Blown away at how quickly you guys did that. Thank you so much!! This one is quite long and I finally know how many chapters are left! 2 more and then an authors note, which isn't officially a chapter but like yeah haha. Love you all, thank you! Don't forgot to vote and comment! Please enjoy!!

"What?" I asked, really confused, "How am I the bomb?"

"It's the only logical thing at this point. We searched the entire area," Erica explained.

"Wait, maybe it's going off on anything. You walk through it," I told Erica. Maybe, because the machine was underground for so long, it malfunctioned and would beep at anything.

Erica did as I said and walked through it. It didn't beep. I was the only one who was setting off the alarm.

She gave me a pointed look.

"But where is it then?" I asked. I don't think the shock of being a bomb had hit me yet. I was still super confused how it could have happened.

"Did you take anything from Joshua's event? A keychain or even a pen?" Erica asked me.

I shook my head rapidly, "No, in fact, I avoided accidentally taking anything. Someone offered to take my coat and I jumped away from them. No one got near my things."

"Take off your clothes," Erica said simply.

That took me by surprise, "What now?" I asked.

"Remember how back in spy school when your jacket was holding a bomb? Maybe someone snuck it in your clothes while you weren't looking at Joshua's event."

It made sense, but I was reluctant to strip in front of Erica. Whatever, time was running out. I took my jacket and then my shirt off. I was unbuttoning my pants when Erica quickly interrupted me.

"No, keep the pants on," Erica said with a disgusted look on her face. Thank god.

I walked through the metal detector again. Yet again, it beeped, signaling the bomb was still on me, not in my clothes.

Erica groaned in defeat and so did I.

"Did you eat anything?" Erica asked me after a second of thinking.

"At the event?" I asked as I put my clothes back on.

"Yes," she said, "Also, when was the last time you pooped?"

I whirled around, "What? Now we're getting a little too personal for my liking."

Erica rolled her eyes, "I'm thinking that maybe you ingested it during the event. Did you eat anything?"

"Yeah we all did," I replied, "Remember the buffet?"

She shook her head, "No, all the guests ate from that and we served ourselves. Any time after that?"

I thought for a second and then remembered those amazing finger sandwiches.

"Well, I ate some cucumber finger sandwiches off a lady's tray after meeting with Joshua." I said, "But hold on! You ate a sandwich too! Peanut butter and jelly if I remember correctly."

Erica nodded, remembering that as well, "You're right. But I'm not setting the alarm off. You are. And that is very interesting. From what I remember about that moment, the lady holding the tray exited the kitchen right as we were done meeting Joshua. Like clockwork even. As if that wasn't an accident..."

"Maybe it wasn't!" I exclaimed, starting to figure it out, "I think Joshua told her to exit when we did! He knew we were hungry and those sandwiches looked too inviting not to eat. The bomb must have been in one of the five sandwiches I ate!"

"You ate five?" Erica said with disgust, "And you're probably right. It's not like she was milling around before giving you the sandwiches. She had just exited the kitchen, which probably means those sandwiches were especially for us. And nowadays, technology is so advanced the bombs could be tiny and easily ingested without detection."

"But you ate off the exact same tray I did," I pointed out, "But the metal detector isn't going off!"

Erica shrugged, "Maybe my one sandwich didn't have a bomb. Why would he use two if one would do? So have you pooped since the party?" Erica asked me.

I thought for a moment and realized with a wave of nausea that I haven't pooped at all since the party. That means the bomb is still probably in me.

"No," I admitted sheepishly, "Did you?"

"Number one, ew that's really gross Ben. And two, yes I did. So even if there was a bomb inside me, I would have crapped it out already." Erica explained.

"So what do I do? Wait until I have to poop?" I asked.

Erica recoiled at that, "No. I don't trust your digestive tract enough right now to poop in time before the address is over if you don't poop for like two days. And going through your poo to find and destroy a bomb is less than ideal. We've gotta do what we've gotta do."

"What does that mea-" Without warning, Erica stabbed three fingers in my stomach really hard.

