Forming a plan

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The next day
Barbie's POV

The team assembled in disclosed location at the nearby town. Dozens of I3 agents were present and waiting for orders.

Ms. Z led me, Teresa, and Renee to the planning table.

“Okay! It’s been more than 24 hours since your disappearance of the Roberts family and 16 hours since the disappearance of your friends.”

She presses a button on the high-tech table and a hologram image appeared before them. “Thanks to Lazlo, we were able to find the cellular signal from the call Barbie received last night.” She presses another button and the image zoomed into a closer location which distinctly looked like a wolf’s head. “This is what the base looks like. So far we have no intel of what the inside is. Therefore we must proceed with great caution moving forward.”

Ms. Z turned more serious, then directs her attention to me. “Barbie, since our main perpetrator seems to have an eye on you. We’ll have to let you go in first.”

“Aunt Z, no! That’s super dangerous,” Renee interjects.

“I agree.” Teresa nods. “We are not sending our friend in as live bait.”

“Guys,” I chided then gently. “It’s okay. I don’t think our villain is gonna hurt me. I’m sure he wants something else besides the money and that involves me.”

“Precisely!” Ms. Z says. “So back to what I was saying… Barbie will need to go in first and scope out their base. We fear that they have a tech-savvy in their team so we won’t put a wire on you. Instead…”

She motions for Lazlo to come over. “Luckily, Lazlo has recently developed these high-tech spy gear in the form of contact lenses.”

She shows the gadget in her hand. “Once Barbie wears this, whatever she sees and hear will be transmitted back here to HQ. The next thing is about the ransom. We have printed out 10 million dollars fake money for you to give them.” Ms. Z pulls out a case from underneath the table. “Ask for your parents and friends first before giving them this and once the exchange is done. Renee, Teresa and the rest of our agents will drop in and capture them all while their guard is down. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Ms. Z,” I said with a confident smile. “Sounds like a great plan.”

“Well we better get a move on then,” Renee said. “We have to save our friends and your family, Barbie.”

“Right.” Ms. Z snapped her fingers. “Meet with Lazlo and suit up, girls. He’ll be equipping you with your necessities.”

We headed for the room where Lazlo made a temporary lab in. Ken was also there and it looked like the two boys were getting along pretty well.

“So what does this do?” Ken moves to press a button on a gadget but Lazlo hastily stops him. “That is a stun bomb. If you press that it will paralyze us for 5 hours.”

“Oops. Sorry, man.”

Lazlo then notices the three girls approach and waves at them. “Oh hey spies! Glad you could join us.”

"Hey Lazlo," Teresa said smiling.

"I was thinking.....you two seem to along pretty well," Renee said as she placed one hand on my shoulder and her other hand on Teresa's shoulder, "how about you four go on a double date?"

I blushed as I looked away.

"That sounds purrfect!" Patricia grinned as I glared at her.

I cleared my throat.
"How about we get down on the task? Lazlo, what do you have here?" I asked.

Lazlo, with a fully red face, nodded vehemently. “Yes yes, no time for dates. We have a rescue mission to prioritize! Uh umm….”

He points to one of the gadgets on the table. “I’ve upgraded your GLISS, Barbie. So you can hide it more easily since you will especially need a concealed weapon when you enter our enemy’s lair.”

He turns to Renee and Teresa. “For you guys. I’ve developed this comms device disguised as a hairpin.” He holds up an ordinary-looking barrette with cat design. “You always complained that I never make of you gadgets fashionable so here you go.”

“Thanks, Laz.” Teresa beamed. “These are so cute!”

“Next we have this heat sensor sunglasses. Since you guys will be arriving from above you’ll need these to know where the bad guys are from outside the cave.”

“And lastly…” he grabs a bunch of bracelets on his desk and hands it to the three of them. “These are bracelets that transform into handcuffs.” He demonstrates the process. “Use these to apprehend the bad guys when you have them surrounded.”

"All so amazing!" I commented, "Thanks, Lazlo."

Then I turned to others.
"Are you guys ready?" I asked.

"We sure are," Renee replied, "Can't wait to get this over with so we can enjoy the rest of our vacation. Anyways, do we know when we should finish the job?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. They didn't say when I should be there."

Right after she said that her phone rang again.
I groaned.
"I'm tired of this crap!"

I checked and saw it was the unknown caller once more. I looked warily to my friends before picking up the phone.

“Agent Roberts!” The voice on the phone said, cheerfully. Which was scarier than when he sounded serious. “I’ll cut to the chase. You said you had our money, yes? Well in that case, we’ll be expecting you to come to this location in exactly 2 hours. And remember… NO backups!”

The call ended but there was a text message that was sent. When I opened it, I saw coordinates that looked the same as the one that Lazlo found with his tracking.

“I guess we know our answer then,” Teresa says.

“On the bright side, now we know he’s not onto us!” Renee said as she peered over her shoulder.
“He doesn’t know that WE KNOW where he is.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Lazlo claps in relief. “Thank goodness, they weren’t able yo snuff me out when I was tracking them.”

Right then Ken placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Barbie....can we talk?"

A/N: Ooo lala! What are these two going to talk about?🤭

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