A Secret Mission

    You're at headquarters. The assignment is given. The higher-ups need more intelligence information, and you're the only one for the job.

You savor the thrills of this job, despite the ever-present danger. "Should you accept this mission," they say. Ha! "Should you?" The answer is a definite "yes", as it always is.

    The Agency transports you and your laptop (specially upgraded) in a special plane to the top-secret facility in the middle of nowhere – an underground building that is nothing but country home above ground. You flash your fake ID to the men at the gates. They let you in.

    You consider – should you choose the stairs or the elevator? Elevator's easier, but stairs are quieter and less conspicuous. You finally decide on the stairs – you can get where you're going faster.

    You open the door and peer down the countless spiraling stairs, lit at intervals by bright white lights. You can see almost to the bottom. You remember your briefing information – this was once an abandoned mine – they built the whole facility into a series of expanded mineshafts. This is nothing, though. Once you had to work in a dormant volcano.

    You start down the stairs, heading for floor eleven. It's really more like negative eleven, as it's eleven stories underground. Step after step you go down, and you have to stay quiet. Someone might be near you, and if someone catches you, you'll be in for a fate worse than death.

    You finally reach your destination, after having traversed around 200 steps or so. It's not too far, actually. You've had worse. Part of your training after you accepted this job was to run up the steps of the Empire state building in record time. Agents have to stay fit.

    Your fake ID won't do any good here. You may have been able to fool the guards with it, but everyone who works here knows who they work with. You can't let them catch you.

    You carefully, cautiously, quietly open the door to floor eleven, but only just a crack. You listen for any activity. You don't hear any noise, but you can't listen long, the longer you hang around, the more likely someone is to detect you.

    You hold the door open slightly with your shoe so you can hear if anyone is coming. It's time to set up your laptop. You lift the lid (latchless for faster access) and type in the password – a complex series of numbers, digits, and punctuation marks. The webcam starts, and silently takes a picture of your face. It decides that it is you, and after checking your eyes to make sure you're not asleep, drugged, or dead, Windows 7 starts. Most people don't know it, but Microsoft works with the government.

    You have the computer set to start the crucial program as soon as you press the enter key. After closing the laptop most of the way, you silently ease your way through the doorway. You can't close the laptop completely – it would go into hibernation, and require the password and face scan again. If someone finds you, however, you have to close it immediately. You can't allow this equipment to fall into the wrong hands.

If someone did figure out the password, and it wasn't you, your computer had a backup plan. Once the facial scanner determined that the person operating the laptop was not the same person it was used to seeing, it would disable the antivirus software and unleash a powerful, expertly engineered virus, designed to wipe out all data on the computer. It'd be a terrible loss, but it would be necessary.

You walk silently down the hallway, your special shoes making no noise on the tile floor. Ninjas have nothing on you – all they do is hide in the shadows. You're in a well-lit hallway, in the midst of enemy territory. No – you're not a ninja. You're a secret agent.

The doors have no identifying numbers on or near them. It's fine, however. This was part of your mission briefing. The correct door is seventeen doors down. You count them off in your head as you silently walk past them, your laptop balanced on your arm.

You reach the door. You can't go in right away, though. If someone is in there, your mission is over prematurely. Still balancing your laptop, you hold your ear close and listen for sounds on the other side. Thirty tense seconds pass. You hate suspense, but it's part of the job. Fortunately, it would appear that nobody's inside.

You slide your specially engineered key into the slot. The mechanism beeps, and the door pops open. You're in.

On a desk in the center of the room sits a jumble of computer equipment. You look it over carefully. If you choose the wrong cable, their whole system goes down. They would know you were there. You walk in and close the door until it touches.

This is part of your training; it's second nature to you now. You quickly discern which cable is the correct one. You pull it from the back of the computer and hook it to your laptop. You flip open the lid and hit the enter key, and the transfer begins. Your computer is downloading the critical files to your hard drive, and uploading the deadly virus. It's time activated. At midnight tonight, their system goes down.

The transfer complete, you close your laptop and hook the cable back into the desktop computer. You haven't completed your mission yet, though. Now you have to get out.

Swinging open the door, you leave the room and close the door quietly behind you. Suddenly, there's an unexpected sound from the room across the hall: someone walking to the door.

You turn and sprint down the hallway. Long ago, you perfected the art of silent running. Now it comes in handy.

You pass all sixteen doors in rapid succession, and quietly swing open the door at the end of the hallway. You pass through, and close it shut. You consider – no, they didn't see you. Unfortunately, now they're suspicious.

You run up the flights of stairs. It's more difficult going up than down, and you have to move quickly. Someone could appear behind you or in front of you any second.

Finally reaching the top, you leave the house that disguises the entrance to the underground complex and proceed to the guardhouse. Your hair is fine – it won't be obvious you've been running.

"Back so soon?" they ask you.

You laugh, as if you didn't realize that you'd just crippled the enemy's headquarters. "Yeah, I'm just a messenger."

"All right!" they say, opening the gates for you. "See you later, then!"

There's a car waiting for you just over the hill. It'll take you to the airport. Soon you'll be back, a normal guy with a regular job – an insurance salesman. Nobody ever even knew you left.

You're a secret agent.