Recruitment

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by Zan233

by Zan233

"Hello, Monty."

"Hi, Fletch," Monty greeted her maths professor. "What did you need to talk to me about?" She sat down across from him at his desk.

"Well, I've got a bit of a job proposition for you," he said. "If you're interested, of course."

"Doing what?" Monty asked.

"You're a good student. Quite brilliant, really. You can solve puzzles and recognize patterns much faster than your peers."

"Yes..." Monty said, unsure of where this was going.

"What do you see yourself doing once you graduate?"

"Oh, something with maths, I suppose. Actuarial stuff or accounting, maybe. Though that does seem like it could get a little lonely."

"How about MI6?" Fletcher asked.

"What?" asked Monty, surprised.

"MI6," he repeated. "Consider it."

"Doing what?"

"The details of that are classified. But I'm sure you can make a pretty good guess."

"Why are you even telling me this?"

"I may have a bit of a side job," Fletch said.

"I assume you mean aside from the Newton Isaacs books."

Fletch smiled. "Yes. But nothing too exciting. I've got to make time for practicing the violin, you know."

"Sure. So do you recruit people?"

"What am I doing right now?"

"Of course," Monty said, then asked, "now, how should I go about saying yes to this offer?"

"You don't need time to go think this over?" asked Fletch.

"I've considered it plenty," Monty said. "I mean, I have had all my life to think about this."

"Very well, then," he said. "You'll do great at MI6."

"When do I start?"

"Figure it out." Fletcher handed Monty a paper with a long list of numbers organized together in groups of five:

73214 51241 02456 81111 96312 87241 15742 28414 65114 01223 01345 02458 01112 02348-01123-07542 06381 00000 00000 45111 86332 77423*

"Already?" Monty asked.

"What did you expect? This is MI6. And once you figure that cipher out, this is your life. You're going to be a spy. We don't just tell you things if we don't have to. You have to know them. That's what this business is all about."

"I'm going to be a spy," Monty began to internalize. "It's going to be my job to know things."

"Exactly," Fletch said.

*The code reads MI6 HQ room hrs.
For those curious:
Each group of five represents either a letter or a number. If it has a zero, it's a number.
Numbers are just the largest single digit number in the group.
For letters, you add up all of the numbers, subtract 4, and then it corresponds with the alphabet where a=1, b=2, and so on.

Thank you to my brother for helping with the cipher.