Lynn

Lynn was still stunned. Seconds before, he’d been trying to console Ness and keep team spirits up despite what had seemed to be a major loss. Personally, winning or losing wasn’t important to Lynn. Well that’s not completely true, he thought, I would rather win than lose but it wouldn’t kill me to fail completely. He mostly competed because it gave him an excuse to hang out with his friends in an environment that wasn’t only unsupervised, it was one where adult supervision was explicitly against the rules. Also, and it pained him to admit it, doing well in the JLTC looked good on applications for prestigious positions in future careers. I’m starting to think like my father, Lynn thought with distaste.

Ness, not quite his opposite but close, was absolutely driven by competition. Her usual social awkwardness didn’t communicate this well and made her rather non-confrontational but once she sunk her teeth into a challenge, she never let go. This had been clearly shown during their preparations for this competition. Sure, they’d all pitched in and helped, but they’d mostly been dancing to Ness’s tune and her ideas. She was the one who ran team practice, prepared meticulous notes, and had studied the JLTC’s rulebook with an almost religious fanaticism. If only she studied with that intensity in school, she’d make quite the Scholar. Ness was hit the hardest when they’d seemingly done so poorly.

Everything started out just fine. Team 82 found the rope among the prepared supplies, readied their drag-line search formation, and then started scouring the lakebed for the sunken structure. Then, the problems had started. First, the water was murky. Never a good start, but easy to deal with. The team had even practiced scenarios for low-visibility conditions and the drag-line search method was designed to work specifically in without the need for visuals. Ideally, everyone would grab the long rope, swim parallel to the lakebed, and wait for the rope to get snagged on the protruding structure of the tower. The problem was that it just didn’t work. They’d canvassed their assigned slice of the lake multiple times and the line never caught on anything except for large boulders and other underwater detritus.

The team had started to get worried around the 20-minute mark on the glass timer. Also, they’d begun to flag a bit. Lynn, Alex, and Ness were still fine as long dives and intense physical activity were nothing new to them but the other three were starting to grow weary. At the thirty-minute mark, Ness made the executive decision to abandon the drag-line search. Instead, they started visually searching in a rope-enforced radial pattern. This way, they wouldn’t miss anything at the cost of being significantly slower.

At the thirty-minute mark, Ness had emerged from the depths, glowstone in hand. Now able to revert to what they’d practiced, the team tried to quickly retrieve the rest of the objective. This, too, wasn’t as simple as expected. The reason that the structure hadn’t caught on the dragline was that it had submerged itself deeply into the muck at the bottom of the lake. When the timer finally filled to the brim, they’d just barely managed to get all the lake-slime-covered bits and pieces out of the lake and Joseph had started to organize a construction effort. Team #82 was convinced that they’d failed miserably. After all, retrieving the structure from the lake was only step one in their three-step plan. They’d only just started repairs and were still a while off from redeploying the structure.

The judges’ interview had been so-so. They hadn’t seemed surprised at how far from completion team #82 was at the end. Ness, despite being distraught at having gotten so little done, still answered the questions that the judges asked. Nobody else had spoken up when questions were asked. In retrospect, we might’ve gotten more teamwork points if more of us contributed instead of letting Ness answer everything.

Dejectedly, the team returned to the staging area, hugged some parents, and settled in to wait till the other teams were done. Some sulked, like Ness. She disappeared rather quickly with her notebook and vague mentions about “next qualifier”. Others, like Alex, spearheaded a recreational kickball game with those who’d already competed or who weren’t up yet. Lynn had also let himself get distracted from their “loss” and only returned to the melancholy mood when Ness returned, just in time for winners to be announced.

That’s when things got weird. Ness had been whispering that they might as well go home since they obviously didn’t win anything anyways while a self-important announcer gave a speech. Then, the moment of truth had come: Scores. Of course, in the ever-dramatic fashion of any competitive event, the third-place winner was announced first. It wasn’t them. Obviously. Then, the announcer had listed off the second-place winner as being Team #82. Light snickering flowed through the assembly at the silly team name and none of team #82 knew what to do.

A moment of stunned sitting followed. Then, Ness took the initiative. Winning teams were supposed to come to the front. She’d motioned them all to stand and then they’d all walked up to the “stage”. Applause rose from the masses and they just stood there. Slowly, the rolling applause became more scattered and Lynn noticed that they were expected to do something. Only what… he thought as he craned his neck around. The third-place team had already taken a position to the right of the head judge and his two lackeys. Are we supposed to take the left side and leave the center for the winners? He looked to Ness, but she wasn’t paying any attention. Oh, damn, she’s noticed the crowd.

