"Agent 007!"
I turned away from the punching bag I had been working out on for the last half hour to face the voice that just interrupted my workout.
A tall boy with dark hair and glasses trips over the mat as he runs towards me. I look up at him expectantly.
"Can I help you?" I ask. Everyone knows not to interrupt me during a training session so he's either really brave, stupid, or he has something really important to tell me.
"Agent 007," he starts.
"Just Agent 7. Or Bella. Please."
I'm sure we're all aware of the famous 007, James Bond. Unfortunately when I was "adopted" by Uncle Marcus when I was a baby, I also became the seventh agent recruited for the first experimental spy school created by Interpol. Hence the never ending James Bond and Mission Impossible jokes.
"Okay Bella!" The boy replies, giving me a cheeky grin.
"What do you want?" I snap. Growing up at this spy school, I know the value of time and one minute can mean the difference between life and death. I swear I'm not usually a bitch but I can be a little cranky in the morning, especially when I'm in training mode.
"Ooh feisty. I like you Bella."
"What do you want, Agent?"
"Oh! I'm not an agent. Yet, or probably ever actually. Unless they make me a techie. You know I'm more into stuff like hacking into school systems to change my schedule around so I get all the super cool teachers and..." He suddenly stops talking as a boxing glove hits him in the head.
My boxing glove.
"Ow Bells. You know your aim is great but you're really not a good listener."
"I'm going to ask you one more time. What do you want?" I ask, getting increasingly frustrated.
"Oh! Just that Mr. Volturi is wanted to see you."
"You could have opened with that!" I grab my boxing glove which landed a few feet away from me and quickly head out of the gym.
"Bye Bells! See you later!" I hear the boy call out after me.
I break into a sprint down the hallway of the school as people move out of the way. I sort of have a reputation around here for being a little too serious when it comes to, well, everything. I mean how can I not be. It's no secret that a lot of the kids at this school will end up becoming Secret Agents. And nobody wants a flaky agent out of the field.
I slow down to a walk as I approach Uncle Marcus' office. Being the headmaster of the academy, he no longer goes on any missions, but growing up I've heard countless stories of his time as a hotshot spy. One day I hoped to go in as many missions as he has but so far Uncle Marcus hasn't let me really leave the walls of the school.
I know on the door and hear some papers shuffling on the other side.
"Come in!"
"Hey Uncle Marcus! What's up?" I ask, walking over to him, giving him a big hug.
Uncle Marcus is the only person that I fully trust and let my guard down around. He may seem scary, standing at 6'4 with huge muscles, dark hair, although it's a little gray now probably thanks to me, and piercing blue eyes that would have even the most experienced agent squirming in their seat, but to me he's just a big 'ol teddy bear.
"Hey Bells. So I assume Jacob found you?"
"Is that the dark haired kid? You know he interrupted my training."
"Ah, cut the kid some slack. He's smart but he doesn't exactly have the best common sense."
"I've noticed."
"So Bells, what can I do for you today?"
I smile. "Uncle Marcus, you're the one that called me in. Remember?"
"Is that so?" He pretends to think, making me laugh.
"So why am I here?" I ask him.
"Isabella," he starts, using my full name. He never uses my full name unless I'm in trouble or he has something serious to talk to be about. I went through the last couple of weeks in my head and couldn't think of anything I've done to break the rules. Or at least anything I would get caught for anyway.
"Okay, I didn't do it! Whoever told you I did is a liar!"
"What? Bella you're not in trouble. I just wanted to...wait. Did you do something?"
"Um, I... of course not Uncle Marcus. I have to go so unless you have something-"
"Isabella, sit down. I know for a fact you have free period right now." Uncle Marcus said, gesturing to the seat in front of him.
"The reason I called you in today is because the US government came to me with a mission and I thought you'd be up for it." Uncle Marcus told me.
"My first mission!" I shot up in my seat excited now. "What is it? Trailing a rogue agent in France? Infiltrating the Japanese Yakuza? Robbing a bank?"
"What? Bella we're supposed to be the good guys. Why on earth would we rob a bank?"
"I don't know isn't the government in debt or something? So I thought-"
"High School."
"Excuse me?" I froze. There is no way I heard him right.
