AN: Gutentag! So I'm on vacation and figured I might as well update this. Does this chapter actually advance the plot? Somewhat. Maybe. Who knows? I did enjoy writing it, however.

Six Months Prior

Andrew McClintock lived a fairly average life for an agent of the FBI, and looked every bit the part. He would get up, give his chin a quick shave and brush back his mousy brown hair before he got his coffee, went to the office, and worked his desk job from nine to five. It was just after he arrived at the office one day that he first heard of the Kids Next Door. An overstuffed, aged manila folder had been slammed down on his desk by his superior, who gave a little smirk as he did.

"Get a load of this, McClintock," the boss had said. "Bunch of kids who run around fighting adult 'tyranny'. We've linked them to about 20,000 counts of illegal soda smuggling and about 50 counts of property damage and harassment alone."

"So you want me to fill out the paperwork for a search warrant or something?" Andrew asked. He was a little confused as to why the government would be interested in arresting a bunch of kids.

"Of course not!" his boss burst out laughing. "We've got no concrete evidence! Those kids are able to weasel out of any sort of trouble. Anything that we could use to pin them is purely circumstantial!"

"What do you want me to do, then?" Andrew flipped through the file absentmindedly. Blurred pictures of giant tree houses, condiment weapons, and kids in colander helmets were clipped to memos and reports about quasai-militant groups of both adults and children. Whispers of memories surfaced at these images, but were promptly crushed when his boss spoke again.

"Just write a report about the latest problem these kids have caused. Some flying convention center of theirs crashed and caused some damages in Missouri."

"If we can directly link the event to them, then why don't we just bring charges against the organization?" McClintock had a strong sense of justice, and didn't like to think that some kids could break the law and get away with it. Andrew had been a law student enlisted in the ROTC, but had been pulled for FBI training after proving to be capable both physically and mentally.

"These 'Children Next Door'-,"

"Kids Next Door," Andrew interjected. His boss shot him a dirty look, under which he withered. He just couldn't help it. A part of him had seemingly resurfaced and told him to be indignant about his boss getting the name of some crazy kids' club wrong.

"Kids Next Door, whatever. These kids cut a deal with the United Nations back in the '40's (something about saving kids in concentration camps) and gained diplomatic immunity. Not even UN peacekeepers or Interpol can touch them," the boss said, furrowing his brow. "Those morons struck a deal with a bunch of unruly children and their diplomatic immunity status doesn't come up for renewal for another forty years."

The boss had walked away after that, so Andrew resigned himself to filing away the reports after he finished writing up the property damage. He liked the feeling he got from thinking about kids running around keeping other kids safe. Of course, they were law breakers and, according to these files, full of rogue operatives who would occasionally escape something they called "decommissioning". It was through these kids- teenagers, actually; he noted this casually as he looked at their interview files- that the FBI was able to garner any information whatsoever about the Kids Next Door. That was something that McClintock had to admire: the Kids Next Door held their secrets tighter than any other intelligence agency.

Miles and miles away, another person sat at a desk doing paperwork. However, this person was Nigel Uno, and since labor laws prevented him from holding a nine-to-five desk job, he was sitting in a desk at school, fiddling with the mechanism on his mechanical pencil. Ms. Thompson was on another rambling speech about how ninjas did not sign the Declaration of Independence but that they did fight in the War of 1812 (Nigel does not know to this day why they let her teach), and boredom was the general mood of the room. Wally had fallen asleep long ago, and Abby had ceased in her efforts to wake him up again. Nigel had let out a groan of despair at this; only when Abby gave up her efforts to keep Numbuh 4 from failing the fourth grade was the lecture at its maximum boredom capacity.

Of course, maximum boredom capacity is often achieved only when the class is about to end; the bell rang shortly after Ms. Thompson began describing Napoleon's involvement in the attack on Washington. Kids streamed out the door in twos and threes, chattering about the latest Rainbow Monkeys movie or some Yipper game or another. Nigel hung back to let Wally and Abby catch up to him, but took pause when he noticed Hoagie.

