'This is it, team,' Shell began in a hushed whisper, 'We'll go in there, split up in teams, and go and hunt for the weapon like we've trained. It's as simple as that.'
X muttered a small 'I hope,' at the end of her last statement, and his indolent comment wasn't entirely unheard by Shell. She shot him a small glare and he held his ears in apology.
Shell nodded, then turned around to face the parking lot and made a beckoning gesture with her right hand. They all advanced at one go in perfect formation, Shell's team strategically followed behind X's team so he could quickly lead them to the basement.
Everybody paused at the entrance and hid on either side of the opening, guns held up in anticipation of an attack. When no bullets rang through the air, they cautiously stepped into the parking lot with their guns held aloft.
X surveyed the room carefully and beckoned with his hand for his team to follow him. They quietly descended the stairs into the earth's embrace and took their positions behind designated pillars, watching out for trouble.
When X gave the all-clear sign, they rapidly moved forward, switching positions across the room and waiting for a few moments to make sure everything was fine. X made them do this four to five times until everyone was correctly standing in their places all across the room.
X then raised his right hand high in the air and made a fist with it, a practiced sign that they should now begin looking for the weapon.
In all accounts, it should have been a big barrel that housed the dangerous liquid, but when X had read up on the VX, he'd found out that it could easily be compressed into a solid-gaseous state. That meant it could be easily hidden and kept in small containers that could evade their sight.
The only luck they had on their side was that the VX had to be wrapped and stored in a particular type of plastic that was characteristically very shiny and reflective. This meant that it would be easier to spot if the VX was hidden in their proximity.
Over the course of half an hour, they kept hunting around for the plastic cover that could be housing the VX. There were quite a few false alarms along the way, with the commandos finding random bits of plastic lying around and immediately waving their hands excitedly.
During the first few times it happened, there was a great scramble to get to the commando who made any discovery, followed by disappointed groans when they realized that it was not what they were looking for.
It was during the midst of all this searching that X's communicator vibrated slightly. He pulled it out and held it close to his mouth and spoke into it, 'Yeah Shell, what is it?'
Her reply came out in short bursts as if she were struggling for breath, 'X. It was a trap. We're surrounded right now. Come. Fast..'
X quickly concluded that they had been ambushed and that Shell was probably injured at their hand. In a flash, he tucked in his communicator and signaled for everyone to follow him without much noise. Shell had managed to give him a message, but he wanted to keep an element of surprise, just in case.
They dashed up the stairs in single file, guns out and ready for any surprise attacks. X kept stopping at regular intervals and corners and peeking out of them carefully, making sure that everyone was engaged upstairs.
The procession finally made its way to the ground floor of the parking lot. X stopped at the entrance and had a quick look at the number of people present in the place.
To his surprise, there seemed like a reasonably high number of operatives surrounding Shell, Snow, and her half of the commandos. In fact, they were more than the commandos X had under his command.
He made a quick assessment of the numbers and signaled for the commandos behind him to surround as many people as possible from behind.
He held up his hands and made a series of numbers, an indication of the intervals at which the commandos should surround them. A quick look at them reinforced the statement and they all nodded solemnly in understanding. He also whispered a quick code word to them; time is up, one that'll signify that they needed to overpower everyone in their vicinity when he said it.
Agent X looked ahead again and gave a single nod and raised his hand in a gesture, asking them to move forward now. He then stepped aside as the men glided past him, silent as mice, and took their positions carefully. He waited until they were properly settled and ready, and then prepared to make his grand entrance.
'Everybody! Agent X is here!' He exclaimed loudly and stepped out of his hiding place with his arms spread wide open. Heh, looks like all that time spent among drama queens paid off after all!
At once all eyes in the room were focused on him, and he thought he saw Shell slap her forehead out of the corner of her eye. Oh well, that couldn't be helped now.
His entrance was so startling that no one stopped him from walking right up to Shell in the middle of their circle. Only when he got into a defensive position with his gun did they remember that Agent X and his comrades were still the enemies. They all straightened up and held out their guns as well.
'Well, this has been a really lovely encounter and all, but I'm afraid we have other things to catch up with, so we'll just be off.' X intoned cheekily. Everybody, including Shell and her team, stared at him in shock, because none of them expected Agent X to come up so dramatically and blatantly throw out such movie-like dialogues. Where was he going with this?
