J.

1. The Hero

Chapter 1: The Hero

“Hey, Aloo! Mr Khan said that he needs to see you as soon as possible. Go!”

No sooner had a very unsuspecting Aayush walked into the office that Monday morning, he had been bombarded by questions from his colleagues. But this message from Nisha did not worry him – after all, there was never a day when Mr Khan didn’t request to speak to him.

“Okay,” he replied simply, heading towards the elevator.

You’re probably wondering what’s going on. Well, meet Aloo – sorry, Aayush. This innocent-looking, nerdy boy was a secret agent, known to be a workaholic, which is why he was the favourite of Mr Khan, the boss of the organisation. His innocent face and ability to disguise were also accountable for that favouritism – but only he knew where those came from.

Never mind all of that, because at this point, the hero of our story had reached the top of the building and was knocking on the door of the office.

“Come in,” Mr Khan’s deep voice responded, in a calm tone. Aayush opened the door and stepped in, smiling.

“Good morning, Sir.”

“Hello, Aayush. I’m glad you’re finally here! Take a seat,” the older man responded cheerfully. He accepted the instruction and sat down on one of the huge leather chairs in front of the large, mahogany desk.

“Sir, what was it that you wanted to see me about so urgently?” Aayush asked, curiously. His two years of being a secret agent had turned him into quite a curious person.

“I have a very interesting mission for you.”

“What is it?”

“Have you heard of the criminal mastermind, J?”

“Of course I have! J is wanted in almost every country in the world – who hasn't heard of him?”

“Good. Do you know that he never does anything himself – he operates through a team, and nobody has ever seen his face?” Mr Khan said. Aayush nodded, and the boss continued, “You should also know that a few months ago, we’d sent one of our top agents to act as an assistant to one of J’s team members, to send us inside information on his plans. But, two weeks ago, J found out about this, and he got someone from his team to shoot our agent. But before he died, he sent us a message saying that there’s a plan being made for J to get together with another company of criminals, to take over the world. Unfortunately, our man was dead before he could tell us what the plan was, but he did manage to get across the name of the company J was going to join forces with,” Mr Khan stated.

“So you want me to go and stop J doing whatever it is that he’s trying to do?” Aayush asked; his voice was laced with a tone of worry, which did not go unnoticed by the older man in front of him.

“No,” Mr Khan replied in something of a reassuring tone, “You will not do anything of the sort, or harm anyone at all. Not until we know for sure what J is planning. What I want you to do is go to this company he is associating with, pretending to be J, and find out as much information as you can. And if possible, confuse them into telling you their plan themselves.” Noticing the confused look on the boy’s face, he continued, “As you already know, nobody has ever seen or spoken to J. So there’s no chance of suspicion from these people.”

“Where are they?”

“All the information is in the file, Aayush.” Mr Khan handed him a thick binder, which had the word ‘Confidential’ printed on it.

“Okay. When am I leaving?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll also be sending Nisha with you, just in case something goes wrong and you need backup.”

“Sir, you should know by now that I never need backup!” Aayush laughed.

“That’s one thing, but we can't afford to lose our top agent at this point in time. And you should know that I never send anyone on a mission without backup.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Aayush smiled, before standing up and walking out of the office.

But the one thing Mr Khan had not yet noticed, was that his favourite agent had been working on an interesting little plan of his own…