Good Morning! Good Afternoon! Good Evening! Welcome to chapter 2 of Numbuh 322! I decided on a song for this story, a theme song! 'Flaws' by Bastille.
Warning: Rated T for 'Topical'.
'Good Hunting'. Numbuh 274 had said to her like usual. He gave her what she needed to know: her target. The rest was on her.
Numbuh 322 recalled the weight of the 2x4 sniper rifle that day. She'd made special modifications the day prior, a dual firing mode switch that changed the scale of battle if she'd ever gotten into a jam.
At the time she'd hollowed out an AC unit on the side of a corporate building, using that as her hiding spot as she kept an eye on the courtyard. She watched through the scope, waiting for her target to make a move.
The guy's name was Justin Cavallero. He has stupidly tall hair and a certain swagger in his steps that betrayed the location of his concealed laser pistol located on his left hip.
From the dossier she'd been given prior, she was informed of Justin Cavallero's history with the KND. He'd acted as an ambassador and arrived on the Moon Base on the pretense of peace. It had turned out to be farce in the end. Cavallero had only been there to present an opportunity for an assassin to kill Numbuh 274. Luckily the assassin had decided to use a cheap explosive instead of a bullet. That gave Numbuh 274 a fighting chance to pull through.
Global Command wanted him shadowed, and if an opportunity presented itself, a rubber slug jammed in each knee, that would teach them.
No one crosses the Kids Next Door!
She'd tracked his movements, watched him chat up some blonde haired girl, but she didn't seem too interested. Numbuh 322 decided that was the best time to take her shot, maybe do the guy a favor even, seeing as he was striking out so bad. She took aim and readied to pull the trigger.
The only thing she hadn't counted on was pair of birds flying in the way. The birds took the hit for Cavallero. Both he and the girl ran off. The mission was a bust.
That all happened right before the crash. Her last mission before taking a vacation to visit her family in Mexico.
"When can I go back into the field?" Numbuh 322 asked Numbuh 274.
They were in the Moon Base's command center. Some operatives were busy playing with a Frisbee nearby while others were lounging around computers. It was a slow day and most of the operatives had been exhausted with their recent activities in purging hidden teenagers amongst their ranks. It was a noticeable difference from before then, before they knew. There were a number of seats left vacant, having once been occupied by teens themselves.
Numbuh 274 looked up at Numbuh 322. He sat at his desk while she stood next to him, waiting for an answer. Numbuh 274 set his pen down beside his paperwork. "We've already had this discussion, Kayla." He said sadly.
"And we're having it again, sir." She asserted.
Numbuh 274 squeezed his temples and released a stressed sigh. "You do understand who you're talking to, right?"
Numbuh 322 glanced at her feet, unable to meet Numbuh 274's gaze. She'd overstepped her position. "I'm sorry, sir. I just feel that my talents would be better served out of an office and in the field, doing what I do best."
"Let me tell you, Kayla, but I keep tabs on all my operatives." Numbuh 274 looked away from Numbuh 322 and at the glass dome above, staring out into space. "I take notice of who they are and why they are. That's why recent events have been so difficult lately, that my understanding of my fellow operatives and friends hasn't been as I once thought."
"You missed that, you missed all of that harsh unravelling. The Kayla I knew of, the effective operative who took orders and would never speak to a superior in such a deeming tone left on that plane." Numbuh 274 turned his eyes back on Numbuh 322. "That's why you're having these sessions with Numbuh 113. Until we have an idea of how big that metaphorical chip on your shoulder is, you're a liability. To me and your fellow operatives."
"And for that I am truly sorry that we can't just take a leap of faith on you, Kayla." Numbuh 274 reached out for his pen on his desk and began to play with it in his hands. "No field work. End of discussion."
Numbuh 322 shut her eyes and bit her lip. She didn't want to show any malice towards Numbuh 274. The Supreme Leader was visibly stressed, he was just doing his job, looking out for the best interests of the KND as a whole. That's what she told herself at least.
