Ninja sat in the fire department. The only sound was the tap of her own foot echoing through the empty building. The firefighters had run off before she had the chance to talk much to them, so she waited. She was having a hard time believing that the kidnapper had anything to do with fires, but she knew the meme-speaking criminal had not been misleading them when he directed them to ask the fire department about it.

While she waited, she decided to try to use her mind to find the orphans. She didn’t know who the kidnapper was, but she hoped she could recognize the kids whom she had already spent so much time with.

She closed her eyes, letting her consciousness reach out from the building. She’d have to find them by texture: it would be way too exhausting to listen to everyone she came into contact with. People were noisy enough by themselves. As she reached, she heard surface thoughts in Welsh accents, Where did I put my keys? Idiot Sandwich! Why clown shoes? Man, that lady has a huge mole. Why don’t I have anything good in the pantry? I want money. NO, NO, NO, don’t microwave that tea! I need to get some apples, too. Did they really forget my birthday? BUBBLES!!!

Spicy ran in, panting.

“Spicy, what’s wrong?”

Spicy waited in the shadows around the pub. She had studied Miracat’s arson patterns, and knew that this one would be next. It was only a matter of when the criminal would show up, which would hopefully be soon. The Welsh night air was freezing, and thunder boomed in the distance. She really didn’t want to be here when the storm hit.

Movement caught her eye. She turned to see a drunk couple, leaving the building.

“You’re so handsome! You should totally date me!”

“Linda, we’re married.”

Spicy chuckled. Drunk couples could be really cute sometimes. Sometimes.

“Oh, Spicy! Fancy meeting you here!” Miracat jumped down from the balcony, and landed neatly in front of Spicy. “So are you gonna let me kidnap you this time or what?”

“Um, I’m gonna have to decline that offer. How about I just bring you in for questioning instead?”

“Oh boo. You’re no fun,” Miracat pouted.

“Would you say that if you knew I had bubbles?” Spicy took off her bubble necklace and swung it around like a weapon.

“Bubbles? Do they hur—” Miracat was cut off as the bottle part of the necklace hit her shoulder. “Ow!”

“What’re you gonna do? Kick me? Didn’t work out so well last time did it?”

Miracat chuckled. “Oh, Spicy, you’re so naive. I’ve prepared this time. I don’t think I burn down enough buildings in one night. So I’ve decided to set every single building on this block on fire. I’ve got charges set and the timer is ticking. Before the hour is up, this whole street will be up in flames. That is… unless you let me take you.”

“What if I found all those charges and deactivated them before you got here?” Spicy questioned.

“Well… You didn’t. I literally just set the last one before I saw you and dropped in to say hello. So what’ll it be?”

“Why do you want to kidnap me again?”

“Questions later. Do you want the block to burn or not?”

“No.”

“Then come with me.”

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“Fine.”

Miracat squealed with joy “This is gonna be so fun! But I am gonna have to knock you out. Do you prefer chloroform or a hit to the head?”

“Excuse me? Chloroform only works in the movies.”

“Alright well I don’t actually want to give you a concussion, so I’m gonna use chloroform anyways.” Miracat lunged at Spicy with the cliche white cloth on hand, and stuffed it in the agent’s face. Spicy went unconscious immediately.

“Miracat… What is this?” A man’s deep voice questioned, waking Spicy. He had an American accent, not unlike Ninja’s.

“A present! I thought you might like to see the SAOTJSOGB’s top agent, out of your way!”

“What’s the SAOTJSOGB?”

“Secret Agents of the Junior Spies of Great Britain. You haven’t heard of it?”

“Why would I have heard of that?”

“Oh. I thought everyone knew…”

“What’s the point of this?”

“Well… um. She was put on your case with another spy? I don’t know where the other one is but I can find her too.”

“You were supposed to distract them, not bring them to me!”

“I didn’t bring both of them! I only brought one!”

A trash can outside rattled, then was silent.

After a pause, the man said, “Fine. Go back to distracting the other one. Make sure you keep her out of my way.”

“Will do!” Her footsteps ran off and disappeared.

Spicy took a second to process what just happened. How did the chloroform work? That’s only supposed to happen in the movies. Wait. Am I… She looked around, not seeing any cameras. That’s really weird… maybe it wasn’t chloroform?

“Don’t bother asking what my evil plan is,” the man said when he noticed that she’d awoken. “This isn’t the movies.”

“I know. That’s why I’m confused.”

“Well, I’m not inclined to help with your confusion, as I’m busy.”

“I’m busy too. Just gimme a sec to get over this existential crisis and I can get back to being a secret agent again, okay?”

“Don’t bother. I’ve studied espionage tactics for longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve made sure there’s no way you can get out of that seat. I won’t bother telling you why.” He then took a closer look at her. “Why, you can’t be more than thirteen, can you?”

“Excuse you sir, but I’m actually eight. They don’t call me junior agent for nothing.”

He screwed up his nose at her. “I don’t have time to be toyed with.” He strode out of the room without another word.

Spicy chuckled. She loved messing with her victims people. She looked around again, studying her surroundings. She was in a darkly lit room with untidy, weak-looking walls, surrounded by boxes and crates. The ceiling was high above her head, and it looked like a balcony or catwalk spanned either side of the room. In her particular corner, there was a desk, with a computer set-up and a file cabinet. No windows. But based on what she could see, she would guess that this was some kind of airplane hangar turned warehouse. And then the kidnapper had taken over.

Her seat was metal, her hands clamped to the arms so that her wrists were pinched, the skin around the cinch steadily whitening, and her fingertips reddening. She licked her lip, finding to her satisfaction that she still had her mustache. She wiggled her toes: they’d taken her shoes, but her ankles were free to move as she likes. She smiled. With her right foot, she pulled a slim bottle of bubbles out of her left sock.

Her secret weapon.

The jelly to her peanut butter.

Her custom-made acid bubbles. She might get hurt a bit, but at least she would get free.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” Ninja burst in, dropping the tracking monitor as she raced over to Spicy. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Dang it! I wanted the—” Spicy started, then thought, How did she know these would hurt me? I never told her these were acid bubbles.

Ninja stopped. She knew she’d crossed a line towards exposing her ability, but she still wanted to keep her secret to herself. On the other hand, the surprise had caught her too quickly for her to offer a plausible excuse, so she decided to ignore it for now and focus on the matter at hand. “Let’s get you out of that,” she said, pulling out some lockpicks.

“Alright. But I have questions when we’re done with this.”