Reflectively, I obviously threw up. Erica jumped out of the way as a pile of throw up.

This brought back a very early memory. Twelve years ago, when I first joined spy school. I was kidnapped and thrown into a van. Erica saved me and the van tossed me around so much that she was afraid I'd throw up. Doing the exact same thing she did now, she made me throw up. If only she'd offer me some tic tacs right now to fully complete the memory.

Without thinking, I was smiling, despite the vomit running down my chin. I had really missed this. I was in a pretty dark place when I first sought out Erica at the beginning of this. I needed a way to regain my footing and surprisingly, the possibility of getting blown up was all I needed. I wanted to relive my glory days so badly so I could remember what it was like to feel like myself again. But I needed to move on. I wasn't a teenager anymore. This journey has almost been a spiritual one, one where I find out who I am and who I want to be. This throw up moment is full circle for me. What started something that's such a big part of my life is helping me close that chapter of my life.

Erica wasted no time however. Unfortunately, we had to look through my vomit for anything that could resemble a bomb. It wasn't too much throw up, thank god, so we could look at it pretty easily.

Immediately, something caught my attention. There was a small piece of what looked like metal glimmering amidst the brown goop. It was the size of a baby tooth, very small and square.

Erica recognized it too. She grabbed a nearby pencil and carefully dragged it out of the vomit with a wrinkled nose.

Using a bottle of water we found in the tunnels, she carefully rinsed off the object.

I finally could get a good look at it. It was very small and square. It wasn't metal, but some other shiny substance without any clear markings on it. It didn't look like anything particularly special to me, especially not a bomb, but Erica knew what was up.

"Holy crap," she said, a little stunned, "I was right. Ben, this thing was inside you! This has enough power and force to blow this entire building up."

I looked at her in a bit of disbelief. It was freakin tiny! It doesn't even look like it could blow up a frog!

"Um... how?" I asked.

Erica looked at me like I was an idiot, "This is the Russian TX-4r. One of the most deadly bombs in the world! I guess you haven't been keeping up with the espionage world these last few years. Technology, especially weapons, have been advancing so rapidly lately due to all the funds our governments have been pouring into them. It's crazy dangerous and surprisingly not too expensive, if you know where to get them from."

I still didn't really believe it, "Like how though? There doesn't look like there's enough shrapnel or gunpowder in that tiny thing to blow anything up."

Erica shook her head, "Bombs don't really work like that anymore. Bombs nowadays react with more of your chemical makeup than physically impairing you or blowing you up. So this bomb is super deadly because it releases a type of radiation that reacts negatively to your cell's nucleus via neutrons. So basically, when a single free neutron strikes the nucleus of an atom of radioactive material like uranium, which is what this is made out of, it knocks two or three more neutrons free. Energy is released when those neutrons split off from the nucleus, and the newly released neutrons strike other uranium nuclei, splitting them in the same way, releasing more energy and more neutrons. This chain reaction spreads almost instantaneously. This is the same concept of the atomic bombs used in World War Two with Japan but twice as deadly as it reacts far quicker and with twice the amount of neutrons. It will literally melt your insides and because of all the chemicals, will simultaneously blow you up. It has the same explosive reaction as a gunpowder bomb and the chemical makeup deadliness of an atomic bomb. Highly deadly."

It took me a second to process all of this and when I did, I was terrified we were in the presence of such a deadly bomb.

"I thought after World War Two we would ban the use of atomic weaponry for good," I said shakily.

"Do you think Joshua cares? He's a madman out for power. Not saving human lives. Ethics is obviously not his top priority."

"But the atomic bombs in World War Two blew up cities. I'm guessing Joshua only wanted to kill people in this building. How does he control it?" I asked.

"These types of bombs have been especially crafted to only blow up in a certain space. Normally, atomic bombs have radiation fallout, which makes them deadly for weeks after. This bomb doesn't. Once it goes off, the radiation spreads for about three minutes and then the chemical makeup destroys itself. It will easily kill everyone in the building but the likeliness of it spreading outside is unlikely. Militaries use it mainly for raids of terrorist cells." Erica explained to me.