"Sorry, sir." Numbuh 322 apologized. Without another word, Numbuh 322 walked off.
Numbuh 274 looked up from his paperwork to watch her leave. The KND Supreme Leader shook his head and let out a remorseful sigh.
Numbuh 322 walked down the halls of the Moon Base, feeling anxious. A couple of operatives walked by, recognizing her and applauded her actions.
"There were 15 kids on that plane, Numbuh 322!" One shouted. "They found them because of you!"
Numbuh 322 gave them an awkward smile and kept on walking.
Time passed and she soon found herself in the Moon Base Cafeteria. After lunch, there was barely anyone present, only a few stragglers and the occasional Numbuh 65.3, hoping to get second helpings before getting called up to get back to work.
She sat in the corner of the room, behind a pillar, essentially hiding herself from her peers. It had been a while since she zoned out, so she did.
Numbuh 322 found herself back on The Island. It was just her, she recalled. The beasts in the trees had lunged out of hiding, there and yet not there at all. The survivors of the crash scattered, running in different directions as they were chased.
Numbuh 322's shell shocked legs carried her as far as they could before giving out on her. She was in a cave, she could hear all the screaming. The screaming wouldn't stop. She just laid on the rocky floor and tried her best to sleep for days, but the screaming never stopped. She shut her eyes and hoped that awful screaming would end.
She opened her eyes and found herself face to face with one of the ravenous beasts, staring her in the eyes, drooling as its jagged teeth stuck out of its mouth. The beast lunged at her. She recalled being tired, barely having anything left to give. She reached out for a rock when it rammed her.
By the end of it, Numbuh 322 knelt down beside the ugly beast, the rock she'd grabbed firmly lodged in its skull. She cried a lot that day. She didn't stop crying for a while.
When she snapped out of her thoughts, Numbuh 322 found herself crying. She brushed strand of her curly hair, left damp after allowing them to hang low over her eyes, and proceeded to wipe her eyes with her sleeve.
Numbuh 322 sat there, alone for a while longer. Eventually time caught up with her when it hit dinner hour. A number of operatives began to funnel into the cafeteria, hoping to get something to eat before they got in so they wouldn't have to eat whatever vegetables their parents had instore for them back home.
Numbuh 322 got up and moved along, not having it in her to eat. She made her way to the landing bays, where she caught a transport home.
Unknown Location
Teen Ninja Hideout
Natasha Vinson was a teenager. She was 15. A tech expert by trade, should found herself working for the Teen Ninjas as a tech support operative, often acting as a moderator for their online video games, and even helping develop games themselves.
In short, Natasha wasn't a murderer. She helped her Teen Ninja division do many things, but she never once thought she'd be helping them murder hundreds in an instant. That wasn't what she signed up for. She felt sick, having just come out of the marble tiled office room, where she'd just learned her boss had sanctioned an insane boy's plan to murder untold amounts of children.
Natasha went back to her office, not saying much to anyone on the way. For all she knew, that freak Reese and his groupie Galil we're raiding the Hideout's armory, discussing the many ways they could infiltrate the Moon Base with the schematics Leviathan had acquired over years of hiding amongst the KND brats.
She sat down in her office chair, mulling over recent events. She found herself in a moral predicament. She can't let Reese commit such an atrocity. The blood he would spill would be on her hands as well.
Natasha shot up from her desk and quickly walked down the hall to her boss's office. Without knocking, Natasha pushed open the door, finding her Boss in the middle of a phone call.
"Development of the weapon you required has hit a snag." The blonde haired teen spoke into the phone. She took note of Natasha's presence and simply held up a finger, telling her to wait a minute.
"What do you mean, Snag?" The voice over the phone asked angrily.
"The Kids Next Door butted in. They demolished the lab and even took our lead scientist into custody." She spoke dryly. "All data was, however, backed up and sent to our remote server before Darwin wiped everything. You will get your weapon, Benedict. It will just take a bit longer."
