TO AN OUTSIDE OBSERVER, I WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE A CRAZY person. Just some kid, half covered in gloopy condiments, jumping around in a snowbank without a coat like a lunatic. But what a passerby wouldn’t have known, of course, was that there were secret cameras hidden inside the swallows’ nests adjacent to the small snowbank I was frolicking in.
Hidden cameras planted there by a government agency so secret that its very name was classified and unknown by its own employees.
But I knew the cameras were there and so I jumped up and down in front of the swallows’ nests, waving my arms like a madman. All I wanted was to get the evidence in my bag down to Agency personnel before the school bell rang and the odds of getting caught with the stolen hard drive would increase exponentially. After all, everybody, NSB agent or otherwise, would take a second and third look at a kid dripping with greasy barbecue sauce. Besides, it really was freezing without a coat—I was right in the middle of an infamous North Dakota winter, after all.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait very long before I heard the maintenance shed door open behind me.
Agent Smiley poked her head out and motioned for me to join her. I ran inside, where the secret elevator was already waiting. We stepped onto the platform.
“You have the hard drive?” she asked before pressing any buttons.
“Yep.”
Then we were shooting down into the earth, leaving our stomachs up at the surface. During the ride down into Agency headquarters, Agent Smiley held a hand over her normally unflinching face and tried to hide her crinkled nose.
“Sorry,” I said, looking down at the secret sauce stains on my pants and shirt. “Things got a bit, uh, messy.”
She didn’t say anything back. Then we hit the bottom and the elevator doors opened. I’d been down to Agency HQ before, and each time it looked completely different. Sometimes it was bustling with activity, people in suits everywhere working hard to thwart whatever rogue threats faced the country. A few of the times I’d been greeted by armed guards pointing huge machine guns at my face. This time, however, I was stunned to find a virtual ghost town.
The place was empty. Deserted. The normally busy atrium was quiet and still. Half the lights were off, the dimness giving it an even darker vibe, as if it had been converted into an evil lair in my absence.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, suddenly worried that perhaps the base had been compromised and everyone I knew was dead or captured.
“Director Isadoris will explain,” Agent Smiley said. “Come on, follow me.”
I trailed her up the glass staircase and along the secret hallway at the end of the balcony that led to the director’s office. He was seated behind his desk. Two other agents I didn’t recognize were working on laptops at a small folding table behind him. His hair was frazzled as if he hadn’t showered in days, and his face was covered in dark stubble. It made the massive man look even more like a giant grizzly bear than he usually did.
“Agent Zero,” he said, not standing or smiling. “Have a seat.”
I took a chair across from him while Agent Smiley crossed the room and joined the other two agents at the small card table.
“You succeeded?” Director Isadoris asked.
I unzipped my backpack and looked down into the splattered interior. I debated giving him the whole bag, but then decided he didn’t really need to know that I had snagged a few spare gadgets from the pantry. After all, he was the one who thought it wasn’t worth telling me about the Chum Bucket contingency plan.
I plucked out the bag containing Gomez’s hard drive and plopped it onto the desk.
“There it is,” I said.
He nodded and shoved the messy heap into a duffel bag.
“Agent Scion,” Director Isadoris said, “take this to the tech lab and see what you can find.”
One of the agents working behind him stood and walked over to retrieve the bag. Then he slung it over his shoulder and left the office without saying a word. Director Isadoris treated the entire transaction as if he were asking a friend to get him a soda from the fridge. Then he turned back to me with a blank look.
I tried to suppress my annoyance. Did he have any idea what I’d gone through to get that? How close I had come to getting myself kicked out of school? How I’d risked being arrested by the NSB? How Agent Chum Bucket actually had been arrested? If it wasn’t that important, then why ask CB and me to do it at all?
Director Isadoris must have noticed my glare.
“What?” he snapped. “You want a medal every time you complete an assignment?”
I was stunned by his words. And even more stunned to see one of the agents behind him smirking. I just sat there and failed to come up with any sort of a reply.
“That’s what this job is, Agent Zero,” Director Isadoris continued. “You’re given a dangerous mission, and if you can complete it without being captured or killed, you are given another. This was just another day at the office. You don’t see florists getting a ticker tape parade each time they pick a flower, do you?”
