The Ex-Agent

     He sighed as he remembered the last time he’d sat in a park. He’d been waiting for an associate to drop off a key which would allow him to unlock a safe which would, in turn, give him access to a code which would disarm a bomb hidden under the nearby museum.

     The associate had given him the key as planned and he’d unlocked the safe without a problem, but retrieving the needed code inside had proved more challenging than anticipated.

     Gerard pushed the safe door open carefully. It wasn’t so much a safe as a vault; one massive, steel clad, shock proof room holding some of the world’s most valuable artefacts- and not all of them obtained legally.

     The Wocky cast an eye over the gold statues and jewels and shrugged. He’d have time to prosecute the owner later; right now the clock was ticking on the bomb hidden under the Neopian Museum. He had to find the scrap of paper with the crucial ten numbers on it before it was too late.

     “Hold it right there, Shade.”

     Gerard flinched. Shade was his nickname, earned from his ability to slip away like a shadow. Very few people called him that and, combined with the wheezy accent, he didn’t even need the use of the hackneyed ‘hold it right there’ to tell him who he was dealing with. “Vincent.”

     “That’s right,” the voice wheezed. “We meet again.”

     “And, once again, you choose to torture me with clichés.”

     The black Pteri stepped out of the gloom, pointing something that looked suspiciously like a Virtupets blaster at Gerard. “All in a day’s work, Shade.”

     Gerard eyed his midget nemesis coolly. Vincent, true to his nature, had a slightly maniacal grin frozen on his face, as though he’d just escaped from an asylum. How the short Pteri had managed to stay out of one, Gerard would never know.

     “Stay out of this, Vincent. There’s no need for you to get involved.”

     “Really?” Vincent asked, twisting his head so that he could look at Gerard sideways. “I’d have to disagree, this being my house and everything.”

     True, that. “You know exactly what’ll happen if you try to stop me. I’ll kick your backside into the middle of next week, escape with what I came for, and this time tomorrow you’ll be trying to bribe your way out of jail.”

     The Pteri frowned. “Wouldn’t that be a bit hard, though, if my backside is stuck in the middle of next week?”

     “...that’s irrelevant,” Gerard muttered, looking jaded.

     Vincent shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t make any difference, anyway; because this time my plan is fail proof!”

     “Uh-huh. Just like the last two dozen.”

     “This one’s different, though. Because,” Vincent paused to flash one of his trademark I’m-nutty-and-there’s-nothing-you-can-do-about-it grins, “I believe- correct me if I’m wrong- but I believe you actually need to find what you’re looking for in order for this to be a successful confrontation.”

     Gerard felt a chill of foreboding creep over him. “What’re you talking about?”

     “This, Shade, this.” The insane Pteri pulled a small scrap of paper out of his pocket and waved it at Gerard. “This is what you were after, wasn’t it?”

     Gerard stared at the paper. He could see the precious ten digits scrawled across it. “You...”

     “That’s right. I knew you would come looking for the deactivation code- so I took it first. Well,” he paused to frown at the ground, “I didn’t actually take it, because it was technically mine to begin with... but it’s all the same to you, now isn’t it?”

     Gerard ground his teeth. “I’m warning you, Vincent...”

     “My, my, my. We’re not doing very well with finishing our sentences tonight, are we, Shade? I think I might just leave you here to cool off for a bit, until you can formulate a decent threat. Okay?”

     “No...!”

     “Bye, bye, then, Shade.” Vincent stepped backwards out of the vault and pressed a button on his watch. Gerard lunged forward, but was too late to stop the steel doors from slamming shut. He could hear Vincent’s insane laugh through the metal, but after a minute even that faded.

     “Drat,” he muttered, turning back to look at the room. It was large, square, and as far as he could see held no other way out. Countless shelves lined the wall, holding up artefacts, jewels and expensive artwork.

     Gerard glanced at his watch. It was twelve past two in the morning, meaning he had approximately eight minutes to get back to the museum. “Drat,” he muttered again.

     The door would be locked; that was a sure fact. Vincent might be borderline psycho, but he wasn’t sloppy. What he needed was another exit.

     The Wocky stared around the room again, and felt a grin slide across his face. Sitting in one corner was a stack of gunpowder.

