GUESS WHO'S ALIVE?

Disclaimer: I don't own Stuart Gibb's stuff.

Library

2200 hours

Ben and Erica was sitting across the table from me. Erica was glaring at me coldly, while Ben was playing with his hands awkwardly. It was nice that they hadn't put me in handcuffs, but I had the feeling that they were ganging up on me. I had a pen in one hand and was scribbling on a piece of paper, narrating what I was writing out loud.

"My conditions are this: You won't expose me to the CIA, or any other agency. You will also not arrest me after this. You promise to never tape this conversation, or reveal this conversation to anyone else. And in return, I will answer some of your questions. A few of which I will deny, but anything I will say and do with be entirely truthful."

I wrote the words on paper and drew three even lines underneath. I signed on one of them and gave it to Ben without looking at him. He scribbled his name on it. I was a little tense about the 'us' thing since the hug. It wasn't a thing that most people would have been uncomfortable with— hugs were normal, I think. Did friends give each other hugs? Did family? How often? I had no idea.

Don't get the wrong idea. Don't feel all sorry for me because aw, you don't have friends or family? It's not that sad. Plenty of kids don't have family. The way I grew up, I'm more stiff about physical stuff than most people are. SPYDER, being the evil— not even going to deny it—organization that it is, isn't big on hugs and stuff. No time for that kind of thing when you're busy hatching evil plans that get you money and one of those little chocolate drinking fountains that rich people have.

It didn't matter anyway, because Ben had given no indication that he noticed my coldness. We had continued taking shots at the targets, but the silence was too much for me. He only amicably agreed when I sputtered out a random string of words about it being time to go meet Erica in the library.

It had been too close. I resolved to be extra distant in the future so that he would get the point.

Ben passed the sheet to Erica, who presumably gave it a long look. I had no doubt she was wondering what kind of loopholes in my lousy statement.

"The paper's not going to bite, Hale," I said testily.

"I know that," she snapped. "This is stupid. We'd be better off using a polygraph than this scrap of paper."

I clenched my fists. I was half expecting something like that from Erica. She was always criticizing or disagreeing with me for something. It seemed that my very existence made her mad. It was like a game to her, how much she could find holes in my ideas and offer simple but better solutions— infuriating. But today she seemed a little more negative than usual. I couldn't think of anything that I had done today to really piss her off, other than purposefully sitting next to her at mealtimes. But that was just to annoy her a little. So she was just being mad for no reason.

And for one, I thought that my idea was perfectly sensible.

"Oh, because those are so easy to find?"

"I'm just saying, how can we trust you to not lie to us?"

I had thought of that, but I didn't know what else to use. I tried baiting her. "Are you a spy or not? I don't know about you, but when I was in SPYDER they taught us how to tell if someone's lying."

Ben stiffened at the mention of SPYDER. Seriously, that boy needed to learn how to hide his emotions. How did he even make it the first month as a double agent in SPYDER's headquarters?

"Of course I know how to tell if someone's lying." Erica sniffed in distaste, like she thought my question was unnecessary. (Because duh, she's a Hale, and duh, all Hales are living, breathing natural lie detectors from the moment they were born. Duh, isn't that basic knowledge?)

Even I knew when to give something up. "Will you just sign the freaking paper?"

Ben sighed. "Erica, c'mon."

She cut him a glare. "How about it says, 'Based on the information you have given us, we will decide what to do with you'."

"Do I get to negotiate? Or are you just going to slap the handcuffs on me and put me in an underground cell where I can never see anyone for three hundred years?"

"We'll be fair," she said, looking like she would much rather do the things I had suggested.

I wasn't super reassured by that, but I pushed the paper closer to her and she signed it elegantly. I stared at the paper for a moment, then gave an affirming nod. I folded the paper up and placed it in my pocket. "Right. Now we're set. Go on, ask your questions."

Obviously I didn't give them everything they needed to know about SPYDER.

(Ben, the nerd that he was, had compiled a freaking list of questions to use for the interrogation, which Erica of course promptly shoved in the paper shredder.) I refused to disclose any information about my identity, but I did answer some questions. Erica Hale knew that I wasn't being completely honest, but she couldn't complain after the paper she had just signed.

