D.E.B.S dorm, 07:00
The D.E.B.S girls of Sector 1, aka the top squad of senior agents at D.E.B.S. Academy, were abruptly awoken from their slumber by their daily morning call from Mr Teddy, their handler. He was in charge of gathering intel and information, guiding them and assigning them missions.
He was also the girls' unofficial alarm clock.
It was the same routine every weekday morning, as it had been for the past four years when all four girls had been mere gangly pimple-faced teenagers fresh out of high school.
Their main communication channel was the large portrait in the entrance hall, the one where the D.E.B.S group photo was located. It also doubled as a two-way screen whenever Mr Teddy rang them up for their morning wake up call.
"Good morning D.E.B.S," Mr Teddy started pleasantly, eyes crinkling into crescents.
As usual, Mr Teddy's face was hidden behind a mask for supposedly privacy concerns since it would seem he had amassed quite a bounty on his head from underground criminals during his tenure as a field agent. Few people had ever seen him with the mask off. Few people could tell his age.
And as usual, only serene silence greeted him back.
"ATTENTION D.E.B.S! ATTENTION! EMERGENCY ALERT! THAT MEANS REPORT NOW, RIGHT THIS SECOND!" Mr Teddy bellowed, multiplying across all the frames and portraits that hung in hallways and corridors as a deafening alarm started ringing.
All of the photo frames that hung around the house could be used in this manner as communication channels to reach everyone should they be scattered in different rooms.
Jennie Kim was the first to bolt up out of bed, gun blazing in hand before she realised that nobody was attacking them. As the squad captain, she was always prepared for action and her trusty uzi gun was never far out of reach. Nobody went in to her room to wake her precisely for this reason—nobody wanted to be accidentally blasted to smithereens by their trigger-happy captain.
Mr Teddy's voice magnified, unable to be ignored anymore as he barked out the morning wake up call peppered in with mildly threatening warnings. The ringing alarm didn't stop either. There was no going back to sleep.
"YOU HAVE NO TIME TO SLEEP LADIES. GO GO GO GO GO! AND I MEAN NOW, LADIES."
As the dutiful captain that she was, Jennie padded out of her room to go wake up the rest of her team while multiple Mr Teddy's continued to scream blue murder from the various photo frames, like their very own chorus of shrieking morning birds.
"THE WORLD MIGHT BE DESTROYED WHILE YOU'RE NAPPING!"
Jennie opened Jisoo's door, not surprised in the least to see the motionless lump beneath the sheets.
"Jisoo."
When the girl didn't move, Jennie called again. "Come on Jisoo, Teddy's freaking out."
Jisoo finally peeled back a corner of the sheet, blinking up at Jennie wordlessly, like she did every morning.
And like every morning, Jennie rolled her eyes but relented. "Okay, five minutes."
Jisoo grinned and was about to flop on the pillow again before Jennie peeked in again, nose scrunched up in disapproval as she eyed the second lump on the bed.
"And no boys allowed upstairs," she added exasperatedly before leaving to wake the others.
It was practically their morning greeting by now. Jisoo somehow managed to sneak a different guy into her bed every other night, no matter how closely Jennie surveyed her movements in the beginning, back in first year.
Jennie had admitted defeat after three months of surveillance yielded no results and resigned herself to half-heartedly scolding her promiscuous teammate every morning.
"Out," Jisoo groaned as she rolled out of bed, pulling the sheet with her. The dude—she didn't even know his name, but he was endowed quite nicely—blinked awake, disoriented by the abrupt dismissal.
"What?"
"Get out and take your clothes with you," Jisoo ordered shortly, throwing his clothes in his face, "I don't do laundry."
"Wait, can we talk about last—"
"No time. Out."
"But—"
Jisoo opened the door and pointed. "Out."
With the guy dismissed, Jisoo went to the closet, wondering which pair of stilettos she could wear today. She lit up her first cigarette of the day to help her decide.
"LET'S GO I WANT EVERYBODY UP!"
