“The island sub-structures are in sight,” Agent Fleming said. His scuba jet slowed down and eventually came to a halt, and he started to swim the rest of the way.

“Excellent work, Agent. I’ve marked a safe entry point on your scuba gear’s HUD,” his handler said. “You should be right next to my old lab.”

Fleming’s main point of contact with IM6, a tech expert only identified as Seven, had once attended this very school: the Einstein-Odinson Academy of Paracausal Forces.

“Sending me all this way to fetch a notebook you forgot in your desk, Sev?”

“Very clever, Fleming, but stay on target,” Seven insisted. “Your mission objective is to prevent someone at this school from successfully completing a Hadron projectile launcher. The weaponization of subatomic particles could have apocalyptic implications for warfare.”

A gun that could pierce any wall, any armor, and only gain lethal mass when it struck it’s target could forever alter warfare -and assassination. No one, anywhere, would be safe.

“Based on the purchase history we received from our informant, your most likely target is one Dr. Khaitan. He has a history of mental instability, and he’s an expert in the kind of particle physics necessary to make such a weapon.”

Agent Fleming reached the wall of the underwater superstructure and examined his surroundings. There seemed to be a fish resting among an odd collection of knickknacks on one of the nearby pods, but he paid no attention to that. A quick burst of superheated plasma from a cutter in Fleming’s utility belt sliced through the metal shell of the laboratory, and a projected bubble of energy kept the seawater at bay as he pried the loose section free and worked his way through. Thanks to the arsenal of tricks at his disposal, there was no situation Agent Fleming was not prepared for.

“You have limited time and limited resources, Agent,” Seven said. “This may be your most important mission yet. Don’t get distracted.”

“Seven, dear, I’m prepared for everything.”

As Fleming was in the middle of removing his wetsuit, the chamber door slammed open, catching Fleming with his pants down, literally. A young woman in a silver cardigan stepped through, looked in the room, and noticed Fleming in his boxers.

“Oh my,” Lee said, blushing as she turned away rapidly. “Terribly sorry.”

She bashfully backed away and slammed the door shut behind her. Harley stepped up and noticed the look on her face.

“So I guess that wasn’t a leak, huh,” Harley said.

“No, dear, it was some strange man,” Lee said. “In his underpants.”

“Oh, neat,” Harley said. “Did he have a big dick?”

“You know, I didn’t look,” Lee said.

“You didn’t check him out? What are you, gay?”

Harley and Lee both managed to hold straight faces for a few seconds before they started giggling.

“Alright, that’s enough silliness,” Lee said.

“Oh, never enough silliness, Lee.”

“Perhaps, but we’ll at least put it on hiatus for a bit. Come on dear, we have a disaster to prevent.”

The two walked away, and several minutes after their departure, Agent Fleming dared to poke his head out the door.

“Off to a flawless start as always, Fleming,” Seven droned. The secret agent stepped out into the now-empty hall, dressed in his usual suit -and with his belt securely fastened.

“I’ve had worse,” he said. “At least I had my underwear on that time.”

“Yes, do try not to be caught en flagrante this time, Fleming,” Seven said. “This is a college campus, after all.”

“Are you calling me old, Seven?” Fleming scoffed, as he walked deeper into the laboratory complex. “I haven’t lost a step.”

----------------------------------------

“Not a word, Seven,” Fleming said, as he dangled upside-down by his ankle.

“Well, if you’ll excuse a bit of gallows humor, you may be literally about to lose a step.”

Having worked his way halfway to his laboratory destination, Fleming had decided to literally cut through some of the student laboratories for the sake of stealth, slicing his way through walls and passing from pod to pod without ever entering the halls. The first few had gone without incident. The seventh had provided a surprise in the form of some sort of mutant barnacle creature with a long, grasping tendril. Fleming had been caught around the ankle and was being slowly dragged into the undulating maw of the barnacle. He disliked undulating on principle. It just wasn’t a good word.

“Right. Now, if you’ll allow me a moment to concentrate, Seven…”

Since the creature had failed to restrain his hands, Fleming reached for his wristwatch. Thanks to a complex series of small magnetic accelerators hidden in the watchwork mechanisms, it could fire a single powerful projectile, hopefully enough to kill the creature before he lost a shoe -or more. Fleming put his finger on the trigger and aimed carefully. Reloading the micro-railgun took days and cost several thousand dollars. He’d only get one shot.

