Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Gerard looked at the two newcomers with a mixture of surprise and curiosity as he stepped out of his aircraft. “And what’s this?” he asked.
I shifted on my feet uncomfortably and exchanged glances with my friends.
Robert spoke first. “Good morning,” he said, in a voice that sounded too bright. “We saw you yesterday, you may remember. And we happened to overhear you talking to Jessie about the new work opportunity she’s been given. My friend Nico and I would appreciate being let in on this opportunity, too.”
As I had done the day before, I winced internally at the word “opportunity”.
Gerard’s expression turned deeply thoughtful, which increased my discomfort. He didn't look upset in the slightest that they had overheard what was supposed to be a confidential conversation. If anything, he looked as though he saw it as an opportunity, too. But why? He already had a mentee.
“Well, first of all, it's good to ‘officially’ meet you, Nico and Robert,” Gerard replied.
He shook hands with both men. “Second, this is certainly not an orthodox way for recruitment into this program. However, we always like to reward enthusiasm here at Fairwell, and I'm willing to see what I can do to accommodate your request.” He glanced briefly at Jessie and me. “Of course, you men are joining the program a little late, but that's not a deal breaker. I’ll make an executive decision in this case and let you do a trial run today. We’ll see how you might fit in.”
I stared at him. It felt like he had agreed much too easily. I’d hoped there would be at least more hesitation, if not an outright “No, sorry, we are full, at least for this course.” Instead, they’d been given everything they’d asked for on a plate.
“I'll text my sister and let her know I'm bringing you all over,” he said. “She’ll bring a couple of registration forms, to tie up the formalities.” He nodded toward his aircraft. “It’ll be a squeeze but jump in.”
Nico and Robert offered Jessie and me entrance into the plane first, and I reluctantly climbed aboard, half wishing I could pull the glass down immediately after me, locking all three of my friends out.
Somehow it felt like once they stepped aboard, there would be no going back, even though they would have nothing to financially bind them to this path.
I couldn't see any of them leaving me alone unless they were physically forced to.
Somehow we all fit into the small aircraft.
Gerard navigated us away from Fraser Isle and towards Founders’ Isle.
To my surprise, instead of heading directly to the fortress, as I had assumed we would, given that Anna said she wanted to meet me back there today, he turned toward the right and veered away from it.
“Where are we going?” Jessie wondered aloud. The trepidation in her voice was audible.
“We're staying local today,” Gerard responded.
I hoped that was something to feel relieved about. At least, whatever happened on the island surely couldn't be worse than the disaster that was yesterday.
Buildings became sparse beneath us until they completely disappeared, and we soared over rural wildlands I didn’t remember glimpsing before.
We had to be close to the agricultural quarter.
Gerard slowed the plane when a vast wooded area came into view.
He lowered us into a clearing that stretched out just before the mass of trees.
I stared at the thick forest, not having seen so many trees bunched together since I arrived here. It looked like the closest thing I would see to a jungle here at Fairwell.
I dropped out of the aircraft as soon as the glass opened, my feet landing in ankle length grass, and looked around. A line of people already stood at the entrance of the forest. I spotted several silver aircraft pods parked in the nearest corner of the field.
I heard a quiet whooshing sound above me and looked up to see another aircraft rapidly descending. This one was navigated by a pilot in a blue uniform, and Anna sat next to him.
Given how things had left off yesterday between us, I felt uncomfortable making eye contact with her as she jumped out of her pod’s cockpit. But her immediate focus was on Robert and Nico.
She pulled out two familiar looking pieces of paper—registration forms—and smoothed them out on the body of Gerard’s aircraft. “For now, you’ll just be signing these alone, since you haven’t been assigned any particular mentor,” she explained.
Nico and Robert took several minutes to scan them, and then signed their names at the bottom.
“Who are the new arrivals?” a sharp, unfamiliar male voice called from behind us.
We turned to see a lithe, pale man with a shock of jet-black hair striding toward us.
A forced smile peeled across Anna's face. “Jeffrey, how are you this morning?” she asked.
