SIX

Sneaking out of my parents’ house lacked a certain amount of excitement. Because it wasn’t hard at all. When my brothers had still lived at home, between Paul’s band and Michael’s noisy friends, they were so loud my parents conveniently soundproofed the entire house. There was also the little fact that my parents were clueless. I suppose raising Michael and Paul had done this to them. They really didn’t want to know what was going on. This worked out just fine for me.

Not that I got to do this very often. Sneak out, that is. Because the U.E. thought that I needed my sleep and school is important and I need to be a good little undercover spy. Whatever. The best assignments are almost always at night.

Tonight, however, was different. Tonight was my parents’ turn to host bridge night–a late night event involving a large gathering of their friends. Right underneath my bedroom.

And my parents didn’t believe in “pulling the blinds” like normal people. They were all, oh our whole yard is fenced in who can see us? Hmmm…let’s see, a spy? It would be so easy just to peek around the fence. There was our living room in living color right through the giant bay windows. Worse, I would be totally exposed to someone looking out those giant bay windows if I snuck out of my room and jumped to the ground where I usually did. It would be like an episode of Sneak Out Katie on reality television.

The front door was at the bottom of the stairs–the living room to one side and the kitchen to the other. You could see the front door from the living room. Our “back door” wasn’t actually out the back at all, but opened out from the kitchen onto our side patio. It was my best bet–the entry to the kitchen was back far enough that you couldn’t see it from the living room. If I could get into the kitchen, I might just be able to get away undetected.

I had fifteen minutes to get to the corner where I was meeting Jaisen. I was certainly dressed like I should be on a street corner somewhere. Not so much the corner of Willow and Park in our clean and clipped suburb of Rosedale–more like the corner of Chelsea and John Wayne Boulevard downtown where the rest of the hookers hung out.

At the top of the stairs, I hunched down on the landing to check my tracker, my tiny skirt riding up. I’d left heat sensors in the living room and kitchen. According to the screen in my hand, the kitchen was clear. Nothing radiated heat, except at the usual electric appliance level.

I couldn’t go down the stairs without passing by the entry to the living room.

Slipping on my grippy gloves, I pulled myself over the rail at the top of the stairs, not easy to do given the shortness of my skirt, and was about to drop directly to the floor when I heard voices from the living room.

“I’ll help you with the snacks.” The voice of Mom’s friend Gayle Harper floated dangerously close to where I dangled.

Instead of dropping to the floor I swung myself over and up under the stairway, clinging to the smooth underside of the stairs with the grips on my gloves. Thank god for closed staircases. I’m sure finding me suspended under the staircase in this outfit would shock Mom for life.

I strained my sore air shaft inching muscles to keep myself in place and listened to the voices in the kitchen, hoping to hear them moving back to the living room.

But it sounded as though my mom and Gayle were going to have a heart to heart chat in the kitchen first. Guess what the subject was? Daughters.

“I had to leave Neeta with a baby-sitter,” came Gayle’s voice. “A baby-sitter at fifteen. But I just know the second we left she’d be off on the back of some guy’s motorcycle.”

Mom made some tut-tutting sounds.

“We’ve caught her sneaking out four times in the past month. And those are just the times we caught her. I’m starting to think we need to put a tracker on that girl. She’s so unbelievably–what’s this?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“It was stuck under the counter here.” I almost lost my grip on the stairs. Pretty sure I knew which counter she was talking about.

“Looks like one of Katie’s little projects. She’s been working on some electronic devices for school lately.”

They’d found my heat sensor. Yeah, starting to freak out now. Could anything else possibly go wrong?

“I can’t remember the last time I saw Neeta doing homework. You are so lucky you don’t have to worry about Katie.”

“She’s pretty involved in school and her extracurriculars.”

“Probably hasn’t ever snuck out, has she?”

Mom laughed. “Not our Katie.”

“You don’t think she’s, you know, stunted, or anything? Socially?”

Then it was quiet. Thanks Mom, thanks so much for defending me!

“Oh, I don’t think so. They’re all just different aren’t they?” She said diplomatically. When she should have, uh, I don’t know, ripped the other woman’s head off?

“They most certainly are.”

They kept talking. Didn’t appear to have any immediate plans to leave the kitchen.

I was not going to be late to meet the rookie.

Mom and Gayle weren’t going anywhere, so I was just going to have to find a different way out.

I dropped silently to the ground and rushed to the guest bathroom.

Without turning on the light, I went to the window and twisted the lock. Pushing it up, I turned to put a leg through.

“I’ll be right back, just need to freshen up,” boomed a loud female voice RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM DOOR.

