Spy School: Family Ties

Chapter 5

Washington, D.C.
1330 hours
March 15, 2027

Erica's POV

I was right about my assumption of the owner of the bracelet. I stared at the girl in black. She smirked.

"Did you miss me, Ice Queen?" She asked. I had a mix of emotions.

In front of me stood Zoe Zibbell. I hadn't seen her my graduation day. I had a rocky relationship with Zoe. On one hand, she had provided me an outlet for girl talk. On the other, well, she was extremely perky and annoying, as well as the fact that I didn't know if she was a good agent or not.

I watched Ben walk over and sit beside me. He rubbed my back and said

"It's ok. We can trust her."

"How do you know that?" I bursted out. "Your own parents sold you out. How can you trust her?"

"Because she would have taken us out by now if she was evil," Ben said.

It was a fair point, although it might be flawed since she could be gathering intel for an evil organization. However, I trusted Ben, and if he trusted her, I guess I should too.

"It looks like someone finally thawed out Miss Ice Queen," Zoe said. I just smiled and nodded. I didn't even care if she was trying to embarras me.

Then she glanced at my stroller, and I saw her big green eyes widen in surprise. She walked over and picked up Emma, rocking her back and forth. I was wary. I didn't want my girl with a stranger, but Ben seemed at ease.

"Aww, I'll give you this, Erica, your baby is amazingly cute," Zoe cooed. She started rubbing her belly.

"Hi there little girl, what's your name?" She asked.

"It's Emma," I said.

"Hi, Emma, how are you? I'm Zoe." She kept rocking Emma back and forth. Soon she gave her back to me, and I held onto my baby protectively.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Well, the CIA assigned me to look out for anyone around this area. It seems they caught wind of some plan to attack this area."

"Weird, we were assigned the same thing."

"By who?"

"The director." Nobody knew my Grandpa was director except the few high admin and our family.

"They suspect that there is another organization infiltrated in the CIA. We were sent on a secret mission."

"I see." Zoe started mumbling to herself, trying to make sense of the situation. I was thinking too, how coincidental this was.

There are no such things as coincidences, Erica.

I shook my head. Some things just happen because.

Ben spoke up.

"We need to figure out what's going on, fast."

"There's barely any evidence," Zoe replied. "It's an almost impossible mission. I'm not even sure if we could catch the plans, let alone stop them."

"Well, we have to try something," Ben responded. "Did the CIA give you any leads?"

"Well, yes. They said that the organization has been dubbed SNOW."

"SNOW? I wonder why," I muttered.

"We haven't got any leads on why, the name, just that it has been name dropped a lot."

Emma started crying. I looked down and rocked her. My little baby. I loved her so much. She started calming down and I rubbed her belly, which made her start to laugh. I put her in the crib and then went back to the conversation.

"Well, let's set up surveillance. Rendezvous at 8 here. See what we can find." I gave them the orders, and I was about to head out, when I saw something odd in the fountain. I saw a little button on the fountain. It was barely noticeable, but I seemed to have spotted it. I stashed the stroller behind a bush and carried Emma with me.

I pushed the button, and I saw a little door open, that was carved into the rim of the fountain. It was slim, but I fit through. There was a dark and dank hallway. I flipped on my phone flashlight and explored. It seemed like a regular maintenance tunnel, with pipes running along the top.

I walked to the end of the hallway, where a room opened up. Inside, there was a kitchen bar, a couch, and a tv, as well as a computer on a desk in the corner. I cased the area, but didn't find any traps. There were no scattered documents anywhere. There was no evidence that anyone had been here, except for the fact that the tech was new.

I set Emma on the ground. I went over to the computer and hacked the account. Inside was a folder dubbed "Operations". I opened it and gasped.

It looked like an official U.S. file. There were reports on everything about the U.S. government, all the way back to George Washington. I quickly downloaded everything onto my USB drive. I went to get Emma but I saw her looking at the doorway. I scooped her up and hid in the shadows.

I heard footsteps coming. I crouched down. I didn't want to be found, but Emma was going to be a problem.

What looked like a man entered the room. He sat down the couch and turned on the TV. He had hooked a laptop up to it and I saw him scrolling through news feeds.

I felt Emma rubbing my arm. I looked down and I could tell she was going to cry. In desperation, I whipped out my breast and let her feed. It seemed to calm her down. I sighed. Who would have thought I would be breastfeeding a baby in a secret lair hiding from someone in the same lair.

I watched as the man went on to the U.S. government website. He entered a login that I hadn't known worked. It opened up the Homeland Security files, and he had access to everything. I watched as he whipped through files, looking for what he needed. Finally, he stopped one that was named "General Updates".

He opened it and started typing in a notice. I couldn't make out everything, but he seemed to be announcing that all available personnel should go stand guard in downtown New York. It had to be a distraction. I saw the date just as he shut off the tv.

March 27th.

He exited the room and I heard him go out the exit, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Emma was still breastfeeding, and I didn't want to have her make a sound, so I let her continue. My breast was getting cold in the lair, so I exited the hallway.

I saw a doorway at the end hidden by some rubble. U jumped over it and went through another dank hallway. There was rubble everywhere. It looked eerily familiar. I walked through another doorway.

Emma let go of my breast and I put her down on the ground. She seemed stuck on getting to some corner, so I helped her out. I saw what she was looking for. It was a picture of me. From sometime in spy school. I hooked it around Zoe's bracelet and tucked it in Emma's pocket.

I looked up again. I realized what was bugging me. This place seemed so familiar. And the photo had been the nail in the coffin.

I was in Ben's old lair.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I will try to update again tomorrow but no promises. Have a good day 😄