"Numbuh 2, what, exactly, are you doing?" Nigel said, pushing his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to give one exasperated and indignant look at his friend over the rims of the lenses. Numbuh 2 had a cowboy hat propped on top of his pilot's cap and goggles, and was pulling a hobby-horse with rocket propulsion units attached to it.

"Well, Numbuh 1-," Hoagie began in a pseudo Texan accent.

"And would you cut with the accent? Numbuh 5 is thinking that maybe you're just a little crazy," Abby said, adding her own look of skepticism on top of the critical gaze of Nigel.

"Aw, c'mon! I was just doing my shift of the KND message duty!" Hoagie complained. "You won't believe what happened today! I was delivering this message to Muffy Jenkins, see, and then the Six Gum Gang showed up, and there were these kindergarteners and I forgot the message but delivered it in the end!" Hoagie said in one breath. Nigel just let out a snort.

"Ugh. Numbuh 2, let's just get to lunch and forget about that. Besides, it's meatball sandwich day!" The prospect of meatball sandwiches never failed to cheer up the leader of Sector V. Call it his one true weakness, but everyone has one.

"Oh, no, Nigie! You're not eating one of those fattening calorie sandwiches on my watch!" Lizzie Devine, Nigel's long-suffering (her words, not his) girlfriend, walked up to the group of Sector V operatives.

"Hi, Lizzie," Wally and Hoagie groaned. Their hatred of Nigel's girlfriend had never been a secret, though Lizzie ignored their latest protests of her presence in their circle of friends.

"We're getting lunch together today, Nigie. No work, no missions, nothing but you and me," she said, using the poisonous, syrupy voice she used when she wanted to get Nigel to do what she wanted and imply bodily harm to him if he didn't.

"But-," Nigel tried to protest, but all protests were abruptly cut off by his girlfriend.

Lizzie grabbed Nigel by the ear and proceeded to drag him to the lunchroom behind her. As he was being dragged away, he saw Kuki walk up to their other friends and comment idly that Lizzie had very nice hair.

Lizzie's vice-like grip on his ear forced his eyes to be forced down on the ground. Various gum wrappers and paper clips littered the floor, but one piece of school-debris in particular caught his attention. A piece of paper sat nondescriptly crumpled on the floor, but Nigel could just make out the post-mark of the KND Message Delivery Service. The story Numbuh 2 had breathlessly told him earlier came back to him. Nigel came to the conclusion that the message had been freshly crumpled and delivered. A recent disagreement between the United Student Councils, a global alliance of student councils for all grades, and the Kids Next Door had led to the fourth grade student council keeping various aspects of council workings (meetings with the principal, for example) a secret.

Muffy Jenkins, though not officially an elected representative of the fourth grade class, was a trusted advisor of the President. Nigel knew this could be his one chance to see what the fourth grade class government and the school administration were up to. He bent down as inconspicuously as he could and picked up the note. Opening it, he saw only five words, hastily scribbled: "The splinter cell is real."

"NIGIE!" Lizzie screeched. "What do you have there?"

"It's nothing, Lizzie," he responded absent-mindedly, though it was more of an automatic response than anything he actually meant. Nigel's brain kicked in to overdrive, attempting to process the different meanings that "splinter cell" could hold. Was it a code? Was it a division of the student council, gone rogue?

"Nigie?" Lizzie softened slightly. Nigel had that look on his face, the one that said a dangerous mission was about to begin and that their date after school was probably going to be forgotten.

"It's nothing, Lizzie," said Nigel decisively, pocketing the note for further inspection. "Nothing at all."

Nigel missed their date that night.

Muffy Jenkins, secretary and registrar of the esteemed student government for Gallagher Elementary, was well aware of the fact that Eggbert Eggelston was a very weird kid. She worked as the record-keeper and clerk for all student council meetings, and had yet to accustom herself to the peculiar work habits of the fourth grade's newest president. However, when she received his note earlier that day, she had known exactly what he meant by it.

