Author's Note: Here's the decoder ring this story doesn't provide, and it needs saying: Alex is fourteen. This is a kid narrating his own junior high drama trip as a spy thriller, because he saw True Lies that summer and never recovered. The "cover girl" is his actual girlfriend, the "missions" are curfew violations, and the body count is imaginary. I was less than ten years removed from the real trip when I wrote this, and it shows. The language is crude, the jokes are dated, and sensitivity readers didn't exist yet. I've left it as-is.

Alex had been to Narita before, twice in fact, but never had he seen it so crowded. It was as if every tourist in the world had suddenly descended on Tokyo, streaming off the plane into the city, completely unaware that it would eat them alive if they weren't careful. In those days, the Yen was trading at 150, which gave them an edge, but not much of one. Tokyo was all bright lights and big city to the wide-eyed gaijin, standing around hypnotized by the dancing colors and neon arcs, until someone pulled them off the street into a dark alley. Suddenly they weren't in Tokyo anymore. Now it was Dangerville, population two. And while anarchy might have been the preference of the angst-ridden teenagers of the day, it never quite worked out in practical applications. Yet, the caravan rolled on, unaware of the potholes awaiting them.

He was on his first assignment since the botched job in Hachinohe, a waterpark clusterfuck that nearly ruined his good name. The bosses are all praise when he's doing his job well, but kill one innocent civie and suddenly he's a common criminal. Not that they suspended him, just a bunch of lip service, a slap on the wrist. The evening of that debrief, Alex had gone to blow off some steam with Jackknife at the basketball court. After only a few minutes and before the sweat could really start to flow, he came down wrong on his ankle. As the pain shot through his leg, he couldn't help but think that at least now he could take a little vacation. He refused Jackknife's offer to carry him and instead, chose to limp home, happy in spite of the pain. It took a month to heal properly, but in the winter of 1994, he was back in the office, getting the prelim on a new assignment.

Like most missions, it took several months to assume cover. The target was a group of students at the local junior high school. It wasn't terribly difficult, but Alex took it slow just to be safe. He established a personality; slightly shy, awkward, etc, all the makings of a boy who was anything but an agent. Befriending a few members of the group was easy, alienating a few for good measure was even easier, but the part he most enjoyed was the courtship of one of the girls, a pretty little thing with long dark hair and almond eyes. It was a perk of the job, another fringe benefit that made risking his life so much easier.

In January, the drama coach brought the news to the group, spinning a yarn about a drama festival down south. Alex chuckled when he heard, thinking that a festival would be pretty good cover. By the time the middle of April rolled around (and the shit really started hitting the fan), he was in deep. Primed for action. A few days later, he was sitting in a hole in the wall in Narita International Airport, ticket in hand.

Destination: Okinawa.

"You want to try this?" asked Alex's cover girl, codename Kisses with Tongue (14, black hair, brown eyes, favorite color: purple). On the end of her fork was a mass of white rice wrapped in seaweed. Once, on a night drop in Iwate, Alex had crashed through some trees on his way down, stranding his rations a good thirty feet above him. For several days, he had to subsist on grass, bark, and salty little insects that crawled around in his stomach after he swallowed them. After that, eating was never really the same. And even with that experience under his belt, he could not bring himself to try the sushi.

"I'd better not. I might spoil my appetite," he replied, waving the fork off with his hand.

"It's just one little bite."

"Yes, it's just that, it might be so horrible that I get traumatized and never want to eat anything again. Then I'd have to have all my nutrients delivered intravenously and who knows if they really clean those needles before each session. I could get an infection and die." Rambling was a skill, though it was getting harder to come up with responses.

"Wow," said KT, smiling and popping the sushi into her mouth. "I never thought it would happen, but I think I must be a lesbian."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you are the biggest pussy I have ever known. But I still like you. So figure that one out."

KT was clever, perhaps too clever. Immediately, he wondered whether she was the sleeper. They never said the sleeper would be on station. But how could they guarantee that KT would get all the way to Oki? She could have dropped out of the drama club at any time. There wasn't enough evidence either way, so he put her on the prospective list, just in case.

Thirty-eight minutes later, they were packed into the smallest seats ever known to man. There were only two on the sides of the plane, with four in the middle row. KT had the window seat and Alex sat next to her on the aisle. Behind them were Damita (15, black hair, brown eyes, muscles on her back) and Toomba (14, orange hair, blue eyes, thick glasses). Toomba was chatting loudly about how unfair it was that she didn't get to sit next to her best friend KT. In the middle aisle to Alex's right sat Cusack (15, brown hair, brown eyes, middle child) and the three stooges.

