CIA Academy of Espionage

Outdoor Training Facility

September 4

1100 hours

I trudged through the tough vegetation, swatting away any leaves poking out with my paintball gun close by my side, easy to access when danger came. The smell of latex drifted above as I carefully walked, crouched, using the leaves to hide myself. I looked to my right where my two friends Jawa and Mike were hiding, covered in leaves, trying to make use of the effect of camouflage as well.

It was the first day of Spy School and we were attending a Capture the Flag game which was part of the SASCA's exam, only with paintball guns that you could fire and take someone out of the game. I signaled to them and they hurried over quietly, careful not to make any sound that would alert the other team of our position.

"Okay Mike, you can be the bait, try to get the defenders' attention," I whispered, "and Jawa and I will try to shoot down any remaining defenders if needed and grab the flag while they are distracted."

"Oh, come on," Mike complained, "why do I always have to be the bait. Can't you or Jawa do it?"

"Well," I replied, "you can hold them off for a decent amount of time and you certainly know that guns aren't my strong suit. As for Jawa, he is rather valuable not counting Erica and if he is sent to be the bait, there is a chance he is going to be shot by a paintball and taken out of the game. We can't risk something like that."

Mike seemed to be convinced enough and with that, he hurried over to the defenders, making himself completely visible and an obvious target. He aimed his paintball gun and started firing in random directions, drawing most of the defenders attention to him and they too started firing back. After Mike's paint supply was mostly gone due to the continuous firing, he led the defenders to the opposite direction, making room for Jawa and I to make a move.

I peered out of the leaves in my hiding space and I saw a few of the defenders, smart enough to suspect that Mike was merely just a bait and the objective was to lure everyone away, stayed in their positions, waiting for any sort of an ambush. I slowly got my paintball gun which was resting on the ground and scanned the area, making sure there weren't any opponents lurking around, preparing for an attack on us.

After making sure nobody was following us, I looked over the defenders and tried to decide which one I was to shoot down first. After a few seconds of debating, I came to a conclusion that they would all be okay as Jawa and I had the effect of surprise on our side. I fired two shots at the tall boy, who seemed to be the best out of the group. Taking him out would probably increase our odds, I thought.

Suddenly, the noise of firing and the strong smell of latex interrupted my thoughts and I jumped up, revealing our hiding spot. I immediately dropped down to my stomach, narrowly missing the paintballs that wizzed over my head, threatening to take me out. I looked to my left and saw Jawa picking up his paintball gun and started shooting at the defenders, taking them down one by one leaving only a short, skinny boy, who saw his teammates had all fallen, dropped his gun and raised up his hands in surrender. This might have been a bit too easy, I thought, I wonder how Mike is doing.

I took aim at the flag and just as I was about to cover the flag in paint and declare our team's victory, Erica appeared behind a tree and started firing at the hill, defending her team's flag. I signaled to Jawa and we came out of our positions and started shooting back, but our attempts to take Erica out were vain. A few seconds later, Jawa and I had paintball splatters all over our body and the entire hill was covered in multiple colors, both from our firing and Erica's.

I was so in shock as one moment I was standing on the hill clutching my paintball gun, ready to shoot down Erica, the next I was on my knees, unbalanced by the sudden shot of paint slaming against my body.

I stumbled back, tripping over a root and soon found myself rolling down the hill, my speed accelerating by the second. By my calculations, at this speed, if something or someone was to be in front of me, I would crash into them or it and some serious injuries would occur. Luckily, I didn't crash into another agent or a tree but instead, a bush, which had several spiky thorns that pierced my skin and most of all, my bottom.

I howled in pain, and if it weren't myself, I might have thought that it was a wolf who had been struck by an arrow at the chest, crying out. As I struggled, trying to get myself out of the agony, it made myself even more tangled and I gritted my teeth to stop myself from screaming like a madman.

Suddenly, I felt a small tap on my shoulder and looked up, but the thorns that were still stuck to my body restrained me from getting a good look.

"Mike?" I asked, embarrassed, "can you uh, get me out of here?" He seemed to be out as well as I spotted a paintball splat near his left knee and other splotches of paint on his shirt. He seemed to acknowledge my distress and without a snarky remark, pulled me out, although it took a decent amount of energy. I brushed off the leaves still sticking to my pants and slowly pulled out the thorns that were stuck on my arms.

I looked to my right and saw that most of my team members were sitting inside the tent and all were covered in various colors of paint. As they noticed me, they grumbled as with Erica on someone's team, the team was certain to win, even if the odds were against them.

I somehow never got in the team with Erica in it, therefore the other team always got good grades in their SASCA's exams although most of the teachers acknowledged Erica was mostly doing the heavy lifting and the rest of us were just easy targets, just waiting to be hit.

After the Capture the Flag game, I cleaned myself up and walked into the artillery range to test out my improved skills with firearms. Mike was already there, practicing taking shots at the target using a machine gun. Mike was my best friend back at my old school before I got accepted into the CIA and we met in kindergarten, becoming good friends. I doubt that if we met just now we would be friends as he had a known reputation for taking all the easy classes back in school, thus getting all A's.

He was also the most popular guy in school and he had once dated Elizabeth Pasternak, but decided he was too cool for her and broke up by himself, not the other way around. After a year I was a spy, Mike caught on and the CIA decided not to kill him for discovering them and that he was spy-material. (He still had to start as a first-year though) As I aimed my gun at the target, Mike joked, "Let's see if you can actually hit the target this time and let the bullet stay there; last time you nearly killed me when the bullet ricocheted off the target."

"Hey," I countered, trying to defend myself, "I told you before, guns aren't my specialty. Figuring out what the bad guys are up to is my thing. Plus I have level 16 math."

"So are you just going to stay here and watch all of us do the action? Don't you want to be congratulated for actually taking an enemy agent captive or doing something spectacular on the battlefield?" Mike asked, putting on a smug grin.

I ignored him and focused on the target where the small red circle was located, my objective. I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger. I admit I actually had my eyes closed when I fired the gun so when the bullet was launched and when I heard a small 'crack', I opened my eyes and I saw the bullet lodged a handspan away from the target. Not bad, I told myself. I had been training with Erica every day to practice and had gotten significantly better. I thought about the time when I nearly blew up my toes on the first day at spy school.

Soon my thoughts were drifting toward Erica, my life-long crush, or at least the second I saw her when she pinned me down at my SASCA's exam.

Suddenly, I was brought back to reality when I heard distant footsteps, getting louder and louder with each step. I couldn't be an instructor as the footsteps were rather quick, signifying that they were running. I looked at Mike, and he too had stopped practicing and looked over at the general direction of the sound. I seriously thought it might be a Croatoan operative, still lurking around, preparing for an ambush.

I actually had raised my gun in preparation to defend myself from an attack, if that did any good, but it never came. I stood there, confused and decided to go back to training, thinking I might just be hearing things. Just as I turned toward the target, the doors burst open and I turned, expecting Murray, or even Joshua if that was even possible as he had fallen off a building in Paris the last time we saw him. But when I craned my neck to get a good look, it turned out to be Zoe.