Mission: Scripted

This is IMF's Christmas story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas. It also has nothing to do with this current mission. Merry Christmas everybody! And a happy New Year!

Timothius woke up with a groan. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened to him since he went to bed that night. Confused, he felt hard floor underneath him.
“Are you awake?” said a voice. It was Ryan Cruise.
“Yeah,” Tim nodded. He opened his eyes, but the lighting didn’t change much. Wherever they were, it sure was dark. “Where are we?”
“He must not remember anything after he was knocked out,” Ryan said to someone else.
“We’re in a dungeon,” said another voice. This one was Cathy’s.
“How’d we get here?” Tim asked groggily. He tried to remember but he couldn’t recall anything that had happened.
“We were infiltrating the Russian Embassy,” Ryan answered him. “You screwed up, though.”
“Excuse me?” Cathy exclaimed. “You were the one that knocked the mantelpiece over!”
“So? Nobody heard that.” Ryan argued.
“Then why are we here?”
Ryan shrugged. “Bad luck?”
“Guys, guys,” Tim held up his hand. “What happened to me?” His head felt like a watermelon that had been split open by a sledgehammer. (Whatever that feels like, but it looks painful.)
“Some guard knocked you on the head when you tried to resist,” Ryan explained. “You actually took about three guys out before that.” Ryan paused and reflected the moment before continuing. “They came running when you stepped on that piece of glass--”
“You mean when you knocked the mantelpiece over,” Cathy interrupted.
“Why was there a mantelpiece there in the first place? That’s what I want to know,” Ryan said, defending himself. “I mean this is an embassy, not somebody’s living room.”
“Well the point is,” Cathy ignored his comment. “We’re here and how do we get out?”
“No problem,” Ryan assured them. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
“You said that when the mantelpiece dropped,” Cathy snapped.
“What makes you think I didn’t have it all figure out then?”
“Well, maybe the fact that we’re now trapped in this dungeon!”
“That was part of the plan,” Ryan said, defiantly.
“Why are we in the Russian Embassy?” Timothius asked, still trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
Ryan started to explain but then just tossed him a stack of papers that were stapled together. “Forget it, just read this.”
“What’s this?” Timothius asked.
“The script,” Ryan replied. “It tells exactly what’s going to happen and what’s already happened.”
“Hey!” Timothius exclaimed. “It starts with me waking up, and you guys standing the dungeon. This is exactly how it happened!”
“Yeah,” Ryan shrugged as if this were common knowledge. “Didn’t I already say that?”
“Yeah, but…” Tim trailed off. “This is amazing!”
“You mean you didn’t know about this?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Timothius shook his head.
“Neither did I,” Cathy admitted, taking the script from Timothius.
“Wow,” Ryan shook his head. “You guys are missing out. It has all our lines, what we’re supposed to do, everything. I stopped thinking for myself two episodes ago.”
“Incredible,” Tim shook his head. “It even has me reading the script on the script, on the script, on the script, on the script--”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t hurt yourself” Ryan said, uninterested. “The script is all knowing, we can’t do anything that isn’t in the script. Even if we think we’re doing something totally out of the box, it’s on the script.”
“So,” Cathy ventured. “Do we like, have no free will?”
“Are you kidding me?!” Ryan appeared surprised at the question. “Of course we don’t, we just do whatever the script says.”
“This is so hard to believe,” Timothius shook his head.
“You get used to it,” Ryan said.
Suddenly, the dungeon door burst open, and two men walked inside.
“Who are they?” Tim whispered.
“Check the script,” Ryan whispered back.
Tim scanned the script. “…Crazy Horse and one of his henchmen,” he read aloud. “Enter the room. The henchman had a crow bar in his hands, which he was slapping against his hands, menacingly.” They looked up to see Crazy Horse and one of his henchmen enter the room. The henchman had a crow bar in his hands, which he was slapping against his hands, menacingly.
“Weird,” Tim murmured. He continued to read, “‘shut up,’ Crazy Horse growled.”
“Shut up,” Crazy Horse growled. “We have some talking to do. Like why-”
“We were in your embassy and who knocked over the mantelpiece,” Tim interrupted, reading his own quote from the script.
“Yes…” Crazy Horse paused, looking curiously at the script in Tim’s hands. Then he caught himself. “Well? Why are you here?”
Tim shrugged. “I’m still looking for that answer myself. Oh, here it is.” Tim looked at Ryan, who looked over his shoulder at the script.
“It has me spilling the whole story in here?” Ryan said in disbelief.
“Yeah,” Tim pointed to the passage.
Ryan shrugged. “Okay, well the emperor sent us on a mission here because he was worried that you had a little too much contact with terrorists, you meaning, Russia, of course. He sent us here to try and spy on you for information about your activities.”
Crazy Horse eyed him. “And who broke the mantelpiece?”
Ryan and Cathy pointed at each other at the same time.
“You will all pay for this!” Crazy Horse screamed.
“No we won’t,” Ryan shook his head.
“What?” Crazy Horse frowned.
“We won’t pay for this,” Ryan corrected him. “We escape.”
“How do you know?” Crazy Horse was skeptical.
“Look at the script,” Timothius said, tossing him the script.
Crazy Horse scanned the script quickly. “…’They laughed at him as he fumed in rage,’ blah, blah, blah. Ah, here it is.” Crazy Horse grinned, expecting that they were wrong. “All seemed lost, just as it appeared that they would be wrong…” Crazy Horse trailed off. “What? This is ridiculous!” He threw the script down. “How is a guy supposed to make a villainous living around here if some script writer guys are writing happy endings to all these stories?”
They laughed at him as he fumed in rage.
Ryan shrugged. “Crime doesn’t pay.” Then he grinned. “I made that up myself.”
“Actually,” Tim said, picking up the script. “That was in here.”
“Shut up,” Ryan snapped.
Suddenly, Crazy Horse spun towards them. “You know what? I don’t care what that script says. I’m going to kill you anyways, because no one controls me!” He pulled a gun from his holster and cocked it. Crazy Horse pointed it at the three IMF agents, his finger tightening at the trigger.
All seemed lost, just as it appeared that they would be wrong, however, Crazy Horse’s gun clicked. Amazed, the IMF agents watched as Crazy Horse pulled the trigger again, ‘click.’ No bullets.
Crazy Horse threw the gun down in disgust. “There’s no fighting it, is there?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nope. That was in the script too.” He reached up to knock out the villain, but Tim stopped him.
“Ladies first,” Tim shook his finger.
“Thank you,” Cathy said. Then she reached over and knocked Crazy Horse on the back of the head, knocking him out cold.
The henchman fled, but Ryan shot him in the back with a silenced pistol that the henchman had dropped in his haste.
“Now what?” Cathy asked.
“The script says, ‘they snuck up behind the three guards and knocked them out. Then they dragged them into a closet and put on their uniforms.’” Tim looked up from the script. “I guess that’s what we do.”
They walked down the hall, away from the dungeon. All of the sudden, three guards appeared around the corner, with their backs turned to them. They snuck up behind the three guards and knocked them out. Then they dragged them into a closet and put on their uniforms.
Acting casually, they walked out of the embassy, and onto the street. Not until they had gotten into their car did the alarm sound.
“Did we get what we came for?” Tim asked.
“Yep,” Ryan nodded, and held up a folder. “Enough evidence to prove that Russia has been involved with several terrorist organizations.”
“How come they didn’t take it from you?” Tim asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Ask the guy who writes the script. Must have been for time constraint reasons or something.”
Ryan started up the car and they drove off. It was night by now, and they were all tired. They took turns driving until they could reach the Imperial Palace; it was a long drive. When it was Tim’s turn to rest, he lay down in the back. Slowly, he drifted into a long, deep sleep…

Timothius woke up with a start. “Aaa!” he cried.
Ryan was lying on a couch across the room from him. “What?” he asked.
“I dreamt that we were on a mission,” Tim said, still breathing hard.
“That’s ridiculous, we’re on leave, finally,” Ryan said.
“And everything was scripted,” Tim continued.
“Scripted? What do you mean?”
“Like, everything we did was on a script,” Timothius explained.
“That’s dumb. We would have, like, no free will,” Ryan frowned.
“We didn’t, everything we did, or were going to do, was on the script, and we couldn’t change it.” “That’s really dumb. Who wrote this script anyways? God or someone?”
“No,” Tim shook his head, trying to remember the authors. “It was these two guys, I can’t remember their names. They seemed familiar, though. I think that we were based after them or something.”
“So, they wrote everything that happened to us, in the dream? And they even based themselves after us?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, if they wanted us to fly away on carpets, I imagine they could make it happen. And actually, they based us off of them.”
“Yeah right,” Ryan waved him off. Just then, a cat flew by on a flying carpet. Ryan rubbed his eyes and blinked several times. “Did that just happen?”
“Yeah,” Tim nodded. “You see what I mean?”
Ryan looked as if he were starting to believe him. “This is incredible.” Suddenly…

Timothius woke up and jumped out of bed. “That was weird!” he exclaimed.
“What was weird?” Ryan asked. Ryan was standing in the doorway, wearing civilian clothes.
“Aaa!” Tim yelled. “What are you doing here?”
“I was staying at your house, remember?” Ryan said.
“Sorry,” Tim shook his head. “It’s just, everytime I wake up and see you, I’m in another dream.”
“You really shouldn’t have so much soda before going to bed if you’re gonna scream and talk all through the night afterwards.” He added. “You must have had some dream.”
“Boy did I ever,” Tim nodded. “I dreamed that our lives were all recorded in a script and that everything happened the way it was written.”
“Some dream,” Ryan agreed that it was crazy. “Oh great,” he groaned.
“What?” Tim asked.
“That, that over there. It’s coming towards us!”
“Where? What is it?” Tim saw it too now.
Ryan shook his head in disbelief. “It’s…”

The End?

And it was all just a dream... or was it?

