Date night

Claire leaves the car. With her binoculars she locates the best entry point. It’s time for action. With her grappling hook she makes her way to the roof of the building. The trees help conceal her, along with her stealth suit.

Quickly looking around she finds an open window, and begins do descend. There doesn’t seem to be any cameras or guards in the room. She pulls out her communicator.

- Agent-57c to control, entry point is clear. Outside guards are neutralized and out of the way. Making my way further into the building, over.

Jackson quickly closes his game of solitaire as he hears the agent’s call. When picking up the communicator he knocks over a glass of water over some papers. He curses, grabs a piece of cloth and answers the call.

- Good, make sure you are not seen, we can’t have any witnesses. Remember, top priority is Abraham but keep an eye out for anything that looks important. Control out.

The room Claire is in seems to be a reception. The floor is made of marble, and the walls and ceiling have details in gold. Right in the center there is a desk, a computer conveniently sitting on top.

She sits down on the desk and starts typing. The computer uses the JoyOS, extremely complicated and expensive software that only the most prestigious tech companies in the world use. It’s also extremely easy to hack, at least for someone like Claire. In less than a minute she was in.

Going through the files it’s mostly client lists and corporate e-mails. But one folder sticks out more than all others. “Very Regular Stuff Folder”. Predictable. She opens it.

- Alright, control. I’m going through one of their computers. I found a suspicious folder, digging for info, over.

Jackson can’t help but curse as he makes the mess worse while trying to clean it. Eventually he just gives up and answers the communicator again.

- Good work, agent. Remember to send anything important back to base, over.

- Will do. Over.

- Good, that’s going well. Now I just have to deal with this mess. Man, I was just finishing up that drawing.

- Control? - Claire stops typing for just a few seconds. - Your communicator is still on, over.

- You have got to be k-

As soon as the communicator turns off and the spy turns her attention back to the computer she finally finds what they had been looking for. The device, and apparently many others, are connected to something else. Something powerful. And if she could find the source of the connection she could deactivate every electronic connected to it.

She has to go deeper into the building. According to the place’s blueprints there are underground floors, perfect for secret evil projects. The nearby vent provided a way in, but because of the drops and turns she’d have to find another way out.

When she finally leaves the ventilation system she finds herself in a huge room full of catwalks and doors. All the way down there are dozens of servers. Perfect. What isn’t perfect is the amount of guards in the room. That’s actually really bad.

Claire looks around to find the best path and crouches behind the metal plates in front of the railing, shooting tranquilizer darts at guards that are in the way. The darts only last for a couple of minutes, she knows that she has to hurry now.

Eventually she finds her way to the bottom of the stairs. Since there is nothing obscuring her from the rest of the room it is important to move fast. While looking for the right server she calls control again through her communicator.

- Control? I’m at the server room, I’m looking for a specific one but I can’t find it. I need the master server, any way you could help? Over.

Jackson gets startled with the sudden call from his communicator, and yet again spills a glass of water over his now empty desk. He lets out a long, disappointed sigh before picking up.

- Control to Agent-57c, as far as I can tell all of those servers are connected. It shouldn’t matter which one you download from but it is not the room you are looking for. There should be a door to your left. It seems important, over.

- Roger that, control. Initiating download and moving on to the next room, over and out.

The spy takes a small and discrete pen-drive from one of her pockets and sticks it in a server. A little “beep” coming from her communicator indicates it is on and collecting data. Time for the next room.

The door next to her is just a plain white wooden door. It looks simple. Too simple. It has no label to say where it leads to, but she trusts control. She silently goes in.

The room is dark and silent. She looks down at the floor trying to find where she is going, but it’s no use. The spy pulls down her night vision goggles and turns them on. As soon as she does, she sees a man knocked down on the floor.

The agent looks back and quickly flicks the light switch, turning off her goggles while doing so. When she turns back and looks at the room she finds someone familiar.

- Ashley?

The room is full of unconscious guards, and right in the middle a table is set up. There are candles, plates, napkins, silverware and food. Sitting on the opposite side is a woman, dressed in the same stealth gear as Claire.

- Agent-7a! Don’t say our names here like that. - Ashley says

- What. Are you. Doing here? This is my mission, you’re not supposed to be here!

