“So, this is the deal,” I say, placing my hands back on the table. He stares at me with cold, unwavering eyes. It’s difficult to keep my composure, but I know the moment I break eye contact, he’ll know I’m lying. I have to remember my training - straight face, straight tone, straight eye contact, always. Do not leave the other party any power or any room for doubt. “I will help you break into HQ. I have access to the middle levels. I can’t get into the higher management, but I can tell you where other agents will be. If you can provide headpieces, we can communicate in secret. You can get the info you need and get back out without ever being spotted.”
“Cameras?”
“A simple feedback loop. I’ve tested this. They won’t realize until about 15 minutes after it starts. That’s your window. 15 minutes.”
“Passwords?”
“You won’t need them.” I pull out a thumb drive and slide it over to him. He looks over it methodically, as if he wants to know every square millimeter of it, examining the technology, probably to make sure it’s not bugged. When he sees it’s not, he resumes his eye contact with me. “That is a data sapper. It doesn’t matter if the computer’s locked or has an infinite amount of firewalls. It links straight to the hard drive, so any data that’s in there gets transferred. It could even hack the Pentagon, and trust me, they don’t know we have this.”
He pauses for a moment. His face is impossible to read. Is he pleased? Am I showing that I’m lying? He simply frowns a little bit, which sends shivers down my whole body. He can totally see me. No wonder he’s on the Most Wanted. Not only was he impossible to find, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking, which means I can’t tell how he’s thinking. He gives me a side eye, and although it’s more difficult than ever, I maintain eye contact with him.
“Why?” he asks. It takes everything in me to keep from gulping.
“Those bastards screwed me over,” I lied. “Day after day after day I’d work my ass off, training and studying just as hard as the others. They think they’re so superior, but I’m just as good and they have no right treating me like I’m a little kid who needs babysitting.” I find myself losing control. Maybe I’m not totally lying. Whatever I’m doing, he’s buying it. I think. “You want revenge? It’s the least I can do.”
“Revenge.”
Shivers. I can’t hold back that gulp anymore, but luckily he’s back to looking at the thumb drive.
“Once you have that info, you can take your enemy down. Knowledge is power, right?”
“More,” he replies. “Knowledge is a double-edged weapon.”
He stands up and walks out. Finally. I can breathe. I lean over the table and breathe out the resident nausea, trying to relax my nerves. However, as I open my eyes, they land on a black suitcase hiding in the corner. Lucky find. It’s combination-coded though…four digits. What four digits could they be? Something significant to him, maybe? His name! H-O-L-T… 3-5-4-6. Nope. Birthday? Don’t know it. Ugh. There are too many variables! I gotta know what’s in this case. My gut’s telling me it’s shady.
Wait. I had a code to get in here… it can’t be that simple.
I type in the code and the suitcase clicks open. Immediately, the nausea surges back. I want to pass out.
He doesn’t want information. He wants to bomb my headquarters.
No…no…
Nononononono.
God, no! I thought I stopped it!
I couldn’t budge my eyes from my phone. I don’t even think someone could if they tied them to a speedboat and drove off at full speed. These words… these four words would haunt me for forever. I couldn’t even watch the building as it continued to collapse. The screams of terror around me were white noise compared to the noise of the thoughts in my head. The blazing inferno rising from what used to be a 30-story building, filled with rich office managers of a billion-dollar corporation, which outshined the sun and could’ve been a signal fire for someone 1000 miles away, only furthered the fiery thoughts in my own head. The heat and the crashes of falling rubble only furthered the burning in my heart. I might’ve been in shock. There were too many emotions to tell. Whatever I was feeling, it kept my eyes locked on those four words.
“Thanks for your help.”
This isn’t how this was supposed to go down. My plan was perfect. I was only supposed to pretend to be helping him. I’d trained for so long for situations just like this one. After years of only working intern jobs and basic robbery cases, they finally gave me a chance. They finally gave me a chance, and instead of focusing on the building that blew up, I’m focusing on how my career just did.
God, how selfish am I? These people around me are screaming, terrified for their lives because a goddamn 30-story important building just got demolished before their eyes, and I’m thinking about my job. Myself. I’m not trying to save anyone. Maybe I deserved this. If I’d just been smarter.
How am I supposed to explain this to my superiors? I’m fired for sure, but they’re going to want more than “I don’t know.” I don’t have more. I have no idea what went wrong. I only helped them infiltrate so I could plant the tracker…
Oh, my god. I’m such an idiot. The tracker’s on me. I thought I planted it on him. That’s where everything went wrong. They never sensed him entering the building and couldn’t stop the attack. He must’ve swapped out my tracker for the detonator. I planned that detonator as a failsafe so the bomb couldn’t be hacked; it was the only way to make the bomb go off. God, such an amateur. I deserve to get fired. I deserve to get locked up. I deserve everything that’s coming.
Burying my face in my hands, I slump down quickly, landing butt-first. However, I perk up as something pokes it. I don’t even want to know; it was probably just a rock or a piece of rubble. I should’ve gotten crushed by one. I slump back down slowly, feeling that thing more deliberately. It’s too boxy to be a rock. Too smooth to be a random piece of rubble. Giving in, I reach back and pull the detonator out of my back pocket. My eyes light up with surprise and I take a sigh of relief.
“He didn’t have the detonator…” I mutter to myself. Wait. That makes no sense. How did he detonate the bomb? This was the only way, and if he didn’t have it, that means the bomb was detonated remotely. But that would mean someone redesigned it right before we executed “the plan.”
I jump in surprise when I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. When I pull it out, I see my boss’s name displayed. Do I have to answer it… yes. I do. This is gonna suck.
“Hello?” I say.
“What the hell happened?! You blew up a building?? This isn’t your superhero movie, Agent Lieu. You weren’t supposed to let it explode!”
“I know, Captain. I promise I’m looking into it. I was double crossed. Someone changed the bomb last minute to detonate remotely. This isn’t a superhero movie. It’s a mystery.”
And the mystery is, if I didn’t detonate the bomb…who did?
“Why does there even need to be a secret?” he asked, turning around and throwing his hands down. She skipped towards him, a grin wide across her face.
“You promised me!” she replied. “Come on. How embarrassing could it be? I already know everything else about you.”
“You sure about that?” he asked, smirking. “What if I’m leading a double-life as a child of the CIA? Or a more private worker, like a Spy Kid?”
“Please. You took one dance class and fell flat on your face.” She took a step away. “I think you said ‘Uggghhh balance is too hard.’”
“Ballet is not my forte.”
“And neither would spying.”
They stood in silence for a moment. He could feel his chest tightening and his stomach sinking. She really wasn’t going to let this go. His thoughts raced as he tried to think of something, something not too outlandish but not too boring for the adrenaline junkie in front of him.
“Sooo,” she continued, “What’s the secret?”
He sighed. “You really want to know?” She nodded excitedly. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth and said, “I have a sand collection.”
I know not where I wander. Though, I can’t help but wonder If whatever called me, mysteriously Is also leading me to my destiny.
People tend to call me optimistic, Overly, specifically, that is, I don’t disagree. I see opportunity With every step, everything I see.
I wonder what these people who pass Surrounding my left, right, and fourth wall glass Would think about my journey here, My destination, to nowhere, yet everywhere.
Most who walk these streets would stress, Feeling overwhelmed by the crowds, pressed, Pushed around and seemingly getting further From their goal. Wound up in a chaotic blur.
I feel the neon signs and the massive crowd Guiding me towards my goal, clear and loud. What it is, I don’t know, But wherever I’m pushed, I will go.