I dove behind the shower curtain–covered brightly in geometric shapes. I silently thanked Mom for picking an opaque curtain. Ugly, but opaque.

The light switched on. Sounds of a zipper and the clunk of cosmetics came from the sink. I held perfectly still. Why was Gayle Harper suddenly the bane of my existence?

The sound of water turning on, then off, and a snotty voice, “Who leaves their bathroom window open?”

She was gone, light out, door shut. I exhaled.

All I could hope was that the rest of the evening didn’t go this badly.

Fingers crossed, I slipped out and was at the corner with a minute to spare.

A sleek black car pulled up. Jaisen. He’d rolled down his tinted window just enough for me to see the top half of his blonde head. I sunk into the cushy suede seat beside him. My still aching body melted right into the seat and I was enveloped in the smell of new leather. The car was surprisingly comfortable and the dashboard twinkled with lights. I had never been issued such a schmancy car like this before for a mission. I always ended up with the outdated spy cars that the mid-level spies had grown out of. The technology was minimal at best and the cushiness factor almost non-existent. This was a nice change and I hoped that it was a permanent one.

“Hey.” Jaisen nodded to me and then turned back to the wheel.

The ride over was a quiet one. Seeing as how it had turned out to be the rookie’s job to drive us to our mission, I found that I had very little to say to him. I wasn’t pouting, of course, I just didn’t want to distract him from his driving.

We arrived at the lookout site and got out of the car.

I was thankful that the city had thought to place picnic benches at the top of the hill, probably for actual picnickers and not lusty teenagers or secret agents, because there was no way I could sit on the ground in the miniskirt.

Carefully, I seated myself on the edge of the picnic bench looking out over the giant complex that was ONC Corp. Jaisen sat next to me. He pulled out a tiny set of binoculars and peered through them. After a few minutes he handed them over to me.

“I can’t see anything.” I squinted down at the ONC Corp. building. Even with the mini binocs all I could really make out was a large building at the bottom of the hill with a ring of streetlamps around it.

“No. I couldn’t either.”

“Well, let’s go.” I stood up.

“Go?”

“We’re here to check the place out. I’m not seeing much. We might as well get a little closer.”

“Katie, I’m not really sure that was what Commander Eckle had in mind when he sent us here. We were supposed to be careful not to—”

“Shh…My name is Veronica, remember? For my ‘boyfriend’ you seem to have a difficult time remembering my name,” I whispered at him.

“Veronica.”

“Look, I’ve been doing this for nine months now and I was in training for three years before that. I know careful. I am careful up to here.” I pointed to my head so that he could see just how careful I was.

“At least let me go first,” he said.

“Look buddy, you are the rookie. I am the one who has been around the block, if anyone is going to lead it’s going to be me.”

“But—”

I turned away on my uncomfortable three-inch heels before I had to hear any more. I started stomping down the scrubby hill in a very unspy-like manner, although once I realized it I started walking more normal-like. Although, when you think about it, it would have been so believable that I was stomping off because my “boyfriend” had said something to piss me off. So I was actually playing up my undercover role. Ha! Jaisen followed along behind me. Just as it should be.

“That’s an interesting choice of clothes for a hike,” Jaisen’s voice came from behind me.

“Thanks.” I didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “It isn’t like I chose these clothes or anything. Did you get to pick out your clothes?”

“No, but I don’t seem to be having any problems.”

Of course, he wasn’t. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He didn’t have to suffer. And he was wearing tennis shoes. And what was I wearing on my feet? Oh that’s right, high heel sandals. Just perfect for walking over rugged terrain. My heels kept getting caught and I was half stumbling down the hill.

“Did you say anything to the administration about your outfit?” Jaisen’s accent seemed to have faded. He was talking like any annoying American male.

“Look, just drop it. If I could wear other clothes I would, but I’m a professional and I do what I have to.”

“I could talk to them if you like. You’re going to break your ankle.”

“Thanks for your concern.” Like he was even helping the situation by talking to me while I was trying to concentrate on staying upright. “But I highly doubt that you, the new guy, are going to be able to change the minds of the powers that be, when I haven’t been able to.”

“What do your parents think about you wearing an outfit like that?”

Where did this guy learn the word outfit? And how come when he said “outfit,” it sounded so much like he was saying “hooker outfit”?

“Right. Like my parents even know that I’m here. Give me a break.”

“You mean they don’t know where you are?”

I stopped. I turned around. Was this guy out of his mind?

