The following is a report of the Cornering the Incorrigible for the Advancement of Society, also known as the CIA, as duly named by CIA agent Rosa Chesterfield, code name Ro.

("What about the 'S' for society?" Idel asked, in her slow and soft voice, but Ro waved her off with a hand.

"The 'S' is invisible," she replied, "and thus silent." And Idel was thoroughly convinced.

Fi couldn't read, so she didn't say anything. In fact, she memorized this name by thinking of the phrase, "See? I a....te an apple," which suited her just fine.)

The CIA, formed as of Thursday of last week at the point of rendezvous, also known as Gilliard's, has the utmost responsibility in upholding its sole mission: the capture of the rogue titular Incorrigible, the devious Paul. After adjourning the first meeting, the agents (Filian, known as Fi, and Idel, known as Idel) have been called to brief the mission at Agent Ro's house, heretofore known as Headquarters.

The minutes of aforementioned meeting has been included for your information.

[OPEN: MINUTES.]

[ACCESS GRANTED.]

"So," Ro said, pacing up and down. "I've come up with a few ideas on how we could corner Paul, and I've narrowed it down to one, based on a hypothetical probability chart that I've made concerning Paul's habits and most likely reactions."

"And we're ready to hear it," Fi replied, scratching her ear. She did not really understand the last part, but Ro didn't need to know that. "Do enlighten us."

Idel only smiled her slow and wide smile, head inclined towards Ro to hear her out.

"Paul has a tendency of leaving his shoulder bag in the back supply room, on top of the second shelf at the last rack. We'll use that," Ro said, "as bait."

"Bait?" Idel echoed.

"Bait," Ro nodded.

"Bait," Fi repeated. "I see."

"We'll dangle it in his face and pin him down when he lunges at it." Ro flashed a smile, and Idel was momentarily dazzled. Fi didn't blink at all. "I call it, the Fishing Strategy."

Idel bobbed her head in understanding. "The Fishing Strategy. I love it."

"Perfect," Fi said, "when can we start?"

[END MINUTES.]

[PLAN FORMED: 'THE FISHING STRATEGY,' AKA THE NEFARIOUS PLAN OF BAITING THE INCORRIGIBLE]

Two days after the meeting, the three agents put the plan into action. The details are found below.

[OPEN: CODE RED, OPERATION IN ACTION; ATTEMPT #1.]

[ACCESS GRANTED.]

Setting: Target's workplace; Agent Ro in close supervision of target while on shift together. Agent Idel and Agent Fi hiding within proximity of target's location, in the second floor of the building.

Current status: Waiting for target to put away bait in back supply room.

Paul was chatting with the cook in the kitchen, still clutching his shoulder bag with one hand as he always did. Ro watched him out of the corner of her eyes as she double-checked calculations for the restaurant's gross income. Once she'd done so, she triple-checked it in her head just to stay near him.

"Yeah," Paul was saying, chuckling with the hardy cook. "You wouldn't believe how high that fish jumped."

Oh, Ro was thinking, though nobody suspected it from the ultimate poker face she was wearing, you'll be jumping pretty high soon enough, fish.

This was the exact moment that Ro decided to always call Paul "fish" from that day on.

After a few more minutes and a bored Ro calculating expected gross annual income for the restaurant, Paul finally stepped towards the back, saying, "I better start getting ready for work."

"Thank you," Ro muttered snarkily to herself, then she flipped the checkbook closed and casually moved to the counter area, where she could keep an eye out for the back supply room door.

The cook frowned at her. Why was that girl peering towards the back, leaning half her body over the counter like that? He unfolded his arms and shook his head-- that girl had always been hopeless; no use pondering on that now. He left to the back to yell at some of the workers there.

Paul reemerged from the back room, now shoulder bag-less. Ro jumped back to the stools and pretended to rearrange perfectly set stools, which she herself had done ten minutes ago, trying not to stare at him. But Paul had the reflexes of a rabbit, so he instinctively shivered and shied away from Ro, avoiding eye contact.

Ro didn't notice.

She waited exactly thirty seconds before she stealthily moved to the hidden staircase at the closed side of the restaurant, where a hallway extended into the staircase behind a closed door. "Fi," Ro murmured out of the corner of her mouth, though literally nobody but Fi and Idel could actually see or hear her in this corridor, "The target has put his bag-- sorry, the bait in the promised location. Commence operation now." She looked down the corridor behind her with narrowed eyes, lowering her voice even more. "And make it quick."

"Rosa," Fi said at her normal volume, "your shift won't end for six hours. We have all the time we need."

"Shh," hissed Ro, and she tiptoed carefully back to the door to the restaurant. She gave the two of them peeking out of the stairway a meaningful look. "Don't mess it up, agents." She closed the door.

In the ensuing silence, Fi said, "As I was saying, Ro isn't as weird as she seems." Or at least, I hope so, she thought, though she dared not say it aloud.

Approximately two hours later, Fi and Idel stretched and pushed their little plates of carrots aside (their snack, according to Idel; though Fi couldn't figure out how carrots were truly a snack). "Idel, you stay back," Fi said. "If Paul sees you, he'll run like a beaver."

"Okay," Idel said, trying to imagine how fast beavers could run. If they could run as fast as Paul, though, she was quite sure they were very fast indeed.

(She was wrong. Beavers can only run at 5 miles per hour. Humans can run up to 20. Fi had never seen a beaver in her life.)

Fi, agent superior, looked around her surroundings from the door. She noted that the table-stomping uncle was at the bar and looked two seconds away from intentionally spilling his beer over his neighbor's pants, which she smoothly ignored. (Not my shift, not my problem, she chanted.)

She nodded once at Idel, who smiled encouragingly back in return, and then out she stepped into dangerous territory. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then grinned her biggest grin. "Hi there, Paul!" she called.

