Three

Marly's POV

I tapped my comm zillions of times, trying to get a signal. Answer, Paige, ANSWER!!! Jeez, I'd even be happy to hear Phoebe's voice, even though she's gonna get mad at me for buzzing her so many times in one mission.

"Piper... Phoebe... Holleeeeee..." I mutter to myself. "Paaaaaaaaaaige..."

Then I started picking at my blue-grey, metallicky-yet-plasticky-with-a-little-lycra, skintight uniform. According to General Fury and and head of HQ, it's some sort of stealth thingymabob and it's gonna help during the top-class missions and crap. God, it makes me look like a tramp. But on the bright side, it's flexible and I can kick ass without having to worry about a skirt flying up or a good pair of jeans get ripped.

So anyway, I. Need. To. Contact. One. Of. My. PARTNERS. (Hm. Then again, Phoebe and Piper sort of count as my superiors.)

I kept tapping my comm. Apparently us field agents (me, Holly, and Paige) are going underground to find this seriously sick scientist sicko who kidnapped a few kids. Holly has Position 1 (a sewer somewhere in NYC), Paige has Position 2 (another sewer in NYC), and I have Position 3 (a sewer in NYC). Where I am, there are actually TWO sewers. So I need Phoebe to do a schematic scan of the area I'm in and figure out where I'm supposed to go.

I kept tapping on my comm until someone taps my shoulder. I turned around. "Huh?"

It was a guy. A good looking guy, but he had this scary, sultry look on his face.

"Hey," he said sexily (ohmyGod I don't wanna know what he's thinking). "On your way to a client?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said slowly.

"C'mon, babe," he said. "I'll take you a better client." He grinned. "Me."

Client? I thought. Then I chose that moment to look down at myself. The outfit was skintight and-- Oh. My. God. He thought I was a prostitute! Eeep.

"No, you're wrong," I said quickly. "I'm not a prostitute. I actually work for the Black Ops."

"Ooh, the role-playing game," he said.

Oh my God, I am so gonna kick this guy's ass.

"No, you've got it all wrong," I said edgily. "I. Am. Not. A. Prostitute." I pulled out my badge. "Look! See? I'm from the Black Ops."

He squinted at it.

Then a car stopped right next to us. I looked at it. Oh shit, it was a police car.

A tall, fat police officer stepped out. "Excuse me, sir, do you have your I.D.?" he asked the guy.

"Hey," the guy said... taking a swig from a bottle of beer. Oh God, this guy was drunk. Gack, no wonder. And now that I think about it, his voice was all slurry and weird and he was swaying.

"And as for you, miss," the officer said to me. "Prostitution is illegal in this part of the city. Now run along and--"

"Hey! I am not a prostitute!" I yelled in his face. Then I shoved my Black Ops badge-I.D. thingy in his face. "See?! I am with the Black Ops! I'm a bounty hunter! I wear this piece of shit so we could run faster and blend in with the shadows! We work with S.H.I.E.L.D.! Call Nick Fury if you have to!!" (Usually, blowing up was Paige's thing, but at the moment, I was mad. Damn stereotypes, and damn uniform.)

The poor officer put up his hands in surrender. Ha. I showed him.

"All right, I believe you," he said.

"Thank you," I said sarcastically.

He went away with the drunk guy.

I kept tapping at my comm. No one was answering. Maybe all that tapping I was doing was messing it up. Oboy, I hope that wasn't the case. I already messed up by forgetting which sewer it was, and I don't need to mess up something else.

I picked the sewer on the left. I took out a grenade and attached it to the manhole cover. The BOOM was muffled 'cause I shut my fingers in my ears. I didn't like loud grenade noises. Holly doesn't mind, and Paige literally invented the type of grenade we use.

The stink was horrible. I gagged twice then reminded myself that this was an important mission. I climbed down the ladder and stood in ankle-deep combination between mud and water. Yeeuucch. Why can't we go undercover as supermodels in Las Vegas or something?

I looked around for any clues that would lead to the sicko scientist. When I shined my flashlight over the ceiling, I groaned. My mind-wracking decision between left and right had been in vain.

Next to the manhole cover I had entered, was a second manhole cover. Grr! (In case you were stupid enough to not realize it yet, my position had two manhole covers.)

I tapped my comm again, hoping to get an answer. Suddenly, with a crack, the comm fell off my wrist and into the murky water. I backed away; there was a small flash of lightning.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacck.