The Cypher (2 page)

“Until Miss Khanna told me that you beat up three kids today and…” he slapped the wheel and mouthed the words of the last chorus.

“And?” Thomas asked. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

“And I told her that three against one wasn’t my idea of a fair fight, especially since they are older than you. Aren’t they?”

“Well, yeah. But just by a year. They’re juniors.”

“Do you go beating up freshmen?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. You didn’t start the fight, did you?”

Thomas lifted up his hands. “No, I swear I didn’t.”

“But you did finish it and I can’t get mad at you because you defended yourself. I told Miss Khanna that only cowards gang up on someone and that I expected the parents of those kids to give us a call to apologize.”

“Really?” Thomas was sure that if Killjoy called the parents of Roger and company, his social life at school was over before it even got started. “And what did she say?”

“That you’re suspended for a week without it going on your permanent record. To keep appearances.” Grandpa turned the radio dial; The Rolling Stones were being Sympathetic with the Devil. “Those boys belong to the school’s football team, one is the running back. He had a big game this weekend that he’s not going to play, and if they lose and she doesn’t punish you somehow, well, I’m sure you know just how popular you would have become. Nice going champ. Good way to make friends.”

“But is she calling their parents or not?” It was great that Killjoy wouldn’t put the fight on his record, but she could still destroy his social life with that call.

“Of course she will.” Grandpa parked inside of their garage. “But, to tell their parents that they beat you up, and that they have extra duties at the school for a month.” He looked at Thomas and winked. “She also has her Killjoy reputation to keep, you know?”

The Ad

Thomas pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and cereal from the kitchen cabinet and served a bowl. He sprinkled powdered chocolate on top just for good measure. His grandfather didn’t approve of his breakfast choices, but since Thomas was fit and worked out, he couldn’t forbid Thomas from doing it. He sat on the table and moved the newspaper ads that grandpa had been gathering for a week.

A task his dad used to do.

Like Morgan, Thomas’s dad had been an accountant. He’d always worked for city-based companies until his maternal grandmother passed away. He’d moved to Fullton, Ohio to help with the house and other legal issues, and fell in love with the easy-going and slower pace of the small town. Fullton was Thomas’s mother’s hometown, and it made it easy for Thomas’s father to move his newly-formed family over to Fullton. Thomas had been born in Carlsbad, but he was raised in Ohio.

His dad used to say that news from the world came from T.V. and the Internet. But the local news and business opportunities were always in the newspaper.

Being their only child, Thomas’s parents decided that Thomas should be close to his grandfather. Grandpa spent at least a month every summer in Ohio with them; they in turn visited Carlsbad during Christmas, and, they took trips together at every opportunity they could during the year.

Ever since Thomas’s parents had disappeared, Morgan had been searching for a job. Between his retirement fund, his savings and the rent he was cashing for Thomas’s house in Ohio they had more than enough to make ends meet. Thomas’s parents had life insurance, but since they had disappeared without a trace, the insurance could defer payment for up to seven years until they were presumed dead by law. Neither Morgan nor Thomas had pressed the issue; they wanted to believe they were still alive, somewhere.

Grandpa entered the kitchen “Good morning.” he said ready to job hunt. Suited and clean-shaven, he carried a manila envelope with his resume in one hand, and a fresh musky odor seemed to follow his every movement.

“Morning,” Thomas poured more milk in the bowl while his grandpa mixed egg whites, oatmeal, butter and heated it up in the microwave. “That smells horrible, Gramps.”

“It’s good for the heart, and low on sugar. You better start taking care now, diabetes is hereditary.”

“Come on Gramps!” Thomas blurted with a mouthful of cereal. “Thanks for ruining breakfast!”

“I’m just saying.” He sat opposite of Thomas and dug into his oatmeal.

Thomas was tired of seeing his grandfather go out every day on two or three interviews. They didn’t need the money, but grandpa insisted that it was to secure a better education for Thomas. “Any news?” he asked.

Grandpa sighed before taking another spoonful of oatmeal.

“So?” Thomas asked again. He wasn’t going to let Grandpa linger too much on self pity. But he also hated seeing him get hit in the face again and again. And since grandpa wasn’t going to concede, Thomas tried to get him to use the Internet, but he got tired of the job-hunting websites very quickly. He preferred the old-fashioned way, so every weekend he would buy newspapers and follow printed leads.

“Same old…” Morgan replied. “Everything’s fine on the phone, but when they meet me and see that I’m a little older, they smile and say that they’ll call if a position opens.”

“You’re a little more than older, Gramps,” Thomas teased. They had been living together for more than eight months and teasing Gramps about his age had always been his dad’s favorite pastime, so now Thomas had taken the task for himself.

“It keeps the old man sharp. Makes the blood run a little hotter. Promise you’ll do the same to me when it’s my time,”
his dad joked with him one night.

He was now honoring that promise with his grandpa.

“And you should respect your elders more,” Morgan teased back, pointing with the spoon. “Age brings wisdom.”

“Then they would pick you immediately because you’re ultra-super-duper wise.” Thomas snorted and spurt milk out of his mouth. His grandfather always seemed to set himself up for that one.

“Yeah. Yeah. Laugh! I see you as I saw myself once. You see me as you will be seen,” Morgan said seriously.

Thomas stopped laughing for a second. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Morgan bit his lip. “I said it wrong. Your grandmother used to say that all the time.”

Thomas had never met his Grandmother. There were plenty of pictures and stories about her and his Dad always said that Thomas had inherited her dark hair and eyes. Of her native Spanish, Thomas only knew a couple of words, mostly curse words.