     Just because there wasn’t another exit didn’t mean one couldn’t be made.

     2:17- three minutes until the bomb under the museum exploded. Gerard was racing through the streets, winding his way around the pools of light cast by the lamps. The Wocky’s black suit had been turned grey by the dust settling around the newly created hole in the vault’s wall.

     Coughing and spluttering, he turned the last corner and raced up the steps of the museum. The door was open, but the lights were off.

     Inside the giant building was a maze of statues and displays. Gerard knew them all well, and it only took him a few seconds to weave his way to the main staircase. It was a huge spiral running up the middle of the museum, leading up to the four stories above- and, more importantly to Gerard, leading down four levels to the basement displays. The bomb was, naturally, in the basement.

     The Wocky glanced at his watch. 2:19- he only had a minute. Not long enough to navigate the stairs down. He pulled a coil of rope out from his backpack and quickly tied one end to the banister of the stairs. Another four precious seconds were used to put thick leather gloves on. And then, Gerard jumped.

     Firmly grasping one end of the rope, the Wocky plunged down into the gloom. The force of the wind rushing past him snatched his breath away. The length of rope began to run out, and he tightened his grip. Abruptly his decent stopped, leaving the Wocky dangling ten feet above the ground.

     Twenty seconds left.

     Nothing for it, Gerard thought, and let go.

     He landed, rolled, and then was on his feet, running again. There was a door to the control room opposite him, and he burst through it.

     The lights were on inside, and a highly stressed junior agent stood next to an elaborate explosive device which had been strapped to the control panel. All of the other agents who had been in the room had been evacuated. On the front of the bomb was a display with sinister red numbers clicking down.

     16, 15, 14...

     “Thank goodness you’re here, Agent Gerard,” the junior agent whined. “Do you have the code?”

     “No,” Gerard said simply. “Vincent took it.”

     “WHAT?”

     13, 12, 11...

     The agent began pacing. “This is nuts! There’s no way we can get out before it blows. We’re dead. Gone. Deceased. Past tense.”

     “Relax,” Gerard said smoothly, stepping up to the display. Other than the red countdown there was a board with buttons numbered from zero to nine on it, and a screen reading ‘type in code’.

     10...

     Gerard closed his eyes and visualised the scene in the vault. Vincent, holding the gun and laughing as he brandished the piece of paper. The Wocky froze that scene in his mind and zoomed in on the numbers on the paper. “Five... two... nine...”

     “What’re you doing?” the junior agent screeched, wringing his hands.

     “Shh,” Gerard hissed, frowning. “Photographic memory. Don’t question, just type.”

     “Right.”

     7...

     “One... five... five...”

     6...

     “Three... zero... two...”

     5...

     “And the last number’s either a four or a nine.”

     “What?”

     4...

     “His thumb was over it.”

     “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

     3...

     “I think it’s a nine.”

     The agent dropped his head into his hands and whined pitifully. “We’re dead.”

     2...

     Gerard frowned. “Trust me on this. Go with nine.”

     1...

     With a grimace the junior agent punched in nine and pressed enter.

     Gerard opened his eyes. The memory had been crystal clear. He could almost smell the soot on his jacket.

     The Wocky sat quietly in the park and watched two joggers run by. Nine had been the right number, of course. The detonator had, with a whine, shut itself down.

     He’d been a hero for a couple of weeks after it. Both he and the stressed junior agent had received badges and thanks from the mayor. Vincent had been charged with planting the bomb but, predictably, he was acquitted of all charges as soon as he slipped the judge a few bags of money. Life had gone on.

     Until this morning. “No longer needed,” they had said. “Younger, faster agents can take over,” they had said. “Getting too old,” they had said.

     The Wocky dropped his head into his paws. Yes, he’d been getting older, but he wasn’t useless. His nemesis, Vincent, was still at large and still planning outrageously insane plans- why couldn’t he stay on, foiling them as usual?

     The joggers ran past again, completing a second lap of the park. Gerard heaved a sigh and leaned back on the bench, staring aimlessly at the sky, thinking about how boring retirement was and how there was nothing to do and-

     An earth-shattering explosion shook Gerard out of his thoughts. Swinging around he looked behind himself to where the bakery across the street had exploded into flames.