I shook my head, despite not really knowing what a ticker tape parade was. He had a point either way, but that still didn’t quite take the sting out of his words.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, not able to look him in the eyes.
Then he sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“No, I’m sorry, Agent Zero,” he said. “My words still stand, but they should have been expressed more tactfully. I’m used to dealing with adults, after all.”
Even his apology felt like a backhanded slap to my face. But I nodded and accepted it. Once again, I couldn’t really argue with his logic.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he continued, “things are a little different around here at the moment. First, we diverted a healthy chunk of agents to a new initiative, one that could be a real game changer. But even more drastic has been the need to scale back to essential personnel only. We simply don’t know who we can trust anymore. The fact is, we’ve never had a security breach of this severity in the seventy-year history of the Agency. A former agent, systematically taking down every aspect of our operation . . . Medlock has all but destroyed us from the inside out.”
I nodded slowly, the true gravity of the threat starting to sink in.
“Which is why capturing him has become our sole objective at the moment. Every other resource—outside the new initiative that we have—is now aimed entirely at finding, detaining, or eliminating Medlock. In the pursuit of this task, everything—even an agent—is considered expendable.”
I could only assume that was his way of confirming that Agent Chum Bucket was now on his own. I wanted to ask the director if he counted himself as expendable, too, but I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to make him even angrier than he already was.
“And in line with that,” Director Isadoris said, “we have another immediate assignment for you. One that relates back to our primary subdirective, which is to figure out what exactly Medlock is up to. That is, if you feel you’re up to the challenge.”
Director Isadoris might have been a little sarcastic with that last bit. But it didn’t matter: I was in too deep to back out now.
“Yeah, I’m in,” I said.
“Good. As you know, we believe Medlock has yet another operative inside the school. Someone who likely framed Principal Gomez, set him up to get caught by the NSB. And it could be an adult, but it’s just as likely another student.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Jake, Medlock’s son,” Director Isadoris said. “Children are easier to manipulate than adults, and generally appear less suspicious. And, as you and Jake have both demonstrated, can be just as effective. While Medlock could have planted adult agents at the school, it’s equally possible that Jake recruited other agents himself among the student populace.”
It made sense, but it was hard to imagine who else might be working for the bad guys. What kid would get on board with a plot for world domination, or whatever Medlock’s endgame was, besides his own kid?
“Let me guess,” I said. “You want me to find out who this inside agent is?”
“Indeed,” Director Isadoris confirmed. “It could be anyone, so suspect everyone, and discount no one.”
“One thing I still don’t get,” I speculated aloud, “is why Medlock would go to the trouble of framing Gomez if he wasn’t working with the Agency.”
“Well, that’s another thing we’re hoping you can help us find out,” Director Isadoris said. “It must have something to do with the base, the Agency, and our ties to the school. As we speak, a new principal, Ms. Pullman, is being brought in to take over for Mr. Gomez. Her background checks out: she has a family, a complete educational record; it’s hard to imagine that she could be under Medlock’s thumb. But circumstances dictate that we consider her a suspect for the time being.”
“So, what’s next?” I asked.
“Well, that’s hard to answer completely until we know what Medlock is up to. Once we figure that out, we can come up with a definitive way to stop him. So, next is simply doing everything we can to uncover his plans, starting with a thorough search through the files on the hard drive you brought in. Hopefully to confirm that it was a frame job and also look for clues as to who executed it and how and why,” Director Isadoris said. “In the meantime, the new direct assignment for you and Agent Atlas is twofold. One: Discover who, if anyone, framed Gomez and continues to execute small acts of sabotage that are interfering with Agency operations. Two: Look for evidence inside the school regarding why Gomez may have been framed, and ascertain Ms. Pullman’s possible involvement. I’m going to level with you, Agent Zero: With Agent Chum Bucket in NSB custody, our other agents working on the new initiative, and Agents Nineteen and Blue still not ready for fieldwork, you and Agent Atlas are our best chance at finding out anything from inside the school.”
I nodded. It was pretty simple, though I didn’t really have any idea how I was going to start. Not yet, anyway.
“Speaking of Agents Nineteen and Blue . . . would it be possible for me to visit them?” I asked.
Director Isadoris sighed and said, “Yes, but I must warn you that you may not like what you see.”