"Yeri?" Jennie called as she opened the door. Immediately her eyes were assaulted by a wave of pink.
Yeri's room looked like Barbie had vomited pink everywhere: the ceiling, the carpet, the walls, the curtains, the furniture, everything was in some shade of pink.
Jennie always felt like she stepped into a six-year old's wonderland when she opened Yeri's door.
The only signs that this was in fact a college dorm room were the numerous cat posters and pictures of bands hanging from the walls and all sorts of memorabilia, souvenirs and trinkets that Yeri had collected over the years from their missions abroad which provided a welcome break on the eyes from all the pink.
The only other non-pink thing in the room was Yeri herself, already neatly decked out in a white blouse, blue plaid skirt, knee-high socks and buckle shoes with a new cashmere sweater draped across her shoulder that she probably pilfered from Target.
Old habits die hard but as long as she wasn't caught, Jennie didn't think it was her business to stop her.
Yeri did always get her something nice for Christmas, courtesy of her master thief skills, so it benefited Jennie to turn a blind eye.
"Five minutes and we move out," Jennie said.
"Have you seen my gun?" Yeri asked frantically as she ransacked her drawers, throwing out clothes. "I can't find it. I can't remember what I did with it!"
"What am I, your mother? Why do you keep misplacing it? It's a gun, not a toy," Jennie scoffed before she sighed. "Have you checked the laundry basket?"
"Damn it." Yeri quickly scrambled to follow Jennie's suggestion, flinging dirty clothes out of her hamper before triumphantly coming up with her favourite gun still stuck in yesterday's jeans.
"Got it!"
>
The cordless phone in the hall rang over Mr Teddy's continuous shouting and Jennie picked up.
"D.E.B.S., Jennie here."
"I need to talk with Rosie."
Recognising the male voice, Jennie suppressed an eye roll and hollered down the corridor.
"Rosie, it's for you, pick up! You got less than a minute!"
She hurried to her own bedroom to throw on her uniform and grab her bag, already prepared the night before.
"COME ON LET'S GO! IT'S GO TIME PEOPLE!"
In her sea-blue bedroom with medals and trophies adorning every shelf, Park Chaeyoung picked up the phone on the bedside table midway through pulling over her shirt, already dreading talking to the person on the other end.
"Hello?"
"Rosie, we need to talk about last night."
"No I'm not talking about this anymore. I told you, we're over," Chaeyoung said tersely and slammed the phone down as she rushed around the room grabbing her items and flinging them haphazardly into her backpack: tracksuit and sneakers for physical training, towel and toiletries for showering afterwards, textbooks for classes, standard D.E.B.S gear and weapons she carried about her person and of course, her precious sketchbook.
Chaeyoung would have loved to start the day with a hot shower but in four years she had given up on actually waking up early enough to do so. Gruelling training, intense classes and late night missions meant she had no intention of interrupting her beauty sleep, not even for a shower.
Moreover, she somehow always ended up being the last to finish, despite waking up as quickly as Jennie.
"COME ON LET'S GO MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT LADIES!" Mr Teddy shouted. "I DO NOT HAVE ALL DAY!"
Her flip phone rang this time and Chaeyoung yanked it open harder than she meant to but thankfully, it was military-grade so it didn't break.
"Chanyeol seriously, it's not a good time," she said wearily without giving the caller any time to speak and clapped it shut again.
"TEN...NINE..." Mr Teddy started the ominous countdown. "EIGHT..."
He had never reached zero, and nobody knew what would happen if he did. Chaeyoung wasn't about to find out today.
"SEVEN...
But she didn't reckon without Chanyeol's persistence as her GPS locator pad rang next and the face of her miffed military ex-boyfriend appeared on screen.
"When? When is it a good time?" Chanyeol demanded. His bulky frame took up nearly the whole screen. There was a time when Chaeyoung thought she liked his broad shoulders but now she wondered why she had deemed them attractive in the first place.
"SIX..."
"Stop. Calling," Chaeyoung groaned and switched off the pad too.
"FIVE..."
"Rosieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Jennie screeched from the front door, waiting with Jisoo and Yeri.
"I'm coming!" Chaeyoung shouted back and grabbed her bag.
"FOUR..."
Chanyeol tried one last time when he called Chaeyoung's communicator wristwatch as she headed out of her room.
"THREE..."
"After all we've been through?" he asked belligerently, face shrunken down to fit on her watch's display screen.
"TWO...ONE..."
"Goodbye Chanyeol," Chaeyoung said as she joined her friends and clicked him offline.
>
With Jennie at the wheel of her navy Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet 2004 (proudly sporting DEBS 1 on the nameplate) and the latest pop single blasting from the stereo, they quickly out-maneuvered traffic, making rapid time on their drive to campus.
Cars honked and beeped in vexation as Jennie's superior driving skills left everyone trailing behind when she cut across haphazardly.
But Jennie merely smirked and flipped her finger at any driver that yelled at them.
The roof of the car was down since it was practically summer already in California, though the nights could still be rather chilly. The warm wind rushed past, ruffling their hair as they drove past sun-drenched suburban neighbourhoods in the dry heat.
Chaeyoung had to keep shaking her face, her vision blinded by blonde strands waving in her face. She was regretting not tying up her hair.
She didn't like looking windswept in front of the rest of the student body: seniors were expected to set an example and uphold the institution's credibility by presenting themselves respectably.
Jennie didn't care about appearances per se and would merely toss her friend a can of hairspray or a hair tie as consolation: she liked driving with the roof down and feel the wind on her face.
Her concerns revolved around successfully completing missions, not glamorous appearances. Before becoming a D.E.B.S agent, Jennie had been on track for athletic stardom as a soccer player.
"Besides, we all wear the same thing as anybody else," Jennie shrugged anytime Chaeyoung brought up the issue. "Everyone looks tacky in their uniforms, you gotta make the best of it."
Then again, Jennie looked good with windswept hair either way—she had that rough rogue charm about her that allowed her to pull off any look at any time of day.
Since senior D.E.B.S. were also allowed to accessorise and modify their uniform to an extent, Jennie liked stripping down to a white tank top with her midriff bared, showing off her sculpted biceps and abs. She paired this with the standard plaid skirt and tie but wore killer black combat boots instead of the dainty buckle shoes.
Jisoo liked to wear a mini-skirt that was even shorter than the shortened skirts the four girls wore, usually paired with shiny black stilettos that she somehow still managed to walk and run in as though they were sneakers. She sometimes tied the ends of her shirt together as well, to expose her midriff, like Jennie.
Yeri usually forego her blue plaid tie and wore a white blouse instead of their standard white button-up shirt. She had a weakness for blouses and sweaters—it was what she nabbed on the regular when sweater weather rolled in.
Of the four, Chaeyoung was probably the only one to adhere to the uniform code to the letter. Along with Jennie and Jisoo, she always wore her blue stripe pin as well, marking her as a senior field agent qualified to graduate.
Yeri still hadn't earned hers and the pressure was on because the end of the year was near.
But today, Chaeyoung had other things on her mind than trivial matters such as the state of her hair or uniform.
"What was that all about back there?" Yeri yelled in Chaeyoung's ear, breaking her out of her thoughts.
Yeri was riding in the back with Jisoo, who was placidly puffing on her third cigarette already, looking bored like usual.
It was a marvel how Jisoo's teeth and nails remained pristine at all, and how she could even keep up with all the physical exertion they endured. Her friends chalked it up as another one of her femme fatale attributes.
"I broke up with Chanyeol," Chaeyoung hollered back above the honking horns and guitar riffing.
"What?"
"I said I broke up with Chanyeol!"
"Oh my gosh, why?" Yeri exclaimed. "You guys looked good together. People have been saying you're going to be Endgame King and Queen for sure."
Endgame was the senior ball held before the end of the school year, coming up very soon on the Academy's social calendar. The girls from D.E.B.S and the boys attending the junior academy for Homeland Security congregated at the dance for the night where a king and queen were chosen after a D.E.B.S girl was awarded the Academy's most prestigious award, the Mary Jane, and crowned D.E.B Of The Year.
