✏️ The Littlest Spy

2. Irreplaceable

The air was filled with the insistent click-click-click of a dozen keyboards. Everybody in the office focused intently on their work, sure that what they were doing mattered. Even when they couldn't make any deductions right away, they were chipping away at the rock face of ignorance, and sooner or later they would manage to unearth a nugget of truth. Or at least, that was how it seemed to Isadora as she pushed a stray lock of dark hair away from her face. She knew that her own work, even if it was related to something minor like a dead-drop in the back streets of Tarawa, actually mattered, and she was determined to do it to the best of her ability. Even if her hazel eyes were bloodshot from staring at a monitor all day by the time she got back to her apartment. It would have been worth it, and she was already looking forward to being able to relax and indulge herself later.

But there was no time to be thinking about that. She straightened her glasses and smoothed down her sensible blouse as the interdepartmental mail trolley rolled by. Sheila's laughter at the mailroom guy's jokes grated on Isadora's nerves. Didn't they understand how crucial their work was? Isadora would never even consider flirting with a coworker, not one of the office staff. Even having a closer bond with an Operative could be dangerous; and Isadora wasn't the only one who looked down on the various Monitors who had reputedly hooked up with the agency's most notorious womaniser, Agent Brock. Isadora found herself sneering without thinking when that image crossed her mind; she knew she would never fall for that kind of flamboyant playboy.

She tried to put it out of her mind, and turned back to the list of cryptographic signatures in front of her. She had an iron will, and remained focused on the screen for a whole two seconds until a letter landed on her desk with a quiet flutter. Then her hands froze over the keyboard, and she wondered if this could be it. The answer she had been waiting for.

She hesitated, and froze with the letter in her hands. There was just her name and desk number typed on the front, with no indication of which office it had come from. But some instinct told her that her answer was inside. The final results after eighteen months of training. If the letter said yes, she wouldn't need to keep sitting here decrypting messages to tell Brown and Johnson where they needed to be. She could travel with an Operative and give him support in the field. She could watch dots on her screen indicating where guards might be, and give her Operative advice in real time, telling him when he needed to duck, and when he needed to fight. On paper, there was little difference between the duties of a Monitor and a Field-certified Monitor, but in practice it meant that she could do all the things that required a real time response, and it meant that sometimes she might be less than a mile from the bad guys. It was a prospect that terrified Isadora, but if it meant that she could spend more time close to Brown, and even get him to speak to her for more than a casual 'hi' as they passed in the corridors of Millennium House, it would all be worthwhile.

Shaking, and aware that she was distracting herself from her all-important codebreaking work, she tucked away an errant lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail and then drew her thumbnail carefully through the top of the envelope.

A handful of minutes later, Isadora could hardly contain her excitement as she strode down the familiar wood-panelled corridors. A part of her still couldn't believe it, but seeing her name on that certificate had put a new spring in her step. She hadn't told any of her colleagues where she was going, and she doubted that any of them really cared. But she wanted Brown to be the first person she told.

Brown was the Operative she wanted to work with more than any other, and it was his strength that had first inspired her to try getting into the field. He wasn't an egotistical jerk like the legendary operative Brock, whose reputation included all the chauvinism of James Bond without any of the subtlety. Brown was a consummate professional, who made it his goal to learn everything he could possibly do to make the mission go down smoothly. And to Isadora, his caring nature and attention to detail made him much more attractive than toned muscles and dark-bronze skin. She'd respected the man ever since she first heard stories of his dedication and courage, and once she had actually seen him around headquarters she had been totally enthralled. The one time she'd spoken to him on the job, passing over a bunch of schedule data for an arms shipment, she'd seen that he had other impressive qualities as well. Brown would never see a mission as a checklist of goals. He cared about the people; both the ones he was working with and the innocents they were supposed to protect. And she had found herself dreaming of how well they could work together if they could properly synergise their skills.