. "While he has arranged certain things in the past, he'd have to be impressively powerful to manipulate someone into getting consideration for anything. He'd have to mess up someone's report card – and some other persons' memories. And that sort of thing is… not really his style. Besides, though he has all the power, he's like DJ – he doesn't like playing favorites."

"Is something the matter?" Amy asked as she reached the room with Knuckles in tow.

Amy was another avatar that was impossible not to look at. However, she tried to play it down with simple attire – red blouse, black jeans, pink pumps, white gloves and gold bangles – a minimum for jewelry, much like DJ. Another part of her attire I recognized from her usage – a necklace with a magnetic pendant, similar to Amos', but shaped like her hammer. (And it did transform into her hammer, in case you were wondering.)

Knuckles was quite another matter. Tall, burly and dreadlocked, he looked every part the gangster with a black hoodie, jeans and white gloves. Deviating from the impression was his red and yellow hiking boots, more suited for his game counterpart's island terrain. His red body easily matched my headscarf. (Yes, red is my favorite color. I guess you could say it became that after I met him.) His gray eyes, a deviation from his game look, were fiery as all get-out. Only appropriate for a fire elemental, really.

"All four VLADJIs," Sonic announced, "were put in Fairview. Even Imira and Amos, thanks to a recent enrollment update - and possibly some other strings getting pulled. At least, that's what I've gathered."

"A little explanation would be helpful," Knuckles said, rolling his eyes at Sonic. "Fairview? Never heard of that place. I'm guessing it's a high school?"

"A charter high school," Tails said. "And one with a patriotic reputation."

"Good," Amy said. "We need the VLADJIs to be in a patriotic place. So what's the issue?"

"Me," I said. "I wasn't expecting to get in. My grades aren't that good."

Tails laughed. "I don't think Fairview has that high of standards – as long as it is able to get a person prepared for the world. That's actually practical, compared to the rest of the –"

"Tails," I scolded him, "concentrate."

"Point is, it cares about getting people ready for the workforce – actually educating, not just jamming ideas into someone's head." Tails said that like a relief. I wasn't surprised that Tails, being a child prodigy who'd gone out and learned stuff, might have issues with brainwashing. "In fact, I think it likes working with troubled kids."

"Ah, sure. Just love the rags-to-riches story, don't they?"

Something bugged me about it, though. I remembered something I'd spotted while looking for an action figure Achmed had lost. (He has more WWE figures than I care to know about. Don't ask.) It was an envelope marked with some coat of arms – a fancy school, I knew. "Can you pick up their logo? Or something marked with it?" I asked Tails.

The fox frowned. "Why?"

"Just humor me."

Tails sighed, then typed in a few more commands. Something popped up on the Holo – an American flag with a gold FHS on it. For Fairview High School, I realized – and the sort of brand on the envelope I'd seen.

"Allah," I muttered.

"¿Que?" Vinny Lee asked, hopping off the desk. "Un momento, you've seen this before?"

"On an envelope on my…" I faltered. So my father knew about it? "On my dad's desk."

"Your dad?" Amos frowned. "So the patriarch was in on it?"

"I didn't read the contents, okay? I'm not that kind of snoop." It was plain that I needed to know what the heck was going on. I'd have to ask my parents – my dad and (oh, fun) my stepmother. I wasn't sure what was going on, but if they were planning something behind my back, if by some miracle they knew about VLADJI…

I know. Oh, how do they not know about VLADJI? Why didn't you tell them?

I may have mentioned my parents weren't the most caring toward me. I'd lost substantial trust in them. How could I mention it to them with all those years of neglect in my memory? Why would they even care what friends I had?

On the other hand, if what Tails said about the school working with troubled kids was true, that might've appealed to them. A chance to get me off their hands for some time – but as I'd learned with Vinny Lee's dad discovering our hanging out together (long story – I'll let Vinny Lee tell you that), I couldn't really tell just what a parent might be thinking. I made a mental note to grill them when I got home.

Tails frowned, as if reading my thoughts. (Which again, he could very much do.) "I don't know what made them consider Fairview as an option," he said. "But I know the best thing to do is to roll with it."

I shook my head. "They never told me."

Sonic checked his watch. "Four-twenty."

Dang it! I needed to be back home by five. It was a thirty-minute walk from the Hangar to my home. Which meant…

"Good grief, Sonic," Knuckles muttered in the direction of the blue hedgehog. "Just how well do you keep track of time? I'll drive Imira back. Thank Vortex it's not yet the rush hour."

"And maybe the rest of us should head back as well," DJ said, shooting a look at Sonic. "Mom'll kill me if I miss dinner."

"I assume you'll take the Blazer?" Tails asked Knuckles.

The echidna huffed. "Of course I'm taking the Blazer. How else do you expect me to get Imira back?"

On that note, we headed to the parking lot, where the Blazer was. My remarks on the parking lot's size – "big enough to park a plane in" – were not far-fetched. It looked large enough to hold a Cherokee helicopter or Cessna. It was fenced off as well – with an honest-to-Allah chain-link fence, no less – perhaps to discourage trespassers, but it sure wasn't deterring us.

In case you were wondering, the Blazer is Knuckles' truck. It was this battered old Chevy in the junkyard when Tails and Knuckles found it. Knuckles found a way to get it out of the yard and Tails fixed it up for him. It was still quite battered – with multiple dents on the doors and sides of the flatbed, and now with part of its paint job scorched black from Knuckles blowtorching flame designs into the doors. But it still moved and operated, and that was the important thing.

I was still turning over the results of the meeting in my mind. I was going to Fairview – in spite of my lousy grades, possibly even because of them. I didn't know my parents had been considering it. We were already eschewing secrecy about our mission because, let's face it, defense of humanity isn't exactly a low-profile job. But I still had yet to tell the fam about VLADJI, because a) I didn't trust them with the info, as I'd said before, and b) it kept slipping my mind.

Worse, I hadn't even told them about Knuckles…

An idea slipped into my head – an idea so stupid, so insane, I wasn't sure it would work. But it was a first step. And from what happened with Vinny Lee (which was part of what gave me the idea), telling them about my avatar pal would be a pretty darn good first step to go by.

Knuckles fished out his keys and unlocked the driver's side. I waited for him to get in and unlock the shotgun (his keys didn't have a remote lock), and then got in.

"I suppose we understand the game plan?" I said upon buckling up. Amy had dutifully repaired the upholstery in the Blazer when she saw how battered it was. It was a pretty easy job for her, as Amy can instantly repair most simple surfaces simply by touching their pieces.

Knuckles sighed. "We get you back home, I drop you off –"

"Oh, I'm changing it," I interrupted. That was how we usually did it, but it was getting old. It also wouldn't work for my plan. "We don't drop off. We park in the parking lot like rational beings."

Knuckles frowned. "Are you suggesting –?"

"Oh, yes, my dear Knucks," I said flippantly. "You are indeed driving me home. But the difference this time – you're coming in with me."