I told them a few of SPYDER's safehouses and identities. Erica wrote them all down in a spiral notebook, just to prove that she wasn't kidding around. I guess it wasn't a big deal. Once I got back to HQ, they would bust the guys out and move the safehouses. I rattled off a bunch of excuses about why I was at the Academy, all of which had somewhat of a truth to them.

I'll admit that my heart wasn't completely in the interrogation. Half of my mind was focused on answering questions, half of it was on something completely different. I was thinking about how good SPYDER was at doing things like that, and they did it fast.

That was one of the things I liked best about the agency. Efficient, simple, discreet. Much more organized than the sloppy work the CIA had their agents do. Including Ben in their plans was their only big break, and even then, he was an inexperienced teenager who knew nothing about spying.

But all of that made me think— Ben was just a teenager. He was the worst shot I had ever encountered, and he was at best mediocre for a spy. He just so happened to excel at doing complicated calculations in his head, and yet he completed every single mission he had ever been given. A lot to accomplish for a boy that had only been at Spy School for three years.

I had to take a few things into account— such as the existence of Erica Hale and the help of his friends, but all in all what Ben Ripley had done was pretty impressive. Certainly nothing that your average Joe Schmoe could have done. So was it pure luck that the CIA stumbled upon him? Or could anyone become a spy with the correct training and a decent amount of luck on their side?

Honestly, the Academy of Espionage system of picking out kids seemed really stupid. Anyone could be a spy, with the right training. The only reason normal kids weren't picked were because they weren't born into the right family, or they hadn't had the right training. The CIA couldn't pick anyone to be in the Academy, but how did they even pick out these kids? They had to have looked through millions of kids' records, and who wanted to go through the trouble of doing that?

SPYDER was a lot more better about that. They specifically picked kids who felt bitter against the world, kids who had a better chance of turning to the other side. There was a select group of people who recruited kids. The kids were put through rigorous training. Most of them were let go because they didn't show the right potential, but all threatened by SPYDER's best lawyers to not tell the truth.

My case was a little different, as I had been personally been recruited by the director of SPYDER herself and was placed under the training of many of SPYDER's greatest operatives. More on that later.

In fact, the more that I thought about it, I realized that SPYDER was so much better than the CIA in so many ways. When I consciously became aware I was thinking that, I felt such relief that it was overwhelming. What with all the hug and all of the getting closer to Ben, I was afraid that I had lost my loyalty and would screw up the whole assignment.

But… I guess I knew what Ben and Erica saw in the CIA and all. All of the plotting and malicious plans about evil organizations kind of throw you off when you get really into the business. I could understand why SPYDER had wanted Ben Ripley on their side so badly.

He was naive, easy to turn. He wasn't half bad at thinking the way a spy thought, and he had a few skills that would be super handy in the field. At the same time, he had a firm set of morals that prevented him from doing things evil. That part was a bit of a hinderance, but what made it better was that we could easily trick him in thinking that what we were doing was the good thing. But that was in the beginning. The main reason SPYDER stopped trying to turn him(other than the whole annoying-figuring-out-our-plans thing) was that he was no longer who he was when he had began.

And I respected him for that.

I groaned loudly, successfully interrupting one of Erica's more pressing questions. And this was what I had come to. No matter what I thought about, no matter how random, it would always lead back to Ben Ripley.

Erica gave me an odd look. "Is something wrong?"

I remembered that I had groaned loud enough for her to hear, and mumbled a quick apology about being too tired to focus.

Ben nodded, appearing a little out of it himself. His eyes were bleary. He didn't even need to glance at the time as he said, "Yeah, it's nearly one. I think we should cap off the questioning, Erica."

She, on the other hand, looked alert and utterly awake. Her pen was still poised on her spiral notebook. She had scribbled down at least three pages of notes, all in shorthand writing that I could barely understand. "What? No, we still have time. We should take advantage of that as much as we can."

"I second that," I said, exaggerating a yawn behind my hand. "With Ben, I mean." Erica looked ready to argue her point like she always did, but I was already halfway out of my seat. "The vote's two against one, Hale. See you in the morning."

"It's already in the morning," Ben felt the need to say.

I thrust open the doors and walked out without my customary dramatic one liner. I was telling the truth about being tired.

The pillow in my dorm was the best thing I'd seen all day.

The next day…

The Academy

Mess Hall

1300 hours

"Miss Anderson!" Mr. Hail barked. "Remind me again, why did you decide that pranking a teacher was okay?"