This was even more concerning. If it was a typical bomb, you could probably smash a rock on it to destroy it as long as you don't detonate it. But with radiation, it's way harder to control and destroy.

"What do we do? How do we get rid of it?"

Erica thought about this for a moment, "I'm not really sure. I don't know too much about this specific type of bomb, but I know about nuclear and atomic bombs. If possible, you want to get them far underground so they don't destroy everything above ground. We aren't far enough below ground for it to not be effective. The other thing that would help to contain it is trapping it with no air holes whatsoever. The radiation can't permeate if it can't get out. Typically lead lined things are ideal. Cold water helps too after it detonates as some of the chemicals are absorbed into water, making it less deadly."

"Let's look around," I said, wasting no time, "There's only like twenty five minutes until the meeting is over. We don't know when the bomb is going to go off."

Erica nodded and we looked around. Within a few minutes, we stumbled upon a jackpot of materials.

The capitol building hosts events that involve catering often. And the catacombs serve as a way for food vendors to get around the building unseen to the partygoers. Down here, they stored a bunch of kitchen materials. Including a giant fridge, sink, cabinets and other stuff. It was a full sized, seemingly working, industrial kitchen. I guess caterers prepare all their food down here. I don't know how to feel about that.

Anyway, Erica was immediately drawn to this small mini fridge that I think they store wine in. It was not only lead-lined but had a secure latch. Since it was for wine and not really actual food, there weren't as many air holes for smell ventilation.

"Let's use this," she said as she dragged it to the middle of the floor. I grabbed the bomb with a paper towel and went over to Erica.

We were running out of time as the meeting was over in twenty minutes and didn't have any better ideas.

I carefully put the bomb inside the fridge and Erica latched it closed. Using some old duct tape we found, we covered all of the air holes remaining with layers of it. And as one final touch, Erica dumped a bunch of water bottles in it to hopefully absorb some of the chemical blast. We knew it was still going to explode so we had to find somewhere to put it to control the blast.

The answer was at our feet. On the floor of the kitchen, there was a grate and drain, like the ones you see on the streets. It must be like water or something if you spill. I'm not sure. Erica noticed it a second after me.

The fridge was really heavy as it was full of a few gallons of water and wrapped in duct tape. Together, we lifted the grate and lowered the mini fridge down inside the drain thing. It went down farther than we expected. We didn't know what the purpose was or what was even down there, but blowing that little area up was much better than all of our country's top politicians.

"Is that it..?" I asked, sounding uncertain. Even though the bomb was encased in this makeshift box thing, it still felt awfully exposed.

I could tell Erica felt the same way. Then she noticed the kitchen sized fridge. It was about twice the size of a home refrigerator, super heavy and stainless steel.

"We should move the fridge on top of the grate," Erica said and together we shoved it on top of the grate. I felt like it was more secure that way.

"Now what?" I turned to her.

"We leave. We did everything we could. If we see a smoking crater where the capitol building used to be, then we know we failed. But it helps no one if we blow up and quite frankly, I don't want that to happen. Let's get out of here and hopefully Mike and Zoe got Jackson's class to safety." I only nodded and followed after her.

Today was exhausting. I saw Warren and Ashely for the first time and then found I had a bomb inside me for the last few days. Mentally and physically exhausting. But finally, we saved the day once again.

The moment was bittersweet. Well for starters, I didn't know if we had actually successfully saved everyone. But at this point, there really wasn't much left we could do. These last few days had been the best days in a while. Not only did I get to see my old friends again but I felt like the hero again. It was that boost I needed after a crappy few years. But it's good because now I feel like I have a good relationship with all my spy school friends enough to keep in touch with. And I even met a new, very sweet and pretty person that I know I'll keep in touch with for the rest of my life.

We walked out of the catacombs and out the main entrance. No one stopped us. The outside of the capitol building was still chaotic as news crews were reporting on the address from outside and police were trying to manage the mess.

As we descended down the stairs, a black SUV idling in the front caught my eye. It didn't look anything special from the SUV's that brought politicians to the address but this one was still here. All of the windows, save for the front windshield, was all tinted a dark black.

