A/N: This is one in the long line of 'one shot' random pieces of writing I have scattered around my laptop, loosely based on the video game 'Splinter Cell - Rogue Agent'. May possibly carry on if enough people think it has potential, enjoy.
Sneaking had become second nature to me, I sometimes scared the life out of my boyfriend Max, as I would slither as quiet as a mouse home from work, without even realising it. When its something you concentrate and focus on so much, its hard to detach. Its something I perfected, from the tender age of thirteen, where I was convinced after watching James Bond, I would become a beautiful female spy. With a name or pseudonym that started many innuendos, and an introductory scene that would be watched over a million times on youtube. Of course, that only happened in the movies. It wasn’t glamorous, nor was it lighthearted. It was serious, dangerous, and very real. Over half of the worlds population never even realise there are any secret security agencies in the world, and most of them who do know, only know of a couple. The CIA, MI5 and the NSA. But in reality there are hundreds, top secret organizations tucked so far away from civilisation nobody even realises. Saying that, we don’t always have underground headquarters. One could be right under your nose, maybe even working on the top floor of your local shopping centre. When I say ‘I’m just popping to the store honey’ I’m not lying. We chose it because being such a public place, nobody would suspect it. It also helped us slip out on missions completely unnoticed. Besides, a girl loves to shop, and nobody would suspect a female spy.
Nobody would suspect a female spy indeed, which is why they chose me for this mission. Little did I know this would be my hardest yet. I’d done it all, snuck into a den of paedophiles and put them behind bars, got inside the mind of a serial killer and had him incarcerated. My speciality was sneaking, I’ve never killed anyone, if the worst came to the worst I knocked them out. I wasn’t a murderer. If I said I never had my wicked way with the scum of this world - I’d be lying. My job was to seek out the filth trying to live underneath the surface and expose them for what they truly were. We didn’t have a name, we worked alone, there were three of us. Jenny, the French analyst, she tracked all of my data, my eyes were her eyes, and my ears were her ears. Then of course, George, in theory he was in charge of me, but I pretended to be my own boss. He arranged the missions, my equipment, my kit. He communicates with me as well as Jenny, through the nanomachines fitted in my brain and bloodstream. For those of you who don’t know, they block pain, and allow my team to share sensory information. So there are always three people inside my head, twenty four seven. They’re kind to me, and turn off when I go home.
Home to my darling Max, who of course, is none the wiser to my line of work. I told you I’m a professional, I wasn’t fucking around. He’s an actor, George thought it was dangerous to have such a high profile boyfriend, but luckily he comes in handy. Max isn’t a fan of high profile relationships, so he gets little old me to go home to, and nobody realises. He works away a lot, which is good, because I do too. So when he disappears for a few weeks, maybe months depending on what he’s filming, I can sneak off to my other lover. Espionage. Of course there are times when my job isn’t so appreciative of my boyfriend’s schedule. So I use the usual suspects, work meeting, sick family member, weekend away with the girls. He doesn’t ask questions, which is why I love him so. But this was different, long term George said, I’d be in a whole other country, for god knows how long which is why I had to do what had to be done.
“I’m breaking up with you.” No point prolonging the inevitable, Max almost choked on his scrambled eggs. I took a large gulp of coffee, hoping when he did ask why I had a little longer to think about my answer. This should have been simple, my easiest mission yet.
“What?” He finally managed after a long, hard ten minutes of swallowing his eggs and carefully placing his cutlery down on the table. I watched his expression, it went from confused, to clearly hurt as I kept quiet. Signalling that I wasn’t joking, I was serious. But why did I feel that I wasn’t, I longed to just smile, and act like I was joking. I could turn this down right, I didn’t need the money. My line of work was very prosperous, and if I was left short Max would more than make up for it. Anyway, he’d get over it. If it wasn’t millions of adoring fans, it was gorgeous co-stars lusting after him, I’m sure he’d find some starlet to rebound on to. And work would distract me, so all in all. It all fitted in nicely. So why did I already miss him? I would miss the freckle on his lip, and the way it grew ever so slightly when he smiled, I would miss his late night cuddles, but most of all I would miss, him. To put it simply, aside from the secret I guarded with my life, I could more or less be myself. There was no pretending to be a completely different person, I was still me, just with a different job to the one he thought I had.
“You’re never going to believe this. We got a call from the NSA, they found out about our operation double agent and wanted in, do you know what this means?” George gushed excitedly, I barely looked up from the blurry photograph I was scrutinizing, Max moved on alright. He swapped me for a prettier, and more famous model, literally. He was caught stumbling out of a London nightclub with the mysterious blonde who’s rumoured to be some up and coming model. Figures, I thought to myself. He knew I would see this, it was the perfect way to get back at your ex. I took a deep breath and tossed the newspaper in the bin, and shook my head. He exploded. “Weapons baby! Brand new technology, more cover, and less danger of you getting killed. We’re moving up!”
