"Spies? Spies are pretty much criminals with government paychecks. I mean, think about it, they're kinda like con artists in the fact that it's their job to lie. So basically, the better spy is the one that can lie better than the other guy."
-Samuel Tart's blog, flagged by ONI
Chapter 2: Finals Week
Delano, Reach
June 8, 2548
Ryan sat back and relaxed in his rather comfortable vantage point. While some candidates preferred to track targets using all sorts of high tech gadgets and wizardy, Ryan always thought that a pair of sharp eyes and good binoculars could do the job just as well as any image enhancer or remote viewer.
"Uh huh, I think they're still following you." Ryan said absentmindedly through the radio. He was on the fifth floor of an office building keeping an eye on the crowd in the plaza below. Standing in the middle of the plaza pretending to talk on a cell phone was none other than Shannon, her flame red hair standing out like Christmas tree lights. However, instead of looking for the supposed followers, Ryan found himself shifting his gaze on Shannon more than the surrounding crowd.
"You're just staring at me, aren't you." Shannon said humorlessly.
"Oh no, I'm keeping a sharp eye out, I promise." Ryan grinned. "By the way, you've got a very nice butt."
"I swear Ryan, I am going to punch you so hard-"
"Whoa, wait, I think we've got a biter." Ryan swept his gaze to a different part of the crowd. Right now, he and Shannon were participating in Edgar Academy's final project. Every handler/operator pair was being pitted against each other. If they followed directions and were smart, no pair knew who composed the rest of the pairs. The objective for this operation was to find out how many handler/operator pairs one team could accurately identify. Basically, the entire class would be released into a dense urban environment with some resources and left to do whatever they wished. The strategies each individual team used varied. Ryan and Shannon decided to go solo, while others decided to team up to improve their chances. From the looks of it, they had come across one such team.
"Numbers?" Shannon asked, still pretending to talk on her cell phone.
"Uhhh, can't tell at the moment. Duck down and pretend you dropped something." Ryan looked on as Shannon oh so clumsily dropped her phone and bent down to pick it up, disappearing into the sea of bodies around her.
Now, spies were trained to blend in with their surroundings and not get caught. However, no matter how good they were, the ultimately could never blend in perfectly as a normal person because spies were anything but normal. No, the trick was to be good enough to spot the subtle hints that could give somebody away as a spy. Ryan could already spot three or four panicked heads turning like helicopter blades, trying to regain sight of something they had lost track of.
"Well well well." Ryan grinned. "It looks like Matthews and Tucker have teamed up."
"Surprise surprise." Shannon grumbled. "Can I beat them up?"
"Not yet. We've got to see where they'll lead us." Ryan gazed through the binoculars. "Jean and Yomiko are also here, but we'll worry about them later. Head to the Starbucks to the north and grab a drink or something. Our two targets should try to tail you."
Ryan watched on as Tucker and Matthews followed Shannon to the Starbucks. He noted that they were at least smart enough to sit at a table far enough away from Shannon's to prevent from drawing her attention.
"Right, it's time to shake them. You know the drill."
Starbucks
"She's moving." Matthews whispered to Tucker. "Should we follow?"
"Nah, she's just heading for the bathroom." Tucker tapped a few keys on his laptop and pointed at it. "I brought up the schematics of the building. According to this, the windows in the back of the building are barred. I doubt she'd be audacious enough to try and break through them."
"Point." Matthews nodded.
Meanwhile, Shannon casually entered the building, but passed women's bathroom. On the far end of the hall, she could see the window, unbarred and open. She deftly climbed through the window and ended up on the street on the other side of the Starbucks, well out of view of the people tailing her.
"So what are they doing?" Shannon asked through her transmitter.
"Drinking coffee and reading the newspaper." Ryan said absentmindedly.
"You'd think that they would have been cautious enough to consider that the blueprints to the building were altered by us." Shannon sighed.
"Not everybody is as good as we are." Ryan said. "Right, they've just made a call. I'm pretty sure it's to their handlers. You're good to go."
"Finally." Shannon smiled and cracked her knuckles. She circled back around the building so that Matthews and Tucker could spot her again.
"Oh yeah, they found you." Ryan quipped.
"Shut up and let me do my thing." Shannon took a quick glance behind her to confirm that her two tails were still following her. She weaved through the afternoon crowd and made a beeline for a relatively abandoned alleyway between a clothes store and a Chinese restaurant. She quickly rounded the corner.
Shannon frowned when she saw Matthews whip around the corner of the alley entrance with no thought whatsoever to the possibility that his target might have caught on to him and used the alley corner to set up an ambush. Well, that was working to her benefit anyways. A swift kick to the side of his knee sent Matthews off balance She then grabbed his arm and flipped him over, slamming his back onto the ground. By this time, Tucker was also rounding the corner. Shannon sent a snap kick into his gut, and then sent her elbow right into his spine as he bent over in surprise. Tucker fell like a sack of beans on top of the unconscious Matthews.