Somehow, KT and Alex had not noticed that Tweed (15, black hair, black eyes, tight shirt) and Sweater Vest (17, blonde hair, blue eyes, possibly Satan incarnate) had taken the seats in front of them. Through the small crack between the seats, they could see their lips pressed up against each other. The sight gave Alex a chill. He looked to KT for some confirmation of the unholy act, but she was just smiling, pursing her lips ever so slightly as she leaned forward expectantly.

Alex wasn't sure what kind of face he was making, but KT's smile disappeared immediately and she pulled back in mock astonishment, sending her eyebrows to the top of her forehead. Except that KT was the only woman he had ever met that didn't have independent suspension in her eyebrows, which meant that all of her inquisitive looks came off as sheer amazement.

"Sushi," he explained. It wasn't a complete lie. In all his hyper-vigilance, he had noticed a not-so-friendly look in the eye of the cashier at the Sushi Hut. Enemy agents were everywhere, so that meant he had to be on his toes for any signs of aggression. The sushi could have been poisoned and KT wouldn't have been the first cover girl he had lost to the enemy. But so far, she wasn't showing any signs of illness. Then again, some chemical agents were slow. He would have to watch her carefully and make her brush her teeth as soon as possible.

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "But you owe me one. I reserve the right to collect at any time."

"I may have something open for later tonight. Shall we say ten?"

"It's a date."

Alex felt a tap on his shoulder. The fingers were small, male, probably 14 or 15 years old, medium build. Several possible responses ran through his mind, foremost of which was to grab three quarters of the fingers, twist them at a 72 degree angle, apply twenty-eight pounds of pressure per square inch, and separate them from their owner. But that would have been a bit much, especially on an airplane. He turned around slowly, ready to spring into action.

Cusack's goofy face greeted him from across the aisle. "Hey man," he said, his eyes darting quickly between Alex and KT's exposed legs, "do you know if we're going to stay in TLF?"

"I don't know," Alex replied, "Why don't you ask Coach C?"

"I don't know where she's sitting." Cusack did a prairie dog impression, craning his neck to see over the seats. Satisfied that he couldn't find her, he continued, "If it's like TLF in Iwakuni, I want the big room."

If there was one thing you could always count on, it was the invariance of the government's temporary lodging facilities. Each theater had its own style, but within it, the design of TLF was consistent; one large living room and kitchen combo, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.

"Why?" Alex asked, thinking about the queen-sized bed often found in the bigger rooms.

"I never get the big room!"

Alex leaned to the left, looking past Cusack at the other members of the club, and asked, "Are you planning on a night of hot stinky love with one of the Stooges? Besides, the small room only has two twin beds."

This time, Cusack looked around Alex. "Come on, can't you just push them together or something?"

He brandished a piteous expression, which Alex would have ignored had he not been in deep cover. After all, Cusack was the only other male in the club, unless you counted Tweed, which Alex didn't, at least not since Sweater Vest had removed his testicles. Intelligence suggested she kept them in a small jewelry box in a safe somewhere.

"Fine," Alex said, "but if KT falls through the crack in the heat of passion, you'll have to answer for it. You know how we do it, all crazy-like."

"Um, you know I can hear everything you're saying, right?" asked KT from behind him.

"Ew," said Damita in her less than sexy tenor, "us too!"

Alex's laugh attracted the attention of a Japanese man sitting in front of Cusack. He turned his head around just enough to get his eye on Alex. Immediately, his face was run against the thousands of images in the binder in Alex's head. He wasn't a Tazawako man, not Kushiro either, which was good because those northern boys were the worst. Alex exhausted his library and didn't find a match. The man wasn't an enemy, he was just nosy and lacking fashion sense. Alex muttered "mind your own business" in the equivalent Japanese, to which the man huffed and turned around, sounding off to his companion about how they were losing the country to all these gaijin.

Coach C appeared from the rear of the plane and asked how everyone was doing. Cusack asked her about TLF, to which she replied that they weren't staying on Kadena. There were too many kids coming in from all the bases. Instead, they would be staying on one of the Marine installations, Camp Forrester.

At the barracks.

Dammit, screamed Alex, in his head. There was nothing worse than when the bosses left information out of the briefing. He had called them on it a few times, but the answer was always the same, that he should learn to adapt to the situation. And that was all well and good, except that he had done two months worth of planning with the standard TLF habitat as a base of operations. Now he would have to rethink everything. And Camp Forrester? It would take some time. Fortunately, he had been to the camp before; not in any official capacity, but there nonetheless. If Coach C was talking about the same barracks he had seen before, then the club was going to be in for a rough ride. They called the barracks Spartan, but he'd had worse. Much worse.

As Coach C retreated, he leaned over the aisle. "Guess you're not getting the big room," he said to Cusack.

"Crap!" he replied. "Screwed again!"