“Of course they…” I started to say sarcastically at which point I fell over backwards as Jaisen walked abruptly into me. Apparently he wasn’t expecting me to stop and turn so suddenly. He caught himself. I, on the other hand, went sprawling over backwards—high heels flying, miniskirt crunching up, and landed right on my poor hands.

“Are you OK?” Jaisen reached down to help me up.

“Swell.” I tried to get up as gracefully as I could with the least amount of underwear flashing.

“So your parents do know where you are.” Jaisen let go of me.

This guy was immune to sarcasm.

“No.” I rubbed my aching back. “This is top secret. The governments of the countries the U.E. is made up of hardly know we exist, much less my mom.” Actually, I thought my mom and the government had a lot in common that way–they didn’t need to know the details, just the outcome. The government never complained when we tipped them off to illegal activity and my mom certainly never complained about all of the skills I got training at the U.E.–like when I used my electronics skills to fix the DVD player or negotiated in Cantonese with the dry cleaners.

Jaisen continued, “Well, the details of this mission may be, but they must have some ideas about what you do, how you dress.”

“Are you kidding me? They would freak. My mom is a doctor, for crying out loud. Her idea of excitement is getting a new medical journal in the mail. My dad is a businessman. He goes to his office and he eats out. That’s it. I really don’t think that they would be overly enthusiastic about me being in a dangerous line of work.”

“What about all of the time spent training? Don’t they wonder where you are after school every day for four hours?”

“They think that I’m in a free accelerated learners after-school program, which really I am if you think about it. There just happens to be a little bit more danger than in your usual after-school program. And of course the U.E. is paying me to be there.” I smiled thinking about the lovely deposit that went into my secret trust fund every month. “Trust me, my parents don’t want to know about all of this. They are much happier living in their own perfect little world where their children don’t do anything stupid or dangerous. My brothers attempt to burst their happy bubble every chance they get, but I am more than happy to let them live in blissful ignorance. Besides, being a spy is supposed to be secret.”

“Are you sure that it is supposed to be a secret from your family?”

“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. When Commander Eckle and Lieutenant Gates came to my house after they recruited me they sat side by side on the couch in my family’s living room and lied to my parents. They said that I was being invited to join this elite after-school program called the U.E.–standing for Upper-level Education. My parents think that the Commander and Melissa are like camp directors or something. They send a report every week to tell them about my progress. Would they go to all that trouble if it weren’t supposed to be a secret?”

“I guess not.”

“Why, did you tell your parents you were a spy?”

Jaisen shrugged. “I didn’t know that it was supposed to be a secret from your family. I can’t imagine my parents not knowing what I do” As though it were so obvious that his parents would know.

Was this guy a geek or what?

“It isn’t that big of a deal. A lot of people our age have secrets from their parents. Do you think Alice Hersher has told her parents about what she does in the backseat of her car with practically all of the guys at Norshore High?”

“I haven’t been in the backseat of Alice Hersher’s car.”

“Well, you don’t go to Norshore High.”

“Yes, actually I do. I started last Monday. As a matter of fact, I’m in your biology class.”

No way! School had started a little over a month ago and I hadn’t noticed any new student in biology. Though this could explain the increase of giggling girls all crowded together in biology.

“Now what was this girl’s name?” Jaisen asked.

“Are you serious? You want the name of the easiest girl at school?”

Then I saw it. He smiled. This guy was a real comedian.

“Were you just trying to get me riled up?”

“Katie, I’m afraid that isn’t hard to do.”

How could anyone be so infuriating? I turned. I started stomping back down the hill. Have I mentioned how difficult it is to stomp in high heels? Why did I end up with this muscle-bound mama’s boy? Why me? And why couldn’t he remember my cover name?

If I was going to spend time with a member of the male species I wanted to spend time with a rebel. A guy with long hair, tattoos, maybe even with a guitar. That’s who they should have sent me out scouting with. Now that would have been a believable cover and would have made me a happy spy.

Unfortunately, I seemed to have a difficult time attracting guys like that. Or any guy at all for that matter.

We got closer to the ONC Corp. building and crouched down in the scrub bushes that skirted the side parking lot. Crouching is not the easiest thing to do in a miniskirt and high heels. You have to balance on your heels while at the same time keeping your knees together and your skirt down. This is especially difficult when there is a guy beside you. A guy that smelled of Aveda. Aveda Shampure. I sniffed again. Did he really smell of Aveda?

“Maybe if you kneel you will be more comfortable,” Jaisen whispered.

Was he suggesting that I looked awkward? Because I was doing just fine, thank you very much. What did he know about hiding in the bushes in a miniskirt?