He ignored her pleasantries. “What is this?” He looked pointedly at Nico and Robert, who for a moment looked like deer caught in headlights.
Anna pursed her lips, her smile fading. “Nothing the Burchard family needs to worry about,” she replied primly.
“Who says we're worried about it?” Jeffrey scoffed. “I just want to make sure everyone is playing by the rules.”
His cold eyes swept briefly over me, and he managed to give me the immediate distinct impression that he was a most unpleasant person.
“Oh, you can be assured of that,” Gerard replied smoothly.
“Then what is this?” Jeffrey repeated. He nodded toward the registration forms clutched in Nico and Robert’s hands. “You planning to take on double mentees? Because if that's the case, you should have filed a notice.”
“You are getting way ahead of yourself, Jeff,” Anna said. “Take a breather. These are a pair of enthusiastic new settlers who wanted an increase in opportunities and we're simply accommodating that. We haven't assigned them to anybody. This is just a trial run to see how they do.”
I looked behind Jeffrey and saw his own mentee waiting tentatively—the shorter, stocky man who had reminded me of Robert yesterday.
“Who knows,” Anna went on with a small chuckle. “They may even decide this isn't for them. So, I suggest you back off and save this conversation for later.”
Jeffrey struck me as the kind of person who didn’t acquiesce to anything for anyone, but he seemed to buy Anna’s argument, at least for now, and gave a dry smile.
“Very well.” His eyes rested briefly on Nico and Robert. “Thank you for joining us,” he said, although he managed to make it sound like almost an insult. He strode back toward the group of people lined up at the woods’ entrance, his mentee hurrying to keep up behind him.
“Let's head over there, too,” Gerard said, and he began to walk brusquely toward the trees.
As we followed him, I looked more closely at the others who stood there, all holding drinking cups.
The crowd consisted of the same group of thirteen that I saw yesterday.
Members of the thirteen elite families of Fairwell and their mentees.
However, although I hadn't had a chance yesterday to personally interact or even get close to most of the other mentees, I could’ve sworn some of them were different today.
Had some done what I, in my heart, had wanted to do yesterday—drop out?
Maybe not all of them had the same kind of financial pressure as me.
“Hot drink, anyone?” Gerard offered. He had reached a stand which held a large cylindrical dispenser, next to which stood a tower of disposable cups. He handed out drinks to each of us, which appeared to be some kind of fruity tea.
My friends and I sipped, standing awkwardly while Anna and Gerard mingled with a couple of other mentors nearby. I noted that Anna still hadn’t made direct eye contact with me, although she didn’t appear to be in a generally bad mood.
I couldn't help but drift a little from my friends and move closer to the mentors, to try to overhear their conversation, since they had their backs turned to us.
“Yours dropped already?” Anna asked a woman with tightly curled, short, blonde hair.
“Yup,” the blonde replied in a low tone. “Obviously wasn’t the right material. Never mind, I had a backup option.”
“I dropped mine,” a second mentor added. I glimpsed a tall man with dusky skin and a closely shaved head. “Bad reaction. Left me unconfident about continuing. Decided to cut our losses.”
Anna snorted. “And people mocked me for doing a thorough prescreening.”
The blonde scoffed. “You go way overkill, and even that’s no guarantee. It all washes out in the end, anyway.”
I frowned, not fully following her choice of words.
But it sounded like some were very fast to drop their mentees.
Anna had been quick to threaten to drop me, too.
My discomfort about the entire situation deepened.
This was hardly the nurturing training environment I’d hoped to enter.
How did they expect us to flourish in a new profession if we couldn't freely express our doubts and concerns? Did they even want us to flourish?
Why would anyone willingly choose to stay in this kind of work environment?
I couldn't imagine anyone would unless they were utterly financially desperate. Even leaving aside the nightmare that happened on yesterday’s mission, the way Anna responded to me was enough to put me off completely.
If others handled it similarly, it was no wonder people had dropped out.
Anna took a step backward. I quickly retreated closer to my friends, not wanting her to suspect I’d eavesdropped.