Spy School - Back to Basics [2]

06: Invitations

Sorry, sorry this is late. I'll start writing the next chapter (which has ROMANCE), ASAP

Robert E. Lee Junior High

Vienna, Virginia

May 08

730 hours

I was once on a plane flying to the Aquarius Resort with Erica, guided by Murray. After the pilots ejected and abandoned us along with Murray, a missile was sent by SPYDER, screaming towards us. While Erica piloted the plane and Zoe sent a grenade to the missile with guidance from my calculations, Murray was praying to any god he could come up with, covering every major religion and some I haven't even heard of.

I had strong belief in my faith, but as Mike and I slowly walked towards the hole in the fence, I felt like pulling a Murray and kneeling to the floor. I persisted however, and exchanged one last look with Mike.

Earlier that morning, Mike and I woke up early once again for our journey. I couldn't sleep at all the night before, tossing and turning in my uncomfortable and lumpy bed. I had barely any energy, so I didn't even bother throwing my hotel-issued alarm clock across the room. We then promptly put on each others disguise-makeup since we didn't want to wake Elizabeth (Erica's grandmother, not Pasternak). My face had to much blush and Mike's forehead looked wonky, but it was acceptable.

Snap. Mike stepped on a twig, nearly giving me a heart attack. He gave me an apologetic look, seeing my expression.

We crept shuffled along, and then we finally reached fence. A couple of taps and muttered words later, we were nervously waiting.

There was some muffled shuffling followed by a loud thump which resulted in some cursing from whoever it was. Suddenly, a figure popped into existence- literally- wearing a black hoodie. The hood was pulled over, so I could only see the frizzy red hair peaking out from it. The figure moved their hand into their pocket. There was an empty click (like the one from a TV remote), but nothing happened.

"Ugh, not again. The smoke maker-thingy is broken. I'll have to ask the girl with the plant name to fix it- I should probably learn her name," the figure exclaimed, trailing off at the end.

"Um, hi?" Mike asked tentatively. This was definitely not what were expecting. More super-natural attacks? Maybe, but not this.

The figure lifted up their head. Under the hood, there was a girl with sparkling green eyes and lots of freckles about my age. "Hi! I assume you're here for advice?"

"Yeah, I guess, but shouldn't this be, I dunno, more mysterious or something?" Mike asked.

"It would be, if it wasn't for the broken smoke machine." The girl scowled. "Maria always gets better tech than me. She gets VR drones to draw shadows flowing from her hands and I get a hoodie and a garage-sale smoke machine. Hmmph."

"Maria- is she the girl that shows up if you have bad art supplies?" I asked.

"Yep!" She chirped. "Now, speaking of which, hand them over."

Mike slid over the art supplies.

"Thank you. My name is Katrina, and I'll be your oracle for today," she announced.

"Do you even have oracle powers?" Mike questioned.

Katrina furrowed her brows, like she was trying to formulate a sentence, but couldn't because of grammatical errors. "Er... not exactly. But I am an artist."

"Is that why you want the paints?" Mike asked.

"No. Artist is a broad spectrum. Artists can be street artist, painters, actors, artisans, architects- see where I'm going with this?" Katrina corrected Mike.