Mission 4: Betrayal Part 2

Ryan was watching Cathy from his perch several stories up. Laz was standing next to him, watching every suspicious person. Ryan had no idea were the sniper was hiding, but he was almost positive that there was one. He had a suspicion that it was a young brunette that he had been watching. She had been acting rather strangely and he was almost sure that she had been tailing Cathy earlier. Now she had disappeared, not a good sign.
Ryan spoke into his radio, “Just calm down, Cathy, and wait for my signal.”
“I’m trying to,” came the distressed response. “But you’re not helping.”
“She has a point there,” Laz commented.
Cathy’s voice came through again. “This is taking too long; when are you going to signal?”
“Now, go now!” Ryan yelled into the radio. Cathy burst from the bathroom and ran as fast as she could towards the door. She was almost to the door when she suddenly jerked forward and fell on her face.
Ryan and Laz whirled around to see a gun barrel being pulled out of from in between a vent in the wall a couple of stories up. Panic started to rise up in the two agent’s minds; Ryan thought of all the things he could say, what he could scream. He tried to sort all of these out in his mind and say the best one, but all that came out was, “oops.”
Laz flinched. “Ouch, headshot.”
The entire mall was going crazy by now; Cathy was lying dead on the floor, blood flowing from her head. There was no way that she would be coming back anytime soon. Ryan and Laz searched for a place to hide. They had no doubt that that sniper was coming after them now. Seeing a woman’s clothing store behind them, they ducked inside. This brought several strange glances from everyone inside, but the people quickly forgot about them when Cathy’s death became known. Everyone stampeded out of the store and drove away as fast as possible.
“Where do we go now?” Laz asked.
“Anywhere but here,” Ryan replied. They rushed out of the store and charged down the hall. They looked up to see a masked woman running with them on the floor above, or at least they assumed it was a woman because of her long hair. They stopped and started to turn around, but the woman jumped down in front of them and cut off their route.
“Wait,” she said, pulling off the mask. “I’m a friend.” She shook her head and flipped her brown hair back. Her brown eyes did indeed seem friendly, but they also seemed troubled.
“Wait,” Ryan said. “You’re that brunette that was following Cathy.”
She nodded. “That’s right, and my name’s Sarah.” A question started to form on the two agent’s lips but Sarah answered it before they could ask. “I was trying to protect Cathy from that sniper, but obviously, I couldn’t.” She led them inside a door that said employees only. “We should probably lay low for a while,” she advised. “That sniper could be looking for us.”
“How do we know that you’re not the sniper?” Laz asked.
She smiled. “You don’t.”
Laz groaned. “I hate it when people say that.” He motioned for Ryan to come with him and meet in the corner of the room.
“How do we know if we can trust her?” Laz asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Well, she is pretty.” It was true, the mysterious woman looked like she could easily win a beauty pageant if she tried.
Laz rolled his eyes. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Ryan threw up his hands. “I don’t know, I was just saying.”
“Besides,” Laz said. “Haven’t you ever noticed that all girls in any secret agent story are always good-looking? No matter if they’re good or bad. If they’re not then they’re killed off right away.”
Ryan frowned. “That’s not true.”
Just then a homely cleaning lady burst through the door. Her face was covered in zits and she had a huge scowl on her face. “What the heck are you three doing here!” she bellowed. She started to let loose a flurry of curse words at them, but she was suddenly shot in the head and she sank to the floor.
“See what I mean?” Laz said smugly.
Ryan stroked his chin. “Maybe you’ve got a point there.”
Sarah grabbed them both by the arm and dragged them out the back door. “Come on,” she said. “We don’t want to meet whoever was on the other end of that gunshot.”
They rushed out the door and onto a fire escape that was out back. They ran down the stairs as fast as possible. As they were running, bullets started flying all around them. Whoever was above them was shooting at them! Ryan looked up and tried to see who it was that was shooting at them but he could never get a good look. They dodged the bullets and sped down the stairs until they reached the ground.
“Come on,” Ryan called. “Our car is right here.” They all jumped inside Ryan’s Porsche and Ryan stepped on the gas. They peeled out of the parking lot and drove away. Once they were farther away, Ryan slowed down.
“So Sarah, I don’t believe we ever told you our names. Name’s Cruise… Ryan Cruise.” He stuck out his hand and Sarah shook it.
“Do you steal all your lines from James Bond movies, or just a mix of secret agent movies?” she asked, trying to cover her smile.
“Who me? Of course not.” Ryan acted surprised.
“I’m Laz,” Laz offered.
“Hi Laz,” Sarah said. “In case you’re wondering, I work for IMF.”
“You do?” Ryan was shocked. “So do we!”
“Really?” Sarah said. “Well at least I won’t have to explain what it is to you then. That’s always a problem.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot to,” Ryan nodded. “How come we’ve never seen you before if you work for IMF?”
“There’s more than one team that works for IMF, you know.” Sarah pointed out.
Ryan paused for a second. “There is?”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, didn’t you know that?”
Ryan coughed. “Yeah, yeah, of course I did.”
Laz spoke up again from the back, “he’s lying.”
Sarah grinned again, it seemed as if she couldn’t help but smile at Ryan. “Yeah, I guessed as much.” Then she turned serious. “Well, I used to work for IMF. My team was dismantled a few weeks ago and I’ve been on the run ever since.”
Ryan frowned. “Dismantled? What do you mean?”
Sarah made a slashing motion across her throat with her finger.
Laz flinched. “I’m sorry, we know what it feels like to lose a team member.”
Sarah frowned and folded her arms. “Not every agent. I lost every man and every woman. I’m the only one left.”
Ryan drove up to his house and parked the car. “Do you have any idea who’s behind this?” he asked.
Sarah looked at him. “I’ll give you one guess.”
Ryan thought for a minute while they got out of the car. “Space aliens?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, of course not. The emperor.”
“Why would he take out his own IMF team?” Laz asked.
Sarah lowered her voice to a whisper. “Because, we know too much.”
“Know what?” Ryan scratched his head.
Sarah gave a frustrated look. “Well you don’t have to worry about it. Because you’re obviously clueless!” She walked away and sat down on the curb.
Ryan looked at Laz and shrugged. “What’d I say?”
Laz only shrugged back. “You understand woman better than I do.”
“But I don’t understand woman at all.”
“Exactly.”
Just then, Ryan’s cell phone rang. Ryan flipped it open, “Yo.”
“Ryan,” came a woman’s voice. “This is Kayla.”
“Kayla,” Ryan said. “Just the woman I needed to talk to. We’ve got an angry girl on our hands and I don’t know what to do.”
Kayla ignored his comment. “Tim’s been captured, Ryan.”
“What? By who?” Ryan asked, shocked.
“I don’t know,” Kayla replied. “The emperor would only tell me that he was on a mission by himself and he fell into enemy hands.”
“Great,” Ryan sighed. “Two agents in one day.”
“What?” now it was Kayla’s turn to be surprised. “What’re you talking about?”
Ryan paused. “I don’t know how to say this but… Cathy’s dead.”
For a few seconds, Ryan was met with nothing but shocked silence. Then Kayla nearly exploded. “Dead? What do you mean, dead? How is that possible? You’re lying!”
Ryan held the phone from his ear. “What do I say, Laz?” he asked.
Laz shrugged. “I don’t know any better than you do.”
Kayla started to burst into tears on the other end of the line. “Look, Kayla, please don’t cry.”
Kayla sniffed. “Okay, what do you need me to do?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Well,” Ryan thought. “Have all the agents gather here for a meeting. At least, all the agents we have left…”
Kayla started to burst into tears again. “Oops, I didn’t mean that last part Kayla. Don’t worry, Cathy won’t die in vain; we’ll find out what she knew if we die trying… that was just a figure of speech, we’re not gonna die.”

To be continued...

Mission 4: Betrayal

Timothius looked up from the note he had just read. His face wrinkled in confusion. What was going on? Well he was never the one to back down from danger; so he grabbed the handheld device.
Instantly, the device turned on and a long beam shot out and scanned his face. The beam disappeared and a green light appeared on the screen. “Identity confirmed, welcome Timothius Danaford,” the device said in a mechanic voice.
Suddenly, Cathy appeared on the screen; Tim quickly realized that she had recorded a message for him. “Hello Tim,” Cathy said. “Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it.” She coughed and continued. “I’ve got a problem, and I don’t know how else to explain it to you so I’ll jump right in. The emperor isn’t who you think he is. He has been committing several illegal and deceptive actions behind our backs and all the other citizens of the Touch� Empire. Including executing supposed ‘criminals’ without giving them a fair trial, stealing money from the people and using it for his own personal benefits, and much more. I’ve only recently learned about this, and I don’t know if the emperor’s found out about how much I know yet. Help me Timothius, you are my only hope.” The video shut off and a mechanical voice said, “This device will self-destruct in… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” The device disintegrated into a wisp of smoke, leaving Tim sitting with a shocked expression on his face.
“I can’t believe this,” Tim said to himself. “I knew that the emperor was a little shady, but this? I guess I should have seen it coming.” He shook his head and sighed. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. If the emperor found out, then Cathy would be in danger! He had to protect her, but how?
Just then, his work phone rang. Timothius answered it, “Hello.”
“Hello, Timothius,” said a voice. It was the emperor!
“Emperor! How are you?” Tim exclaimed, trying not to sound nervous
“Fine, fine, I heard about Ryan and Laz. They ran through a house fire to save those documents, incredible. Those two are amazing,” he said somewhat blandly. Timothius frowned; was it his imagination or did the emperor actually seem disappointed?
“The reason I was calling,” he continued. “Was to see if you’re available. I have a job for you, and it only requires one man.”
“Sure,” Tim said warily. “I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you, and Tim.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be late.”
Timothius swallowed. “I won’t,” he hung up the phone. He tried to shake the thoughts he was thinking out of his head, but he couldn’t. “There’s no way he could know what I know,” he said aloud. Somehow, though, that wasn’t very convincing. He had a feeling that the emperor had already found him and Cathy out.
He reached over and picked up his other, personal phone, the one with a scrambler on it. Quickly, he dialed Ryan Cruise’s number. Somebody had to keep an eye on Cathy. Timothius trusted and, at the same time, didn’t trust Ryan to get the job done; but he had no one else to turn to.

Ryan and Laz were hanging out at Ryan’s house, playing video games when Tim called.
Ryan grabbed his cell phone and flipped it open. “Hey Tim, what’s happening?”
“A lot of stuff,” Timothius replied, breathing nervously. “Listen Cruise, I need your help. Is Laz with you?”
“Yeah, he’s right here.”
“Good, could you keep an eye on Cathy for me, please?”
Ryan gave the phone a strange look before remembering that Tim couldn’t see him through the phone. “Keep an eye on her, why?”
“Because, I think she might be in danger.”
“From what?” Ryan asked.
“You mean from who, and I don’t think I’ll tell you that just yet.”
Ryan frowned. “Okay fine, I’ll look out for her, you don’t have to get all secretive on me.”
“Thanks,” Timothius thanked him and hung up.
“How do you like that?” Ryan said.
“What?” Laz asked. He had been intently listening in on the conversation, trying to figure out what they were saying.
“Tim wants us to ‘keep an eye on Cathy’.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan shrugged. “Oh well, I guess it couldn’t hurt. Wonder where she it now?”
Laz grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll track her. It’s my specialty.”