"He was just so boring," Chaeyoung groaned. It felt good to say that out loud.
Eight months of dating Homeland Security's most promising and illustrious junior agent had been suffocating at best and mind-numbingly tedious at worst.
"He's an ass. Hot, but an ass. He does have a hot ass too I guess, but still, he's too much of an ass," Jennie said.
"Oui," Jisoo agreed with a roll of her eyes as she flicked her cigarette.
"What?" Chaeyoung shouted.
"I said, OUI," Jisoo enunciated clearly.
"Oh okay got it."
Jisoo sat back with an exasperated sigh.
Originally hailing from Korea but having grown up in France and then lived in the USA as a foreign-exchange student before being picked up by D.E.B.S., Jisoo could speak English well, but still had a habit of dropping some accented French here and there, which her friends didn't always get, much to her frustration.
"Well I like him, I thought he was sweet," Yeri said.
"That guy is anything but sweet," Jennie said as she swerved. Everyone held on to their seats without batting an eyelid as the car skidded then righted itself and zoomed on. "I get that every guy wants to get in your panties, Ro, but can Mr Macho chill? He wasn't letting you breathe."
"It's not only that he was being too possessive," Chaeyoung said as they pulled up to their allotted parking space, with students milling about heading to class. "I'm just not in love."
"What?" Yeri asked, still not hearing properly over the deafening noise of the car.
"I said, I wanna be in love!" Chaeyoung shouted just as Jennie killed the engine.
"Uh...why are you yelling?" Yeri said, eyeing her strangely. "We get it, you wanna be in love. Maybe you should try counselling?"
Jennie laughed as Chaeyoung rolled her eyes and stepped out of the car with her friends. Jisoo puffed the last of her cigarette and flicked the nub in the nearest dustbin. Smoking was unfortunately prohibited on campus.
"Did you activate the detonator?" Chaeyoung reminded as they made their way to the Academy Eatery.
Jennie lifted her key and pressed a button. Her car gave a single beep behind her and she grinned as they fell in step together. "Thanks Rosie."
A car alarm for any potential grand theft auto wannabe didn't cut it for Jennie Kim.
Applying her extensive knowledge of bomb assembly, she wired up her car to detonate on the spot should anybody try to steal it. She didn't care that the vehicle itself wouldn't be salvageable—that could be easily replaced through one way or another.
The goal was to send a clear message: don't mess with Jennie Kim.
The other three girls trusted implicitly that Jennie's bomb wouldn't blow them all up to kingdom come whilst they were all riding together.
Car theft on campus was quite a common occurrence, encouraged to a certain extent by the Academy as an exercise for the agents specialising in the art of theft, much like Yeri. Students were then required to turn over any loot to the Academy, which would then be returned to their respective owners.
Jennie objected to having her property being riffled or stolen, no matter if it was for a legitimate exercise. Since there was no rule stopping her from protecting what was hers, she went all out with vehicular adjustments and made sure to warn everyone that her car was armed and dangerous.
There was only one memorable attempt to steal Jennie's car after her public proclamation to leave her Beetle alone.
The resulting explosion triggered a lockdown for a few hours until the bomb disposal team moved in to assess the wreckage. Fortunately, nobody was injured, the car was soon replaced by the academy itself, and the rate of car theft across campus fell to zero.
Jennie had had the best laugh that day and since then, her reputation of a ruthless and merciless agent had abound, which she revelled in.
>
08:00, D.E.B.S Academy
People greeted Chaeyoung as she walked in with her friends for their breakfast before starting the day and despite not being in a chipper mood, Chaeyoung did her best to return their greetings.
People were always greeting her or calling her name. Aside from being the Academy's poster child with near-mythic status for having achieved a Perfect Score on the test, Chaeyoung was also known to be friendly and available for tutoring and mentoring the freshmen, time permitting.
