Chapter III

…And walked out onto an elegant balcony-like structure suspended in a gigantic, dome-shaped room.
Clover had forgotten all about her grudge against grand posh things and took to marvelling about the place.
The balcony-thing was impressive enough, with luxurious carpet and antique wooden chairs, but what was most amazing was the sheer size of the place - you could have dropped the Opera House down it and it would hardly scrape the sides.
Dotted throughout the room were a number of other balconies, and the sound of important people arguing filled the air around them.

“It’s the Secret International Senate.” Whispered the skinny, tall woman.
“This is where it all happens. Where plans are made, problems are dealt with…” She stopped, and gave Clover a nervous look.
“But why am I telling you? You know this. Hahah…” She laughed nervously.
Hmm, thought Clover.
She could get used to this.
Back on the streets, all she ever was to someone else was a filthy urchin or a little girl who had been separated from mummy.
Here, people treated her with RESPECT, something she had never received before.

“Ah! Agent Doyenne.” Said a voice from one of the grandest-looking balconies high up on a pedestal, almost touching the ceiling.
Clover began picking her nose. This meeting (Or whatever it was meant to be) had quickly become boring. Sure, the room was impressive, but for all she could see, this was just-
But wait…was that woman looking at her…?
Of COURSE she was! SHE was meant to be Agent Doyenne!! Clover jumped a mile and wiped the bogey on one of the bodyguards, who picked it off and flicked it at his partner.
“Uhmmmhmhmahnnyes?” Clover looked up, frazzled, blinked frantically and tried to smile which ended up just being a grimace.
“You are a leading figure in MI7, and one of the only remaining members of the organisation. What is your opinion on this most recent attack?”
Clover rubbed her eyes, smacked her lips, and said,
“You wot?”
There was a moment of shocked silence, and the lady looked on in disbelief.
Why, pray tell, was the top Agent of her Secret Service acting so oddly?
Meanwhile, Clover was panicking.
Okay, thought Clover. You can do this. You’re Agent Doyenne. You’re respected. Everyone fears you. Get in character! Snarl a bit. Kick over a chair.
You’ve got this. Be FEIRCE, Clover! It’s now or never!!

The silence continued.

It’s never.

“Agent Doyenne. Perhaps you’d like to advise us a possible retaliation to the recent events of the mass kidnapping, or give us a clue to who the mastermind is. All of our agents are lost. In fact, until Agent Peppermint over there-“ Here she gestured at the pencil-ish woman, who smiled and nodded, which was slightly marred by the fact her head was shaking like a dashboard bobblehead in a violent storm- “Found you and took you back here, we assumed you had perished as well.”

Clover gulped and opened her mouth.
And closed it again.
And opened it.
And closed it.
Openclosedopenclosedopenclosed.

Pac-man.

Think Clover, think! Even if you’re not confident, PRETEND you are! She screamed at herself internally.
“Uh…based on the intel that I, er, discovered on my day gathering intel in the field, I believe that the traitor may be in our ranks…” Her voice trailed off in surprise when people started gasping.
She was rather pleased. She thought they weren’t going to believe her.

“A-and who do you suggest?” Stuttered the lady.
She held the same incredulous look of a chicken who had just had a human offer her a bug. (She couldn’t just eat any bug. It had to at least be free-range, and non-GMO for that matter)
Clover shrugged.
“I dunno. That’s all I have for now.”

Chapter IV

Clover sat in her room, contemplating her choice of words.
Was it the best? She had to think fast, and her explanation of the “traitor in our ranks” startled the Senate a bit. Who even were those people?
And what was she going to do now? Run away in the middle of the night?
But they’d probably track her with a drone, or a stationary satellite or something. Could she admit the truth? Heck no! Think of what they would do to her if she said that!

She flopped down on her truly elegant bed and looked at the giant clock (Made of real quartz!). It was 1:21pm. She didn’t care. A nap was just what she needed. The answer would come to her in the later.

Probably.
Possibly.
Hopefully.

Clover had just started to fall asleep when a loud banging on the door roused her. She wanted to ignore it, but the person just kept hammering on it.
Clover fumed and stomped over to the door.
When she opened it, she was surprised to see a very elderly woman in a tuxedo standing there.
She waggled a crooked, bony finger in a beckoning motion.
“Come, come, Agent. The Prime Minister wants to speak with you.”

“The who?” Grunted Clover, still annoyed.
The woman turned to look at Clover. She stared at Clover with the intensity of a cat staring hungrily at a goldfish swimming around in circles in a pond.
Clover was panicking internally. Was her cover about to be blown? Will this old hag be her undoing?
Suddenly, the woman straightened up and clutched her leg as if she’d been bitten by a snake.
“OH! You wicked, horrible little BEAST!! It’s the THIGH now, is it?!” She screeched.
Clover jumped a mile and started to run, but the old lady called after her.
“No, no, no, no. That-that wasn’t…meant for you, Agent Doyenne.”
“Who…who was it then?”
“Never mind.” Grumbled the lady as she shuffled off.
Clover followed her in confusion, and barraged her with questions.

“Who are you?”
“Never mind.”
“Who were you yelling at?”
“Never MIND!!”
“Never mind? I DO mind!!”

Even Clover’s request to learn the lady’s name was denied, but that just made her even more curious.
This continued back and forth with a few more appearances of unseen wicked beasts until they reached another grand set of double doors.
“The Prime Minister will see you now.” Muttered the old woman sarcastically, rolling her eyes and opening the door.
Inside was a very refined and elegant office, with TV screens, posh rugs and a few marble figures on pedestals striking some rather odd poses.
“Welcome to my office, Agent.” Said a very posh-looking lady who was seated at the desk.
Clover blinked. It was the lady from before, the one who had talked to her in the Secret International Senate.
“Oh hi, Miss Posh.” Clover said.
Big mistake.
The lady scowled, picked up a pen sharply and chucked it across the room.
It hit Clover in the forehead, giving her a tiny bindi.
“The only reason I am tolerating your poor manners, Doyenne, is because you are one of the best and only agents we have available at the moment. Take a seat, young Agent.”
Remember, thought Clover. Confidence. Confidence is key.