A few minutes later they had tracked Cathy to her location at the Imperial Mall by using her cell phone. They hopped in Ryan’s Porsche and whizzed away to the mall.
“That was too easy,” Laz commented when they had arrived. “If Cathy thinks she’s in danger, why is she at the mall?”
Ryan shrugged. “It’s a perfect place for a handoff.”
“And for a murder,” Laz pointed out.
They both nodded and agreed that they would have to keep an eye out for suspicious-looking people. They got of the car and warily made their way towards the mall entrance.
“Look at that guy,” Ryan pointed to a young teenager who was hurrying out of the mall and clutching his coat. “He looks suspicious.”
Laz shrugged. “What’s so suspicious about him?”
Suddenly a whole group of security guards ran out of the building after the teenager and tackled him. A bunch of expensive items came flying out of his jacket and fell to the floor. “Wait, NO!” the teen cried. “I bought this stuff, I swear!”
“That’s not what the security camera says,” one of the guards said, and they took him away in handcuffs.
“Okay,” Laz admitted. “So maybe you were right.”

Meanwhile, Timothius was on his way to the emperor’s palace. “I hope those two aren’t doing anything stupid.” He smacked his forehead. “What am I saying? Of course they’re doing something stupid. I just hope it works.”
He drove up to the palace, passed the normal security check and sat down in the emperor’s waiting room. After a few minutes, Timothius was called into the emperor’s office and told to sit and wait.
He looked all around, wondering where the emperor could be. There was a tall chair at the emperor’s desk that was facing the opposite direction of Timothius. Tim coughed and ventured to say, “Um, sir, are you there?” Suddenly, the chair whirled around to reveal… no one. “Uh, okay. I still can’t see you,” Timothius said, bewildered.
There was a loud sigh, and the chair started to rise. As the chair raised the emperor started to appear, he was pumping the chair up slowly so that he could see over the desk.
“There, can you see me now?”
“Much better, sir. New chair?”
The emperor gave an annoyed look. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “The reason I called you here is because I have another mission for you, if you choose to accept it. As you know, many writers have been criticizing my way of ruling the empire. I want you to find all the writers that I have on this list and take them out.” He pushed a list over towards Timothius with a whole list of names. “This is my empire, and I won’t have anyone obstructing the peace with this libel. Make them realize that this isn’t a democracy, but a dictatorship and what I say goes.”
Timothius swallowed hard. In all his years serving the emperor, he’d never been asked to kill innocent people. While the emperor may claim that these writers weren’t innocent, Tim believed that they were and he couldn’t kill them with a clean conscience.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do that.”
“Excuse me?” the emperor said, anger in his voice.
“I said that I can’t do that,” Timothius repeated bravely. “You said, ‘if you choose to accept,’ and I don’t accept.
The emperor gave an unhappy sigh. “That’s just for show. It sounds cool.” He glared at Timothius. “You do know what happened to the last person that refused to obey one of my assignments, don’t you?”
Timothius nodded solemnly. He had heard of the infamous secret agent, Travis, who had infuriated the emperor by refusing to obey orders. He was later thrown to a pit of sharks by the emperor himself.
“Then why are you refusing to obey?” the emperor asked.
“Because, I can’t go against my conscience. Risking my life for the empire is one thing, going against my moral beliefs is another.”
“I feared that it would come to this,” the emperor shook his head.
Suddenly, Tim felt himself being grabbed by strong hands. He looked up and saw two, strong guards above him.
“Take him to the dungeon,” the emperor commanded.
They drug him out of the emperor’s office and down into the dungeons
“Help! Somebody help me!” Timothius called. They knocked him on the head and he slumped to the floor. Then they dragged him, unconscious, towards the dungeon.

Cathy knew something had to be up when she saw Ryan at the mall, and she was doubly confirmed when she glimpsed Laz slipping into the crowd. Perhaps they were there to save her, or maybe they were working for the emperor.
She was waiting in the mall for some information about the emperor that a certain reporter was supposed to hand to her at this spot, but the report hadn’t shown yet and she was getting worried. Plus, there was a young brunette that Cathy was sure was watching her. Cathy glanced back up to where the brunette had been a second ago and noticed that she had disappeared. That could be a bad sign.
Cathy started to move, that reporter wasn’t going to show up she decided. She reached into her pocket and, to her surprise, found a two-way radio in her pocket. Curious, Cathy took the radio out of her pocket and spoke into it. “Who is this?” she asked.
“A friend,” came a familiar voice.
Cathy sighed. “It’s you, Ryan.”
“Yes, how did you know?”
Cathy rolled her eyes. “Wild guess?”
Ryan didn’t respond for a minute and then his voice came through the radio again. “Cathy, you’re in danger.”
“You can say that again.”
“Okay, Cathy, you’re in danger.”
“No that’s not what I… oh, never mind.”
“Anyways, you need to follow my directions exactly. There’s a sniper watching you at this very moment.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Instinct,” Ryan replied. “Instinct, my girl.” He paused. “Actually, I have no idea, I was just guessing.”
Normally, Cathy would have made some sort of remark, but she was worried right at the moment. “So, how do I get out of here?”
“Follow my instructions,” Ryan ordered. “Bend over like you’re tying your shoes.”
Cathy frowned. “I’m wearing flip flops.”
“Just do it, okay! They’ll lose you in the crowd.”
Cathy obeyed and bent over as if to tie her shoes.
“Now,” Ryan continued. “Crawl around like you lost something and make your way to the bathroom.”
Cathy followed his instructions and slipped inside the ladies’ bathroom. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now, wait for my signal and make a break for the door.”
Cathy started to panic. “But what if the people decide to come in here before you give the order?”
“Then you’ll probably die,” Ryan replied. “Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud?”
Cathy glowered and would have strangled him if he were within reach. “I hate you,” she growled.
“You’re not the first person to say that,” Ryan admitted.
“You are impossible!” Cathy hissed into the radio.

To be continued next week...

Mission 3 Part 8

Two random people happened to be in the valley that night, whose names were Jack and Jill. Their view of the explosion is recorded here for the readers’ benefit.
Jack and Jill lied down in the grass and watched the stars every night, little did they know that this seemingly sweet and romantic habit would bring about their ugly and horrible deaths. This is their sad, and at the same time somewhat funny, story. (Hint: if you believe that romance is something sacred and that it should be cherished, the next part might possibly offend you; so you might be advised to skip it. If you want to hear the authors make fun of love, then go ahead and read all of it.)
“Look at that star,” said Jack, holding his sweetheart, Jill’s hand. “It’s so beautiful, just like you.”
“Thank you sweetie,” Jill replied, blushing, or Jack imagined that she blushed; it was too dark to tell. “No star could be as sweet as you.” To this day no one knows what Jill meant by that, as stars do not have the ability to be sweet, anymore than you or I have the ability to fly; but they say love makes on blind, so we’ll just go with it.
Suddenly, there was a loud explosion nearby. “What was that?” Jack cried, jumping up.
Jill jumped up beside him, hugging him in fright. She wasn’t actually frightened but was pretending to be so she could cling onto Jack. Why she didn’t just cling onto Jack because she wanted to and stop pretending she was frightened is unknown.
“What’s that weird cloud in the sky?” Jack asked. “It looks like a mushroom, strange.”
“Maybe it was a meteorite,” Jill suggested. They both agreed that that was what it was and were all set to skip towards the explosion hand in hand when they were suddenly blown to pieces. Thus ending their rather explosive night, no pun intended… actually it was intended, but never mind.

Back inside the helicopters, the IMF agents also saw and heard the explosion; unlike Ryan, Laz, Jack, and Jill, though, they were too far away to be harmed. Emmy jumped and gave Kayla a scared look.
“There’s no way they made it back in time, is there?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.
Kayla shook her head sadly. “No,” she said, choking back tears. “I don’t think so.”
Timothius, who was also on the helicopter, swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Ryan was a good agent, a darn good one. He always succeeded, no matter how much he seemed to screw things up. And Laz, well Laz was his dopey sidekick, always there to screw things up and then fix them right alongside him.”
Emmy sobbed on Kayla’s shoulder. “I can’t believe they’re gone.”
Jordan, their pilot, was also a bit shaken up. “Ryan and I went through school together,” he said, his voice cracking. “I never thought it would end like this.”
Over in the second helicopter, the other IMF agents were also mourning Ryan and Laz’s death.
“I can’t believe it,” Christophear said in shock. “I really thought they were gonna make it.”
Zach slumped downed onto the floor of the helicopter. “So did I.”
Pat sighed. “He was a good agent, good enough to fool me.”
M and Q, who were chained up inside the helicopter, were the only ones who seemed happy.
“I knew he would die eventually,” M smiled.
“Would you just shut up!” Cathy snapped. “Two men just died and you’re happy! You are a said excuse for a human being!”
“Don’t fret over them,” Michelle advised. “They won’t listen, they’re just evil.”
“Those two deserved to die anyway,” Q commented. “They were said excuses for agents, always making mistakes and smart aleck comments in serious situations. They were a couple of bumbling morons.”
Cathy angrily reached up and smacked Q across the face.
“Thank you,” Chris said.
“If she doesn’t keep quiet, I’ll do it again,” Cathy threatened. The fire in her eyes told Chris that she wasn’t joking.

