Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hello, Michael,” said the man in Mike Brezinski’s living room. “My name is Cyrus Hale. I work for the CIA.”

There were a few things wrong with this. 

Number one, which Mike felt was most important, was that there was a stranger in his living room. He didn’t know who the man was—he looked old , probably in his seventies, and he didn’t know any seventy-year-olds. Well, he knew a few, but he’d never seen this man taking an afternoon walk around the neighborhood. 

He was wearing a Hawaiian t-shirt and what Mike had to assume were decades-old gym shorts. His sneakers also seemed to be ancient. His body looked just as old as his clothes; he had gray hair, with the sides edging into white, and there were wrinkles around his eyes that screamed cranky old man. He wouldn’t have seemed threatening at all if it weren’t for two distinct aspects of his appearance: a fading scar that ran from his jugular to the back left side of his neck, and his eyes. They were piercing, icy blue. Mike didn’t look at them for long. He felt that if he did, he’d either be sucked into them or be disintegrated by them. Both seemed plausible, honestly. 

Number two on the list of “things wrong with this situation” was far less important, but Mike still felt strongly about it. 

“You’re looking through my mom’s photo album,” Mike said. 

This seemed to catch Cyrus Hale off guard. But only for a second, because he immediately narrowed his eyes, brows furrowing. 

“A man has just broken into your home and you’re worried about a picture book?”

“Photo album,” Mike said, as if he was on autopilot. He was usually so good with comebacks—it was the reason nobody messed with him at school. That, and the fact that he could best around half of the school in a fistfight if he put his heart in it. This moment was not a prime example of his comeback skills. 

“Photo album,” the man said. “Okay then.” He grumbled something under his breath, but Mike’s ears were rushing with blood, so he couldn’t really hear. 

What’s he doing here? What does he want? Is he really from the CIA? Am I going to jail?

“For the record, I don’t know why they chose you,” Cyrus said. “At least, I don’t know why they aren’t waiting a couple of months to take you in. Seems tactless to me, but what do I know.” Mike’s train of thought derailed. 

“Ah—huh? They? Who—they chose me? For what?” Definitely not his best work, but this wasn’t exactly what he was used to. Middle school bullies? Perfect. Elderly CIA agents? Not really. 

“They chose you to join us,” Cyrus said. “You’ve been recruited, Michael.”

Now, Mike wasn’t a stranger to fantasies of being whisked away to join secret organizations, fighting crime and all that. But this was absurd. And probably a joke. It was a joke, right?

“…recruited? To—to join the CIA?” Mike knew he sounded half his age, but honestly, could you blame him? “Why?”

Cyrus rolled his eyes, as if this was the most obvious answer in the world. “One, you’re not joining the CIA proper.” He stood up, shut the photo album (which had been opened to an embarrassing picture of Mike at a Christmas party—not a great one, he had to say), and walked over to the kitchen. Mike followed him, in a daze. 

He opened the fridge. “You’ve been recruited to join our academy of elite spies-in-training. The CIA’s own Academy of Espionage. Congrats.” He rummaged through the contents of the fridge, sounding like he couldn’t care less if he had a gun to his head. That thought led Mike to consider that he probably had had guns to his head before, and he cut the new thought off before he got stuck thinking about it for too long. 

“Academy of Espionage?” Mike echoed. “So like, a spy school?”

Cyrus sighed, a big, loud sigh that signaled exasperation. “Yes, a spy school. Two, a spot opened up. You were next in line.”

Mike was at once filled with wonder and excitement and fear and dread. The first because he’d always filled his playground days with make-believe spy missions, defusing bombs and saving the world. This was literally a dream come true—and he was first in line on the waitlist! They really thought that highly of him? They considered him a good candidate?

The second was because of Cyrus’s choice of words. 

“How’d a spot open up?” Mike asked, quietly. 

Cyrus didn’t say anything for a second. He grabbed a soda can from the fridge, slammed it shut, and made his way out of the kitchen. As he passed by Mike, he said: “A student was incapacitated. You’re lucky.”

Cyrus sat back down on the couch, opening the can. It fizzed onto his shirt. He grumbled about it, wiped it off with his free hand, and took a swig. 

“Oh,” Mike said, following him back into the living room. “That’s…”

“That’s none of your concern,” Cyrus said. “What you have to worry about is the fact that you have no decent school attire.” He shook his head, and from what Mike had seen of other old people, the shake roughly translated into ugh, kids these days.

Mike momentarily forgot about the incapacitated student. “You—you went through my closet?” If the man had gone through his closet, it meant he’d also gone through Mike’s bedroom, and probably his parents’ bedroom too, and every room in the house, and Mike felt like he was going to be sick. 

“You’re quick,” Cyrus said. “I’ll give you that. You know, the admissions team say you just coast through the easy classes. You could easily be the top student in the school, but you chose algebra instead. I guess the extra brainpower had to go somewhere.” He took another sip. “I went through your bedroom—nothing. No decent clothes, no weapons. Not a single gun or grenade.”

“I don’t think it’s normal for kids to have grenades,” Mike said. 

“I’m sure it’s abnormal for the students of Robert E. Lee Junior High to have weapons, Michael,” Cyrus set the can down on the table, “but you’re no longer a member of that school. You should be prepared.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife that looked like it’d been jacked up on steroids. He tossed it to Mike, who caught it reflexively.

“I’ll give that to you, too.” Mike thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile on Cyrus’s lips, but it disappeared before it could fully form. 

Wait. 

“What do you mean I’m no longer a member of that school? I never agreed to go to your—your spy school.” Mike glanced at the tool in his hands. I never agreed, but…

“You haven’t officially dropped out yet, but we can easily arrange that. You know you’re going to accept, Michael.” Cyrus leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m just waiting for you to say it.”

It was at that moment that Mike realized that Cyrus really was a spy. He’d known it, obviously—Cyrus had told him outright. But then, he fully accepted it in his mind. The man on my couch is a spy, and I’m going to be just like him.

Oh.

That was it, then.

“You’re going to be joining in the middle of the year,” Cyrus said, not waiting for Mike to say anything. “Because of the… predicament, obviously. I know you won’t screw anything up too bad. If you screw up even a little, you’ll be expelled faster than you can comprehend.” 

That wasn’t very reassuring, but Mike didn’t expect this crotchety old man to be reassuring. (His own grandfather was one of the warmest, friendliest people Mike ever knew, but Cyrus didn’t act like his grandfather. It was like ice ran through his veins.)

“I won’t,” Mike said. 

“Good,” Cyrus said. “Because if you screw up more than a little bit, you’ll be in the same boat as the kid whose spot you’re taking.”

Okay, he could try to be at least a tiny bit reassuring. It wouldn’t hurt, you know?

Mike was a second from asking what happened to the kid—morbid curiosity and all that—when Cyrus waved his hand in his face. “No. No more questions. You don’t need to ask them, I don’t want to answer them.” Okay. Rude, but whatever. 

Cyrus glanced at the door, which was still ajar from Mike’s entrance a few minutes prior. He hadn’t closed it. Mike guessed that the shock from seeing an elderly stranger sitting on his couch had something to do with it. “We need to go soon. You can write a note to your parents if you want. Or call them. I’d prefer if you called them. Saves time.”

“We’re going now?” Mike asked. “Now now?”

Cyrus gave Mike a look that said of course, you idiot, but what Cyrus actually said was: “Obviously, you idiot.” His shoulders tensed. “No, sorry, I’m not calling you an idiot.” He muttered something else under his breath. Mike got the impression that he slapped himself under his breath a lot, which really clashed with his whole intense-superspy thing. He didn’t know much about actual spies, though—maybe that was a quirk they all shared. 

“I guess we’re going now,” Mike said under his breath. If they were all like that, might as well get a head start. 

“You don’t have to pack for yourself,” Cyrus said. “The Academy will do all that for you. No, I’ll do all that for you, but who cares about semantics,” he added. He started for the door.

“Wait! You’re not gonna tell my parents?” If Mike were any less in control of his body, he’d be wildly flailing his arms around. “We have to—they have to know, surely?”

Cyrus scoffed. “Your parents, upon your acceptance, will receive a notification that you have been sent, by your former middle school, on a day trip to St. Smithens’ Science Academy for Boys and Girls. You will come back, tell them you love the campus, and then they’ll cry and say they’re so proud, and we’ll be on our way.” 

It was the way he said it that had Mike completely believing his words, and imagining himself doing everything that had been said. He was a master of his craft. Unfortunately, Mike was still a teenager, and he was not a master of his own craft. Which was why he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out:

“Am I gonna learn how to defuse bombs and escape shark tanks?” 

Cyrus turned. He really did look like he’d been caught off guard this time. “What?”

Mike felt his face turn hot. “I just—I had to know. It’s in the movies, and I’m kind of accepting this thing based on the movies.”

Cyrus stared into Mike’s eyes for one, two, three seconds before turning back to the door. “Defusing bombs, yes. Shark tanks, it depends.”

It went against everything his instincts were telling him about this situation, but Mike felt himself smiling. That’s so cool. Deadly, but cool. “What does it depend on,” Mike asked, following Cyrus out the door, “the shark tanks?”

Cyrus didn’t look back. He continued walking towards the street. “It depends on how badly you flunk your classes. Good agents won’t get caught in shark tanks in the first place.” 

He reached the sidewalk, hooked a left, and left Mike standing there.

Now, Mike knew he had a chance to walk away. He’d deduced that much—Cyrus had assumed he’d say yes, but he hadn’t asked for anything concrete. Not even verbal confirmation. All he’d done thus far was tell Cyrus he wouldn’t screw up, and if you twisted that a certain way, you could make the argument that “I won’t screw up” meant “I won’t join your insane school for spies where a kid probably died”. This was his last chance—to walk back into his house, close the door, and wait for his parents to return. To forget all of this had happened. 

He could go back to his normal life. To Robert E. Lee Junior High, to bullies who’d been held back two years in a row, to his best friend who would definitely be jealous that he hadn’t been recruited by a totally real school for spies. Mike had this chance. 

It was at that moment that he made the worst decision of his life—and followed Cyrus down the road. 

Chapter Text

St. Smithens’ Science Academy for Boys and Girls was a very selective school, only accepting the very best and brightest students for its new class every year. It also wasn’t a very productive school, because to everyone on the outside, none of its students ever graduated to become something greater. They simply graduated and disappeared from the public conscience.

That may have been a problem for other schools, where the notoriety of their alumni was paramount to the amount of funding they received. Fortunately for St. Smithens’, it didn’t rely on its graduates for funding. 

It, in great contrast to the rest of the country, relied on how well its graduates kept the world from exploding.

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly what Cyrus had said when he’d explained the whole Science Academy cover, but that was what Mike got out of it. As long as the spies that came out of the school were… good, then the CIA, and the U.S. government itself, would keep the program going. 

Mike assumed that if the spies were less than good, then there wouldn’t be a government left to fund the school. On account of all the exploding.

Cyrus had told him this in the car—Mike assumed that because he was one of the CIA’s most prominent spies, he’d have something fancy, with tons of gadgets and just… things. 

The car did not have those things. It barely functioned as it was. It was a beat-up SUV, the paint on one door scratched (from what Cyrus said was a spy related drive-by), the hinges on another nearly broken (again, spy related), and the windows rattled (did it need saying?). 

“What’s wrong with it?” Mike had asked when he first saw it. Cyrus had parked it at the edge of his street, tucked between a tree and a tipped over garbage can. 

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Cyrus said defensively. “She’s been loyal for decades.” 

Two things: Cyrus was one of those guys that called his cars she, and this car was, in fact, as old as Mike had assumed. 

“What about the—you know, the bombs and missiles and… stuff?” Mike didn’t understand how a car like that could possibly be fit for any spying mission.

”Those things don’t need to be built into a car,” Cyrus said, wrenching the driver’s side door open. “In fact, they shouldn’t be. It’s impractical and dangerous and the only people who put them there are grade-A idiots.” He got in, shutting the door with a slam that was much louder than it should have been.

Mike sighed. Okay, not as glamorous as he’d thought, but that was obviously going to happen. Nothing about real life was like the movies. He had to get that through his head. He grabbed the passenger door’s handle and pulled. 

It didn’t move. He pulled again, then hard—nothing. Cyrus rolled his eyes from inside the SUV. “Push, then pull, got it?”

Mike pushed, then pulled, and the door opened with a click. Somehow, Mike felt that this wasn’t the most efficient way to have your doors open. Especially when those doors probably needed to be opened quickly. You know, when you were running from enemies.

Maybe that was just movie stuff again, though. He was just the (almost) student, after all. Cyrus was the expert.

He climbed in, shut the door, and clicked his seatbelt on. Cyrus immediately started the car and swerved out onto the street, clearly disregarding all safety rules. 

“A few things you need to know about the Academy,” he said without taking his eyes off the road.

And then he went into a long spiel about St. Smithens’, funding, the government exploding, and so on. That conversation took them all the way to the school’s gates. They were cracked open by a duo of guards who looked like they’d rather be anywhere other than guarding a gate in the middle of winter, and the car squeezed through.

Mike finally saw the school he’d spend the next few years at—and, to his dismay, it was ugly. 

