Spy School At Work

Chapter 3 - Infiltration

Sophia's apartment

July 24th

1515 hours

The next day, we decided to refuel and prepare for our upcoming operation in Sophia's apartment as it was closer to the CIA headquarters than my apartment, it was also significantly bigger.

"How can you even afford this place?" I asked her.

"What do you mean?"

"I can barely afford my apartment and my monthly expenses."

"Well, I decided to finance this place and take out a loan from the bank for a down payment," She told me.

"I have no idea what any of that means. Besides, you probably get paid more than me anyway."

"I don't. We get paid the same."

"How do you know that?"

She gave me a mischievous grin and tried to change the subject. "I'm hungry, and you're probably hungry as well. What do you want to eat?"

I realized she was right. I haven't properly eaten anything for the whole day. "Anything is fine," I grumbled.

"Make yourself at home, I'll order us delivery from this Italian restaurant a few blocks down that makes the most delicious ravioli that you have ever tried. They also have salads," she added, "and rumours in the office say that the only thing you eat are salads."

"Do you mean Erica? She's the one that only eats salads, and according to her I eat like a pig," I replied.

"Oh! Yes! Sorry, I get you two messed up sometimes," Sophia frowned, "She calls you a pig? That's not very nice..."

I laughed. I guess not everyone knows Erica like I do. "That's actually considered nice for her, and it means she considers you a friend." I felt a twinge in my heart as I spoke the last word out loud.

Sophia smiled at me and went on her phone to order us take-out. "Two bowls of ravioli is it."

Half an hour later we were sitting at Sophia's dining table munching down on a tasty serving of ravioli.

"Alright class, now that we're all fed and watered let's go rob the Central Idiotic Agency!" I joked. "That ravioli was great, by the way."

Sophia frowned, "Glad you liked the food, but we can't be making insensitive jokes like that."

"Yeah, you're right. We should get going, though," I responded.

Sophia and I cleaned up her dinner table and hopped in her car to contribute to the traffic in the city. A mere half an hour later, we were staring at the CIA headquarters with determination in our eyes. At least I was determined, I wasn't so sure about Sophia.

We casually strode into the lobby of the CIA headquarters and confidently passed security. The lobby was a giant sky-lit area that was mostly for civilians to report potential threats to national or international security and connect different departments within the CIA.

"This way," Sophia told me as she was swiping her keycard, and led me through a door that was directly the opposite of the door I usually go through to find my cubicle.

The hallways looked exactly the same as every other hallway I have ever seen in this building, except with different numbers on the doors lining the corridor. I assumed it worked like the subterranean tunnel systems that were used to destroy Spy School - all the people who were supposed to use the hallways knew the layout, and the bad guys would get lost.

We hurried through the hallways seemingly taking random turns and going through random doors, seeing the occasional CIA agents passing through with bags of equipment.

Three and a half minutes later I was getting worried that we were lost. Sophia must have noticed the look of concern on my face because she said, "Don't worry, we're almost there." Then her eyes widened in surprise.

"Quickly, turn around," she said in a hurried whisper.

"What-"

"Sophia? How's it going? What are you doing here?" asked a tall and muscular figure in a lab coat from the other end of the hall.

Sophia cursed under her breath and quickly plastered a smile on her face.

"Um, hi Jonas, how are you?" she replied awkwardly.

"It's been great! We've just had a major breakthrough in self-aiming gun technology. I could show you if you want, unless you have something else to do," he eyed me suspiciously, "and you are?"

"Ben Ripley."

His jaws dropped in awe, "The Benjamin Ripley? The one who went on multiple successful missions in his youth?"

I chuckled, "Yeah, that's me."

He walked up to me and held out his hand. I shook it.

"Pleasure to meet you, Agent Ripley," he said.

"You too, Jonas," I gave a forced smile. Why did he have to be so talkative?

He turned his attention back to Sophia. "Soph, seriously. It would be great to show you that self-aiming gun. You could give us a good report to the superiors, they wanted an update anyhow." He grinned.

"You never let me use it anyhow."

"C'mon, I'll cut you some slack. It's your birthday isn't it?"

Sophia smiled sadly, "Sorry, I have something to do. Maybe another day?"

Jonas looked disappointed. "Well, me too. Nice spotting you here," he said and then walked off.

After he was out of earshot, Sophia apologized for her friend's behaviour and broke into a light run to make up for the speed and have the building evacuated before everyone finished work for the day.

"It's your birthday?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Happy birthday! How old are you?"

"Didn't anyone teach you not to ask for a woman's age?" She chuckled, then continued, "We graduated together if that helps."

I had no idea who she was before we started working together.

After four more minutes of speed-walking down hallways and taking random turns into restricted areas, we arrived in front of a door hiding away all of the CIA's field operation technologies and research.

"You brought the matches?" Sophia asked me.

I took a singular match out that was hidden inside my belt buckle.

"Now we find a garbage can," I grinned, excited for the beginning of my first action sequence in years.

I would expect the next time I can update is winter break... I'll try to write, but don't expect a lot of chapters.