“I dunno, that’s pretty suspicious,” that stupid lizard guy said for the hundredth time.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t even realize I still had that phone! She wanted me to become a double agent or something! But I obviously refused!” I pointed at the phone in the middle of the table my mother had given me.

“I dunno, that’s pretty suspicious.”

“Argh!” I slumped down on my chair.

“The others on your team said you were suddenly taken away and you cut off all communications,” Typhoon said while giving me the suspicious eye from where she was floating above.

“I tried to contact others as soon as I could! But they had some jammers or something!”

“I dunno, that’s pretty suspicious,” the stoopidoid said, still staring at his phone without paying attention.

I growled. “Aren’t you supposed to be the good cop in this situation?!”

He looked up from his phone. “Good cop? That kind of game is reserved for criminals. Are you confessing to your crimes then?”

I glared at him.

“Either way, there was no communication jamming when we entered the building, so how do you explain that?”

“Wha… There wasn’t?”

I was taken aback. Things weren’t adding up. Was I being framed somehow? What the heck?!

“Not to mention, you said the cult members acted as if they knew you. Your sister said similar things. Were you secretly colluding with them behind our backs?”

“Absolutely not! I would never do that!”

“Hmm…” Typhoon floated down and placed her face in front of mine, making me flustered.

“Well-” Her next sentence was cut off as the evidence on the table rang.

All three of us looked at it before the lizard dude picked it up and looked at its screen.

“Mother,” he said.

I froze up. Mother was calling that phone? Why?

A moment of silence later, Typhoon took the phone and handed it to me.

“Uhm?”

“Play along… And pretend you are alone and not in an interrogation room.”

I took the phone with a shaky hand, pressed accept call, and put it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Aster! It’s me, your mother,” the voice on the other side said. “I would like to apologize. At the time I was under pressure because we were being attacked, but now I get it.”

“W-what?”

“You were acting! You knew the exact moment those meddling brats crashed our jammer and began acting as if you were our enemy!”

Wait, what? The… the cult girls disabled the jammer? My communicator had stayed silent, though?

“Uh, yeah, totally,” I replied while giving a side-eye to my interrogators.

“I knew I had a reason to be proud of you, my daughter! With this, the heroes must think you betrayed us and you should have no problem being our double agent, right?”

I gaped my mouth like a fish. S-she was delusional! What the hell?!

Typhoon was looking at me with an eyebrow raised and then motioned to the phone.

“Uh, yeah. Definitely. The heroes suspect nothing.” A snort escaped the lizard guy. “I… uh, I’ll keep you informed?”

“That’s my daughter! I’ll be looking forward to it!”

The call ended.

I kept staring at the phone in disbelief. What the heck had just happened?

The lizard guy burst out in laughter.

“Well, that was… something. Now I know even less whether you are on our side or not.” Typhoon looked at me with a frown.

“Wha- You said to play along! So I did! Now I have to pretend I’m a spy because of you!” I pointed a finger at her.

“Pretend, hmm? Are we sure you’re gonna pretend?” She pulled her face closer to mine again. “Or maybe you were a spy all along!”

“What?!”

The door to the interrogation room then swung open.

“You’re giving Aster too much credit. Being a spy would be impossible for her. Heck, even keeping surprise birthday parties secret is too much for her tiny brain,” the person entering said.

“Fern!” I beamed. “Wait.” My expression flipped. “What do you mean tiny brain?!”

“It’s alright, don’t worry about it.” She came to me with a grin and patted my head.

I didn’t worry about it.

“Sorry for the wait,” the other person entering the room said. “I’ve just finished the interrogation of our other prisoner.”

“Ah, Lyre. Thanks for coming in. We’ve been having a hard time getting her to confess,” Typhoon said before eyeing Fern. “What is she doing here though? These two could be colluding together!”

“They are not. I already cleared Iron Pack. She fully intends to leave her criminal past behind, and according to her, there is no way Princess Fox is guilty either,” the lie-detector, Lyre, said.

“Hmm…” Typhoon didn’t say anything and only eyed the two of us.

“Now then,” Lyre began as he closed the door behind him and got seated. “My first question to you is…” His eyes lit up and met mine. I already felt like there was no way I could look away. “Are you a double agent of any kind?” his melodic voice resounded in the room.

“No, I’m not,” I immediately answered.

He furrowed his brows. “A lie.”

““W-what?!”” both me and Fern shouted out loud.

A moment of silence reigned in the room.

Only to be broken by the lizard guy jerk. “I dunno, that’s pretty suspicious.”

“B-but I’m not! I swear!”

“It’s impossible to lie to me intentionally… Which means that you don’t even know you are one.”

I froze in place. The implication of that–

“Ah, wait. Didn’t you just become one?” Typhoon said.

“Wha… oh.”

The stupid call with mother. I hadn’t meant it though! I’d just played along as she’d wanted!

“Ask her if she’s a triple agent then.”

“Are you a triple agent of any kind?”

“No!” I automatically answered.

“A lie.”

“What the heeeck?!”

“Aaah, so that’s what it is,” Typhoon said. “You see, just before you came, her mother actually called and asked her to be a double agent for her.”

“The hell?” Fern demanded.

“She agreed.”

“The hell?! Aster?!” Fern looked at me.

“I-I was under duress! It was all her fault!” I pointed at Typhoon.

“That… oh, so that’s why triple agent. I see.” Fern nodded to herself.

“Uhm… What do you mean?”

“Well, you are pretending to be on our side for your mother, but in reality, you are pretending to be pretending, that’s why you are a triple agent for the heroes.”

…

“Uh… S-so, I’m a triple agent now? What do I even do as a triple agent?”

The present heroes exchanged a glance… And then shrugged.

“That’s something we can figure out later,” Lyre said. “Now for the next question…”

After a few more questions, I was finally released.

Now, as the secret triple agent whose mission was to feed false info to mother.

How had this happened?