“Does it all have to be… concrete?” Mike asked. 

“It’s effective,” Cyrus said. “No need to be flashy. We’re trying to blend in, not stand out.”

”You’re standing out by being the ugliest school possible,” Mike said. “This place would rank, like, number one. That’s standing out.”

”Shut up,” Cyrus said.

”No, I’m serious, you see it, right? The thing should be average, not a travesty for the eyes. A few red bricks couldn’t h—“

Cyrus put his hand on Mike’s chest—not a shove or a slap, but more of a listen to me. “I said shut up. Something’s wrong.”

There were few times in Mikes life that he could accurately describe his stomach as having dropped. This was one of those times.

”Wh—“

Cyrus put his other hand on the wheel again. “You need to go. Now.”

Mike gulped.

”When I tell you go, you’re going to run,” Cyrus said, scanning the area. It was nothing but bare trees and snow capped buildings. There was even a crust of snow over the ground—it had hardened, from what Mike could tell. There was nothing that Mike could see that would equal wrong. 

That was the difference between him and Cyrus, wasn’t it?

”Where?” Mike said, barely over a whisper.

Cyrus nodded in the general direction of a building that looked much bigger than the rest. “That one. Library, administration. You can hide there.”

There was something in Cyrus’s voice that Mike picked up on—something that made him feel more uneasy about his advice. Hide. He wanted Mike to hide. But…

”Open the door,” Cyrus said. He lifted his hands off the wheel and rummaged through the glove compartment. 

Mike opened it—pull, push—and it opened with a click that was loud before, but seemed like a bomb going off now. It echoed through the quad, and made Mike wince.

”One,” Cyrus said. “Two.”

Are we lifting off the surface of the Earth of something? It’s just enemies—just enemies? What are you talking about?!

”Go!”

Mike felt himself move before his brain could catch up, and in the split second between him exiting the car and booking it to the library building, he saw a glint of metal in Cyrus’s hands. A gun.

Well, at least he was prepared. 

His feet hit the pavement—the snow, really—and he was gone, not bothering to shut the door behind him. This felt natural, the running; he could have made the school’s track team if it didn’t interfere with his other arrangements. Those arrangements being: a bunch of other sports and extracurriculars. He didn’t apply himself in school, Cyrus said, but he never said anything about applying himself elsewhere. 

You think a lot when you’re scared, Mike thought. You should probably fix that. 

He saw the building getting closer—every other building on campus surrounded it, as if it was the command center. Beyond the (ugly, did he mention?) buildings was a swath of forest that looked much more beautiful than whatever the architects of the school had been thinking. His shoes crunched on the snow, so loud that he almost didn’t hear the gunshots.

Ah. Gunshots. 

It was the first time Mike had heard real, honest-to-God gunshots. He didn’t dare slow down or look back, but from the sound of it, they were coming from behind him. Is Cyrus fighting back? 

He reached the front of the building and pushed open its huge oak doors just enough to squeeze through. He closed the doors behind himself just in case, and then everything was quiet. Apparently, the doors were thick enough to completely muffle the sounds of gunfire. Now all Mike could hear was his own heavy breathing. 

It was freaky, to be honest. 

He took a look around the chamber he’d entered. It was small—only a doorway, or an oversized threshold. In front of the oak doors was another set of doors, this time made of see-through glass. Beyond those was an expansive library, with a spiral staircase towards the back that Mike assumed led to the administration Cyrus had mentioned. 

You have to keep going. You know, if you don’t want to get shot. 

Mike took a deep breath and pushed through the second set of doors. He walked into the library, conscious that every step he took echoed. Like a bomb. Seriously, he’d never  noticed how loud everything was before. 

The library was, as he’d seen, massive. Bookshelves lined the walls, and in the center of the bottom floor was a section of wooden desks that looked like they’d been commissioned in the 1800s. They probably had. The entire room had a distinct smell—like old paper and…

Orchids?

A hand went over Mike’s mouth, and then there was one on his shoulder, and suddenly he was being pulled backward behind a bookshelf. He would’ve shouted or done something had the hands not been freakishly strong and he’d not been freaking terrified. 

A voice came from behind. It whispered: “I’m sorry, I’m on your side!” The hands released him, and Mike whirled around.

It was at that point that he realized a few things. One, the voice belonged to a girl. Two, the hands belonged to the same girl. Three, the girl was on his side. Four, the girl was very pretty. 

That last part didn’t matter nearly as much as the others, but his brain still registered it. 

The girl was probably his age—maybe a year older. She had black hair that was pulled back into a ponytail via a yellow scrunchie. Her eyes were icy blue—Mike thought they felt familiar—and she was wearing what looked to be a black vest-slash-jumpsuit. A white utility belt cut through the black. She didn’t look very threatening, but Mike knew from a few seconds ago that she was very, very strong. 

The strangest part about the girl, though, was that she was smiling. 

“Aah! I’m sorry if I scared you!” It was more of an apologetic smile, but still. Mike didn’t think the current situation allowed for any sort of smiling, let alone… whatever was going on now. “It’s just—we’re in kind of a tricky situation right now!”

”I’d—I’d say so!” Mike whisper-yelled back. “Who are you—no, what’s going on?!”

The girl leaned her head out away from the bookshelf, then quickly pulled back. “Hostages, gunmen, that sort of thing. They’re in the building. We’ve got to call for help.” She pointed towards the large staircase. “Top floor is administration. We can get help—or call for it.”

Mike tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. He just waved his hands around. Hostages. Gunmen. This was a very crappy way to start his life at this school. But then, could he really have expected anything less?

A bullet flew through the bookshelf and imprinted itself into the wall an inch from Mike’s head. 

“Run!” The girl shouted, letting go of all secrecy. She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the open. Mike felt like he shouldn’t have been going away from cover, but he also didn’t feel like sitting still and waiting to be shot. So running it was. He quickened his pace, falling into step with the girl. Bullets ricocheted off of the floor, always a tiny bit from their targets. 

Mike saw that the girl was heading for the staircase. He also saw them—the gunmen, weaving through bookshelves on the opposite side of the library, sights on their guns aimed directly at the two of them. The girl bounded onto the first step, Mike with her. As they climbed the stairs, miraculously avoiding being pulverized by bullets, Mike turned to the girl. 

“Do you know how heavy the bookshelves are?”

She show any signs of surprise. She simply turned her head and gave him a quizzical look. “Why?”

”No time for questions,” Mike said, nearly stumbling when a shot almost grazed his foot. “I just need to know. Preferably now.”

The girl laughed—or scoffed, or something, Mike couldn’t tell—and said, “1,000 pounds, give or take.”

Mike nodded, more of a shake than anything else, and pointed to the landing just ahead of them. “You keep going. I have a plan.”

The girl blinked. This time, she looked surprised. “What’re you going to do?”

For the first time since he came home from school, Mike is confident. And somehow, it feels real. “Just trust me.”

She held his gaze for a second, managing to not trip over the steps, and nodded. Then they’re on the landing, and there’s a few more steps until they’re on the library’s second floor. They’re nearly level with the gunmen, and from here, Mike swears he can see their eyes. Glinting in whatever light shines through the bookshelves. Like predators meeting their prey.

The girl tapped him on the shoulder, gave him a look of reassurance—or worry, or both—and ran off towards the second staircase, which led to what Mike thinks is the administrative section of the building. Mike runs in the opposite direction. 

There are a few scenarios in which Mike has imagined he’d run headfirst into gunfire. The first being in the event of an alien invasion, where he’s humanity’s last hope and the aliens, who he’s always seen as blue in his mind, have space rifles. The second being in the event that he witnesses someone try to assassinate the President and he heroically shoves him out of the way, avoiding the bullets like he’s a ninja. 

He added another scenario to that list: in the event that his first day at a school for CIA agents is derailed by a hostage situation and he comes up with a plan to disarm the enemies. 

It was not a very well thought out plan, but he’s working under intense pressure, and there’s no time to refine the details. It takes five seconds for him to leave the landing and reach the second floor, and from then it takes ten seconds for him to sprint directly into the first bookshelf to the right. 

Mike’s vision whites out, and it feels like he’s been knocked out by a world-class boxer. But he stays standing, somehow—wavy, but standing. 

The bookshelf is another story. It creaks, then wobbles, then falls away from Mike. And then he hears a loud bang, a crash, the sound of falling books. Falling bookshelves, one after the other. They fall like dominoes, and the gunmen, who were taking cover from any counter fire from within the small corridors created by parallel shelves, are suddenly caught under the wave. Mike hears a shriek—several, actually—and the clatter of metal on the floor. 

It takes a few more seconds before his vision returns, but when it does, he can’t help but let out a sigh of relief. A line of fallen bookshelves goes from him all the way to the other end of the library. He can see a few arms poking out here and there—not dead, just a little compact—and guns scattered across the carpet. 

He turned and ran towards the staircase, in the direction the girl went. Administration. There’s a principal there, right? We can call for help. There have to be more of these guys out there. I just knocked a few out. 

The run to the top floor takes Mike’s breath away, but he cuts himself some slack because oh my God you just took out like twenty armed madmen. The library ends and the staircase becomes enclosed, and then it’s landing, floor, doors, then repeat, until he reaches the final landing. There’s a set of double doors that’s slightly ajar—the girl probably didn’t think closing them was a top priority—and he rushed through them. 

The hallway is dim and smelled dingy. It’s lined with doors that undoubtedly lead to offices, and at the end of the hallway is a slightly larger door. The plaque next to it reads Principal. In smaller letters below it, the name Lucas Crandall is engraved. Mike grabbed the doorknob and barged in. 

The room was pitch black for a split second. Then five different beams of light cut through the darkness, waving wildly until they coalesced on Mike’s face. He winced—his head still hurts!—and covered his eyes with one hand. He raised the other in panic. “Don’t shoot! I’m not the enemy!”

The lights flickered off and the room’s lights—fluorescents that really need replacing—flickered on. 

Mike lowered his hand. 

Um. 

Wait. 

“Wh—what’s going on?” Mike asked, what he’d seen not quite sinking in. 

There were five people before him, each sitting on ornate chairs that, again, look like they were taken straight out of the Civil War. Most of them had notepads and pens in hand, though one, an elderly man sitting to the left of the others, only held a flashlight. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, and the fading scar on his neck was instantly recognizable. 

“Cyrus, what’s going on?” Mike pressed. Cyrus didn’t say a word. He turned to the others—his colleagues?—and waited for them to speak. After a minute of very painful silence, one did. 

“That was a surprisingly strong performance from someone with no prior knowledge,” said a man sitting in the center. He was old. Probably older than Cyrus. He also looked like he was only a half second from falling asleep at any given time; his glasses perched precariously on his nose—even those looked ancient. “A B minus, perhaps.” Despite looking like he was going to fall apart, his words were deliberate. 

The other three nodded. Cyrus just sat there, looking annoyed that he had to do this instead of… whatever else he could be doing. 

“Sorry, what’s going on,” Mike asked again. “I really don’t know. And I’m kind of freaked out right now. Was this whole thing… a test..?”

”Yes!” A voice came from behind. Mike jolted and whirled around. It was the girl. He hadn’t even noticed she was there. “Sorry for the secrecy, but the SACSAs are really better administered when the test takers don’t know they’re taking the test. It unlocks everyone’s potential!” She sounded very happy with the results. Mike just felt very, very sweaty. 

“This was a test,” he said. “A test.” 

“Sorry for the fright, Michael,” Cyrus said, speaking up at last. “But we had an opportunity to try out a new system. You know how administrative types are. Don’t care about the students if they can test out their silly little theories.” He gave the older man a glare. 

“I don’t see the problem with this,” the man said. “The entire room agrees with me. You’re the only holdout.” He spoke in a slow, labored tone. He turned back to Mike.

”You scored surprisingly well, as we’ve previously stated,” he said. “Most students don’t score anywhere near a B minus. You should be proud.”

”Knocked a couple of guards out, though,” one of the other note takers said. “We’re gonna have to pay for that, you know.”

”I know, I know,” the man said. “But I think we really have a star here. A potential star.” He gave a crooked smile. Mike thought it looked more like a grimace. Now that the test was over and he knew he wasn’t in any mortal danger, he was getting more annoyed at the people in the room.

”I didn’t like your test very much,” he said, folding his arms. “I think I gave myself a concussion.”

The old man waved his hand dismissively. “We can get that checked. Your feedback is much appreciated.”

The girl scoffed. It wasn’t like Cyrus’s scoffs, though. This was more… lighthearted? Not old? It was different. “You haven’t taken any of my feedback into account,” she said.

The man stopped smiling. “You can go now, miss. Thank you for your help.”

The girl shrugged, gave Mike a pat on the shoulder, and left, closing the door behind her. 

“Sorry about her,” the man said. “Trixie is one of our best students, but she’s also a bit peculiar.”

Trixie. Her name is Trixie. Mike thought it suited her, somehow. “I don’t think she’s peculiar. She’s peppy, but not peculiar.” And good looking, don’t forget that. Mike internally slapped himself. He shouldn’t be thinking those things—he’d just met her! He’d just learned her name a second ago! 