“I am assuming you don’t know who your escort was, as you very rarely come here. Her name is Ruby, and she is my most trusted assistant.” Said the Prime Minister.
“However, she grows old, and insubordinately refuses to go into retirement.
As such, she is often plagued by aches and pains felt all over her body-“
As if on cue, a yell rang out from the hall.
“Oh, it’s my POSTERIOR now, is it? Why you beastly little PERVERT!!!”
There was the sound of a sharp smack, a cry of pain, and a mumble of embarrassment as she heard Clover snickering in the other room.

The Prime Minister turned her perturbed look at Clover.
“But the reason why I summoned you here was because I am assigning you a field mission.”

Clover groaned internally. If she found it difficult to fib her way through a cover story, then an actual mission would certainly blow her cover. What would she do when she had to do something like give a secret code or verify her identity? She would be discovered in an instant.

All she could say was,
“A field mission?”
The Prime Minister couldn’t have looked more fed up, but somehow she managed it.
“YES, a field mission. I want you to go to the place of the mass kidnapping and scout the area. I trust you a experienced enough to identify any traps and-“
Clover had had enough. She had no idea what this “mass kidnapping” was, and she was sick of it.
“What mass kidnapping?! Where? I don’t know about any of this!!” She shrieked.
The Prime Minister looked befuddled and furious at the same time.
“But were you not there to witness it yourself?”
Clover blinked.
“I was? UM, right, duh, of course I was! It, I, just, er, it all happened so quickly that I can’t remember it properly…”
The Prime Minister settled down.
“Of course. My apologies. I assumed that because you were our top agent, you would find it less…traumatic. Nevertheless, I shall quickly brief you on the details…”

Finally, Clover thought.
Chapter V

“Less than 48 hours ago, I sent out an order for all agents currently in the field were to return here immediately. But somehow, the order was rewritten by somebody, and all the agents ended up in a park near the State Library of New South Wales. There was then a burst of static and then complete silence. A drone survey concluded that all of them were long gone. Now I want you to go there to see if there is anything anyone left behind that might be useful.”
Clover was about to protest (Why does she have to go? Can’t it be someone else, like that tall woman-whatshername? Agent Poopermint? Why can’t Agent Poopermint go?!) when the do swung open and in swaggered a tall, muscular man in a freshly-ironed tuxedo.
The Prime Minister’s eyelids immediately began fluttering and she dropped her malevolent behaviour.
“Oh, William!” She sighed.
Oh hell, thought Clover.
“I-i didn’t realise you were coming so early! Can I get you anything? refreshments, perhaps?”

“I’ll have a hot chocolate. With chocolate flakes. And marshmallows. And extra sugar. Have I said marshmallows already?”

As she said this, she noticed William’s expression. It was a mixture of shock, fear, and frustration.
As Clover was returning the glare by sticking out her tongue, The Prime Minister scowled, turned around and mouthed, “GET LOST” angrily.
Clover, only to happy to oblige (but a bit upset that her request for a hot chocolate with chocolate flakes, marshmallows, and extra sugar and been so rudely rejected) jumped from her chair and scuttled out of the room.

Just as she was closing the door, she stopped and looked at the tiny crack in the unclosed door. Should she? Why not. She would be able to talk her way out of it if she got caught. Words had got her this far, why should they fail now?
She pressed one eye against the doorframe. She couldn’t see much, but she could hear perfectly well.
The first thing she heard was a strange sucking noise, and then a gasp.

“This is very good coffee, Minerva, I must say. Anyway, to business.” This was the new guy, William.
“What do you have for me?” The Prime Minister asked.
There was the sound of somebody placing their phone on the table.
“Did you know, Minerva, that 94% of serious car crashes are caused by human error?”
The Prime Minister tried to sound impressed.
“No, I did not know that.”
“The same is true with boating accidents. 75% of them are caused by human error.”
There was a pause for dramatic effect.
“Now, i’m recognising a pattern here. Almost everything that goes wrong is because of human error. But what if we could take away human error as a factor?”
Clover’s eavesdropping session was cut short by that tall, pointy woman -whatshername? Oh yes, Agent Poopermint - arriving to tell Clover that the armoured car was ready, and all they needed to do was go down to the armoury and collect some gear.
“The armoured car is ready, and all we need to do is go down to the armoury and collect some gear.” She said helpfully.
Clover, startled, yelped and pushed herself back from the door.
“Okay. Um, sure.”

About an hour later, a man in a black cloak and a mask met up with their agent.
“What have you DONE?!” Bellowed the man.
“I-i-i’m sorry, master. I swear, we captured her! We most definitely, definitely captured her! Come, see for yourself!”
Minutes later, they were standing in front of a beaten girl in a prison cell.
“See? She’s there! It’s impossible that you saw her at the centre!”
The man in the mask growled.
“This one must be a decoy. Interrogate it, and then kill it.”
The girl, who was the REAL Agent Doyenne, picked up a rock from her cell and hurled it at the man in the mask.
She had good aim. It sailed neatly between the prison bars and smacked directly into the man’s head.
He roared in anger and yanked something from his pocket.
Moments later, Agent Doyenne was lying on the floor, electricity fizzling all over her body, unconscious.
“Go to these coordinates,” He growled, handing the Agent a piece of paper,

“and see to it that Agent Doyenne meets an untimely demise.”