BLUE VENOM

Two - Landing

I heard a sound.

"Hey" Somebody carefully kicked my combat boot. "Sutton."

Another kick. "Masie"

Whoever this was knew how to kick. Why didn't he kick a soccer ball or something. I'd bet he'd be goals at it.

"Why won't you wake up?", the annoying person said.

"Why won't you stop kicking me?", I blurted out.

My eyes shot open and Ty Roville leaned back until I had his entire, rough jawed footballer face perfectly in frame. Chummy soft brown eyes and blond hair and all. I knew Ty from school but it was not like we ever talked much. About four words in six years. My brother Aron once had him over with some other athletes for a study session, when they all were about to repeat a grade because they put more energy into swimming laps or throwing rounded objects, than they invested into calculus or English Lit. But he hadn't come over afterwards.

Ty and Aron weren't exactly on the same wavelength. So he'd greeted me before (the only one from the jocks. Points for trying.) but never had I been even closer to him than a quick shoulder brush in the hallways. We surely weren't on kicking shoe basis with each other.

He cocked a half smile at me but something in his usually so arrogant eyes was off. And then it came back to me.

I sat up with so much force that I slammed back into the wall - pulled back by white cuffs around my arms and wrists.

"Where.." I grabbed the smooth wall. We were inside a spacey white square. No doors, no windows. But the air seemed fresh and I inhaled, urgently needing oxygen. Where was the light coming from?

"You alright?" Ty's hand reached out until he remembered his own cuffs "They dropped you on the floor pretty hard."

I flinched away from his hand although he technically could get nowhere near me and he pulled back.

"Where are we?", I demanded, like he had all the answers. But who knew what he knew. In the strange dim white half light that shone inside this jail box, Ty gave me a faint half smile.

"Won't you guess?"

"Do I look like I'm in the mood to play I see something that you don't?"

"No, but won't you guess?"

"Want me to punch you to your senses?"

Typical jock. He really wanted to play games, even now.

He chuckled humorlessly. "That will be kinda hard. You know, contamination and all. Unless you try to kick me to death." He nudged my shoe with his to prove his point. His was not a bad idea - at least I would like to kick him back.

"Sorry", he said to me, examining my face. "I never realized we were on terms this bad."

"We're not", I said. "It's just..." Just that he was a jock. I realized. And I kind of had put them all into the Aron-Kain category. I hadn't tried to be unfair.

I sighed. "Yeah you're right. Sorry. Where are we?"

"Contamination Box 268b, is where we are, from what I've gathered.", Ty sighed. At my blank face, he did another one of his false grins. "Yeah, their Ioptine dosis didn't really work for me. They gave me another fill but I still wouldn't really fall asleep like they wanted me too. So you know, the bastards actually tried to knock me out" His cuffed finger pointed upwards and I realized the right side of his face was swollen. "But I still saw things. Like the number outside our box. And that they brought us to the port. This is a container box, darling."