Chapter 78

  Plans for the Future

  The world had gone on, things that had at one point been very important to many people passed. Things that were one time deal breakers, suddenly seemed to be minor inconveniences at best.

  True to their founder’s word, the Jarnic foundation gave back to the community, particularly for people who used the Surreal application on their phones.

  How the company doled out scholarships, and what levels of insight were exactly needed to gain a free scholarship were unknown.

  All that was known was that for whatever reason, those that registered as a super cluster apparently gained more experience than others.

  The fact that super clusters were even possible was something that was missed on almost everyone. There were no blatant commands on how to join as a super cluster, nor why exactly 17 members was the exact number of people to generate a super cluster.

  That said, it was amazing how the entire high school women’s basketball team, along with a few ardent fans of the sport were all gathered up in this so called perfect super cluster. Gaining experience for not only what they did, but what everyone else in the cluster did on top of their own actions. One person more, and one person less would have negated this lucrative option.

  When asked why this was in there, the developers were at a loss, as it was apparently something that the creator, Ms. Jarnic herself had added just before production went live. An apparent easter egg to her favorite number, along with a few other important dates in the company’s founding. All of this made it so that the number 17 was a prime number of importance, and one that was recorded as such in team activities.

  This meant that when Surreal began doling out part of their profits for their expressed dividends, giving out seventeen scholarships was both a drop in the bucket and great advertisement for the brand and company as a whole.

  “So now that you have your own scholarship and don’t need to worry about getting a Basketball Scholarship, which college will you be going to?” Amoni found herself asking.

  As she spoke a faint note of vulnerability seemed to momentarily cross her face as she asked.

  This was an important question. By all rights, there was of course only one true answer for a native of West Virigina, and that was to choose WVU in Morgantown WV. Yet, Misha didn’t feel the connection to West Virginia as others did, this was just a place. Part of her realized that this was just her Psycher mentality coming through, not being drawn too much to one area or location.

  However, with that in mind, Misha still wanted to be closer to her family, which put her at odds as Jackson West Virginia was exactly in the middle of nowhere. Somehow it was eighteen miles closer to go to the Ohio State University, than to WVU. Similarly, University of Kentucky and Virginia Tech were both options due to being similarly comparable in range.

  In the end, the only true deciding factor in what school Misha went to came down to her one and only visit. Where an assistant for the University of Tennessee happened to be in the area scouting the team, during that time they handed out cards to everyone on the team, even Misha.

  The card didn’t mean much, but it was an open invitation to at least compete in the open tryouts to make the team.

  While apparently everyone could join the open tryouts, very few made it onto the team.

  “I’m going to go to the University of Tennessee,” Misha noted, having immediately applied for admission right after receiving the card.

  “Ten, Tennessee?” Amoni replied a bit bewildered.

  At that Misha just nodded.

  “Why there?”

  “They were the only ones that tried,” Misha noted.

  “Ah, I could get you a tryout with the team?” Amoni pressed, her words sounding slightly desperate.

  “It’s fine, in fact, probably better this way,” Misha noted.

  This of course was not the first time Misha had this conversation. The first time had been with Phil, her grandfather, who had been vehemently opposed to the idea of leaving the state entirely.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Only after pointing out that this was the only school that showed a modicum of interest in her, and the only one that gave her the effective time of day as Phil would have put it, Phil could not argue. Instead, all he did was sigh in frustration.

  “I guess this means we will also have to shut down the garage,” Phil noted.

  “You shouldn’t, people are now coming here first.”

  “Only because you are here, besides who else am I going to get to do all the work for me, while I just sit back and look pretty.”

  “You were never pretty, old man,” Misha retorted. This form of conversation was odd to Misha, only after studying dynamics and seeing the clearly jovial reactions from Phil afterward did she realize that he actually liked this type of response.

  “Hey, I’ll have you know that back in my day…” Phil began, but was quickly cut off by Misha.

  “Gas was nine cents a gallon and you could sell a child for $2.50, no questions asked.” Misha replied, remember the sight of a few black and white photographs from back in the day.

  Hearing that Phil could only smile, “yeah, while I originally wanted to sell your mother, I’m kind of glad I let Grandma talk me out of selling her. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get to put up with your smiling face everyday.”

  With that, the subtext was clear, Phil would miss her. That was as close to admitting that point as Misha could ever get him to truly admit.

  “It’s not like you won’t be alone,” Misha pointed out.

  “Oh, I know. Probably for the best that you are moving out. That way your mother and her new baby daddy can move in,” Phil replied.

  That was the state of affairs.

  In fact, her mother Andrea had already moved back in. She did it subtly too, well subtly for Phil, Misha saw the power play for what it was.

  Originally, she just moved in for a few weeks to try to save money during the pregnancy.

  Then time went on and somehow the father finally introduced himself to Phil. Then after a night of drinking, he was about to leave, but Phil forbade him from leaving in that condition, and next thing they knew, there were suddenly two extra guests within the Tulley estate.

  This was even more impetus for Misha to quote unquote leave the nest and try to find her own way in the world.

  “Why didn’t you tell me,” Amoni’s words cut through the memory and all but forced Misha to realize where she was.

  “What?” Misha managed to respond.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you were at least applying for Tennessee?” Amoni asked, her voice rising to nearly a shout.