“Hah,” the man said. “Well, it’s getting late, and I don’t want you to be late for your classes tomorrow. Your parents have been informed, and you will be visiting them soon, so don’t worry about all of that. For now,” he leaned back in his chair, “welcome to the Academy.”

Mike put his arms back at his sides. It was official—he was a student. A student at spy school, the Academy of Espionage. The trial-by-fire thing was a bit much, but could he really have expected less? He was annoyed (to no end) but honestly… that was probably par for the course here. He had to get used to this sort of thing if he wanted to survive here and in the real world, where things like this weren’t tests. 

B minus. It was one of the lowest grades he’d gotten lately. And it still made him proud, in a strange way. Sad for the guards whose ribs he probably broke, but proud nonetheless. The thought made Mike laugh to himself. 

I probably broke someone’s ribs on the first day of school. 

Welcome to the Academy, indeed. 

Chapter Text

To be completely fair to the school, his room wasn’t the worst place he’d ever stayed. That title would have to go to the motel that his old school’s math team had stayed in during the state-level competitions; he was pretty sure there was mold in the sheets. But Mike couldn’t say this wasn’t very far behind. 

He’d blissfully ignored the state of the room when he’d first been brought over—he was too tired, and the adrenaline had run out. All he’d wanted to do was collapse on a bed and compartmentalize whatever the hell had just happened to him. A few hours later, and an alarm he didn’t remember setting rang straight into his soul. He’d jolted awake, slapped his hand around where he thought his side table was for a minute, and let out a sigh of relief when the ringing finally stopped. 

That was when he noticed the rest of the room.

“Oh no.” It wasn’t nearly as pressing an issue as, say, believing you were under attack by enemy gunmen, but Mike thought that due to his performance in his test—the SACwhatever—they could at least spring for a better room assignment. It was on the top floor, first off. That might have been good sounding to A Few Hours Ago Mike, but Mike right now was gaping at the fact that the rooms on the top floor seemed to be divided attic space. The roof was angled—so in certain parts, he couldn’t stand up straight. He had to crouch, like a crab. 

The singular window seemed to not fit properly, because the cold winter morning air was blowing through ginormous cracks between glass and ancient brick. The bed, which Mike now realized was a WWII-era barracks cot, was lumpy and creaky. The blanket was painfully thin. There was one set of drawers, one desk, one chair, all crammed into a space that, when compared to his bedroom back home, was the size of a closet. 

Mike gave the room another look-around before giving himself one too. He was still wearing his sweaty green polo from yesterday—how was it still sweaty when the room was freezing?—and now, Mike really wanted to burn it. 

He walked over to his drawer—a long two step walk—remembering something about Cyrus bringing over clothes he thought were “appropriate” for Academy life. He yanked open the top drawer and saw most of his polo shirts, a few t-shirts, his pants… Mike still didn’t know how he felt about Cyrus shifting through his closet, but at least he’d chosen some good shirts. There was a piece of folded paper sitting on top of the clothes; Mike opened it and saw that it was a schedule. Right now, apparently, was breakfast.  He grabbed one shirt at random—another pair of pants too, and some underwear while he was at it—and a few minutes later he was out the door, looking at least a tiny bit better than he had coming in.

Mike took a breath. Time to start your new life. For real this time. 

The mess hall was very big. Certainly bigger than the cafeteria at his old school—it was scary how easy he’d shifted to calling it his old school—probably to accommodate the large student body. It ranged from twelve-year olds, the youngest first years, to eighteen-year-olds, the oldest seventh years. Seven years of kids crammed into one hall—called the mess, he’d overhead while walking over—to eat and socialize. 

The socializing happened in groups, Mike realized, and those groups had been formed in the beginning of the year. Seeing as it was now halfway through the year, he was a bit late to that. All of the students were packed into groups of two, three, four… they’d formed their cliques, and they didn’t have room for a new kid. They did turn and stare at him as he walked past, though. It was just the youngest and worst students that made it obvious, of course. Everyone else made sure to save their strange looks for when they thought he wasn’t aware. 

There was an empty table at the far end of the hall, so Mike had to walk past a couple dozen students who tried their hardest to ignore him. He sat down. I really don’t want to get up to get food. He’d seen the plates some kids had brought over to their own tables—they looked unappetizing at best, toxic at worst. Right now, he was on the verge of throwing up, and he didn’t think horrible cafeteria food would help. 

So he sat there, looking around at the other students. Most students formed groups with other kids in their year—first with first, fourth with fourth, and so on. The large difference between ages led to some funny observations. Like a duo of thirteen year olds who looked like they’d just gotten their braces off sitting a foot away from a guy who probably had to shave a full mustache off an hour ago. The chatter in the hall was timid, and every so often Mike could hear bits and pieces of conversations as they floated by. It was all did you pass Smith’s test? and they got a new kid? and do you know anything about the new kid? Most of the stuff about him was from the younger kids, Mike assumed. 

He sat there for a while, just listening, waiting for the bell to ring so he could get up, leave and head to his next class, whatever it was. He hadn’t studied his schedule yet. He’d get to that. 

That was when a student walked up to his table and sat down. 

The student—a boy who was roughly his age, maybe older—was tall and confident. He hadn’t said a single word, but Mike knew; he exuded it. Like perfume. 

“Hello,” he said. Mike shifted in his seat. 

“Hi.”

”It sucks that people are avoiding you,” he said. 

“I don’t think they’re avoiding me,” Mike said. “I’m kind of avoiding them.”

The boy gave Mike a look of understanding that made him itch. “I think they’re happy you’re avoiding them, though. Saves them the trouble. Trust me, I know.” He thrust out his hand. “Jawaharlal O’Shea. I’m a second year.”

Mike tentatively reached across the table, then shook his hand. “Mike Brezinski.” He saw a look in the boy’s eyes that said Yes, that’s right. “But I guess you already know that, huh?”

The boy—Jawaharlal—smiled, not a grin, but a half-nervous-half-assured smile. “They gave the entire student body your dossier. It’s not standard protocol, because if they did it every year, we’d be drowning in Manila folders, but they made a special exception for you.” He waved his hand, all showman-like, at you. “You must be a pretty great spy if they want everybody to know it.”

”Or maybe they just wanted people to know I was coming,” Mike said. “I really don’t think I’m that great of a—a spy.” 

“You’re selling yourself short,” Jawaharlal said. “Be confident! Confidence is everything. Well, not everything, but it’s a good fifteen percent of it.” He smiled that smile again. Mike wondered if it was his trademark or something. It was definitely him. 

“Okay,” Mike said. “I’ll be more confident.” He’d been confident during the test—whatever burst that had come in then, the same kind of thing that routinely fueled his days at home, was hiding now. Maybe it was the presence of so many other students, who had been training for a lot longer than he had. They had the right to be confident. Mike had been lucky with the bookshelf, and how was this happening now? Now, of all times, he was spiraling, and he knew for sure it had never happened before. Not this badly, anyhow. It was like Jawaharlal’s whole aura was disabling his. 

“You’ll do great here,” Jawaharlal said. “And you know what? I think you’ll do great right now!” He reached into his pocket—perfectly pressed pants, making Mike’s outfit, with his creased khakis and rumpled blue shirt, courtesy of pulling things out of his drawer quickly, look not very good—and pulled out a sheet of folded notebook paper. Perfectly folded, because of course it was. He opened it up. 

“What’s that for?” Mike asked. 

“Notes,” he said. “I was asked to take notes on your performance in the SACSAs. Intelligence courses, you know the stuff. And I just need you to answer a few questions for me, then sign—“ he pointed to an empty line on the bottom of the page, “—there. Verification. Administration has your signature to compare it with.”

Mike looked closer at the sheet of paper. The top half was full of messy scribbles on bookshelves and velocity and whatever else Jawaharlal had managed to get out of his test. The rest was empty, until you got to the line reserved for his signature. “Uh…” He tapped his fingertips on the table, a soothing rhythm. Something was… odd. He didn’t know what, but he felt it—somewhere between his lungs and his stomach. 

“You don’t have to answer my questions right now, obviously. When you’re ready.” Jawaharlal folded the paper back up, leaving it on the table directly between them. “Agents have to be courteous to each other. That’s a life lesson a few kids in here could learn.”

Mike found himself staring at the paper. He was staring at it so intently, in fact, that he failed to notice another person walking up behind Jawaharlal. 

“Hey, Jawa!” 

He recognized that voice. Mike looked up and saw Trixie, wearing a slightly modified version of her outfit from yesterday; she’d shed the utility belt and was now wearing a skirt. The entire outfit had been color shifted—it was a mishmash of pastels that somehow weren’t an affront to the eyes. Her scrunchie was now neon blue. The most different thing about her now, though, was her face. 

She wasn’t smiling. Her voice was still chipper as ever, but she was… half frowning, half… sneer? He didn’t know how to describe what was going on with her face. Mike just knew that it didn’t suit her. 

Jawaharlal—Jawa?—groaned. “Trixie,” he said. He turned to face her. “What… what’re you doing here?”

”Saving my friend,” she said. “Shoo. Go away. You can up your grade somewhere else. There’s a third year that I’ve heard is super gullible. Pick on him.” Trixie pointed away from the table. 

Jawaharlal gave her a half-hearted glare, took the paper, shoved it in his pocket, and stormed off. Trixie looked after him until he was a reasonable distance away, then sat down where he had sat. “So, Mike,” she said, “I see you met Jawa.”

”Um,” Mike said. “I guess?” 

“Intermediate Manipulation,” Trixie said, obviously seeing the confusion in Mike’s face. “They’re going through the forgery unit right now. But it’s not a forgery class, ‘cause those are reserved for third years and up. He was trying to get your signature as part of an assignment.”

Mike blinked. He should have expected this. Of course, he should have seen it coming. It was a school for spies, wasn’t it? “An assignment?”

”Get someone to sign something, slap it on something fake. Beats forging the signature yourself, if you’re an amateur.” Trixie laughed. “He was so transparent with it, though. I don’t get it. He’s usually top of the class when it comes to stuff like this. You got him starstruck.”

That made Mike feel a little better. Okay, it made him feel a lot better—he was like a celebrity! He was catching people off guard! It still stung that a guy he thought was going to be a friend turned out to be using him, but… he’d be doing the same thing, if he made it all the way. This was a learning experience. 

“You’re in Manipulation?” Mike asked. “You’re taking it, I mean?”

“Nope,” Trixie said. “Waived all of those beginner classes before I got here. It’s good—gives me time for more advanced things. Like weaponry. And fancy escapes.”

”You waived them?” Mike had only heard of waiving things when it came to waiving fees, for tests and things like that. Not for classes on how to manipulate people. And before she got here? What was she, a prodigy?

”I’m not a prodigy,” Trixie said, basically reading Mike’s mind. “I’ve just been at this for a long time.” She reached into her utility belt and pulled out a picture. It was frayed around the edges—she’d probably taken it out many times, held it more. She slid it across the table. 

Mike picked it up carefully, like it might break. It was a picture of a little girl wearing an oversized t-shirt, over which was an oversized bulletproof vest. That was… unusual. From the dark hair and blue eyes—and general facial structure—Mike could tell it was Trixie. Behind her was a man wearing the same shirt (was it a buy one get one free sale?), carrying a pistol. It looked like he was bending down to show Trixie something. 

What Mike noticed after that was the scar on his neck. 

“…are you related to Cyrus Hale?”

Trixie smiled, this one much wobblier than usual. “Yep! He taught me everything I know—though I do think he could’ve kept the weapons for my tenth birthday. I was definitely too young to learn to shoot there.” She held out her hand. Mike gave her the picture, and she tucked it back into her belt. 

“So you’re, what—your family’s… this is your family’s thing?” Mike asked. “Like, my friend back at my old school, his family ran a grocery store. Yours…”

”Mine spies on enemies both foreign and domestic,” Trixie said, as if she’d given that response many times before. “I know, I know, it’s weird, right? It took me a little getting used to.”

Mike glanced around the mess hall. How many other kids came from families like this? Did everyone else learn how to shoot targets before they could recite the alphabet? “How long?”

”About three years,” Trixie said matter-of-factly. 

“Ah,” Mike said. “So… is he your dad? He’s pretty old, for a dad.”

”Granddad,” Trixie said quickly. “Anyways, what’s your first class? I can come with you, if you want. Help you adjust.”

”How can a class be worse than the test?” Mike asked. “I think I’ll be fine.”

Mike was not fine, but if he looked deep into himself, he should have seen that coming. 

Trixie had followed him to class despite his protests, ignoring the glances of other students who were apparently awed to be in her presence. He’d had to pull out his schedule to remember what room the class was; then he spent five minutes wandering the halls as they emptied out, students filling their own classes. He was around ten minutes late to his first period when Trixie gave him a helpful pointer. 

The door was nearly knocked off its hinges, which was why Mike had been avoiding it. It didn’t seem like any classes would be held there—once again, he had to lower (higher?) his expectations for this place. Trixie opened the door, gesturing for Mike to follow her. He did. 

The classroom was more of a giant lecture hall than the small boxy rooms Mike was used to. The desks were staggered and went down, like stairs, to the front of the room. It was like an open-air arena minus the open-air part. Every desk at the back was filled, with students getting fewer and fewer as Mike looked down—the only open seats were in the very front row. Trixie skipped down to the front, again ignoring the stares of her classmates. Against his better judgment—maybe he could’ve squeezed in at the back, or hell, the middle—he followed her down. They took their seats. 

