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August 3, 2007

Agents Mia and Aundrea Blade lived in their two story house just outside of Bel-Air, California.  

Mia made her way to her younger sister’s room.

"Drea, wake up! We have a briefing at APO this morning at 8!" Mia called out to her sister as she knocked on Aundrea’s door.

Mia continued knocking on the door until she heard Aundrea’s footsteps coming toward the door. It swung open to reveal an annoyed Aundrea.

"I’ll be ready in 30 minutes!” Aundrea grumbled at Mia.

"Well, hurry up. We can't be late again," Mia scolded.

"Yes, Mother," Aundrea answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes and closed the door in Mia's face. Mia shook her head and muttered angry gibberish under her breath.

This is what I get for letting my sister join APO. she thought.

When they were finally ready, they headed out the door and to the APO headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.

They drove into a parking garage near the Civic Center station and parked at an empty stall. They took a flight of stairs down in the basement that led into a narrow hallway and a door. A sign with "Authorized Personnel Only" written on it hung in front of the door.

Mia opened a false light-switch socket to the side of the door and revealed a scanner and number pad. She punched in her code and pressed her hand against the scanner. The scanner blinked and an automated female voice said, "Welcome to APO." The door swung open and the two APO agents walked into APO headquarters.

Mia and Aundrea made their way to the briefing room and found the other agents Ryu and Ken, with two other men, sitting at a table when they entered the room. They took their seats at the table. Mia recognized one of the men as Agent Davenport from her previous mission.

The man next to Agent Davenport was slightly taller than him and looked to be a little older. He had dirty blond hair and looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties.

"Good morning, I’m Kale Rochester, chief executive agent in the CIA. First, I would like to extend my gratitude to Agent Blade AKA White Tiger who successfully rescued my partner Agent Davenport from Regina Black’s capture. Thank you,” the man said.

Mia nodded. I thought I was done working with these CIA wackadoos. she thought bitterly.

“As you all know, Black has developed a weapon called an EMPE and his daughter Regina embedded the software within a disk,” Agent Rochester reported, passing out file folders to the four APO agents that contained photos and information about Regina Black and her father.

“We have a trace that may lead to the weapon’s location,” he continued.

“Where is it?” asked Ken. Agent Rochester hesitated in answering. He took a short pause as if he was thinking about what he was going to say.

What, does he feel that we don’t deserve to know CIA intel? Mia thought to herself while she studied him. Though she only met the man a few minutes ago, he gave off a negative vibe.

“The weapon is in Black Corporation,” Agent Davenport replied for him.

“We need to get the weapon,” Agent Rochester said. “The CIA will handle the weapon and make sure it is disposed of properly. We need you guys to get that weapon for us. We’ll contact you if we need further assistance.”

Mia didn’t like what he was implying and interjected, “With all due respect, Agent Rochester, we are not the CIA’s gophers. Our agency is not subordinate to yours. We do not do missions for you. We hired you, so if you are willing to work together I suggest we work as a team.”

The other APO agents and Agent Davenport gaped at her but Agent Rochester seemed unfazed.

“Spoken like a true fighter,” Agent Rochester said as if he was impressed by her feistiness. “Agent Davenport, you and Agent Blade will go together to retrieve the weapon. I expect you to have the weapon within 48 hours.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>

White Tiger and Agent Davenport climbed out of an unmarked van that was parked a few yards away from Black Corporation. Ryu and Aundrea remained inside the van for surveillance. Agent Davenport was selecting weapons from an assortment displayed on the walls of the van while White Tiger was putting on her ninja mask.

Agent Davenport picked up a small silver pistol from the wall of weapons and placed it in a holster that hung on the back of his belt.

White Tiger picked up a pair of steel fighting fans—her signature weapon. The steel fans were the size of regular Japanese paper fans but had a deadly touch to them. They were light in weight, perfect for precision and swiftness. She flung the fans open to reveal white fabric on the rungs and sharp blades at each end. The Japanese kanji character of “tiger” was painted on the white fabric in black ink. She tossed the fans up in the air and caught them in a fighting stance.

“Ready,” White Tiger said, tucking the folded fans into her boots. She put an earpiece in her ear for communicating with Ryu and Aundrea.