Erica and I didn't want to draw attention to ourselves so we casually started strolling away from the famous building. As we were crossing the main driveway in front of the car though, I peeked inside the car via the untinted windshield. And the person sitting in the car was someone I thought I'd never see again in my entire life.

I saw him for a split second, so it barely registered. I sped up and stopped Erica after we crossed the street.

"See that car parked in front of the crosswalk?" I whispered to Erica.

She looked at me super confused and just nodded.

"I think Murray Hill is in that car," I said.

I could be wrong, but I had a feeling. The person sitting in the driver's seat was on their phone and their head was down. The person also had two crumpled up subway sandwich wrappers on the dashboard of a very fancy car. He looked extremely bored and I'm guessing he was supposed to keep lookout. I didn't directly see his face yet, but I had a good feeling it was Murray.

Erica's eyes widened in surprise and went back into the crosswalk to see for herself. This time, the person realized someone was looking in and looked up from his phone.

I was right. It was Murray. Wow, I thought I'd never see him again. Ten years ago, when we thwarted the UN meeting bombing, Murray helped Erica. Because of this, he was on good terms with the government at the moment. The government wanted him to stay good and help them thwart evil, so while the rest of us went back to spy school, he worked directly with the CIA. Murray was supposed to tell the government everything he knew about all evil, but working in a cooperative fashion with the CIA, not under force. He had a supervisor and was practically under surveillance 24/7 despite technically being a CIA agent. They didn't trust him for obvious reasons. According to rumors and sources, he was mad they didn't trust him and still treated him like a prisoner, instead of a coworker. He apparently told the CIA reliable intel for the first two months that was really helpful. Just when the CIA thought they could trust him, he lied about a big operation that wasted millions of the CIA's funds as Murday's way to get back at him. Murray thought it was a way to demonstrate how valuable he was to them and thus the CIA should treat him with respect. Obviously that reasoning makes literally no sense and the CIA wasn't happy. They were furious and wanted to try Murray for treason. Murray freaked out and disappeared. Rumors had it he went to Spain or something, out of the CIA's direct jurisdiction but no one really knew. And no one has seen him since, that I know of, until now.

He looked about the same since the last time I saw him. Most people had some type of a glow up or at least physical difference, but not Murray. He still had his baby face and his hair unkempt. He wasn't fat at least and had a dad bod. He was also very tan so maybe the Spain rumors were true and he stayed there.

When Murray saw Erica he freaked out to say the least. He bolted upright in his chair and immediately turned the ignition on. It looked like he wanted to get as far away from Erica as he could. I was worried he would try to hit Erica in the crosswalk, but he immediately floored the gas pedal in reverse and tore through the parking lot. Erica looked at me in a panic and I knew we had to follow him. When Murray Hill showed up at something, you knew it couldn't be good.

Erica ran to a nearby car, an older 2000 Honda and used a card to break into the car. There wasn't a second to protest. She hit the gas right as I sat down and started to follow Murray. Luckily, all the other people and reporters didn't care what was going on as long as they had footage for the news that night on the state of the union address.

Murray went speeding down the street and he had a jump on his. I was trying to the best of my ability to make sure I knew where his car was. Erica was doing some excellent fast and the furious type maneuvering through the traffic.

Even though I knew DC quite well as a resident here, I still wasn't sure on all the streets and freeways. I wanted to find a map so I could hopefully predict where Murray was going.

Opening the glove box looking for a map, I didn't find a map but something more surprising. Sitting in the glovebox was a fully loaded glock. This is America I guess. Erica was excited to see that as we were probably on our way to confront Murray and whoever hired him. I put the gun back in the glove box.

"Murray looks the same," Erica joked with a smirk on her face. This wasn't exactly the time to joke as we were pushing minty miles per hour on a seventy five miles per hour freeway. We could still see Murray's SUV down the road. I was a little bit stressed going down the street so fast so I welcomed it with a smile.

"Yeah you're right. I haven't seen him since? Have you?" I asked her.

