Crumpet and Biscuit

Chapter 1 Biscuit

The weather was great today for Washington, DC. The sun began to peak over the city, bringing out the life of everything in it. As the sun rose, the street lights began to flicker off, one by one in an orderly fashion. Traffic began to pick up, and that was James's sign that he should finish up his laps before people swarm the sidewalks. He wasn't too impressed with himself this morning, he only ran fifteen laps around the White House. He liked running early in the morning, it was peaceful, no loud cars honking at one another, didn't have to worry about avoiding people, and the concrete felt good on his bare feet. James always felt the need to challenge himself, so some mornings he would take his shoes off and do laps, the soreness on his feet only made him feel stronger. After all being a secret agent was a tough job, so he always needed to push himself. He stuck his earbuds back in to cover the sound of the increasing traffic. ACDC was clearly enough to cover up the sound of the outside world. He just wanted to get one more lap in and then get back to his apartment to get the stench of his sweat off. He increased his speed up as fast as his legs would let him go. The rock music made his heart race faster. Then the moment was suddenly ruined, rock music began to fade, and was replace with a sad violin solo. James paused and looked down at his phone. The words Colonel Cackowski appeared, it gave him two choices, answer or decline, like he had a choice it was the colonel after all. "Yes sir," James said with fatigue. " Son, I understand it's your day off, but we need you to come in right away, I'll explain when I see you." That was the general all right, quick to the point, no explanations. Luckily James's apartment is only a block away. He looked around and began to sprint in the direction of his apartment. People began to pack the streets, disorganized movements everywhere. He saw the crossing sign over the heads of the crowd, pushing and shoving his was through to get there. He stood there eagerly, waiting for the crossing sign to glow green. " oh my God there aren't any cars around, " he said with aggregation in his voice, " screw it, I'm goin!" Jame ran across the road like he was being chased down. He went to the front door and fidgeted with his keys. Running inside, he went straight to the bathroom and grabbed his suit that was hanging behind the door. He took off his drenched track clothes, and began putting on his suit, not before flexing his abs and pecks. James slicked back his short black hair with his hand and gave himself a reassuring wink into the mirror. He slammed the door behind him and walked outside to his standard black SUV. Swerving through traffic like grand theft auto, avoiding one car and side scraping the next. If he didn't get there soon the colonel was going to give him hell. The car increased its speed up to eighty while running yet another red light, and then without hesitation he took a sharp right turn, leaving traces of tire marks on the road of 15th street. James looked in his rear view mirror and could see the wreckage of cars that were caught in his path. " Ha, shouldn't have gotten in my way morons," James said with adrenaline pumping through his body. He looked forward to the left and saw the head quarters. It was an abandoned building, vines growing on the sides of the windows. The alignment of bricks looked chipped in some places, sometimes he was afraid it would fall right on top of him. The appearance was absolutely brilliant though, no one would even suspect anything. James got out of his vehicle and made his way to the steel door that could only be opened from the inside. Looking for the buzzer and spamming it a few times. A voice came on the intercom above the door." I.D. please." He pulled out his wallet and raised his I.D. card to the camera. It read, James Biscuit, five foot eleven inches, age twenty-five, agent number 005332716. James hated doing this, it just let more people know that his last name was Biscuit. Such an odd last name, always wondered where the name like Biscuit originated from. He looked in all the data bases and nothing. It wasn't American, French, Italian, or British. It just couldn't be found. Couldn't make much sense out of his father sense he was always drunk and he couldn't ask his mother sense he really never knew her. The guy on the intercom snickered a little," ok Biscuit come on in." He went down the small hallway with pictures hanging of past colonels, all the same bloodline. At the end of the hallway, he made his way down stairs, and opened the door. Light illuminated from the room, and James rubbed his eyes to adjust to the new atmosphere. Inside mostly consisted of a few dozen computers and their operators, align like desk in a classroom. At the very end a large screen was mounted onto the wall with operators below typing away. In front of it stood a tall muscular man in his mid fifties, biceps almost big enough to rip through the suit he was wearing, hair so white it stood out from the rest of the people there. He looked up at the screen, stroking his very well trimmed beard. James walked up to the colonel, the sound of typing could be heard as he walked by. " Well good morning twinkle puff, actually decided to come in, did you?" James swallowed nervously. " Yes sir, sorry sir, traffic was craazy." Come look as this son," the colonel said as he motion James over. He walked up next to the colonel and looked up at the screen. " The past few months something has caught our attention. Four of the world's top genetic research labs have been raided and multiple fatalities have occurred." Colonel Cackowski motioned his head upwards. A video appeared on the screen, it was a science lab, men in white lab coats scattered for their lives as bullets flew by their heads. Three men in gas masks and black armored suits appear, they open fire on the scientists. The colonel fast forward the video. The men in black suits were now raiding the place, pushing test tubes and flask out onto the floor, causing as much destruction they could with their assault rifles, raining bullets down everywhere. The men in the lab coats are now drowning in their own blood. One of the men laid out on the floor began to cry for help. A man stood above him and kicked his body down. Blood exploded out of the scientist's mouth, then he started gasping for air, but in replace of air was just more blood. The dark suited man began to laugh. He slowly pointed his hand gun down towards the white coated man's head. The video paused. " Look," said the colonel, " on the man's arm." The video zoomed in closer to a logo, patched onto his sleeve. It was round, in the middle was an image of a crow perched on top of a human skull. Coming out of the eyes were vines which wrapped around the skull and then around the outline of the patch. The colonel stroked his beard. " They call themselves The Foretellers. So far these so called Foretellers have killed two out of four of the top scientists, after they didn't...cooperate." James clenched his fist with anger. " These cowards are just trying to spread some kind of symbolic bull crap, these monsters, they must be stop before they make me anymore angry." Wow," said the colonel, " ok Biscuit, don't turn green on me." James takes a few steps back and sits down on top of the desk behind him and crosses his arms. " So boss, what's our next move, do we have any leads on these squids," he says eagerly. " we do have something, there's a genetic research lab in London. The lead scientist stationed there is Howard Ackers, he must be protected at all cost. We can't afford him getting kidnapped or worse, killed." The colonel reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a plane ticket. " Here, you leave tomorrow morning." James gave the colonel a gesture of thanks and walked outside with no comment. He plopped down on the front steps. The base of his forehead started to crinkle. James rubbed the palm of his hand against it, closed his eyes, and shook his head in annoyance. " Five years, I've been waiting five years for a real case, he said to himself, " it's always guard this guy, protect that guy, get my coffee, I'm tired of being an assistant. When I joined the international agency I at least expected I would shoot one bad guy. I swear this better be my big case, or else I'm finished." Some snickering could be heard behind him. Oh no, the guy on the intercom heard my little chick flick moment. " Hehehe hey Biscuit, my daughter just called, she needs someone to play Barbie with." The laughter got louder within the intercom. James looked up at the camera and flipped the speaker off. He got up and walked down to his SUV. Put the keys in the ignition and headed back home to get packed for his mission tomorrow.