"Carter... Nick
Carter," Nick mused as he strolled down the hall.
His light blonde hair,
usually spiked, was down that day, hanging over his clear, ocean-tinted eyes
ever so slightly. Time to cut it, but
now was no time for such thoughts. He
was a trained agent of Himitsu Takana, an elite agency out to save the world
(though not as clichéd as it would sound to most). Nick would know that better than anyone.
Relocated after the
original base in
He blinked. Had it been that long already?
Not that he had been on
active duty for all four of those years, much to his dismay. Still, it was life as he’d known it since he
was only twenty-two.
Himitsu Takana was an
agency known for having no ties to the governments of the world. It was like a mother, watching over the
entire planet, with highly trained specialists to help keep the world from
peril on a daily basis. People across
the entire planet went about their business as if it was nothing, oblivious to
the chaos the agents at Himitsu Takana took on every day. All of them, with skills beyond those of
civilians, had been plucked out specifically, chosen for this extraordinary
task. Their lives knew death by its
face, and instead of quailing in its presence, they stared it down. Most of the agents had, at least.
Nick decided not to let
his thoughts ramble on any longer.
He knew what he was on
the hunt for, what he had to do. He made
a turn, entering the room cautiously as he idly began to hum to himself. "Dum
dum, da da, dum dum, da da, dum dum, da da, dum dum... do do do...
do do do… do do do... do do! Dum dum, da da, dum dum dum,
da da…”
He kept humming the
The precious was gone.
Nick had kept it there
under close guard so when the right moment came, he could use the item
properly. Now it had been stolen before
he had the chance!
His jaw clenched in
determination. He would do what he had
to, a mission he would give himself based on necessity. It was time to discover who took the lost and valuable item that was irreplaceable
and worth more than Nick could imagine.
He turned from the room
and stealthily crept away. There were plenty
of subjects known to sneak in at Himitsu Takana. Before he could go and question outsiders,
there was something he knew he had to do first.
He had to take on the task of questioning his own.
His first stop would be
his secretary, the most obvious suspect, Mr. James Lancybassy.
Nick stormed down the hallway, determined to find
out more information about his missing treasure. He spotted his first victim - no, suspect
- obliviously plucking his eyebrows at his desk outside of Nick's office.
Lancybassy’s hair was cut short and a lighter
shade of blonde than Nick's, but only at the ends. He was always well-groomed, and although he
seemed to get along very well with the girls, he never seemed to have any romantic
interests. Although Nick could never
pinpoint a reason for Lancybassy's usually strange behavior around him, he
normally just ignored it and went on with his work. Today, though, his behavior only made him
seem more suspicious to Nick.
"Lancybassy!" Nick called from a few
feet down the hall, causing Lancybassy to jump in excitement and almost pull
out half his eyebrow hairs. "Come
with me," he ordered, not pausing as he passed the desk.
Lancybassy grinned widely as he eagerly jumped up
from his chair and hurried to catch up with the man he secretly desired. Maybe
he finally realized how I feel about him! he thought to himself as he
waited impatiently for a moment outside of the door he'd seen Nick go into,
straightening his pink tie and fidgeting with his white shirt and gray,
pinstriped suit. Then he saw the
doorknob turn.
"How's it going, Nick?" Lancybassy
said, trying to control his nerves as he stood in the doorway of the dimly lit
room to which Nick had opened the door.
"Just sit down." Nick motioned to the only chair in the room,
a black, metal folding chair, which was placed at a metal card table with a
bare light bulb dangling just a few feet above it. Nothing in the room was pleasant at all;
there was no window, and the room itself was rather cramped and small. There were tall, black shelves lining the
walls, and a closer look revealed boxes upon boxes sitting scattered all over
them.
Lancybassy sat down and eyed Nick closely - as he
always did - in an attempt to determine why they were where they were. "I hope you don't think I'm an idiot,
Lancybassy," Nick said after about a minute in a calm, yet somehow
unsettling tone. He was pacing back and
forth, although there wasn't much room for that in the small space they were
in.
"Of course I don't think you're an
idiot-" Lancybassy began before Nick abruptly cut in.
"Because I KNOW what you're up
to!" Nick interrupted, his voice getting a bit louder. "I know there's something you're hiding
from me,” he added, after he'd calmed down for a moment.
"Hiding something?" Lancybassy repeated
incredulously, surprised to learn that the forward advances he'd been making
apparently weren't as forward as he thought.
