Spy School: Danger is my Middle Name

Ceiling Gang is Overrated

---POV Switch to Agent Benjamin Ripley---

After watching a few episodes of Avatar, we were quickly whisked off into the breakfast area by Erica, since, according to her, she had some unknown leads on the Croatoan. I didn't know how she managed to get these so-called 'leads', but I just went with it.

Meanwhile, the ceiling gang traversed through the hallway like Spider-Man, jumping onto wall after wall using their sticky gloves. I guess the Ceiling gang is really just overrated, since if I had those gloves, I'd be doing the exact same thing.

We found Erica waiting for us at the end of the hall, cold-shouldering my attempt to say hi to her. She seemed to be in a worse mood than usual, probably because we'd forgotten to meet in the dining room at 7:30.

"So!" Erica said, placing her breakfast plate down onto the table with a unnaturally loud clank. "You guys are late."

"We know," John groaned. "Avatar is just too good."

Erica's eyes flared with anger. "If you're putting a fake, unrealistic cartoon in front of the nation's safety, you're going to get nowhere!"

John quickly retracted in fear and shrunk in his seat faster than paper in water. "I-i understand."

Erica huffed a large breath, uncrossing her arms, and picked up a fork. "Anyways, I have some announcements to make. One, there's some new leads on the Croatoan."

"How did you manage to get the leads?" I said. "Weren't you asleep for the past few hours? After all, you said that yourself."

"Ben, Ben, Ben," Jawa said disappointingly. "You should never trust a Hale. She was probably on a mini-mission or hacking into the servers of the Croatoan, knowing her."

Erica didn't react, which probably meant Jawa was right. "That's not important. What is important is that somebody on our team of spies was interacting with a stranger during wee hours."

My head swung around the table, inspecting everyone's reaction to this. Nobody seemed rather guilty- most of the people were all looking around for an imposter themselves- but I noticed a slight flash of red in James' face.

Everybody else also happened to also see this, turning all of their heads his way.

"You?!" Rachel said. "You were the last person I'd expect betray us!"

"I didn't betray you guys!" James said, holding out his hands in innocence. "And I didn't even intend to meet Jade either! I just ran into her while trying to get some peace and quiet at the balcony!"

"Who's Jade?" Jayden said, throwing a sausage up to the ceiling then catching it in his mouth. "The name itself already makes it sound like some kind of self-righteous young women that you would fall for easily."

James looked like he wanted to say something, then held it in his throat. "You wouldn't understand. Jade's the girl I met at the balcony last night."

Erica sighed. "I've already scanned Jade's life. She's not suspicious, and knows nothing about James' secret career. The only reason she was out there at midnight was because her parents were partying all night, virtually preventing her to fall asleep."

She slapped a manilla folder on the table, neatly labeled Jade. On the cover, it showed a picture of the regal girl I'd met the night before. I resisted the urge to steal the photo- I needed it to remember her in my mind. I didn't have photographic memory, on contrary to Erica.

"She's hot," Cly said, picking up the folder first, beating all of our lunges to the envelope. "But I wouldn't fall for her myself. I'm not planning on having a relationship until I'm at least 18."

Chip snatched the folder from his hands. "Yeah. I see why she's wearing those Jade earrings."

At this, James tensed up a bit. I didn't know why exactly, but I did see his hand trace a path to his overcoat pocket. I detected that something was wrong with this situation- something that told me James' hadn't lost contact with this 'Jade' yet.

Before I knew it, I pounced out, quickly managing to catch James off guard. My hand weaved through his arm, finding his overcoat pocket. It blindly grabbed the first thing it found in that dark abyss.

I pulled the object out, quickly jumping out of James' reach. Judging from the shocked and triggered look on his face, the object in his pocket was obviously very valuable to him.

I looked down at the dangly thing in my hand. 

It was a Jade earring, perfectly matching the girl's in the picture.

"Did you steal this?" I said to him, holding it out in the palm of my hand. "So that's why you were acting all guilty this whole time."

"I didn't steal it!" James said, once again acting all innocent. "Let me explain-"

"-no need," Erica said. "The girl left the earring in his pocket, probably as some sort of goodbye token. In the morning, when James woke up, still on the edge of the balcony, he realized the girl had abandoned him overnight. Shortly after this, he found out she had left one of her earrings in his overcoat pocket."

"Cute," John said. "But not cute enough. We've got a mission to worry about. Erica, what were the leads on the Croatoan that you said you had earlier?"

Erica smiled. "At least someone cares about the mission. The leads were three simple things."

"I'm all ears," Zoe said. 

"One: The Croatoan aren't planning to bomb Florida anytime."

Chip perked up. "That means we've been guarding the theme parks for the past few weeks, and we've been doing all of that for NOTHING!?"

"Yep," Erica said calmly, dodging Chip's punch in one swift move. "Two, they're planning to strike California's Disney, not the Disney here."

I raised my eyebrows. "Is that what all the confusion is about? That you confused California's Disney with Orlando's?"

Erica nodded, smirking at Chip's red face. "And three, they're above Disneyland right now in a Helicoptor with a Thermonuclear Bomb."