"I'm sure you know that our President has a son in high school."
"Yeah we learned all of that in history a couple years back. So what do I have to do with it?"
"He's running for re-election this year which has caused some threats from various political organizations in and out of the US. See during his term he made some deals that left some people very unhappy so they would do anything to stop him from getting re-elected."
"I know. So again. Me?"
"I'm getting there Bells. So the government has recently caught wind of a possible threat against the presidents son, except they're not exactly sure who made the threat. Apparently they don't even know what country it came from!"
"Ridiculous! Who's running this show?"
"Right! So anyway they want an agent or two to to be security detail on the son, only nobody can know about it, not even him. We need to catch the guys making the threats, not scare them off. Which is where you come in. We need someone who can follow him around without being out of place. Who better than someone the same age!"
"Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. That's not a real mission! I am not babysitting some rich brat," I tell him, folding my arms.
Uncle Marcus walks around the table to put his arm around me.
"First of all Bella, it's not really your decision to make. Besides you've been begging for a mission for the last couple of years and what better one than going undercover in a normal environment. And to be honest you could use the practice."
"What practice? I'm already top of my class in combat, surveillance, tech, and most of my studies. Granted I could be a little better in math but even that's above the high school level!"
"Not your technical skills, Bells. Your social ones. If you want to be a good agent, you have to be able to blend into an environment just as well as you can fight in an environment. There's no point in going undercover if you're spotted as a spy right away."
"I have great social skills," I attempt to argue.
"Bella, I rarely see you just hanging out with anyone here unless it's to train with them. When we went on a field trip to the zoo for your biology class the other kids were having fun while you tried to take blood samples from the animals for your cloning experiment or whatever you were doing. You're lucky the lion was asleep or you would be our first agent to lose a limb on a class field trip."
"I can have fun!" Uncle Marcus sighs at this.
"I'm not saying you can't. But this will be good for you. You'll still get to practice your skills while learning to loosen up. Think of this as another environment for you to study. Learn how to behave and act as a normal teenager would be helpful for blending in for the future. You don't want to look like a spy that is actually a teenager. You want to look like a teenager that is actually a spy."
"Why can't some other agent go?"
"All of our other agents already on the field are way too old and honestly Bella, you're the best agent we've got. I mean, you did learn from the best," Uncle Marcus jokes, making me giggle.
I let out a deep breathe, admitting my defeat.
"Am I going in solo?"
Uncle Marcus smiles, probably relieved that I was no longer fighting him.
"You'll have a tech backup from our school and one other agent with their own tech backup from another academy like ours. I was only able to get their numbers, Agent 106 and Agent 105.I tried to get their agent files but they refused to give up theirs until we gave them ours and I'm not about to put your safety in their hands."
"I know. Never trust anyone."
"That's right kid. So you won't know what they look like but I'm sure you'll be able to hunt them down. All four of you will have tracking device with the mission logo to identify each other if need be. You'll be following the president's son around inconspicuously. You can decide how to handle this. Obviously he lives in the White House but I believe the other agent will be handling his surveillance at home, but again we don't know them. I'll see what I can do about getting you in all of the same classes as him. If you can become his friend it'll be easier and less suspicious to follow him around. I also suggest joining the same extracurricular as him. The close you are, the better. But again, blend in and don't be too obvious. I expect full report at the end of each day both on him and to let me know how your doing."
"You got it chief," I told him with a mock salute.
"Alright Agent 007," Uncle Marcus says winking at me earning him a glare. "You leave tomorrow after classes with your tech backup. Meet in the hangar and bring as little as possible. You'll have a chance to settle in once you get there."
"You going to be okay without me Uncle Marcus?"
He gives me a hug. I know he won't say it but I'm all he's had for the last 16 years and the same goes for me so this is going to be hard in the both of us.
"Yeah kid. I'll be okay. Just stay safe out there alright? And kick some international butt. I love you kid."
"Love you too, Uncle Marcus. See you on the flip side," I tell him as I walk out of the room.
I go back to the dorm area, passing several groups of students who seem to stop talking as I walk by, staring at me, only to go back to whispering as soon as I pass them.
Maybe I do need to loosen up. And this might just be the best way to do it.