A couple of days later, the whole IMF team sat in one of their own hideouts that Timothius had designed and built. Pat had left them when they reached the airport, Timothius had suggested that he come with them, but Pat disinclined.
“He wouldn’t understand,” Pat said, referring to the emperor. Timothius had to agree with that one. The emperor was not a very forgiving man.
Everyone was still broken up over Laz and Ryan’s deaths. They were watching the news at the moment to see if the explosion was to be reported.
“Here it is, quiet everyone,” Emmy shushed everyone.
“There was a nuclear explosion a couple of days ago,” the reporter informed them. “In the outskirts of , no deaths were reported as it was an unpopulated area.” The reporter paused and moved on to a different story. “Now to our main story, Britney Spears shaved her head again and has decided to donate it to the Woman’s Breast Cancer Society this time. Some experts say, however, that she would have been able to donate more hair if she had shaved her back instead…” Kayla shut off the TV.
“That’s it?” Michelle spoke for all of them.
“They didn’t even report them dead, or how they saved who knows how many lives.” Timothius shook his head.
“Some tribute to two great warriors,” Emmy agreed.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“Who’s that?” Cathy asked.
“I don’t know,” Timothius admitted, puzzled. “I wasn’t expecting anyone, this is a secret hideout, so no one should no where it is.” He pulled his Glock out of his holster and walked towards the door. He pulled it open and on the other side were two strange men; one of them was carrying a pizza box.
“Pizza’s here!” the one carrying the pizza said, his voice sounded familiar somehow.
“I didn’t order pizza,” Timothius said. He quickly grabbed the pizza and placed it inside, however.
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” the man who was holding the pizza said. He motioned to the other guy beside him. Together, they started to tear their faces off, but, as anyone who has read any of these stories would know, they weren’t really their faces, but masks. They pulled of their masks to reveal none other than… Ryan and Laz!
Timothius stared at them for a minute, almost unable to comprehend what was before his eyes.
“Ryan and Laz!” he finally managed. The others all come rushing towards them. Ryan and Laz stepped inside and closed the door. They were immediately met with a thousand questions, hugs and even kisses. Emmy kissed both of them on the cheek and hugged them.
“I’m so glad you’re both alive!” she exclaimed, expressing everyone’s opinion.
Laz wiped her kiss of his cheek. “Oh gross, that is disgusting! Just because we almost died you don’t have to get all emotional!”
Emmy gave a mock look of hurt and surprise, “I was just glad that you two are alive.”
“But still,” Laz said, a grin spreading across his face. “A hug and now a kiss? That’s like way overboard.”
Ryan shrugged. “Who cares? We’re back, let’s party. Halo 3 anyone?”
After everyone was done welcoming them back, Ryan and Laz sank down on the couch.
“This coming back from the dead thing is a real workout,” Ryan said.
“No kidding,” Laz agreed.
“Wait,” Kayla said. “How did you guys do it?”
Ryan and Laz looked at each other and shrugged. “Should you take this one or should I?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll take it,” Laz replied. He turned towards Kayla and said, “We don’t really know; in all reality it doesn’t make any sense.”
Kayla rolled her eyes and tried to frown, but she couldn’t. “I should have known,” she laughed.
They all sat down together and started talking excitedly. It was just like you would picture a perfect ending to a story. Except not all was as it seemed. If one of the IMF agents had been watching Cathy closely, they would have noticed that she seemed a little fidgety, like she was hiding something. However, none of the IMF agents watched Cathy very closely and this went unnoticed.
“Yo,” Jordan said, suddenly hopping up. “That pizza’s getting cold. Let’s eat it.”
They all agreed to this and Timothius instantly produced a bottle of apple cider to wash it down.
“I propose a toast,” Timothius announced. “To Ryan and Laz, two agents, and dear friends, who seem to have death by the tail.”
Ryan grinned. “Yeah, Laz and I, we’ve got death’s number for sure.”
They all drank and started eating pizza, and playing Halo 3, until they were so tired that they had to go home.
By now it was dawn and the sun was just starting to come up.
Ryan went outside, beckoning Laz and Emmy to follow him. “Check out my new ride,” he said proudly. He pointed to a shiny, new Porsche, just like the old one he’d driven in . “It’s just like the other one, and most importantly, we can all ride in it.”
Emmy smiled. “That’s awesome.”
Ryan slipped on his trademark shades and gave his trademark grin. “Of course it’s awesome, it was my idea, remember?” They all laughed and the three of them hopped into the car together and rode off into the sunrise.
As they were driving, Emmy suddenly asked Ryan and Laz, “so, you two just survived almost certain death once again, what’re you gonna do next?”
Ryan and Laz looked at each other and smiled. “We’re going to Disneyland!”


Epilogue: Several months later, Timothius sat down at his desk, still running on an adrenaline high from their last mission. The last mission had been good; they hadn’t lost a single man, period. Plus, they had accomplished their goal. He sighed happily and started to clean up his desk. Suddenly, he came across a large, unmarked manila envelope with something heavy inside. Funny, he didn’t remember putting that there before. Surprised, he opened it up and shook out the contents, inside was a small handheld device, and a note from someone. Timothius picked up and read the note first. It read:

Dear Timothius,
I’m sorry to bring you into this, but you’ve always been a good friend and I didn’t know whom else to turn to. I think I’m in over my head on this one, please help me. If you don’t want any part of it, then just give the package back to me and forget you ever saw it.
Sincerely,
Cathy




The End?

A short story by Ryan Maples and Tim Danford
©2007 Maples/Danford Productions*
*A subdivision of Killer Whale Studios

Mission 3 Part 7

The woman gave a wicked grin. “We meet again IMF agents, for the last time.” She laughed evilly and added, somewhat anti-climactically, “Actually it’s M, not Q.”
“Wow,” Laz said, scowling. “That was cheesy, ‘we meet again IMF agents, for the last time, ha, ha, ha.” I mean wasn’t that in a cartoon movie or something? Surely you can do better than that.”
M scowled back. “How about this? Shut up or you die.”
Laz gulped. “Works for me.”
M tapped her foot on the floor. “So, what exactly did you do with my sister?”
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know; what did we do with her?”
“We have her on the helicopter,” Emmy explained.
“Good, bring her to me,” M said in an evil voice. “So I can shoot her.”
“Ah, sisterly love,” Ryan replied sarcastically.
“Shut up, Cruise,” M snapped. “I’ve got something special planned for you.”
Kayla’s mouth was still wide open. She was the only one who was aware enough to be fully amazed. “Wait, how did you get here?”
M laughed, eager to tell her story. “I escaped from that pitiful jail by faking my own death.”
Ryan gave a knowing look. “I did that once,” he reminisced. “It was pretty cool, except for the fact that the other guy they put in the coffin with me was actually dead.” He shuddered.
M frowned. “Don’t interrupt! I’m trying to bask in my own self-imagined glory here!” She sighed and continued, despite the funny looks all the agents gave her after that last out burst. “So when I heard about my little twin sister’s plan to blow up the empire with the TNW’s, I knew I had to intervene… and take credit for the plan myself. I was just in the middle of doing that when you guys showed up.”
Ryan appeared to be thinking hard about something underneath the net.
M growled. “What is it, Cruise? You have a question?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, how much older are you than your sister? Like five minutes?”
M rolled her eyes and was about to comment about Ryan’s knack for saying all the wrong, and stupid, things and the wrong time when…
Pat burst through the door that the IMF agents had entered from.
“Hello there, Pat,” M said. “You’re just in time to see the whole IMF squad beg for their lives.”
“Pat, you traitor!” Ryan barked. “I knew it.” He glared at Timothius, who hung his head.
“I must say,” Pat laughed. “You all look ridiculous underneath that net.” He paused, reaching ever so slowly for his trusty Colt .45. “But not as ridiculous as you’ll look, M.” He drew his weapon and tried to get a shot off at M, but M was too quick. She shot Pat’s gun out of his hands before he could even shoot.
“Ow!” Pat groaned. The bullet had missed his hand, but the impact of it hitting the gun out of his hands still hurt him.
“I’m disappointed in you,” M clucked her tongue. “Taking sides with these pitiful agents. Too bad you guys won’t live to see what I’m going to do with these TNW’s,” she patted the suitcases next to her. “It would make your skin crawl off, literally.” She laughed her evil laugh again.
Just as all hope seemed to be lost and IMF appeared to be doomed, the two forgotten agents, Chris and Zach burst through the door that M had come through. They charged into M and sent her sprawling.
“Let’s see your skin crawl off, M,” Chris said, keeping his automatic rifle trained on her as Michelle freed the other IMF agents.
“We took care of the conductor,” Zach informed them. “The train should be coming to a halt any time now.”
“Good,” Kayla said, crawling out from underneath the net with Zach’s help. “We need to get these TNW’s out of here.” She spoke into a radio clipped to her flak vest, “Jordan, Joy, get ready to land; we’re stopping the train.”
“Roger that,” said Jordan’s voice.
“Oh crap,” Ryan exclaimed.
“What?” everyone asked.
“One of these nukes has a timer on it,” he told them.
“How much time?” Laz asked.
“Five minutes.”
“I don’t think I can disable it that fast.”
“We’ve got to get it out of here,” Kayla urged. “It will destroy everything within a one mile radius! Including us!”
Ryan grabbed the suitcase with the timer on it and started to run back the way they had come.
“What’re you doing?” Cathy asked.
“Getting rid of it,” Ryan replied. “Five minutes should be plenty of time for the Porsche to get one mile from here.”
“Don’t do it, Ryan!” Laz called. “You’ll never make it back in time!”
“Just stop whining and tell me where the closest unpopulated area is,” Ryan said, continuing to ran to the back of the train.
“Go east about two miles and you’ll reach a completely unpopulated area,” Laz informed him while trying to keep up. “Let me go with you,” he pleaded.
“Not this time,” Ryan shook his head.
“What happened to dopey sidekick?”
Ryan had reached the Porsche now and he unhooked it from the ramp and hopped in. “Not this time, Laz.”
Laz stubbornly opened the door and climbed inside. “You’re not leaving without me.”
Ryan smiled. “You’re a very stubborn, dopey sidekick.” He backed off the train, which had come to a complete stop by now, and turned east.
“Wait,” Emmy called, running up to the ramp as he backed off. “Don’t go!”
But Ryan and Laz were already off, racing to the spot where there was the least population.
“I never got to say goodbye,” Emmy sniffed.
“Its okay,” Kayla comforted her. “They’ll be back, trust me.” She watched them earnestly as they drove off. “I hope,” she added quietly
Timothius shook his head sadly. “I don’t think they can make it back in time.”
Kayla glared at him. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry, I was just saying.”
“Try saying something encouraging then, bro,” Christophear advised, coming up from behind them with a handcuffed M in front of him.
Michelle nodded. “They’ll be okay, Emmy, you’ll see.”

Ryan drove as fast as he could to the spot where Laz told him to go. They reached it with about one minute left on the timer. Ryan tossed the TNW out of the window and turned around.
“We’re not going to make it, Ryan,” said Laz, seeming somewhat stunned.
“Well, it’s been fun Laz,” Ryan said. “And hey, we at least know what to expect. I mean, we’ve been through this before. I wonder if we’ll see any flowers this time?”
Laz nodded slowly.
Ryan raced as fast as he could back the way they’d come, but he knew it was all for nothing.
“Laz,” Ryan said.
“What?” Laz asked.
“We’re gonna die again, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“This could get old after awhile, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, probably.” And suddenly the nuke exploded, and their world was engulfed in darkness.

To be continued next week...