She shook her head, "I haven't, but Audrey has. She's been updating me on him. Apparently he was laying low in a small island off the coast of Spain while the CIA was trying to negotiate with the government over there to hand him over. About a year or two ago when the two governments were finally working a deal out, Murray disappeared. No one saw him and the CIA was freaking out as to where he was. I guess we know now where he is."

"I bet he's working for Joshua again. Despite how many times Joshua betrays him or hurts him, Murray seems to always find his way back." I grumbled.

"Yeah of course he does because Murray only cares about money and power, two of the things Joshua has a lot of at the moment. I bet Joshua had Murray camp out in front to make sure we didn't escape. I'm sure he's radioing Joshua now to let him know we're out. We've gotta be careful."

I nodded in agreement. I was happy we were getting far away from the capitol building but still worried about the outcome of the whole thing. I was praying the bomb box worked. We turned on the radio to hear what reporters were saying was going on in the capitol building. So far, we heard nothing out of the ordinary which I guess is a good sign. Who knows? Maybe the bomb already exploded and no one knew about it because we successfully thwarted them. I doubted that though. The address was over in like fifteen to twenty minutes. If it was going to explode, it would likely be soon.

Murray's SUV suddenly did a crazy swerve and pulled off the freeway. We were out of the craziness of the city and now into a less populated area. This area is known for beautiful landscapes and calming hiking trails. Many people come out here to escape the downtown DC area.

Erica followed in suit and I'm honestly surprised we didn't get in a wreck. The move she pulled was crazy and we drifted across three lanes. Cars weren't happy and were honking at us. Luckily we still had sights on Murray's SUV.

There was one main rode most people took to get to the hiking trails and lookout points, but Murray took an unpaved back road. Because we were driving on loosely packed dirt, neither one of us could go very fast. We quickly caught up to Murray and was on his tail. Through the mirror, we could see his panicked face. Murray has been in some intense situations but here seemed really stressed, honestly more stressed than I'd ever seen him before. It really, really didn't want to be near us. Ouch.

We kept driving down this back road full of vegetation for a few more miles. This whole trip should've taken fifteen to twenty minutes but with them both speeding and driving erratically it was a little under ten minutes. It was a narrow one way street. I had no idea where Murray was going.

Finally, Murray stopped and I noticed we reached a gate. The gate was modern made up of polished wood that blended in very nicely to the forest. We were at some sort of private property, one that by the looks of it, is expensive. I can only assume who he led us to: Joshua Hallal.

My first thought was why would he lead us to Joshua? Wouldn't he want to not take us directly to his boss? But if Murray is anything like he was ten years ago, he doesn't really care about anyone but himself so if he's going down, Joshua is going down with him. We had to follow him.

Murray punched in some code into the keypad. The gate rolled open smoothly and just as he had enough space, he sped through. The gate was closing and we didn't have enough time to make it through. Erica, not ready to give up now, popped open the glove box with one hand and grabbed the gun out. Immediately I knew to cover my ears. She shot the keypad which caused it to malfunction and stop the gate right where it was, giving this tiny Honda enough room to squeeze through. We didn't see the SUV anymore, but it was a one way road.

There were tall green trees surrounding this entire area. You couldn't even tell you were only like fifteen minutes away from downtown DC. We finally got to the end of the road that opened up to a breathtaking view.

The trees cleared the way for a gorgeous view of the river. You could see the Virginia mountaintops peaking up in the distance and hear the sound of the calm water running over smooth rocks. The sky was clear and the sun hit the area in a light way. Trees lined the river and the water sparkled in the afternoon sun. Sitting on the water was a large wooden cabin with a balcony extending over the river. At the driveway with three massive garage doors sat four black SUV's, identical to the one Murray was driving.

It occured to me this is probably where Joshua is staying during the state of the union address. They are allowed to do and stay wherever they want for that short period of time. Using our precious government funds, he probably rented this house. I couldn't blame him though. The view was magnificent. I'll also bet all of his security was picked himself, that way the government doesn't know about his evil scheme.

