Chief Inspector Rosenthal of the Secret Police had interrogated many spies in his life. Most of them folded before he would even open his mouth. Some would try to resist but succumb to the terror that came from being face to face with the East's greatest interrogator. Of the remaining spies, he would only have to speak with about one percent of them. Never before had he stooped so low as to get physical.
What was the secret to his success, you ask?
Inspector Rosenthal had spent years mastering the skill of reading body language! To him, every person was a book and the world was his library. By the slightest twitch of an eye, the tap of a finger, or a glance in the opposite direction, the inspector knew everything he needed to know about his target. He applied this skill everywhere in his life, which was probably the reason he'd never gotten past a first date with someone. He would rather you forget that last part. The important thing to know was that the man's skills had earned him monikers like "the silent interrogator", "the heart whisperer", and perhaps most infamously, "Dusk."
That was why, when he looked at the traitor that sat across the table from him, he felt so confused. The pink haired girl, no older than fourteen-
"Sixteen!"
What? Rosenthal furrowed his brow in confusion.
"I'm sixteen!" the girl said indignantly.
She wore a trench coat over the uniform of Berlin's Eden Academy and had cones of some sort planted in her hair, communications gadgets perhaps? Those details didn't matter to Rosenthal; many students turned out to be spies for the West. The thing that unnerved him was the smile that conveyed only emotion he could read from her: smugness.
Rosenthal shook his head and cleared his thoughts. His mentor, Minister of State Security Yuri Briar, always told him that composure was the number one priority of an interrogator. If you can't control your own heart, then how can you possibly gain control over someone else's? He decided to proceed with his usual routine then, and took a sip of his coffee as he stared at the spy with his trademark menacing gaze. She did not waver. If anything, the amount of smugness on her face seemed to increase the harder he stared.
Stare harder, damn it!
The inspector increased the intensity of his stare tenfold. The girl strengthened her smile the same amount. He stood up and stared. She looked up and smiled back. He leaned in, trying his hardest to stare into her very soul. She leaned in as well, her smile burning itself into his brain. Rosenthal's eyes twitched as the brightness of the smile blinded him. He brought out his agency issued sunglasses, putting them over his watering eyes as they continued the world's most intense staring contest. At last, he screamed and fell back into his chair, blinking what felt like smoke out of his eyes.
'Who the hell is this bitch?' he wondered. No one's ever been able to resist this well!
"The name's Starlight!"
Inspector Rosenthal looked up just in time to see the girl stand up and strike a pose. Or rather, she tried to and immediately fell over, tangled in the chains of the handcuffs. It's hard to pose in handcuffs, you see. The inspector sighed and beckoned the guard over to free the foolish spy.
"The name's Starlight," she repeated, striking a pose successfully this time. "Agent Starlight!"
Rosenthal blinked for a few moments before jotting down the name. What was with the West's strange nicknames for their agents, he wondered. He supposed he shouldn't be talking given his own codename. He took a moment to inspect the spy's files. Apparently, this agent, "Starlight," had been active in the country for nearly a decade. Given this girl's age, the codename must have been passed to her from an extremely skilled predecessor. No official of the East had ever caught so much as a glimpse of the agent's face but, whoever they were, their feats spoke for themselves. They had been responsible for the downfall of Donovan Desmond and Project Nutcracker around ten years prior. It was quite unfortunate that he couldn't be meeting the real deal, Rosenthal thought.
The spy seemed annoyed then.
"I'm the one and only Starlight!" she declared.
The inspector sighed. If that's the game she wanted to play, he supposed he had to play along. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.
"What is your name and identification number, Agent Starlight?"
The smug smile returned to the girl's face as she crossed her arms and simply replied, "It's top secret."
"Okay, Ms. Top Secret," Rosenthal said. "If you don't tell us your name, we can simply find your real name by going through Eden Academy's records of Imperial Scholars. Then, once we have your name, we can arrest your family and friends and everyone you love."
The girl gasped.
"Even my dog?"
"Yes, even your dog."
The girl screamed, causing Rosenthal and even the guard to recoil in surprise.
"My name is Anya Forger and I live at 128 Park Avenue! I live with my papa and my mama, who are very normal people! Papa is a doctor and Mama works at city hall and they don't do any jobs on the side at all!"
Rosenthal smiled as he wrote down the information. Now they were getting somewhere.