"Way too easy." Shannon sighed. "We could have at least taken on some of the more challenging teams."
"Once we eliminate the easy ones." Ryan said coolly. "Just remember to take their stuff before you leave."
"Yeah yeah." Shannon bent down and liberated the unconscious Matthews and Tucker of their worldly possessions. She quickly stuffed their cell phones, transmitters, wallets, and anything else of possible use into a bag and then stuffed their bodies in a nearby dumpster. She took a quick glance inside and noticed that Marion and Chris weren't inside. They had apparently regained consciousness or were found, which was probably a good thing, since there wouldn't be enough room to cram Matthews and Tucker in if they were still inside.
"Got their things." Shannon said cheerfully.
"Good. Leave it at the dead drop and we'll set up the trap again in an hour."
Ryan set down his binoculars and stretched. It had been hours since he had eaten anything. After quick check for any potential threats, he exited the building and entered a nearby deli. He made his order, took a number, and sat in one of the ancient, scratched waiting seats. He glanced to his right and noticed a girl sitting next him. Something about her posture and attitude reminded him of Shannon, but not quite. Plus, she had a completely different hair and eye color, blonde and blue respectively, and she was a bit taller. Still, like Shannon, there was something about this girl that intrigued him.
"Hey there." Ryan said.
"Huh?" The girl turned curiously. "Excuse me, but who are you?"
"Oh, sorry, I'm Ryan." Ryan smiled. "I just couldn't help but notice that you're a Marine officer."
"What the- how'd you know?" The girl said, dumbfounded.
"Pretty simple, really. The clothes your wearing are very clean and look as if they've just been unfolded, which implies you've been in uniform most of the time. Your posture is straight as an arrow, which implies some kind of strict physical training. Plus, you've got the Marine Corps emblem pinned to your collar.
"Oh, right." The girl glanced at the pin, a little embarrassed. "I guess that was kind of obvious."
"I didn't catch your name by the way."
"Oh, it's Karla." The girl smiled. "You're pretty much right on the money. I'm on vacation from Holmes Officer Training Academy."
"Oh hey, I go to Edgar Academy. That's like, right next door to you guys."
"Really? I've always wondered what that place taught." Karla scratched her head. "Those guys there are a pretty secretive lot."
"You know, I find it curious." Ryan cocked his head curiously. "You can't be any older than me, yet you're already making second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. How does that happen?"
"Well, I can only assume that it's because the war is going a little worse than what the propaganda machine is telling us." Karla shrugged. "Recruitment standards, at least at Holmes, have been significantly lowered. Physical training, age limits, and health complications have all received liberal cuts. Hell, they even shortened the normal four year instructional cycle down to just a year and half."
"Huh. Interesting."
"So, what are you learning to be?" Karla asked.
"Well..." Ryan quickly tried to remember what the official ONI cover story for Edgar Academy was. "It's mainly government stuff. Politics and civil service, that kind of stuff."
"Guess we need those as well." Karla said somewhat sarcastically.
"Yeah…" Ryan paused and began to actually think about his current position. Did he really want to be spending the rest of life doing this, basically living a lie for his entire life? "Hey Karla, do you ever where you question the decisions you made in your life?"
"Uhhh, not really." Karla said.
"Well, I've always had this nagging feeling. What if I chose a different path in my life?" Ryan immediately thought about that time Brown arrived to his house so many years ago. "What if I decided to say 'no'? Where would I be, and would happen to everything I know around me?"
"Well, I'm not really much of an expert on these things." Karla shrugged. "But, if you've committed your choice, my advice is to just stick with it through to the end and see where it takes you."
"But how do I know it's the right thing for me?"
"You don't." Karla said bluntly. "I doubt anybody does. Besides, I'm sure you're wonderful at what you do."
"You're just saying that."
"Yeah, I am, mainly because the cashier just called my number and I want to get you to stop talking to me." Karla got up from her seat and smiled. "Nice meeting you by the way."
"Yeah, me too." Ryan stayed in his seat and sat there for what seemed like a very long time. It was only after the cashier called his number for the fifth time that he finally got up and took his order. He then realized that he forgot to bring any money. All he had were a few scraps of blank paper. It was time to work a bit of magic.
"Excuse me, how much was it again?" Ryan asked the cashier innocently.
"Twelve dollars."
"Okay…" Ryan made an act to dig through his pockets. "Oh yeah, and do you also happen to know how to get to Spring Street from here?"
"Oh sure, you just go out, take a left, and keep going down a few streets. You can't miss it." The cashier said as he absentmindedly took the blank slips Ryan handed him and stuffed them in the cash register without even a second glance.
