Agent 024

Khamma Ghani

"Ready?", Shruti asked as we jumped around our hands drawn in defense as the judo practice began.

"Hell yeah.", I said.

"Remember cadets, judo is all about using your opponent's strength against himself. Use his weight and height to your advantage.", Agent Kaur said.

Shruti was almost of the same build as me. She was a little taller with an average build. 

We began marking each other's strength drawing out the other as we circled. I went on the offence aiming a kick high up and she ducked escaping it and came on the offence with another kick.

"Here is your schedule for the test bout on Thursday. Remember your slot and report ten minutes prior to your scheduled time." Agent Kaur said as the session ended.

"Let's see whose ass we get to kick on Thursday.", Shruti said as she ducked and lifted the ropes on the side to get through them.

I followed her to the projector that the list of the matches. The Academy was big on eliminating the usage of paper. If it could sent and broadcasted virtually, then it was done virtually only. We hardly ever used paper here.

I was going to fight Samir at 10 am. Samir had done pretty good throughout the training but I had learnt a lot too. It was going to be an equal fight.

"That's it for today. If you are going to practice before the match, I'll advise you to take all safety precautions. Failing this test would flunk you for the entire semester.", Agent Kaur said as she left.

While you could afford to fail one theory subject here, doing below standard on the practical papers was out of the question. You had to scrape the minimum required marks until you were ready to become a junior to your batchmates.

"Tough match?", I asked Roger as we exited the judo wing.

"Yeah, I'm up against Piyush.", he said, wiping his head with a white towel.

"He's the best.", I said, clicking my tongue.

"What about you?", he asked.

"Samir.", I said.

"Hmm.", he said, nodding.

"Hey, any tips on how to make it up to Aradhya?", he asked as we crossed the staff wing.

"Trust her, man. She's not the cheating type. She just finds it way too hard to express her emotions with the tough girl act she has going. It scares her to make herself vulnerable by accepting her feelings for someone. You got to give the girl her space.", I shrugged.

"Yeah, I just don't feel like she's that into me. At least not as much as I am.", he said.

"Trust me.", I smiled remembering our conversations last night when Aradhya's voice filled with happiness when she described her first conversations with Roger, "Take her opinion on that before you give up, okay?", I said.

"I wish I knew her as you do.", he said, chuckling.

"You know her better.", I smirked.

We stepped into the Art of Deception classroom.

"Welcome to your last class for this semester.", the Agent greeted us.

"As a taste of what your field examination will be like, we will be doing a little activity today. All of you will receive a text from me which will include details on what you are supposed to dress up as. Your connection will be jammed once you receive my text so don't get any ideas. At 4 o clock precisely you will all come out into this hall again. Your task is to find your team and find all the members of the team allotted to you. For example if team 4 is allotted team 5, members of team 4 will find each other and then find the members of team 5. So your job is simple, come out clear to your friends but hide from your enemies. Ready to play chameleons, cadets?", the Agent asked excitedly.

"Do these guys get anymore weird?", Prakhar asked, standing next to me.

"Nay.", I said as we were all shuffled taken into random rooms and shut there for two hours.

"Right.", I said, looking at myself in the mirror.

I had big dark circles and my hair needed oiling. I made a promise to devote more time to self-care and go easy on the alcohol as I looked at my tired face in the mirror.

"Okay.", I said taking out my phone as it pinged.

There was a text from the Agent. y phone suddenly showed no connection. The Agent had put the jammers into place so that we didn't start posting our fake identities on our class group.

"How the hell am I supposed to become a 30 year old Marathi man with brown hair and black eyes!", I shouted at my phone.

I looked into the chest and found a mix of men and women clothing there. There was ghaghra choli, suit salwar lungi kurta and almost every other Indian ethnic wear.

"Looks like everyone's been given the same clothing.", I said to myself as I picked out a dhoti and kurta.

I looked for a brown male wig and took out black lenses.

"Let's get started.", I said, as I tied my hair into a bun and folded it all neatly inside the wig.

I put on multiple layers of clothing to hide my chest and put on a sleeveless coat over my attire.

My face still looked pretty feminine so I opened the make - up box for the first time in my life to make myself look more like a man. I smiled at the irony as I picked up the blush and rubbed it on the brown shade before putting it on my face.

"Step out.", the Agent instructed as I got done with the final touches of the makeup.

"Right.", I said as I looked around me and felt like I was inside a Republic Day parade. All 28 states and 8 union territories had their attire being worn by these future agents.

"Tumhii kase aahaat?", I said as I entered the hall too.

Time to flex the Marathi I had been learning for a year now.

"Bring it on.", I said, tilting my head as I walked into the hall into a ocean of white and green and red and every other color and culture under the sun.

"Khamma Ghani.", someone said, folding their hands in front of me.

I smiled at the Rajasthani accent. There was only one Rajasthani in our class and he defintely had a much deeper voice.

I looked at the person's eyes.

This was going to be much difficult than I thought.