Chapter One: Receiving the Mission

"Agent 001, Agent 002, Agent 003, please go to Room 8B to be briefed on your new assignment."

I grimace in distaste, glancing over at the faces of my two best friends, Agent 001 and Agent 002. I'm quite sure they were thinking the same thing I was. We have names!

This is me, Agent 003. Of course I have a name, but obviously, that's classified. As for my Alice, that's also classified. Same goes for my two best friends, so don't waste time asking them. Only we three seem to remember the truth of it all. Too bad we're not allowed to tell anybody.

According to the government, none of us exist anymore. According to them; and now, our family members; we all died in the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 when in fact, all three of us had been whisked away before the airplane crash even happened. We were at least allowed news of our family. For five years, we have been students of Alice Academy, USA, part of the Dangerous Ability group.

I open the door, allowing Agents 001 and 002 to enter before me. Looking around and scanning the room for any possible bugs, I close the door tight and click three locks on the door. Agents 001 and 002 are already seated, and Joel and Kay, our "bosses," look at me expectantly. "Agent 003?"

"Sorry." I mumble, slipping into the seat next to Agent 001. Her wide clear light brown eyes stare at me worriedly. I stare back expressionlessly, black eyes staring at brown.

"Eh-hem?" Joel coughs, his cough clearly fake, while Kay smiles and waits patiently. I look away and focus my attention on Joel and Kay. Joel smiles, and snaps his fingers briskly. A big screen slides down from the ceiling. Agent 002 scowls, brushing away a stray lock of black hair.

I say brightly, "Nice…you have any cable in here?" Joel glares at me, before turning to Kay and nodding his head. Kay clicks a button on her remote control and a slideshow appears on the screen.

I lie back in my chair and put my feet on the table. Normally I wouldn't do this in front of people, but Joel and Kay are pretty cool about it; cooler than some other "bosses" I've heard of. Agent 001 takes a notepad out of her bag and scribbles furiously into it when Joel begins his lecture. "Agents, your services are needed."

"Duh?" Agent 002 says angrily. I feel sorry for Joel, who hasn't been hanging around her all day. He doesn't realize how important it is to humor her today. Let me tell you, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Agent 002 continues with her tirade. "Let's get on with it, Joel. I got an anime to watch in thirty minutes."

I giggle at Joel's expression to try to lighten the mood and say, "Come on, let's let him talk. We torture him enough."

Joel transfers his glare to me before continuing, gesturing to the screen where a highly detailed map showed up. "This is Alice Academy in Tokyo, Japan."

"Oh my gosh!" Agent 002 and I squeal like overly obsessed fan girls. "It's Japan! It's really Japan! I've always wanted to go there!"

"Awesome." Agent 001 echoes tiredly.

"Don't kill yourself from excitement." Kay hides a smile.

Joel sighs in exasperation. "What we need you to do is to infiltrate Japan's Alice Academy, you know, make sure things are okay over there. As always, we expect you to report back to us on the laptop every day before bedtime."

Kay hands each of us a packet of clothes along with one laptop specially developed for us from someone's technology Alice. Kay gives the laptop to Agent 001, her being the most responsible out of all three of us.

"We have to wear…" I gasp in mock horror. "UNIFORMS?!"

Agent 002 giggles with pleasure, bad mood lifted. "Yay! I've always wanted to wear uniforms!"

"The skirt better have built-in shorts." Agent 001 grumbles.

"They're cute, aren't they?" Kay squeals with us.

"Are you girls done?" Joel asks tiredly. "I can't believe you guys are geniuses. You must have cheated on your IQ test or something."

I stop in mid-squeal and try to recover professional-like. "How can you possibly cheat on an IQ test, Joel?" I ask stiffly, fighting back my excitement. "And we're still thirteen year old girls, no matter how smart we are."

"Please continue Joel." Agent 002 says demurely. Joel rubs his head like he has a headache. I snicker with Agent 001 and Agent 002. We all know he's faking.

"Chillax, Joel." Agent 001 says soothingly. "Seriously, please continue." Joel straightens up and begins listing requirements for our mission.

"What?" Agent 002 screeches. "We have to learn Japanese?"

"Well, how else are you going to talk to the locals?" Joel asks sarcastically. "Speak in meaningless gibberish to them until they sic the police on you?"

"How long do we have?" Agent 001, always the practical one, asks.

Kay shrugs. "About a week." Okay, now I'm getting angry.

"Why such short notice?" I ask warily. Joel and Kay look at each other uncomfortably, a silent conversation passing between them that only they can understand.

Kay laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. "We don't know. But trust us, we tried to inform you as soon as we could." She says to my face seriously. Looking into her hazel eyes, I know she's telling the truth. But my temper has never been that good. I tried, honestly tried, to contain myself, but the hateful words still came pouring out. At least I developed enough self-control to limit my voice, even though my brain was screaming at me to yell the words, to fill the whole room with my torturous feelings.

I say quietly, "What gives you the right to use us like this?" Kay's hand slips off my shoulder.

Joel and Kay have sorrowful expressions on their exterior. Agent 002 stands at my side, fuming with anger, while Agent 001 remains seated, fidgeting nervously with her Alice limiter on her ear. I immediately bit back what words I was going to say, and felt remorse. Agent 001 shouldn't get nervous because of me. She always appeared a sickly child, frail and thin. But behind that delicate outside hid gentleness, a quick wit, and firm muscles. I didn't like upsetting her in any way, so I took out my anger by kicking an empty chair to the floor.

"Continue." I ordered, plunking myself back into my seat. Agent 002 followed suit.

Joel gladly continued. "There's one last order of business. You need an alias while in Japan."

"Can we choose Japanese names?" I ask bluntly. "No offense to any Japanese people, but I don't like the way they say English names, let alone talking in English."

"Yeah…" Agent 002 appeared to be pondering the thought.

"To save your brain power," Kay says slyly. "we have assigned you code names already. Please practice addressing each other using these names, so you can get used to it." She begins handing out weird mini-booklets. "Here are your Japanese passports. You will be posing as Japanese natives, so better be careful."

I looked at mine and read out loud incredulously, "My name's Sakurai Karin? What?"

"Yours is easier to pronounce than mine!" Agent 002 shot back. "I'm Sakurai Mit…su…ki? Sakurai Mitsuki?"

"Actually," Agent 001 states matter-of-factly, "I think mine is the easiest." She holds up her passport so I and "Mitsuki" can see. We both stagger and suppress giggles. "I'm Narita Hana." Agent 001 says, smiling slightly.

Joel stands up from the chair he had been occupying. "Glad to see you like your names. This meeting is over. You are dismissed!"

Checking her pink wristwatch, Mitsuki says reprovingly to Joel, ice in her voice, "You owe me big time. My anime episode just ended."