Episode 55: Operation Emily (Thayer)

The door shut and the first girl that wasn’t a grouchy cafeteria worker covered in gobs of fabric and nets was gone.

Thayer was desperate to know if all girls looked like her or if she was just exceptional.

When the door had been shut for thirty-seven seconds of silence, Cecil spoke, “You have a dual assignment: The etiquette is important for your job, but there’s a second component. I want to see which, if any, of you, can seduce her. Any questions?”

Thayer gaped, “Do you mean seduce as in gain her interest or as in sleep with her?”

He was fourteen. She was… not.

He was awkward and pitchy and she was smooth and refined and he wanted to answer that question.

“Sleep with her,” Cecil stated. “First person to manage it gets to lead the rest of you in a battle against a group of rival students.”

Thayer didn’t care about leading, but a girl… Even if she rejected him, when she rejected him, he would still get the chance. Maybe he could just talk to her about other girls.

“Where are you from?” Asa asked, challenging Cecil again.

He felt bad; his own lack of caring about life had shifted Asa toward reckless in words. It was Thayer’s job to get killed asking questions not Asa’s. He wanted Asa to get out. Win at life. Whatever it took.

“The same world as Emily,” Cecil said. 

As much as he wanted to ask more, he felt a correlation between this sort of knowledge and days till death.

“Can we see some plates today, instead of just trays?” Thayer asked Cecil.

“No,” Cecil replied. “You’ll have access to the library this evening for twenty minutes.”

“Can you tell us more about where we’re going?” Asa asked.

Stupid and eager.

Cecil thought for a moment, about how to kill Asa.

“It’s hot,” Cecil replied. Thayer was astonished. “Everyone there uses magic, but we’ll have a cover for why you don’t.”

The room was silent; Thayer couldn’t believe Cecil had answered the question.

“Anything else?” Cecil asked. “Good. Get back to the tangle cage.”

The class left the room and walked in silence toward the room they got ready in. It was like almost a bathroom; it was covered in white tile and grey grout with a drainage hole in the center. It was only about six feet by six feet and the five of them had to fit inside. The other half of the class used a matching room. Before the class was split, fifteen has to squeeze into each room. Five wasn’t that bad. Here they stalked strategy.

As they rounded a corner, the tangle cage and whatever they were going to do in it looming, Asa spoke, “What do you think?”

Talking in the halls still felt weird but Cecil was encouraging it. Thayer didn’t know what to think of Cecil yet. He had only taught them for a few days and already he was more open than any previous teacher.

Less controlling too. They had to watch out for that.

Asa had asked him what he had thought. He could share these things now. Or maybe some version of them.

He opened his mouth as a hand collided with his head. “I think I’m going to be leading an army in a battle,” Brendan said.

“Nine people is not an army,” Asa replied.

“No way will she go for you,” Thayer told Brendan.

“I bet she’s desperate,” Brendan said.

“For what? I think you’re the desperate one.”

“Well I’m not using the library to look up plates,” Thackery declared.

“Guess I’ll be leading everyone then,” Thayer declared.

“You?” Asa asked in disbelief.

“Guess we’ll see,” Thayer replied. He hoped he sounded confident; he wasn’t. A girl like Emily wouldn’t go for a kid, even if Thayer looked older than he was. She was too pure for them.

“What do girls even like?” Thackery asked.

“Check the library,” Ian said as he brushed past them.

Ian was in the other group; it was weird that he was talking to them. Not any weirder than them talking in the hall, Thayer decided.

“We need to be strategic about this. We’re going up against a rival group, which means we need someone with leadership skills to win this. We shouldn’t just all go, we should elect someone to try.”

“Like who?” Ian asked.

It looked like Ian was just as eager about this new girl training too. She had to be connected to their job. Dating maybe too. Thayer was excited about the idea of dating.

“Not me, I look like a little kid. I vote Thayer.”

“I don’t look any older,” Neron, Asa’s picasso-clone said. “I vote Thayer too.”

Neron wasn’t ugly, he was just… his eyes were too big for his face and his chin was so narrow you could almost cut something with it. Asa looked similar in skin tone and hair and general face shape but in more reasonable proportions.

“What’s wrong with me?” Brendan asked.

Asa glanced at everyone in their group, “Thayer looks oldest and he is fair when we do teamwork.”

“Brendan’s fair,” Ian said. “You just don’t like him.”

Ian shouldn’t like him either – one of the teams was destined to be killed and at the current rate Ian would fall with his four partners.

“Brendan’s fair and effective, but Thayer can pass for an adult,” Asa said.

Asa was the best negotiator by far, flatterer even. He’d probably have more luck with Emily than Thayer would.

“Why don’t we have two teams and see who wins,” Ian suggested.

Maybe Ian was joining their team. Thayer checked to make sure his four buddies hadn’t died while they weren’t looking – they hadn’t.

“Thayer vs. Brendan?” Asa suggested.

No one disagreed.

“I’ll see you around then,” Brendan said as he split from the group.

They were at the doors to the tangle cage prep room.

Thayer couldn’t figure out if Brendan was stupid, going to go see Emily now, or testing Cecil.

All of them made him stupid. But they were assigned to try.

Brendan left. Thayer turned toward Asa, “No way she sleeps with either of us.”

“No. She seems decent, I wonder where they got her.”

“You-don’t-have-a-choice island?” Thayer joked.

Asa laughed.

When Brendan wasn’t around, it was Asa and him. Brendan must have been jealous of their friendship, or maybe he wanted in like Ian was trying to do with their team.

Either way, they’d both lose the challenge. Thayer wondered if Brendan would lie about succeeding.

“I said where they got her, not where they got us. She might not be married but she has someone,” Asa said.

“And she lives somewhere else,” Thayer added.

He wanted a somewhere else to know, to call his own, to be part of and wanted.

It didn’t matter. He was stuck in this place until he died.

He’d fight death, unless it came down to Asa versus him. Knowing Asa, they’d die together if it came to that.

It would be lame.

“Race you to the top of the wall?”

Death was just a dream and life was just a game, for now.

“You’re on,” Thayer replied as he ran through the door into the dark waters of the tangle cage.

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