Sykesville, Maryland

September 15; 16:20

Natalie and Alex spent nearly the whole day browsing and retaining information concerning their new lives. It was, at times, amusing, but for the most part, rather boring.

“So to recap, we both are part of an internship program with the generic name of Intern Abroad. How creative of them,” Natalie observed.

“Yeah. Well, at least it’s easy to remember,” Alex added.

“I will be working for Chung Lee’s son, Tom, under the name Christy Chen. I’ll be interning in his company’s communications department, mostly working to get Chinese pieces translated to English, and vice versa.”

“I’ll be working for a Stacy Lu under the name of Josh Long. I’ll be interning at a Chinese television company in their government liaison office.”

“Tom is obviously expected to be tied to any operations his father may be involved in, so I’ll be looking for evidence of that.”

“Felicia Ng, the company’s vice president, is suspected to be assisting Chung Lee in his operations by funneling out money from the company’s revenue.”

“Well, that’s the basics of our abroad life. Now for the other information you said your former trainer gave you?”

“Yeah. She based it on the information was it…Sam?...told us.”

“Hmm…yeah…that was his name. It seems the two are pretty close if they’re disclosing classified information like this so easily between each other.”

Natalie nodded. “Yeah…never thought about that. You think…they talk about us?”

Alex shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them. Have I met…your former trainer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Natalie briefly described Pat.

Alex was silent for a moment, thinking back to his training days. “I…think I have. If you’re describing who I’m thinking of, she was the one who introduced us to counterintelligence and conducted our resistance training. She was…very strict.”

“Haha, sounds like her.” Natalie was then silent, and slightly confused. “Wait. So…your original trainer, Sam, taught me that stuff, while my former trainer, Pat, taught you, in addition to many others, the same topic?”

Alex thought for a moment. “Hmm…it appears so. You don’t think there’s a correlation, do you?”

“I don’t know. It just seems…like there should be, but I don’t know what it is. Was nearly everyone in your class?”

“There were a good chunk of us…maybe around twenty? Not more than twenty, certainly.” Alex smiled. “Don’t over think it now. We’ve got enough to worry about.”

Natalie smiled too. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’d say they do talk about us, though, because your trainer seemed rather attentive to my mistakes more so than others. I thought I was just unlucky for entering the class late, but perhaps there’s another side to it.”

Natalie laughed. “What happened to not over thinking it?”

Alex grinned. “I suggested for you to not over think it. I never said anything about me.”

“Smart aleck.”

“The name’s ALEX,” he reminded, still grinning.

“Close enough. Aleck suits you more. No wonder she picked on you,” Natalie joked.

“Hey! I’m not that stupid. I’m not looking for trouble with them. They’re cruel.”

“Heh, sorry. No need to remind me of that.”

Alex smiled slightly. “No hard feelings. You know, we are completely off topic.”

Natalie looked at the clock. “Wow, we just spent thirty minutes talking about our trainers,” she laughed. “You think they’d spend that long talking about us?”

“Probably more than that,” Alex suggested. “So we were talking about the information my trainer gave us.”

“Yeah. It details the past three most recent missions. The most recent one ended in disaster, as did all the other ones. The report here says that everything was in place to sabotage the threat, but at the final moment, the devices malfunctioned and the agents were captured, not by any terrorist group, which was actually what the sabotage was attempting to prevent, but by Chinese officials, who currently deny their detainment. It is assumed the agents were later interrogated and killed.”

“The second to last mission reports that the mission was successful – the information was gathered, but before it could be sent back to headquarters, the data was corrupted and the agents responsible for the retrieval were found murdered. It is assumed that one of the agents involved was actually the mole, since a note left behind expresses grief and guilt for the treason committed and explained the reasons for the executions as well as eventual suicide, but the little evidence retrieved by a recovery team suggests it was a murder done by another group or person. There was never enough evidence to confirm this, however, so officially it was marked as an agent having a mental break, killing off the team members, and finally committing suicide.”

“Finally, the last and oldest mission occurring over a year ago brings to light the earliest signs of a possible mole within our organization. It was a solo mission, similar to ours – undercover, maintaining two lives. The agent’s purpose was mostly to gather information. The agent one day stopped checking back with the case officer. Several believed he had defected. He had disappeared from his home. The evidence left behind suggested that he had been in contact with unapproved contacts in the past. Some included government officials, while others were linked to gangs and terrorist organizations in the region. This theory was disapproved, however, when his remains were discovered months later. It was rather difficult to obtain a positive ID for him, but the Chinese government insisted it was him. There still remains some doubt as to whether or not this agent is still alive and whether or not he has indeed defected.”

“So, based on this information, we can conclude that the Chinese government is trying to hide something, that they’re working with some bad people we don’t want them working with, that we may have a mole within our agency, or that it’s something we have yet to figure out. Of course, it could be a combination of them all,” Alex inferred.

“With the new information on Lee, we may want to see if we can establish any links with him and high ranking government officials. Your government liaison office internship may be a good starting point,” Natalie pointed out.

“Yeah…I don’t know how they pulled off the placements, but we are definitely at a good starting point if we intend to find out more about what’s going on.”

Seoul, South Korea

September 16; 18:00

Nicole opened the door shortly after she heard the doorbell ring. She was bombarded with the fragrant scent of flowers. “For you, my dear.”