Biff Jenkins, her older brother, worked as a clerk for the United Student Council offices in Washington, D.C., and was well versed on the true reasons why the Kids Next Door and the USC had had a falling out. The root reason was the splinter cell, though the Kids Next Door were not yet aware of its existence. Student councils, by nature, are an adult-sanctioned group: take adults out of the equation and a student council has no power whatsoever. The splinter cell sought the destruction of all adults, which would invariably lead to the disintegration of the USC's power, and then total anarchy.

There were two things that Muffy loved the most in life. One was her work as a clerk of the student council, and another was order. Most members of the USC felt the same way, apparently, because the split with the Kids Next Door was at the time viewed as an excellent idea.

Though Muffy was not yet aware of it, she was to become one of the first victims of the insurgent movement brought about by the very group she strove to distance herself and her precious student council from.

It was a run-of-the-mill night at the tree house. The operatives of Sector V lounged around doing homework in the main room, while Numbuh 1 holed himself up in his room, pouring over mission files and operative reports in a desperate search for what "splinter cell" could mean. Numbuh 2 just shook his head at that. Numbuh 1 took his job so seriously, but it was getting to a point where they might need to send him to Sector J for an early vacation. The thought of mango smoothies and fun at the beach led Numbuh 2 to believe that maybe the entire sector deserved a vacation, and maybe they could make a pit stop at Sector F in Paris, and then a quick visit to Sector L in Los Angeles…

All thoughts of vacation had to be put on hold, however, as the screen sprang to life with an urgent call from Moonbase. "Sector V!" Numbuh 35 barked, "Come in Sector V!"

"He-ey, Bartie! Here to schedule another game of Yipper, perchance?" Hoagie asked pushing himself off of the floor and walking over to the screen with Numbuhs 3, 4, and 5 close behind him. A frantic Numbuh 1 burst in through the door to the main room and raced up beside Hoagie.

"Not now, Numbuh 2. This is a business call," the communications officer said gruffly. "There's been a report of a violent shakedown of a student council rep in your area. We don't have exact details and we don't know what condition the victim is in, but Global Command wants you guys to check it out. Relations with United Student Council are strained enough."

"Rodger that, Numbuh 35," Hoagie said, using his best smooth-talking detective voice. The communication was terminated, and Numbuh 2 was left with his thoughts. Placing his detective hat over his pilot cap, Hoagie began to think. "Shakedown, huh? Nothing I hadn't seen before. It was only a matter of time before I could see the victim and get to the bottom of this. This sounds like the story of some official who couldn't pay the extortionist's price. I'd be working with a team this time- Nigel Uno, a real hard nose if I ever did see one. Kuki Sanban, while not the brightest, had helped me out of a pickle and has even solved a case or two. Wallabee Beatles was the muscle for this case, and Abby Lincoln? I'd work on a case with her any day, if you know what I mean."

"Abby Lincoln can hear everything you're saying, you fool," Numbuh 5 said, exasperatedly hitting Hoagie with her cap. "Boy, you need to learn to keep your internal monologues internal."

Hoagie let out one of his nervous, bleating laughs. "I'll keep that in mind."

Nigel didn't like what he saw once they arrived at the scene of the crime. Safety patrol officers swarmed the area, and yellow tape sectioned off where the crime had actually occurred. From his few run-ins with the safety patrol, he knew they were deeply territorial when it came to jurisdiction over various offenses. Assault of a student council official was probably one such offense.

Hoagie, however, seemed to have everything under control. Despite his stupid hat and tie, he was still respected among the safety patrol as one of their own, even though he had left them halfway through the first grade to attend cadet training at the Arctic Base. The black-clad officers parted to let Hoagie through to the scene, where Muffy Jenkins sat, bleeding slightly from a cut over her eyebrow and sporting some nasty bruises.

"Hey, toots-," Hoagie started, before Muffy promptly slapped him. "I deserved that." Numbuh 5 let out a snort.

"Look, Muffy, is it?" Nigel said, taking off his sunglasses and kneeling on the ground beside the girl. "We need to ask you some questions."

"I already know who did this, you know," she said haughtily. "And the motive."

