It was a quiet night. Evening classes had just finished and all the students had gone to the cafeteria for supper. Meals usually last for just half an hour. After that, everyone goes to their dormitories. Some go for extra classes while others go for a stroll. A bell was heard ringing in the distance. Dong Dong Dong!!!. That must have been the bell that means supper is over. Four figures emerged from the Praxisia block. They must have come through the Arihage block. They appeared to be carrying something. Books, most likely. They walked towards the Shrikea block, and into one of the dark classrooms. After a while, the lights were on. A few minutes later, an old man, probably a teacher, walked in with an old leather satchel.
***
Alex switched on the light in the dark classroom. He walked towards his desk somewhere in the middle of the farthest column, near the blackboard. He flung his red backpack on the table and fell on a chair behind it, exhausted. His best friend, Sam, walked past him and onto the desk behind him. They both knew they were tired.
“That was a good one, man!” Exclaimed Alex.
“Yeah, I know” replied Sam with a grin on his face. “We should do it more often”.
“Man, you know I would really love to, but not now. The finals start tomorrow and if we don't study, our life is gonna be seriously ruined, dude.”
Alex and Sam were a couple of intelligent tenth-graders. At the age of 15, they were not only troublesome but also the toppers in class. Yet, people just didn’t understand why they both attended the extra classes that were taken by Mr. James.
Alex had told all his friends that he just went to classes to practice and stay in touch with his skills and he would be bored to death without his best friend to have broken with. Sam had also agreed to this.
Little did people know that Alex and Sam did not go there to study but that these two teenagers of tenth grade were working undercover in the school under the government in a special organization that only trained the highly elite and busted the most difficult of crime rings. This organization was Special Protection Dangerous Elite Reinforcements (SPDER). Their secret mission was to investigate and infiltrate the major crime rings suspected of forming on the school campus.
Alex and Sam had just finished talking when Jade and Jessica walked in.
Jade was the team’s senior-most and ruthless member. Jessica was in charge of all the equipment that the team got. Alex and Sam were the “doers”, the ones who do all the action.
“Hey Jess, how's life?” Asked Alex.
“” Better than yours.” Replied Jessica. “What about you, Sam?”
“Ah, the usual...” Mumbled Sam.
Jessica and Jade sat down at the desk in front of the boys.
“So, Jade, how ‘bout a short stroll to the cafe after class?” Asked Alex.
Jade replied with an emotionless face,
“You asking for a date?”
“ Uh, no, nothing like that. Just an acquaintance walk to a cafe”.
“Good. Coz you know how much I care for this mission and my next promotion.”.
Before Alex could reply back, a figure walked in class. This figure had a coat on, with a hat, and carried a leather bag.
“Hey yo, James!” Exclaimed Alex as the old man set his bag on a desk, pulled out a laptop, connected it to the projector, and switched the machine on. All in five seconds. No normal old man around the age of 67 would be able to do that, let alone do it in five seconds.
“Hey, Alex”. “Alright guys, listen up. One of our motion detector cameras picked up some activity by the tennis and golf court areas. We didn’t think much of it until the thermal vision gear was found bashed up during the morning patrol by the Delta 05 team. James put his hand in the bag and brought forth something that the kids from their angle of sight could not see. He then laid it on the table for all to see. “This is it”.
“What is it?” Asked Sam.
Alex did not know what it was on the table before their eyes, but he knew what it could have been or was before today morning. It was an AXIS Q1910 thermal network camera. The camera also provided capacity for third-party analytics modules, including support for AXIS Camera Application Platform. The camera uses thermal imaging, which allows users to detect people, objects, and incidents in complete darkness and difficult conditions such as smoke, haze, dust, and light fog.
Right now, all he saw was, metal parts of something broken attached together by a bundle of wires. Alex couldn't keep looking anymore. His neck hurt. He looked at the others. They were silent. No doubt, analyzing the battered up camera and imagining the crime scene. He felt the burning desire to break the silence. He finally blurted out:
“Alright. So what's the plan and mission?”.
