Spy School: Clash of Spies

Tower of Actual Terror

Hey guys! It's almost winter break! Ahh! I banged this one out pretty quickly and sorry it's unedited. I need to get to bed! :) Enjoy!

We sat in silence for the rest of the drive. But my mind was anything but silent. I was reflecting on everything since Audrey got to school.

She was pretty, maybe even too pretty, to be a normal student. Erica was too, but she's a legacy. Audrey was obviously sent here by SPYDER, just like how Murray was sent. The CIA got burned, again. But SPYDER used a different tactic this time. Instead of using a fat, incompetent idiot to play double agent, they sent a hot, competent agent. It's funny how both of the top students are both the hottest ones. They have familiar and sort of the same type of badass beauty. It makes sense why Audrey would throw the fight. I still, to this day, haven't seen Audrey fight to her full potential. And I'm not sure I want to.

But what I was even more shocked about was how Erica didn't catch on. She must have noticed the signs. How a pretty girl was taking an interest in me. How she's so skilled in combat and weaponry. But now that I think about it, it's so obvious. So why didn't Erica catch on?

But maybe she did. Maybe she knew from the start. But why didn't she say anything to anyone? She could have been threatened, but Erica isn't the one to take threats from anyone. She's more the one dolling out the threats.

Which brings up a whole other point: Where is Erica actually? It's evident the whole 'chatter' Cyrus heard was all a setup by SPYDER to get him to authorize the mission. SPYDER thinks far ahead. They got Jacob to guard Cyrus and hear all the plans. But did SPYDER kidnap Erica? The last I heard of her, the last anyone's heard of her, seemed like she was leaving by choice. And she probably isn't in an abandoned soup kitchen.

There's a tiny part of me that says Erica is working with SPYDER, not against them. There is a lot of evidence towards that claim, but a lot more common sense saying otherwise. Then I remembered something that Erica once told me:

'Don't trust her Ben. Be careful around that lover of yours.' It sounds like a warning. Maybe Erica did know about what's going on and tried to warn me!

Or maybe she was trying to manipulate me. I mean, that note from SPYDER and that stolen folders don't lie.

I wonder who put it in there. I would immediately think Audrey but she won't want to risk getting caught that early in the plan. I next think of Jacob.

Jacob is a wild card right now. I have no idea what's up with him. How much does he know, what's his backstory and most importantly, what's his connection with SPYDER?

Jacob Evanstein. I heard rumors about the notorious Mister E, leader of the whole SPYDER organization.

'I've gotten a lot of pressure most of my life now.'

That line keeps repeating in my head over and over. Although E is a common last name, that thing Jacob said really swayed my decisions. Is Jacob related to Mr. E? If so, he is really valuable to the-

A screeching of tires tore me away from my thoughts. The whole van jolted away from the freeway and started down a steep dirt hill towards who knows where.

At first, my train of thought was 'we're being saved!' But then I saw Jacob grinning wildly and steering down the rocky hill.

My fellow students were making faces or terror as we fell possibly to our deaths. We were also handcuffed, so we couldn't grab onto anything. We just prayed to the seatbelt lord that those things held. Audrey was smiling like she was on Tower of Terror at Disney world.

I refrained from screaming. Finally, the van slowed and we reached the bottom of some type of ditch. There, two vehicles waited for us.

One was a large cargo truck you see with the Walmart logo on the freeway. A huge truck for transporting things. Another car was a van, similar to the one we were in. Oh and did I forget to mention the dozen men with automatic rifles pointed at us? Yeah, I had a bad feeling about this.

Next to me, Zoe whispered, "We are so dead."

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Really needed that.

"Get out." Audrey stated and yanked the van door open. She pointed her own handgun at us, but that was kind of useless with the commandos standing right behind her.

We obediently followed her orders and once we were all out, we were herded like cattle in the center of the ditch.

"Wow, I feel pretty special. I mean, all you guys mobilizing in the morning to meet us. You must think I'm a big threat. I feel honored." Mike smiled cockily.

Now was so not the time. Those snarky remarks work in Capture the Flag, not when a dozen guys are pointing guns at you.

Jawa was gonna hiss something to Mike, but an evil agent walked forward and put his gun barrel right onto Mike's forehead. I saw beads of sweat forming at the baseline of his hair.

"Permission to shoot?" The agent said in a monotone voice.

Audrey, Jacob and some other agents they were talking to looked over. It was clear they were the ones in charge. They glanced at each other and Audrey sighed.

"As much as I'd like to authorize that, we need all the hostages we can get. Permission denied." And she went back to talking.

The agent's eyes narrowed angrily, but stepped back. Mike gave an audible sigh of relief. Audrey has power, so she must be well established within SPYDER's workings.

"Welcome junior CIA agents!" A man, in charge, called out cheerfully, "As you may have noticed, you're now SPYDER's hostages! Congratulations!"

"No really?" Chip sarcastically muttered quietly, "I thought we were going to a birthday party!"

The man opened the back to the cargo truck. It was customized for us. It had gross wooden benches lining the sides and one lonely lamp swinging from the top.

"Get in! You'll have a blast!" The man gestured us inside and a stole a glance at him. It finally occurred to me to register these SPYDER agents I've never seen before into memory. The only real agents I saw were Joshua and the teachers from evil spy school. But none of them were Mr. E. But could this man be?

I decided no because they wouldn't send an important man like himself on this low mission. Plus, he looked nothing like Jacob, so I assumed Jacob was related to Mr. E already.

We climbed in and right as the door was going to shut on our musty ride, I heard Jacob say,

"Yes, this is Agent Jacob Evanstein paging Agent Cyrus Hale. I have dropped the agents off at the destination. Reporting back now." I wanted to yell something, but the guns pointed at me left the words at the base of my throat.

"Alright agent. Just for security, can I have a word with one of the agents?" Cyrus' voice held a bit of suspicion.

For a second, Jacob's face turned white with terror, but quickly recovered.

"Of course sir. Here's Audrey, right now." Jacob shoved the phone to Audrey.

"Yes sir. Agent Evanstein dropped us off outside of the kitchen but we see no signs of activity. We'll radio when we have information. Going radio silent." And shut the phone off before he could reply.

"Let's go." She walked into the truck with us surprisingly, probably for security. Three more heavily armed agents accompanied her. The door slid shut behind them.

We sat in silence for a minute. After a while, something occurred to me. Everyone addressed her as Audrey. Not Agent someone. I never learned her last name.

Gathering the courage, I asked, "Audrey, what's your last name?"

She glanced at me, almost as a dare. But she raised an eyebrow and glanced at another agent who was in charge and gave her a curt nod.

She smirked, "Hale."

Some of you guessed it. Sorry [Not sorry] to leave you at the cliffhanger. See you soon! :)