Murray has just parked his car and ran inside the house. We parked a few feet up the driveway, so we didn't have to be too close to the house.

Knowing Murray probably alerted the entire house of our presence, we slowly approached it. From inside the house, we could hear some intense yelling between Joshua and Murray.

"YOU IDIOT," I heard Joshua fume, "Why the hell would you lead them here? After what is supposed to happen!"

"If I'm going down, you're going down with me! And why don't you just push the stop button or whatever?" Murray yelled back. Erica glanced at me as we heard the yelling match.

I'm assuming Murray was talking about the bomb inside me. Now that I'm with them, it's no wonder Joshua's mad Murray led us here. I'm supposed to explode in like eight minutes if they wait until the very end of the address.

"Because, you moron, it's preprogrammed! I put the time in so it's not linked to me. Whatever. Let's deal with them and then I'll deal with you." Joshua suddenly appeared at the doorway with a nasty snarl in his face. Guards started running around and while I was put on edge, they did not seem interested in bothering us at all. They were too focused on packing up the SUV's.

"We meet again," Joshua sneered unpleasantly.

"Much to your dismay," Erica noted, watching his guards scramble to get the stuff ready to leave.

"More than you think," Joshua said cryptically.

"We know about the bomb," I told him. His face fell a second and was replaced with a little bit of relief. Joshua knows that means it's probably not here, even though his plan did fail yet again. His relief was quickly replaced with anger.

"How could you?!" He shouted in pure frustration, "How?! The plan was fool proof. I had ten years of work going into this. I sacrificed years of my life for this! I studied politics. Do you know how confusing politics are?! You come in here last minute and just stop my plan? I hate you guys. So much. At least I can finally deal with you."

Ignoring the threat, I told Joshua, "It's not our fault you're an idiot. We would have never known about it if it wasn't for Scott. Or inviting Kurt to your event and having Jackson in the building. And it's good you're finally getting educated. You dropped out of school to pursue this madness."

Joshua smirked, seeming to know something we didn't, "You're stupid. Scott was my failsafe. I knew about Zoe's relationship with Kurt from checking her social media. Kurt was specifically at the event to tell you guys about Jackson's little field trip. That way, you guys would have to go in the building during the meeting. Then you would be there when the bomb explodes inside you. Scott was a decoy. At first, I genuinely wanted him on the plan, but I knew he cared about you Erica and I knew how corruptible he is. Hell, I did it to him myself. So once Scott failed at the plane thing, I took him off the mission. I knew he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut so I changed the plan. I kept him around in DC hoping you guys would find him and like clockwork, you did. You would be in the underground basement searching, while you're the one to set off the bomb. It's foolproof yet failed once again. I'm sick of it." Joshua didn't look super angry, but utterly defeated. I think it's finally hitting him what a failure he is. I felt myself feel a little bad for him, but that emotion quickly washed away.

"You're really lucky we didn't figure it out sooner," I commented, "If we had gone through the metal detectors at the front, you would have been done. We just found one in the basement, which tipped us off."

This time, confusion set onto his face. Before he could ask or say anything, a guard approached him.

"We're ready," she said. Joshua gave her one crisp nod.

"Well this has been fun," Joshua said in a tone that indicated the opposite, "The good thing about this remote location is no one will hear you die." He gestured behind us and a row of guards were standing there, guns all drawn. A SUV parked horizontally blocked the one road. Guards appeared all around us with guns drawn.

Panic quickly set in. We were trapped. The one road was blocked, there were armed guards surrounding us and no one even knew we were here. After all that I've gone through, was this going to be it?

I glanced over at Erica. She didn't look very concerned, but her face indicated she was deep in concentration. She was thinking about something hard and kept moving her tongue around in her mouth. Lovely. Right as we're about to die, Erica is concerned with whatever food is still stuck in her tooth. Gotta look your best if you have an open casket funeral right?

Even Joshua seemed confused at how unconcerned and passive she was being about all of this. She hasn't even said a word to Joshua this entire time. Suddenly, some type of realization hit her.

Without warning, she surged forward at Joshua. And started making out with him, right on his lips.