Surprisingly, the teacher wasn’t there yet. Mike didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse—they could jump out, guns blazing, with a pop quiz or a test or something. God, he needed to shake that out of his head. 

Mike opened his backpack—they’d given him one, shiny and new and a lot more old-fashioned than he would have liked—and pulled out a pencil.

Trixie gave him a weird look. “This is Torture Survival 101,” she said. “I don’t think you need a pencil.” She said it like it was obvious. 

“I just like to be prepared,” Mike said. “You’ve taken this class before, shouldn’t you know?”

”I waived this class,” Trixie said. “I didn’t take it.” She reached into her utility belt and pulled out a mechanical pencil. She set it on the desk, parallel with Mike’s. 

“Okay,” Mike said. He was about to pull out a new notebook—also courtesy of the school—when a man burst through the door. And by burst, well, Mike heard a loud crash, and when the entire class whipped their heads around, they saw that the door, which had already been pushed to the brink, on the floor. 

The man standing in the doorway would have looked like a normal teacher—literally, just a normal guy, normal hair, normal eyes, and so on—if it weren’t for one large thing. 

Namely, the fact that he was not wearing very many clothes. Or any clothes at all. All he had on was a tiny skirt-like garment tied around his waist (thank goodness). He took a look around the room, shook his head disapprovingly, and made his way to the front of the room. When he got there, he took a piece of nearly used-up chalk and wrote down on the blackboard: How To Survive A Torture Situation 101. Underneath it, he wrote Professor Wallace. 

A student a few rows behind Mike whispered, “Is he…” 

Trixie turned around. “Yep, he is. And he’s allowed. And he wants to.” She turned back around and grinned at Mike. “Having fun yet?”

Mike was not having fun. But hey, anything could happen, right?

Chapter Text

The tragic thing about Mr. Wallace’s class was that Mike probably would have enjoyed it had it not been taught by the one teacher who desperately wanted to prove he was good enough to be transferred to a different class.

The other teachers, no, they liked it just where they were. At least, that’s what Trixie had told him—they were mostly retired field agents who’d had enough with the crawling in the mud of field work and were ready to settle down. In Mike’s mind, “settling down” meant getting a house in the suburbs with like, a garden in the backyard. It did not mean training future gunslingers and cryptographers. But hey, what did he know? Always expect the unexpected. 

Wallace was definitely unexpected. Firstly, and most importantly, he was nearly naked. Not a good first impression. The other students had reacted in much of the same way as Mike had—a mix of apprehension and hey, what? Secondly, he kept gazing longingly out the windows. There were wall length windows on one side of the classroom, giving everyone on the inside a surprisingly bland view of the outdoors. To Wallace, however, it was anything but bland. 

“I get that he’s… allowed to be like that, but…” Mike tried to look anywhere but at the front of the room, “…why?”

Trixie just grinned at him. “He’s a great teacher, you know. Better than a lot of the others.” She waved at Wallace, who gave her an energetic wave back before turning to the blackboard and scribbling something Mike couldn’t see. 

“I honestly don’t see it,” Mike said. “He looks—“

”Well, he’d probably like it a lot better if he wasn’t teaching this class, but still. Good teacher.” Trixie said. 

“…crazy,” Mike said. “You’re saying a lot of things that probably make sense on their own, but right now I really need you to be clear.” He rolled the pencil over the desk. It clattered onto the floor. 

Wallace turned around—fast, faster than Mike would’ve if he was the nearly naked one—and Mike could see he’d been scrubbing a bunch of stick figures on the board. In contrast to the stick figures Mike had grown up with, these ones were harming each other in various ways that probably would’ve made him throw up if the drawings were more detailed. “Who dropped their pencil?”

Nobody spoke up, and Mike found himself thinking is there no honor in this place? as the man slowly walked towards him. He picked up the pencil and threw it on the desk in one smooth motion. “Uh. Thank you.” No, that was stupid. Don’t say that. But you already said it, idiot. Mike argued with himself for a second—it honestly felt like an eternity—before Wallace sighed.

”Silence can be the difference between the life of the country and the death of it,” he said. “You all need to learn to be silent when it counts. And that includes not dropping pencils, which would absolutely alert the enemy to your location.” He gave a pointed look to Mike.

Couldn’t he have a single nice experience? Anything? “I didn’t—okay. Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t be so harsh on him,” Trixie said. “He’s had a rough—what is it? Couple of days?” Mike nodded. “See? He’s had a rough couple of days.”

Wallace gave her an exasperated look. “That’s not an excuse,” he said. “Agents have rough years in the field, but giving in can mean death. You know that.” He turned to Mike. “But okay, I’ll cut you some slack. Today.” He walked back to the blackboard and started scribbling again. 

He wasn’t that bad, honestly. When compared to Mike’s previous teachers, at least. But this class—he’d only been here for ten minutes max!—was already starting to get to him. He was tired already. 

“He’s not being hard on you because he hates you,” Trixie said. Mike gave her a look that said are you sure? The man hadn’t said a word to the other students; the only things he’d said once he’d entered the class were words of annoyance. Towards Mike! 

“He doesn’t hate you specifically,” Trixie said. Her voice was firm. “He just hates this class, you know? He’s definitely more of an outdoorsy kind of guy. Suits and ties make him itchy.”

”He doesn’t seem to be wearing suits or ties,” Mike said. 

“Because they make him itchy,” she said, as if she were stating a universal fact, known by all in the universe except him, apparently. “He was a teacher for the Academy’s summer camp, but they booted him. Something about broken arms, I think.”

”Broken—broken arms?” Mike said. What were they doing in summer camp, death matches?

”Yep,” Trixie said, grinning. “They didn’t have any evidence that he’d caused them, and they still don’t. I think he got demoted because the students didn’t like his fashion choices.”

”So they put him in an enclosed room and didn’t make him change his clothing? Or put anything on?” Mike looked back at the board. Professor Wallace had written a few things down: next to an image of a stick figure being electrocuted he’d written the phrase This doesn’t mean you can open your mouth and spill our secrets. Under a picture of a stick figure with a broken arm—maybe it was him—he’d written This gives you an opportunity to retrain your body. 

Yeah, this guy was crazy. 

“He’s a very good agent,” Trixie said. “The fact that he’s willing to stay here to teach a bunch of kids is… well, they’re lucky. Really lucky.”

”So they’re not willing to make him dress appropriately because he’d threaten to what, quit?” Mike looked back at the board. Wallace had written a few more things. (They won’t dangle you over a vat of sharks, but are you willing to take the risk?) 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Trixie said. “Look, he’s doing pretty good for a guy who’s been teaching zip lines and ten mile runs for the past half decade.”

“Great.” Mike said. He was stuck with the wannabe PE teacher. The wannabe PE teacher who was also a wannabe Tarzan. 

“Okay, students,” Professor Wallace said, turning back to face the class. He had a mixture of annoyance and longing on his face. Annoyance at the class and longing for… a different class, probably. “Who remembers what the number one way to survive enemy torture is?”

Mike didn’t know the answer to that question. It was something stupid, he was sure—clench your muscles, or imagine you were in sunshine happy land while they stabbed you. Stuff like that. Honestly, if he was in the situation for torture, he’d…

”Michael Brezinski,” Professor Wallace said. Oh, great. “You’re new here, I see.”

Mike didn’t say anything. When Wallace didn’t say anything either, he sighed—a little bit, on the inside— and said, “Yes, I am.”

”Can you tell me what the number one way to survive enemy torture is?” He was flinging the piece of chalk around and catching it like he was a juggler. Restlessness. Mike knew the feeling. 

“I don’t know, Professor,” Mike said. “Like you said, I’m new here.”

”Can you give it a try?” His voice was also a mixture of annoyance and longing. Come on, score high on my tests so I can get out of this dump. 

“Uh,” Mike looked at Trixie, who just shrugged and gave him a smile. Not very helpful, but okay. “I’d probably… not get captured in the first place, you know? Don’t give them the opportunity to torture you, and you can survive enemy torture. Because, you know. You’re not being tortured.” Mike stopped himself before he word vomited even more.

Wallace raised his eyebrows. “Huh.” Ah, okay, he was definitely getting expelled now. Forget his somewhat high score on his SACSA, or whatever—he flunked the very first real test given to him, and now what was he going to do? Go back to old middle school? That would suck. He gave Trixie a defeated glance, then realized that she was giving him a thumbs-up.

“Good answer,” Wallace said. “Yes, the majority of surviving torture is not being tortured in the first place.” He turned to the blackboard, with its crude tortured stick figures, then back to Mike. “We don’t focus much on that in this class, but it’s important. Probably more important than what I’m teaching here,” he said, voice filling with despair. “Damn Admin, making me teach this stupid class…”

Mike was pretty sure only the people in the first few rows could hear that last part.

“Wow, you did it,” Trixie said. “Gave a good answer and made him depressed enough to do that.”

Wallace was now sitting at his desk, head in his hands, muttering something about doing so well on the next mission that they’d promote him to Director of the entire Agency. And something about getting rid of this class when he was in charge. And what he was going to eat for lunch. He was going over a lot. 

“Is he going to…”

”Nope! You knocked him out for the rest of the period,” Trixie said. “For the rest of the day, if the others are lucky.”

Mike heard people start talking in the back rows. Wallace didn’t even lift his head. Okay, then. 

He looked at the clock on the wall. It was protected by a metal cage—just what happened in this class? There were thirty minutes left in class. From the looks of it, Wallace was down for the count. All he had to do was sit here for half an hour, and he’d successfully survived his first class. 

It was a bit underwhelming. 

He’d been sitting there for a minute or two when something tapped his shoulder. He turned to Trixie, but she was busy typing away on her phone. He’d never seen her use one before. Huh. The thing tapped his shoulder again. 

This time Mike turned towards the back of the room. A student had made his way to the front row. He was… well, he was scrawny, to say the least. His hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in a week. From this close proximity, Mike could smell him. It was not a pleasant smell. (Old cheese. That was all that needed saying.) 

“Um,” Mike shifted in his seat, “hello?”

”Hi,” the student said. “You’re… pretty good at this, huh?”

”…I guess?” Mike shrugged. “If that’s what you’re choosing to believe, then yeah.”

”You’re very careless, though.” He pulled out a thick textbook titled SURVIVING TORTURE that looked like it had survived some torture of its own. “If Wallace didn’t like you, your answer would be entirely wrong. It’s the first chapter of the book…” He began flipping through pages. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike said, “but can you tell me who you are before doing that?” It seemed unfair that his own name was broadcast to the entire school, but other students got to choose if they revealed theirs. 

The kid gave Mike a sour look. “Fine,” he said, with the tone of someone who’d just been told they had a surprise dental appointment on their birthday. “I’m Warren Reeves.” 

Trixie looked up from her phone. She turned around, then frowned when she saw Warren. “Ew, what’re you doing here?”

”Hey!” Warren said. “I’m offering help to your friend, Hale.” 

“He doesn’t need help from you, Reeves,” Trixie said. “Don’t you have other people to be creepy to?”

”No!” Warren said. “I’m not creepy! Why do you keep saying I am?” He shut the book and shoved it into a bag at his feet. 

“Because every action you take constitutes as creepy,” Trixie said. 

“You two know each other?” Mike asked. 

They both said yes, though Trixie’s was one of affirmation and Warren’s was one of exasperation. “Okay, good to know. You should stop being creepy, nobody likes that,” he said to Warren. 

“I’m not creepy! I don’t creep on people!” Warren crossed his arms. “Why do you believe her so easily? She could be lying to you.”

“Eh. She doesn’t smell like old cheese,” Mike said. Warren gasped and held his arms tighter to himself. 

“I do not!” 

“Yeah, you do,” Trixie said. “Do the showers not work, or do you just not use them?”

”For your information, Hale, I shower as much is possible,” Warren said. “But they are broken, and our RA—you know. Nobody’s going to fix them.”

Trixie grimaced. “I know.”

They didn’t add anything more, which Make mike a bit more annoyed than he already was. “Uh, know what? What’s wrong with the dorms’ advisor?”

Trixie shot him a look that said not now, not here, but all Mike wanted to know was what the hell was wrong with this place. “What happened?”

“She got sick,” Warren said. “Some sort of flu? Anyway, she got hit hard, and she dropped out.”

”Why?” Mike asked. Dropped out? Because of the flu?

“She missed so much, duh,” Warren said matter-of-factly. “One of the admins came down a couple of weeks ago to tell us that she was going back to her old school.” He shook his head. “She was one of the best students here. Best at rule following, anyway.” 

“I’ve been hit with the flu before, and I didn’t drop out,” Mike said. “And that was normal school. She couldn’t have possibly missed that much. Even then, couldn’t she just… you know, catch up?”

”She couldn’t,” Trixie said. “School policy.” 

Mike scoffed. “What kind of school policy kicks a good student out because she got sick?” He saw Warren open his mouth, and said, “No, don’t tell me about some rulebook that, by the way, nobody’s told me about!”