Paul glanced at her as he set down a piping hot bowl of soup on the table. He quickly resumed focus on the bowl so that he wouldn't scald himself or the customer, then looked at her again with furrowed eyebrows. "Filian?"

"Yeah! How's work?"

He straightened up and walked towards her. "Um, fine, but? What are you, why did, where did you come from?"

"I'm human, and I came from my room," Fi replied cheerfully, hands behind her back. "I guess I never told you, huh?" She pointed at the ceiling upstairs. "I live up there!"

Paul gave the ceiling a dubious look. "Up there?"

"Yeah. This is a two-story building, you know." She laughed, maintaining her cheer. Her heart thumped loudly in her ear. "I live upstairs, with my mom."

"Wow, um okay," he blinked. "But what are you here for? It's not your shift."

"Cook wanted me to come by and taste-test something," Fi lied. "I'm just saying hi to you real quick."

"Okay." He blinked two more times. "Then, um, have fun?"

"Of course I will! Free food from the cook? Could there be anything better?" And with that, Fi flounced away as lightly as she could, choosing to ignore how Ro was shooting her daggers from her position. But wasn't this a better plan, pretending she had a right to be here? And it was true she lived on the second floor anyway!

"Hi cook!" Fi called.

The burly man squinted at her. "What are you doing here?" he barked, folding his arms.

"Just visiting! Have anything you want me to taste-test?"

"In the middle of dinner hour? Of course not!"

Fi peered at the huge frying pan in front of the cook. "Oops, your eggs might be burning. See you later!"

The cook hurriedly uncrossed his arms and picked up the spatula, and Fi was forgotten just like that.

"Perfect," she whispered to herself with a secretive smile, and then she slipped into the supply room.

Second shelf on the last rack: shoulder bag spotted, just like Ro said. She picked it up and tied it to her knee with the rubber band she had brought, then lowered her skirt around it. Hmm. The shoulder bag was too bulky. This wasn't going to work.

She tried multiple other ways for the bag before she settled on putting it on a plate and draping a piece of cloth over it, like it was some kind of bread or something. She could totally pretend that it was a gift from the cook for her mom. Why not? She shrugged. 

Fi waltzed right out of the kitchen without giving the cook another glance, who was much too busy with scolding another assistant to pay her any mind. 

"Bringing food for my mom," she called to Paul as she whizzed by, and since he barely had time to say anything back to her while taking a customer's order, she got away with it without a moment's problem.

Idel was waiting for her, sitting at the stairs, and Fi gently closed the door behind her before she said, "Success!" Idel clapped at Fi's triumphant victory dance.

"And now, four more hours to go."

[NOTE: for the sake of saving paper, the report has cut short all irrelevant hours from the operation. We skip now to the end of target and Agent Ro's shift. FOUR HOURS LATER (in the Spongebob voice, please)]

"It's now four hours later," Ro narrated, "and we are in the last few minutes of the shift."

"We are preparing to corner Paul with the plate of shoulder bag we have apprehended from the back supply room," Fi continued.

Idel smiled sweetly, placing a hand on her cheek. "Shall we go, then?"

The three of them pumped a fist together and let out a battle cry, though Idel didn't really participate in that one. Still, Ro was sure, her heart was in it anyway.

They dashed out of the hallway into the restaurant, the shoulder bag firmly in Fi's grasp. They spotted Paul right away-- he was waving goodbye at the kitchen, preparing to leave.

Idel stepped forward and took a deep breath. "Paul!" she called, and Paul immediately froze.

"Paul," she said, stepping closer and closer to him, "could we talk a bit together?"

He turned around slowly, revealing the wide-eyed look of a rabbit so familiar now to all three of them. "Idel," he whispered, taking a step back.

"It's been such a long time," Idel murmured, and the silence in the air between them was almost tangible. A soft wind blew in from the open door, and their hairs rustled in harmony like a dramatic scene from a cherry blossom-filled anime, Ro thought. Ro had not felt this poetic in too long a time, so she was proud of herself.

But when Idel stepped in just a little closer, Paul's eyes widened a smidgen more, and then the entire ambiance was broken. He turned on his heel and fled.

"Wait! We have your shoulder bag!" Ro yelled, snatching the bag from Fi and waving it in the air. The three girls rushed outside. "If you want your bag back, talk to Idel!"

But alas, he was already too far to hear, and Fi peered at him from afar at the restaurant door, then gasped. "Ro," she said, shaking Ro's arm, eyes still on Paul. "He already has his shoulder bag!"

"What?" Ro whipped her head around to squint at Paul's retreating figure as well. Sure enough, the tell-tale brown strap and the bouncing bag greeted her careful observation. She looked down at the bag in her hand. "Then what is this?"

"Thief!" they heard someone howl from inside the restaurant. "Thief! Someone took my bag!"

The three stood in the open air, appreciating the cool wind that blew against their skin in the night. They stared at the bag, stared at each other, then stared at the bag again.

"That was the cook, wasn't it," Fi said quietly, not daring to blink.

Ro nodded. "We're in so much trouble, aren't we," she said, in an even smaller voice.

Idel pursed her lips and placed a hand on her heart, sympathetic. "Oh dear," she said, stepping away, "look at the time."

[CONCLUSION: FAILURE. CONSEQUENCES: FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SERMON FROM WORK SUPERVISOR. TWO AGENTS MILDLY DISTRESSED. AGENT IDEL ESCAPES UNSCATHED. POSITION AT SQUARE ONE RESUMED.]

[CLOSED: ATTEMPT #1, CODE RED, OPERATION IN ACTION REPORT.]

---

A/N: Could you tell I was having fun with it? Because I was. Heh.