The Undercover Agent

“Ah, White, perfect timing. Please take a seat.” Aquino says, prim and proper as ever.

“Don’t mind if I do, ma’am!” He says excitedly, and then it hits me. That fake Texan accent from last night.

“You were Ace?!” I exclaim.

Cobalt White, despite his somewhat eccentric personality, is a tried and true spy. His disguises in particular, have been known to be so well done that he manages his own family members have been unable to recognize him.

I’ve been friends with him since elementary school, and as fate would have it, we ended up getting recruited at the same time. But despite how long we’ve known each other, even I have fallen victim to his disguises time and again. Like in this instance.

Cobalt winks and gives me a toothy grin. “Sure was! Well, what did ya’ll think of ma show last night?”

“It was…something. And you can drop the accent now.”

“Oh, right. Guess I was having too much fun with it!”

Huh…Ace and Vega seemed to be pretty familiar with each other, so I had assumed that they’d been working together for a while now. Unless…

Aquino clears her throat, drawing our attention back to her. “Agent White here has been on a deep cover assignment with Vega’s organization for quite some time now. He’s managed to rise up high enough within the ranks to be on friendly terms with our dear target.”

Oh, well that explains a lot. I pause as I suddenly remember something vital from my last meeting with Aquino.

“Wait, didn’t you say that this mission was originally supposed to go to Cobalt?”

Aquino nods, smiling sagely. What I wouldn’t give to figure out what made that woman tick.

“Yes, it was. But then you made contact with her and that changed everything.”

Made contact with her? How does she know about our initial meetings at the grocery and hardware store?

“Did you have someone tail me?” I ask, trying my best to keep my emotions in check. This wouldn’t be the first time she's done that and it certainly won’t be the last.

Aquino shakes her head. “Goodness, no. I found out because we go to the same grocery store.”

Oh…right.

“So… you thought I’d be a better fit because she looked like she had a crush on me as opposed to a guy that’s been working with the target for —“ I turn to address Cobalt, “—How long have you been doing this mission?”

“About six months.”

“—a qualified spy that’s been working with the target for about half a year?”

Aquino shakes her head and lets out a sigh. “So you still haven’t figured it out…Well, that’s fine. Maybe that’s for the best, for now.”

So she’s hiding information from me. Again, this wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

“Anyway,” she continues, “for now, why don’t the two of you exchange some information? It should help the next time Vargas has an encounter with the target.”

“Yes ma’am!” We both say with varying levels of enthusiasm.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cobalt’s already talking animatedly by the time we exit Aquino’s office.

“Vega’s actually surprisingly nice? All of the people that work for her really like her too. Did you know that she’s the only villain in Rate My Evil Boss.com that has a flawless five star rating?”

“If she’s so nice, then why is she a wanted criminal?”

“You can commit crimes and still be a good person,” he counters back.

“Are you actually siding with her?” I replied with a tone that comes off sounding more heated than intended.

Cobalt raises both of his arms up in a placating gesture. “Woah there, buddy. You know darn well whose side I’m on. I’m just being objective.”

I feel the tension release from my shoulders as shame starts to creep in. Why would I say I just snap at Cobalt like that? He's just being his usual honest self. Although he can admittedly be a little too honest sometimes.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I guess I’m just under a lot of stress.”

Cobalt nods in understanding. “Right, you're supposed to still be on vacation."

I let out a tired sigh. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. “Yeah. I haven’t been home in a while so I was really looking forward to spending time with my family.”

“And then you get stuck with this mission…Tough luck. But man, I still don’t get why Aquino suddenly assigned it to you.”

“That’s what I’d like to do know. Weren’t you supposed to be on it?”

Before Cobalt can reply, a loud, booming growl echoes across the hall. I look around for the source of the noise before Cobalt lets out a laugh and pats his stomach.

“Ha ha! Sorry about that, I skipped breakfast today!”

“That was your stomach?!”

“Yep! Hey, do you mind if we go grab something to eat before we continue our conversation?”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

We end up at a diner not far from the headquarters. As we eat, Cobalt tells me everything he’s learned during the time he’s been working for Vega.

The first thing he tells me is that she’s loaded. Absolutely, positively loaded. And no, none of that money was earned through legal means. Hacking jobs, robberies, counterfeit, you name it.

But interestingly, she always makes it a point to never involve civilians in her crimes. She believes that violence should only be a last resort and has never, ever taken a life. As of writing, at least.

And as mentioned earlier, she’s a really nice boss. The reason why her organization is so big is because people just genuinely enjoy working for her. Which, in a line of business that’s known to have bosses that are willing to dispose of their henchmen at the drop of a hat, makes her workplace seem like the Pixar of evil organizations.

But the most curious bit of information of them all, she’s never ever shown interest in romance before. Any attempts at setting her up with someone have always been met with flat out refusals. She’d always state that her career came first, that she’d never have time for love.

“It makes no sense,” I find myself saying, “I mean, she was the one who asked me out, right?”

Cobalt nods and swallows a big piece of pancake before opening his mouth to reply. “Yeah, you should have seen the way everyone was freaking out when we found out. There were conspiracy boards and everything. Honestly, this came completely out of left field for all of us.”

I put my head in my hands as I struggle to make sense of all this.

“You know what, I’ll try to figure that out later,” I say, “for now, could you give me more insider info? Be as detailed as possible.”