With his practiced attention-getting-but-discrete-shove, he gave Ness a little push and angled his head towards where they were presumably supposed to stand. Ness, in turn, tore her eyes away from the no longer clapping mass of people and after a brief look of confusion followed comprehension, strode confidently over to the second-place winner’s spot. There, she ushered them all into a line, mirroring the third placers. With team #82 in the proper place, the ceremony went on.

“And now before we announce our first-place winner, we’d like to thank several people for helping make today….” The announcer spoke, much to the chagrin of the crowd.

Lynn knew what was going on. This person—this bureaucrat—was clearly cut from the same cloth as his father: Loved speaking in front of people, was self-important, and was probably getting some kick out of making over a hundred children wait apprehensively for him to thank this organizer and that councilmember.

When the first-place winners were finally announced, Lynn was surprised that he recognized the name. Hearing the team name, the “Perkelly Boys”, fanned flames of anger inside him. Seeing them stand up and walk to the front just intensified his mixed feelings. Three of five team members were scions of the Perkelly house. Wearing clean white shirts with sleeves neatly rolled up finely pressed brown pants with reinforced knees, their outfit was the epitome of the refined, yet competent competitor.

The Perkelly Boys walked up through the crowd, shook hands with the judges, and then assumed the middle spot under thunderous applause. Self-consciously, Lynn looked down. He was still wearing the shorts that he’d worn during the competition, long since dried, and a simple blue sleeveless shirt with a three-button placket. His whole team had worn blue shirts, due to Ness’s insistence on “team unity” whatever that means. Despite their somewhat coordinated look, standing so close to the impeccably dressed first-place team, he felt inadequate.

He’d been to dinners at the Perkelly house before—and hell—he was in the same class as the Perkelly twins. They were the definition of privilege and arrogance. They were the type of people that Lynn preferred to avoid. They were why he hadn’t told his father that team selection was happening, and why his father had been disappointed when Lynn told him that he’d already found a team. If my father had his way, I’d be up there right now.

Lynn sighed. He could already hear his father’s voice in his head: “Now Lynton, if you’d taken my advice and listened to your betters, you could’ve earned the first place along with those Perkelly kids.” Then, Lynton imagined his father sighing and continuing with something like, “Second place? No, that won’t do, that won’t do at all, especially for a Declan child.” Then, he’d doubtlessly be burden Lynn with heaps of extra homework.

All this thinking about what could’ve been and what will probably happen soon reminded him of how he’d been feeling just a moment ago: angry. Lynn narrowed his eyes and looked at the Perkelly Boys critically. From school, he knew that the twins were a joke. Their main skills were harassing others and evading punishment by mentioning their father. Lynn didn’t know the older Perkelly brother well. He looked like a brute though. Clearly, he was responsible for completing the challenge and dragging the twins to victory. The other two were hard to place, but it was easy to guess what they were: hangers on. While they were wearing similar clothes as the three brothers, theirs weren’t as fine or unrumpled. Probably on purpose. If he had to guess, these were probably from a lesser, but affiliated house which had been given the “privilege” to have their offspring participate in such an elite team.

There is no way the Perkelly Boys beat us fairly, Lynn thought, they must’ve cheated somehow. What had they done? Gotten someone to coach their team? Paid off the judges to let the location of the sunken tower slip? Simply gotten lucky? Lynn turned to Ness, anger mostly suppressed from his face, and was about to ask her how she thought they’d done it. Then he stopped. Ness wasn’t angry, she was looking at the Perkelly Boys in… admiration!? Lynn was briefly stunned before he realized, of course! Ness has no idea who these people are. She probably thinks they’re simply better. He’d have to set her right later.

After the winners were announced, the ceremony ended rather quickly. The three winning teams were told they’d qualified for the next level and everyone was given a small carved wooden token. After that, Ness’s father had shown up with a large basket full of food and snacks. Team #82 found some shade and talked about the competition while enjoying a late lunch. Ness mostly got over the sudden shock of winning second place and was rapidly reevaluating their strategy and readjusting her expectations about their competition. Lynn didn’t blame her. Who could’ve known that completing only one third of the challenge was already enough to place them in the top 10% of all teams? If their next competition went as well as this one, then they already had a significant advantage over their competition. They’d only need to keep up practicing, maybe refine their search strategies a bit, and then they’d have it. First place was waiting for them, and with victor’s tokens in hand and their newly gathered experience, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Right?