“Here.” Jaisen offered me his arm. “Hold my arm and lower yourself down so that you are resting on your knees.”

I gave him a very suspicious look.

“I have an older sister. I have done this before,” he whispered, still holding out his arm.

He had a sister. That explained a lot—using the word outfits, knowing about miniskirts, smelling of Aveda. It was all beginning to make sense.

I took his arm and lowered myself to the ground, not because I wanted to take advice from the rookie, but because I was going to topple over any minute. Gravel dug into my knees, but at least my skirt covered me as decently as was possible and I wasn’t going to fall over.

I winced as I went down, my muscles still sore from the night before.

“Are you OK?” Jaisen asked.

“Look, I’m just a little sore from the mission last night. It isn’t like I’m not in shape or anything. I’d like to see you try inching down an air shaft.”

Jaisen nodded as though he understood. Right. Like he knew what it was like to inch down an air shaft, using every muscle in your body for over an hour.

I peered through the bushes at the huge building complex. The whole first floor of the building was windowless. Higher up were rows of windows–I counted nineteen going up. All of them were dark.

“What does this company do, again?” I whispered.

“This is the second mission that you have had here. Didn’t you read the briefs?”

“Of course I did. I’m just testing you. Being new and all I thought maybe you wouldn’t know to read them.” This was a lie. I had only read the parts that pertained to the action of the mission–though this mission sadly lacked in the action area, but I had really only skimmed the boring parts.

“It’s a pharmaceutical company specializing in oncology drugs. They create drugs that treat cancer itself–different forms of chemotherapy, but also drugs that combat the painful and sometimes fatal side effects of chemotherapy. ONC Corp. is most well-known recently for the drug Zolatec.”

Well. He may have been a muscley dope but he sure as hell could memorize. I mean, there’s no way he really knew what he was talking about, right?

“ONC Corp. accidentally created this drug and found that it works as a powerful immune booster and stabilizes gastrointestinal disorders and metabolic disorders related to cancer treatments; essentially it combats all of the side effects of chemotherapy more effectively than any drug that has ever been produced. The hope is that they can use more powerful forms of chemotherapy that were thought to be too dangerous for patients in the past, such as Grentec, using Zolatec to balance out the bad side effects, but still getting the helpful anti-cancer action of the chemotherapy. So far all of the testing has been on animals, but they will most likely be moving into Phase 1 trials on people soon.”

“Huh,” I said, in what I am sure was a very intelligent way. “Wait a minute, they test on animals?”

Before I could interrogate him further, a black limo pulled up in front of the building, about one hundred feet from where we were crouched. The driver got out and opened the door behind him. Out stepped a thin lady dressed in black. At this distance, I could only make out her outline and it looked as though she had been squeezed like a tube of toothpaste–where other people curved out, she curved in. Her purse was twice as wide as her body. The driver walked around to the other side of the car followed by the woman in black. He opened the door and the woman helped an older lady out of the car. The older lady was dressed in a long fur-trimmed coat and had grey hair. The roundness of her outline contrasted sharply with that of her companion. She not only curved in the places that other people did, she curved extra in those places and in some other places as well. They began walking towards the building.

I had my mini cam out in a flash and began taking pictures. I was completely absorbed in the scene in front of me. Who were these people and why were they hanging out at a pharmaceutical company in the middle of the night? Last night there had only been one person and even from a distance, I was pretty sure the person had not left in a limo. The two women entered the building and I waited anxiously to see where lights would turn on in the building.

Jaisen, on his knees beside me, turned to me and whispered intently, “Kiss me.”

I was so shocked by this that I didn’t react and next thing I knew Jaisen’s very soft lips were pressed to mine. He might have been a rookie spy, but he sure knew how to kiss. One of Jaisen’s hands went to my face and the other strayed perilously close to my chest region. Just before my self-defense fighting mode kicked in, I heard the sound of shoes crunching on gravel near my head and a small chuckle from behind me.

Jaisen, disengaging his lips, looked towards the sound of the chuckle.

“This is what they get for building at the base of ‘lookout’ hill,” came a voice from the same direction as the chuckle, “Isn’t it a little bit late to be out fooling around in the bushes?”

I looked up to see the chauffeur peering at us from the other side of the bushes. Apparently, he doubled as security.

“Um, yes sir,” Jaisen mumbled.

“Why don’t you take this young lady home?”

And while you are at it, why don’t you take your hand off of me? For while the lips had gone away, there was still a hand pressing above my chest.

“Yes, sir.”

The guard chuckled again and I heard the shoe crunching sound receding.

