Spy School: Catalyst

Chapter Two

I stepped out into the street, heading for the library, where I could hopefully find some information. The shop door closed behind me, though I barely registered it. My mind was filled to the brim with unanswered questions. How had Catalyst crushed the nation's most powerful defense system in a single blow? Did they have someone on the inside? I turned on a cobblestone corner. A few residents were out and about, braving the cold, even though it had to be at least below 30 degrees. A block down, a few teenagers were laughing and jumping off some playground equipment. I walked across the street, heading for a common, unimpressive plaza.
Suddenly my phone buzzed with a text.
The Bite and Byte. Ten minutes. I knew where that was. It was an Internet cafe close by.
I snapped my head up in surprise. There was only one person who would text me something like that.
I looked towards the library, which was now less than a hundred feet away. However, something was nagging at my memory. Catalyst... Something from before my high school days came back to me.
I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and strode the rest of the way to the library. The librarian greeted me with a warm welcome and I returned it, seeing as I went there at least once a month. I quickly bypassed all the towering rows of bookshelves and sat down at one of the many computer kiosks. I quickly glanced around to make sure that no one was watching me. Then, with a few keystrokes, I exited the library's protection system and entered the web browser. I checked my phone. Six minutes left. I typed in the URL for the online dictionary and searched Catalyst.
Exactly what I was looking for came up on screen. Catalyst meant an event that sparked a chain of actions or events.
Could whoever who was behind this be planning further attacks? I shivered to think what would happen in the future. I checked my phone again, checking the amount of time I had left. Two minutes left. I logged out of the computer, intending to make my getaway. I scooted my chair in, got up, and looked at the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
Erica was astonishingly beautiful, but her cold facade and standard get-out-of-my-face attitude tended to not be one of her good traits.
This girl had an aura of simple kindness that seemed to be the polar opposite.
Something familiar about her crossed my mind, though my mind happened to be not working properly. This girl was about my height, and looked about my age. Her brown eyes were intense, yet playful. A small smile creased the corners of her face. Her hair seemed to glow in the sunlight, reflecting the sun's colors in a dazzling display of gold.
And she seemed to be looking at me. I tended to blend in with the background, wherever I was. Yet something I had done had caught her attention. She smiled at me, and that singular action erased any conscious thought I had left.
"Hi." She said. She sat down at the computer I had been using.
"Uhhh, uh." I managed. My brain seemed overwhelmed and had simply directed all my available brainpower into making sure that I didn't drool or collapse.
Her fingers moved quickly on the keyboard, and I watched dumbly as she searched something up on the internet. A buzz in my pocket shocked me back to my reality.
I checked it. BEN COME NOW
I sighed. Erica was probably pissed that I was late.
I walked away (it took a little effort), although that quickly broke into a sprint.
From behind me, I heard "Hey, wait-" But I didn't stop to chat. Something about the urgency of Erica's tone pushed me to leave quickly. Probably the capital letters.

. . . . . .

I pushed my way into the Bite and Byte ten minutes later, panting for breath.
I scanned the crowd, looking for Erica. She was hunched over a laptop next to a cup of coffee. I scrambled over, although I hesitated a bit, which was probably on the account of her saying that she never wanted to see me again. I scooted the chair next to her out from under the table and sat down next to her. On her computer screen, grainy footage of a CCTV camera played at an agonizingly slow speed. Erica sipped her coffee, seemingly avoiding eye contact.
I awkwardly sat next to her watching the video, not daring to speak first. I watched the video play. It seemed to be a night recording of a compound. As I watched, a small speck of light flashed on the screen, temporarily blinding the camera. As the vision returned, I noticed a blur of motion on the edge of the screen.
I reached over to pause the video. At the same time, Erica grabbed for her cup of coffee. What resulted was a very awkward reverse handshake.
She untangled her hand from mine and grabbed her cup of coffee, still avoiding eye contact with me. Finally, she broke the ice.
"Do you know what this is?" She asked, taking another sip of coffee. I stared at the screen and racked my memory for any recollection, but came up empty. I shook my head.
She tapped the screen, magnifying the shadow. Now that I looked at it, I could notice a weird angular reflection in the grass.
"What is.." I started.
Interrupting me, Erica pointed at the shadow. "That's not any part of a human being that I can identify. This footage is taken outside of the CIA facility right before the shutdown happened.
I nodded. 'If I had to guess, I'd say that maybe it was a backpack or some sort of equipment that the person, if they were there, could have been wearing."
She pressed play, and the shadow sped out of vision once again. The footage restarted, and I waited for the moment where the angular reflection appeared. Like clockwork, for a moment after the flash of white, the gleaming reflection appeared.
"I can't figure out what it is either. I ran it past image recognition, but nothing came up." She said.
"How about that gleam of metal in the grass? Any idea what that is?"
She glanced at it and shrugged, unconcerned.
She frowned, seeming to realize something. "Why were you so late anyway?"
"I went to the library to research the word catalyst. Turns out-"
"That wouldn't have taken ten minutes." She said. Her frown deepened.
She stared at me, and her eyes suddenly intensified into her traditional venomous glare.
"Don't tell me you blew me off." She said calmly, with an undertone of menace underneath.
The conversation had suddenly become as dangerous as a minefield.
I gulped and leaned back in my chair as far as it could go. "No! I just uh, I um..."
I trailed off as her glare somehow magnified even further. "Right. Now, for the sake of the United States we better trust each other. It's not so hard. Just tell, so we can get on with it." She said.
I grimaced internally. Erica was capable of wiping the floor with a full team of mercenaries. Unarmed. I was relatively sure she could incapacitate me from this distance in less than a second.
I cracked, although I wasn't sure how she would react. "I...got distracted." I tried. I was interested in Erica, and saying that I was distracted by someone probably wouldn't be the best way to encourage a relationship. We had a complicated relationship. I knew she slightly liked me, and I had had a massive crush on her since the beginning of my entrance to spy school. I registered that she was focused on her spy legacy, but I hoped there was something behind that.
She didn't even have to say anything, she just stared at me, her glare amplifying. I cringed. "I-uh-met someone so I got distracted for a couple of minutes."
She detected the unsaid words and understood it without another question. However, luckily, instead of getting angry, she became worried. Which was almost as bad.
"Did she have blond hair, brown eyes, extremely pretty?"She asked innocently.
"Yeees?" I responded in the most questionable tone I could muster.
She grimaced visibly. "I might know who that is."
I was picking up signs of discomfort in the way that her shoulders were arched, and her normally calm face was almost set in stone.
Almost with impeccable timing, the cafe door opened, and the girl from the library walked in.
Even though I had seen her before, I was still stunned by the way she seemed to glow in the early morning sunlight. She smiled at me from across the room, and made her way towards us.