The Model Spy

Chapter 3 - Emma Blake

We made our way down the hall to Fred's personal laboratory. While Fred's office may have been stark, his laboratory looked like the basement of a hoarder. The walls were lined with dozens of cupboards and shelves that were bursting with gadgets. Some of the gadgets were new and still in the testing stages, while others dated back to World War II. Fred never threw anything away. Every piece of junk and garbage could have been salvaged and, in his opinion, perhaps turned into the greatest weapon the CIA may one day have at its disposal.

When it came to the gadgets, it was Mr. C that really deserved the credit. He was a super genius, former child-prodigy and maybe one of the greatest inventors since Edison. I couldn't be sure, though, because I had never met him. No one had. He wasn't exactly a "people person" according to Fred. His isolation and anonymity turned him into some sort of mythological being. No one knew what he looked like or sounded like. No one knew his real name or his age or if he was even a "Mr." at all. Fred sent all sorts of blueprints and prototypes to an apartment in Malibu, but Fred couldn't even tell me if Mr. C actually lived there himself.

But one thing Fred could tell me was that there was no one else he trusted more when it came to the agency's gadgets than Mr. C. The mysterious architect could turn paper airplanes into military drones and pocket change into miniature tracking devices. For Fred and the other bosses at the CIA, he was a national treasure.

Fred led me to a high, metal table with a few of Mr. C's gadgets laid out on its surface. At first glance, it looked like someone had simply stolen my purse and dumped its belongings on the table top. But if one looked closer, nothing was as it appeared. Like everyone, everything, in the CIA, they were shrouded in disguise.

I studied the appliances laid out in front of me, shining and new, custom-made just for me. I felt a twinge of excitement and I had to admit that Fred was right: this was my favorite part of the job. It was like Christmas, which just went to show just how unusual my real Christmases were.

Fred flashed me a mysterious grin before picking up a tube of lipstick. He cleared his throat dramatically and put on his best infomercial voice. "This may look like normal lipstick, but with one little twist...." He wound the bottom of the tube. A blinding red streak of light shot out of its top. Squinting, I reached for a pair of protective goggles dangling from a hook on the wall.

Fred aimed the red band of light at the wall and carefully carved a near perfect circle into the drywall. Smoke wafted from the wall for several seconds, but them it crumbled to the floor in one messy pile. Mrs. Jefferson, our much-needed legal analyst, was in full-view next door. She barely glanced up from her computer as she gave a small, unenthusiastic wave towards Fred and me. She was used to it.

"It burns through almost anything." Fred held out the deadly tube. "But be careful," he continued as I rolled the sleek silver case between my fingers, "As I said, it burns through almost anything, even human flesh." I set it back down on the table slowly as if even a slight touch could set it off.

"Good to know." I pulled off the goggles and hung them back on the hook.

"Next," Fred said, moving to the next item in the line. He picked up a black jewelry box and opened it. Two tiny, but nevertheless very shiny, pearl earrings stared back at me. I had lived in L.A. long enough to distinguish real pearls from fake pearls and the ones Fred held in his hands were definitely real. It took everything I had not to lunge at them greedily.

Fred placed the box in my eager hands. "For you, love. They're hearing devices."

"How much did this cost?" I fingered a pearl gently. I had had plenty of hearing devices in my life. Usually they were flesh-colored and rubber and they folded over the outside of my ear like the ones pop stars wear when they are on stage. My long hair always covered them just so, so that I could wear them in school and hear what the other kids said about me. When Fred found out about this, he made it his life's goal to confiscate every single pair of hearing devices I owned.