Mission 3 Part 6

Emmy followed him as close as possible in the limo while relaying directions to Ryan via their ear buds.
“You’ll never catch it,” Q taunted. “It’s scheduled to depart right about now. You’re too late.”
“Shut up,” Chris growled.
“You think you’re so tough, boy?” Q laughed.
Chris growled again and reached towards his belt, he pulled out a Tazer gun and promptly tazed her. Q slumped against the window, unconscious.
“Thank you,” Michelle said.
“No problem,” Chris replied.
“Have him turn left here,” Pat ordered. Emmy did as she was told. Soon they arrived at a train station, where the train that was loaded with TNW’s was ready to depart.
“Hurry, catch that train before it leaves!” Kayla urged, hopping out of the limo and running towards the train. Ryan and Laz were already ahead of her. The whole team charged towards the train. The ticket holder held them up, however.
“Hold on a minute!” the ticket holder exclaimed, not allowing them to pass through the gate in order to board the train. “You can’t board that train until I see some tickets.”
“But, we don’t have time!” Kayla nearly screamed. “We’re from IMF, just let us through!”
“Ha,” the ticket holder laughed. “You think that by making up some government name that you can talk me into letting you in here? Why didn’t you at least use the F.B.I. or something?”
“I hate it when this happens,” Ryan groaned. He turned to Kayla. “We don’t have time for this, I’m going after that train.”
“How? We can’t just kill the ticket holder, he’s just doing his job.”
The train was starting to leave the station now and time was running out.
Ryan grinned. “You take care of the ticket holder, nicely. I’ll see how this baby goes on the open road.” He jerked his thumb towards the Porsche.
Ryan ran over to the Porsche and hopped in.
“Wait!” Laz called. “Let me come!”
“No way,” Ryan shouted. “It’s too dangerous.”
“How’s it any dangerous than what we were going to do in the first place?”
Ryan started to answer and then stopped. “You know, I’m sure there’s a great response to that, but I can’t think of one right now.”
“So I can come?”
Ryan shook his head. “No,” and then he was off.

Meanwhile, Timothius was trying to persuade the ticket holder to let them through.
“Say,” Timothius said with a sly grin. “Do you want some gum?” he held up a piece of red and green gum.
“Sure,” the ticket holder said.
“Tim!” Kayla yelled. “Don’t!”
Tim threw up his hands. “I was just kidding!”

Ryan raced towards the train in his Porsche and hopped the tracks until he was right up next to it. The train was gathering speed now and he was having difficulty keeping up. He managed to keep pace with it though and get right up next to the back end.
“Okay,” Ryan said to himself. “Now what?” He sighed. “I should think these things through more.”
Suddenly, Ryan could hear the sound of a helicopter flying above him. No, scratch that, two helicopters. He looked up to see who they were. To Ryan’s great relief, they were both bearing the IMF insignia on the side.
“Yeah Jordan, I love you man!” Ryan exclaimed. Ryan couldn’t see who was piloting the second helicopter, but he had a hunch that it might be Joy.
The helicopter flew right above the train and someone dropped from a cable onto the top of the train, he or she instantly grabbed onto to any handhold that he or she could find so he or she would not be blown off.
Ryan squinted as hard as he could to see who it was, but he could not see who he or she was, as it was too dark. Thus we will have to continue to refer to the mystery person as he or she, as we do not yet know the gender of the person and would not want to be partial towards either side and possibly cause an unintentional and ugly battle of the sexes on our blog.
The person crawled carefully to the very back of the train and he or she motioned for Ryan to pull up behind the train.
“Hop onto the tracks, is he crazy?” Ryan cried. “Or she,” he added. Ryan shrugged. “Well, I’ve never met anyone more crazy than me, so what the heck?”
He hopped onto the track and traveled bumpily towards the train. The person, who had still not been designated male or female yet, appeared to unhook something. All of the sudden, a ramp fell down from the train, right in front of the Porsche. Sparks flew up in the air from where the ramp was rubbing against the tracks and there was a loud screeching noise.
“What’s a ramp doing on a train?” Ryan wondered aloud. He shrugged; he’d seen weirder things before. Ryan pulled up onto the ramp and the person, who was now recognizable enough to be classified as a woman, hooked the Porsche onto the back of the train so it would not fall off.
Ryan jumped out of the car and onto the very back end of the train. “Hey, thanks for the lift,” he thanked the girl standing there.
The girl looked up, revealing her face, it was Cathy. “No problem, the others are already boarding the train now, let’s go.”
They busted open the back door of the train and stepped inside. Two guards quickly met them; Ryan pistol-whipped the first one with his Glock and Cathy shot the second one.
“Nice,” Ryan commented.
“Thank you,” Cathy replied. “Come on, we need to find those TNW’s, they could be anywhere on this train.”
They went from car to car, searching for any sign of the TNW’s, but all they found were vicious guards. They quickly took care of these and continued searching. The next door they came to was already open.
“Careful,” Ryan warned. “Don’t just charge in there; they could be waiting for us.”
They snuck in carefully and ran straight into Emmy and Kayla.
“Emmy! Kayla! Am I glad to see you!” Cathy exclaimed. Ryan agreed wholeheartedly.
“Have you found the TNW’s yet?” Cathy asked.
Emmy shook her head. “Not yet, we’ve searched all the cars except this last one ahead of us,” she pointed towards the next doorway. “Timothius is setting a charge on that one right now.”
The followed her finger and saw that Timothius was planting explosives on the door in front of them. The reason they were blowing the door open, as they could now see, was because the door was made out of steel and wouldn’t budge otherwise.
Laz and Michelle were standing beside Timothius, helping him set the charges. “This has to be it,” Laz said excitedly. “All the other doors are wooden. Why else would this one be made of steel?”
“And it’s the only car we haven’t searched,” Michelle added.
Ryan counted all of them over and over again; he frowned. “Are we missing someone?”
“Chris and Zach were dropped off at the very front so they could deal with the conductor and stop the train,” Kayla explained. “I’m not sure where Pat is.”
“I knew he would run off the first chance he got,” Ryan glared at Timothius.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be back,” Timothius assured him, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Timothius stepped back and motioned for them to do the same. They all gathered in the car behind them and shut the door. Ryan noticed that Timothius was wearing a shiny, new Rolex watch.
Ryan grinned. “I’ve been wanting to use that one.”
“All right everyone shield your ears!” Timothius commanded. He turned the dial on his watch and a couple seconds later there was a loud explosion and the door burst open.
Timothius opened the door of the car that they were in and walked slowly into the next car with his assault rifle ready. They rest of the team followed close behind him. They crept quietly through what was left of the steel door and looked around. There in front of them were five… suitcases.
“Wait,” Zach said. “These aren’t TNW’s, these are suitcases!”
“They’re small nukes,” Ryan said, with a knowing look. “That’s what the T stands for, Transportable Nuclear Weapons.”
“No,” Timothius shook his head. “It stands for Tactical Nuclear Weapons.”
Ryan folded his arms defiantly. “Well I think transportable makes more sense.”
“Well,” Emmy said. “Let’s go get them.”
“Wait,” Kayla warned, but it was too late. Emmy stepped forward towards the TNW’s and suddenly they heard a clicking sound. A net with heavy weights on the ends fell from the ceiling and trapped everyone in the room underneath it.
“She booby-trapped it!” Emmy cried.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Kayla said.
Emmy pushed out her bottom lip and gave an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly the door in front of them burst open and a woman stepped forward.
“Q!” they exclaimed.

To be continued next week... which means it will be posted next week... as in on Tuesday... at whatever time.

Mission 3 Part 5

Ryan frowned as if in disbelief. “M, how did you get here?” Ryan asked. “And why aren’t you dead?”
Laz, who was listening from above, gasped. “M! How did she escape?”
“I am not M,” said the woman that looked exactly like M.
Ryan looked confused. “Then, who are you?”
“Q,” the woman replied. “ M’s identical twin.”
Ryan frowned. “No kidding?”
The woman, who was Q, shook her head.
“So, you’re like M’s eviler twin?”
“Something like that,” Q nodded. “And smarter as well.”
“Humble too, eh?” Ryan quipped.
Q proved herself to be quite a bit nastier too, as she reached up and slapped Ryan across the face.
“First time you’ve been slapped by a girl?” Q taunted.
“Actually,” Ryan replied, not in the least bit flustered. “It’s not. I have to say though,” Ryan continued. “That you are the better looking twin. I mean your sister was definitely something to behold but you, girl. You have got it going on, if you know what I mean.”
Surprisingly, Q seemed somewhat flattered by this. “It seems that even nasty little secret agents like you, Cruise, have some sense of chivalry. And for that, I think I’ll keep you alive.”
“Why thank you, I really appreciate that,” Ryan said somewhat sarcastically.
Just then Laz jumped out from hiding and shot the guards standing by Ryan’s shoulders. He grabbed onto the ceiling and hung there, picking off the guards by the doorway. Ryan grabbed his Glock from his waist and trained it on Q. “Don’t move,” he warned.
Q put her hands in the air, but did not seem afraid. “You’ll never get out of here alive. There are too many guards for you two alone to overcome.”
“Oh yeah?” said a voice. “Not anymore.” Two girls came charging in, each brandishing assault rifles.
“Emmy? Kayla?” Ryan exclaimed in wonderment. “How?”
“We knew you guys couldn’t do this by yourself,” Kayla said.
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Laz mumbled.
“It was simply impossible, even for you,” Kayla continued. “So we, or Cathy actually, convinced the emperor to send some backup. We’ve already taken out most of the guards. I’ll never know how Cathy did it, though. The emperor was so set on leaving you guys to do it by yourself.”
Ryan cuffed Q and then looked up at them questioningly. “But, how’d you get here so fast?”
They opened their mouths as if to explain and then stopped. They looked at each other and just shrugged. “We don’t know,” Emmy said.
“In all reality it doesn’t make any sense,” Kayla finished in a mocking voice.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Ryan fake laughed.
They walked out of the room with Q in tow. Laz, who had been quietly watching the whole scene, suddenly remembered something. He was still hanging from the ceiling.
“Uh, guys,” he called. “Guys a little help, please?” The three of them just continued walking. Laz sighed. “I hate you guys.” He braced himself and then let go of the ceiling. He hit the floor with a thud. “Ow,” he groaned.
Just then Ryan poked his head in the room. “Come on, Laz. Hurry up.”
Laz just glared.