Warren glares at him. “You shouldn’t be questioning school policy. We’re here to learn, not commit insubordination.”

”It’s not insubordination to question stupid rules,” Mike said. He could feel his face getting hot. “It’s unfair to—to… what’s her name?”

”Tina,” Trixie said. 

“It’s unfair to Tina! Who knows what good she could do, and you just—kick her out?”

”She dropped out of her own accord,” Warren said.

”You sound like a thesaurus,” Mike said. Warren glared harder. 

Trixie kicked him in the shin. 

“Ow!” Mike turned to her. “What was—that for..?” He trailed off when he saw her face.

She was giving off a perfectly appropriate expression: one of a girl who wanted her two classmates to stop fighting. She was a mixture of annoyed, exasperated, and stern. But there was something else there. Something that made Mike’s mind enter a tailspin.

Her eyes—if eyes could speak, hers would say there’s more to the story than what you’ve just heard. Concern, worry. Everything mixed in a whirl of ice blue. 

“Ah,” Mike said. “You’re, you’re right, Warren. Sorry.”

Warren didn’t sense anything wrong with Mike’s words and simply nodded in a self-satisfied way. “Of course I’m right,” he said.

Mike looked back at Trixie. She was nodding too. 

That was when the bell rang. 

I don’t care what anybody says, that wasn’t thirty minutes. Mike sighed and grabbed his backpack. The chatter in the room increased in level, and Professor Wallace lifted his head just enough to say, “Class dismissed.” Not like anybody was listening to him, anyway. 

Trixie stood up, a smile on her face. “That was fun!” Her voice was the same as it ever was. “I can’t come with you to your other classes, Mike, so I’ll see you after school?” 

The way she stared into Mike’s eyes told him the whole story. “Alright!” He said. “After school…”

”I’ll come to you,” Trixie said. “See ya!”

Then she was going up the stairs—and out the room she went. Mike felt his stomach do somersaults. What did she mean—or, what did her eyes mean? Was she saying anything at all? Or was he just overthinking things? Surely, it was better to overthink than underthink, right? 

Right. If nothing was really wrong with—what was it? Tina—Tina, the resident advisor, then she’d just tell him he’d overreacted, and everything would be alright.

Everything was alright. Of course. He just had to get his mind onto other things. 

Mike had a talent for distracting himself, and it worked wonders when all of your classes were espionage related. It was easy to lose your horrible thoughts when your first responsibility was to keep yourself from being maimed, by your teachers or yourself. (Seriously, who allowed thirteen year olds around broadswords? What kind of spies even used broadswords?)

His next class—History of American Spying—was basically American history with a few spies name dropped here and there. It was tremendously boring—he knew all of this like the back of his hand—and Mike only felt interested when the teacher (he couldn’t even remember her name) mentioned Nathan Hale. Trixie had said her family trade went way back—was he her great-something grandfather? He didn’t dare ask the teacher; it felt like something he should ask her himself.

His other classes were much of the same: boredom, then abject terror (when a bazooka is pointed at your face by a twelve year old, it’s hard to not feel abject terror), then boredom, and repeat. When the final bell rang, he felt drained.

He made the walk back to the Armistead Dorms, walked the stairs to the top floor, and entered his room unceremoniously. It had somehow been the longest day and shortest day of his life. The paradox felt fitting. 

Mike threw his backpack onto the bed and looked out his slanted window. The sun was already setting, and the quad was clearing fast. No student wanted to be out after sunset; that was just asking for hypothermia. The rooms were cold enough. 

He sighed. Tomorrow would be better. He was just getting the hang of it, that was all. 

The backpack made a loud clunk on the floor when he shoved it off. His downstairs neighbor would probably complain, but he’d wave it off with an excuse like I’m homesick and having trouble adjusting to an upper floor! That would pull at their heartstrings. 

He flopped onto the bed. It creaked under his weight, the springs threatening to push into him. I can see why they haven’t changed the beds, he thought, practically sighing in his mind. Everyone’s too tired by the time they’re in them to complain. 

He’d all but forgotten about his agreement with Trixie when he heard something tap on his window. 

Mike hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He’d been staring at the ceiling in all of its stained glory when he heard the ratatatat—it made him jolt into an upright position. 

“Augh—?” Okay, that wasn’t a very great sound to make, but he was tired. Cut him some slack. “Who’s… who’s there?”

The thing tapped on the window again, and Mike pieced things together enough to look. Nothing. There was nothing at the window. He got up, walked over, and looked it up and down—the quad was empty; though, it was too dark to see anybody if they had been there. What time was it? Too late, that’s what time it was. 

He shoved his fingers under the window—it was grimy, eugh—and shoved upward. Mike had to shove at least three times before he made any headway. It probably hadn’t been opened in years. He made one last shove, and the window made a horrible screech as it relented. “Stupid window,” he said. Someone really needed to fix this place up. 

He stuck his head out the window. He didn’t know what his goal was, really; he just wanted to make absolutely sure that there was nobody out there.

He was wrong, because something grabbed his shoulders and pulled him out of his room. His knees knocked against the wall—“Ow!—and he practically flipped over in a strange backflip motion. He landed on his back. He was so disoriented for a solid thirty seconds that he didn’t realize he was on the ceiling. At least, not until he saw the stars overhead. 

Somebody’s face came into view, blocking out the stars. It was familiar—no, it was Trixie. Mike remembered his meeting with her then, and sat up, ready to tell her that this was not what he’d imagined when she said I’ll come to you. 

“I know, I know, you technically came to me,” she said. Huh. She was either a psychic or extremely perceptive. Mike chose to believe it was the latter. 

“You could’ve just asked me to come up here,” Mike said. He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m probably going to get a concussion.”

”You won’t,” Trixie said. “And where’s the fun in that?” She swung her legs over the edge of the roof. 

“Okay, you could’ve at least been gentler,” he said. 

“That’s true,” Trixie said. “I’ll take note of that.” She grinned. 

“So what—what were you going to tell me? Why’d it have to be up here?” He vaguely remembered something about the dorms’ resident advisor—she’d gotten sick. Trixie’s grin fell. She gave him a sort of queasy look.

”Your RA—you never met her,” Trixie said. The way she said it was like she was asking him. Mike shook his head, no, I haven’t. Trixie nodded. “Right, of course you haven’t. I mean, if you were, like, a ghost hunter or something, you probably could have seen her.”

Mike shifted uncomfortably. ”What does that mean?” 

“Your RA’s name was Tina Cuevo,” Trixie said, ignoring his question. “She was a seventh year—graduating in a few months.” She looked down, eyes sweeping over the campus. 

“…was?” 

Trixie looked towards the forest at the far end of the school. “Something happened, something bad, and the next thing all of us knew was that the building the seventh year class was staying in on their trip was in pieces.” The roof was degraded and crumbling, and a piece of tile fell off, landing on the ground with an echoey crash. “The thing was, there was nobody in the building when it happened. Except her. It had been planned—the day before, she’d told a friend she felt sick, and wanted to stay back for a while. So she was going to be the only person there. And that’s when it exploded.”

Mike didn’t say anything. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to think? 

Trixie went on. “She was… incapacitated after that.” Mike had heard Cyrus say that—incapacitated—when he talked about the student who had left a spot empty. He felt his stomach twist into knots. Trixie gave him a look, and let out a little sigh. 

“Her spot wouldn’t have been yours,” she said. “They left it empty.”

”Then how am I here?” Mike asked. “I had to fill somebody’s spot, and she was—she’s gone.” Gone, exploded into a million tiny bits of person. 

“She was going to be the only person there,” Trixie said, staring straight into his eyes. She didn’t break her gaze. “She wasn’t. Another student found out that Tina was in danger, and tried to get there in time to warn her. He wasn’t quick enough.”

“And he’s…” Mike wrung his hands, “…the student I replaced?” Trixie nodded. “He’s… incapacitated too?”

Trixie looked away. She turned her gaze back to the forest. Subtly, almost imperceptibly in the faint moonlight, she shook her head. 

“No, Mike. The student you replaced is still alive.”

Chapter Text

benji

(202)—◼️◼️◼️—◼️◼️◼️◼️

How’s science school

[Delivered 4:06 A.M.]

Are you having fun

Like are you doing science yet

[Delivered 4:07 A.M.]

Hey are you awake?

[Delivered 4:10 A.M.]

I’ll call you later? If that’s alright

[Delivered 4:11 A.M.]

Okay see you

[Read 4:13 A.M.]

Mike woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing. 

He’d gone to bed at nine, but he hadn’t fallen asleep until… what, one in the morning? His mind was still racing even now—though last night, his heart had been, too. He turned over in his creaky bed and reached for his phone. The screen read 4:13. Four hours. He’d gotten four hours of sleep. 

That was probably as good as he’d get. 

Mike opened his messages. He’d gotten six, all from Ben. They were all some form of how are you and see you. 

I should answer those. 

Mike sat up and started typing. The cursor flashed for a solid minute before he realized that he didn’t know what to say—he could lie, but he didn’t want to. Why would he lie to his best friend? Ben had always been there for him, and he’d never lied. Then again, Ben hadn’t been recruited to join an elite academy for future spies. Mike had. 

Mike groaned. Just say you’re good. You can’t say anything else, anyway. Not how you’ve been shot at, or how the kid who was in your dorm room before you is in a coma because the building he was running into literally exploded. No, he couldn’t say any of that. All he could say was I’m good. 

Okay see you

[Delivered 4:13 A.M.]

I’m awake

Sorry for not seeing these earlier

(it’s really early tho so I’m not actually that sorry)

The science is fine, everyone here is a massive nerd

You don’t have to call me later btw

I’m really busy here

Thanks for asking tho

[Delivered 4:17 A.M.]

Cool

Talk to you soon then

👍

[Read 4:18 A.M.]

Mike felt like he was going to throw up, but that was probably the norm now.

 “Listen up, students,” Coach Sidebottom shouted. Nobody listened. His face reddened, and he shouted louder. “I said listen up!”

This time, around half of the class turned their heads. It wasn’t that the kids at the Academy were disrespectful to teachers or authority—it was just that Coach Sidebottom (first name Barnabus, which was just… unfortunate) wielded none of the authority necessary of a teacher. He couldn’t even reign in his own subordinates when he was a field agent team leader a few years back; that was why, according to the other students in Mike’s P.E. class, he’d been switched over to the Academy. 

Mike just thought it was sad. He got why someone who didn’t have the ability to lead a team would be demoted when the team he led was responsible for the stability of the country, but he thought demotion meant desk duty. Not… middle schooler duty. 

“We’re going to go over the—Hill, if you don’t get back here, I’m going to give you a referral to the dean!” Coach didn’t look very happy with his job. Or maybe that was just his resting face. Misery. Mike, like the rest of the class, turned to see a kid attempting to sneak into the locker rooms. He was wearing a dirty hoodie over his gym clothes—understandable, as it was literally freezing outside. The kid turned around, revealing brown hair—also messy—draped over one eye, like a weird approximation of the 2000s. He grinned in a way that said he wasn’t sorry he did it. 

“Sorry, Coach,” he said. He waltzed back into formation, which was a squiggly line of kids who also didn’t want to be out here in the cold, but not enough to sacrifice their grade. 

“Don’t let it happen again,” Coach said, and Mike knew it was going to happen again. He’d start up bets on it if he could, but he still hadn’t read the handbook enough to know if it’d get him expelled. He really had to get onto that. 

The kid had returned to line and squeezed in next to Mike. Up close, he was even messier. Compared to the other students, who dressed as if the president was watching their every move, he moved around with an air of not caring. The kid caught him looking and grinned again. 

“Hey, you’re the new guy, right?” He asked. Mike nodded. “Murray,” he said, “I’m Murray.”

He stuck out his hand. Mike almost didn’t want to touch it—what if it was sticky?—but pushed through that. He shook Murray’s hand. “Murray Hill, right? I’m Mike—you know.”

”Yeah, I know,” Murray said. “And I’ve been trying to get Sidebottom to call me by my first name, but y’know, I don’t think he’s up to it.” He looked to the front, and Mike followed his gaze. Coach Sidebottom was currently trying to get two kids to get onto what looked like an obstacle course that had been submerged in several layers of sewage. He wasn’t having much luck. 

“Yeah, no,” Mike said. 

“There’s gotta be something wrong with the teachers in this place,” Murray said, reaching into his hoodie and pulling out a half-eaten granola bar. “I mean, you’d expect it, of course. Nobody wants to teach snot-nosed kids when they could be doing something important.”

Mike felt somewhat offended at being considered unimportant, but… yeah, Murray was right. “I bet they’d be so much happier going around the world, stopping bombs from exploding and—well. That stuff.”

Murray took a bite of his bar and snickered. “Oh my God, you’re a Fleming?”

Mike knew he recognized that name somewhere—in the recesses of his mind, which were blocked off due to the sheer amount of Weird Things that had happened to him lately—but at the moment all he could think about was vomit. “I’m a what?”

Murray shoved the bar back into his front pocket. “You’re a Fleming—the kind of student that thinks they’re gonna go off to do all these crazy things. I hate to break it to you, but most of us are going to graduate and get sent to some lame city, where we’ll tail some mafia member for a month, get shot, do nothing, and then do that all over again.”

