The Foolhardies 222 A-Lis

Nope, I was definitely sure he wasn't sorry but I didn't mind. It has been a while since I'd done anything so mundane and normal. Plus, other than Ty and Arah, this guy was someone I could count as one of my few friends on Mudgard. 

"It's fine, Rufus," I said. "I don't mind managing our cla.s.s event for the school's cultural festival. "But, d.a.m.n, why did they all vote to do a wrestling match?" 

"I know right?" Rufus, the only other male redhead in school combed a hand through his wavy locks. "I'd love to help you set it up but my responsibilities with the student council... well, they're getting pretty heavy."

"Goes with the t.i.tle, Mr. VP," I chuckled. 

Rufus' put his hands together in an apologetic gesture. 

"Although, I imagine our cla.s.sroom won't have enough s.p.a.ce for a wrestling ring," I began.

"Alright, alright," Rufus answered after getting my drift. "I'll make sure you guys get a slot time to use the main gym in the sports complex."

"Nice doing business with you, buddy," I offered him my hand. 

Rufus shook it. "Sure, sure… Update me when you can." 

I watched Rufus' back as he walked away and sighed. 

"If only all my problems could be resolved as quickly…" I said. 

I pulled up my phone and sent a message to Ty asking for an update. He responded seconds later with a really long reply that roughly read, 

"I'm getting nowhere here… how do you even recognize who could be a candidate among hundreds of students?" Ty wrote in his reply. 

He sent a follow-up message right afterward. 

"I mean, do they have horns or something? Glowing eyes? Anything?" he added. 

I replied with, "You're the chosen one… maybe use the force or something?" 

"Um, dude, I was named for a Star Trek character…" he replied. "And I can't use the force!" 

"I know, dude!" I responded. "But as the only human to have magical abilities on par with fairies maybe you can sense for some kind of fay potential in others…"

His final reply came much longer. "Fine… I'll try…"

A few seconds later, Arah sent me a text too. 

"No suspicious people entering the school… I'm worried they might be canva.s.sing for potential candidates somewhere else," her text read. 

"The twins were specific about the location… Midtown High," I replied. "Keep watching the front gate for now." 

Ty's efforts eventually yielded zilch. He did not in fact have the ability to sense the possibility of the gift in anyone. 

Arah, on the other hand, logged two dozen visitors entering the school. Most of them were parents, four were food delivery guys, another two were representatives from city hall, and the last was a hobo who tried to check for food in one of the dumpsters outside the cafeteria before the security guards managed to evict him. So, no dice either. 

I, on the other hand, in between leading the cla.s.s' planning committee for our wrestling event, had browsed through the list of top students in my school. Lo and behold, the top name on that list, at least academically, was me. 

Arah was a close second but she couldn't be the candidate. Rufus was in the top ten but that kid was as straight and narrow as an arrow in flight. The others were a variety of athletes, social justice warriors, and intellectuals. No one really jumped out as a possible candidate to be a sense knight. 

So, after spending an entire fruitless day staking out the school, I was now in for another long night repeating what I'd done earlier. What was it that Albert Einstein once said?

"Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result," I whispered. 

"What?" the girl sitting beside me asked. 

Technically, she wasn't a girl considering she was now fifty-one years old, but Aura who was currently decked in a black hoodie and matching black jeans looked pretty much like a teenager on her way to a party. 

"That's how we humans define insanity," I answered. 

We were sitting on one of the bus stop benches outside Midtown High's campus and waiting for Varda and Qwipps to finish unlocking the front gate for us.

"Are you sure we should have brought these two along?" I asked again. 

"Before he joined the unit, Qwipps was an excellent burglar and you know how good Varda is with her hands," Aura reminded me. 

As she said this, Varda let out an excited giggle that I a.s.sumed meant they'd completed the current task. 

"Wish Edo was here to keep those two in line though," I sighed. 

"Arah's relatively new so she'll need Edo's support to manage the unit while you and I are here��" Aura got up and dusted off her skin tight jeans. "It's not as comfortable as it looks…"

"Yeah, well, I understand fas.h.i.+on isn't about comfort," I chuckled.

I got up from the bench and then looked behind me to the other two members of my thieving party. 

"Ty, you take Enna and Varda roam around campus and make sure we're alone. Aura, Qwipps, and I will head for records... Maybe there's something there that will help identify our targets." 

"Man, we're actually breaking into school," Ty sighed. "Feels unreal." 

"I know right," I agreed. 

---

"So, what exactly are we looking for?" I pulled open one of the metal file cabinets inside the records room. 

Midtown High made a point to keep copies of student records on both print and digital as a safety measure. This worked in our favor because breaking into a room was much easier than breaking into a computer. 

"There are certain criteria fairies look for in humans we want to bring into the Fayne," Aura replied. 

"Looks, intellect, and bloodline," Qwipps added. 

"Yes, but those are just surface qualities, Qwipps," Aura corrected him. "What we really look for in humans is their potential for growth."

"And how does one figure out someone's potential?" I pulled out a folder and checked the information on the file. It belonged to some random freshman I'd never heard of. On the file, something caught my eye. It was a reference to the student getting detention for posting racist comments on social media. "You're looking at our digital footprint…"

Aura beamed at me. "Yes."

She pulled out a smartphone from her jacket pocket, something I'd never seen her use before, and showed it to me. The screen was showing a Friendbook profile — mine. 

"Your likes, dislikes, hobbies, S.A.T. scores, the food you eat, the places you visit, even your secret desires," she cited. "You humans have made it very easy for us to read about your lives. This helps us predict how you would act in certain situations." 

"Like in a battlefield," I realized. 

Aura nodded again. 

"You're looking for warriors," I continued.

Aura nodded a third time. 

"We look for other things too but essentially we fairies view humans as a resource for our conflicts," Aura admitted. "But you already know that." 

"And Luca?" I asked. 

My voice was a little less cordial than I would have liked it to be but the information she was dropping on me was a little upsetting. 

A shadow of doubt appeared on Aura's face, one I tried to push away with a smile. 

"Sorry," I apologized. "It's just…"

"I know, Dean," she replied quickly. 

Seconds of uncomfortable silence was broken by Qwipps coughing loudly and obviously — this jumpstarted Aura back into explanation mode. 

"Luca's a legacy," she continued. "A potential that's been marked by fay since birth and groomed to become whatever the fay need him to be."

The thought of Luca being groomed for warfare just irked me some more. But I managed not to sound like a d.i.c.k when I replied.

"Is that what we're looking for?" I asked. 

Aura shook her head. 

"Potentials would have been taken at an earlier age like Luca was… But if we're looking for a high school student then that means whoever it is probably hasn't been approached yet," Aura insisted. 

"They're somewhere here in all of this mess then," Qwipps pointed toward the numerous file cabinets. "Muddammit, I knew I should have switched places with Pike."

"I a.s.sume we're here to look at apt.i.tude scores then?" I asked. "That's how we find this list Morrigan's after?"

"Yes," Aura agreed. "We can look through someone's social life through your social media machine and match any potentials with what we find here and then cross—"

The sound of breaking gla.s.s and yelling reached our ears. Looks like we weren't alone in the school after all.