“Let’s go,” Agent Davenport said, adjusting the black shades he wore, which had a built-in camera on the lenses.

White Tiger and Agent Davenport sprinted across the parking lot of Black Corporation and stopped next to the security booth at the entrance gate.

“Red Dragon, you hear me?” White Tiger said into the radio.

“Loud and clear, White Tiger,” Ryu replied.

“How’s our visual, Jade Fox?”

“All eyes on you,” said Aundrea, who was conducting visual surveillance through the camera on Agent Davenport’s shades.

“We’ll meet you guys back at rendezvous point,” ordered White Tiger.

“Copy that,” Ryu and Aundrea answered simultaneously.

White Tiger looked at Agent Davenport and gave him the signal to proceed.

Agent Davenport snuck up behind a guard and pushed a pressure point on his neck knocking him out, while White Tiger grabbed and kicked down the other guard.

They dispersed to different corners of the building.

“I’ll meet you on the fourth floor,” Agent Davenport said to Mia through their radio.

“See you there,” Mia replied.

She used a grapple hook to lift herself up to the 4th story. Upon facing the glass window, she reached into her boot and pulled out one of the blades from her fans and used it to cut out a huge circle on the glass big enough for her to fit through. She tucked the blade back onto the fan and kicked the glass piece and carefully set it down inside. She climbed through the opening and dropped down to the balls of her feet into an empty office.

“I’m in Black’s office,” came White Tiger’s voice through the radio to Agent Davenport.

“I’m on my way.”

White Tiger stood in Black’s office and looked around on his desk for the CD.

The door to the office slowly opened. White Tiger looked up and grabbed her fans from her boots and held them ready to strike. Agent Davenport stuck his head in the door. She put her fans away seeing that it was only him.

“We’re in his office,” White Tiger informed Ryu and Aundrea.

“Okay. There’s a vault on the far wall. Agent Rochester said it might be in there,” replied Ryu.

“What’s the code?” White Tiger asked, walking over to the small vault.

“I have it,” Agent Davenport answered, who now stood next to Mia and the vault.

He opened the vault and reached inside taking out a small disk that was encased in a plastic container.

“We got it,” White Tiger said into the radio.

Agent Davenport and White Tiger left the building and climbed into the back of the surveillance van where Ryu and Aundrea were waiting. Mia took her ninja mask off and sat down next to her sister and Ryu. Agent Davenport unstrapped his gun holster from his belt and sat down.

“Alright, Techie, do your stuff,” Mia said to Ryu, handing him the disk.

Ryu cracked his knuckles and placed the CD into the disc drive of his Apple Macbook. After typing in some codes, he finally was able to reveal the files on the disk. Letters, numbers and symbols darted across the screen reminding Mia of The Matrix.

“Alright, I found the weapon’s software but I’m having trouble extracting it from the music files. I mean it’s really embedded in there,” he said in frustration.

“What does that mean?” Mia asked.

“It means this just has a copy of the software without the actual weapon on there. The real embedded files are somewhere else,” Ryu explained.

“What does that mean?” Agent Davenport asked.

“I’m not sure,” Ryu said.

“So this was just a hoax?”Aundrea asked in confusion.

Mia turned to Agent Davenport. “You led us to a wild goose chase!”

“What? Me? I had nothing to do with this! Why are you on my case?” Agent Davenport shot back defensively.

“Gee, maybe because your agency was the one who assigned this mission!” Mia shot back.

“Hey, guys, calm down! Blaming each other won’t solve anything right now. We have to figure out what happened,” Ryu intervened.

“Maybe the embedded music files could be with someone else, unknowingly carrying the weapon with them. I mean the embedded music files may be in another disk,” Aundrea said.

“Wait, play the music files on this CD, maybe it could help us figure out who might have the embedded disc,” Mia said to Ryu, opening up the music player on his Mac book and played the first track on the disc.

I close the door, so many times so many times before
Failed like a scene on the cutting room floor...


Mia recognized the voice singing on the track, but she couldn’t put her finger on who it belonged to. It sounded really familiar.

Then Mia finally recognized it.

“I know who has the embedded CD,” Mia announced.