Mike ignored the sounds of Coach Sidebottom grabbing some kid by the arm and pulling him towards the obstacle course. “What’re you talking about?”

Murray rolled his eyes. “You think you’re going to be a superspy, is what I’m saying.” He grabbed Mike’s shoulder and gave him a good-natured (was it?) shake. “None of us are, Brezinski. Sorry.” He tilted his head. “Well, most of us.”

”Who’s going to, if most of us aren’t?” Mike asked. He swatted Murray’s hand away. Murray shoved both hands in the pockets of his hoodie (how much stuff was in there?). 

“Off the top of my head,” Murray made an exaggerated motion, scratching his head, “Jawa O’Shea, definitely. He’s either training to be America’s second-place James Bond or the world’s most annoying paper-pusher. If they put him behind a desk—not a bad profession, if I have anything to say about it—they’re really wasting his skills.”

Mike thought back to his conversation with Jawa from yesterday. Was it really yesterday? It seemed like so much had happened between then and now. He stopped that train of thought before he could derail his current conversation—stick to the present! Jawa had certainly acted like an overachiever. They didn’t share any classes, so Mike had no idea what his skills other than manipulation were. Maybe he was just like Murray said—America’s future…

”Second-place?” Mike asked. “We already have an American James Bond?” 

“Okay, I should have clarified,” Murray said. “Technically, Jawa would be somewhere in the late single digits.”

”That doesn’t clarify anything,” Mike said, exasperation seeping into his voice. Behind them, a student slipped off of the obstacle course and got drenched in mud and sludge. 

“You’ve met the fourth American James Bond,” Murray said. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard from everybody else.” He glanced at the scene that had just unfolded—the student was dragging themself out of the mud with a miserable look on their face—and shrugged. 

“The fourth—you mean Cyrus?” Mike asked. Cyrus Hale? Mike thought about it—well, it did make sense. From what he’d been told about the Hales, they were some sort of superspy family lineage. Which meant…

“Trixie’s the one other student who’s going to graduate and become one of those spies, then?” 

Murray grinned at him. “You got it. She’s gonna graduate top of the class and do all of that crazy stuff—nukes and bombs.”

”Nukes are bombs,” Mike said.

Murray ignored that comment. He turned his attention back to the obstacle course. A few other kids had been forced on it, and we’re getting through with varying degrees of success. Coach Sidebottom was observing the class with a look of dismay on his face. 

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Mike said. 

“Me neither,” Murray said, patting Mike on the back. “We have a couple of other classes together, right? I know we’ve got Torture Survival or whatever it’s called.”

”You’re in there with me?” Mike asked. “I didn’t see you.”

”That’s ‘cause I’m in the back,” Murray replied. “I’ll save you a seat tomorrow. It’s a lot easier to avoid Wallace’s… whatever he’s got going on if you’re in the back row.”

“Cool,” Mike said. Was he making another friend? He’d expected to make friends—it might take a while, but he wasn’t going to be the only friendless kid in this school if he had anything to do with it—but not so soon. And with… well, he wasn’t going to say Murray wasn’t his type, but… Murray wasn’t his type. Unfortunately, he made friends with nerds—case in point, Ben, and damn it he was going to have to text him again, wasn’t he? 

Mike shook his head, trying to free himself of those thoughts. He turned back to the obstacle course, letting his mind mull over that muddy monstrosity instead.

He’d be fine here. He was going to make sure of it.

Mike flopped back onto his bed. It had been a long day—but that wasn’t saying much, because every day since he’d got here was long. The minutes stretched into infinity, and he was expected to know all of the things the other students had been studying for an entire semester. It wasn’t like Mike was finding all of it extremely difficult—the logic fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle. His logic, anyway. And the weapons stuff… well, he’d get the hang of it eventually. 

Right now, all Mike wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t bother changing out of his clothes—how did you wash your stuff here? Was there a protocol he hadn’t read yet because the manual was insanely long and convoluted?—and ignored how there was a fine layer of caked mud on him. The obstacle course had been mandatory after all, and the showers in the locker rooms were horrifically useless. He’d managed to get the worst of it off, but with the showers in the dorms down too, Mike knew that the entire floor was dirty. He’d clean his stuff tomorrow. There was always tomorrow. 

Mike sighed. Spy school had been… he didn’t want to say educational, because honestly, the only things he’d learned so far were things he could have learned back at his old school. Classes in actual espionage topics seemed to be focused on application at the moment. Firing weapons, jumping off of buildings without breaking your legs, that kind of thing. The kind of activities Murray had said nobody really got to do. Everybody was destined to be a paper-pusher here. 

That stinks, Mike thought. He’d joined this academy to become that kind of spy—the suave, hyper competent, save-the-world type. He didn’t leave his friends and old school and old life just so he could spend seven years learning how to write reports.

Mike stared at a stain on the ceiling. It looked an awful lot like blood—but that was ridiculous. Nobody could be hurt here, not with the protection they had. Not with the extra protection the CIA was bound to have given the students here, after… After the kid who came before him. Trixie hadn’t told Mike his name, which really, really irritated him, but maybe it was for the best. If he knew—truly knew—then what would stop him from going down a massive rabbit hole, and eventually getting caught in the same crap the other kid had? Maybe it was for the best that he’d graduate to be a desk jockey. 

It was at that moment that the man hiding under Mike’s bed attacked.

It was a split-second thing: one, Mike was lying down and glaring at the ceiling. Two, Mike was backed up against the wall—reflexively, he’d gone backward. There was a man in his bedroom. There was a man here, and he was holding a weapon. 

A weapon? 

Mike blinked, and the weapon, a shiny knife, didn’t fade out of existence. The man didn’t either, slashing Mike’s hopes that this was all a very strange dream. 

“Hi,” Mike said. 

What did you say that for?! 

The man just stared at him, holding the knife in a way that the moonlight—whatever managed to get though his window—shined off of it. He’d polished it a lot, apparently. 

“Um.” Mike didn’t know what to do. What could he do? Fight? That wouldn’t work—would it? He’d never fought someone with an actual weapon. Just bullies with rocks for brains. This guy didn’t seem to have rocks for brains; it probably required at least a little bit of smarts to get in and hide like this. So he was up against a somewhat intelligent enemy with the ability to kill him. 

This week just kept getting better. 

Then the man talked. “Hello, Michael,” he said, in a voice that sounded strangely non-threatening. “I want something from you.”

”Ah,” Mike slowly started to scoot off the bed, eyes never leaving the knife, “you can just call me Mike. It’s fine, you know, no pressure.”

”Michael,” the man said, urgency seeping in. “I need you to tell me something.”

“Could you put the knife away?” Mike asked. Now you’re asking things? Now? Of all times? 

The man looked at Mike, then at the knife, and grimaced before sliding it into some kind of holster on his hip. “This is very important,” he said. “The fate of the country relies on this meeting.”

”Really?” Mike slid off of the bed and backed into the window. “How? What do you want? Who are you?” 

“One question at a time,” the man said. He inched forward. “And I need to be the one asking.” He took another step, and now there was approximately one foot between Mike and a man who had the ability to stab him.

The man leaned forward slightly, the threatening tone that had been missing before now coming through with full force. “What is the deletion code?”

Mike blinked. ”The—the what?” 

The man leaned in more. “The code. What is the deletion code? Now.”

”I’m sorry, I don’t really… code for what?” Mike reached for the bedstand, which was slightly behind and to the left of him. 

“I need the deletion code for Paintbrush.” The man glared at him now, gaze never leaving Mike’s own eyes. “Do you understand? The fate of the world depends on you telling me the deletion code for Paintbrush.”

Mike felt for his phone. His fingertip found one edge, and in one swift motion he flipped it over—he’d mastered the art of doing this silently after months of no-phones-allowed classrooms—turned on the flashlight, and shined it directly into the man’s eyes. 

It didn’t do much—it elicited a large flinch, a backward step, hands going towards the eyes, and a “Hey!” But it was enough. Mike barreled into the guy’s chest, somehow managing to knock him over—he’d done it to a bookshelf, but this really seemed harder—and sidestepped the now fallen man. He raced to the door, opening it just enough to slip through. 

The hallway was empty. Of course it was—everyone was always dirt tired at the end of class, and nobody wanted to be up when the sun set at 6, anyway. It was better to sleep the dark away.

Recently, Mike hadn’t gotten the opportunity to do that. He wondered if any of the other students had to deal with that stuff. 

No, no, you don’t have time to think about that. Maybe tomorrow, when there isn’t a guy with a knife near you. 

Mike found himself running in one direction—towards the stairs, if he remembered correctly. His brain wasn’t functioning properly right now. Half of it was dedicated to not getting stabbed. 

He reached the stairs, but not before someone heard the commotion in the hallway and decided to take a look.

”What’re you doing?”

Mike froze. That wasn’t the man’s voice, that was for sure. He turned around. 

Nope, definitely not the man. 

A girl was standing in her doorway. She was wearing pajamas, and her hair was… it was a mess, but that was to be expected. She’d probably been asleep. 

“Um,” Mike said. “Nothing.”

”You’re not doing nothing,” she said. She was about to say something else when a loud bang echoed from down the hallway—the man had clearly gotten up, because he’d slammed the door open and was now stalking down the corridor, a lot angrier than he had been a minute ago.

”Oh, that’s what you were doing,” the girl said. She wasn’t nonchalant about it, though. Her voice had a hard edge to it—like she knew what she was going to do next.

The man pointed at Mike with the knife. “You! Get back here!”

He was so pissed that he didn’t notice the girl dart back into her room. Mike hardly noticed, himself—he was too mush slowly backing into the stairwell. “Listen, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t talk to people who break into my room with knives!”

”I didn’t break into your room with the knife,” the man said. 

“No, I mean—you have a…” Mike trailed off. It didn’t matter, because the man was now only a few feet away and getting closer. 

“I just need you to tell me the code,” the man said. “That’s it. Do you understand how important this is?”

Mike was about to shrug—what else could he do?—when the girl came back out of her room with a taser. 

Oh, they allowed you to have weapons? That was useful.

The man didn’t have time to process the teenage girl with a taser before he was convulsing on the ground. His knife fell with a clatter, and the girl quickly picked it up. She looked at Mike with a shy smile. 

“I’m Zoe, by the way.”

Chapter Text

“What did the man say he wanted, Michael?”

This wasn’t how Mike had wanted to spend his night, but he didn’t have a choice. The Academy took break-ins very seriously; Mike could see why. The place was supposed to be impenetrable in order to protect the students. But right now, all he wanted was to go to sleep. Or take a shower first. He’d have to ask someone to fix those stupid showers before he got out of here. 

If he got out of here before winter ended, that was. “He wanted some kind of code,” Mike said. “Paintbrush, I think. That’s what he called it.”

Mike’s interrogator—why was he being interrogated, anyway; shouldn’t they be grilling the bad guy?—nodded. “He wanted the passcode? To access this… Paintbrush?”

”No,” Mike said. “He said he wanted the deletion code. Whatever that is.”

The interrogator scribbled something down on her notepad. “I see.”

Yeah, I know. Can I go now? “Are we good here? Because I’m really tired.”

”Not quite,” the interrogator said. Mike groaned internally, nodded externally. “We still have to go over a few details.”

”What more could you want?” Mike said. “I told you what he looks like—which was pointless, because you literally have him—what he wants, what kind of knife he had…”

”Yes, Michael, you told us all of that.” The interrogator closed her notepad and glanced at the clock. “But we need to keep you in here until we can piece together why something like this was allowed to happen.”

”Do you really need me here to do that?” 

“Yes,” the interrogator said. She stood up. “Please wait here.” She exited the room, a small boxy area with only a clock on the wall to keep your attention. The door shut behind her. 

“I don’t have much of a choice,” Mike muttered. He swung his feet and tapped the metal table for a while before someone else walked in—multiple people, actually, one after the other. He didn’t recognize two of them, but he definitely knew the third. 

“Cyrus!” Mike said, a little louder than he’d intended. He was excited, okay? He hadn’t seen Cyrus since… wow, it hadn’t been that long, had it? Time was weird. 

“Michael,” Cyrus said, giving him a curt nod. He stood in one of the corners flanking the door. One of the other people—a woman, probably Administration—stood in the other. The third person, a man, dragged out the other metal chair and sat across from Mike. 

“Hello,” Mike said. The man looked tough—like he could kill anybody in this room in a second. Probably not Cyrus, though. Or the woman, for that matter. She looked like she could hold her own in a fight. Okay, the man could probably kill Mike in a second. 

“I’m Agent Seabrook,” the man said. “You said the intruder asked you about Paintbrush.”

”Ah—yeah,” Mike said. “I don’t know what it is, but he definitely asked me about it.”

”Okay, then,” he said. “What do you think it could be?”

Huh? “Uh, I don’t know. Some kind of software? Or a code! It could be a code that… you know, does things?” 

Agent Seabrook gave Mike a blank stare. “We might need more than that, Brezinski.”

Mike returned the stare. “I don’t know what more I can tell you,” he said. “I don’t know what Paintbrush is, but whatever it is, it’s important. Important enough that, you know, the guy would put the fate of the world on my shoulders.”

