Code Name X

1-If anyone says I'm vertically challenged I will kill you slowly.

"At least I didn't get any one else caught with me!" A boy retorted.

"That wasn't my fault!" she spat.

The number on the door said ten, so, shrugging internally, I opened it and entered a bright white room, with immaculate rows of desks set out. There were four people in there already.

Two were sitting on desks in the far corner. One was a tall, lanky girl with light brown hair and bright green eyes sitting cross legged and resting her head against the wall, looking tired. The other was a boy with floppy black hair, brown eyes and a mischievous expression. He was watching the argument going on in the centre of the room with interest.

The girl was Chinese and about sixteen or seventeen, from what I could tell. She had an expression of murderous rage on her face. The boy was well over a foot taller than me and had an almost forgettable face, except for a long thin scar on his left cheek. He had a similar expression of murderous rage on his face, and both of them seemed about to punch each other, but as soon as I opened the door, they froze, while I stood there awkwardly.

The green eyed girl broke the silence,

"Hi, I'm Iris." She said in a quiet voice, I nodded and gave her a small smile.

"You don't look like a criminal." the boy in the corner noted. He was speaking in English, but it wasn't his native language. I couldn't place his accent. "What did they get you for?"

"Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor." I answered.

"Aha, Robin Hood! I'm Max, by the way." he grinned devilishly. You couldn't help liking him, he had this mischievous energy that made him seem like a hyper ten year old, rather than fifteen or sixteen.

"Robin Hood? Who's Robin Hood?" the Chinese girl asked, looking less murderous.

"You haven't heard of Robin Hood?" the boy asked incredulously.

"No?"

"He was this fictional person in medieval times who always used a bow and arrow." He told her.

"Oh, it's some English thing is it?"

"I'm Welsh."

"Same thing."

"It is not the same thing!"

"It so is."

"Whatever, shorty."

"Did you just call me short? I am not short. There is no way I can be described as short. Besides, look at her!"

"Firstly, that's just rude." I said. "Secondly, if she's short, and she's got to be at least 5'8, yeah, if she's short, I'm a dwarf. Then that's dwarfist."

"Dwarfist isn't a word." he replied.

"Eh, it should be."

"Whatever."

"That's the second time you were saying whatever in the last minute, Scarface." Max observed.

"Do not call me Scarface." he enunciated each word carefully, while giving Max a death glare. "And it's said, not were saying."

Max wasn't fazed at all. "What's your real name, then? And I know that my English is bad, I'm French!"

"My name's Ben."

There was a silence, but then, surprise surprise, Max spoke. "Well this going to be fun." he sounded almost excited. The girl gave him a look of contempt.

"Fun? This cannot be fun. The five of us stuck in here, being taught 'essential life skills' for the rich kids that will make no difference when we finally move back."

"There might be more of us." Iris replied. "Cameron might turn up."

"Who's Cameron?" Max asked immediately.

"He worked on the newspaper with us. He used to sneak into the government offices and steal information, for us and a guy we called the Hacker. He had a website like ours, and hacked the government databases. By the end, they must have employed so many people just to stop him getting in."

"Did he get caught too?"

"Probably." she sighed. "We think they followed Cameron, which led them to Maren and me too, so they probably found him as well."

"Well, that's maybe two more. Plus Emilie and that makes eight." I was about to ask him who Emilie was, but he ploughed on before I could get a word in edgewise. "I used to put graffiti all over the Western Sector. We managed to not get caught for ages, but then we got caught.." he trailed off, looking slightly guilty. "So, oui, Emilie est ma meilleure amie." I was definitely getting the French in there now.

We lapsed into silence, so I carefully navigated between the rows and settled on the desk next to the wall, behind Max. The Chinese girl, Maren, and Ben both seemed to call a reluctant truce and went to opposite sides of the room.

Predictably, Max was the one who broke the silence. "Ben, what did you do?"

He looked at Max suspiciously. "Why?"

"I want to know! But if you don't want to tell us, I could just steal your card." I had been given a card with things like my name and age on it, and why I'd been in prison, so I guessed we all had one.

Ben briefly looked alarmed, but it lasted a fraction of a second. "Okay, fine. You know how there are speakers wired all around the city? I rewired them and randomly made speeches against the government."

"You really are a hardened criminal." Maren said sarcastically.

"Hey, shorty, it took effort, and it worked!"

"Guys, again with the short thing, you are not helping my self esteem! If 5'8 is short, what is 4'10?"

"Are you only 4'10? Awww." Maren smirked. I flipped her off. "Oh, rude! Not so innocent after all."

"And if anyone ever says I am vertically challenged, I will kill you slowly."

If you hadn't noticed, I'm touchy about my height.

"That does not sound at all threatening coming from someone under five foot." Max commented. I gave him the evil eye. He sniggered. "What are we actually going to do here?" he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"Hell if I know." Maren replied gloomily. "Just get really really bored."

"It could be interesting." Iris said optimistically.

"It's better than being alone." Max said. "I mean I've been in prison for over a year, and it was not fun. Also, why are we speaking in English?"

"That's a good point. Does anyone not speak German?" I asked. No one answered.

"So you've all been subjecting me to this torture of trying to translate for no reason?" Max exclaimed in German."So cruel."

"It's really not hard." Maren told him.

"How do you know?"

"I'm fluent in Mandarin, English and German."

"Yeah, but I'm not fluent in English, because I haven't really spoken it since I left school. And why do you speak Mandarin?" he asked.

"I'm Chinese." she said. "Duh."

"Yeah, but who did you talk to in Mandarin?"

"That doesn't matter." she said icily. He took the hint and shut up. Maren still looked pissed off, and Iris gave her a meaningful look. Maren rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything.

Suddenly, the door opened and I nearly jumped out of my skin in shock. A tall auburn haired boy came in, limping a little, and pulled up short when he saw Ben. Ben himself had turned very pale.

"You bloody bastard."