Agent Goldfinch

Not quite the same

I pull my hair over my ear, like anyone could see the microscopic, hidden earpiece in it. Then, I rest my ear on my hand - just to be safe.

"Stuck on your math?" Tate chides through the earpiece.

"Shut up Tate," I mutter, making sure no one would see my lips moving "I have to focus!"

"Algebra is so hard." He mocks.

Ugh. Resisting the urge to say anything else, I make it through the last five minutes of class, then leave swiftly.

"Ok, I can talk freely now."

"Won't people see you talking to yourself?"

I roll my eyes. "You know full well no one cares enough about me to notice if I am."

"Imagine having no friends." He snots before tearing open a packet, most likely a disgusting protein bar.

"Guess it's lunch for you too, huh?" I pose the question as I pull out my lunch: two mini baguettes with chicken and lettuce, as well as an apple and a can of sparkling water.

Tate chews and swallows, "Yup. Gotta have something to fuel my power, you know, Payne."

"How do you even eat those things, Crown?" I resort, "They taste like rubber."

"Well," I hear him bunch the wrapper up, evidently done with the bar ", some of us aren't so lucky to have our mum pack our lunches for us."

"I packed this myself!" I protest.

"Alright, alright, sure." He returns. I sigh in frustration.

I don't like to sit in one spot for too long, in case a teacher comes by and takes interest in "why I'm sitting alone and not with all my friends". Grabbing my apple and water, I head to the place where I can see into the house we're watching. The whole reason I'm staying at this school and not studying exclusively at the academy is because of this case, which happens to be my first.

"Luckily" the house we're watching is right across from the school, so I can watch them when I have a free second. Additionally, I now have a lot more time to devote to watching them because all my friends abandoned me. Which sucks, but not really because they were toxic, but we were so close, but now the whole school hates me because of them... I should stop. I can't spiral.

"Vanessa..." Tate singsongs my name, dragging out the "a". "Do you see anything?"

"You can literally see everything I see," I sigh in frustration, referencing the high tech camera embedded in the pair of contact lenses I'm wearing ", yet another reason why you could help me with my homework" I grumble.

"Well, maybe if you zoomed in, we could see through that crack in the blinds," he cheerfully ignores my homework request.

I twist the back of my earring a bit until the image in between the curtain and window sill. "Nothing much."

"Take photos anyways, we'll run them through the program for heat detection and such tonight" he advises.

I tug lightly on the small butterfly charm on my hoop earring three times. "Roger that."

I hear the clicking of his keyboard "Great. Also, don't forget to bug the car on your way home from school."

"Such a normal after school activity" I deadpan.

"Just making sure you remember," he nags. I know he has the best of intentions, but it's annoying to be treated like a little sister when I'm the older sibling in my family.

I look down at my nails. "Thanks," I reply, keeping my voice as even as possible.

The bell rings and I struggle through my last class of the day, French because it's so boring and my teacher isn't actually teaching me anything.

Once school lets out, I make my way towards home, tripping on my shoelace in front of a blue Tesla. In a millisecond I press my hand up underneath the car. When I bring my hands back to tie my shoe up, the large rose gold quartz is gone from the ring I was wearing.

"Good job"comments Tate.

I glow from his simple words of approval. But I wait to pass the house to talk. "Thanks."

He responds by opening yet another goddamn protein bar.

"Having a snack?" I tease as I unlock my front door.

"I have a debrief in fifteen minutes," he replies ", you coming to HQ today?"

"Always."

I have to take my earpiece out so my parents won't hear me rambling and either get suspicious or think I'm more insane then I already am.

Thankfully, I don't have anything after school, which gives me the opportunity to catch up on some homework.

At around eight I say I'm "so tired" and go up to my room. Inside my closet there's a shelf with a crack in one side. Using my nails, I pry it open to reveal my autumn training outfit: a black athletic jacket that zips up to my neck, to be worn over a black tank top, there's also black leggings and black trainers.

After putting my hair in a ponytail I climb out onto my roof, then climb down to the street. I have to lightly jog for fifteen minutes before I reach a desolate bus stop. The ad in the broken glass case is faded and old, the bench is rusty, and a section of the roof has fallen off. Around this time the streets are quiet enough.

I push the bench off to the side and open the cover that looks like a sewer cover, but logically couldn't be one because there's one ten meters away. Not that anyone really stops at this bus stop anymore. Hell, I don't know if the bus comes here.
I have to stop distracting myself. I look down at the hole.

Deep breath.

I jump, the cover sliding back in place. I land seamlessly in an open, underground space.

A section on the wall lights up in an electric shade of blue.

"Welcome, Junior Agent Payne."

In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm not exactly like other fifteen year olds.