Dear Diary, Today I Met...

Monday, 29th August 2016 - Intruder

Monday, 29th August 2016 - Intruder

Dear Diary

The weather had been getting warmer. However, it put a hold on those plans. Today was very cold again. I got dressed as fast as possible, trying to keep as much body warmth as possible.

When I arrived at school, everything was much the same. Many people were huddling together quite closely, so as to conserve heat. As I walked to my locker, I noticed that Prey and Intruder were very close to each other as well. I walked away very quickly. There were other paths to my locker, after all.

I found Bear in my first class.

"They were sitting next to each other" I viciously whispered, attempting to voice my extreme displeasure while trying to keep my voice low enough for the teacher to not hear.

"I know, I saw them too" she replied. "But right now, there's nothing we can do about it."

I knew that she was right, but I did not want to accept it. It showed on my face, and she rushed to explain.

"We need to make sure Secret Admirer doesn't know what we are up to".

I already knew all of this, but I made it seem like she was reminding me of the fact.

"Besides," she continued "I do have an idea which could work out very well".

When I pressed for details, she told me nothing.

The school day passed rather slowly. When it was lunch time, I met up with Bear, and we walked to the library to check upon any damage which might have occurred to them. Upon first glance, we could only see one of My Secret Admirer's listening devices. Bear picked down to pick it up and quickly inspected it.

"Broken" she concluded.

"So, your device worked?" I asked, obviously talking about the speaker she had placed down the previous week.

"Well, on one. We need to see how many others it worked on". For the next several minutes, we both got on our hands and knees, and searched for the devices that we knew were there. After finding the first one, it was rather easy to find all of them. They were definitely all broken. Not a single one that we found was still in working condition.

"Your machine seems to have a 100% success rate" I commented, pleased with it's success.

"Definitely" she agreed, shoving handfuls of broken bugs into her pockets.

"Why are you taking them with you?" I asked. "Won't the have some sort of tracking device?". I wasn't fully confident if that sort of technology existed at such a small scale yet, but I just wanted Bear to know of any potential issues before she took all of those devices to a location which would we would prefer to keep private.

'I doubt it" she said. "Although, it is only the listening section which has been damaged, so if the part that I want to still be working, that is, the memory storage area, then any GPS locators will still be working." she explained.

I acknowledged this, reasonably confident that she knew what she was doing.

"Besides" she continued "Lunch is almost over, and I have a few things left to do before class".

"Like what?" I asked, but Bear only smiled and walked away.

When it was time for the final class of the day, I went to the allocated classroom for my subject. I was a little later than I wanted to be, but still managed to get my usual seat. However, Bear was nowhere to be seen. While we did not share every class together, this was one that we did have. Intruder however, was in my class. The seat that she normally picked was about two rows in front of me. This meant I needed to spend the entire lesson looking at her, a prospect I was definitely not looking forward to.

Finally, almost ten minutes late, Bear arrived in class. She mumbled an apology to the teacher. I moved my items to my side of the desk, ready to accommodate her. However, instead of taking her usual seat, she picked one of the seats at the table across from Intruder. I was very confused. "Why was she doing this?" I asked myself. I realized that it probably had something to do with what Bear had spent the last few minutes of lunch doing, but her purpose was not immediately obvious.

However, it soon was.

The teacher assigned us group work. As Bear was the person closest to Intruder, they were grouped together. I was placed with one of the other boys that Prey did sport with on Wednesday's.

The rest of the class involved me trying to work with my set person, while watching Bear and Intruder work. They seemed to be getting along quite well, and they were constantly laughing. Just as the teacher started to tell them to get back to their work, they asked for the next sheet. The teacher had no complaints.

When the class was over, I met Bear outside, a smile plastered on her face.

"Why did you sit with Intruder?" I praactically hissed.

"I'm getting close to her, becoming her friend." she smiled back.

"Why would you want to do that?"

"It's the best way to find things out about people, by just asking them. Half of their information they will just tell you. It's never been so easy".

"But" I tried to rebuttal "Isn't there a risk?"

She responded with a question of her own.

"How did you find out where Prey lived?"

I could only tell her the truth.

"I followed him home"

"And if he turned around at any time?"

"He would have seen me"

Bear had me, we both knew it.

"Exactly, and he would have known something was wrong, you had too many close calls with him. It's not that your method is wrong, it just needs to be used like a scalpel, you can't afford to use it against everybody, only a few of the more important people"

I could do nothing but see the logic in her suggestion, but I still felt like it if this kept up, the Network of Spies would be at it's end. I told her this.

"Why would it do that? It does the same thing, it just uses less resources, now we know where to put the listening devices already."

"That's not my point. My point is that you did something major, you talked to Intruder, and you didn't even tell me about it. In hindsight, what you did worked out great, but I feel like we should have discussed it more first. Did you think about this yesterday when we were planning this organization to the letter?"

Bear looked at me, and took a second to think up her reply.

"Everything that you said makes sense, and I am sorry. I agree with you though, everything should be discussed, but not out loud. It needs to be in a way that absolutely nobody can listen in"

I was interested in her idea, and asked her how we would achieve that. She did not know, although she was going to look into it. However, at that point, something Bear had just said clicked in my mind.

"What do you mean, now we know where to put the listening devices?" It seemed like Bear had been waiting for me to ask this, and her face lit up.

"We got on so well, that she decided to invite me to her birthday party this Sunday!".

This was very good news indeed.