Agent Seabrook exchanged glances with the woman standing near the door. “The fate of the world?”

”Yeah,” Mike said. “He said the fate of the world depended on me giving him the deletion code. Didn’t elaborate on what that meant, obviously, but thats what he told me.”

Agent Seabrook lifted an eyebrow. “That’s all?”

”Yes,” Mike said. He was a little more than annoyed now. Probably frustrated. Exasperated. Really tired. “That’s all he said. He was too busy trying to stab me.”

The woman in the back spoke up. “This is very concerning, Michael,” she said, crossing her arms. “A breach of campus—and, well…” She gave Agent Seabrook a glance. He shook his head, no. 

What was that all about? Mike didn’t bother asking. It’d just make the agents more annoyed with him—with the exception of Cyrus, maybe—and they’d likely say nothing, anyway. Spies were frustratingly secretive. 

“It’s concerning, Michael.” Agent Seabrook started tapping his foot on the cement floor. Everyone had nervous habits, huh? “But if this is really all you have to say to us…”

”It is,” Mike said. “You guys don’t have security cameras in the hallways or something? Even the dorms—that would be super creepy, by the way, but I really wouldn’t put it past this place.”

”We have cameras in the Armistead hallways,” Agent Seabrook said, “as well as every classroom and office building on campus. But there was a… mishap.”

”What?” Mike blinked. 

”The cameras were off,” Cyrus said bluntly. “Some idiot working the systems let them go down—they’ve been down since yesterday, and only came back online thirty minutes ago.”

Agent Seabrook frowned even more than he was already. “Yes, Agent Hale, the cameras were down. You don’t have to insult our entire security team.”

Cyrus rolled his eyes. 

“So what are you going to do now?” Mike asked. “You have the guy in custody, just ask him what he’s after.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure this entire investigation is a waste of time.”

Agent Seabrook gave one last frustrated sigh before standing up and motioning for the other agent to open the door. He gave Mike a hard look. “We’ll be following up with you later. This is serious, Michael. Your safety, and the safety of everybody at this Academy, is at risk.” With that, he left the room. The woman followed, slamming the door behind her. 

That left Mike alone with Cyrus. 

“What’s his deal?” Mike asked. “Are all spies like that?”

”He was doing his job,” Cyrus said, “and he was right. You need to take this seriously. A break-in, threatening a student, all for… what?” He seemed to be asking himself that last question. “Michael, I know you’re tired, but I need you to go back to your room and think—at least, if we don’t get something out of the bastard. Who does that man work for?”

Cyrus didn’t wait for Mike to answer before exiting the room himself. Mike sat back in his chair, the metal creak echoing around the tiny room. 

“…okay.”

“Was he big?”

Mike didn’t think the first thing Murray would ask him as he slid into the seat that had been saved for him would be about his experiences last night, but again: he should’ve expected this. He wasn’t subtle in escaping the intruder, and this was a school for spies. It was in the students’ best interest—and their grades—to figure things like this out. So the news had spread like wildfire, and Mike, who hadn’t gotten nearly as much sleep as he should have, was already growing kind of sick of it. 

“He was a very large adult man with a knife,” Mike said. “I honestly don’t remember much other than that. It was really late.”

Murray scoffed. “I know I can drag more juicy details out of you than that,” he said. “Come onnnnnn. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.” Before he can start poking Mike like a toddler—he knows it’s going to happen eventually—Mike let out a big sigh. 

“He asked me about something called Paintbrush,” Mike said. “He wanted the deletion code. I guess it’s some kind of software, or code. It must be dangerous, because the Admins interrogated me for like, the entire night.” He put his head in his hands. “I’m so tired.”

Murray pat his back. “Dude, that’s so sick. Of them, I mean.” He scoots closer to Mike. “But… I think I might know more about Paintbrush.”

Mike lifted his head. “Huh?”

Murray looked around furtively, apparently making sure nobody was listening. Thankfully, the back row was full of people who were more interested in sleeping or watching things on their phones than paying attention. “I know about Paintbrush. I think a few others do, but I know a lot about it.”

”How?” Mike asked. “They said they didn’t know what it was. They were asking me what I knew.” 

“I had an assignment a few months ago,” Murray whispered. “Data collection, deception, all of that. And I figured, the more sensitive information I collect, the higher the grade, right?” Mike nods. He’d assumed there would be assignments like that here. That was kind of like what Jawa had done to him. He just… hadn’t taken Murray for the kind of student who would be able to steal information from the top brass. Or even attempt to do so. 

“Anyways, I found out that this upperclassman was collecting dirt on Admin for his own assignment, so I totally stole it.” Ah. There it was. 

“…so this kid found out stuff about Paintbrush?” Murray nodded. “What is it? Why didn’t my interrogators know about it?”

”Okay, one question at a time,” Murray said. “So, Paintbrush is apparently this like, code that can… rewrite stuff, you know? And it makes getting into archives or protected sites really easy, so you can write over what‘s actually there. Anyways, the CIA were the only ones who knew about this, but then the secret got leaked to a ton of enemy organizations, and now everybody wants it.”

Mike suddenly felt nauseous. “So the guy that broke in wanted to… delete it? Why wouldn’t he ask for the passcode?”

”Maybe some people think it’s too dangerous,” Murray said. “The info I got says we don’t even know where the code came from. It just appeared one day on some analyst’s computer.”

”Like a virus,” Mike said. “But I don’t understand how this connects to me. Why would he ask me for the deletion code?”

Murray shrugged. “Who knows. The intelligence community works in mysterious ways.” 

“Those mysterious ways are driving me insane!” Mike said. “I’ve been here for less than a week and I’ve been threatened at knifepoint! A girl had to tase the guy!”

“A girl?” Murray asked. “Like, a student girl? Who?”

”Some girl named Zoe,” Mike said. “She tased the guy. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her or anything. I was just dragged to the interrogation room.”

At the mention of Zoe’s name, Murray looked away. He muttered something under his breath—something like of course it was Salamander—before turning back to Mike. “You should… thank her. And I can come along too, you know. To give you support. While you thank her.”

”Uh…” 

“No pressure, though, obviously. I don’t have to come with you. Actually, I won’t. I need to study. For this class. We have a test tomorrow. Did you know we have a test tomorrow?”

Mike scooted away from Murray. “Dude, do you like Zoe?”

Murray got about ten shades redder. “No! Of course not! I just think she committed a valiant act! That’s all!”

”Hill! You better be paying attention!” Professor Wallace shouted. 

Mike and Murray both jumped in their seats. He can hear us?

”Even my dead grandmother can hear you in the back row!” He said. “Pay attention! This stuff is important!” Clearly, he’d been given a pep talk between classes, because he bore no trace of the depressed outdoorsman he’d been yesterday. Or maybe he was still that guy, and the whole indoor classroom thing had finally caused him to snap. Mike was leaning towards the latter. 

Murray sighed. “We’ll talk at PE,” he said. 

Mike just sat there. He’d come in with questions, and come out with even more questions. And a friend who was crushing hard. Honestly, he should win a medal. Or at least a consolation prize. Or, his favorite…

…some answers. 

Chapter Text

“Listen up, because I’m only going to say this once,” Coach Sidebottom said. This was the second time he’d said this today. The class was rowdier than usual, probably because everybody was crowding around Mike, trying to get all of the juicy details about his late night encounter with death. He didn’t really think he’d been that close to death now that he thought about it, but it wasn’t like he could change his classmates’ minds. 

“Listen! Up!” Coach Sidebottom shouted, finally grabbing the attention of fifty twelve-to-thirteen year olds. “I’m only going to say this once. This assignment counts for twenty-five percent of your quarter grade.”

The entire class groaned, Mike included, though he wasn’t sure what the assignment even was. From the looks of the rack that had been pulled out prior to class—loaded with camouflage uniforms, paintball guns, and two brightly colored flags, one red and one blue—it was some sort of battle. It would probably be fun, but the weight added by the grade diminished most of it. 

“Yeah yeah, get over it,” Coach said, turning to the rack. “Each of you will be assigned to the blue team or the red team. Your task is to retrieve the opposite team’s flag without being knocked out. If you are shot or splattered with paint in any way, that will be considered a knockout, and you’ll have to vacate the forest.”

From the looks of it, nobody in class had done this before. That was comforting. Mike saw one kid near the front raise their hand. 

“How will this be graded?”

Coach Sidebottom rolled his eyes as if it were obvious. Upon realizing he hadn’t explained it before, he sighed. “The winning team will be given automatic A grades, regardless of the status of each player. For the losing team, your grade will be dependent on how long you stay alive. If you get knocked out before thirty minutes have passed, say goodbye to your perfect GPA.”

That seemed to satisfy the front-row student. Mike looked back at the rack. All of the uniforms seemed worn, probably because they were. If the rest of the school were any indication, they hadn’t spent a dime on this activity since its inception. 

“Now, then. Let’s assign teams.”

Mike trudged through the hardened snow of the forest. It had long since crusted over, making any hope of silence near impossible. He grasped his gun—some kind of rifle filled with blue paintballs—and tried to ignore the slush that had gathered at the bottom of his boots. This sucked. Really, really sucked. 

He hadn’t seen any of his teammates since the starting bell had sounded and everybody had dispersed. He knew some of them; Murray, Warren and Zoe were all on the blue team. But so far, they’d eluded his line of sight. Maybe they were banking on lasting long enough to boost their grades if they lost. Mike sighed. Should he have done that too? He’d seen a few secure-looking hiding spots along the way, but…

No, he wanted to win. This was his first simulated battle—even if it was just capture-the-flag—and he wanted it to be memorable. He wanted it to count. Hiding while his teammates were fighting was just… it was what a loser would do. And Mike Brezinski was not a loser.

He walked in silence for a while, the occasional burst of paintball fire echoing through the trees. It had to have been more than thirty minutes at this point. He grimaced as he stepped into a particularly deep snowdrift, filling his boots even more. He tried to wrench his leg out, but it was like quicksand. (He’d always thought quicksand was something he’d never have to deal with, but alas, this was spy school. Though quicksnow was probably more accurate. Whatever. It still sucked the same.)

“Come on,” he grumbled. He pulled harder, and his foot rocketed out of the boot, sending him flying backward and directly into a bush.

”OW!!” 

“Wha—!?” Mike leapt forward, awkwardly balancing on his remaining boot. He wheeled around (as best as he could). “Who’s there?!”

The voice came from… inside the bush? ”It’s me! Warren!” The bush moved, then fingers poked out from the center. The leaves spread out to reveal Warren on the inside. “I was hiding in here!”

Mike was so shocked he planted his other foot back on the ground. It made a disgusting squelch. Eugh. He was going to get frostbite out here. “Why were you hiding in a bush?” 

“Because everybody looks inside trees and foxholes,” Warren said. “Nobody checks the bushes. I figured I could last like this.” He huffed. “But now I have to redo my disguise, thanks to you.”

”Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” Mike said. 

“Sure it wasn’t,” Warren said, voice filled with disdain. “Where were you going, anyway? The red base is the other way.”

Mike hadn’t known that. Whoops. “I was—okay, I got lost. I haven’t been able to contact anybody, so I ended up here.”

”How could you get lost? We all started in the same place.” Warren would have been intimidating if he weren’t held back by his ”being annoying”. Mike rolled his eyes. 

“I was told to go this way. Our team leaders didn’t give very clear directions, obviously. They didn’t even tell me where the base is.”

Warren adjusted his glasses, apparently having decided to own his annoying personality. “You would know if you’d gone over the maps of the forest. They’re in the student handbook.”

”I didn’t get a handbook, genius. I’ve been here like, three days. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things move insanely slow here.” Mike crossed his arms. “I bet they forgot I needed one by now.”

Warren’s eyed betrayed the fact that he thought Mike should have read the maps anyway—he knew that Warren was only a first year, that almost everybody he knew so far was a first year, but seriously, their poker faces needed work—and he crossed his arms too. His glasses were flecked with snow—how? It hadn’t snowed since the game had started. Maybe it was because he hid in the bush—greatly reducing any menacing aura he might have had. 

“You could ask,” he said. 

“I don’t think so,” Mike said back. “I’ve been pretty busy, if you couldn’t tell. I almost died.” He hadn’t, and he was sure Warren knew that, but he had to say something, right? It was better than nothing. 

Warren didn’t reply that time. (He was definitely aching to, though.) 

“You want to come with me?” Mike asked, half because he wanted to not be alone and half because he wasn’t sure if Warren was going to shoot him with his paintball gun. Friendly fire was frowned upon, but it wasn’t not allowed. Mike really didn’t know where it would be applicable in the field, but when he’d asked, all he got in return was a shrug. 

Warren gave Mike a look he’d only seen in the faces of students eating at the mess hall. Then he—presumably—pondered the idea of going the rest of the game alone, with a wrecked disguise, and changed his mind. “…fine. I’ll come with you.” 

Mike nodded and turned away. Ow, ow—I’m getting frostbite, aren’t I? He sighed. “Hey, can you help me get my boot out of here?” 

Mike had been dragging Warren with him for ten minutes and he already wanted the assignment to be over. He didn’t even care if he got an F—though it had certainly been long enough to avoid a lower grade—he just wanted out. He didn’t know how the other kids in first year dealt with this guy. 

