Young Writers Society

**Read Chapter One first if you want this to make sense**

As she wriggled her way through the vent, she realized that she didn't know where the vent let out. She awkwardly moved her arm so she could press the button on her ear piece. "Gerald," she said quietly, "Can you lead me through the ventilation system?" She sat still for a moment. The only noise was the sound of guards pounding on the vents and trying to get in.

"Sure thing. I’m going to track your ear piece." Gerald replied, "You’ll want to crawl ten yards forward then turn left. You’re small enough that you can make it around the corner." Avy began crawling. She wriggled around the corner, a tight squeeze but not impossible. "Crawl thirty yards forward and then stand up in the opening. That will take you to the roof. You might have to cut out the grate." Avy army crawled fast, fearing what would happen if she was caught. The sooner she could get out and back to HQ, the better. She stood and pushed the grate out easily. She pulled herself onto the roof and ran to the waiting helicopter. She jumped on the outside and it took off, not waiting for her to board completely. Men dressed in all black ran to grab Avy before the chopper got too high. She was just barely out of reach. She waved sweetly, in a condescending sort of way. She pulled herself into the helicopter and shut the door. When she was sure she could relax, she let out a heavy sigh.

"Remind me to never volunteer for a petty theft mission." She said to the man in the cockpit. Gerald turned around and laughed. She smiled despite the shock she had just received to her emotions.

"That bad, eh kiddo?" He asked, turning back to face the sky. Now it was Avy's turn to laugh. She pulled the first aid kit out from under the seat and wrapped a bandage over the jagged cut on her arm. It wasn’t deep, just long.

"You don't know the half of it." She sighed. She felt tears forming in her eyes, and immediately shut off all emotions. She couldn’t let him get in the way of the life she had created for herself. Keagan was a bad guy. The only friend she ever had was now her enemy. And she stole his blueprints. She had once taken one of his action figures without asking when she was six. He went ballistic, yelling at her. He was always possessive. And now she stole something much more valuable than an action figure. She pulled out a smart phone, a design only available to FALL agents, and called Chief. His face appeared on the screen. The small Chinese man had wispy white hair and a thin long mustache. All of his seventy four years showed. Wrinkles bombarded his face. And to pull it all together, he was short.

"Agent." The old man said.

"My name is Avy." She replied with an attitude. Chief didn’t react. He paused for a moment before continuing.

"How did the mission go?" He asked. Avy looked away from the screen back to the retreating warehouse.

"It definitely didn’t go to plan." She admitted. She told Chief most of what had happened. She was under oath to repeat everything, but she couldn’t. Chief would revoke her privileges if he knew that she had talked to Keagan instead of getting out right away. "I got the blueprints, but what you didn’t tell me was who made them."

"I am not aware of who made them." Chief replied. "All I know is that it was someone from TRUST and someone high up at that."

"It was Keagan Sharp." Avy practically spat. Chief stared at her, knowing her anger came from not letting other emotions show. He nodded solemnly.

"Yes well that explains it." Chief said. He brushed his hand through the air. "We can speak of it when you return. I have something to tell you, but not now. It’s too important and I don’t want to ruin your flight. Come straight to me when you arrive." The screen went blank and Avy rolled her eyes. Chief was always being cryptic. She turned to look out the window of the helicopter. The city lights of Chicago were beautifully busy. The city never slept or calmed and Avy felt like she could relate to it because of that. Relaxing had become such a distant memory that it felt wrong to even try to unwind. In some ways Avy didn’t mind. It kept her safe and levelheaded. In other ways it bothered her because she felt like it alienated her from others. Her tense attitude separated her from everybody else.

She would never admit how lonely she was. Being a spy meant that her life was in danger all the time. So was anyone’s she got close to. So she just didn’t. After her parents had died, she tried to cling to Keagan, but he was gone too. So she never became close to anyone again. That was most of the reason she didn’t want a partner. She wouldn’t risk becoming close to someone and then watch them die.

She was still lost in thought as the helicopter landed on a large balcony on a five story building. Citizens thought the building was a personal business owned by a reclusive millionaire. The more informed and connected knew that it was FALL's headquarters. It was a simple building on the outside, but on the inside, advanced technology and fancy decor was everywhere. Most of it was black, some of it was gray. Avy walked inside and made her way to the top floor. The higher up worked here and the lowest worked on the main floor. Avy's office was on the second floor. She opened large black glass double doors and walked in the large room without a word. Chief sat at his large desk talking to a young man Avy had never seen before.

"Chief." She said, glancing briefly at the newcomer. He was cute. She sat down opposite of him and stared at the Chinese man.

"Ah, Avy, I’m glad you’re here. First things first, do you have the blueprints?" Chief sat in his own chair and entwined his fingers together. Avy slipped the blueprints out of her sleeve and reached over the desk to give them to Chief.

"Yeah, they’re right here." She said, "So are we going to talk about what happened?" Avy leaned back in her seat and glanced again to the newcomer, saying with her body language and her facial expression that he needed to leave.

