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The Spy Contract: Part One by Eugenitor |
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I was KING! I had struck the final blow; I was Neopia's final hero for years to come. All the owners would praise mine; all the female Kyriis would send love letters. I was champ, I was.... "Horatio!" ....being awakened from a particularly pleasant dream by a Grarrl who still acted desperate, as he had when he was poor. "Horatio_Kyrius, get UP!!" "If this isn't really important, you're going down the stairs the quick way." "Our owner is really miffed and is about to go off the deep end. Does that count?" HIM? Really_Wise_Guy? This is not going to be a good day. I crept down the stairs. "Hello, Horatio," Wise_Guy said, barely turning his head around to see me. "What are your stats, from top to bottom?" Why is... no, never mind. Even though he knows it by heart, I'll answer the simple stuff directly. "272/272, 156, 145, 163, 205." "That's right. Do you have any idea how much investment that represents?" "Umm.... a LOT? Millions of Neopoints worth?" "And do you know how much that's worth to me now?" "Let me guess--you're going to say 'nothing' because you're furious at something." "You are smart." "....you're not going to do anything rash, are you? You know, leave Neopia, pay a visit to a certain yellow Techo, get yourself frozen on purpose...." "No. No, nothing's going to change around here. Of course, nothing's going to get any better, but them's the breaks." "You know, you could just tell me what happened." "Sure I could. But what would be the point? You can't solve it. And no," he continued, reading my thoughts, "it's not human-world stuff. But I'm not going to bother telling you." Something tells me this is a bit worse to him than the recent stock-market crash. "Get out of here, Horatio. Go have fun. Come back when I'm gone. I don't want to talk to you or anyone else." I shrugged, ran upstairs, grabbed my backpack full of Battledome stuff and NP, and rushed out the door with Carnivorous_T_Rex and Little_cheeky close behind. "He's scaring me now," Cheeky said. "Me too," agreed Carnivore. "This is the first time I've been scared of your owner, Horatio." "I would be, but he's too tough to be affected for long. Whatever it is, he'll snap out of it," I said, convincing myself just as much as them. "Come on. Let's go down some path somewhere where there's no one else. Just some random exploring." They agreed and we zipped at 20 speed to some far-off corner of Neopia Central, where the city ended and the forest began. A few random trails later and... a building out here? It was only one story, but modern. A sign in the window read: HELP WANTED "I think they've got ya on that last one," Carnivore joked. "Umm... You know, Dr. Sloth needs pets with those qualities.," Little_Cheeky said in a squeak. "Smarts? Subtlety? If it is Sloth, he'll just have to pay me up front," I said, pulling the door open and walking right in, meeting the powerful air-conditioning of the building's lobby face-first. A red Blumaroo receptionist simply said, "One at a time," and pointed to the large mahogany door. I shrugged and walked in, making sure there wasn't anything like poison darts in the walls or crushing ceilings. An owner and his Scorchio, Cybunny, Poogle, and Shoyru- all wearing the same black suit/sunglasses/tie ensemble- looked up from their single large desk and at me. "You're inside, guys- you might want to lose the sunglasses," I said. Anything to knock the smug look off their faces. These are NOT the Neopians in Black- are they? "It helps our image," the owner said. "Well, Horatio_Kyrius, you've certainly got the physical qualities..." Silence. "You're not asking me how I know your name?" "You're a member of a secret, powerful organisation with instant identification systems. I watch spy movies too. And you're probably either going to ask me to retrieve some valued object or infiltrate some other secret, powerful organisation. And I'm not going to bother asking why you hire people off the street, it's probably because you don't want to get any permanent agents involved in this." The owner looked at his pets, who simply nodded at him. "You're hired. Your orders are to find proof of anything illegal at the target area, and if you do, contact us. Sign here," he said, handing me a contract and a pen. Of course, I don't sign anything without reading it first, so I looked through it. It was nothing more than a disclaimer (you may get mutilated, obliterated, fed to crocodiles, deleted into thin air, forced to watch N-Span until your head explodes...), a statement that the organisation would adequately prepare me, and an amount of money: 500,000 Neopoints. My eyes turned to NP signs and my right hand scrawled my name. "Do you have your own weapons?" the owner asked. "Yeah, in the backpack, Hidden Tower stuff." "Good. Give it to me." I shrugged reluctantly and he dumped everything out on his desk, Kalora Battledeck, Rod of Supernova, and all- and then he put in a Rod of Ultranova, a Spectre Battledeck, two Gold Scorchstones, and four Legendary Sceptres, handing it back to me. "We'll swap that stuff back when you're done. You'll also need these." He handed me an Invisible Paintbrush, a treasure map of a type I haven't seen before, a wrist communicator (I already have one for my owner on my left, so I put this one on my right- let's hope I don't get confused) and a very, very odd pair of rubbery gloves with the inscription 'Shove- he'll miss. Gul Taken' on each cuff. I tried them on and they fit my hands perfectly. Magic, like so many other things here. "Be careful what you hit with those," The black-clad Scorchio said. "What do they do?" All five of them kept silent. "You guys are a real help, you know that? Giving me equipment which I don't know the function of." They stayed silent. I shrugged and walked out the door, telling the story to my siblings and musing on how easy this would be. Find anything illegal? Pfft. Probably a criminal organisation, in which case they might as well have told me to go find water in the ocean.... To be continued.... |
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