While all this was going on, Timothius was following Pat’s escort. As he went he was careful to stay out of sight and jam all the cameras before they could see him. The guards halted when they came to a steel door and one of them started to unlock it.
Timothius decided that it was time for action. He pulled out his silenced rifle and took out the guards. Thankfully, none of them ever thought to glance behind them and they were all disposed of rather easily.
“Finally,” Pat said. “I was wondering how long you would wait before taking them out.”
Timothius frowned. “Wait, you knew that I was following you?
“Of course, I’m not as stupid as these guards. Now help me out of these handcuffs.” He held up his hands.
“Why are you Q’s prisoner?” Tim asked. “You’re the bad guy.”
“I was, but I’ve had some time to think while I was in that jail. I still hate the empire, but I don’t want to blow up all those innocent people. I may have tried to kill the emperor, but never innocent citizens. When I told Q that, though, she wasn’t very happy. So she had me locked up.”
Timothius stared at him, searching for the truth. Pat met his gaze, never blinking. “Okay,” Timothius finally said. “I believe you.” He freed Pat from his chains.
“Thanks, Chris,” Pat said.
“It’s Tim, actually.”
“I mean Tim, of course,” Pat apologized.
“Don’t worry about it, come on, let’s find…” he trailed off. There in front of him was Cathy.
“Cathy?” Timothius exclaimed.
“Hey Tim,” Cathy greeted him. Then she frowned. “What’s he doing here?” she pointed at Pat.
“He’s our friend now. What’re you doing here?”
Cathy smiled. “Saving you guys, come on.” She ran off, motioning for Tim to follow.
“Wait,” Tim called. “Who said we needed saving?”
“I did,” Cathy called back.
Tim ran to catch up with her, with Pat close on his heels. “What’s going on?”
Cathy explained on the run. “I convinced the emperor to send us girls to help you out. Don’t worry; we’ve taken out most of the guards. You have the location of the TNW’s, right?”
Timothius shrugged. “I don’t know, is Ryan with you?”
Cathy shook her head. “I don’t know, the others are waiting by the car, let’s go see.”
“I know where the TNW’s are going,” Pat spoke up.
“You do?” Tim and Cathy exclaimed in unison.
“Yeah, Q told me about it before she had me imprisoned.”
They went outside and there was the whole team waiting for them. Chris and Zach were sitting there with the car still, Kayla and Emmy were talking with Ryan and Laz, and Michelle was sitting in the back of the car. Q was there too, chained to the door and glaring at them with all her might.
“I know where the TNW’s are going!” Ryan exclaimed. Then he saw Pat. “What’s he doing here?” he growled.
“Pat’s our friend now, and he knows where the TNW’s are too.”
“Our friend?” Ryan protested. “Since when?”
“Ryan’s right,” Emmy agreed. “He tried to kill us.”
“Just trust me, he’s changed,” Tim pleaded.
Ryan folded his arms and looked like he wasn’t going to give in. Then he sighed. “Oh, what the heck. If does anything dumb we’ll just shoot him.”
Pat cringed. “You better not, I know where the TNW’s are going.”
“So do I,” Ryan shot back.
“Not if you got the information from the computer, it’s wrong. Q even told me herself.”
“You’re lying!” Q spat.
“No he isn’t,” Michelle spoke up.
Everyone turned to face Michelle; she only spoke up when it was something important.
“How do you know?” Ryan asked.
“Because, I can feel it,” Michelle said, somewhat sheepishly.
“I believe her,” Chris offered. Everyone else nodded in agreement.
Ryan looked at Pat. “So you mean to tell me, that all that Laz and I went through was for nothing?”
Pat thought about it for a while. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Ryan scowled. “So where are they headed?”
“Same place, just a different route,” Pat replied. “They’re going to the airport by train. That’s our best chance to catch them. Once they’re airborne, it’ll be tough.”
Ryan nodded. “All right, everyone in,” he ordered. He jumped into the driver’s seat and everyone piled into the limo.
“I hate to leave our car behind though,” Emmy lamented.
“What car?” Ryan asked.
“The Porsche that we brought here, it was such a nice car.”
Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Emmy, you wanna take the wheel?”
“Sure, why?”
“I’m going to get that Porsche.” He turned to Laz. “Wanna come with me?”
“You want me to go with you?” Laz asked in surprise.
“Sure, I owe you one for shooting those guards. Besides, you’re my dopey sidekick, remember?”
Laz grinned. “Oh yeah.”
Moments later, Ryan and Laz pulled up alongside the limo in their Porsche, Ryan rolled down the window. “You guys ready to roll?” Ryan asked, lowering his incredibly cool-looking sunglasses.
Emmy giggled. “Ready when you are.”
“All right, let’s go, we’ve got ourselves a train to catch.” Ryan rolled up his window and peeled out of the parking garage.

To be continued next week...

Mission 3 Part 4

“Glad you’re so happy to see me,” Emmy replied sarcastically.
“No, no, it’s not that it’s just, wow did you ever scare me. What, how, why, I mean, when?”
“Don’t ask how, or why, or what, or anything else, just listen,” Emmy said.
“Okay, I’m listening,” said Tim, still in shock.
“The emperor assigned us to watch you, and give you help if you needed it, remember?” Emmy reminded him. “So he sent you with this handy dandy little device.”
“Oh yeah,” Tim said, remembering. “Why didn’t he tell me about the little device?”
“You mean he didn’t tell you? That’s funny.” Emmy shrugged. “Oh well, he just wanted to make sure everything was going according to plan.”
“Like the emperor’s plan?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, what else?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“We kind of changed the plan around, or Ryan did.”
“You mean we did,” Kayla suddenly came on screen.
“Kayla?” Timothius said, amazed.
“Yeah, it’s me. When the emperor laid out his plan, we all knew it was impossible, so me, Emmy, Cathy, and Shelly cooked up a plan to get you guys in there safely.”
Timothius nodded thoughtfully. “So, does Ryan get all his good ideas from you guys?”
Kayla thought about it for a while and then replied, “Pretty much, except for those stupidly brilliant ones.”
“Ah, I see.” Tim paused. “So why are you contacting me now?”
“Oh yeah,” Emmy smacked her forehead and laughed. “I almost forgot.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Ryan,” Timothius interrupted.
“Yeah, I know. Anyways, we came to warn you that Q is moving the TNW’s tonight, which means—”
“That we better get going and find out where they are,” Timothius finsished.
“Exactly,” Emmy clapped her hands together. “I love it when people finish my sentences before I even say them!”
“Thanks for the information,” Tim thanked them. “Anything else?”
“Nope, by now, and good luck,” Emmy waved at Timothius through the screen. Kayla waved goodbye too, and then they disappeared and the screen became black.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Laz were crawling through the air ducts as quietly as possible, making their way to the secret room. Suddenly they bumped into a wall; there was no longer any room to go forward but there were two “tunnels” so to speak, to the left and to the right.
“Which way?” Laz asked.
“Left,” Ryan replied confidently.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Ryan answered as they turned to their left. “I’ve got GPS.”
“Really?”
“No actually I was joking.”
“Oh,” Laz said. “I knew that.”

Timothius was peering underneath the door with another one of Ryan’s gadgets as he waited for Ryan and Laz to return. The gadget was a camera that was small enough to slip underneath the door so that Timothius could see what was happening on the other side without anyone seeing him. All of the sudden he saw a whole troop of guards marching by, and in their midst was a very familiar figure. “Pat?” Tim was of course surprised to see Pat here, but he was even more surprised to see him in chains. Being too curious to stay put, Tim decided to follow them and see where they were going.
He tapped on the handheld device, trying to turn it on. “Hello? Emmy, Kayla, where are you guys? How do turn this thing on?” He shrugged and put it back in his pocket. He went to the door and slowly pulled it open, quickly jamming all the cameras in the hallway. Then he crept out into the hall and started tailing the guards, forgetting all about the earpiece that Laz had given him, which was still sitting in the janitor’s closet.

While Tim was following Pat, Ryan and Laz were just arriving at the secret room, or rather, above it. So far they hadn’t run into any problems but now they were starting to run into some security. Laser beams blocked off the air duct leading to the grate above the secret room.
“Great,” Laz threw up his hands, or tried to, there wasn’t really enough room. “Now what?”
“Not to worry,” Ryan shook his finger. “I have a plan.” He pulled a strange-looking device out of his pack, which was still strapped to his back. “This will reroute the lasers,” he told Laz. He took the device and another one that looked just like it and clamped it onto the side where the lasers were projected. Almost instantly, they disappeared.
“Wow, that was cool,” Laz said in awe. “Great idea.”
“I know,” Ryan said, trying to be humble.
They continued until they came to the grate that was above the secret room. Laser beams blocked this to. Ryan simply repeated the process and removed the grate. He attached a cable to his flak vest and fed it through a pulley. “Here,” he handed Laz the end of the cable. “Lower me down.”
Laz obeyed and lowered Ryan down inside the room. There was a single computer in the room on top of a desk. Inside that computer was the information they needed to find the TNW’s; the only problem was that they didn’t know if they could get to it.
Laz slowly lowered Ryan down towards the computer. When he reached it, Ryan pulled himself over towards the computer and turned it on. Instantly, he was met with a prompt for a password.
“Dang,” he said, clamping a hand over his mouth as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He’d forgotten that the room had an alarm that was sound sensitive! The alarm did not go off, however, so much for state of the art. “It’s got a password lock,” Ryan whispered.
“What’d you expect?” Laz whispered back. Ryan couldn’t have heard him normally, but the earpiece enabled him to understand what Laz was saying.
“I don’t know, what do you think it is?”
“Let me have a hack at it,” Laz offered. “I was always pretty good at hacking into people’s accounts.”
“I know,” Ryan glared up at Laz. Ryan had caught Laz hacking into his computer many times before.
Laz whispered down several different passwords to try, but none of them were the right ones.
Suddenly, it hit him, literally. Deep in thought, Laz raised his head without thinking and banged it on the air duct. He shoved his hand up to his mouth to keep from crying out. Then Laz came up with a great idea. “Try this Ryan, ‘Emperor Q’”
Ryan typed in the password. “Access granted,” it read. “It worked,” he whispered excitedly. He quickly searched the computer until he found the file he was looking for. “‘Transportation of TNW’s’, here it is.” He read the file. “Uh-oh,” Ryan didn’t sound too thrilled.
“What?”
“They’re headed straight for the heart of the Touché Empire. Q’s going to blow up the whole empire!”
Laz gasped. “Come on, let’s get out of here.
“Hold on, let me copy all this information onto a disc so I don’t forget.” He inserted a disc and downloaded the file onto it.
Laz started to pull Ryan up as soon as he gave him the green light. When he was about halfway up, the rope started to fray. Laz was so intent on pulling Ryan up though, that he didn’t notice, until it was to late. The rope suddenly snapped and Ryan dropped heavily to the ground. Laz was thrown back and crashed against the side of the air duct. Not a second had passed before the alarms started to go off and guards could be heard making their way into the room. Two guards burst in and pulled Ryan, who was still dazed from his fall, to his feet.
“Well,” Ryan laughed nervously. “This is awkward. What do you say I just crawl back up there and we can forget this every happened.”
The guards didn’t respond but stared at him blankly. They stepped to either side of him as if waiting for someone. Before Ryan could ask whom they were waiting for, a woman stepped into the room, a terribly familiar looking woman. As she stepped inside, recognition flashed across Ryan’s face. It couldn’t be! It was M! ...