"All in due time," Chief said, leaning forward. He gestured to the man. "This is David. He is one of the newer agents. He's been doing desk work downstairs." Avy suppressed a smile. What David would find out later is that in FALL, saying someone worked downstairs was almost derogatory. She turned and smiled at David mockingly. "He's your partner now." Avy whipped her head toward Chief, a glare instantly surfacing.

"No." Was all she said. She stood and began walking out. Chief stood as well, and in a moment went from a soft old man to a strict employer.

"Avyanna, may I remind you that I have graciously let you keep your job, despite the many regulations you seem to ignore?" Chief stared Avy down until she came back and sat down.

"I've done my job. I've never failed. Why are you sticking me with a desk working rookie? I've been taking missions solo since I was fifteen. And now you're saddling me with him, of all people. IF I have to have a partner, give me someone with experience." Avy punctuated her remarks with an angry wave at the rookie, who was blushing bright red. She folded her arms and glared at Chief.

"Avy, you can both train David and work with him, or you can hand in your resignation." Chief said flatly. Avy sat for a moment. Could she resign? She wanted to deep down. But she wouldn't quit. She loved what she did, usually.

Avy threw her hands up in submission. "Fine." She said to Chief. “But I still want to talk about Keagan.” She insisted. Chief nodded slowly and Avy repeated the entire ordeal. Chief said nothing as she finished.

“Wait. Who’s Keagan, exactly?” David asked. Avy looked at David in disgust. Why was he still here?

“Keagan Sharp,” Chief said, “is the son of Victor and Deidre Sharp. They were agents of FALL about fourteen years ago. They had an unfortunate accident. A traitor had told TRUST about their mission and they ended up being captured. They were killed in their attempt to escape. Keagan tried to join FALL, but couldn’t work through training and became bitter and indignant. He made it past seven test missions before he failed. He asked for a second chance, but was rejected, because regulation forbids it. Apparently he has joined TRUST and has worked his way near the top. The blue prints Avy just brought to me were for a piece of technology he designed that could revolutionize their spy program. So of course, we had to steal it.” Avy stared at Chief with a strange expression. The way he had said that sounded very wrong.

“So what are we going to do about it? They’re obviously using Keagan. Maybe he doesn’t want to be there.” Avy pleaded, “We have to go find him. Maybe he will come with us.”

“I know what Keagan means to you, Avy, but if he wanted to leave he could have. He would have been long gone, and the blue prints would never have existed.”

“I don’t believe that. Keagan would never be one of them.” Would he? Avy rolled her eyes in frustration and turned to David. “We’d better get training Rookie.” She stalked towards the door.

“Exactly right. You have a lot to get done.” Chief waved dismissively. She turned to David and looked him up and down. His brown hair was shaggy. He was tall, but filled out. "We start training right now." She said to him.

"It’s really late..." He said softly. Her glare made it clear that she didn't care. She began leaving and David turned to Chief. He simply nodded and David scurried after Avy. She stood in the elevator silently, didn’t even face David.

"So... How long have you worked for FALL?" David asked. For some reason his small attempt to break the quiet softened Avy. She turned to him.

"Since I was 10. Nine years." She answered, "You've been here about a year right?" David nodded, obviously confused. "I started training when I was 11. They always make you wait a year before training." They were silent after that.

They reached the floor two stories underground, despite being only one floor. It was twice as tall as a regular story. This floor was where all training took place, “I didn’t even know this was here” David said. Avy smiled at his wide eyes, but quickly pushed it back, becoming stone faced again. The entire floor was open except for a few separating walls. She gave him a quick tour. There was the shooting range, bows and hand guns. Avy never spent much time there, enough to stay accurate, but never just for fun. There were mats for martial arts and wrestling. She stopped there for a minute.

“People usually start here,” She said, “And once you’re good enough, we’ll move on to shooting. Then, we’ll do that.” She pointed to the very back of the room. Back there was a complex wall with hand holds and half inch ledges. BB’s were shot from the ground to simulate bullets and the ledges randomly broke and had no grip. Avy set off in that direction. Usually training ended when the trainee could complete climbing the entire 20 foot wall without being hit or falling in under a minute. It was harder than it sounded, especially when your trainer was screaming at you to go faster.

“Watch what I do, because this will be your ultimate goal. Once you can do this and pass the hand to hand and shooting tests, you can go on a test mission. You have to do ten test missions before you can go on a real one. Most people don’t make it that far. The test missions are usually too much.” Avy pressed the green button near the wall and braced herself to climb. The buzzer sounded and a few trainees stopped to watch Avy scale the wall. She jumped high and grabbed one of the small ledges. She pulled herself up using just her arms, keeping completely flat against the wall. She was about fifteen feet up when David called to her. She let go with one arm and looked at him, annoyed. “What, David?” She asked. A BB fired then, and she gasped in pain as it dug its way into the cut in her arm. The sudden pain caught her by surprise and her grip failed. She fell, but she braced herself for the landing. David rushed underneath her to catch her, but only got in the way. Her legs collided with his shoulders; she tumbled over him and landed on her hands. One crumbled under the weight and twisted painfully.