James wasn't surprised. Alex was the brightest and most daring agent ever to be sent to the organization. But the fact that he volunteered for the job was a completely different story.
“Right. Give us the suspect’s name and profile info.” Asked Jade.
“Alright, this is more of a stakeout than an actual mission.” “Your target is John Adams. An eleventh-grader. Topper of his class. We have been on him for quite some time and recorded some events. He goes every night after dinner, to his dormitory, changes his clothes, and walks towards the tennis area, and, unfortunately, we lose sight of him there. But he comes back in exactly ten minutes. His timing is 9:00 pm to 9:10 pm. He has been coming and going every single day including the weekends. We need you to investigate this and find out anything you can about him. Oh, and we suspect him of drug dealings.”.
“Alright, we’ll do the job. Give us the time, place, and plan.” Said Jade.
There was a smile on James’ face.
“Ah. I received a call from Headquarters today. They want you guys to be independent in missions like a real agent. So from now on, you guys are the planners.”
“WHAT???” Exclaimed all four in unison.
“Okay, enough! You have all your required equipment in the side drawers. Night vision goggles, binoculars, thermal glasses, comm. Specs, walkie talkies, and your suits are all there. Sorry guys, but no weapons.”
“If you want us to be independent and start planning, at least give us some weapons.” Mumbled Sam.
Ignoring the comment, James talked on. “Guys get to rest today. You start tomorrow.”
He went out of the class and into the dark.
Alex looked at his watch. It was 9:50 pm. He had to go to the dorm. In fact, they all had to.
***
“So, the sine of ninety degrees minus A is equal to the cosine of A. And cosine of ninety degrees is equal to the sine of A.”
“Man! Can’t this guy give it a rest? We’ve been at this for the last hundred decades!” whispered Alex to himself.
“Relax, it has only been a couple of hours….” whispered Sam who was sitting next to Alex in maths class.
“Yeah, a couple of hours of MATHS!! Does that even mean anything to you?” Alex almost shouted.
“Chill just another five minutes left. And I would love to torture you right now, so guess what's for lunch..”
“Oh no you don't”
“It is your favorite. Burger: Chicken teriyaki and tuna sandwiches.”
“You are mean”.
Ignoring Sam, Alex started thinking. Five minutes? He looked at his watch. There were only five minutes left. Sam was right. Alex started the countdown. 300, 299, 298, 297…. Soon, he was sweating. Drops of sweat were dropping on the table. There was a pool of sweat. Last twenty seconds. Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen……. His heart started pumping furiously as if an RT-flex96C was on full power. His heart beats alone could’ve fueled an entire country’s machinery. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, ten… Jason Huge, Alex’s math teacher, had just finished packing and was saying goodbye. Sayonara, thought Alex. Five, four, three, two, one…
DONG! DONG! DONG!
Finally, the bell rang. Jason stepped out. As soon as his feet touched the floor outside the classroom, he felt something brush past him. He looked front and saw Alex sprinting towards the dining hall shouting: “ Sorry, sir. But I'm really hungry!!! ”.
Alex ran out of the classroom, down the stairs, and up the road. He kept on running. He was at the door of the Arihage block when a teacher came in the way he was running. It was an old lady around the age of 76. He cleverly dodged her, missed bumping into her, and sending her rolling on the ground. He then ran to the cafeteria and served himself with his favorite: Chicken Teriyaki and Tuna sandwiches. He then slumped down on a chair and started eating. Slowly, many students started to enter and serve themselves. Sam, Jessica, and Jade found Alex and sat down.
“Now, Alex, was that a record you pulled back there?” Asked Sam.
Alex smiled but did not reply. He continued eating.
“Hey, guys, me and Jade are going over to base later, maybe in the evening, Wanna join?” Jessica asked everyone.