'What? Didn't you guys get me? Our time is up now.'
Shell raised her eyebrows at his weird way of expressing the last few words. Then it clicked to her as she took in the rest of the team positioned around them. Ah, it must be a codeword.
But then something outright confusing happened. A few of the operatives from ACE turned around in unison and shot at the commandos hiding behind them in one cold, precise strike.
Everything was very confusing to SHADE's operatives, who looked around in horror as they realized that no one else was coming to their rescue now. Only one question was in everyone's mind. How did they know that our operatives were hiding behind them?
Then X took one last look at Shell and her team before stepping away from them and joining the circle ACE had created around them. Their circle expanded comfortably to include him in their midst as he stood right in front of Shell, but this time with his gun pointed at her.
X looked at Shell straight in the eyes. He knew her well by now, and easily anticipated the outburst of words that were overflowing within her and threatening to spill all over.
'Traitor. You're a filthy betrayer, Agent X! How could you do this? When did you go over to their side? And what did they offer you? Money? Weren't we paying you more than enough?'
Agent X threw his head back and laughed derisively. He'd expected everything she'd spoken just now and knew just what to say. It was he who was on the right side, not she, and everyone here knew that.
'Oh Shell, you people are such a bunch of incompetent fools. I honestly expected a lot more difficulty in getting my job done, but you guys walked right into our hands.
I was never working for SHADE, not for a single second. I was a double agent, posted in SHADE for my mission to end your evil organization once and for all.'
Shell drew a sharp breath, but even she couldn't argue with what he'd said, just like he'd anticipated.
X immediately took advantage of her silence and drove his point home, 'Yeah, you see? You people are such monsters, and you can't even convince yourself otherwise. Just because there are people in SHADE who don't know the extent of the damage they cause, that doesn't mean anything you do is justified.'
Shell's nostrils were flaring furiously now. She was outraged beyond belief that someone had called her out so plaintively for her vile acts, and it showed on her face. However, her bruised ego still searched for another way to dig up dirt on Agent X as well, for some way to pull him down with her. The best way she could think of doing this was to ask a simple why?
X's eyes darkened with a cold fury. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfurled it and held it high above his head with both arms. Even ACE's operatives, who knew what was going on the whole time, were so caught up with the events that they craned their heads to see the picture of the woman X was holding up.
'You see this woman? Do you even recognize her? Or are you so heartless that you stepped over this incident without any feelings attached?'
X couldn't see even a sliver of recognition in her eyes, and it made him go insane with the amount of hatred he felt towards her for that.
'Of course you don't know her. How could you, when all you ever cared about was you and your twisted goals?'
Shell rolled her eyes at him in mock petulance, 'Agent X, all you are doing is going on about how we're all heartless and filthy. Why don't you back up your words like the honorable agent you are? Who is this woman? What did...'
'She's my wife!' X yelled definitely over her voice. His roar silenced Shell for good and all she could do was stare at him. 'Yeah, she was my beautiful wife. My one and only.' He continued in a haze.
'She was the only person who genuinely loved me for who I am. She recognized me within all the walls I'd created from the neglect I'd faced, and cared for me as no one had ever done.
Being an orphan since I can remember, I only knew loneliness and pain throughout my life. Until I met her and fell in love with her. Getting to marry her was the happiest moment of my entire life. For years I was in a dreamlike haze, giddy with happiness for being lucky enough to have someone like her as my wife.'
X's voice cracked at this, and he had to take a moment to compose himself before he spoke again. In this interval, all the sensitive eyes quickly wiped off the tears they'd shed in empathy and sadness.
'But then you and your people ruined my life. You took her away for your twisted ends and held her captive as a hostage for months. Later I got to know the way she was treated when she was captured.
I'd become crazed with pain, stumbling around in search of her, hoping against hope to be reunited with her.'
Shell scoffed at this and crossed her arms in a show of arrogance. She didn't care a single bit about his dead wife, but X was too far gone in his pain to notice if anyone was even paying attention to him anymore.
'One day I saw on the news that several missing people were found dead in an empty field, without any clue as to what had happened to them. My beloved wife was one of them, and I can't tell you how I felt at that moment.