"Oh?" Nigel was skeptical. He only knew Muffy in passing from his various encounters with student government, and that Muffy was far more likely to pretend to know more than she did. "Can you tell us?"

"It was the splinter cell in your precious KND," she sneered, "and they did because I knew too much." Muffy's face fell into a look of shock and terror after she said this, as if she realized that she had displeased her attackers. For a brief second it looked as if she was going to tell them more.

Screams broke through the air before she could, though, and mustard smoke bombs detonated at various points around the perimeter. Nigel drew a M.U.S.K.E.T. and readied it, though he knew the futility of firing blindly into the condiment fog. Others, however, did not seem to realize this, and he heard the splashes of water balloons and the clatter of gumball shells falling to the pavement. It was sheer chaos until the smoke completely cleared, and it took everyone a while to realize that an important part of the picture was missing.

Muffy Jenkins disappeared without a trace on a cold winter's night. There were no foot prints and no obvious exit strategy for her abductors, nor any sign of a getaway vehicle or a trapdoor. Unlike a similar kidnapping, months after the first in a string of disappearances at a solitary outpost in the Arctic, there was a note.

"Beware, Kids Next Door," it said. "The splinter cell does not take kindly to those who stand in its way."

Various children began to disappear after that. They were found later, of course, but never having any memory of what had passed between their abduction and subsequent return to their loved ones. Acts of terrorism that a notorious "splinter cell" claimed credit for it began to occur in the major metropolitan centers of the world. The splinter cell was soon proved to be radical members of the KND. The United Student Councils further isolated themselves from their one-time ally, and various governments began to debate whether or not giving the KND diplomatic immunity was a prudent decision in the first place.

These events all took place between the abduction of Muffy Jenkins (who was later found wandering the streets of Chicago believing she was in her own home) and the return of Patton Drilovsky- which is where I believe we left off in our previous instalment.

"I'm telling you for the last time- I'm not a spy!" Patton barked, eyeing his interrogator with contempt. "Seriously, Fanny. You know I love my mom! And my grandfather! Joining the splinter cell would mean…" Patton was unable to finish that thought. Yes, go ahead and laugh. Numbuh 60, all-around tough guy, was a mamma's boy.

"That's Numbuh 86 to you, boy," Fanny- no, Numbuh 86- sneered, slamming her hands down on to the table. Patton's hands were handcuffed down to the surface of a plain metal table. A single light hung over the pair, but other than that the room was empty.

"Okay, Numbuh 86," Patton snapped. "Give me one good reason why you think I'm in the splinter cell."

"You up and leave for two weeks and come back claimin' to have seen the splinter cell! Either you're stark raving mad or you're with them!" Numbuh 86 was livid with fury and held her face a good two inches from Patton's now; he could count every freckle and noticed that her jaw did this funny clench-unclench twitch whenever she wasn't speaking. Patton knew enough from his time with the Global Tactical Officer in the Cadets Next Door that she was much more furious than one of her normal tirades.

"Look Fanny. I told you. They jumped me at the Arctic Base. They gave chase, I got in a shuttle. Shuttle crashed, and next thing you know I spend two weeks running through the Canadian wilderness!" Patton knew that it was time to draw out the big guns. "You could at least thank me, you know. I saw one of their faces."

Fanny, who had turned her back on him when he began to repeat his story for what felt like the buhmillionth time, suddenly whipped around, hair flying in all directions as she once again made a beeline for the table. "What did yeh say?"

"I saw one of their faces. Splinter cell agent, I mean," he said, almost bashfully, because Fanny looked so eager and hopeful that it was strange. Fanny's face was usually contorted into an expression of unbridled rage.

"And who was it?" she demanded. Patton smirked a little. The rage and anger was back, but there was still that (girlish) bit of hope.

"Numbuh 363. Harvey, or whatever the little puke's name is."

AN: So, that's that, I suppose. Maybe I could have tried harder, or maybe I could have not randomly come up with the ending. Huh.

Well, catch ya on the flip-flop, cool cats. I'm off to the beach.