“Did you see that?”

Mike continued walking, knowing in his heart that Warren had probably seen another squirrel or bird. He was absolutely the most paranoid kid in the grade. 

“Mike. Did you see that?”

Mike shook his head. 

“Mike. Mike. Mike,” Warren said, apparently trying to annoy a response out of his classmate. “I saw somebody.”

Mike stopped then. He turned around: “What?”

Warren was frantically pointing towards some point in the distance; Mike followed the haphazard directions and realized that Warren was telling the truth. Against the wall separating the forest grounds from the suburbs beyond the school, somebody was walking. They were skulking, actually—very suspiciously. Mike saw them look back and forth—checking for witnesses?—before kneeling and brushing away clumps of snow. 

“What’re they doing?” Mike asked.

Warren shrugged. “They’re not wearing a uniform,” he said. “Are they even part of this class?”

I guess we’ll find out. Mike began to make his way towards the wall. Warren grabbed his arm and pulled him back. 

“What?” 

Warren grimaced. “I don’t think we should go to them,” he said. “What if they’re dangerous?”

Huh. He hadn’t thought of that. To be fair, he hadn’t considered the possibility that the school would let another dangerous person on campus after what had happened with the assassin—Cyrus had told him security would be bumped up to the highest degree for the time being. Unless he was lying…

Mike shook his head. “You’re right.” He turned around—but not before he caught something in the corner of his eye. He turned back around—it was like he was caught in a loop—pulling Warren closer. “Look.”

“What? What do…” he trailed off, because he’d probably seen what Mike had. 

It was Jawa. Jawa was kneeling at the wall. Why? What’s he doing there? He’s not in this class. He’s a year above us. And what would he be doing so far from the action? Why would he be checking to see if he’s alone? What? WHAT?

Suddenly, Jawa—he hadn’t noticed them, thankfully—grabbed something on the ground. He pulled up, allowing Mike and Warren to see. It was a hatch. Jawa opened it wide enough that it’d stay open on its own, then stepped inside. Once his body was fully in, he reached out, closing the trapdoor behind him. 

Mike didn’t say anything, but Warren said enough for both of them: “Oh crap.”

“Have you told anybody else?”

It had taken them two hours to track down Trixie. (Technically, it had taken them thirty minutes; one and a half of those hours had been dedicated to finishing the activity, then getting out of their other classes. Apparently, ‘I have to use the restroom’ wasn’t a valid excuse in Beginner Weaponry.) Once they located her—sitting in the library, surrounded by piles of textbooks—they’d sat down to have a talk.

Mike wanted to start the conversation with normal, relaxing things: the weather, for example. To lighten the mood. Warren, on the other hand, wanted to neutralize the threat immediately. Rip off the band-aid, so to speak. His jittery nature won out.

“No, we haven’t,” Mike said. “You’re the only one who knows what we saw.”

Trixie crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Okay.” She was silent, as if in deep thought, before speaking again. “We don’t know if Jawa’s doing something bad or not,” she said.

“He looked suspicious! He was checking to see if anybody would notice him!” Warren said.

Trixie shook her head. “That’s not enough evidence. We can’t know. What if he was doing some sneaking around for an assignment? I know some teachers love to do that kind of thing.” That didn’t surprise Mike much. “Although, I have easy access to all the teachers’ records, and I’ve never seen something like that assigned.” That surprised Mike a little.

“Never?”

”Nope,” Trixie said. “Nobody ever sends their students that close to the perimeter wall. It’s more of a control thing than an escape thing.” She sighed. “I guess we’re gonna have to follow him.” 

“What?!” Warren shouted. Mike and Trixie shushed him. “Sorry, but you’re crazy! What if he’s armed?! What if there’s a bomb down there?!?”

”If there is, I can deactivate it,” Trixie said. “Don’t worry. It’s a piece of cake.”

”That doesn’t reassure me,” Warren mumbled. 

“When do we go, if we’re doing this?” Mike asked. There were already a million things racing through his head—what could Jawa be doing down there? What was down there in the first place? “Tomorrow?”

”Nope!” Trixie said, her cheerful attitude back in full force. “We’re going right now.”

Chapter Text

Mike would never admit it to his parents, but he was pretty good at sneaking around. He’d learned the skill after years of circumventing his babysitters’ curfew (they never really paid attention anyway), and honed it whenever he wanted to go hang out with Ben. So yes, Mike Brezinski was pretty good at sneaking around.

His skills were pretty useless here. 

See, the thing about spy school was that everybody knew how to sneak around. It was basically a requirement for getting accepted—you have to be good at not being seen. What that meant was that, because everybody was so good at sneaking about, they were also excellent at finding people who were sneaking about. And because everybody wanted a good grade, they were even better at ratting out people who were sneaking about. It was a horrible situation if you happened to need to get somewhere secretly.

”Warren, I’m going to need you to shut up.” 

Mike stifled a snort. He was good (average) at being sneaky, but Warren, the so-called King of Camouflage, apparently stunk at it when there was no paint involved. He kept tripping over roots and snapping branches—since the forest wasn’t being used for a pretend war at the moment, every noise was basically the equivalent of a ten-ton bomb going off. 

The three—Mike, Warren and Trixie—had been slowly making their way to the edge of campus for the last half hour. Mike got the sense that, if she were doing this alone, Trixie would’ve been at the hatch and down wherever it led by now. Unfortunately, she’d been insistent on bringing the two of them along. “Team bonding”, she’d said. 

“Mike, you too.” 

Mike frowned. He hadn’t been that loud. 

“I can pretty much hear you thinking. Even a suppressed laugh is a loud one.” 

Trixie led the trio, walking a few feet ahead. She’d instructed Mike and Warren to walk in her footsteps, so they wouldn’t leave any unnecessary tracks behind. 

“You’re talking, though…” Warren pouted. He was walking between Trixie and Mike—according to him, it was safer that way. 

“I know how to talk so that nobody hears,” Trixie said. “You just say anything.”

”That’s not…” Warren trailed off. “Whatever…”

Mike assumed Warren was too tired and skittish to think about anything except putting one foot in front of the other. Honestly, he felt the same way—but he wasn’t going to vocalize it. Have some shame, man.

”Up ahead!” Trixie said, stopping suddenly. She reached back, motioning the other two to stop as well. “There’s the wall, and the hatch you two mentioned. I see it.”

”What do we do now?” Mike asked. “Do you think Jawa’s still down there?”

”Likely not,” Trixie replied. “He wouldn’t stay there for hours. But there are probably some traces of his presence that we can find!” She sounded excited. Too excited, like it was Christmas morning. 

Warren trudged up to Trixie. “Okay, so how are we going to do this? Do we form a defensive—what are you doing?!”

He frantically waved his arms around as Trixie practically skipped to the hatch, clearing it of any snow that had landed on top. She grabbed the handle and opened it in one go. Then she looked up.

”Well, what’re you waiting for? Hop in!” 

Then she went inside.

Mike sighed and pushed Warren forward. “Let’s go, Lizard.”

The tunnels were dark, damp, and dusty. Mike would have been amused by the wordplay if he wasn’t fighting off a sneeze every five seconds. 

Warren wasn’t even fighting it—if there was anybody down there, they’d be able to echolocate him in minutes. 

“Warren, please,” Trixie said. “The more you sneeze, the more dangerous it gets. You don’t like danger, do you?”

”No,” Warren said. “But it’s not like I can—“

Trixie covered his nose and mouth with her left hand. She put her right index finger over her mouth. “Shh!” She pointed to the space in front of her.

The tunnel split into three. They could go forward, left or right; Trixie was pointing slightly to the right. “Can you smell that?”

Huh? “Smell what?” Mike whispered. 

Trixie released Warren’s face, giving him a warning glance. “The bomb.”

HUH?? “The what?!”

Trixie made a motion with her hands—if Mike had to guess, she probably meant calm down! “Don’t panic. I don’t think it’s active.”

”How do you know that?!” Warren hissed. “And how can you even smell bombs in the first place?”

Trixie didn’t answer either question. She just glanced back in the direction of the (supposed) bomb. “I’m going to see what kind it is,” she said.

”You can’t smell that?” Warren said. He might have been sarcastic there—Mike thought he came off as condescending. Typical Warren behavior, then.

”Nope! Makes it fun, don’t you think?”

”Hey, if you’re going that close, I’m going too,” Mike said. “I can’t just let you do this yourself.”

”No offense, Mike, but you’ve only been training for a few days.” Trixie reached into her utility belt. As she dug around, she continued: “I’ve been waiting my whole life for an actual situation!” Again with the excitement. 

She pulled out a tiny camera. 

“What’s that for?” Warren asked.

”Pictures of the bomb,” Trixie said. “It’s good to have multiple ways to archive things. You never know when people could wipe your phone.” She blinked. “Speaking of that. Remind me to encrypt your phones, okay?”

”En-what?” Warren said.

Mike rolled his eyes. “You’re training to be a spy and you don’t know what ‘encrypt’ means?” 

“Well, sorry for being a little too shaken up to understand, Mike!” Warren crossed his arms and turned away. “Can we just look at the bomb and get out of here?”

”Alright,” Trixie said. “Come on.”

The trio turned the corner and continued on for a few more feet—Mike could barely see—before Trixie motioned for them to stop. She pointed at a strange shape on the wall.

“That’s it.”

Mike leaned forward slightly. As his eyes focused, it became clearer—a rectangular box with wires attached to all sides. “That… definitely looks like a bomb.”

”Yep!” Trixie took a small step towards it. “And by the looks of it, it’s a powerful one. I don’t think I can defuse this thing right now.”

”What do you mean?!” Warren said. “Why?!”

”Because I’d need some tools I don’t have,” she said. She sighed. “I knew I should have brought by bomb utility belt today…”

You have a utility belt specifically for defusing bombs? Mike shook his head. Of course she did. He wouldn’t be surprised if multiple people at school did. Maybe he should get his own…

”Okay, then take the picture and let’s get out of here,” Warren said. “I’m getting the creeps and another sneeze…”

Trixie sighed again and aimed her tiny camera at the bomb. “Let’s hope this one isn’t light-activated!”

Do those even exist? I don’t doubt Trixie, but that seems a little much…

She took the picture—the flash caused Mike to flinch and Warren to go OW!—and shoved the camera back into her utility belt. “Alright! Did any of you see evidence Jawa was down here?”

”N-no…” Warren said. “It’s too dark to see anything other than that bomb.”

”Yeah, they really should get some proper lighting in here,” Trixie said. “The other tunnels have it—don’t know why this section doesn’t.”

”You’ve been in the other tunnels?” Mike asked. No, that’s a stupid question, of course she has. Why do you keep asking these questions, M—

“Yeah, I have!” Trixie said. “Not for long, though. It’s so much better being on the surface, dontcha think?” 

“Yes,” Warren said. “A million times yes.”

”We’re getting off track,” Mike said quickly. “I didn’t see anything about Jawa. He didn’t leave anything behind.”

Trixie nodded. “So we can’t even be sure he was the person who put the bomb here.”

”Wha—we can’t?” Warren balked. “Why not?”

”There’s no evidence he went to this section of the tunnels, only that he went into the tunnels in general. Maybe he was doing something else. Against the rules? Yep. Planting a bomb? Nope.”

Warren grumbled something along the lines of stupid evidence under his breath.

”We still have to report it, though,” Mike said. “Who do we tell?”

”I’d say Administration, since they always seem to be—well, no, they’re not always on top of things, but… yeah, no. I’ll call Cyrus.” Trixie pulled her phone out of her utility belt. “This is exciting, isn’t it?!”

“No!” Warren said. “It’s horrible! There’s a bomb here and we’re here! Why are we still here?!”

”I’m going to ignore that,” Trixie said, typing in her passcode. 

After a few seconds, Mike realized her passcode was abnormally long. Like, insanely long. Over twenty characters, at least. “How long is your password..?”

”Oh, forty characters,” Trixie said. “It changes every hour, on the hour.” She grinned. “Don’t you love security?”

”I love knowing I can unlock my phone in under a second,” Mike said. 

“That’s something you’ll have to unlearn, then, Agent-in-training Brezinski,” she said. 

Her phone started buzzing.

”Huh? Who’s calling…” Trixie tapped on the screen.

From this angle, Mike couldn’t see what was on it. But from Trixie’s face, it was something weird. She brought it closer to her face.

”Grandpa? I was just about to call you, we found something—huh?”

Mike and Warren exchanged glances. 

“Yeah, Mike’s with me. We’re in the tunnels. What happened to who?” 

Trixie’s eyes widened. She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll tell him.” 

The call must have ended, because she put her phone back into the utility belt. Then she looked directly into Mike’s eyes. “That was Cyrus,” she said. “He wanted me to tell you something… important.”

”What?” Mike asked, feeling his palms get sweaty. “What did he tell you?”

”You know the assassin that attacked you? They put him in the Box in between interrogations. To make sure he wouldn’t escape.” She averted her gaze.

“Yeah, and then what?” Mike took a step forward. “What happened?”

Trixie glanced at Warren, then the ceiling, wall, floor… and back to Mike.

”He’s dead.”