"Does there need to be a reason?" I responded drearily. "That ugly shirt should be enough."

The Spy School version of detention was to a) get beat up by attackers, b) scrub the rooms and the Mess Hall clean, c) something worse, or d) all of the above. None of the above had worked for me, because Mr. Hail, the main instructor on hand to hand combat, felt that I needed a fate much worse.

Mr. Hail was one of the newest but meanest teachers in Spy School. He had arrived about three weeks ago, but he was no newbie. He was middle aged, tough as nails, and bitter from being "let go" from the field agents a few weeks prior. No one knew the reason behind it, but a lot of students assumed that he had one of the biggest screw ups in history to have been demoted to teacher.

Predictably, he took his anger out on the students. He usually punished students with hours of grueling detention for the most mediocre things, and worse, the principal didn't do a thing about it.

"Most likely because he's scared out of his wits," Zoe told me once.

Along with having to miss mealtimes writing lines because of being a "smart aleck" and being "disrespectful", I got to get beat up in front of the class while he "taught a class". By that, he meant that he would make a fool out of me in front of the Mess Hall.

Unfortunately, I was a mess. I had woken up with a itches everywhere and a dizzy nauseous feeling. I didn't understand the sickness; Not once in my entire SPYDER career had I ever gotten sick. Being exposed to so much, I had built up an impressive immune system. It was foreign to me.

The "being sick" thing was partially to blame for my bad mood. I don't know the exact reason Mr. Hail had ticked me off so much that morning. I had always been aware that he was an a-hole, but never to the point where I decided it was reasonable to make a quick "bathroom" trip to the cafeteria and give him a little taste of lunch that day via dumping the entire thing on his head. Maybe it was the way he shouted things when they hardly needed to be shouted, or how he always jabbed his finger in the air when he wanted to make a point, or how unbearably stupid his 'stache looked with his punchable face.

The worst thing was, not only was Mr. Hail managing to beat me up in a pulp with no trouble whatsoever, I was giving in to him. I had to say this about Mr. Hail. He was clearly a professional— I could tell why he had been a field agent before— even though he had a very different way of teaching. Joshua Hallal would have said that his movements were sloppy and his fighting technique needed work, but I didn't think it was half bad.

Of course, I didn't think that at the time, as I was trying to avoid getting knocked out.

"Wrong answer again. I can see that children here can get by with insulting a teacher and pranking one? Not anymore."

He started for me again. I tried sidestepping him feebly, my vision swimming, but he lurched forward quickly. He swept my feet from under me and landed hard, swift punches to me. I bent over double, resisting the urge to lie on the floor pathetically and throw up. "The correct answer, Miss Anderson, was because you wanted attention! Well, you've got it now!"

As I cursed my sickness, I spotted Ben's confused and worried face in the crowd of students who had gathered around to see the untouchable, good-at-everything Charlotte Anderson get pounded. Zoe was right next to him, I think shouting out encouragement, and Chip was doing that too. Erica was near the middle of it all, the only person not being swallowed by the crowd as everyone had given her a few feet of personal space. Her face was unreadable. She had abandoned her pitiful salad to watch the punishment with everyone else, which both irritated and surprised me.

"Let me ask you a question," I said, voice cool and commanding and full of the bravado I didn't feel as the throbbing pain continued, "Mr. Hail. Why are you doing this? Does beating up a girl thirty years younger than you make you feel better? Do you need that much of an ego boost? It's already big enough to suffocate everyone else."

He steamed visibly. "You're a new student. Are you sure you're qualified to insult a field agent who's been doing this for longer than you've been alive?"

I held up a finger for silence. "Don't you mean ex-field agent, Mr. Hail? And for the record, yeah. I think I'm more than qualified to put you in your place. Although I think your boss already did that for me. Everyone knows you had to fail epically to be demoted this much. That's an achievement in itself, Mr. Hail."

"They told me you were a good fighter," Mr. Hail sneered, angered by my remark but not dumb enough to let it get to him. "They were wrong."

I ground my teeth, fighting the nausea about to come. The feelings of I'm-going-to-hurl came in short, dizzying bursts, and had happened sporadically for most of the day. I whirled out of the way as he ran toward me once again, and innocently tripped him as he tried to swipe a hand at my face. He caught himself before he fell but bounded back before landing a hit on me.