"Nick, I'm not hiding anything from you. Never have."
"A likely story!" Nick exclaimed,
slamming his hand down on the table and startling Lancybassy. "Now tell me where it is!"
Swing, and a miss. Maybe it'll hit him
tomorrow. Lancybassy frowned, sighing to himself before he realized Nick was
getting angry as he waited for his answer.
"Where what is?"
"You know what 'what'," Nick answered,
raising his eyebrows.
"No really, what?"
"The ‘what’!"
"What ‘what’??"
"The ‘what’ I know you know
about!!"
"No, I don't! What are you talking about?" Lancybassy was thoroughly confused now,
although his close proximity with Nick - who now had both hands on the table
and was leaning in at almost eye-level with him - was only giving him the urge
to reach forward and-
"You know what I'm looking
for!" Nick derailed Lancybassy's
train of thought - as well as his chance to finally make his biggest move yet -
as he pushed himself away from the table and continued pacing, frustrated. "Just tell me where I can find it!"
"Find what??"
"Stop playing coy with me!" Nick was extremely annoyed with Lancybassy
now. He knew there was something
Lancybassy was keeping from him, and he was in no mood to play games to find
out!
"I'm not!" Lancybassy argued. Not right now, at least. "Just tell me what you're looking
for! I'll help you find it!"
Nick sighed as he realized that James Lancybassy
truly did not know the whereabouts of the precious. Too bad, Nick thought, That
would've really helped explain why Lancybassy is so damn weird around me
all the time.
Nick stood quietly for a moment, looking
Lancybassy over to check one last time and see if he was lying, before walking
over to the door. "No,
Lancybassy," he said solemnly as he opened it, walking out instead of
holding it open like Lancybassy thought he was doing. "You're probably safer not
knowing."
"Well, you know where to find me,"
Lancybassy replied after he'd stopped the door from hitting him in the face and
stepped into the hallway, putting a hand on Nick's shoulder and grinning widely
again.
"Yeah, sure, James," Nick answered
defeatedly, moving Lancybassy's hand off of his shoulder as they both stood in
the hall outside the open door, Lancybassy unsure what to do now that his hopes
had once again been dashed, Nick scouting for his next suspect in the search
for his missing valuable.
"So, you finally came out of the
closet?" a familiar voice said from behind them, taking the two men by
surprise. "You were in that supply
closet so long I thought you'd both suffocated."
Nick turned, smirking. “Hello, Red.
Just the woman I wanted to see.”
Red Jewel, the agency’s own medical doctor,
cocked her head, a lock of her short, red hair falling over her face. She tucked it behind her ear, the corners of
her lips curving upwards, and said, “Really.
And why did you want to see me?”
The sound of breathing diverted Nick’s attention
from her; he glanced over his shoulder to find Lancybassy still standing there,
a few feet away, watching the two of them with a chill in his pale blue
eyes. Nick frowned, turning back to Red
Jewel. “Let’s step into your office,
dear, and I’ll tell you.”
He put his hand on the small of her back as they
walked down the hall to the medical ward where she spent most of her time. She had her own little complex there, with
an examining room, a small infirmary for sick or injured agents, a lab, and, of
course, her office, the only room that was not all sterile white and stainless
steel. He was glad to get into her
office and away from the infirmary; it gave him the chills, not just because it
always felt cold there, but because it harbored bad memories, memories of the
days following his last mission…
Nick shivered, but instantly felt warmer when he
entered the office. Gone was the stark
whiteness, contrasted sharply by the dark, bold colors that decorated Red
Jewel’s private domain. Staying true to
her name, she’d had the walls painted a deep shade of red, and her desk and
leather furniture were all sleek black.
Exotic flowers and accent pieces in rich purple hues added color and
character to her décor.
The first time he’d seen this office, he didn’t
think it fit Red Jewel at all. He had
just met her, and she’d seemed too sweet and innocent for the dark, edgy
colors. Beautiful, yet mousy and meek,
he’d pictured her in a room with floral prints, pastels, and pictures of
wide-eyed kittens. But in time, he’d
learned that Red’s medical quarters described her perfectly. Pure white and clean on the outside, but with
a darkness, a playfulness, a fire hidden within. That was Red Jewel.
Today, though, he didn’t feel like playing. He was on a mission, and despite her
sweetness, he had a suspicion that Red was the culprit he was looking for. “It’s always the quiet ones…” he murmured,
eyeing her suspiciously.
