Chapter 2: I spy Eggheads
"Girls, wear these" Mr. Solomon handed us blindfolds, and here we are with the confidential spy thing again, we leave to see school, but we always return unable to see where we just came from. Sucks right? But who said anything about not allowing us to use other methods to "see" where we are going – there's always counting. When I say counting I mean like its 10:12 in the evening with a margin of 11 seconds on the clock. Now how to use that? Let's just see…
I can feel Bex squirming around even under this circumstance, then I heard her say "Hey Mr. Solomon, where's the briefing and all that? You don't expect us to just go shoot ourselves in there without any type of cover right?" There is much anxiety in her voice, but I totally understand her, landing in some deserted or populated place (whichever it may be) is bad enough, but landing like some VIP and being kids at the same time would attract the attention of all those police agencies, enemy spies, deadly organizations and not to mention the government social services.
We all waited for Mr. Solomon's reply, which came after a long wait, it took him exactly 26 seconds to reply, and THAT is a long time considering its Mr. Solomon that we are talking about here! "Basically your covers are yourselves." He said with a sigh.
"And what the hell does that mean Mr. Solomon?" Macey sounded a little bit irritated, and I understand that, I mean here we are, trying to save the world, okay fine that's a little bit over the top, but hello world, we are just about to go against the best spies here, saving the world would be like a piece of candy compared to having our butts kicked by people who might know how to do it in more than a thousand ways. (We spies have a lot of choices if it is still not that obvious)
"You are going to come as you are. As it is a must in your first obstacle, though in the process of completing that first obstacle, you might need to suit up and adopt any other personality that may be needed to complete the tasks." He now seems calm and collected but I don't like the contents of his statement,
Liz asked in a trembling manner "What obstacle?" then Bex continued "and what tasks are you talking about?" she sounded like a teenage guy in puberty, having that pitching voice upon asking Mr. Solomon.
"We are given only a piece of information that we could use to start this obstacle. But before that, I think you ought to know why you are here and what you guys are about to face" he stopped and I said "Yes, Mr. Solomon, I think we have come to that unanimous decision to actually understand what you are talking about here!"
"Very well Cameron. To begin with you are about to enter some sort of an amazing race – spies version." I can feel him looking at us even under my blindfold "I know it sounds ridiculous but this is the method chosen by the organization to ensure that the quality of spies produced by different academies would fit their standards."
"Wait a minute did you just say ACADEMIES, like with the freaking S?" Bex was now shouting, I mean this is all new to us and I know that we would've liked to know that there were other spies in the business who may be experiencing all our problems, but we are totally not happy now to meet them while probably hanged somewhere around 300 feet from the ground, fighting over our futile lives!
"Yes Rebecca, I meant that word to sound like that and to mean like that. All four of you would fight and represent the team for our school to compete with other institutions all over America to begin with." I was about to ask something but he went on to continue "You were chosen because we needed spies who are able to compete with a team and without one, and we believe that through thick and thin, you have all shown great progress and ability." Now that makes me feel good, I mean he's always been strict to us, Bex and I nearly died through all those intense trainings and if he hadn't said that now, I think we would die not knowing that he wasn't just doing it for the fun of seeing his students lose a couple of bones in something that he calls sparring. Sparring my ass!
"To add to that are certain rules given to us to relay to all of you. After landing you and giving you this briefing we are not allowed to interfere with you and your survival besides giving you beforehand several supplies that are pretty much basic to any given spy. We were also told that this obstacle course will entail, working against or together with other teams so make sure you play your cards wisely. Lastly the only clue they gave us was to find the room that would be unlocked by the key I'm holding now." I felt him move his hands up to motion that he is holding something, specifically the key he was talking to us about.
"Okay I think this is bad, when you say room, they just mean a "room" nothing like an added info such as the freaking state or country it is located in?" Macey was speaking with an as-a-matter-of-fact tone well more on to give emphasis on the generic nature of our life and death mission.
"And I think we are all forgetting about the time element here! If it's some sort of an obstacle course we can't just go stroll to the next task, can we?" I asked rhetorically.
"Ah yes, elimination would be based on the order of teams to arrive or fulfill the task. Though given this first task, three days have been set as the maximum time limit whether or not the allowable number of teams to proceed to the next round it met. Which means out of the 8 teams joining, 8 for the first round will still proceed to the next task provided they all fulfill the task requirements with in three days." Mr. Solomon sounded like a commentator while lecturing us all with regards to the rules of this little "game" of ours.
