I have now officially ran out of different languages. Chapter Nine it is, then. Heh, Tessa makes toast like my mum...
Back to the present
Mary half-opened her eyes, allowing the teal light to filter through them. For a second she was confused – where was she? – and then she remembered. She was in England. Again. What was the pull of this country? She had no idea.
He checked her watch: 12:18 BST. How long had she been asleep?! More than fourteen hours, probably. She must have been horribly jet-lagged. Scrubbing her eyes, she slid out of bed to get ready. Selecting a loose shamrock-green t-shirt and orchid-purple jeans, she headed for the en-suite. The shower, sink, and even the toilet looked expensive. How rich was Tessa?
One fifteen-minute shower later, Mary was ready. Her mind buzzed, and she felt more awake than she had in days. Grabbing some blue socks from her suitcase, she pulled them on and went downstairs.
There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen, and Mary went to investigate. Crossing through the small dining room, she found Tessa frying eggs, mushrooms and bacon. Mary blinked.
"Breakfast? In the afternoon?"
"Hey, I woke up late too, and I haven't have a full English breakfast in over a year. Get the toast out the oven, will you?"
Mary grabbed the oven-gloves and took out the tray. "No toaster?"
Tessa shook her head. "Don't trust them."
"Why not?"
"Do you know how many house-fires are caused by toasters?"
"Oh."
"Put the toast over there, and hand me those tomatoes."
###
After breakfast, Mary went out to explore the grounds. As grounds went, they weren't extensive, but Mary had nothing better to do. She was walking around the back of the manor when she heard the noise. It was a scuffling noise, like squirrels or birds, but louder, and from a bigger area. She supposed it could be an army of squirrels, but wouldn't she be able to see an army of squirrels, and she could see nothing. This in itself was enough to put her on edge.
There was skittering sound, and a spray of gravel. Mary reached for her bag, only to find it wasn't on her shoulder; she had left it in her room. Idiot! Side stepping over to the nearby fountain, she scooped up a handful of water, and threw it. Nothing. Whatever had been there was now gone. Mary turned and ran back to the house.
###
"Are you sure?"
"Um, yes? I don't know anyone else who can turn invisible, do you?"
"Just because I don't know anyone doesn't make it possible."
"But what are the chances of it being anyone else?"
"Minimal, I grant you, but it doesn't sound like Randall to just run away like that."
Mary frowned. "I guess not."
Tessa sighed. "Boo, have I ever told you about my MSS training?"
Mary shook her head. Tessa never talked about it, and Mary had always assumed it was a secret. Tessa cleared her throat, and began.
###
"I was sixteen and a half when I was approached. Even so, I still knew it wasn't a decision I wanted to rush; say 'yes' and you're in for life, no backing out. The representatives talked to my parents about taking me out of normal education to go through special training. My dad was thrilled, mainly because he was a scarer at Monsters Inc and felt that by interacting with the human world, I was in a way continuing the family business. My mum, on the other hand, was big on getting me a decent education. They argued. I hated those arguments. I would lie upstairs on my bed, listening to them shouting at each other.
"Eventually, they came to the conclusion that they were fine with it, so long as I was. I agreed, mainly because my I was struggling in all my school-work bar music, and this was a good opportunity for a future. My dad was delighted, my mum less so.
"Anyway, I was put in a class with a few others: Magnus Vadas, Kaarina Garrastazu, Rachele Hadaway, Laird Dalton, Scarlett Nixon and a few others. Kaarina was by far the most talented, and quickly moved up to a higher class. I never saw her again, until two years ago, when she replaced my immediate boss. Laird was the eldest, and had been kept down because he was unable to pass his practical exams. He was clever though, and I heard he found a desk job planning recovery and reconnaissance missions. Rachele was pretty smart, and we quickly became friends, but I digress.
"The point is, in one lesson, we learned that certain situations require you to ditch the textbook and go with your gut. Our teacher told us that one of the main causes of MSS agent fatalities was the inability to do that. You see, when certain reactions are drummed into you for different circumstances, it's hard to break the habit without feeing suddenly and completely alone. As long as you follow the textbook, you have something to lean on. Take that away, and you suddenly start feeling very lost.
"We were told to go into a building, a set designed to mimic a possible situation we could get into. This was normal; something we did at least once a week and were all used to. We usually would all go in, in groups of five, each to a different set. I was normally pretty confident; follow the textbook in these situations and you'd be fine.
"But this time was different. We were told to go in the one set, one at a time, at five minute intervals. As per usual, we would be watched through a series of CCTV cameras, but this time, there was a catch. As well as the normal stuff that would be going on in the set – get in, stay unseen for a full hour while gleaning information and then getting back out again – we would also have to watch out for cameras.
"That was the thing: how did you tell the difference between the normal CCTV cameras and the 'enemies' ' cameras? Would they look different? It wasn't a situation we would ever actually get into, of course, but with the exception of Laird, we were all newbies, and it was a whole lot safer than some other situations they could have put us in.
"Anyway, I could go into detail about the whole task, and our completion of it, but the short of it is, all the cameras looked almost identical from the outside. We all failed. On our own, the idea was to see if we could come up with more varied ideas. Some people just stuck to the textbook rules and tried to avoid all cameras. Thing was, you couldn't; there were too many. You had to take that risk. Others threw caution to the wind and did what they normally did: ignored the cameras. Of course they also failed; they never even had a chance. Laird had a good plan, but his natural clumsiness stopped it from working.
"Afterwards, we reviewed the tapes, and our scores. Laird got the highest score, for once, because it was obvious what his intention had been. Also, as he'd been kept down, he already knew roughly the sort of thing he was supposed to be doing.
"If you stayed where you were when you entered for a few minutes, you could work out which cameras were shorter than the others. The normal cameras were six inches by two by two-and-a-half. The 'bad' ones were five. Thing is, there wasn't time to do that for every camera, even if we knew what was different. The cameras would have caught you. You had to just go, 'oh, something about that camera looks off' and hope you were right. Laird had the right idea, but was sadly lacking in balance. He was in the set for about ten minutes before he tripped and fell right in the view of a 'bad' camera."
###
"The point?"
Tessa sighed again. "The point I'm trying to make is, something about your presumption that that was Randall feels off, and I'm going with my gut about it."
###
Rex was out of breath. As soon as he'd heard someone approaching, he'd gone camouflaged and tried to stay still, but his tail had twitched in anxiety, and the girl had heard him. As soon as he'd confirmed this, he had turned and ran. Out of the corner of his eye, he'd seen her throw something in his direction, but didn't stop to see what is was. He hadn't stopped until he was far away.