A gaggle of girls managed to waylay Chaeyoung as her group made its way to their usual table, and began asking her about their next group tutoring session for Spytech 101 before Jennie pulled her away and sent the girls scarpering.
"They'd eat you alive if you let them," Jennie remarked as she slunk her bag over her shoulder.
"You're always welcome to give me a hand, you know."
"I just did."
"I meant dividing up classes and helping me with tutoring, Jen."
"Life is a better teacher than me Rosie. The four of us had nobody tutoring us and we made it out fine," Jennie smirked. "You're basically coddling them."
They regrouped and walked on. Jennie spotted Mr Teddy waiting at their table and hurried her pace.
"Come on, Mr T's waiting, I think it's something extra important today."
"How would you know?" Yeri asked.
Jennie winked. "Gut instinct? I'm always right, you'll see."
The four girls arrived and took their seats at the round table as Mr Teddy looked on while they settled down, hands clasped together. Though his face was hidden, his eyes gave away the usual grim expression he probably wore beneath his facemask.
"Good morning Mr T," Jennie said briskly as she slid into her seat next to him.
"Don't call me that," he said curtly but nobody ever listened.
"Hey Mr T!" Yeri chirped.
"What's up Mr T?" Chaeyoung greeted, making room for Yeri to sit.
"Bonjour Mr T," Jisoo drawled airily, sitting with Jennie.
Mr Teddy let out a long suffering sigh. Before he could speak, an elderly stringy waitress approached, ready to take their orders.
"Hey can I have the triple avocado burger with extra bacon, well done, please? Thanks," Jennie said, ignoring Chaeyoung pulling a face at the mention of avocado (because she detested them).
"Tofu, scrambled, peach smoothie, non-dairy," Chaeyoung said.
"How you can eat that rabbit food is beyond me," Jennie mumbled. Chaeyoung nudged her ankle sharply under the table and Jennie didn't comment again.
"Cheeseburger, extra pickles," Yeri emphasised, stopping short of squealing in anticipation. She adored pickles, despite Jennie's many derogatory jokes about her taste in food being unusually abysmal, like her taste in guys.
"Coffee, black," Jisoo said. Chaeyoung had yet to see her have anything of sustenance for breakfast, which was impressive considering she spent the night boning.
"We have a special guest with us this morning, that's why I wanted you here on time," Mr Teddy told them. "Ms Young will be here shortly."
Collective gasps did the rounds amongst the girls.
The aloof principal of the D.E.B.S Academy, Tiffany Young, wasn't in the habit of brushing shoulders with students. Her legacy as an accomplished and decorated field agent within the CIA was common knowledge, granting her something of a legendary status.
Everyone vied to impress the principal and get her attention in hopes of being recommended for the National Bureau once they graduate. To even stand in the same space as she did, breathe the same air and speak with her, was an immense honour and would have other people buzzing with envy.
"Ms Young?" Jennie exclaimed, vibrating in her seat with excitement and sharing delighted looks with her friends. "But, she never comes down here! What does she—"
The air in front of them shimmered with static and in a blink, Ms Young appeared, having Beamed herself directly from her office. She was not a hologram—she was present in the flesh. The girls could only look up in awe at seeing the principal up close.
It was a common practice for Academy personnel to Beam themselves from one location to the other throughout campus using classified military technology known only as Beaming.
Whatever signal powered the output Beam only worked within the campus and the Academy dorms. Mr Teddy himself was a regular user of Beam technology and in the four years they had known him, there had thankfully never been a problem with glitches, something that always had Chaeyoung slightly on edge in case of accidents.
Yeri's lifelong dream was getting her hands on the machine that made Beaming possible because, in her words, "teleportation was the coolest thing ever."
"Ladies," Ms Young greeted sharply, her expression severe. There was no trace of humour in her voice.
Sporting a dark violet blazer and matching pencil skirt, the formidable principal looked every bit as authoritative as her status indicated. Already, Chaeyoung could see heads turning and hushed whispers break out as people started noticing that the principal was in their midst.