     “Cower before me, ignorant fools!” an annoyingly familiar voice screamed. “For I am the great Vincent!”

     “There he is,” one of the joggers called. Immediately he and his partner pulled off their tracksuits to expose the black spy ensembles underneath.

     “Go figure,” Gerard muttered as the jogger-agents raced towards the flaming building.

     “You shall never defeat me,” Vincent roared. “Never!”

     Gerard made to run forward but stopped himself. He was no longer an agent. He wasn’t needed here.

     With a sigh he collapsed back into the bench and watched as the two younger agents raced towards the building. His eyes darted down to the ground in front of the bakery and he frowned. The grass was never that green in front of the shops.

     He looked back at the agents. They hadn’t noticed the difference in the shade of grass- they were too focussed on their goal.

     Gerard stood up and tried to call to them. “Don’t! It’s a-”

     The agents stepped on the sinister grass and, with identical shrieks, plunged out of view as it gave way.

     “...trap,” the Wocky finished uselessly.

     Vincent shrieked with laughter and clapped his hands. He was standing in the doorway of the flaming building, and as Gerard cast his eyes over it he realized it was nothing but a maze of traps. Nets were camouflaged on the ground, more carefully concealed holes were dotted about, and semi-invisible wires were strung between the fences.

     More agents were materialising out of nowhere and converging on the scene- albeit rather more cautiously. Gerard shook his head in frustration. They were going about it all wrong. They were trying a frontal approach- that would never work. The building would be in cinders before they got to the Pteri.

     The thing about Vincent was, although he covered his front thoroughly, he usually left his back unguarded.

     Gerard got up and began running. Not towards the front of the building, where the other agents were jumping and darting and getting caught in nets to Vincent’s glee, but around to the building next to it.

     It was a sweet shop, and Gerard flew through the door, pausing just long enough to flash a smile at the cowering shopkeeper, before vaulting over the bench and out the back door.

     It was only a matter of seconds to dart around to the back of the burning building from there, and carefully push the door open.

     Inside was a mass of flames licking up and over the benches. Gerard paused to grab at the first thing that came to hand- which turned out to be a frying pan. He paused, frowned at it, shrugged and then crept through the building.

     Covering his nose with his sleeve to guard against the thick smoke, Gerard rounded a corner and was confronted with the back of Vincent’s head. The Pteri was hopping about madly, cackling and clapping as the other agents tried and failed to get to him.

     Gerard knew what he should do; he should say something dramatic and heroic to get his nemesis’s attention, and then they would have one great, final duel as the building collapsed in fiery embers around them.

     Or, he could just...

     Gerard raised the frying pan and brought it down with a satisfying thwack on the back of Vincent’s head.

     “You should have seen it,” a junior agent was saying in a squeaky voice. “He just came out of nowhere, and wham! Vincent’s out of the game.”

     The head agent stroked his chin thoughtfully as he watched Gerard. The Wocky was standing in front of him, paws clasped behind his back and looking at the ground respectfully. Behind them the last of the flames in the bakery were being extinguished, and the two jogger-agents were being hauled out of the hole.

     “Not really impressive,” the head agent said, earning a grimace from Gerard. “Any agent could have done exactly that. However... not every agent would have thought of it.”

     The silence was broken by Vincent’s insane screams of “It was failproof! My plan was failproof!” as he was hauled away from the scene.

     The head agent sighed. “Unfortunately, Vincent is too rich and powerful to be kept in jail. You know how his mind works better than anyone else, Shade. For that reason- and that reason only- I’m offering you your job back.”

     Gerard grinned broadly. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

     The head agent grunted. “Whatever. Dismissed.”

     As the other agents left to sort out the bakery, Gerard clenched his fists. “Yes!”

     “Hey, watch it. You’d have a headache if someone bashed you with a frying pan, too,” the midget Pteri whined as agents put handcuffs on him. Gerard, still grinning, marched up to him.

     “So, it looks like I’m back on your case, Vincent.”

     “That’s good, because you haven’t heard the last from me, Shade.”

     “I sure hope so,” Gerard said contentedly. “I sure hope so.”

     As the Wocky strolled away, Vincent frowned and twisted his head to the side. “And they say I’m insane.”

The End