“No thanks, I’m good” Replied Alex. “Yeah, not today, sorry” Sam agreed. They both hated the CIA base and going inside gave them ‘chilly shoulders’, as Jessica put it.
It was a sunny afternoon. The heat was high. Alex was sweating. He had taken a bath earlier, but he was still sweating.
“Gosh! If this heat keeps up, by the time this block ends, we’ll be cooked, fried, and baked in an oven that might as well be inside a black cargo container with no slits for ventilation,” he complained. Sam started laughing out loud. “Well consider yourself lucky, all we have to do is sit and watch, while everyone else exhausts themselves out in the heat.”
“Yeah, but I would like to go and do that too, sitting here is boring”.
“I know that feeling, Alex. I’m experiencing it too. Just sit it out. We both know we can’t do anything”.
Alex did not want to admit it, but he knew what Sam said was true. Since Alex and Sam were the best agents at the agency and knew almost all of the techniques in martial arts, Mr. Kelly asked them not to do any of the Self-Defence classes since they outdid everyone else already. So during these classes, they just sat on the benches while the other students took lessons. Mr.Kelly was the kind of teacher who is very brave and courageous and isn’t afraid of kicking someone blindly if they approached you. He was a muscular man with short yellow dyed hair. Some rumors were saying that before he was hired by the school, he was a professional boxer who had won the Best Boxer ESPY Award. An ESPY Award is short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award.
Alex and Sam had just finished playing their fifteenth game of rock-paper-scissors when the door behind them suddenly opened with a loud BANG! Mr. Ben Dwight, the school’s principal came through, followed by several men with guns. Each one of them had a sign on them that read “S.W.A.T”.
“Hey, Alex!” Sam whispered.
“Are those…………….soldiers?” asked Alex after a long pause.
Everyone in the self-defense class froze. Mr.Kelly walked up to Mr. Ben and they were talking to each other in murmurs and hushed tones while the SWAT team rushed here and there, talking to each other on the radio and taking orders. Soon, all the students were in a small group in the center of the room surrounded by the SWAT officers. Every SWAT officer wore a helmet, with tinted goggles, a black bulletproof vest, an H&K (Heckler & Koch) MP5 submachine gun with collapsible stock equipped with a flashlight on the front, and a laser-pointer sight. Each one had three Springfield .45 caliber, equipped with an 8-round magazine and one bullet in the chamber. Five of them took a post in front of the now-closed and locked door, with their firearms trained onto the door. In total, there were about 50 SWAT officers in the room.
Mr. Keller seemed to be arguing with Mr. Ben with something about interrupting his class when all of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. The room was silent. Even the murmurings and static from the radios had turned down. The SWAT officers who were guarding the door stepped aside. And before anyone could blink, every soldier was saluting that person.
Alex and Sam felt the heat and tension in the room lingering. A few officers had even set up a mini control room next to them. There were all kinds of hi-tech gear. Sam could recognize a few, but even he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why the Army needed this kind of gear. They even had ten Active Denial Systems parked next to the cubicle. These were no ordinary weapons mounted on a pick-up truck, these were highly dangerous weapons that could fire beams of millimeter-wave radiations. That was not the dangerous part, the dangerous part was that it was modified to an extreme level that could literally incinerate crowds in a matter of 8 seconds. Next to these were eleven highly powered Long-range Acoustic Device to send a warning message. It fires narrow beams of sound waves that can be heard clearly from 300 meters (about a thousand feet) away. Crank up the power, and it can emit a warning tone so loud that anyone in its path would have no choice but to cover their ears and run. And then, there were 20 Laser Avengers, cannons that could be used to take down incoming aircraft. Boeing was able to shoot a drone out of the sky with the humvee-mounted laser, even though it’s not particularly high-powered. It cooked the remote-controlled aircraft using a somewhat feeble 1-kilowatt beam. It was as if America was warring every other country and they needed everything they could get.