"Ms Young, I just wanna say what a pleasure it is to finally meet you—"
Ms Young raised a hand, cutting short Jennie's fervent gushing. "No time for pleasantries," she said curtly. "Teddy, a matter of some urgency has come to my attention."
Mr Teddy sat up straighter, as did the rest of the girls, waiting with bated breath.
Ms Young's eyes flashed, icy cold. "Lisa Diamond is back in the States."
"Oh my god," Jennie whispered.
"Oh shit," Jisoo said, eyes wider than they had been all morning.
"You're kidding? I'm writing my thesis on her," Chaeyoung said in disbelief.
Yeri rubbed her nose and frowned. "Who's—"
"I expect to be kept in the loop on this one," Ms Young ordered and Mr Teddy nodded his assent. Satisfied, the principal clapped her hands together twice.
"Let's show some hustle!" The air shimmered and she was gone again in a blink.
"Wow," Jennie said shakily, still a little starstruck from the encounter. "Ms Young was here..."
"I can't believe she's back," Chaeyoung said in a hushed whisper. "The Lisa Diamond... but why?"
"Who's Lisa Diamond?" Yeri took the opportunity to ask, perplexed by her friends' reactions.
"Who's Lisa Diamond? Who's Lisa Diamond?" Chaeyoung repeated. She shook her head in disbelief. "Do you live under a rock? She's like, a really really really really really really—"
"I get it."
"—really really really big deal!"Chaeyoung exclaimed.
Yeri scratched her head. "Uh, is she from like a girl band or something?"
"Yerim, I know you're kinda spacey but come on, every good spy knows our biggest enemy out there!" Jennie tutted. "Disappointing."
"Well can somebody please tell me then?"
"Mr T, some help, s'il vous plait?" Jisoo suggested over her friends' bickering. "The sooner we get out of here the better, I need a cigarette."
Mr Teddy brought out his trusty Holo pen, held it up and clicked it, displaying a holographic wall of information right in front of them, otherwise known as the D.E.B.S Information Retrieval System.
On the left was a black and white candid photo of a young woman their age, snapped at a 3/4 angle from the torso up. The girl had long dark hair, parted bangs and a killer side jaw. Her clothes were also dark and her gaze was cast out of the photo, away from the viewer.
On the right was a table of information about her, which was scant at best.
The only notable information available was her physical description and an impressive list of confirmed sighted locations spanning all around the globe: Lisbon, Paris, Rio de Janiero, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Moscow, Tokyo, Rome, Morocco, New York, Venice, Seoul, Lhasa, Reykjavik, Lima, Sydney, Johannesburg, Nuku'alofa in Tonga (which Chaeyoung hadn't even known was a place) and even Antarctica.
Otherwise, there was no information regarding her date of birth, height, weight, education, blood type, combat expertise or weapon of choice.
The girl was a perfect enigma, except for her real name displayed underneath her alias: LALISA MANOBAN.
"Lisa Diamond. She's the last surviving member of the Manoban Crime Syndicate. Her family did battle with Big Bang's mob, in a vicious blood feud that lasted a decade."
As Mr Teddy spoke, various newspaper headlines from the time popped up, chronicling the feud's violent escalation over the years. The girls all watched with rapt attention.
"After her father's death, she inherited the keys to his kingdom...."
And now the the screen showed various clips of the illicit activities Lisa was spotted doing, along with more recent hysterical newspaper headlines reporting on her various felonies.
"Illegal arms-running, art theft, drug pushing, smuggling, gambling, and especially...diamond theft."
"That's where she got her alias," Chaeyoung nodded, eager to show the fruit of her research.
"Sssh!" hissed Jennie and Jisoo.
"She's protected by a loyal band of mercenaries, led by this man: Jeon Jungkook, alias Kook."
A whole network of profile pictures for the mercenaries spread out, detailing their various names and aliases. Their leader, Kook, occupied the larger frame to indicate his prominence amongst the whole gang.
"Hey, he's kinda cute," Yeri whispered to Chaeyoung, who shrugged. The guy looked to be their age too, in dire need of a fashion change as well as a haircut. He looked befuddled on camera.
