“Zamyr,” he answered. He was sure his name would show up in registration, although Nik didn’t give him much direction.
The secretary looked up from the computer. “Full name?”
“Zamyr Jason Sylaj.”
She typed some things on the keyboard, then pushed away from the desk to grab the phone. She dialed a number and lifted it to her ear. After a few seconds, she began a conversation. “Zamyr Sylaj is here at the front. Yes. One moment.” She cupped her hand over the phone and turned to Zamyr. “Where did you come here from?”
“St. Mary’s Quay in the Isles of Sicily,” Zamyr answered .
The secretary put the phone to her ear. “St. Mary’s Quay? Foreign. Very good. I’m not sure. Alright.” The secretary hung up the phone and moved closer to the desk. She pulled out a sticky note pad and a pen and wrote something down. “This is your room. The door is unlocked, and one of your friends has the key.” She pulled the sticky note off the pad and handed it to him, then got back to work.
Zamyr looked down at the sticky note, then headed towards his room.
*******************
“You have got to be kidding me,” Jake said, almost in shock.
“Nope,” Caitlin said with a grin, walking up to him. Behind her trailed three agents. Female agents.
“Something wrong?” Erica Durham asked, popping a hip and glancing at Caitlin before staring at Jake dead in the eyes.
“Um, well…” Jake began. He wasn’t sure how to respond. He had really hoped he wouldn’t have to stress about any girls or their…girly things. He thought it would be cool just for once to hang with some guys and do whatever guys do together, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen.
“So…Miami, right? Cool,” Halee Porter said, obviously trying to conceal her excitement.
Geneal Whetton took one look at Jake and realization spread across her face. “Actually, Caitlin…” she started. She looked around, thinking. “I have…something I have to do.”
Caitlin became sad. “Aw, what is it?”
Geneal shot a desperate glance in Erica’s direction, but Erica just stared back at her and shrugged. “Well, nothing really. Just…personal business,” Geneal answered. She gave Jake a sympathetic look, then turned and walked the other way.
“Well then,” Caitlin said, clearly disappointed. “Guess it’s two agents I’m looking for now instead of one.”
“We should get some guys,” Erica said flatly.
“Okay,” Caitlin agreed. She thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “I know just who to ask!” she exclaimed, pushing Erica and Halee forward past Jake.
Jake stood still for a few seconds, getting over the shock that still resided with him. He took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers and thumb. Why did he feel like this mission was going to end up in a headache?
******************
“I am not concerned,” the Administrator answered simply. Xarissa’s face twisted into a confused, shocked, and concerned expression. The chief glanced at her and added, “Jace is an agent just like the rest of you. Laura has been on missions you didn’t know about.”
“I trust Laura much more than I trust Jace,” Xarissa defended.
“Do you?” Adm. Taylor questioned, raising his eyebrows. Xarissa’s mouth dropped open, aghast that he would even ask such a question. “Did you forget what happened last mission?” he asked. Xarissa closed her mouth, remembering. “I’m not trying to be hard on you. What happened wasn’t entirely your fault,” the Chief Administrator Taylor said gently. “I understand your preconceived ideas about Jace, but he has a right to his own life. If you want to know where he is, I am not the person to tell you.”
“Okay,” Xarissa replied, turning and heading out the door. Where was Caitlin? She said she wouldn’t be gone long, but Xarissa had waited fifteen minutes for her before deciding she wasn’t coming and going into the Administrator’s office alone. As she opened the door to head outside, she noticed Jake coming in from the other direction and held the door open for him.
“Have you seen Caitlin?” Jake asked.
“Actually, no. I was just looking for her,” Xarissa responded. “Why?”
“She was helping me look for agents for my next mission,” Jake said. His words were tense, as if he was upset and didn’t really mean what he was saying.
Xarissa let go of the door. It closed, cutting her off from Jake. Cailtin was recruiting agents and she hadn’t even thought to ask Xarissa? They had been friends for a while, and Xarissa wasn’t busy, so it didn’t make any sense for Caitlin not to ask her, unless she was avoiding her for some reason. Was Caitlin mad at her, or was there some other reason why she didn’t want Xarissa coming along? Xarissa had to find out before Caitlin and the others left. She swung the door back open and spotted Jake just as he was stepping through the door at the front office and leaving the school in the direction of the Mesa Arts Center. She ran after him, figuring he knew where Caitlin was more than she did.
******************
"So, what are you doing this weekend?" Jacob Johnson asked Tyler Carlsen as he screwed in a bolt on the plane that they were building.
"Oh, the usual, nothing." Tyler responded. He slammed his welding mask over his face, then started welding the plane.
"Why do you think we never go on missions?" Jacob asked.