The figure who had entered the former school dojo and presently fortified military base was your typical army big boss guy. Tall, muscular, broad shoulders, a mustache, a cigar, and a lot of stars and medals. And not to mention the deep scary voice that roared out of his mouth when he spoke.
“Are you the agents from SPDER?”
Alex was always the leader so he answered.
“Yes, sir!”
“Well then, welcome to the Cia’s most guarded base and I am General Darwin.”
“Right.,” Alex mumbled.
“I assume you know why you are here?”
“We’re not on a simple training mission, are we?”
“No, what training mission are you talking about?”
“Um...You know, the one where we follow and eliminate good students gone rogue?”
The commander started laughing, which sounded like thunderstorms roaring.
“No, no, no. we are here because we need your help.”
“Commander, it looks like you already got what you need” Alex motioned towards the weapon cubicle that had appeared in the school closet.
“No, you misunderstand. The president has asked for you, specifically, to lead the .U.S. Military.”
“The president?”
“Yes”
“And why exactly do I need to lead the military?”
The general hesitated to answer, glancing quickly at Jade, Sam, and Jess.
Alex saw the hesitation.
“General, they are my team. You want me to do an operation, for which the President has asked for us specifically, I don't think that they should be kept in the dark.”
“Yes, Alex. Understood.”
“So Why and where should I lead the US military?”
“We are heading into battle, Alex.”
“So? The US has always been capable of fighting its own battles.”
“Alex, it is about….” the general was sweating profusely.
“About what?” Alex almost shouted at him.
“It is about Operation Purple Predator.”
“Excuse me, general. I need to speak to my lawyer”
***
Sam, Jade, and Jess were now worried. They were all taken to the Pentagon with an army escort and were now sitting outside an interrogation room. Sam sensed the worry in his team.
“Hey, c’mon. Cheer up! It’s just Alex. And James is in there too. Nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen, right?” even he seemed unsure of what he was saying.
The steel door of the interrogation room opened at that moment and the three men inside walked out as if nothing had happened.
A ginger-haired nerdy-looking secretary walked right up to them, and said “Ash, Sean, Pep, and Jessica? President Akani is waiting for you. Please follow me.”
Jade was startled. “Well, she knows our real names so let’s get on with it and see what Akani wants now.”
“Hey, how come my code names and original name is the same every time?” Asked Jess, who was completely ignored.
The team followed the nerd agent down the hall and into a wide room, which looked like the exact replica of the President’s room in the white house. There was a rumor that only the topmost trusted officers of the President had ever seen the room personally. While they were admiring the room, no one noticed the secretary to have disappeared.
Suddenly a sharp, high pitched voice screeched.
“Hey, Alex! Long time no see, bruh!!”
The whole team and everyone around swung around and looked at who was the owner of that voice.
A short man in his early thirties emerged from behind the curtains. He had a strange appearance. He was bald, except for a green tuft of hair emerging from the exact center of his head. He had a pink mustache and an orange beard. This strange man had walked around the replica of the Resolute desk, more commonly known as the President’s desk, and he sat right down. No one had ever really seen President Akani. President Akani had gone through numerous plastic surgeries after multiple attempts on his life by a group of master terrorists who called themselves the Anogriomes. The only face, that the public had seen of President Akani was in the newspapers, seven years ago. Even though the face of the country’s president was never shown, the public loved him for everything he did for the country. In only a matter of 3 years of being elected, he had brought down hate crimes and theft by over 90%. According to a famous business magazine, The Crave, “After being elected, he also did raise the country from poverty-stricken times to one that set the standard of rich for the planet. Even the beggars, live like kings.”
However, some claimed to have seen Akani’s face. Some said that only people of extraordinary capabilities or usefulness to the country were shown his face, others said that they had captured his face while he took one of his monthly cross-channel swims, one whose name was commonly mentioned, the English Channel. When these kinds of people start talking seriously or brag about having seen Akani, they were paid a visit by the Highly Specialized Secret Service, a branch of SPDER, and never heard from again. Ever.
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