Spy School: Outbreak

Chapter 2

Office of the Principal

Nathan Hale Building

Academy of Espionage

Washington, DC

May 5

1345 hours

I sat down, looking at the other people in the room.

There was the principal. I sort of had a rocky history with him. Apart from the aforementioned office blowing-up, he generally held a grudge against me, considering that I was smarter, more athletic, and an all-around better spy than him, not to mention that I had been on more successful missions.

When he saw me and Erica walk in he groaned.

"These two? Again? You are putting my students into the field again-"

"Silence!" Cyrus snapped. "You do this every damned time! Like I have told you many times, you don't have any say in this. Once again, you are only here because you must be notified, not because you have any power."

This shut the principal up. He was glaring daggers at me though, although that was common.

Cyrus was Erica's grandfather, one of the most talented spies the CIA had ever employed. He was even harder to please than his granddaughter.

I turned to the last person, the woman who I didn't recognize. I turned to Cyrus to question him, but he beat me to it.

"Both of you, this is Dr. Donna Jenkins, she is the head of-" Cyrus stopped as the woman kicked him in the leg. "The head of a branch of the CIA that she prefers to remain classified."

Cyrus turned to the principal's computer monitor, which was facing away from him. He spun it towards us and gestured.

"This is the problem."

"Cyrus?" I asked. "That's Flapjack Frenzy PC."

Cyrus looked at it, then glared at the principal. He then spoke in a deadly calm.

"Barnabus?" Cyrus said. The principal flinched at his name.

"Yes?" The principal responded meekly.

"Were you playing a stupid game during this classified meeting!" He yelled.

The principal weakly nodded. Cyrus got up, walked over to him. He leaned in. The principal cringed. Cyrus then whispered so quietly, I barely made out his words.

"The next time I find you playing Flapjack Frenzy, or anything, during a meeting, I will see to it that you lose your job. Are we clear?"

The principal lowered his head in shame, and nodded, looking like Warren used to when Zoe hurt his feelings.

"Now," Cyrus growled, PO'd. "We can get back to what is actually important."

He switched over to a screen that showed a map of what I recognized to be Nicaragua. There was a circle on the map. He pointed to a patch of forest.

"This," He said. "Is the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve. Three days ago, through tapped phone lines and such, we found out that a tour group had found that every Mantled Howler monkey inside of the area," He gestured to the screen with the circle of land. "Had died. We sent a few agents to take samples, and what we got back was surprising. When you recovered that rock from Hill's shoe, we did a bit more research on it after we got it back from Snodgrass. We found that there was an unknown something on it. We were unable to identify it. When the agents returned with the samples, we found that they had a trace of something nearly identical on one of them, which we found had just died that day. The other ones showed no sign of it."

Cyrus paused waiting to see if we realized what he was getting at. I had a growing suspicion, but I wasn't sure.

He continued, "We sent the agents back out into the field, and they returned with more. The unidentified substance was only found on ones that had died within twenty-four hours." He sighed. "We think, that the Croatoan, or another organization altogether, is creating a bioweapon, and this was their first test."

Before I could even completely process what he said, Dr. Jenkins stood up. She began to speak.

"My people think that this could be one of the most devastating things to ever be done by an enemy of any government. The fact that these people don't seem to want money, only chaos, makes this group extremely dangerous, and also makes me think that this is not the doing of the Croatoan. My department has dubbed this virus GH-O, with the rock on Mr. Hills shoe being GH-O-1, and the one found on the Howler Monkeys GH-O-2."

I raised my hand, like in class, and spoke.

"Why did you name it that? Did you figure out what components it contained?"

The doctor looked a little embarrassed, but answered, "Since we were unable to find out anything about this, other than it can only last a day without a living host, I asked my department what to name it. I have some SCP freaks in my division, and GH-O refers to a scenario where Humanity and/or most other life is wiped out, but Earth is still habitable, which is likely to happen if this plan succeeds."

Cyrus cut back in, "Which is why we need you two. You two have never failed us before, and I don't expect this time to be any different. Now-"

I interrupted. "Sir, I know we haven't failed before, but if this much is at stake, shouldn't you send some more experienced agents than us?"

"Generally I would," Cyrus answered. "But for two reasons, I send you. One, this involves Murray Hill. Most of the agents don't even know the name, let alone the face. You however are practically the expert on the man. Two, this is a covert operation, and they certainly know we are on to them. We will already be sending a decoy team to take all attention off of you, giving you a chance to stop this."

"I looked over at Erica. She looked excited. I felt excited too. I wanted to take down Murray once and for all.

I turned to Cyrus and asked, "When do we start?"