"Thanks a lot, sir!" Ryan said. He then took the bag and hurried out. The trick won't last long. It would only be a matter of seconds before the cashier realized that something was wrong and checked the register again. Boy was he going to get a nasty surprise…
Room 212, Apartment Block B
"Are you going to be finished anytime soon?" Shannon pouted, not happy with staying still in the apartment.
"Just a second." Ryan said as he carefully dismantled the cell phones and transmitters Shannon had taken from the rival agents they had snagged. "I'm surprised you managed to take down Mikey, I mean, he's like a living Scorpion tank."
"Like I said, I'm the strongest." Shannon grinned. "None of those wusses have anything on me."
"I'm sure they don't." Ryan inserted the cell phone chips he removed into his laptop. "Now let's see if they're smart enough to use dummy phones rather than their actual ones for contact."
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, just exploiting the wonders of modern technology." Ryan grinned. "I pulled the most recent numbers called from the phones' memory, and now I'm inputting the numbers into this cool little ONI program I found. It basically tracks the location of the phone of the number you input via the GPS network."
"So basically, if their handler ever called them, we can track their exact position at any time no matter where they are."
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Thank god for big brother."
"Uh huh." Ryan glanced at the screen. "They're pretty close by. Think we should go and hit them now?"
"What makes you think they'll stay in the same place?"
"This is where a bit of psy-warfare comes into play." Ryan pulled out another complicated looking contraption and placed it on the table.
"A radio transmitter?" Shannon looked at the object and cocked her head curiously.
"Yeah, with a few minor modifications. It basically just broadcasts static on multiple channels. If our friends are listening in, they'll most likely think that it's some sort of special encryption or cipher we're using and they'll fret all night trying to crack white noise." Ryan grinned. "While we sneak in and find out who they are."
"This is so not going to work." Shannon frowned.
"Oh trust me, it will."
Edgar Academy, Reach
June 15, 2548
"I'm impressed." Brown whistled as he looked at the final results of the test. "You two seem to have pulled through this with flying colors. You managed to systematically identify every team while staying off your rivals' lists."
"See, told you it would work." Ryan elbowed Shannon lightly.
"Quit rubbing it in."
"Hey, calm down you two." Brown set his papers down his desk. "I'm mighty impressed with some of the tactics and strategies you used during the exam. Purposely flooding radio channels with static to confuse your rivals was a clever move. Hell, it even fooled some our own techs. Poor guys stayed up at least two nights trying to decode nothing. And then there was that little op where you convinced the local police that Lee, Roy, and Orson were assaulting Shannon and got them arrested."
"It's pretty easy, as long as you show them what you want them to see." Ryan shrugged.
"Yeah, well, I had to get some of my men to bail the poor guys out before it got out of hand." Brown shook his head. "Anyways, your exceptional performance has qualified the both of you to join a… special… position."
"What position?" Ryan asked.
"Well, there are four… no, five possible areas of employment for you. There's Section Zero, the internal affairs division. They don't really do much except rat to the Director about what their co-workers are doing. Section One is the public relations division, and all they do is stick flyers on telephone poles. Section Two, propaganda, are basically mushroom farmers. They keep people in the dark and feed them shit. Section Three, black ops, would be more your alley, but…" Brown smiled. "There's a fifth, slightly more secret section. Section Four, which directly under the command of the Director himself. Full oversight powers, no ethical or moral rules, and the five freedoms are included benefits.:
"Five freedoms?" Ryan asked.
"The freedom to spy, steal, kill, destroy, and assassinate." Brown shrugged. "The trade off is that you'll be going on more… dangerous missions than those Section Three guys can ever cook up."
"I'm liking this Section Four already." Shannon grinned. "I say we take the offer."
"Is this the sort of stuff that would get us backstabbed or disappeared?" Ryan asked cautiously.
"Aw, hell no." Brown laughed. "That's Section Three. In Section Four, you work under the sole authority of the Director himself, nobody else."
"How do we know can we trust him?" Ryan frowned.
"You don't." Brown smiled maliciously.
Ryan looked at Shannon and then back at Brown. He was immediately reminded of that little conversation with Karla he had back in that tiny deli. Ryan sighed and made his final decision. There was no going back after this.
"Sure, why not." Ryan shrugged. "I'm in."
"Excellent. I'll take care of the necessary details right away." Brown's eyes glinted. It was fairly ironic that the candidate that was skilled a manipulating people was himself being manipulated to make a choice. From the day he inserted that nano tracker into Ryan's arm to the day he knocked on Ryan's door, the boy's path had already been predetermined by that shadowy individual behind the curtain. Brown had to admit, the Director was certainly a crafty old man.
"We're going to be doing the real thing!" Shannon said excitedly, hugging Ryan. "Aren't you excited?"
"Yeah…" Ryan said, unable to shake off the feeling that he was being played.