Chapter #45The High School, Black Market Affair, part 2 by: Nostrum   “¡Buenos días, jóvenes!” You greet your first class with the same candor as you do everyone. You set your belongings on the desk, grabbing a tablet with your study plan. “Espero que hayan pasado un fin de semana maravilloso, but it’s time for class so you can tell me later.”
“Did you have a good date, Ms. Martinez?” You can hear Andy Tompkins ask, prompting cheerful howls from his peers – Brian Kemp, Charlie Watkins and Donnie Tallarico.
“You know she’s not gonna answer unless it’s in Spanish,” Charlie tells him, repeating his question. “Ms. Martinez, oos-ted tee-en-eh boo-en-ah see-ta?”
You glare at him, half-furious and half-amused. “Las indiscreciones no se ventilan. Since you’re so eager to participate--”
“Busted!” Donnie says, slapping Charlie.
“--can you tell me which syllable you’d stress in the word indiscreción, Mr. Tallarico?”
As the others mock him, you turn around – shaking your hips to catch their attention – and write the word “indiscretion” in Spanish, minus the accent sign. You point at the word, looking at Donnie. “¿Bueno? Can you tell me where, or should I ask Mr. Watkins instead?”
After you heeled them enough, you point at Sadie Smith, a freshman with a vested interest in academics and an unfortunate mix of gauntness, braces and very curly hair. “En la última sílaba, Ms. Martínez.”
“¡Muy bien!” you say, praising her. “Keep at that and you’ll catch a lot of Latin boys in no time.”
“I bet they must be desperate if they look for someone like her,” you hear Savannah Stratton, future Blonde Squad member and bitch-in-training, backed by her lackeys Andi Martin, Hayley Perkins and Kary Lee. You see Sadie supported by her friend Justine Andrews, another girl mercilessly bullied by them and the boys for announcing her social transition.
“I bet you and your girls must be desperate for detention,” you warn her, and as she pouts in anger, you smirk. You have tamed this class like the real Julia Martinez tames Spanish Lit in fourth period – the class you took with her.
You wonder if Jimmy will be the same troublemaker as always. But most importantly, you keep tabs on Justine. If she had the pens, you feel, she’d seize the opportunity to become Savannah and ruin her life.
--
You’re trying to hold, but it’s hard to see yourself sitting in the classroom, looking dead inside. You glimpse at Jessica, focused on her classes but glancing at her boyfriend.
“Mr. Anderson?” you ask your replacement. “Can you tell me the purpose of Cervantes when he did the book burning scene?”
He blinks, giving a response worse than robotic – a facsimile of a response a human would give, but lacking the ennui of boredom. “Uh... U-oonah critique-ah deh lah literature deh la ep... Ep-oh-kah?”
“Muy bien,” you say, hoping the praise cheers him up – and failing. He nailed the answer you’d give – Cervantes was known for being an acerbic critic of the literature of his time – and perfectly mimicked your thick accent, but it was automatic. You see him lowering his head, unsure what's running in his mind.
Jessica lifts her hand, and as you hum, she expands. “Ms. Martinez, no ess el caso que Cervantes erah critical de-lah literature-ah de cah-ba-yeah-ross?”
“Yes,” you answer, praising her attention to detail. “Indeed, Miguel de Cervantes considered knightly literature as lacking any literary worth, but...”
As you give your lecture, you study how everyone reacts to your replacement. Jessica seems confused and Eric seems distant. You notice how he unsettles everyone. Your replacement himself seems distant, like in standby, ready to respond on command.
You won’t get much from this class, it seems. Any attempt to extract information will find your replacement an immense distraction; you have no idea why anyone would go for Jessica or Eric, let alone yourself. (Except Drew Collins, given his crush for your girl.)
Perhaps, save, for one conclusion. Recalling Jimmy’s call roughly a week ago, you would have had to respond many questions from the people that know you. Slipping into your old life would have made this mission very difficult.
--
Your office hours are during both lunch periods, but you decide to skip them for some recon work. You walk around the cafeteria, checking all students from a new perspective.
Though you know the “power groups”, Julia’s perspective offers different insights. She deeply believes some of the boys and girls in the Performative Arts group – the “Edgefield Musical Experience” or the “glee club” as everyone calls it – are charismatic enough to claim top spot, in contrast to the obvious cheerleaders and jocks.
