Adventure in the World of Crimes

AWC I: Laura Simons

Laura walked into one of the rooms in the agency as scheduled by the owner of the room, the first thing she saw as soon as she opened the door was the activated television screen hanging on the wall with a picture of a wide school ground that she supposed was the school she will get into sooner.

She roamed her eyes around hoping to see the IT agent but instead was impressed by the IT's neatness, the place was clean and organized, a wooden bookshelf was placed on the left side, different paintings were hanging on the green painted wall which all looked very expensive, a wooden table was placed in the middle with five chairs around it.

For a busy beaver IT agent, Dale's room was impressively clean.

Her gaze landed on the laptop and pile of papers above the table. She groaned internally and rolled her eyes. Until now, she despised the idea of going back to school. She's twenty-four, for that school's sake! She had graduated to that already and she vowed right there and then after her graduation that she wouldn't ever come back to her previous school nor any. But look where she was going now, she really loathed being an undercover agent sometimes.

The door, which seemingly the bathroom, opened, revealing Dale who was rubbing her hand dry. Her eyes turned to her, "Oh, Purple, sit down."

She threw the tissue in the trashcan and walked towards her laptop. she pointed to the seat on her left, urging Laura to sit there.

"We should start. This will be a little complicated so you have to listen well."

Laura sat beside her, crossing her legs as she watched Dale review the papers. She was just watching there when a question suddenly popped into her mind, she tilted her head and curiously glanced at Dale, "Do I get to kill someone inside the school?"

The IT agent glanced back at her quickly then back to reading, the let out, "What a sadist. No, Purple."

"Why, so boring," she remarked in dismay. "Do I just going to study there?"

Instead of answering, Dale put the papers in front of her. She turned her chair with her laptop on her lap, facing the screen.

"University of Erudites, a school for scholars of the government. They had been competing for first place in the best schools in the country. The student's average scores never fall to 90%, it is always higher and the standard is almost tied with MIT, they are thriving for second in the country and fifth in the whole world."

"Watch me taint that excellent performance." Laura snorted, she finger-combed her long wavy blonde hair and picked up the papers in front of her. "Have you found something interesting, suspicious, or something that will at least fire me up? All I hear was the all capital letters B. O. R. I. N. G."

"There is. Something suspicious has happened in the school five months ago, police officers had come by the school and investigated the place. Apparently, there was news somewhere that there was a foreign criminal named Ernesto Buenaventura arrested earlier this year for a d**g-related case, who visited the school for something unknown. The police found nothing suspicious to visit for so when asked why, he said that he only visited his friend, Principal Wyatt Barker, and asked him to take care of his son, Earl Buenaventura, a third-year medical student scholar in the school."

Laura crossed her arms, this task somehow, even a little, piqued her interest, "So you are skeptical about it? Tell me more."

She pressed the next slide, a guy with clean-cut hair. tanned skin, broad shoulders, wearing round specs, and with an overall gentle look. Then she pressed another one showing a picture of the three dead students she had shown them last week, smiling widely with the guy previously.

"Earl Buenaventura is friends with these three, and I know he knows even a little thing about the death of his friends. So you have to find him first and gather the information that will lead you somewhere."

Laura stared at Earl's picture intently, a thought was playing in her mind. "If he is friends with these three and someone sent you a letter questioning the death of the three, is it possible that he was the one who sent it?"

Dale shrugged, "The letter is type-written, was sent anonymously without a hint of name or even address through our mailbox so I couldn't track it since it was not from my e-mail."

She looked at Laura, "But the possibility is high. I know working with Sean will get you into something someday."

"Is that even a compliment?" she asked, feigning as if offended but Dale didn't answer and just typed something on her laptop which made Laura snickered even more.

"Let's discuss the guidelines given by the sender," Laura waved her hand telling her to proceed, "All about this school's process of enrollment was skeptical. Firstly, you have to be blindfolded going through the school's main campus. Look at the school's picture."

Laura looked at the screen, of course, there was a huge steel gate at the entrance designed elegantly, but behind it was not the school's main ground and campus yet, they had to go through a covered tunnel first that no one knows what was inside because they had to be blindfolded when entering.

"Next was about the phone and other technologies. You are not allowed to bring your phone with you nor other gadgets that will connect you outside the school. The school will provide a phone but the only application there is a website that the scholars could use for research and dictionary, other than that..." Dale gestured an X sign.

"Sounds stricter than in prison."

The other girl nodded in agreement.

"And that's not only it. You can't also wear accessories. They will confiscate it and never gonna return it to you no matter how sentimental it is for you. The things you can just bring are your clothes, notebook, and pen. But they still need to check it."

"Wait, let me clarify. I am going to enter this University of Erudites and not North Korea or some other world, right? Sounds like I am about to get locked up my whole life," Laura complained, frowning.

"Yes you are, but not until you discover something that will end this mysterious school. But there is one thing you have to be careful of." Dale became serious, and Laura raised her left brow, "The sender wrote about a certain pill that they will give you and have you consumed it forcedly. This pill has a small chip inside that activates as soon as it sticks on the intestine which enables them to track your location wherever you go." Laura opened her mouth in disbelief, the IT agent continued, "You can't escape it, you have no other choice but to take it in. They have a body scanner that will ensure them that the scholars have taken it inside their bodies."

"You mean, I will be having that chip implanted in my body forever?"

"If you will not be able to take it out in two days, yes, it'll be for a lifetime," Dale answered.

"What? No! I don't want that. I was asking for something interesting but not like this! I'm backing out or I'll ask Reign to do this for me," the raven agent furiously repined, standing up to her seat and ready to go.

"Gold and the other agents have their tasks to do. I explained the tasks in the meeting last week and all of them have either as big as your task or even bigger. No one else can do this other than you." The other lady uttered making Laura stopped on her track.

"But I don't want to be under their surveillance for the rest of my life! I didn't even allow the agency to put a tracker on my car, what more in my body!?" she bursts out, walking back and forth with both hands on her waist.

Dale rolled her eyes, "You are so dramatic, Purple. Chips are hackable. I can hack it, I'm certain."

"I can hear a 'but' coming," she interjected, walking back and forth again in distress.

"But it is all up to you if you can see the code that will be shown in the scanner and contact me secretly without getting caught," she said spinning her chair to fully look at her. "Can you do that?"

Laura thought deeply. She had never done something like this before, she was always for combat fighting and shooting, somehow this new task intrigued her, she'll get to show the other things she trained under the founder. So though a little hesitant, she nodded, "I only have two days, right?"

"Yes. You have to be careful. They can track if someone has contacted someone outside and they can track you as well. Plan it thoroughly," Dale warned, she stood up, opened, and fixed something on the computer placed on the right side. "For now, do this-"

"Knock~ Knock~"

Their gazes landed on the man who opened the door saying the knock-knock in a sing-song way.

Laura creased her forehead upon seeing Warren there, carrying two huge bags of gummy bears in his arms.

"What are you doing here? Are you hitting on Dale?" she asked right off the bat.

"What? No! We're going to talk about his task, Purple!" Dale defensively said, creasing her forehead extremely.

Laura chuckled, raising her hands and shrugging. "Okay. As you say."

The blushing lady glared at her, "Shut up and answer their entrance exam."

"What!? They have that?" she exclaimed, the teasing smile earlier wiped out and changed into a frown.

She heard Warren giggled, he chewed another round of gummies before saying, "Dale's comeback is scary. Good luck, Laura."