“We’re going undercover with terrorists and all you can think about is gadgets, typical man.”
George was 40, but still as young as a man in his twenties. He had the distinguished older man look going on, complete with black eyebrows and charcoal and pepper hair. That’s where he got the name George (Clooney), of course we all used false names, no matter how much we trusted each other, it was mandatory. But he looked like a George so I never asked otherwise, they called me Jasmine, as in the poisonous flower, because I was ‘pretty but deadly’. And Jenny got her name as it’s the name of her girlfriend, and her favourite name. Jenny was pretty too, in fact stunning. Her being a lesbian was considered a waste to men. She had full lips and striking green eyes, it was a shame that she was always closed off from the world, her beauty would be very useful. But for once she looked less from beautiful, still tired from the 10 hour flight from England to America. Our location was unimportant, I just needed to be in America for what I was about to do. Jenny handed me the papers via the underneath side of table inconspicuously, so that the waitress refilling our coffee’s barely noticed. These of course, were my new identity, I raised my eyebrows at the interesting name.
“Laurel Ventimega?”
“Still a poisonous flower, derived from the flower ‘Cherry Laurel’ unfortunately its not as pretty as its just a shrub, but still deadly, nonetheless. We’ll be calling you that from now on, just to get you used to it,” George looked pleased with himself, I would imagine him to have an immaculate garden wherever he lived. “How is your American accent getting on?”
“Like totally, whatever. That’s hot!”
Jenny burst out laughing, very loudly. Almost startling a few of the customers at the quiet diner where we had been having breakfast. “Sorry, must still be a little delirious from zee’ trip.”
“Get some sleep, we can rendezvous later-”
“-If you don’t mind. I’d rather we finished this now, so that I had time to prepare.” I stuffed the papers into my handbag, I had travelled light to America, the suitcase full of old clothes left discarded at the airport. That was for show, I had minimal items, I hadn’t yet received my kit that George had been raving about from the NSA, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it. Usually it was simple, I didn’t need to wear camouflage, just clothes depending on who and what I was portraying, but I had an image in my head of some kind of dominatrix cat suit. But then again, as long as I didn’t have to conceal my gun in my underwear, I was happy. It makes sitting down life threatening.
I didn’t have time to prepare, I didn’t get a kit, all I had was the clothes I stepped out of the airport in and a gun, which was concealed in my socks. As soon as I walked into the bank, I knew that these couple of moments, would change my life. What I did next, was crucial, I had orders to follow, but no live feed. Jenny and George wouldn’t be able to communicate me while I was holding the bank up, they didn’t tell me why but I had an idea. My instructions were simple, knock out the guard, hold the cashier at gun point, and steal the money, be careless with my getaway, and get caught. But things got out of hand, the guard wasn’t knocked out for a very long, and he held a gun to my head.
Shoot him.
Went the voice in my head, but it wasn’t a familiar one. I knew I was going crazy, because I followed instructions. Knowing full well we had a strict no fatality policy. What happened next, was not something I was prepared for.
I was arrested, manhandled, and sentenced to life in a dirty, maggot infested cell. My nanomachines had gone AWOL, the last time I spoke to George and Jenny was in the diner, I was completely alone, and vulnerable. I didn’t even have my identity to save me. The only voices in my head were my own, and it drove me insane. I stayed in my cell most of the time, only venturing out for meals, I avoided the stares from the violent inmates, ignored the jibes from the corrupt prison workers, instead I managed to keep back a few knives, concealing them somewhere you wouldn’t want to know. And I clawed, scraped, my way to civilisation, or so I thought. I made a two foot wide tunnel, going from my room to a ventilation area. Sneaking was my strong point, and I planned to sneak my way through that tunnel and out of their. But an unfamiliar voice interrupted my thoughts.
Laurel, this is Francis from the NSA. How you finding prison?
Cosy, what took you so long?
Ha, so the stories about you are true.
Sometimes, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. What have I got to do to get myself out of this hellhole?
I’m afraid we can’t get you out anytime soon, you committed a crime. And with crime comes punishment.
Well things can’t get much lower than rock bottom.
Luckily your crime has flipped, and proved quite valuable to us. Your instructions are simply this, befriend a certain inmate called Erica Carter and see how things go from there.
How free is my ‘freedom of speech’
Oh you’ll know exactly what to say, seems your going to have a new cellmate this time indefinitely.
What happened to George and Jenny?
