Starfall ⨯ 77

Mission 7: Pool Afternoon

It was Saturday afternoon, and Twilight had gone out to get ready for his mission. From the panicked and later confident thoughts I'd gotten from him that day, I figured out that his mission would be cutting it close to the party he was supposed to attend with Yor.

I also discovered the reason she agreed to be his fake wife in the first place, which was because she needed a fake boyfriend for said party. Man, where was all this conveniently timed fraud coming from, anyway?

I sighed. Well, I wouldn't have anything to do for at least six or so hours. The old lady who was supposed to be my babysitter was passed out on the couch. Might as well complete my first check-in, and maybe accept a side mission while I'm at it.

I headed to my room and grabbed Chimera. I pressed the left, upper paw pad, contacting headquarters. Phoenix answered on the second ring. "Ah, Starfall, wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon. How's the mission progressing?" Phoenix asked. "Good. I've moved on to Phase Two, and Twilight's just secured someone to play the role of wife for Eden's family interview. All in all, everything's progressing smoothly." I replied.

"That's good news. I also have the files of all the noteworthy children in your year who have been accepted so far. When can you receive it?" "I'm free for the next few hours, so I could probably go now." I said. "Alright. Would you be willing to accept an additional small mission? It shouldn't take very long, and I'll send another agent as well." "Sounds good to me. Where are we meeting?" "Public Space 700P." "Roger."

~•✩°※°✩•~

I arrived at the pool, standing in front of the changing rooms. A woman in her twenties approached me. She had short, slightly wavy black hair with the tips died dark blue, and was holding a duffel bag. "Oh, they sent you?" I asked.

"Yep! I happened to be free." she replied, sitting down on a nearby bench. I walked over and asked, "So, what exactly are we doing? I was really only given the location and an 'it shouldn't take long'."

Trixx sent me her signature grin. "We're intercepting information from Dylan Whitney that's arranged to go to an East reporter named Margaret Lance." I nodded thoughtfully. I'd heard of Margaret Lance. She was a rising journalist who wrote propaganda pieces on the West. She'd also been accused of being part of a jewelry theft case a few years back, but there was no proof, so it'd quickly been forgotten. Dylan Whitney had been arrested for illegal smuggling of firearms a couple decades ago.

"Are we staging an arrest, or..." I questioned. "Nah, only intercepting the photos and information." Trixx replied. I nodded. "The passing of information is arranged for exactly one hour from now. We're not sure exactly how, but we know it'll be somewhere near the pool itself." she informed. "So we should wait in the water?" I asked. She nodded, and we stood up and entered the changing room.

A few minutes later, we exited, sporting swimwear. I'm glad I decided to pack some when I heard we'd be going to the pool. We entered the water, and Trixx blew up a beach ball, and we played catch for the next fifty minutes. The pool was somewhat crowded, and since I was the one facing the doors, I had to make sure to keep my head up high.

'Only ten minutes left...' I perked up as I picked out a man's voice from all the others around me. A coincidence? 'No, I need to figure out where that came from.' I focused all my energy, picking out the voice again. Trixx could tell I was concentrating, and had probably figured something out, so she was holding the ball and scanning the surroundings.

'Hah! This'll be a cinch. All she has to do is follow the instructions I gave her. And they say knowledge isn't power. Well, it's sure got the power to spark war!' I pinpointed the voice to a man wearing a janitor's outfit, standing by a trash can. I recognized the build and spiky blonde hair from the picture Trixx had shown me earlier. No doubt about it, that was Dylan Whitney.