I roamed around in a haze for days after that, not seeing the point in anything anymore. All I wanted was my wife back. That desire soon evolved into one for revenge. I wanted revenge on the ones who's done this to her.
So when I was approached by a few talent scouts from ACE, all it took was a little research to confirm their authenticity, and since then I didn't even hesitate to say yes, to agree to become a double agent and spy on SHADE, the organization that was responsible for this.'
Shell's eyes widened at this as she remembered the incident X was referring to. He caught the tiny action and jumped on it like a lion pouncing on a hare.
'Yes, you do know what I'm talking about. Then you must also know that you guys took several innocents as hostages so you could threaten the government and gain control of all the high-end ministers. I know that you were just biding your time, waiting for huger numbers of hostages to flow in, when my wife incited all the hostages to start protesting against their captors in an effort to free themselves.
An irritable guard tried to quieten them down, and when that didn't work he just pulled out his gun and killed them all.' He concluded with a definite tremor in his voice.
'Everyone here knows this, Shell. Long ago, someone had once told me that ACE is a terrorist organization. I knew then, and I know this now. It's SHADE, not ACE, who is the terrorist organization. Everything that has been happening, all the good and bad deeds by both these orgs, are all interchanged.
ACE is the good guy, and SHADE is the bad guy, Agent Shell. Don't even try to fool anyone here with protestations. I have enough documents from your office to prove all your illegal activities.' X finished his speech with a long, mocking bow to her.
Shell was beyond livid now, as everything started to click into place for her.
'So that's why you put up this charade? So that you could get your hands on papers that prove SHADE is a bad company?' She asked derisively.
X shook his head and sighed. 'Shell, you're so caught up with the humiliation and frustration of losing, that you can't see where you've gone wrong. Have you even thought about why you've lost?
This temper of yours was precisely why we were able to lure you here. I'd heard long and wide tales of Shell's anger management issues, so I crafted the plan of infuriating you into making rash decisions. It was me who purposefully made that prerecorded speech utterly irritating, so you would become blind with rage and walk right into our hands.'
And no, it wasn't just for the documents. Apart from the papers, I also needed to lure you guys here, so you could get caught easily. Getting to you through an armed attack on HQ would be foolhardy, so we chose the method of stealth to get to your head.'
Shell seemed out of her mind now. She was barely processing X's words and skimmed past all the flaws he'd brought out about her. Instead, her mind was only on his last words,
Into your head... lie detector test... how on earth did he manage to do what he did?
Shell, having nothing else to lose, voiced her childish question. X raised his eyebrows in contemplation before answering, 'Ah yes, that lie detector test. You see, they actually can be outsmarted if you train enough for it. And I've been at it for a very, very long time.'
Shell threw her head back and laughed at that. How did all of them miss this? Why had they failed to pick out a double agent from their very midst?
Before she could say anything, however, the momentum of Agent X's confession was paused by the arrival of a few guests in the parking lot.
Loud, thundering footsteps were heard and they soon had company. The whole of the parking lot, both the outside and inside was now surrounded by a mysterious force that yelled instructions at all of them, 'Stay where you are, don't even attempt to escape from there. All of us are armed, and will not let you get out of there.'
Taddaaa!!!!!
This chapter was quite the shocker right???
I'm sure you guys have quite a lot of questions about the whole process, and how this sudden twist makes sense in the story, as well as several apparent plot holes.
For all that, I request you to wait for one more chapter where I clear a lot more questions about what really happened.
And if even after that chapter, you notice any questions that haven't been addressed, you can comment and lemme know. If it's feasible and something I already thought of, I'll make the changes in the chapter and tag you so you can get the answers.
And this is kinda random, but I'm curious to know if you guys ship any of the characters. Like, it can be literally any ship; X x Hacker, X x Sheaf, etc.
This book is gonna focus on only platonic relationships, meaning there is absolutely no romance involved, but I'm wondering if you guys look for cute moments for your favorite ships. Lemme know that in the comments as well.
Lastly, thank you sooo much for sticking through with Agent X!! There are a few more chapters to go, but we're coming to the end of the story now. Not to worry though, I've planned quite the plot for the last few chapters as well.
Oh, and thank you for 1.35k views everyone!! I forgot to do it for when we hit 1k, so I thought I'll just put that out there.
See you with next week's chapter then!