“Gertie!”

The barnacle twitched wildly at the sound of the shout, and Fleming’s shot went wide. The seven-thousand dollar bullet thudded into a wall while Fleming flailed for a moment in the barnacle’s wriggling tendril. Vell Harlan stepped up and pointed an accusing finger at the barnacle.

“Gertie, drop him!” he shouted. “We talked about this! You’re not allowed to eat people.”

Several pores in the barnacle’s crusty hide opened up and emitted a high-pitched and slightly offended sounding whistle.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“I know he’s black and white, but those are just his clothes,” Vell said. “We talked about clothes, remember? They change how the outside looks, but it’s still a human inside.”

With a bubbling gurgle of comprehension, the barnacle shuddered and then released Fleming from the entangling grip of its tendril. He hit the ground headfirst and thankfully avoided breaking his neck. After letting out a wince of pain at his nasty fall, Vell helped Fleming get to his feet.

“Sorry about that, Gertie’s, uh, not from around here, she has a hard time understanding what is and isn’t okay to eat,” Vell explained. Fleming brushed some barnacle slime off his trouser leg, grumbled something about it being silk, and then looked up at “Gertie”.

“You let that thing live here? Wait, let me correct that. You let that thing live at all?”

“Hey, Gertie’s a sapient creature,” Vell said. Gertie gave an offended gurgle as well.

“Stay on target, Fleming,” Seven scolded. “No distractions.”

“Right. Thank you for the rescue, kid, but I’ve got something to do. You’ll have to excuse me.”

Agent Fleming glanced at Gertie on more time on his way out.

“And put a sign on the door, at least. Something.”

“There is a sign on the door,” Vell said. He pointed to the hole Fleming had cut in the lab. “You broke in through the wall.”

Fleming wasn’t listening. Vell shrugged and rolled his eyes at Gertie.

“The nerve of some people.”

Gertie blurbled in agreement.

----------------------------------------

“So I was thinking after this project I’m probably going to go help out my girlfriend with that whole electron microscope thing they’ve got going.”

“Feeling like you need to spend more time with her, or what?”

“Nah, I just like looking at tiny stuff,” the other student said. While the student was enthralled in his enthusiasm for the microscopic world, Fleming made his move. With a casual, forward facing stare and a little sleight of hand, Fleming plucked a keycard from the students pocket and made a beeline for the lab. The student finished his sentence and then looked over his shoulder.

“Hey, be cool, but I think that dude just stole my key card. Should I like, call security or something?”

“Nah, it should be fine,” the other student said. “Harley and that crew she hangs out with all the time are poking around. They usually keep anything too weird from happening.”

“We should probably leave though, right?’

“Oh yeah, for sure.”

Both students grabbed their bookbags and left the lab area. They’d been helping Dr. Khaitan with his latest project, but with both Harley’s crew and a mysterious pickpocket on the loose, things were about to take a turn for the weird. A fact Agent Fleming himself was blissfully unaware of.

“I’ve got lab access,” Fleming said to his earpiece. “I’ll have to maintain radio silence while I’m inside, Seven. Talk to you when I’ve saved the world.”

“Understood, Agent. Good luck, and god speed...and do try not to get any more unexpected interruptions.”

Fleming rolled his eyes. Only so many things could go wrong in a single day.

He swiped the keycard at the lab door, and made a quiet entrance. The particle accelerator laboratory was mostly abandoned now, as Dr. Khaitan had dismissed most of his students. No doubt to carry out the final fiendish steps of his plan alone. Across the workshop, Fleming could just barely make out a single human figure, stooped over a workbench and illuminated by monitors displaying elaborate plans and calculations.

“Oh yes, all but perfect now,” the lone scientist mumbled. “Almost ready…”

The hunched scientist looked to the side and then began laughing. It was a cold, maniacal laughter, befitting one whose ambition was to create a new weapon of mass destruction.

