Story Wormholes: My Sister the Spy, Part 1
It was now well after 5, and Olivia is never late. You can’t flake out like that when you’re a spy.
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I check the time on my phone obsessively once again – 5:23 and still no Olivia. I open my texts and email to see if she sent me a message that I somehow missed - nothing. I call my voicemail to see if she left me a new message, but all that is there is the one she left last night.
“One skipped message,” the electronic voice says before Olivia cuts in. “Hey Mitchell, I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow at that new Italian place on 3rd, 5 o’clock sharp. Be there or be square, big brother.”
It was now well after 5, and Olivia is never late. You can’t flake out like that when you’re a spy. Especially when you’re working deep undercover as the chef at the Tejuristan embassy. You know, the embassy of one of the most dangerous countries in the world – the one that is famous for torturing those who they consider to be a threat.
I drop some money on the table to pay for my drink and hurry out of the restaurant to Olivia’s apartment. As I’m climbing the stairs, I’m praying that I find her horribly sick. Ok, not the best thing to wish on someone but better than the alternative here, trust me.
I knock on the door. No answer. “Hey, Olivia, are you in there?” I call. Still nothing. I pull out the key that she gave me for emergencies, and slowly open the door into the dark living room, hoping that there aren’t any booby traps or anything that she neglected to tell me about.
After a deep sigh of relief that nothing went boom, I flip on the light. No Olivia, no note, nothing. I search around, but don’t find her phone or keys or purse. Looks like she just went to work and hasn’t come back.
I feel the panic start to rise in my chest. My little sister has probably been taken hostage by some burly, badly shaven Tejuristani guard who picks his teeth with a knife. And I’m just a barber, what am I supposed to do about it? I don’t even know who to call about such things, let alone how to free someone from a dungeon or whatever.
I take a deep breath to try to slow my pulse. Panicking would do nothing to help the situation. As my breathing comes more slowly, I consider my options.
Maybe I should go watch the embassy. I might find something out or even see Olivia. That seems like a pretty safe option. Then again, those guards are awfully trigger-happy – they might even react to me watching from a car.
On the other hand, what if Olivia is getting tortured right now, maybe even to death? I can’t just sit around waiting for something terrible to happen to her. That ugly guard is probably putting his tooth-picking knife up to her throat right now! I should figure out a way to break into the embassy and save her.
As I am standing there in indecision, it occurs to me that perhaps I am overreacting. Olivia could just be working late. Her phone could have died or fallen in a pot of soup or something, so she couldn’t call. For all I know, she is on her way to the restaurant to meet me right now. The ambassador is one of my barbershop clients, and he’s scheduled to come tomorrow. Maybe I should wait and see what I might hear from him then. That way, I can be sure that Olivia is really in trouble without having to put myself in danger for no reason.
What should I do?
It was good, but in the 7th paragraph you wrote some, but later you said there was only one.