Nothing quite prepares a person for the steam room that is Okinawa. Stepping off the plane into a wall of water, the phrase 'it's not the heat, it's the humidity' suddenly becomes uncomfortably real. It might only be 80 degrees, but everyone is sweating like it's 102. At least the bus from the airport was air-conditioned.

The group stepped off the camo-green beast into a parking lot full of students, most of them tall and gangly. Upperclassmen. Before them loomed a three story building of drab tan. Some of the windows had people in them, other students that were leaning their heads out to get an eyeful of the new arrivals. Everyone else was claiming their plot of land in front of the building, a small paradise shaded from the afternoon sun.

"Holy ass!" said Damita. "When can we get inside? I'm getting boob sweat!"

"Don't you have to have...?" Alex started, but KT jabbed him in the ribs with her pointy elbow and the insult was cut short. Hopefully, she would remember that move the next time someone's holding her from behind with a knife to her throat. She'd probably be too scared then and Alex would have to do double the work to save her.

Alex took a seat on one of the parking spot barriers and KT joined him a second later. She had already shed her jacket and went a step further by removing her outer shirt. As she pulled it over her head, he caught a glimpse of her stomach (of suspiciously natural tan color) and stared until the curtain fell. She dipped forward slightly as her hands came back down. Alex recognized the signs of exhaustion. Perhaps the sushi was taking its toll after all.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's just the heat and the noise."

Alex looked up, saw Coach C approaching, handing out keys to everyone. Toomba approached with a key in each hand.

"Let's go," she said, "I've got our room key."

KT looked up, then at Alex.

"What room are you in?" he asked.

Toomba sneered, but answered, "102."

"What room are you and Cusack in?" asked KT.

"Dunno yet, you go inside though, you need to cool off. I'll come see you in a bit." He helped her up and watched her walk away with the rest of the group. A moment later, Cusack came up behind him, again tapping him on the shoulder.

"You gotta stop doing that," Alex told him. "One of these days, I might not know it's you."

The words seemed to fly right past Cusack. "Dude, we get our own rooms! Here, you're in 326." He handed Alex a brass key. "I'm in 324 and Tweed's in 325."

"So Tweed's across the hall?"

"Yeah."

"That's good." Alex picked up his suitcase and started towards the building.

"Why's that?"

"I've heard that Sweater Vest takes her true form when she has sex, some kind of human-goat beast or something. They say the growling sound she makes can turn you to stone. And I don't need that right now."

Cusack lowered his eyebrows, considering the new information as they carried their suitcases up three flights of stairs. "Why do you think we got our own rooms and the girls have to share?"

They crested the third floor landing and the answer sat directly in front of them. It was a door with a simple sign that said, "Restroom." Nowhere on it were signs for male or female. Then Alex remembered; barracks, marine base, community restrooms.

"Christ," said Cusack. "You mean we don't get bathrooms in our rooms?"

"I guess not."

"I am so pissed off!"

"It's a drama festival," replied Alex, "act like you're not."

"Dude, how many times are you going to make that joke?"

"Until you learn!"

They laughed and took a left down the hall. Alex found his door, simple brown wood against the sea-green walls of the hallway. He unlocked it, stepped inside, and relocked it behind him. As soon as the door was closed, he set his suitcase up on the dresser and unzipped the side pocket.

First order of business was to scan the room for listening devices. It was unlikely that the enemy could predict exactly which room he was going to stay in, but unlikely didn't mean impossible, so he still had to check. The detector was a small black box with an antenna, which he waved around the electrical sockets and lamps. Satisfied that the room was clean, he opened the suitcase's main compartment and discarded the top layer of clothing.

He had triple-checked his load-out before leaving, but airline employees sometimes had sticky fingers and it was important that he had everything necessary for the mission. Most importantly, his tactical knife was still there and in good condition. The entire mission would have been lost without it. He wouldn't be able to pick up a replacement on the streets of Oki; that was for sure.

Alex pulled a wrinkled map from a plain envelope and smoothed it on the dresser. The network of streets around the base was complex and the crisscrossing lines made him wonder about navigating them successfully. The sleeper had arranged a drop meet at 2 in the morning, so he'd have to make the trip in the darkness.

Suddenly, he remembered something. Boss had given him a mnemonic for the location of the drop, which he deciphered by reading the second letter of street names on his map heading out from the main gate. So the bosses had known about Camp Forrester all along. Alex grimaced.

The last letter pointed to a cul-de-sac about two miles northwest of the camp. He never understood why the drops had to be so far away. Getting through Oki wouldn't be a problem, but the barracks were on the south side of the camp. He debated whether to trek to the north fence or just cross along the bottom and circle around.

Alex grinned.

Tough choices, command decisions, that's what the job was all about.