"It is believed Lisa Diamond was behind the plot to sink Australia in '99—"
"Back up! Sink Australia?" Yeri yelped. "How even...?"
"Very little is understood of her motives and how, but we do know that the plot was thankfully foiled before it was too late," Mr Teddy explained. "Three attempts have been made to apprehend her, all with the backing of various intelligence organisations around the world. All three failed. In 2000 she went underground and has not been seen or heard from since."
"Yikes. Australia, sinking? What about the poor kangaroos?" Yeri exclaimed, stricken. "She's a monster."
"That's not even the bad part," Chaeyoung said softly. Yeri's eyes grew round.
"Huh? There's more? What's the bad part?"
Mr Teddy looked her directly in the eyes. "No one has ever fought her and lived to tell about it."
Yeri's mouth fell open. "Oh."
The holographic screen collapsed as the same waitress that took their orders arrived laden with plates of food and started distributing them around the table.
"Peach smoothie...avocado burger and bacon....scrambled tofu....cheeseburger... and coffee."
"Thanks Martha. Love the hair by the way," Chaeyoung piped up as they eagerly dug into the food.
"Thank you dearie. You have a good day now." The waitress smiled, touched her hair and walked away with an extra bounce in her steps.
Chaeyoung smiled too. She had known the waitress since her first day at the Academy but she always made it a point to be friendly with the staff. A little kindness went a long way in making someone's day better.
"So, why do you think she's back in town?" Jennie asked Mr Teddy thoughtfully as she chewed.
Mr Teddy pulled up the DEBS IRS again, this time showing a different profile of a preening blonde woman as the girls ate.
"Our intel suggests she's in town to meet this woman: Chou Tzuyu," Mr Teddy said. "Ex-KGB, now freelance assassin. Skilled in hand to hand combat."
Much like Lisa, Chou Tzuyu only had scraps of information to her name and a handful of sighted locations. However, Chaeyoung noted that in the footnotes of her profile there was an interesting, if random, addendum: Subject can be extremely needy and quite volatile.
"They're scheduled to meet tonight at 2000 hours. Find out what Lisa is up to. Strictly surveillance. Do not try to apprehend her yourselves. Jennie, you're in charge."
Jennie gave thumbs up in between gulps of her burger.
"Rosie you're second."
Chaeyoung nodded.
"And D.E.B.S? Be careful," Mr Teddy said finally, his concerned tone letting them know this was no ordinary routine mission, even if they weren't planning to get in contact with the target.
He Beamed, the air where he sat buzzing with static then vanished, leaving them with the holographic screen still floating in front of them.
"I always wanna ask him how he does that," Yeri sighed as she squeezed ketchup on her burger. "He doesn't click or press anything, he just zaps out of thin air."
But Chaeyoung wasn't listening. Her eyes were glued to Lisa's profile picture which now floated next to Tzuyu's.
"What does a reclusive mastermind want with a Russian trained killer?" Chaeyoung wondered out loud but she didn't hear the others' speculations.
The gears in her head turned, envisioning multiple nefarious schemes that Lisa could be concocting for which she had enlisted outside help.
She had studied the dearth of information about Lisa, connecting the scant threads and applying criminal theory to try and pick apart the darkly fascinating mind behind the fearsome reputation.
There was an elegance, a certain finesse to Lisa's crimes, especially the bank heists where she made off with a cool couple millions, or else burgled a few Van Gogh's, or else ran off with the biggest hunk of diamond she could get her hands on.
It baffled the authorities that were chasing after her, yet Chaeyoung couldn't help but admire how Lisa made a name for herself in a usually male-dominated sphere.
She had written a whole thesis on the mysterious woman, a culmination of three solid years of investigations, library visits and late-nights poring over reports that followed Lisa's family and her outrageous escapades.
It almost felt like Fate was playing a hand in setting up Lisa's return and making their paths collide.
Chaeyoung nodded to herself, determined. Lisa Diamond was a conundrum she was determined to solve.
She wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.