  “You never asked, until now,” Misha pointed out.

  That was the other odd part of this whole ordeal, ever since Misha’s assistance with Amoni and the renegade Ms. Clayton, AKA Ms. Jarnic, Amoni had seemed different. While Ms. Jarnic’s case was officially still open, the leads had gone cold.

  What was known was that Ms. Jarnic, who was posing as Ms. Clayton was abducted by two former students.

  While the remains of the two students’ bodies were found, nothing other than bloody prints leading off into the cornfields nearby were identified.

  At one point, a group of search hounds found their way to the Tulley estate, but soon found themselves doubling back after not much luck.

  Amoni never asked what happened to the body, a fact that Misha was immensely thankful for. Instead, Amoni seemed to show her appreciation for what happened in other ways. The most notable way was that from that point onward, she was Misha’s biggest fan both on and off the court.

  Then to seemingly make matters worse, she came right at that exact moment.

  “Hey bestie,” a bubbly Darcy exclaimed as she all but intruded on Amoni’s conversation with Misha.

  The interruption was annoying enough, but then Amoni’s eyes went wide as she saw what the girl, the interloper, was wearing. It was a white shirt, with a giant orange ‘T’ on it, something completely innocuous and something that would normally mean nothing. But in this instance, that shirt suddenly meant everything to Amoni.

  “Get ou...” Amoni began, but quickly stopped herself as she took in the apparel that Darcy was now wearing. Seeing the shirt, she couldn’t help but see it as the affront to everything she held dear at that moment.

  “Wait, did you apply?” Amoni asked, while pointing to the shirt, well not quite the shirt, but the giant orange ‘T’ and what that ‘T’ represented.

  “Yes,” Darcy responded with a slightly predatory smile to her lips, one that noted a sense of one-upmanship against her.

  “Did she tell you?” Amoni asked, trying to identify how far the betrayal went. Did Misha purposefully apply for a college that Amoni didn’t?

  “No, I just watched,” Darcy explained, while pointing to her right eye before continuing. “I also saw the way all the scouts went after you and the team members that were known before this, but seemed to avoid Misha. That is except for the one recruiter from Tennessee who held back and spoke to Misha while she waited for the rest of the team to be able to speak.”

  Hearing that, Amoni’s blood ran cold, as she didn’t realize what exactly happened. Thinking back, she did remember the one time she heard a coach from Tennessee speak to them, it was after they had won state and when Misha was particularly active with locking down on defense and distributing the ball. It was one of the few times when she scored less than ten points, but only due to the team already having a wide margin of victory. In fact, the coach even stated that they were to try to run out the clock as much as possible and be good sports about the lead and seemingly inevitable victory.

  That was when Amoni also had her best game, while being paired with Misha who worked the entire game, but mainly relegated to defense, something that Amoni knew was her favorite part of the game, though she didn’t quite know why.

  “You only got the one?” Amoni asked, figuring that she had her choice to join almost any major program in the region, which was why she settled for Tech, OSU, and WVU as her three primary targets. Then it would just be a matter of following Misha, but Tennessee never factored into that equation.

  Misha for her part just nodded.

  Panicked, Amoni pulled open her clutch, trying to find the card that was spoken of, but realized quickly that the card from the Tennessee scout was not with her. Thinking back, she remembered putting it in her pocket and all but forgetting about it, until the card turned into a thick wad of cardboard lint that had to be thrown away.

  Remembering the card, Amoni could kick herself for the oversight.

  “Do you still have the card?” Amoni asked, a note of desperation in her tone.

  “I don’t have the card,” Misha replied. As she did, a note of reluctant resolve washed over Amoni, only to then be raised once more as Misha continued. “But I can give you the details on the card.”

  With that Amoni was once again impressed by the sheer photographic memory that was owned and operated by Misha.

  After that, Amoni received a text with the exact contact details and date and time of the meeting. Almost as if Misha could read her mind as to what she now planned to do. Not that her plans would be any real secret, she would call up, beg for help in applying and hope that she would get pushed through, along with Misha, and apparently also with Darcy.

  For a moment Amoni felt a slight cringe of annoyance at the idea of including Darcy in her thoughts about Misha, but soon gave way. They had been through a lot apparently, at least that is what J-Sweep had said about their Hasty concert. Never quite going into detail, but saying she had a lot of respect for Misha after that.

  Speaking of, only now did Amoni realize that J-Sweep was also wearing more orange than usual in her clothing. Could it be that she too had known? She had known and not told her?

  “Thank you, I need to go real quick,” Amoni responded by shaking her phone as she left to go make one of the craziest and potentially life altering decisions of her life.

  With everything needed, she left to the parking lot got into her recently repaired car that seemed to run better than ever thanks to Misha, and taking one breath to calm herself. She paused, and then hit ‘call’ on the number in her text thread.

  Brrrinnggg.

  “Hello?” A female voice answered.

  “Hi, my name is Amoni Jacobs and I was given your card after our state championship game…”

  And like that, Amoni also tried to change her fate.

  For a moment, she felt fear and anticipation rise up inside her, but a quick caress of her car’s clean dashboard and she felt a wave of tension release from her body. She could do this, no, she would do this.