“Anyway…” Morgan took another bite of his breakfast. Thomas stopped laughing. He’d learned that a couple of jokes about age were okay, but when his grandfather said “anyway” it meant that they were done.

“So where are you going today?” Thomas changed the subject.

“Let’s find out, can you give me a hand?” Morgan tossed a couple of papers toward Thomas and they circled the accounting and management jobs offered on the paper.

There weren’t that many.

Halfway through the third paper Thomas found an ad that only had symbols. The logo was cool so he circled it for grandpa to see. It was surely one of those ads for secret parties or a practical joke.

“Check this one out, Gramps. This could be the one.”

He handed it to Grandpa expecting to get a smile, but instead his grandfather read through the ad.

“You really think I’d be a good librarian?” his grandfather asked, his brow furrowed.

“A what?”

“A librarian,” he handed Thomas back the ad. “Do I look like a librarian?”

Thomas took another look at the ad, ready to share a laugh with grandpa, but instead, he saw that the ad had somehow changed.

“How much do you think an assistant librarian can make?” grandpa asked. “It might be worth looking into.”

“This isn’t the same page I gave you, is it?” Thomas searched for the ad with the symbols – he flipped the page around, but it wasn’t there. The ad he had circled was the one he was reading, except it was in English now.

“Getting late. See you later,” Morgan said as he scurried through the kitchen and left the house. “Clean up your room,” he screamed before he slammed the front door.

“Sure, Gramps.” Thomas mumbled. He stared for a long time at the ad. Maybe his grandfather had set him up and was now having a laugh at his expense. After a few minutes, he crumpled the page and threw it in the trash.

He went upstairs and picked up his room, and then went outside to their small yard to read in the lawn chair.

He would have loved to go to the beach, which was only three blocks away, but if a police officer asked him what he was doing out of school he could get in even more trouble than he was already in. Instead, he resigned himself to spending the week at home either reading or playing on the computer.

After some time, he went into the kitchen for a glass of water and glanced at the trashcan, the crumpled newspaper still at the top of the heap. What if he had read it wrong the first time? Or what if there was a duplicate logo on another page with symbols instead of letters?

Suddenly his cell phone beeped. Another text message.

He knew that Killjoy had done him a favor. He’d gotten text after text from people he didn’t know existed after she had suspended him. His visit with Killjoy had turned him into something like a celebrity in school, one of those few survivors that had faced Killjoy and remained in school, and everyone wanted to know the story.

He’d only given his number to two people, Christina, a blonde girl who somehow needed to have all his information: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other more obscure Internet social media that he didn’t have and some he didn’t even know existed. The other person he gave his number to was Trevor, a kid that the science teacher had assigned him as project partner. He guessed that Christina had probably become his popularity manager somehow.

Thomas didn’t like texting that much, but he had to send something back or his newfound popularity would go sour. He sent a mass text with just “tell u ltr,” and he sat down to figure out a story about his interview with Killjoy that would be a little more edgy and defiant than what it had been. Something that would uphold Killjoy’s reputation too.

The thought of the crumpled newspaper was replaced by T.V., videogames, and the usual chores around the house that grandpa had assigned. Without being in school, the day seemed to crawl and Thomas was about to fall sleep while watching a show when Grandpa called.

“So how’d it go?” Thomas yawned through the phone.

“The same,” Grandpa sighed dejectedly. “Whatever you do Thomas, don’t grow old.”

“We’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

“I know, see you in twenty. You need anything from the store?”

“I’m okay, Gramps.”

His grandfather sounded so depressed. Finding a job had become a crusade, almost as if his grandfather was making up for his parents’ disappearance. It had been Gramps who’d given his parents the trip of a lifetime. A two-month private cruise trip from New Zealand to China making port calls along the way. It had been his Grandmother’s dream to take that trip. But with her gone, grandpa had decided to give it to Thomas’s parents as an anniversary present.

The videos, photos and calls had come in since the first day of the cruise, and grandpa was incredibly happy that someone was making the trip grandma always wanted, plus, he got to stay with Thomas in Ohio for the two months it would take them to return.

Thomas kept the last picture they sent in his room. They were in the bow of the tri-masted Schooner; his father was hugging his mother by the waist and she was glowing. They were sharing a laugh as the wind blew away his mother’s hat, a sliver of the hat could still be seen in the edge of the picture.

The next day a representative of the cruise called. The ship had vanished with all hands on board. There was no S.O.S. No warning or distress call, and no debris were ever found. There was no trace of the thirty-five passengers or the nine crewmen. It had simply vanished.

It was no help at all that it had happened in a stretch of ocean the Japanese called the “Devil’s Sea” the Eastern version of the Bermuda triangle.

Thomas didn’t want his grandfather to be hurt. He had taken care of Thomas since his parent’s disappearance. He had to help him find a job, any job that would take him.

A faint crackling sound came from the wastebasket. The newspaper he had crumpled into a ball unfolded a little bit.

He grabbed the newspaper page and found the ad. Somehow it seemed different than the one he’d read this morning. More urgent.

Odd phone number.

Thomas dialed; it couldn’t hurt. It only rang once before a girl with a sweet voice answered. “Guardians Incorporated. How can I help you?”

“Hello, I read your ad in the newspaper.”

“Which one?”

“The Assistant Librarian.”

“You have a nice voice.” The girl on the other side seemed to be really interested in him, even flirting through the phone.

“Thank you, uhm, you too.”

A long pause.

“Do you want to apply?”

“It’s still available?”