“Uh-hm,” I cleared my throat and looked pointedly down at Jaisen’s hand.

Jaisen quickly removed it.

“What was that all about?” I whispered.

“That was our cover, Katie. I heard him a second before he got here. I had to act quickly.”

“And was it really necessary to have your hand on my chest?”

Jaisen inclined his head pointedly in the general direction of my chest.

I looked down. The mini cam was poking right out from beneath my tank top.

“Oh.”

I would like to say that I didn’t feel like a complete idiot right then, but I am afraid that I can’t do that. I trudged up the hill after Jaisen in the stupid high heel sandals.

At the top, Jaisen opened the passenger side door for me. By this time, the limo had gone. Not that we would have been able to see much from this far away anyway. I plopped into the car, thinking that 0200 hours, when we could drive the seventeen minutes back to base, was far too far away for my liking.

Jaisen got in on his side and began pushing buttons. I didn’t turn to look at him. I did notice that the windows tinted and that the armrest between us had disappeared to reveal a flat computer screen beneath it. I had definitely never been in such an advanced spy car before. The rookie seemed to know quite a lot about how it worked. The brief reading fool must have read the car manual as well.

“My kissing doesn’t usually render women completely silent.” Jaisen tapped the computer screen.

For some reason I really didn’t want to hear about his make out exploits. I stayed facing the front.

“I’m teasing.” Jaisen looked up from his tapping.

I tried to focus really hard on the dashboard in front of me.

“Of course, I render women silent sometimes,” Jaisen continued in a mock confident voice. “What is there to say after being kissed by me? Really, I expect that you have had quite a shock. It isn’t every day that a girl gets kissed by someone as irresistible as myself.”

I lost my focus on the dashboard. Why did he have to be funny? I turned to him.

“For your information, I was trying to figure out the mission,” I said.

“I can help you with that. If you would hand over your mini cam please.” Jaisen put his hand out to me.

The tinted windows shut out any light from the moon and I felt like I was inside a cave. A very cushy cave. Jaisen’s face was lit up by the computer console between us. I had whipped that camera out without a thought when the limousine had appeared, but now with Jaisen only a few feet away, I felt self-conscious. It was stupid. He might be a new spy, but he was still a spy and a professional and he was just going to have to deal with my camera being attached to my sexy bra. Still, I reached under my tank top and unclipped it as quickly as was humanly possible. I dropped it into Jaisen’s hand.

Jaisen took the camera and attached it to a port next to the screen. I leaned over to see him push the touch screen where it read “SCAN FOR MATCHES.” The computer settled on a clear still of the two women and began flipping through files searching for matches. Soon my frantic picture taking and almost getting us caught, seemed almost worthwhile as the computer settled on two images. Beside the still that I had taken there were two professional photographs one on top of the other–no doubt taken by spies who had a particular skill in this area and worked on keeping the U.E.’s database up to date. The top one was a clearer image of the heavier older woman. Beneath her picture was the name Margaret Patent and the title C.E.O. of ONC Corp.

The second picture was of the scrawny woman. My eyes scanned down and found Assistant to the C.E.O. The same person who’d filed the sexual harassment suit against Franklin, if I remember correctly.

Then I read her name.

Veronica Sabre.

Jaisen must have caught the look of outrage on my face–a look not unlike one that I had aimed at him earlier as his hand sat on my chest.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s no big deal.” I wasn’t going to let myself get worked up about it. I knew it was just a name.

But, come on, couldn’t anything go my way on this mission?

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Jaisen was still watching me intently.

“I just can’t believe that the scrawny woman has my great undercover spy name. I really liked that name and now I’m going to have to change it for this mission.”

“You don’t necessarily have to change yours.”

“Yes, I do. I know that you haven’t been a spy for very long but it’s a fact—people remember other people with their own names.”

“I could go ask her to change hers.”

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.

“I’m kidding. I’ll help you think of a new one. How about Julie? Jessica? Betsy? Kelly? Latrice? Roxanne?” Jaisen paused after each name and looked at me for a response. He didn’t get one. “Chandra? Kiki?”

“You certainly seem to know a lot of female names.”

Jaisen shrugged. “I told you I have a sister.”

“That’s no excuse. One sister, one name.” I could just picture the lineup of women knocking on Jaisen’s door. “Anyway, I appreciate the effort but I can come up with a name on my own, thank you very much.”

And I could too. I certainly didn’t need help coming up with cool undercover names. Especially not from Mr. Gorgeous Muscle-Man Good Kisser Though I Would Not Admit The Last Part Not Even Under A Lie Detector Jaisen.