To be as Elusive as a Dream

02

7 hours later, 8830 received sounds on the other end of his bug. He shut off his music and jammed his earbuds in his ears, listening closely. A piece of paper waited beneath his pen. He could hear her sitting down at the desk.

"Yes, I know Rai. Yes, yes, I'm fine. Just a busy day at the cafe. No, nothing happened. Just some customer who ordered plain black coffee then dumped a bunch of sugar in at the table. Yeah, I know it's a bummer." She was on the phone.

She laughed. "Really now? You want to challenge me to a fencing competition, mon frère? I won't go easy."

The notes said, "Rai, brother, fencing" in messy scribbles. 8830 waited patiently for more.

"Yes, yes, I'm aware. Yes, I love you." Her phone rang during her call. "I have a call from my boss, I'll speak to you later!"

The ringing stopped. "Hello?" She answered. Her boss was his boss. Agent Butterfly. 8830 had only met him once, during his initiation.

"Yes, sir. The target's currently working for us. Agent 9014. No, we suspect he himself doesn't know he's a candidate. Absolutely. Oh, yes, regarding the Wild Cards you chose, there's two, correct? Minako and Minato Arisato, fraternal twins. Age: 6. We're expecting them to arrive at the facility tomorrow. Agent Catman and Agent Bunny will be going to pick her up, posing as their new parents. Understood."

The line went dead. 8830 stared at his notecard. He hadn't written a thing since "fencing". His throat constricted. What were they going to do to 9014?

9014, the sweet, quiet coworker who offered him sandwiches in the mornings. 9014, the man who smiled and hummed cute little tunes. 9014, his coworker.

And then there were the kids. What did a spy agency want with two kids? Specifically, what did Agent Butterfly want with them? And Wild Cards? What did that mean?

"Whoever planted this bug, come to my office at 6."

Agent Ascot's voice came into his ear. Stern and fierce, unlike her usual smiles and polite facade.

He felt a fear creep up his spine. Listen to his superior and fail the training exercise, or disobey her?

She'd forget about it after a while. He'd finally settled on that reasoning after too many minutes of hypotheticals.

Slowly, he typed out a message to Agent Catman. It was the only Agent he knew the identity of.

Why? Catman was his brother. And like it or not, 8830 was going with Bunny and him to get these "Wild Cards".

{0}

"What do you have to report?" Agent Venus glared at the recruits.

5663 raised her hand. "Widow is dating a man who works for an American company."

Venus sneered. "She dates someone new every week. I consider that a failure. Next."

"What?! That's not fair!" She cried. Venus stared. "Next."

7032 went next. "Well, Phantom met a hacker named Lucia online. Apparently they're a very talented hacker."

"That may be useful. Type up a report and send it to me by midnight tonight." Venus instructed. "And no, I don't care that you have 3 hours left. Go, if you're so worried."

7032 bowed his head and left. "Next." Venus instructed.

"Agent Catman is planning a surprise birthday party for his brother Tatsuya on the 27th." 9014 informed her. "Other than that, it was just office work."

Venus sighed. "I was hoping there was something else. You can go, 9014."

9014 smiled and waved goodbye to 8830. His stomach sank. Why was 9014 a target?

"Well? What about Agent Ascot?"

"She got a call from her brother. She found my bug before I could hear anything else." He lied.

Venus's eye twitched. "So, you learned nearly nothing and were found out? 8830, if you don't clean up your game, Butterfly will memory wipe you. What if we sent you out to spy on the Masked Circle? You could've compromised an operation we've been running for months."

8830 bowed his head silently. "I'm sorry."

She let out a puff of air slowly. "I really don't like yelling at you. Agent Ring, he was just like you-hard working, smart, quiet- and he died on a mission. I don't want the same to happen to you. You're so young and have so much potential. Please, work harder in the future."

8830 nodded and left without a word. He strode through the corridors, heading to his car.

He hated lying to her. Venus was nice when she tried, but he needed to find out about these Wild Cards and their tie to the company.

He hopped inside, turned on the ignition, and rolled out of the parking lot. The car the agency lent to him was nice, sure, but not his style. He would've preferred his motorcycle, but according to the higher ups it was too suspicious. It really didn't matter though, for 8830 planned on wrecking this car one way or another tonight.

He drove slowly over dirt roads and dark paths only lit by the rising moon and the car's headlights. He eventually got to the main roads, where his car no longer kicked up dust and bumped on every rock.

His eyes darted from side to side. He didn't want to crash into anyone and hurt them. Then he spotted a fire hydrant. He hit the gas and crashed into it, sending water flying. His car made an awful crunching noise. The airbag went off and covered his face.

Perfect.

He struggled to climb out of the car and whipped out his phone. One ring, two, three.

"Hello?"

"Hey Katsuya, can you pick me up from work? I crashed my car."

He heard a deep sigh coming from the receiver. "Sure. Where are you? You're not hurt, right?"

"Corner of Hillshire and Juniper."

"Okay, wait at the McDonald's nearby. I'll be there in 20 or so minutes."

"Thanks."

He ended the call and went to the trunk of his car, bringing out a red mechanic's suit covered in grease and oil. He zipped it on, messed up his hair, and added a smudge of general dirt to his cheek. He may know about Katsuya's position in the Agency, but he didn't know about Tatsuya. As far as he knew, Tatsuya was a mechanic.

He shoved his hands in the jumpsuit pockets and strolled over to the nearby McDonalds. So far, everything was going well for his recently-thought-of plan.

"Hello, welcome to McDonald's. How can I help you?" A tired looking man, probably in his early 20s like Tatsuya, was at the register. Tatsuya glanced at his name tag. "Ryotaro Dojima."

"I'd like to have a plain black coffee."

"What size?"

Tatsuya flipped through his wallet. "Medium."

The register rang him up. "You're number 749."

Tatsuya took a seat at a booth and waited, going over his plan. He knew Katsuya would have to pick up Agent Bunny in the morning to grab the Wild Cards. He just had to tag along as the dumb, unfortunate brother.

A tired looking Katsuya came through the entrance moments after Tatsuya received his coffee.

"Can I have a sip?"

Tatsuya handed over the hot beverage. Katsuya relaxed as the roasted bean water slid down his gullet.

"How long will I have to drive you?"

Tatsuya shrugged. He didn't really care. "I dunno. Mechanic hasn't called yet."

Katsuya ran a hand over his face. "Why'd you crash?"

"I saw a cat." Key word in the statement. If he knew anything about Katsuya, it was his love for cats. "I swerved to avoid it."

Katsuya sighed. "At least you weren't drunk or falling asleep. Come on, let's go home."

The two brothers left the lonely McDonalds and drove off into the night.