"So, how do you want to do this? Do want to talk, then fight, then talk again? Or with a few breaks in between as well? You're a little red in the face," I added with false concern. "Do you need a bottle of water of something?"

It was the wrong time to say something like that, because my head started pounding and I started itching like crazy at that moment. I could take on a lot of things. Sicknesses was not one of them. That, combined with the nausea and inability to breathe properly, cause my rhythm to falter a little, and Mr. Hail saw his opening. He stepped forward and before I could do anything to stop him, he was going full teacher mode on me. He kept on fighting while barking commands like, "Block!" and "Faster!"

The audience had mysteriously gone silent. Maybe even they thought that what Mr. Hail was doing was going too far. Ben had dagger eyes, looking like he wanted to stop it. I shook my head at him.

"Hah!" Mr. Hail taunted. "Not so mouthy now, are you?"

For some reason, I wasn't able to dodge the punches. Stop being stupid, I told my body. My body would not listen. Again and again it failed to move as quick as my mind was.

Mr. Hail knew how to punch. His were solid and knocked the wind out of me. I was pretty sure he was aiming not to get some serious damage, but I wasn't sure about that the way his eyes were glowering. My cheeks were burning in shame. I couldn't remember the last time someone had made this much of a fool out of me.

At one point he might've been giving a gloating speech. I don't mean to be overly dramatic about this, but it was painful. I was too immersed in the pain to listen on, as it felt like my brain was being dissected with knives by weird mad scientists. My face was hot. Sharp pains coursed through my body to the punches. His hand collided with my head, and that was it. Apparently my head was too weaking to take it, so…

I bent over and threw up over his shoes. It was gross. I don't need to describe it. You're better off not knowing. As they say, ignorance is bliss. It was horrifying. Humiliating. Yet Mr. Hail's exclamations and horror nearly took the pain away. Nearly.

I didn't remember falling to the floor, but the next thing I knew, the cold floor was pressed up against my burning face. My knees hit the ground first, then my entire body followed. The punches stopped, and murmuring broke out through the crowd. I don't know how long I stayed on the floor— it all passed like a blur.

I distinctly remember the principal bursting in the Mess Hall, yelling about something or another. Erica, for some reason, was right by his side which was odd because the last time I saw her she was somewhere in the crowd…

"Stop this right this moment!"

But there was no need for that, because Mr. Hail had already stopped. He leaned over me, his mouth moving with angry words. Erica pushed him away and leaned into my face. I caught a whiff of her perfume, whatever that lavender and gunpowder scent was, and my hand raised as if to bat the smell away. I wasn't in the mood for Erica Hale at the moment.

She patted me on the head a little, which was peculiar. Was this Erica's nicer twin? She seemed apologetic.

"I didn't know," she whispered which absolutely did not explain things.

"You—what?"

Wait. Was she trying to say that she had done this? I felt a foreign spurt of anger, not really thinking rationally. Of course she had! She'd poisoned me or something and now I was going to die because of her! Stupid Erica Hale, stupid CIA! I should have known not to trust them!

I got to my feet shakily and lunged at her.

Erica caught me and steadied me, gripping my forearms tightly. A familiar exasperated glimmer had entered her eye. "Stop that, you're going to—"

I growled. "Stop that, you—"

Okay, so I'm going to cut that out. I might've said some not-so PG things to the Ice Queen of Spy School. Whatever. I regret nothing. In my defense, I was feeling like crap. I probably had a fever, I was itching everywhere for some reason, I was suffering from a multitude of bruises, and I felt like I was on a deathbed. Besides, she kind of deserved it anyway. What happened next might make you a little more sympathetic for me.

In the middle of my sentence, she injected a tranquiliser in me.

SHE FREAKING STUCK A NEEDLE IN ME.

What, does she like carry those things around or something? Who carries a tranquiliser with them on a day to day basis anyway?

"Are you—word deleted—ing serious?"

And with that, I plunged into Dreamland.

Little rushed, just typed it all out in a night cause I felt super guilty. Sorry if it moved a liiittle too fast for you. I just realized I apologize way too much in my author's notes. I have midterms this week and a bunch of other performances and ack I've just been stressed out. Please don't take that as an excuse, you guys probably don't care anyway. Again, sorry for the wait.