Fleming quickly took in his surroundings. It was a wide open laboratory, but there was plenty of cover. He crept forward, careful to stay low and out of sight of Dr. Khaitan. He also took the time to reach for his watch again and utilize a built-in tool to scan the lab. He relaxed slightly and moved forward again when the readout told him Dr. Khaitan was the only human being in the laboratory.

“Aren’t you that pantsless dude who almost got eaten?”

The sum total of years of training and discipline were brought to bear to keep Fleming from letting out a very long string of frustrated curses. He instead slowly turned towards the sound of the voice, and saw a young Japanese woman lounging in a chair, looking up from her phone. Lee and Vell had just been messaging her about the strange man they’d both run into.

“Did you say something, Ms. Komi?” Dr. Khaitan shouted over his shoulder. Fleming ducked for cover, but the doctor did not turn around.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Kim shouted back. She then lowered her voice and turned back to Fleming. “What are you doing here? Lab’s supposed to be empty.”

“I’m with the school’s security team,” Fleming said.

“No you aren’t.”

“Yes I am.”

“The school’s security team is ninety percent robots,” Kim said. “There’s like five humans on it and you’re not one of them.”

“Fine. I’m an independent safety reviewer. I analyze the school’s safety procedures in secret.”

Kim reviewed the schools bylaws from a database in her head. Unlike Vell, she could actually read manuals, and read them fast enough to call bullshit.

“That’s not a thing.”

“Yes it is.”

“The Einstein-Odinson Campus maintains an independent and internal review board, with external analysis of on-site facilities by invitation only or during annual meetings during the summer break,” Kim said, quoting the school charter verbatim.

“Fuck,” Fleming said, as his years of discipline broke down. “Fine. Christ. I’m an agent of a European secret service and I’m here to put a stop to a threat to global security.”

“Oh. Well fuck off then,” Kim said. She once again dipped into quoting the manual verbatim. “The Einstein-Odinson Campus is a neutral territory and is not obligated to follow any international laws and restrictions other than those agreed to in the founding charter.”

“Listen, kid, I’ve stopped the end of the world three times,” Fleming said. Kim rolled her eyes. It was Friday, she’d saved the world more than that just this week. “The stakes are too high for you to be in my way.”

“Well, I’m supposed to keep this guy and his experiment safe,” Kim said. Someone had sabotaged an otherwise perfectly safe experiment on the first loop, so now the looper’s had to protect Khaitan. Apparently, they were protecting him from Fleming. “So I’m staying in your way.”

It would’ve sounded a lot more defiant were Kim not sitting down. It frustrated Fleming regardless.

“Listen, I’m sure you’re just here for bitcoins or emojis or whatever it is you children like nowadays,” Fleming said. Kim raised an eyebrow. Even she knew that was wrong, and she was five months old. “But this is a mission of global importance. Leave, now.”

“Nah.”

“Fine then. I’m sorry about this.”

Pivoting expertly from conversation to combat, Agent Fleming moved with blinding speed and struck Kim in the trachea with an open palm. It would’ve been a devastating blow, had Kim’s trachea not been purely cosmetic. Kim cleared her throat and finally stood from her chair, entirely unfazed by what should have put her on the ground. Fleming rolled his shoulders and let out a deep sigh.

Agent Fleming had decades of hand-to-hand combat experience, having gone knuckle to knuckle in professional boxing rings and cage matches in Siberian prisons. It all meant jack shit against an opponent with no nerve endings and metal bones. Kim barely flinched as the next punch landed, nor at any of the following punches.

“Are you going to keep doing this or what?” Kim asked, as Fleming gave a futile punch to her gut.

“I never quit,” Fleming said.

“You should,” Kim said. “Like, in general.”

“I don’t-”

As Fleming stopped punching long enough to brag, Kim swung a fist into his chin and knocked him out cold in a single punch. The sound of the agent hitting the ground finally made Dr. Khaitan turn around.

“That sounded like a fully grown man being punched unconscious,” Khaitan noted.

“No, that was me-” Kim paused and racked her electronic brain for a reason a lone human would make a noise. “-Farting. I farted.”

“Oh. There’s some Febreeze on the shelf over there, please give it a spritz, would you?.”

“Will do,” Kim said. She did give the Febreeze a polite spritz while she dragged Fleming out of the room by his ankle.