BEHIND THE SCENES
with PROFESSOR PEARL
Tape #007: Joke’s on You
[Posted 3.08.09]
“You owe me for this,
Blondie."
"Aww, Pearly, you know you missed being
sneaky with me."
"K is going to have my head if he finds out
what I did for you. If I get stuck with
that stupid assistant he's been bugging me to find, your butt is mine. You know I can track you."
Nick gave her his trademark smirk, as the two
walked down one of the many hallways of the HimTak headquarters. The blonde pair clearly weren't up to any
good, which was the norm for them if they were found conversing outside of
missions, which they often were. After
finding out about his new competition's promotion, Nick had decided, once back
from the
"It'll be worth it even if K does know. C'mon, you know it'll be funny."
A smile played upon the edge of her lips, slowly
appearing. "Good point. And I can make the video feed of this... disappear. At least after Jay sees it."
"Jay'll kill
me! No!"
She twirled a stray golden lock of hair around
her finger. "He will not. He has a sense of humor, and you know
it."
"Yeah, that's why he always punished us when
we'd do this before."
She chuckled softly. "That's because he was our victim,
remember?"
"That wasn't always our fault. Sometimes he'd walk into the line of fire
when we went at it."
"We're dangerously good when we team
up. Just remember, Nick, you now owe me
a favor."
Nick grinned as he paused before her. "Anything."
"Not now, and get your mind out of the
gutter, you perv. Just remember that
when I want something. I'm going to head
to the lab. I have these new shoes I'm designing
for Diamond, and if I get them right, she's going to love me."
For a moment, Nick's gaze followed the movements
of her behind. Then, humming to himself,
he walked down to the gym, where he knew Leonardo DiCaprio would be waiting for
him.
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Nick felt like giving himself an Oscar for his
acting at that moment. So calm,
levelheaded… He even amazed himself.
"Alright, Leo, my man, now with every new
Double-0 ranker, we all had to go through initiation once we got promoted. I did, Diamond, Avril, everyone. So now it's your turn. The rank before yours always does it."
"Then why isn't Diamond here?" the other
blonde asked, eying Nick warily.
"Well, technically, she's above me, man; I'm
still 008. So let's get started."
He had this whole thing planned down to the last
detail. And people said he couldn't ever
focus. Nick could, on things that he was
truly interested in. Yes, this counted
as a sincere interest in his fellow agent, or so he'd tell K, if caught.
"So what do I do?"
"Okay, first, we need you blindfolded, so
put this on. Grasshopper, in his
gibberish, always says an agent needs to rely on all senses and not be blinded
by sight, ya know?" He watched the
other man put the blindfold on with full trust in Nick. He would have felt bad, until he started
thinking how everyone, especially Diamond and Red, kept cooing over him. Oooh, Vitruvian! they'd basically
squeal. It was enough to make Nick want
to vomit.
"Now, put this suit on. I won't look, man, trust me.” The suit felt like one of those scuba diving
suits and was made for stealth purposes, but there was a major flaw that had stopped
it from being used in recon missions. That
major flaw was about to aid Nick in ways he never would have expected.
"Now remember, Nick, I've got the system
set up so once you lead him into Cubical City, you can use the major power
switch so that the ultraviolet lights come on. Once those lights are on, we'll basically have
a perfect peep show. But remember to
pull the red lever hidden beneath the painting, NOT the one that's hidden as
the clock. Okay?"
"What happens with the other switch?"
"Emergency Power Shutdown. It's for if we get hacked, compromised, or something; it keeps the power down for a
full twenty-four hours. The generator
won't even come on; it'll just power the night-vision camera feed, just in
case. So don't touch the other
switch."
"No worries, Kit, I got this."
"Okay, it's on."
Nick turned to face Leo again. The suit fit perfectly. The material fit like a second skin, as it was
designed, and, in the proper settings, helped agents blend into the night and
seemingly disappear. However, within the
wrong lighting, the entire suit would become completely and embarrassingly
see-through. It was a quirk still being
worked on within the stealth design department.
"Aight, I'm gonna lead you to
The two slowly made their way to their
destination. He positioned Leo just
before the doorway. "Aight, man,
go!" As he watched Vitruvian make
his way into the room, he snickered to himself, once the other man was out of
hearing range.
Okay, now to find the switch. He pondered on that for a moment.
Nick cackled. "Ha, what now, Mr. I'm-So-Perfect Di-Crapio?"
Victory was his; he could feel it.
At least until he heard sparks within the fluorescent
lighting around him. And before he was
enveloped in complete, blinding darkness. And until he heard everyone within
"What the hell?!"
"What happened to the lights?"
"Maybe we got hacked?!"
"Everyone, calm down; if it was an outage,
we'll have the generator soon." Good
ol' Jay.
"Oh-my-gosh! This is totally NOT fabulous! I lost Nick's paperwork! Gaaaaaaaaaah!"
Nick thought maybe, by some miracle, he'd be off
the hook; they'd think it was a fluke. Then,
of course, came K's voice, and at that, he began to run blindly down the hall. Nick didn't give a damn that he couldn't see;
he had to get the hell out of dodge. He
was a dead man. Maybe he could get back
to his room somehow and play innocent?
"CARTER!"
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