Spy School: Zoe or Erica?

Decoration

After Erica left me and Zoe to ourselves, we headed over to the "royal banquet" location, which was next to the palace of the queen.

The first thing I noticed was that the decorations didn't have any balloons.

"How dare they!?" I said, looking at the rose bottles and jeweled plates and chandeliers we were supposed to set up. "Balloons are key to a good party!"

Zoe rolled her eyes and set a flowerpot atop a table. "I guess."

A few minutes later, while I was dangling from the edge of a ladder and trying to get a chandelier to hold it's grip on the roof, a person suddenly busted into the room from the ceiling, causing shards of glass to patter the ground around me.

A human, disguised by a sleek bodysuit, landed on the floor next to the ladder, gender and characteristics hidden by the camouflage layered on it's body.

"Hello," they said, brushing a shard of glass off their arm. "I'm Jayden. Agent Jayden."

"Who?" I said. "And wait- you're first name is Agent?"

"No, I work for FIA, so, therefore, there should be an Agent in front of my name. My real name is Jayden, though."

"FIA?" Zoe said. "What's that?"

"The Fanbase for the Intelligence Academy," Jayden said. "By the way, I'm a big fan!" Jayden said, reaching out to shake my hand. Their grip was firm, but also weak in a deep way.

Suddenly, another body fell to the ground. This one was more lithe in a way, and I could spot a hint of blonde hair from the tip of their mask. But I didn't ask.

"Who are you?" I said. "And why are you guys raiding this decorating party? Erica's mission seems much more interesting."

"Erica," Jayden said, smiling from under his disguise. "Big fan of hers too."

As his grip fell away from shaking my hand, Zoe narrowed her eyes. "How do we know you guys aren't some type of undercover double agent? We don't just trust everyone we meet. Don't we, Ben?" she said, looking at me.

"What's wrong?" I said. "I only shook hands. That's not going to kil-"

Suddenly, I heard a beep from the center of my palm. Looking down, I saw a tiny device humming on the palm of my hand. The two intruders smiled again from under their masks.

"Hey!" I said, struggling to rip off the device. I cast a glare at Jayden, who snickered and bounded away from me along with the other intruder, slipping through the hole made in the roof. Zoe gave me an 'I told you so' look and ran over to my hand.

Zoe rolled her eyes when she saw the device, then scraped it off in one fluid motion, chucking it out the roof after the two people. I heard a miniature explosion rattle the building, and a high-pitched scream from one of them. Then there was silence.

"That ought to keep them away for a while," Zoe said. "In the meantime, you have to admit you learned a lesson."

I nodded, looking back up at the hole int he roof and sighing. "Either the janitor's going to have a bad night today, or they're going to make us fix it."

"Option two is the clear answer," a voice said from behind me. "Considering the fact the janitor is already loaded up with a tight schedule."

I turned my head to find Cyrus behind me, standing next to- was that Jayden again and the other person? 

"I knew it," Zoe muttered. "This was a test, wasn't it?" she said again with a louder voice.

"You should've expected it," Jayden said, taking off his mask, uncovering coffee-brown locks that fell down onto his face with warm, brown eyes. His legs were skinny and athletic, and he seemed like the perfect CIA agent model.

Next was the other intruder. She took off her mask revealed a long flow of blonde hair cascading down and bouncing onto her shoulders. She had blue-green eyes, sculpted cheekbones, and looked like a person from Top Model. 

"You just stopped breathing," Zoe noted with an annoyed tone in her voice. "I swear, it's like you treat every single girl in this world better than me."

"It's not that- it's just, I'm just kind of surprised that you guys would chuck a bomb on my hand just to experiment," I said, giving Cyrus a disappointed look. "That explosive was fatal, you know."

"You really think we would kill you?" Jayden said, rolling his eyes. "That bomb was a dud. The explosion sound was rigged into speakers and the only reason the building rumbled was because we set up a mini-earthquake to happen."

"Mini-earthquake?" I said. "How do you even make that?"

"We have our ways," Cyrus said, walking over to the glass shards and looking pointedly at me. "Speaking of ways, you better have one to clean this up by tomorrow. And the roof needs to be fixed."

"How are we even supposed to fix the roof without materials?" Zoe said. "Unless you want an even bigger hole, I don't advise you leave that task to Ben."

"Hey!" I said, pushing Zoe into the wall slightly. She smiled at my annoyance.

The new girl standing next to Jayden grinned. "The look on their faces when they're annoyed is so satisfying, isn't it?" she said to Zoe.

"Of course," Zoe replied, smiling back. "Priceless."

Zoe smirked and walked over to the new girl, sizing her up and shaking hands for a breif second. The girl smiled and welcomed Zoe to stand next to her.

"On second thought," she said, patting Zoe's back. "Me and Zoe are going to spend a girl's afternoon out. Ben, you're on your own with Jayden." she winked then left with a flip of her hair.

I sighed, walking over to the glass shards and slowly sweeped then up, listening to the depressing sounds of the sharp edges scraping against the tiled floor. Jayden just stood an watched from the side, occasionally shouting a line of discouragement.

It was going to be a long afternoon.