Silence. I blu tacked the ‘Prison Break’ poster covering up my desperate escape attempt, seems I wouldn’t be needing that for a while. And stepped out into the open world of detention centre.
I mentioned before I had dealt with sex offenders, murderers, all kinds of scary people. But not quite as scary as lesbians supporting buzz cuts thirsting for your blood, but your pussy first. I was fresh meat, and toast if I didn’t show them who was boss. So I got into my first fight, which was strangely satisfying, seeing as my nanomachines had kicked in again and the adrenaline rushed through my body as I kicked the shit out of some fat bitch who had decided to try and push me around. I didn’t need to approach Erica, she approached me.
“Nice, I had been meaning to get that whore for a while now. I’m Erica Carter, I’ve heard about you.”
Oh yeah, what have you heard.
I did as I was told, repeated everything I heard in my head, word for word and she lapped it up. Shortly I turned into a small pawn in an epic chess game. Before I made my own decisions, following my objectives closely but having a little fun on the side. Erica wasn’t very smart, if she was she wouldn’t be in here in the first place, then again nor would I. But apparently this was my ‘mission’ to begin with, except it didn’t exactly go to plan, they only needed me to commit a crime worthy of penitentiary not a murder. She told me a lot more than she was probably supposed to, she was part of a self righteous agency who called themselves ‘The White Patrol’ extremists who followed the words of a mysterious man who called himself ‘Mr. White’ he believed the government was corrupt and it was up to him to correct this. Sadly he died and a close friend of his named simply ‘Karsen’ carried on this work. Recruiting some of the most dynamic, yet corrupt minds he had ever encountered. Erica was what you would call a lab rat, she had little common sense but knew how to work a microscope, not to mention she had two pretty big assets which obviously went down well in the group, consisting of seventeen men and her. She thought I was ‘Laurel Ventimega’ special agent turned rogue who’s agency would apparently be very welcoming of my particular ‘talents’.
“How do you fancy getting out of here?” Erica was sitting in my cell watching me apply the finishing touches to my tunnel, I had an escape route that now accommodated two people, and needed two prison break posters. “But I’m not squeezing through that,” I sat back admiring my craftsmanship, ignoring her derogatory remark about my work of art. “I’m going to go start a raucous downstairs, meanwhile you make your way up to the control room to open up all the cells, meaning we can have some real fun.”
“Won’t we just get shot by the riot gun?” This time these were my own, stupid words. Erica frowned at me.
“Not if I can help it.”
I watched her walk out of my cell, turning sharply before she left. “Oh and Laurel.” She paused, her expression becoming serious. “If you fuck this up, your dead.” And made a ‘cut throat’ gesture to seal the deal, I smiled to myself. That’s if you could find the trigger, you dumb bitch. I turned to my tunnel, who I had affectionately grown to love over the long months I had been imprisoned. And took extra care wriggling through it gently, I found myself in a room consisting of four ventilation openings, one on each wall, and a long lead pipe running up the wall. I chose the pipe, knowing the control room was at the top. As I shimmied up an outroar of screams and shouting erupted from the mess hall downstairs, it was so loud and intimidating, you would of thought this was a mens prison. I knew the guard who worked in the control room ‘Miles’ his name was, he cute in a geeky kind of way, which made him easy to incapacitate. I would cut off his air supply, causing him to fall unconscious, long enough for me to open the cell doors and steal the riot shotgun and ammo. A bullet to the head would knock the guards out cold, one to the chest would momentarily disorientate them, I was good with headshots, I never missed. Particularly because I had done so few. I reached the top and Miles was cowering in a corner, mumbling to himself obviously trying to stay as far away from the outbreak downstairs. Poor guy, how hard I was going to make his job. I wanted to test the shotgun out, and snuck over to the cabinet, it was open. At least he had thought about helping, it sure was effective, and loud. I ducked back down to the hatch in which I’d come from as two bemused guards came to investigate.
Getting to the roof was easy, with three unconscious guards in my path, I managed to avoid any alerts, I done as I was told, I opened the doors for Erica and made sure I didn’t kill anyone. Soon NSA finally made contact.
Good girl, our communications were down for a while but I saw everything. I knew you would be able to handle it, I think you’ve got it in the bag from here, do whatever she tells you and don’t arouse suspicion. You’re so close you wouldn’t want to mess up now. I’ll keep in touch.
“Over here! Nice work Ventimega, can’t believe you didn’t kill anybody. I would of loved to have got my hands on at least one of those parasites. You ready to go?”
. The story was pretty good and i liked how it was fast paced, but the language was a little higher than 12+. I would love to see more of this. Nice characters and nice voice.
