The Criminal

Chapter I, Exit Left, Lacy.

There was once a small neat house, on a small neat suburban street, in a small neat neighborhood. It was your average suburban building, with orderly shrubberies lining the base, and a hummingbird feeder hanging from an oak tree in the front yard. There were no cars on the paved sidewalk which has obviously just been drawn on with sidewalk chalk. Leading up from it, was a clean sidewalk, which connected with a swept porch, laden with clean white wicker furniture.

The inside of the house held the appearance of the outside, being clean and tidy. If you were to approach the bottom of the stairs, you would hear the rhythmic tapping of a laptop computer. There was a girl who looked to be in her early teens sitting in a lumpy spindle desk chair behind a beige metal desk. She had straight blonde hair, and cinnamon brown eyes. Her nose was dotted with freckles. She had lightly sunburnt cheeks. She was obviously athletic, as there were sports trophies resting on wooden shelfs all around her bedroom.

Aidan was chewing on her cheek. A nervous habit of hers. Thankfully, no one was able to see her anxiety. She was typing up a threat to another world class villain. Aidan was like your everyday normal teenage girl. Except for one key difference: She was the head of the world's largest criminal empire. She ran it from her own pink Apple laptop up in her room. Many hours were spent doing business deals, bugging unsuspecting enemies, gathering information, and blackmailing.

From the time she was eleven years old, Aiden used her rare gifts of patience and secrecy to collect photographs, documents, and other forms for blackmail. One by one, she personally emailed threats to villains. Starting with a no name bank robber, she found his boss. From then on, she was only climbing up the ladder.

She was one with many enemies, but she's been careful. She never let her partners, enemies, or even her most trusted colleagues see her face or hear her voice. They only knew her as Mr. Bartholomew Kinley, but who would suspect thirteen-year-old Aiden Sinnot? This was her cover, and it has worked wonders for her.

She finished her email, then she sent it. Using one of her more technology specialized employees, she ensured that the target couldn't respond to the email, and he couldn't even trace it back to her laptop. She logged back into her normal every day email, and closed the laptop. Just another average day when you're heading the world's most dangerous organization. She sighed, then palmed a novel as she picked up her knitting.

That evening, Aiden could hear the doorbell ring from downstairs. She thundered down the stairs eagerly. She had been waiting for hours. Her best friend, Lacy, was coming over for a weekend long sleepover. Aiden wrenched the door open, revealing Lacy, decked out in a grungy soccer uniform, knee guards slipped down at her ankles, and mismatched ankle socks. She had her bangs back in a headband, and her short black hair was caked in mud, as were her cleats.

"What a game!" Lacy groaned. She threw her backpack and a two-liter bottle off brand of soda onto the floor, collapsing onto a nearby arm chair.

Aiden tried not to grimace as she thought about the mud that would cover the chair. "Well hello to you too. Lost again?"

Lacy nodded deftly with her eyes closed.

"What was the problem?" Aiden asked, already knowing the answer.

"My team." Lacy finally opened her eyes. "But not me, oh no. I was doing fantastically. They were tripping over the ball, trying to kick it into the goal, I tried to get them to pass it to me, but no. They wanted to take all the glory and take the ball to the end themselves. Well we didn't get glory. We got defeat. The other team was dancing around when they found out they won, one girl had the nerve to tell me to lick the mud off her cleats."

"You poor thing. Hey, have you ever thought that perhaps you may just be the problem?"

Lacy sat up. "Me? I'm carrying the team!"