Mission 3 Part 3

A fancy, sleek limousine drove up to the front gate at the enemy country’s HQ. The guards looked at each other and shrugged; they walked up to the car and motioned for it to stop. One of the guards knocked on the window and the driver rolled it down. The driver took of his incredibly cool-looking sunglasses and smiled. “What’s up?” he said.
The driver was, of course, Ryan Cruise but the guards had no idea. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” the guard asked.
“Well man, I’m just following orders; you’ll have to ask the general why we’re here, exactly.”
The guards followed the jerk of Ryan’s thumb to the back seat. There was a man dressed in a general’s uniform sitting in between two bodyguards. In reality it was Tim sitting in between Zach and Chris, but the guard didn’t know that. “Well, sir,” the guard said in a little nicer voice. “Do you have an appointment? And can I have a name please, sir?”
“I most certainly do have an appointment,” Tim replied in a Russian accent. “And my name is General Vassili. I’m surprised that the director of HQ himself wasn’t here to welcome me.”
“We weren’t informed that you were visiting, sir,” the guard replied.
“What? Not informed?” Tim nearly exploded. “How can this be?” The bodyguards sitting beside the general remained calm but kept their hands by their weapons.
Meanwhile, Laz was working furiously in a secret compartment beneath the backseat, trying to hack into their computer system.
Tim continued to explode in a mix of Russian and English until Ryan quieted him down.
“Sir, it was a surprise inspection wasn’t it?” Ryan asked, stalling for time.
“No, no it was not. I distinctly remember scheduling an appointment.”
The guard was scrolling through a handheld computer. “Well sir, I’m not seeing an appointment on here…”
“Come on Laz,” Ryan whispered.
“Excuse me?” the guard said.
Ryan coughed. “Uh, I said, ‘don’t be such a spaz’.”
The guard frowned.
Ryan shook his head. “No wait, uh, never mind.”
Suddenly, one of the guards spoke up. “I found it, sir.”
“What?” the other guard asked.
“I found the appointment, sir,” the guard repeated.
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. “Good old Laz.”
Underneath them Laz was breathing a sigh of relief too. “Man that was tough,” Laz whispered to himself. He groaned. “Now I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You can go in now,” the head guard said. “We’ll have some guards escort you into your parking spot and then they’ll clear you for entrance into the facility.”
“Oh goody, goody gumdrops,” Tim replied.
The guard frowned once again. “I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind,” Ryan said. They drove over to the spot that the guards led them to and parked. The two guards opened the door and motioned for them to step out.
“We’re going to have to--” one of the guards began, but he didn’t finish because he was instantly kneed in the stomach and then knocked out by Christophear. The other guard received the same fate from Ryan almost immediately afterward.
As they were hiding the guards in a space that was randomly placed in the garage for hiding bodies, Timothius placed film in front of all the cameras that kept the cameras from spotting them.
“How’d I do?” Timothius asked, talking about his performance at the gate.
“Pretty good,” Ryan said. Then he frowned. “But, ‘goody, goody gumdrops’?”
Tim shrugged sheepishly. “I got a little carried away.”
“I’ll say.” Ryan paused and looked around. “Where’s Laz?”
Zach smacked his forehead. “I think we left him in the secret compartment of the car.”

After they had helped Laz out of the car, the five of them snuck their way into the elevator and up to the entrance.
“I knew you guys were going to forget me in there,” Laz complained. “I’m always forgotten. I was left behind on the motorcycle, in the Imperial Trade Center, and now in that car. I guess it’s just my lot in life, to be left behind.” Laz looked up and noticed that no one was listening to him, but were already way ahead of him. “Hey, wait up.”
“This could get tricky,” Ryan said when they reached the entrance. “We need a code to get in here and a key card.” He pulled a device out of his pack.
“What’re those?” Laz asked.
“Heat-vision goggles,” he replied, putting them on. “They’ll allow me to see which of the keys on this pad are the warmest, which means I’ll be able to tell what the code is.”
“Wow, I didn’t know you were that smart,” Laz said.
Ryan grinned and gave a modest shrug. “I guess I’m just full of surprises.”
“Actually, he isn’t that smart,” Timothius pointed out. “Emmy was the one that told him that.”
“Dang it, Tim, I told you not to tell them that,” Ryan snapped. “Oh, whatever.” He punched in some numbers on the keypad and then swiped the key card that they had taken from one of the guards through the slot. A bunch of green letters appeared on the screen. “Access granted,” it read.
“And we’re in, couldn’t have done it better myself,” Ryan announced.
“But, you did do it yourself,” Laz pointed out.
“Exactly,” Ryan replied. He started to go inside.
“Wait,” Timothius called.
“What?” Ryan asked.
“We can’t just charge in there with no plan at all.”
Ryan stared at him blankly. “Why not?”
“Because, we need assignments. Like, uh, Christophear and Zach, you two stay here and secure our exit.”
“Aw, how come we have to secure the exit?” Zach whined.
“Because, I don’t want to, and neither does Ryan,” Timothius replied.
“What about Laz?” Chris asked.
“Laz is my dopey sidekick,” Ryan said. “No offense, Laz.”
“None taken,” Laz shrugged.
“Where I go, Laz goes,” Ryan continued. We do everything together, we fight together, break into secret buildings together, die together, and even go out… never mind that last part. Anyways, Laz goes.”
“Bias,” Chris muttered.
Timothius just ignored him. “All right then, now let’s go in.”
“Wait,” Laz said, as if something had suddenly dawned on him. “Did Ryan just insult me?”

Ryan, Laz, and Timothius ducked inside the HQ and quickly made note of where the nearest cameras were.
Ryan tossed Timothius a strange looking gun. “Here, point this at the cameras and pull the trigger.”
Timothius obeyed. “What does it do?” he asked.
Ryan was already picking the lock on a door that happened to be nearby. “It jams the cameras for a minute or two, just long enough for us to get in here.” Ryan stopped and pointed at himself. “My idea.”
Timothius rolled his eyes. “Right, who really thought of it? Emmy, or Kayla?”
Ryan sighed. “You never believe me.” The lock on the door clicked and Ryan pushed the door open. “Okay fine, it was Kayla’s idea.”
“I knew it,” Timothius said.
“What room did you just break into?” Laz asked eagerly. “Is it Top-Secret? Is it the director’s office? Something exciting?”
Ryan gave him a look and they stepped inside. “It’s just the janitor’s closet, Laz. Keep your shirt on.” Indeed it was the janitor’s closet, complete with brooms, mops, and other assorted janitorial equipment.
Laz moaned. “Why did we break into the janitor’s closet?”
“Because there’s no alarms,” Ryan replied.
“That’s it?” Laz cried.
“No of course not,” Ryan looked offended. “Do you think I’d do something that dumb?”
Timothius coughed awkwardly after he said this. “Of course not,” he assured him, with only a little bit of sarcasm in his voice.
“We broke in here because this is how we’re going to get into that secret room,” Ryan said.
“How?” Laz asked, still skeptical.
“Through the ventilation system of course,” Ryan said, pointing towards the sealing. There was a large grate there, big enough for a man to crawl into. They quickly removed the grate and placed it on the ground.
“Timothius, you stay here and guard the room,” Ryan ordered.
“Why me?” Timothius asked.
“Because, dopey sidekick, remember?” Ryan pointed to Laz and then crawled up into the opening. Laz tossed Timothius a small earbud. “Here,” he said. “Stick this in your ear.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, because all the cool secret agents have them. Plus, we can keep in touch that way.” Laz pulled himself up into the hole.
Timothius sat down on the ground and sighed. This wasn’t going to be very fun, unless of course, the janitor came by. As he was sitting there, thinking that he’d much rather be crawling through the ventilation system with Ryan and Laz, his phone suddenly started talking to him. Or at least, he thought it was his phone, but he hadn’t brought his phone.
“Hello, Tim?” the voice said. It sounded remarkably like Kayla’s, but Tim couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.
“Let me try,” said another voice that sounded like Emmy’s. “Tim, down here!”
Tim reached into his pockets and pulled out everything he could find. He searched until he found a small, handheld device that looked somewhat like a PDA system. Instead of showing a background however, it showed Emmy’s face.
“Whoa, Emmy!” Tim cried with surprise.

Mission 3: Part 2

After Christophear and Zach pulled Ryan onto the helicopter, they continued on a ways until they touched down at an airport.
“Is this the country?” Laz asked.
Jordan frowned. “No, of course not. This is the airport. You didn’t think we’d fly all the way to the country in the helicopter did you?”
“No, no of course not,” Laz lied unconvincingly.
Jordan led them all to a plane and they strapped themselves into their positions. Jordan sat in the pilot’s seat, and a young lady made herself at home in the co-pilot’s seat.
“This gorgeous young woman is our co-pilot today,” Jordan informed them. “Joy, say hello to my favorite group of secret agents in the world.”
The woman waved to them from the cockpit. “Nice to meet you. Secret agents, huh? What organization?”
“IMF,” Ryan replied, lowering his shades just enough to wink at her.
“IMF, huh? Never heard of it.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Laz replied. “That’s what makes it so secret.”
Jordan started up the plane and they taxied down the runway. Before they knew it, they were airborne.
The ride was rather uneventful except for the constant bickering between all the IMF agents over a card game they were playing. Ryan was constantly shoving aces up his sleeve, which, for some reason, upset the other players. Meanwhile, Tim was stealing other people’s chips from behind their back. This ended in an all out brawl, in which Chris nearly threw everyone out of the plane.
“All of you shut up or I’ll throw you all out of the plane,” Chris bellowed.
Everyone instantly closed their mouths and sat down quietly until Jordan informed them that they were near their destination.
“Agents, we are nearing our destination,” Jordan informed them. “Strap yourselves up.”
The agents instantly grabbed their parachutes and put them on.
“These parachutes are in working condition, right?” Laz asked.
“Of course they are,” Zach replied.
Chris and Tim shrugged. “You never now,” they said in unison.
Ryan shook his head. “It’ll be fine. If you can survive a flaming building then you can survive a HALO jump.”
“Halo?” Laz said, brightening up. “I love that game. But what’s that got to do with jumping out of a plane?”
Timothius shook his head. “Not Halo, HALO. High Altitude Low Opening, that’s how all the secret agents do their jumps. It prevents them from being detected by enemy radars.”
“All right guys,” Joy said, turning around. “There’re a few things you need to know before you jump.” She put up one finger at the beginning of each point, or each paragraph. The first thing you need to do is,
“Strap yourself up, the next thing is to have,
“Patience, you need to wait for the right moment to pull the string, what you want is a,
“Low opening, this will prevent you from being detected.
“Always check out where you’re about to land before you hit the ground, make sure there’s no enemies there. And finally, when you hit the ground,
“Tuck and roll, to prevent an ankle injury.” She stopped and smiled. “Any questions?”
Laz raised his hand. “Yeah is it just me or does that spell SPLAT?”
Joy gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”
“I think what he’s trying to say is that the first letter of each point spells out SPLAT,” Chris said.
“Oh,” Joy said. “Never noticed that. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Well, get ready here’s the spot.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Laz said. But before he could protest he was shoved out of the plane. Ryan leaped out after him and all the rest of the agents quickly followed him, every one of them screaming their heads off.