Red Jewel turned.
“What?”
“Never mind.
Sit down,” he beckoned, waiting until she had taken a seat at her
desk. Then he sank into the leather
chair across from her and glared across the desktop, trying to look
intimidating.
Red Jewel blinked. “What?
Why are you staring at me like that?”
Nick decided to try some psychology. “Oh, I think you know,” he replied, arching
an eyebrow. When she didn’t respond
right away, he steepled his fingers on the desktop and slowly tapped his index
fingers together, waiting.
Finally, Red shook her head. “I’m lost, Nick. What’s going on?”
Ah, so she’s playing dumb, he thought. Well, he
wasn’t going to fall for that. Red Jewel
was too smart to be dumb; she was a doctor, after all. “Something precious to me has been
taken. And I think you know just
where it went!” he accused. “Where were
you at 1400 hours??”
“
“Let me see that,” growled Nick, snatching it roughly
from her hands.
“You won’t understand it,” Red Jewel teased with
a wink.
Nick glanced up over the top of the journal,
narrowing his eyes across the desk at her.
“I’m not stupid. You don’t get to
the rank of 008 by being stupid, you know.
I know exactly what a-“ He
glanced down quickly at the journal, reading the first big word that jumped out
at him, “-Etchy-mosis is.”
“Ecchymosis?” Red asked, raising her brows; she
said it like ‘ek-uh-mosis.’
“Okay, Dr. Carter, what is it?”
“It’s, uh… uh…”
Damn, why didn’t these medical journals have big words highlighted in
yellow and listed in a glossary off to the side, like his textbooks in school
had?
“It’s a red-purple discoloration of the skin, due
to the passage of blood from ruptured blood vessels into subcutaneous tissues,”
Red Jewel defined in a brisk voice, as if she’d been reading it out of a
dictionary. “In laymen’s terms… a
bruise.”
“Oh,” huffed Nick. His ego was now bruised… or etchy-motized,
whatever that word was. Eager to change
the subject, he lowered his eyes to the medical journal again and suddenly
gasped, “Ah ha!”
“‘Ah ha’ what?”
“Ah ha,” Nick said again, smiling
triumphantly over the top of the journal, which he practically flung into her
face. “What’s this?!” he demanded,
waving the journal under her nose.
“What’s what? I can’t see when it’s right in my face.”
Nick pulled the journal back. “This!
Right here!” he said, pointing to a small stain on the margin of the
page, a little circle of discoloration that was slightly darker than the paper
around it. “That’s a fingerprint! You had something on your fingers when you
read this page! Something you got from
meddling around where you weren’t supposed to be, perhaps?” He waved the journal around tauntingly,
triumphantly. He had caught Red Jewel
red-handed!!
“Let me see that.” Red snatched the journal back and raised it
cautiously to her nose. She sniffed
once, then gave him an exasperated look.
“It’s lotion,” she said. “I had
just put lotion on my hands before I read this.
Smell for yourself. It’s
raspberry vanilla, the kind I always use.”
Suspiciously, Nick took a small whiff. Indeed, it carried the sweet scent of Red
Jewel, which he now realized was the lotion she used. He was disappointed, but not about to quit
his investigation now. The mysterious
fingerprint may have just been lotion, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a
clue. “Alright then, tell me this – why
did you put on lotion right then?
Didn’t you realize it would get all over your magazine?”
“My hands were dry. I had just washed them.”
“Ah ha! Ah
ha!” Nick cackled again. “And why
had you just washed your hands?
Something on them, maybe?
Something you got while you were taking things that weren’t yours?!”
Red Jewel blinked. “Nick, I’m a doctor. I work around bacteria all the time. I try to keep my ward as clean and sterile as
I can, and that means washing my hands.
Often.”
“Oh.” Nick
slumped in his chair. Interrogating Red
Jewel was impossible; she was just too logical.
Even if she had taken the precious, he could see he wasn’t going to get
anything out of her. At least not now.
He sighed.
“Alright, you got me. You’re off
the hook… for now. But I may be back, so
don’t think you’ve outsmarted me.”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “I won’t.”
Nick narrowed his eyes at her one last time, then
got up from his seat and swept dramatically out the door. He turned once to see if she would call him
back, confess at the very last minute, but she had already returned to her
medical journal and was reading contentedly.
Frustrated, Nick stalked out of the medical ward.
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