Spy School: The Rise of Gama

Chapter 33: Easy as One, Two, Three

 The Amazonian Warriors base is alive with a quiet buzz all through the night. Agents that were flown in from other cities across Brazil arrive in small bursts, filling the few available rooms. Rena keeps track of all of them, splitting them into groups based upon the standards Lyndley and Matias provided for her. Meanwhile, Nico and Razor stay in an empty room anxiously awaiting dawn.

Razor paces around, unable to stay still for more than a few minutes. Nico sits with his back against the wall, his sweatshirt hood pulled up over his head and his arms crossed over his chest. Much to Razor's annoyance, Nico's eyes are closed and his breathing is calm and even.

"How can you do that?" Razor asks, stopping in front of Nico.

"Do what?"

"Sit there so calmly. The others could be under torture right now, or worse, and we're sitting here wasting time until morning."

"There's only a few things wrong with that statement." Nico opens one eye to look at Razor, his mouth twitching just slightly into his signature smirk.

"Enlighten me," Razor mutters, resuming his pacing of the room.

"For starters, I'm not calm; you'll learn that faking calmness will get you far in this profession you've been thrown into. Second, we're not wasting our time. Lyn and Matias are creating a strategy so that we have at least a scrap of an idea what we're doing, Rena is organizing the incoming agents to allow us to move the moment the strategy is finished, and we're supposed to be getting rest so that we aren't exhausted when that time comes. Exhaustion leads to a poor thought process and rash decisions." Nico closes his eyes and settles against the wall once more. "Wearing a pattern into the hardwood floor is the opposite of helping your situation, and theirs."

Before Razor has a chance to respond, the door to the room creaks open to reveal Lyndley. There's dark shadows under her eyes and she looks more pale than usual, but her eyes are alight with determination. "Matias and Rena want everyone out on the front lawn. They're almost ready to leave."

Nico stands up but leans back against the wall. "Did you figure out the communications issue?"

"Pretty sure. There's three possibilities as to how to counter it, Matias has been informed of all of them. I'm hoping he'll brief you and all the other agents before leaving."

"You trust him to do that?" Nico asks, raising an eyebrow.

Lyndley shakes her head slowly, her bangs falling to cover her eyes even more than before. "I don't have a choice."

"Ah well, there's nothing more you can do then. Especially in your state, you look like a light breeze could topple you over." Nico walks over to her, towering above her by nearly a foot. "Get some rest. It'll take us an hour or so just to get to the river, take a nap."

"I'm fine, Nico." Lyndley assures, shifting her weight on her crutches. "I can rest once this is done and everyone is out of there safely."

Nico's eyes narrow for a moment as he looks her over once more. "You're still working on something now, aren't you?"

"Of course. You didn't really believe my work for this was done, did you? Maybe if I had someone else working with me, but," Lyndley's voice fades out after that, the slight smile she'd had fading quickly. "Anyway, I'm working on breaking into Gama's systems. If I can shut their defenses down or mess with their communications and technology in any way it may provide an opening for you."

Nico ruffles Lyndley's hair, "Don't worry, we'll get them back. You keep working on your super cool hacker stuff, the rest of us will do our part."