Ryan landed on the ground a while later in a heap. He sprang up from the ground and shook off his parachute. Before he even had time to move though, Zach landed on top of him and knocked him over.
Ryan scrambled up and laughed. “Now, what are the chances--” but before he could finish Tim caoe from above and smashed into him. Ryan jumped up again. “Geez, how unlucky can a guy get?” As soon as he finished the question Christophear followed and sent him flying. “Would you people stop landing on me please?” Ryan yelled. “Where’s Laz?”
“I’m up here,” came a distraught voice. “Anyone wanna help me down?” They all looked up and saw Laz, hanging from a tree.
Ryan sighed. “Of course he got stuck in a tree.”

After they helped Laz out of the tree, the team crept along until they reached the outer fence of the enemy HQ. The top of the fence was lined with barbed wire and there were guard towers with spotlights positioned along the fence line. There was only one gate, which was guarded by four men, all armed with sub-machine guns. Inside the gate were several more guards patrolling the premises.
“This next part could be a little tricky,” Ryan said.
“‘A little tricky’?” Laz hissed. “That’s gotta be the understatement of the year. Crap, there’s gotta be almost forty guards in there.”
“Forty-five,” Ryan corrected him.
“Still, he’s got a point, that’s a lot of guys,” Zach pointed out.
“True, but I’ve got the perfect diversion,” Ryan said confidently. He pulled a few uniforms out of his pack. “Here, put these on.” He tossed them at the other agents.
Timothius looked at the uniform, it looked like it belonged to a general. “Cruise, what are we doing?”
Ryan grinned. “How good are you at acting?”

Ryan led them back down the road a ways where they found a black limo hidden in the bushes.
“Where’d this come from?” Laz asked, bewildered.
“I did a little planning ahead,” Ryan replied smugly, tapping his head with his finger.
“Yeah, but how’d you get it here?” Christophear asked.
Ryan opened his mouth to explain but then stopped. “I’m not exactly sure.” He rolled his eyes and started to uncover the care. “Oh, who cares? Just put on the uniforms and get in.”
“So what are we doing? This wasn’t in the plan,” Zach said as he was getting dressed.
“The emperor’s plan involved us getting shot full of holes,” Ryan replied. “This plan gets us in and out alive, hopefully.”
“What is the plan?” Timothius pressed.
Ryan folded his arms and grinned. “We all get in this limo and drive up to the gate. I’ll be the driver, Zach and Chris will be the bodyguards and Tim is the general.”
“General?” Timothius exclaimed.
“Yeah, the general who’s scheduled to come here for an inspection,” Ryan replied.
“What do I do?” Laz asked.
“You hack into their computer records and create an appointment for General Vassili,” Ryan ordered.
“Who’s General Vassili?” Laz asked.
“That would be Tim,” Ryan said. “Now, anymore questions?”
They all shook their heads.
“All right, let’s move....

Mission 3 Part 1

“So,” Timothius asked as he walked with Ryan to the motorcycle. “What’s this one about?”
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know. The emperor just said he’d need us on this one, Kayla to.”
Tim sighed. “Well okay, if you say so.” He got into his car along with Kayla and followed Ryan. When they got to the palace they hopped out and walked up to the large front gate. Ryan presented his ID. “We’re IMF,” he explained to the guard at the gate.
“You’re what?” the guard asked.
“Exactly,” Ryan replied. “Just keep it that way.”
Just then, Laz came running up to them. “Ryan, pant, the next time, pant, you make me run, pant, all the way here, wheeze, I’m going to kill you.”
“Hey,” Ryan threw up his hands and pointed to Emmy. “She needed a ride.”
“Well maybe next time I won’t let you ride on my motorcycle,” Laz shot back.
Ryan shook his head. “Laz, you don’t have a motorcycle.”
“So,” Laz retorted. “That’s not the point.”
“All right,” the guard said, hanging up a phone on the wall by the gate. “The emperor has told me to clear you. After you all pass a thumb print test, and an eye retina scan.”
Timothius shrugged. “Of course.”
“By the way,” the guard continued. “He also said you’re late.”

When they arrived at the emperor’s office the others were already there.
“Finally,” Jordan said.
Cathy, Christophear, Zach, and Shelleroo, also known as Michelle, all greeted them with nods. (Note: Shelleroo, or Shelly, or whatever has been changed to Michelle permanently due to the many complaints that have been made about the “funkiness” of her name. We apologize for any irritation and admit that it was a very funky name. We also want to say, it was all Oyi and Clari’s fault! Just kidding.)
“So,” Ryan ventured, flopping down on a sofa. “What’s new?”
Just then, the chair at the emperor’s desk that had appeared to be empty whirled around to face them, revealing the emperor. “You’re late,” he said, frowning.
Ryan gave his trademark grin. “Fashionably late.”
The emperor glared at him, then that glare started to fade away and slowly became a smile. “You’re right,” he shrugged. “Let’s get down to businesses then.” He paused and looked them over. “I’ll only be choosing some of you to go on this mission.”
“Then how come you made us all come here?” Laz asked.
The emperor glared at Laz, who shrunk back in his seat. “I’m only picking some of you,” he continued. “Because it wouldn’t make sense to send you all. Not because I think any of you are better than the others.”
“Why doesn’t it make sense to send all of us?” Ryan asked.
“Because we don’t need to risk losing all of IMF on one mission,” the emperor replied matter-of-factly.
“Say,” Ryan said suspiciously. “This isn’t a suicide mission or anything. Is it?”
The emperor hesitated. “No, no, of course not.”
“Okay, good, because I wouldn’t want to go on any suicide mission,” Ryan sighed in relief.
Timothius just stared at the emperor. That slight pause was more than enough to send warning bells off in his head. Was the emperor telling the truth? He doubted it.
“First of all,” began the emperor. “Cruise, you’re point man, as usual.”
Ryan gave smug look and leaned back in his chair. “Of course.”
“Laz,” the emperor continued. “You’ll be going with him.”
Laz pumped his fist and gave Ryan a high five. “All right.”
“Christophear and Zac, you’ll join them as well.” The emperor paused and looked at Timothius. “And Timothius, pack your bags, you’re going too.”
“Is that it?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” the emperor replied. “Kayla and some others will stay here and keep in contact with you. If the objective changes at all, she’ll let you know.”
“All right,” Ryan clapped his hands together. “Guys night out.”
“Excuse me,” Timothius raised his hand. “What is the objective?”
The emperor held up his hand and tapped a folder on his desk. “I’m getting to that.” He opened the folder and started reading. “Apparently, a dangerous villain, known as Q--”
“What’s with all these one letter villain names?” Ryan mumbled.
“Known as Q,” the emperor continued. “Has been smuggling TNW’s into an enemy country. His ultimate objective is to use those TNW’s against the Touché Empire. Your mission if you choose to accept it is to intercept those TNW’s and destroy them before they reach their destination. Bring back Q, alive. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Ryan raised his hand. “How do we know that Q is a he? Is Q a guy’s name or a girl’s name?”
The emperor sighed and ignored the question. “Any others?”
“Yes,” Laz raised his hand. “What country are we talking about?”
“You know,” Ryan said. “The enemy country.”
“Yeah, but what country?”
Ryan leaned over and whispered the name into Laz’s ear. “Oh,” Laz said, nodding. Then he frowned. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Because,” Ryan replied matter-of-factly, “It would offend the other country.”
Laz just gave him a confused look.
The emperor sighed and threw up his hands. “I swear, if you two weren’t so good at completing missions against all odds, including yourself, I’d have you both thrown out of IMF. Now Jordan will be providing you with transportation. Once there, you are on your own. If you are caught, the Touché government will disavow you, and deny all knowledge of your mission or that you were ever working for us. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” they replied.
“Ryan,” the emperor motioned for Ryan to come up. “Explain to them what exactly will have to be done to recover the location of the TNW’s”
“Okay boss,” Ryan replied. “First of all, once we get into the opposing country, we’ll have to lie low for a while. Once we’re sure that no one’s seen us, we’ll make our way to their SHP--”
Laz raised his hand. “What’s their SHP?”
“Their Secret Hiding Place,” Ryan replied smartly.
“Also known as their Head Quarters or HQ,” Tim said, a little annoyed.
“Whatever,” Ryan shook it off. “Inside their SHP is all the information about all of their secret plans, including the whereabouts of the TNW’s. We’ll have to get inside the building without setting off any alarms and find a way into the Top Secret Information room. This room is very special, because it has all kinds of high tech booby traps. The floors are weight sensitive, any unauthorized weight inside the room and it sets the alarm off. Also, any noise louder than a whisper will trigger the alarm.”
“Are you serious?” Zach asked, unbelieving.
“No not really,” Ryan admitted. “I got a little carried away there, but still the alarms are pretty state of the art. Not to mention there’s about a million guards, and the hallways are decked out with cameras. Plus, there’s code you have to use to get into the room, which we don’t have. And a key card used to get past security, which we don’t have. Oh, and don’t forget, we don’t even have clearance to get into the building period, let alone within twenty miles from it. Did I leave anything out?”
“Yeah,” the emperor replied. “There’s a laser beam that has to be deactivated before you can get into the hallway that contains the secret room.”
“Oh yeah,” Ryan said. “I forgot about that. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Kayla said, turning to the emperor. “You said something about this not being a suicide mission?”
“Seriously,” Tim agreed. “Sounds pretty impossible to me.”
“Hey man,” Chris quipped. “Its what we do.”
“Exactly,” the emperor nodded. “And that’s why I’ve picked you five. Now is there anyone who wants to back out?” He gave them a look that meant business.
They all shook their heads no.
“All right then, move out.”

Ryan, Timothius, Emmy, and Kayla were standing outside the helicopter, their hair flying in the wind from the whirling blades.
“Well,” Timothius said. “I guess this is goodbye.”
“Yeah,” Kayla said. “I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted. Just take care of yourself.”
“I will,” Timothius promised.
“Remember, Ryan,” Emmy said. “Don’t let them catch you, or…” she trailed off, unable to finish.
“Hey,” Ryan said confidently. “I’ll be back, you just make sure you’re still here.”
“I will,” Emmy replied. She hugged him. “Just don’t get caught,” she said, choking down tears. Emmy loosened her embrace and stepped back. “Guess you guys better get going, be careful.”
“Hey, you two,” Jordan shouted. “I’m leaving. Get in or you’ll be walking.”
Timothius waved to Kayla and climbed in. “Be careful, all of you,” Kayla said to Ryan as he turned towards the helicopter.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan replied, casually slipping on some shades. “We’ll be fine. What could go wrong?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Kayla whispered. Emmy nodded in agreement.
Ryan faced the helicopter and took a running leap at it. This time he caught the edge of it as it took off. “Ha, ha,” he yelled. “I did it!” Ryan tried to pull himself up, but to no avail. “Now what?”

To be continued...