Tyler stopped welding, lifted his mask, and replied, "Because we build the planes and we're awesome at it."
Jacob nodded, "True, but we never see any action."
"Neither do the tech geeks who design this stuff." Tyler responded.
"Do you ever wish that you could go out in the field?" Jacob questioned.
"All the time." Tyler returned to wielding.
"Tyler! Jacob!"
Jacob looked up to see Caitlin West running up to them.
"How may I serve you, Agent West? Would you like another plane to crash?" Jacob joked.
"That was not me, that was Sarah and Xarissa." Caitlin responded.
"What do you need?" Tyler asked, standing up and taking his mask off.
"I was wondering if you two would like to go on a mission with my brother." Caitlin stated.
"Hmm, I need to think about this." Jacob joked.
"Sure, how would we be able to help Jake out in the field?" Tyler asked.
"Your engineering skills and fighting skills would be appreciated." Caitlin replied.
"Yay! A mission with the grumpy Jake West!" Jacob raised his arms in mock celebration.
"Great! He'll be so happy!" And with that, Caitlin turned around and walked briskly out of the airfield.
"Well, you got your wish." Tyler commented.
"What are you talking about, you got your wish." Jacob responded. Tyler rolled his eyes.
********************
Zamyr opened the door and peeked inside. The room was oddly dark. He opened the door a little more and stepped through, just as someone grabbed his arm and dragged him inside. He heard the door close, then he was flung onto the ground by his wrist. The lights turned on, and he found himself staring up at Nik. But it wasn’t her. This girl had long hair and wore a purple top and dark jeans.
“You’re kidding me,” the girl who looked like Nik said agitatedly. “This is the other HIA agent?” She moved away from him and sat down on a couch.
“Why didn’t you knock?” a male voice asked. Zamyr sat up to see a small-built yet toned blonde guy standing next to the couch the girl had sat in. Zamyr looked around to see more people in the room. There was a girl with really long cadmium-red hair, smoky eye-shadow, green eyes, a right nose ring, and a lip ring in the middle of her bottom lip. Another girl had ombre hair that was strawberry-blonde on top and faded into a really light blonde at the tips. She smiled at Zamyr as their eyes met, but he found her stormy gray eyes to be slightly menacing. There was an Asian kid with a soft face and medium-length hair that swept across his face, just above his eyes. Another kid looked European Indian, and he had parted hair and straight eyebrows. Sitting next to him was a Latina girl with chocolate brown hair and golden-brown eyes. Lastly, there was a powerfully built African-American guy with military-length black hair and a square jaw.
“I’m Malorie,” the blonde said, the smile still present on her lips. “I’m Swedish and I’m from an agency called the EETL, the European Embassy of Teenage Legacy.” She looked around in expectation. Everyone stared back until the Indian kid cleared his throat.
“I’m Agnihamsa, and I’m from the SACLA, South Asian Children of Light Agency,” he introduced.
“We just call him Soul,” the African-American guy added. “My name’s Vance, and I used to be a double agent of the SIASS, co-op with the SAVE.”
“What’s the SAVE?” Zamyr asked after a moment of silence.
“Where do you think you are now, kid?” the girl who looked like Nik said.
“Um…” Zamyr began, unsure of what to say.
Soul cussed out loud. “This kid doesn’t know a single thing about this operation, does he?”
“You were no better yesterday,” the Latina girl said, flipping her hair back to look at him.
“The SAVE is the Secret Association of Viktor Executives,” Malorie explained to Zamyr with a wink. “Viktor’s the guy who started the gig long ago.” She seemed nice, but something about her scared him. He couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Anyway, I’m Jasmín,” the Latina girl said. “Last names are unimportant; only Ren knows everyone. I’m from the GB double A, or the Guerrilla Band Army Agency. The GBAA was part of the SIASS until the insurrection that separated us from those careless assassins. Now we work with the SAVE, all loyal; so don’t go thinking I’m a red agent or anything.” Zamyr had gotten kind of lost in the sound of her voice with the beautiful accent, but her steely tone brought him back. He returned her glare with a look of understanding.
“Nobody’s saying you’re disloyal, Jasmín,” the blonde guy said with an air of authority. Everyone else was quiet until the girl with the red hair and piercings spoke up.
“I’m Ashlee, and before this I did full-time work with the FBIT, the Federal Bureau of Investigation for Teens,” she said. “Half the agents there did it part-time. Hey, I think I know of an agent from the HIA…someone named Laura.”
Zamyr straightened up, suddenly extremely focused and attentive. “I think I know her. What’s her last name?”
Ashlee grinned. “Ooh, why so interested?” She laughed. “I don’t remember her last name, but everyone knew her. Not only was she one of the best agents we had, but she was also the only female Danish agent there.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me about this!” Zamyr said, aghast.