- Hey don’t worry, I asked control they said it was fine!

The woman pulls out a bottle of wine and pours it in some wine glasses.

- Agent-57c to control, do you copy?

- I copy.

- Why is Agent-7a here?

- She asked to be in the mission. Over. You gotta say over by the way.

- Fine, over and out.

Claire walks over to the table and looks closer. Ashley looks at her with anticipation.

- So... - Ashley says while drinking some wine - Awfully convenient that this table is so set up already.

- Agent, be honest. Did you take this mission and clear this room of guards just to ask me out on a date?

The agent blushes, and she can’t maintain eye contact. She starts fiddling with her fingers.

- Did... Did it work?

Claire lets out a long sigh before taking a sit in front of her.

- Yes.

- I’m so excited! I’ve been meaning to ask you out, but you’re always on missions. I just thought it was the only way, you know?

- How did you even do all this?

- I just got everything from the cafeteria and reassembled it here.

- How much work... You know what? Whatever. I’m actually glad you’re here. It’s great to see a friendly face. But you could’ve just waited until I was back from this one, I’m taking a vacation soon.

- Oh.

Both of them stare at each other in silence for a while. After a couple of seconds, Claire finally breaks the silence.

- Gosh, you’re cute.

- Oh! - Ashley covers a bit of her face with one of her hands. Blushing and flustered, she tries to change the subject. - If you wanna, you know, finish the mission the computer is right there. That’s what it’s all... connected to.

- Thanks Ash. - She gets up and walks over to the computer. - Nice date, by the way. Too bad we don’t have much time. Maybe we should go on another one tomorrow?

Before anyone else could say anything the lights go out. The door opens and armed guards start coming in the room. Slow claps can be heard, and a tall man wearing a suit enters.

- Well, well, well. Didn’t think it would be that easy, did you Agent? - The man said in a low, raspy voice - And would you look at that, you even had help! From agent... Huh, actually I don’t recognize her, who is she?

- Oh uh... - Says Ashley - This is pretty awkward, but I’m actually Agent-7a.

- Agent... Agent-7a? Really? Wow, I didn’t even recognize you! It’s been so long, I thought you would never invade my property again!

Claire stares at both of them, until she finally has had enough of the conversation. She then snaps her fingers a couple of times to try and get their attention.

- Hey, excuse me. - She says loudly - Look this is nice and all but we really need to get going. I’ve got another quick mission at seven and need to report back to HQ at eight.

- Oh of course, just let me do a quick thing here. - The man in the suit pulls out a small phone and makes a call. - Hey, Tom? Yeah, I need you to change a target’s pictures for me. Agent-7a, you should have some footage of her from room 17 in the fake dark lair. Yes, HER. Change that too, we’re not monsters after all, right? Yeah, well besides the whole villain thing. Yeah. Okay, talk to you later, bye!

He puts his phone back in his pocket and smiles. From another pocket he picks up and presses a button. Suddenly the lights turn red and a very faint, mysterious song starts playing in the room.

- There, that should set the evil mood for my evil speech. - he clears his throat - This, agents, was a trap. I knew one of you at least would be coming for my little project. We’re building a super space laser to destroy Jupiter! And then finally I, Abraham Abraham from Abra Co., will use the laser as a threat to the entire solar system! Making every government in the world pay me ransom to not destroy the Sun itself.

- Again? - Ashley asks - Didn’t you do this last time I was here?

- No, that was a giant laser to destroy the ozone layer. Very different.

- Oh yeah. Sorry, mixed things up for a second.

- Oh it’s okay, it’s been a while. Oh well, moving on. Guards, take them to the deadly pit of murderous killer sharks.

- The what? - Claire looks at Abraham. - Is that really what you’re gonna call it?

- Hey, I’ve been doing this for years. You try coming up with these names every day.

- Just take us to the thing so we can escape it already.

- I highly doubt you’ll be able to, but if you insist...

Abraham claps his hands twice and all the lights turn off. The guards quickly move towards both of the agents and knock them out, then dag them out of the room.

Abraham stands still for a couple of seconds, pondering and looking at the floor.

- Maybe I should change the name. It IS kinda generic.