Spy School Reunion

Chapter 24

I have finally finished my AP Econ Final!! Hallelujah! It was kinda hard but like, whatever it's over. So only one left! Ahhhh! And it's a three day weekend, so that's nice. Is anyone doing anything fun? I know we're all stuck inside but I hope I can find something exciting to do. Maybe I'll organize my closet...

Anyway, there were definitely mixed responses from the last chapter. But if you're still here and reading it, thank you!

Also thanks for being patient about this faily slow update. Luckily the school year was shortened so when school gets out I should have more time. This chapter kinda got away from me and is pretty long haha. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Our seat pod was overlooking that right wing of the airplane. From there, I could see the engine attached to the wing was smoking. A lot. And I even thought I saw a little flame spouting from the turbines in the engine.

Erica was curious about what I was looking at, so she leaned over to look out the window. She swore loudly.

"That's not good," I said.

"Ya thank?" She said sarcastically as she started banging on the pod door.

The door slid open to a cranky looking agent.

"What is it?" He asked gruffly. I merely pointed out the window. He squinted and realized what we were freaking out about. His entire face turned sheet white and panic filled his eyes.

"Agent Hale!" He squealed, voice getting ten octaves higher, "Get over here now!" This caught the attention of the rest of the plane.

"What's going on?" Zoe asked from the nearby pod. The guards opened their pod doors in case we need to do an emergency landing or protocol of some sort.

Audrey came over to our pod and looked out the window. She barely had any reaction to it. Wow, the Hale sisters really don't really react to much.

She simply left the pod and told our panicking guard, "Initiate emergency protocol A-14-R2. I'll see if the pilot can find a location for an emergency landing."

"What about the prisoners?" The guard asked.

Audrey gave him a hard look, "We're not going to leave them to crash on this plane. Explain to them A-14-R2 and get them prepared." With that she swiftly left and headed towards the cockpit.

The guards then explained to us what emergency A-14-R2 was. It sounded more badass when it was put in the fancy term. The protocol was merely to put a parachute on and pray for the best. We all had parachutes under our seats concidenty (there must be an issue if the CIA always has parachutes under the plane seats). From our experience with spy school, we all knew how to put them on and operate them, save for Hailey. But Zoe was helping her and explaining it to her.

I wanted to still talk to Hailey, but this was definitely not the time. But if we died here, I also didn't want to die without telling her. The scary reality of the situation hasn't fully set in for me or anyone else yet. The engine was merely smoking, it's not like it was bursting into flames or anything so there was a sense of security at the moment so far. We were just preparing right now, not actually doing anything.

Working a parachute is fairly simple. After you jump and gather a bit of air, you pull this pin on your backpack which deploys the parachute. If the parachute is too high or low in the air, there are certain lines you can cut with your knife attached to the slide. There are about five lines on each side of the parachute once it's deployed. You can cut certain ones to adjust the height based on the wind.

We all sat anxietiously in our seats, except for Erica. She was unfazed by all of this. No surprise there. The guards were also preparing for an emergency jump with their own parachutes. It was very evident that the agents, except Audrey of course, on this mission were not in any way the creme of the crop. These seemed to be the people who barely eked by in training (and would probably be my co-workers if I stayed with the CIA) and were not cut out for this. I mean, this was supposed to be a simple go-to-Nebraska-to-pick-up-some-nonviolent-criminals type of mission. Now it was turning into a potentially dangerous plane crash. Some guards were freaking out worse than us. One guy I think may have passed out due to a panic attack.