“Oh my gosh, don’t tell me you’re…” Ashlee began. She gasped.
“What?” Zamyr asked. He looked around the room, thinking it odd they were talking about an agent no one else knew. But nobody seemed to want to interrupt, even the blonde guy, who seemed to be their leader.
“Are you…Jace?” Ashlee asked, her eyes bulging. “The kid Laura kept going on about?”
“What?” Jace asked, surprised out of his wits that she knew him. “What did she say about me?”
“Oh my gosh,” Ashlee said at the same time three other people in the room said “What?”
“Okay, enough about…whatever this is,” the blonde guy said. “I’m Ren, and I’ll be leading the group, for the most part. Zamyr, since you weren’t here before, I’ll give you a brief summary of the plan. We’ll be traveling to a different part of Norway and joining up with the SSAWPS, acting as agents of a corporation known as the ESCA, or the Elite Society of Combined Agencies, which is working with the SAGUB. There, we will assist the DANE agency in escaping and destroy as much of the SSAWPS as possible.”
“Here’s a gift from the GCA,” the girl who looked like Nik said, tossing a tiny disk to Zamyr. “Malorie can show you how it works. You will want to choose an accent close to yours that is easy to fake. If you continue to talk in your normal American cover-up of that Albanian accent, someone will discover you.”
“Are you from the GCA?” Zamyr asked.
She glared back at him. “The name’s Petra. Yes I’m Nikita’s twin, so you can stop staring at me like that.”
“Nikita?” Zamyr questioned confused.
“Nik,” Petra corrected herself. “You know her as Niko, from the CGG.”
“What?” Zamyr asked, not quite following.
“Yah, that agent of the gang that never misses a shot? That’s my sis.” Her words should have been proud, but her tone held an air of anger and annoyance.
“Niko’s a girl?” Zamyr asked, bewildered. All this time working with the Chrys Ghoad Gang, he never even knew that an agent working so close with him wasn’t even a guy, like he had originally thought. He couldn’t believe he never noticed. Then again, he hadn’t been around Niko much until the very end of his work with the CGG.
“Anyway, you will need to change your name as well. People know you too well in the SIASS, or anywhere for that matter,” Petra instructed.
“People know me?”
“Dude, you’re no secret,” Soul said, scooting to the edge of his seat. “Is it true they forced you to kill your own dad in order to test your loyalty to the gang?”
Zamyr’s mouth hung open, speechless.
“No way,” Ashlee countered. “He wouldn’t do that.” She looked at Zamyr. “Would you?”
A knock on the door distracted the group, saving Zamyr from the awkward situation. “That’s Nik,” Petra said, standing. She opened the door for her sister, who stepped inside and moved towards a chair in the room. Petra closed the door, turned to the group, and folded her arms. “Looks like we’re waiting for Rian, once again.”
“Where’s Samantha?” Ashlee asked.
“She’s not coming,” Ren answered quickly.
“What do you mean?” Jasmín inquired.
“Sam’s dead,” Ren replied flatly.
The entire room was enveloped in an unnatural silence, and Zamyr began to feel the pressure of the quiet. He didn’t know who Sam was, but he wasn’t about to ask.
“How do you know?” Ashlee questioned quietly.
“She was caught in a drive-by shooting after a bomb went off in a jewelry store. The two misfortunate events resulted in wounds that were too great to heal. She died in a hospital in Oslo,” Ren explained.
“Were you there?” Nikita asked, her voice tense.
“No, but I trust my sources,” he responded.
“Don’t you think we should at least let someone at the HIA know, then?” Nikita’s eyes flashed with anger but held the weight of a buried sadness. “Maybe her friends or family?”
“Any information sent to the HIA at this time would be a danger to our mission,” Ren replied. He stared at the carpet, unmoving, and his face showed no signs of emotion.
“Your mission, Warren?!” Nikita almost shouted, standing. She paused, taking a breath, then said through her teeth, “Nothing is ever more important than a mission, isn’t it? Someone dies, a good agent, and you barely even bat an eyelash.”
“Don’t accuse me of not caring, Nikita,” Ren said, looking up. His eyes revealed nothing, but there was sincerity in his voice. “Sam was one of the best friends you could ask for. An extremely good agent and a great friend to everyone. We aren’t the only ones who will be devastated by this loss, but we cannot let our emotions get the best of us. What she fought for, what she did, was for us. All of us. And believe me when I say her death will not be in vain.”
Nikita sat back down on the chair. The room was quiet for a long time before Petra spoke.
“Zamyr, did you decide upon something?” she asked expectantly.
Zamyr looked around the room at everyone staring at him. “My name’s Emilian Funar,” he introduced in a Romanian accent. “And I’m part of the ESCA.”
********************