Spy School: Broken Bonds

Chapter 14: Mission Time pt.1

London

The Hotel

Tuesday

0615 Hours

Zoe's POV

I woke up and was ready for action. I quickly grabbed my cloths and woke up Mike who was sleeping with his phone still on. He was listening to some weird ASMR. After I woke him up, I went to go get Ben since Erica wasn't here to do it, when I realized, Ben still wasn't back? "Hey Mike, did you ever see Ben come back from the Hospital last night." "Not that I remember *Yawn*.  "Go take a shower, you need it" I said to Mike, who was still tired. "Whatever" He said as he closed the door and started the shower. 

I looked around to check if anyone was there, even though I knew there wasn't, and checked the drawer near Erica's bed. If I'm ever going to snoop around her stuff, now would be the time. Sadly, there wasn't much from a few papers about the mission. I next went to her computer, hoping she might have left it open. Weirdly, she did. Most things were heavily encypted though, I was only able to see a couple of self written documents about how more SPYDER trucks were going to be loading out today. I was about to keep looking to see if I could break any of the encryptions when I heard a yawn and a creak. I quickly turned off the computer and spun around to see Alexander standing there in a perfect suit, as usual. He looked tired just like Mike, except his face was a bit puffy and his eyes were a light red. "Hey, are you okay" I said concerned. "Uh...y...yeah. Uh, where's Ben" he stuttered. "I think he is still at the hospital." "Good, Erica needs him" he said under his breath. "We can start without him, lets just get started with todays job." I wanted to follow up on that but I just let it be.

"Well, where are we starting" I asked. "Uhh, didn't Catherine tell you any info?" "No, she might have told Erica but she's in the hospital." "Ur...do you have Catherine's number?" "Shouldn't you?" I asked confused. He was Erica's dad after all. "Oh yeah" he said as he got out his phone. He tried calling a number, probably Catherine, when it went straight to voicemail saying the number was unavailable. "She probably got a new number" he said, shrugging it off. "Umm, I think she might have blocked you?" "Nooo, probably." "Let me try" I said grabbing his phone. I entered the number into my phone and it started ringing. "Hello, this is Catherine Hale, Museum Curator. How can I help you?" "Hey, it's me Zoe. Can you meet us at the Tea-Shop for some artifact contracts? When you have your break" I said unsure if what I said makes sense. "Sure, I should be off at around 1, we can discuss then" Catherine said in her usual chipper manner, not breaking character. "See you then" she said before promptly hanging up the phone. "Uh...I probably just dialed the wrong number" Alexander said before banging at the door. "Hurry up in there Mike, were meeting Catherine at 1." "Gimme a minute." "we don't have all day, it's been 20 minutes" I said a bit impatiently, realizing I haven't taken a shower yet."

XxxA_Little_Bit_BeforexxX

Ben's POV

It was still dark out thankfully, dark enough to where no one could really see me. I've been walking to the signal ever since Murray got off the phone. I tracked down his signal using a built in signal tracker on my phone. It seems to be that Murray is somewhere underground, maybe in the sewers? I didn't exactly know, all I knew was that I was coming for the cure whether he was ready to give it over or not. It's been tearing Erica apart, I need to get it. It was hard to walk around places, it's not like I could use a car, but I wish I could. It wasn't agonizing but walking was really taking a toll on me. Every step felt heavier and heavier and I almost felt like I should take a beak, but I knew I couldn't. If I stopped now, I probably wouldn't be able to continue. So I pushed on and walked forth.I had to hide in the shadows as I made my way there, slowing me down, but I eventually made it. Before stood the lumbering clock, Big Ben.

The signal was still about a mile away, but I was right on top of it. Apparently, it was coming from below me. "How could a signal even come from that far down?" I thought to myself. It didn't really matter at the moment though, I put my phone in my pocket and started looking for a way in to the massive clock. I remembered that sometimes the clock needs maintenance, so there must be a door somewhere. Sure enough, around the South side of the clock had a door that perfectly blended into the wall, looking almost like there wasn't even a door there in the first place. It took me a minute took get there do to its pure size, but I eventually got to open the door. I walked in hoping to see a light anywhere, but it was just pitch black in there. So I closed the door and went to take out my phone from my utility belt when I realized I also had a flashlight in there. So took out my flashlight and turned it on to see a concrete room with a spiraling staircase. It was also really dusty, it made sense considering the size but still. Shouldn't someone clean the inside every once and awhile. There were a couple door sized holes in the walls that I went looking through. There were some crates here and there but not much else. I didn't really have anything else to go off of so I started moving the crates looking for secret entrances. It would make sense if SPYDER wanted to hide their base. When I was moving the crates I noticed something weird. They had a weird C on them, with a weird squiggle on the bottom. I just kept on moving them though until I found something. It looked like the piece of the ground but there was a little seam around it. I tried picking it up but my only grip was a cracked side of it. I stuck my knife at the side of the seem and it was just thin enough to slip in. I eventually was able to use the knife to lift it up enough to grab. Once I threw it aside, I stared down into a dark abyss. There was a ladder on the wall leading into the abyss, inviting me to go down.

XxxTime_SkipxxX

Zoe's POV

It was about 1 O'clock when we were arriving at the local Tea-Shop. Me and Mike sat down at a corner table at the shop while Alexander went and ordered us some tea. We waited a little bit before Catherine eventually arrived. Alexander was about halfway done through ordering so Catherine asked him to get her something as she sat down. She was looking just as good as before, even after work. "Hello chaps, I see we needed some more help. First, have we found out any new info?" she asked. "Not really, I learned that some SPYDER trucks are going to be leading to their base later today. Which is useful, but we wanted to know if you knew anything else so that we don't go in blind" I said. Mike was just staring off into the distance like he was bored. To be fair though he told me earlier that he HATED tea so maybe that's why. Whatever the case was, he needed to pay attention. "*snap*  *snap* Mike, over here." "Honestly, I've had a Mission with the MI6, having to cover-up that little mess of ours back at the fake base. But what I did find-" she said pulling out a yellow file out of her purse. "-was the trucks we were following didn't just contain C4, but they also had a lot of documents about pay-role. We were only able to make out some parts of the paper at the scene but it was just enough to figure out what they were" she said showing us heavily burned paper. "We couldn't find any paper with a name on it but we could at least collect them, we are lucky they are readable at all."

"Here are your teas" Alexander said, handing us our tea. "Why thank you" Catherine said, not looking at him. Alexander kind of just looked to the side and said "What did I miss." We got him caught up to the news and started on our plan. "At 10 tonight, we'll follow the truck descretely back to the base and ambush the drivers. We'll then explore the truck. We then go into their base, snoop around, and try to stop their plan." "What about Ben and Erica?" Mike asked. "We'll just have to do it without them." So, with our plan set in stone. We went our separate ways, saying goodbye to Catherine.

Hello Guys, hoped yall liked the chapter! Sorry about me being sloppy with the deadline again. It's kind of hard for me to concentrate on things and with school just starting it's hard for me to balance this and writing. But I think I have FINNALY gotten back into a groove. Plus, some more good news. My book got accepted in the Sakura Awards (I might have misspelled)! Let's hope I win! Once again, I hoped you liked this chapter and have a great day! 😁