Sonic Squad

2 ~ Our Prison Sentence Begins

Ah, school. Our prison for the next year, place of display for Taron Okeniyi. Where Greenstrike is nothing more than a rumor, as are FireFox and Tsunami. Where Blaise and Adrian and me are just another trio of weirdos, trying to not get eaten alive.

"So, who thinks they'll crack first?" I asked as my friends and I made our way into the building.

"I think you'll crack first, gatinha," Adrian said, elbowing Blaise. "Especially without me there."

"Really. I would say that out of all of us, you have the least self-control," Blaise retorted.

"The exploding water fountain of second grade comes to mind," I said, backing Blaise up.

"For the millionth time, that wasn't my fault! It was the wasp's!" Adrian protested. Blaise and I gave him the exact same are-you-for-real look at the exact same time, and he huffed, looking down at his shoes.

"I don't know about me. I think I might just be fine," I said. "My powers are harder to trigger in most classrooms."

"I told you yesterday. You have the cool powers," Blaise grumbled. "You do not need to have our friend here whenever you get ticked off."

"Oh. It's so nice to be needed," Adrian said, pretending to cry.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't flatter yourself, man. We don't keep you around for your sparkly personality. You're literally here to keep Blaise from committing arson."

"If I had a choice, I would rather have any other Water than you, Adrian. You are just that annoying sometimes," Blaise said.

As if to prove our point, I noticed Adrian's eyes traveling over Aliana Barrett's body. "Ay, mami," he said.

"He's broken," I mutter to Blaise.

"He is Adrian," she replied.

"Fair point," I said.

"Please. Y'all just want to be me, don't you?" Adrian said.

I'm not sure if he was aware of this fact, but not once had me or Blaise ever said, "God, I wish I could be Adrian. Just for a little bit." And if we ever did, it was because Blaise got mad at someone or something and we needed a fast way to extinguish the fire.

"My friend, you have so much to learn about life," I said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Ooh, I'll catch you later. There's Elena," he said, and just like that, he was gone.

"When will he learn?" Blaise asked.

"You're assuming that him growing up and not acting like some college frat boy or whatever is going to happen," I said.

"College. If we were thirty years in the past right now, that would be something we would have to think about," she remarked.

As if to prove her point, she looked around the halls of our school. I remember from Mom's old movies that she likes to watch that the schools would have posters advertising different things and maybe some student projects lining the halls. In my favorite one of those movies, I'd seen a trip to Europe, somewhere called Marseilles (though we spent a week talking about the various European cities that were torched during the religious extremist wars of 2157, and if I had to guess, Marseilles was one of them), handmade posters telling students to vote for someone named Maddie for class president, signs advertising different events called "prom" and "homecoming," whatever those were. Those movies were made maybe a hundred years ago, some of them filmed right here in Solaris, which my grandmother said was once called Los Angeles. Whenever I catch myself watching one with Mom, it feels like I'm transported to another world, one where people could go anywhere, where your fingerprints weren't checked every time you entered a public building, where there were no limits on what a person could do someday.