"My patience grows thinner every minute, Lynch." The man over the phone, Benedict, warned the girl. "Get me my Animalization Ray, or else."
"Noted." The Boss, Lynch muttered before hanging up. She turned her attention to Natasha and set her office phone down. "Yes?"
"Uhm…ma'am, I'd like to ask you to reconsider approving Reese's mission, ma'am." Natasha said meekly.
Lynch simply stared at Natasha, unimpressed. Lynch stood from her seat and walked towards Natasha. Natasha backed away, frightened. Lynch simply reached past Natasha, closing the door. Lynch then walked back to her desk, taking her seat.
"Getting cold feet, Natasha?" Lynch asked in her usual dry tone. "Now, be open with me. Why the sudden erratic behavior?" Lynch gestured for Natasha to take a seat.
Natasha sat down in one of the two seats in front of Lynch's desk. She thought for a moment about what to say, as much as she enjoyed her work with the Teen Ninjas, she like many other people, people not crazy enough to blow up a base full of children, were afraid of Lynch.
"I-I'm not a killer ma'am." Natasha stuttered. "I can't with good conscience be a part of this if Reese is just going to kill all those kids. It's one thing to spy on them and derail their organization, but-but this…this is something horrible."
Lynch let out a laugh. Lynch laughed and that scared Natasha. Lynch never laughs.
"Are you familiar with the plane that went missing back in July? The one Reese put a bomb on?" Lynch asked as she stifled her laugh. All Natasha could do was nod. "Right before it went down, Natasha, we tried to assassinate the KND Supreme Leader. We failed."
"We set up a bogus peace conference, we sent in a new guy, Justin Cavallero, as you probably recall. The entire meeting was set up to give our assassin, an operative apart of Sector Q, if you'd believe, could go right up and murder Numbuh 274." Natasha nodded once again.
"But things didn't go as planned. Mission was a failure and Cavallero had to book it out of there. You see, afterward, the KND thought they could be smart by sending an operative to shadow Cavallero. We didn't find out until later because Numbuh 274 started cluing in on our activities infiltrating the KND."
"So he sent the operative to shadow Cavallero. On that very day, the day the operative decided it was time to teach Cavallero a lesson, our dear Cavallero decided to meet me in public to discuss the events of the mission."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but what does this have to do with the plane?" Natasha spoke up.
"I ordered Reese to do it." Lynch stated bluntly. Natasha's eyes widened slightly as Lynch continued to explain. "You see, the operative Numbuh 274 had sent had seen my face. Luckily in the operative's report, she assumed he was just…hitting on me." Lynch shuddered slightly. "But still, she saw my face. Eventually, who could say she would think longer about the meeting, perhaps she'd get the idea Cavallero was reporting to a superior."
"So that's when our operatives in the Spy Sector and Decommissioning Squad heard of the operatives plans to go and visit family in Mexico. I had Reese put a bomb on the plane. The Mexican Government would probably say it was the Cartel's doing, or maybe American officials would blame it on terrorists. Either way, it was supposed to have solved our problems and cut that loose end."
"Except it didn't." Lynch sighed. "She lived. All the kids on the plane lived. Nine teenagers died. The flight crew died. And then half of the adults on the plane died."
"Why are you telling me this?" Natasha asked, mortified.
"Because, you claim you want no part in all this bloodshed. You want to keep your hands clean." Lynch spoke dryer than normal. "But you already have blood on your hands Natasha. You already do."
Natasha fell silent. "We're done here." Lynch said before returning to work.
"Yeah." Natasha muttered before getting up and leaving the office.
It's actually kind of funny, because this story references the events of 'Kids Next Door: Agenda', another story by me which isn't actually done. But I really wanted to start up all the other stuff on my list so I'm just spoiling it. lol.
So thank you kind reader! I hope you enjoyed this! I also hope you stick around for the rest, I'm think two more chapters maybe? Yea. Anyways, Later Days!