“Ahh…” Nicole backed up a bit.

John smirked. “Thought so.” He tossed the flowers into a nearby trashcan and revealed a box of kisses from behind his back.

Nicole laughed. “You’re on time. Now what’s this?”

“Kisses for you, my dear.”

“I’d rather have the real thing,” Nicole said with a wink.

John pulled Nicole out of her apartment and kissed her on the cheek. It was, after all, only their first date. Yet that didn’t stop John from making a suggestion. “Maybe after dinner we can have dessert.”

Nicole kissed him back. “That sounds lovely.”

John grinned a rather goofy grin. “Really?” he asked, not believing his luck. He held the car door open for her as she got into the passenger side.

“Well, you are rather cute.”

John laughed. “A little adventurous?”

“Maybe,” Nicole replied, grinning a little too. “Why live tomorrow when you can live today?”

“I like your thinking,” John remarked. He drove them to a nice restaurant not too far from the campus. After ordering their meals came the small talk.

“So how long have you been here?” Nicole asked.

“Too long. I started during the spring semester.”

“I wasn’t told there were other officers here.”

“They’ll always be other officers. I actually live quite a distance from the university, so I’m not exactly nearby. A lot of my collection work is around where I live, not so much at the university.”

“That makes more sense. Jason and I live only a few minutes from campus. We only just arrived though, so I’m not sure what information I’m looking for yet.”

“There’s plenty to go around. They’ve kept me around because of a development I discovered in my area.”

“Oh?”

“You’re not allowed to know,” John smirked.

“Right. Well, it doesn’t concern a Korean mastermind born in the US, does it?”

John’s eyes shed a brief glimpse of interest before shaking his head. “No, not at all. Just the normal drugs and weapons trafficking stuff.”

“Looks like we’re on different assignments then.”

“Yep. No partnership with the great…Dean this time,” John noted with a wink. “So Korean mastermind…what’s that about?”

Now it was Nicole’s turn to smile. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

John looked hurt.

“Hey, what comes around goes around,” Nicole reminded.

“Fair enough.”

Their food arrived and the two began eating.

Seoul, South Korea

September 16; 19:36

Aaron had a boring day full of classes. He hadn’t seen Nicole at all, except for when they both left the apartment that morning. He saw the note Nicole posted on the fridge informing him she’d be out tonight to have dinner with friends. She already made friends. But that didn’t surprised Aaron, as Nicole had no problem approaching people and talking with them about anything and everything. Aaron checked his email and read through a new one from HQ. It was an update of new information received regarding Lee’s activities. Lee is expected to be flying into Seoul in a week and will remain for a few weeks to make sure things are going smoothly at his computer production company. They would need to start collecting information sometime before he arrives and while he is there.

Aaron decided he would need to talk to Nicole about this as soon as she got back so that they would be able to plan something. Hopefully. His cell phone suddenly beeped, signally an incoming text message. It was from Nicole, letting him know not to worry about her. She was going to spend the night at a friend’s and would not be coming back.

Aaron rolled his eyes. Nicole certainly was enjoying college. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guess this was her first time. He was having a bit more trouble getting back into the college life. Perhaps it was because he was in a foreign country. Perhaps he was more focused on the mission than actually enjoying his life. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to remember certain memories. He could only hope that Nicole would treat their mission just as seriously as he intended too. Right now, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Baltimore/Washington International Airport

September 28; 11:53

Natalie and Alex arrived an hour in advance of their flight to pass through security. Things have changed so much since 9/11. A lot of their suspicious supplies would be shipped to them when they arrived.

Not that there was too much of it. The agency only permitted them one firearm each, which, the two realized that if there ever was a need for firearms, the odds would be against them. Thus, Natalie and Alex knew it was imperative that things didn’t go wrong…unlike all the other times. Yet, after knowing what they knew, the two couldn’t suppress the nagging feeling that something would go wrong.

Natalie watched the planes taxiing while waiting to board. “So…the time has come. We’re leaving already.”

“Yeah…to China at that.”

“Least you’re going home.”

“It hasn’t been home for a long time now.”

“Well, things will have changed, no doubt.”

“Ke xi…hao jing bu chang.” (Chinese: but...good times never last)

“Dui…” (Chinese: yep...)

The PA cackled to life as an announcement was made. “NOW BOARDING FLIGHT 420 DEPARTING FROM BALTIMORE TO BEIJING, CHINA.”

The two watched the airplanes taxi in silence for as long as they could before finally boarding the flight. They only hoped they would return and survive this new adventure.

A/N: I regret to inform my readers that this will be the last chapter I will post for a while. This story has officially gone on hiatus until I can find time and ideas to help write the rest of it. I hope this hiatus will not discourage you from reading it when it returns, but I understand if it does. There's no telling when I'll be able to post a new chapter, as now that they're in China, a lot of it is kinda foggy on my end since I've really no concrete idea as to what they will be doing in China...I've got ideas, but nothing is definitive, so...we'll see how it all goes. When I do post a new chapter, this chapter may also face severe revisions, as there were things I wanted to add, but couldn't find a way to add that would make it go smoothly. It's also shorter than usual, but I felt them leaving for China was a good stopping point...

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading this and if I never update this story again...well I don't want to think so negatively, but it is possible...I do hope you've enjoyed reading it and thanks for tagging along this adventure!

Ideas welcomed. Thanks for reading!!