"Well, Ms. Forger, I want you to understand something," Rosenthal said. "You're in some serious trouble here. Espionage is an act of high treason which is punishable by execution."
Anya gasped in shock.
"Does that mean I'll die?"
"That's what execution means."
"No!" Anya cried, bawling like a baby. "I don't want to die!"
Rosenthal smiled. Things had gotten off to a rocky start but he'd managed to salvage the situation perfectly. One more step and this little rascal would be spilling western secrets galore. He just had to offer the bait.
"Of course," he said, "I can put in a good word for you so that you may face a reduced sentence in prison."
"You can do that?"
"Yes," he replied, nodding. "Just tell me what I want to know."
"I'll tell you everything!" she replied. "I'll even tell you what I had for breakfast and what my boyfriend got me for my birthday!"
"That's not necessary," Rosenthal said, raising a hand. "Just tell me what your plan was."
Rosenthal had read her file of course. Forger was found in this interrogation room an hour prior with no indication as to how she'd gotten in here. The Ministry of State Security building was equipped with state of the art security protocols the likes of which had only been seen in science fiction novels. No one could have snuck past all of them!
"My plan?" Anya repeated. "My plan was to come in here and find out what your plans were!"
The lead in Rosenthal's pencil snapped. Could she know about the planned coup that he and his allies in the People's Chamber were planning? But there was no way, Rosenthal reasoned. They made sure to leave no trace of their plans, meeting only in person, undergoing rigorous anti-interrogation training, and keeping a cyanide pill in a fake tooth in their mouth at all times.
"I know all about that!" Forger said smugly.
"About what?"
"About your plan to take over the government with the bad guys!"
The guard in the room eyed Rosenthal with suspicion as Rosenthal tried his best to maintain his composure.
"You're mistaken," he replied. "I consider myself to be the most loyal servant of the people you can find in this building. Now, back to our questions-"
Anya stood up, slamming the table and pointing at him.
"You're lying!" she exclaimed. "My dog told me so!"
"Your dog?" the Inspector yelled in disbelief. "Are you trying to make a fool of me? I'm warning you, Missy, I don't just have the power to reduce your sentence! I can make it infinitely worse!"
A monstrous growl filled the air just then, followed by the screams of a dozen men and the sounds of their gunfire. Inspector Rosenthal stood up, eyes glued to the door, incomprehension filling his mind. Could this little brat actually be telling the truth?
How could she have known? The plan was foolproof! He and his accomplices made sure to plant the bomb in the parliament building in the gap between guard shifts! Even the code to deactivate the bomb, 0732, was kept from everyone but himself and his fellow ringleaders!
"Heh. Thanks for telling me everything I wanted to know."
He looked back at the spy, her face full of smugness once more. Her hand was balled into a fist, her arm sprung back and ready to strike. She took one look at the guard by the entrance, whose eyes were fixated on the commotion outside.
"Killer…" Despite raising his hands to protect himself, Rosenthal knew it'd be too late as her fist flew in slow motion towards his face. All he could do was grimace in anticipation. "...Punch!"
Rosenthal flew across the room and into a nearby garbage can. The world blurred as his eyes began to water and, within five seconds, he was crying like a baby. The guard looked over and raised his gun to fire when the door slammed open, revealing a growling Great Pyrenees in a bulletproof vest standing in front. In its mouth was a pistol, which it tossed towards the spy, who caught it with deft precision.
"Thanks, Quartermaster Bond!"
With several pulls of the trigger, the guard was on the floor, unconscious. The tears hadn't abated and only intensified as Rosenthal backed up against the wall of the room.
"Please, don't kill me!" he begged. "Ms. Forger, I promise I'll keep your secret safe!"
The spy smirked again before reaching for her neck. With one smooth motion, she pulled off her face, revealing none other than… Becky Blackbell? The daughter of the number one arms manufacturer in the East? With a smile, she pointed her pistol at his forehead and squeezed the trigger once more.
"Not bad," the spy remarked as she inspected her gun. "I've got two out of eight non-lethal bullets left in my pistol."
Anya chuckled as she pulled off the mask which perfectly replicated her best friend's face. "No one will suspect me to actually be Anya Forger now."
"Borf!" Bond barked as Anya stroked his head.
"I know, Bond," Anya replied, "but we can't go home to Papa and Mama just yet. We've got a bomb to defuse and world peace to save! Let's go!"
And with a start, Starlight, the world's greatest spy, and her faithful companion Bond were off to save the world once more.