And charisma and accessibility are some of the things you’re looking for. People like William Bates and Giles Anderson (the latter which isn’t your – or rather, David’s - cousin); one with an eye for fashion and a devil-may-care attitude, the other whose faux-gay attitude makes girls lower their defenses.
If any of the desperate, sex-deprived boys would have their hands on either of the two, they’d have access to all the girls they want – girls inside the EME, like Samantha Reynolds with her lovely voice and great dancing skills, or those gravitating around them like Emma Kreese, whose attributes could have easily landed her a spot on the Blonde Squad if not for her love of literature.
It’s that combination of tidbits of knowledge – yours and Ms. Martinez’s - that help Silva seep through potential targets and suspects. You pass through a table where Jimmy, your best friend from elementary, hangs around his crew – kids like Drew and Eric, but also Jake Bennett and Bobby Costa, who despite his Honduran heritage, has terrible marks in Spanish.
You know Jimmy loves doing pranks and causing chaos, but his pranks are generally silly and perverted – the failed panty raid of last year his crowning achievement. Silva, however, gauges them as potential "customers" - willing to do anything to get their hands on one of the C-Sets, using them to cause the kind of chaos that Sigma and his people wanted.
You don’t think Jimmy would do that, but Silva’s mind reminds you that you shouldn’t let feelings obscure the mission. Your own insights tell you something more worrisome – he would make a good fit for the Organization. He’s smarter than he looks, and he could set up the kinds of distractions a Type 3 or 4 are meant for.
You also keep an eye on the teachers, of course. Your own accessibility to Director Harrington – owing to his unsurprising crush for you – makes you the perfect target for the rogue agent to switch in and coordinate efforts. It also makes you the perfect target for the Organization’s agents to have a solid foothold – something you unknowingly gave them.
But because you’re not available, or perhaps hard to catch – maybe as a late-stage switch – you analyze the angles of attack available to them. Eliza Worthington, one of the English teachers, seems the perfect candidate – lives near the road connecting Edgefield to Tyneside, very private lifestyle, very unassuming look. Just a call from her for some coffee, maybe at her house, and you have a switch.
Or Thomas Kinley, someone that Julia’s interested in. His lifestyle very unusual for a Literature professor, as he’s tall and fit, yet he’s a complete nerd for British classics. If the agents did their homework, they’d keep tabs on him, in case she made an approach.
But they could use other teachers to do their job. Take Emerson Yates or Samuel Kearney, who handle Detention. Take either of them, have others get into problem students, and start acting from there. The basement offers an exceptional hiding spot for an invasion, as they could hide equipment there – or, perhaps, at the Robotics lab headed by Kearney himself.
You check the basement, surprising some of the outcasts that hang there – people like Rebecca Maxwell, Audrey Albright or Casey Caldwell, who find comfort in hanging with queer peers. For example Rebecca, having a passion for cosplay, or Audrey with her witchy persona, could easily feel allured by the C-Sets.
A cursory check of the classrooms shows nothing of interest save for one thing – two kids, kissing each other. You burst in, crossing your arms. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Ms. Martinez!” Ursula Mayberry reacts in shock. She took classes with you last year, so she knows you well. You know her partner only by name – Ricky Steiner – but little else. “I’m sorry, I was--!”
“If you’ve got the hots for each other, do it out of school grounds. Preferably with some protection. You don't want to start raising a child before you finish school, right?”
“We weren’t gonna do that,” Ursula claims.
“That's not what I saw,” you remark, “You’ve got half a minute before I send you to Detention.”
“Yes, yes...!” The couple nods and slips away, prompting your hand to leap to your purse. You observe the classroom, then lock yourself inside for a couple minutes.
You sigh, rubbing your flesh. The mixture of wearing a body as hot as Julia’s, the thoughts of that passionate night with Tony, and the power you wield in this school feels intoxicating. A better life is such a temptation for these kids – and the C-Sets could easily provide these.
But such is the danger of these. You quickly dismiss these urges. You’ll have to fight them every time you’re in the mission – a reminder of what you’re fighting against.
The temptation of permanently becoming her – without a care for the world.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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