"Then in that case why do we need to come as we are now? I mean I'm not really me as of the moment but yeah…" I asked still not getting over my up do.
"You are actually the only one with the cover as of now Cameron, you all need to arrive as you are now for the organization to fully profile you and mark you in the list of competitors, and with this, it would be easy to get into another cover since the up do would confuse those tailing you as early as now. Standing out to disappearing is easy when people are already expecting a trend from everyone of you." I hate to admit it but he has a point, who would think that girls like me actually prefer looking absolutely normal, especially when everyone creates an impression that we are snotty girls who would always care about appearance. Well okay fine, my other friends would always care but anyway, they look good in any form so who cares.
"I want you to make sure that security would always be first in the list as most teams would think that thinking is harder than actually stealing, especially when we, spies are all bent on stealing intel from as many sources as we can, what makes you think that people would opt to find clues rather than tail someone and grab it from them." Now this sounds like our everyday class under Mr. Solomon, he's right as usual, most spies would rather use technology and strength to obtain things, since thinking actually seems tiring in a sense!
"Okay so let me get this straight, the moment we land there, we are on our own, we need to just follow the obstacles and the clues to get to finish the task, we also need to make sure to keep our intel, we must also finish this in time for a slot in the next round, and finally we need to make sure we keep our heads where they are the moment we end up face to face with other institutes." I felt like narrating everything to make sure they stick to my head, after all we are literally on our own after this.
"Indeed that would basically sum up everything. Well then, we are almost here. Good luck and remember everything we have thought you so far." Mr. Solomon is really making this creepy by sounding like it's a forever farewell!
"Um I have a question, why did we need to wear blindfolds when everyone knows for a fact the we the time duration of the flight, the turns of the chopper and the speed all shouts New York to us?" I asked stupidly.
"It's just standard protocol, and yes that would be a good start for you. Welcome to New York" He said then he suddenly did the unthinkable; he pushed me out the stupid door into the air, several thousand feet away from the ground.
I had no time to think, I removed my blindfold, then fiddled around to see if at the least I had my things with me, oh and a working parachute. The sounds of my friends' voices were loud and yet abrupt, well besides Liz's, girls got a chance in the highest and longest pitch. It's not a surprise that she'd be scared as hell – she never had trainings such as this, I mean yeah she did this before (everyone had to) but not be pushed out when you are super un prepared and wearing a blindfold to top that all off!
I just hope we land some place secluded, coz its New York for god's sake. Thank the heavens for darkness at the moment.
We landed all in one piece, even Liz got down on her own feet alive and conscious (those two usually comes separately). "Now what?" Bex said to us while removing her parachute.
"Well first we need to discard these" Macey pointed out to her parachute and then Liz commented "Then check on your bodies guys, we need to make sure the nail polish event won't go on for the second round" she might seem drained with blood like some anemic person, but her brain as usual works as fine as a tuned computer.
I pulled out my bag to me then said "Check your bags guys, we need to see what Mr. Solomon put in here, and I think our biometrics have been taken, the organization can't be that slow, so we better start disappearing now." The others followed by inspecting their bags.
I zipped up my bag after finding the necessary objects such as our comms, the key, money and passports of different kinds in there. This feels like things are really just beginning.
"Now its rock and roll time!" Bex seemed thrilled now, no longer the nervous Bex we all saw a while ago, and I think she really has this habit of loving the adrenaline. We were all about to turn our heels to move to the opposite of the park we landed on when we all heard a thud.
"Man, what the hell are you doing on top of me!" We heard a male voice from the woods area. We all looked at each other for confirmation when we heard another voice from the same area. "You freak, you're the one who landed on the wrong spot! I called dibs for this on air!" Now the air part didn't sound good for us, no other people would "call dibs" while on the freaking air!
".We'." I said it instinctively as I look at my friends and then Macey spoke.
"I think we just heard our worst enemies from the other chromosomal composition of the land of X and Y" Macey sighed and picked up her bag, then she continued to talk "I just hope you guys prepared yourselves for some battle with the testosterone embodied beings."
"Oh damn!" Bex looked at Macey and then I added "This is just getting more interesting by the second" I smirked while slowly disappearing to the woods to see how we're supposed to deal with these people who we can either proclaim as a threat or a possible tool too surpass our incoming doom.