Like Slipping Under Cover: Erotic Spy Fiction

by Bethany Zaiatz, ed.

  Seph frowned as she set the drink down on the counter next to the girl, parted her lips as she started the inner debate about whether to speak or just shrug and mime her way through this when the girl stated, "I know you don't drink, I just wanted to make sure that you would come over here."

  Seph blinked.

  The girl continued, "Clearly my staring contest wasn't enough on its own and I don't want to just get your attention, I'd like to keep it for a few minutes so that I might make a proposal. If you'd be so curious and kind as to agree to follow me to a booth in the lounge, I'll buy you a beverage you'll actually down and I won't take up more than just a few minutes of your time."

  Seph frowned harder, but nodded.

  "Excellent." The girl signaled a bartender, then looked back to Seph. "I also know you don't speak, so don't worry about that. It actually makes my job much easier. Now what'll you have?"

  Seph turned to the bartender, a regular who knew Seph, and held up two fingers--a second round of her usual, please. The bartender smiled and nodded. She pulled up a glass from the lower shelf, dug it through a trough of ice and grabbed a hose from the tap, clicking a button and filling the glass with water. She set the water on the bar and was about to take off to fill other orders when Curls waved her back, raising an eyebrow at Seph.

  "Seriously, water? At least get something carbonated. The little use it gets, I'm sure your tongue could do with a little bite."

  Seph's heart thumped.

  "Queen Charlie for the gallant and gracious lady and a Hi-Fi for me please, thank you," the girl instructed the bartender. The bartender fixed her with a restrained glare, but she stepped away to make the drinks. Curls flashed a grin at Seph so fast Seph couldn't be sure if she imagined it or not.

  Seph looked over this stranger for any sense of intentions. Proposal was a bit formal for at the least a make-out session and at the most a hook up, but Seph wasn't sure what kind of actual business this girl could want with her, especially when this girl was dressed so casually--dark brown boots, fitted midnight blue jeans, a satiny coffee brown blouse, and a short caramel brown leather jacket. It didn't hurt that this girl was attractive though. Those curls framing a short oval face, her skin a fair peaches and creamy white rather than the pasty pale Seph had always considered herself as being. And did she have purple eyes? Seph resisted the urge to lean in closer, and upon second look they just looked like a dark blue, but Seph could've sworn she saw a flash of deep violet shine in them, as if they were winking without the interruption of an eyelid closing over them. Curls smirked and followed Seph's eyes wherever they went, pleased with the attention the way a cat stretches in sunlight.

  "Do you like lemonade?" she asked.

  Seph nodded.

  "Good. You'll enjoy this then." The girl nodded at the drinks as they arrived. She tipped the bartender and bowed her head in a thank-you, before scooping up a drink in each hand and tilting her head towards the lounge. "Shall we?"

  Seph nodded.

  The lounge was dimmer than the bar area, and the music still had a heavy bass beat, but it was overall more relaxed and played at a lower volume. This was the place to cozy up and exchange quiet words, or more. Or in this case, apparently have a classified conversation.

  Curls set the drinks down on the table and scooted around the booth seat until she sat about three-quarters around the table from where Seph stood. She smiled and patted the spot next to her, right in the middle. Seph slid her way around the bench, bumping her hostess's elbow as she settled in. Seph had a brief moment where she imagined their bodies colliding in other places and ways, but she had promised to give this girl her serious attention, so she sent the thought to the back of her head. Maybe for later. She scooched back a bit to put more space between them.

  Curls just continued smiling and passed Seph her drink, then grabbed her own and raised it in a toast. Seph clinked her glass and they both took a sip, Curls sighing in satisfaction when she brought the glass back down from her mouth. Seph licked her own lips to taste more of the Queen Charlie--very sweet, but with the fizzy bite promised. Curls leaned back against the booth, folding her arms and stretching her legs out under the table, which Seph only knew because she accidentally kicked her as she did so and apologized. Then she began,

  "You may call me Rhodo or Ms. Light, because you won't be allowed to know my real name, and I can see the gears turning in your head with plenty of questions about who I am, what I want to talk to you about, and based on those last couple of minutes waiting for drinks, what color underwear I'm wearing." She smirked again. "So I'll start with, 'You may call me Rhodo or Ms. Light'. Not that I expect you to out loud of course, but upstairs," she tapped her finger to her temple.

  Seph nodded, acknowledgement and thanks.

  "I will call you Joseph, I suppose, as that is what this country claims is your 'legal' first name, and while I know that Commander Grasmus has assigned you a nickname that you more commonly go by, out of respect, I will refrain from using it until I'm given permission."

  Seph raised an eyebrow. In that one sentence there was a lot of information that only a few people knew. Not to mention the first two nuggets she'd provided the moment Seph had stepped in front of her. Rhodo's grin returned.

  "I've got a whole dossier on you, sweetie. You pull off the beautiful tough chick look even better than in your pictures, by the way." Rhodo leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "But if you don't mind, I'm going to skip the whole part where I recite the contents of said dossier to impress you because you already know your birth date, your Dweryslo Citizen Code, your Belliskrayan Army enlistment number, and all the juicy psych reasons for why you don't drink or talk and go by your murdered brother's name. But you don't know why I've dragged you over here to freak you out with your own personal information. I work for an agency, Joseph--"

  Seph squirmed. When Seph had claimed her brother's name as her own, she hadn't thought too much about the different types of people who may end up referring to her by it. She had assumed that it would be the personnel of a military she despised, and beyond them, the citizens of a country she had little pity for. Hot girls were definitely not among her intended audience. And as dedicated as she wanted to be to the memory of her brother, this sort of situation was not one where she wanted thoughts of him popping up. It sounded strange, to have this girl call her Joseph.

  "May I call you Seph?" Rhodo offered, a little excitedly.

  Seph gave a relieved smile, and nodded.

  "Thank you. I work for an agency, Seph. We're called Reperio. We like to know things. We also make things happen, when we feel the need, but mostly we like to know things. And we were wondering if you might be interested in helping us come to know things."

  Seph blinked. She pressed her lips against themselves and sniffed a breath into her nose, releasing it while she ran all that back through her brain and made sure it meant what she thought it meant. She leaned back into the booth. Rhodo gave her a moment, and then continued her pitch.

  "We'd start you as a floater - assignments only here and there, mostly just information passes, until we could ensure your cover would indeed be feasible, Commander Grasmus being so high profile. And of course, we would want to ensure that you would maintain a cover and not turn us over. And then we could work from there. If we like each other, we can keep each other."

  Seph's lips had pushed themselves over to one corner of her mouth, and she looked from Rhodo, to her Queen Charlie -- where she debated taking a sip for a moment before deciding to wait -- to the table, and then back to Rhodo.

  Rhodo paused for this processing, then went on, "I would be your case manager. I know, talent scout, case manager--but you work for an understaffed, underfunded organization. You know the multi-tasking that must go on to keep things running. I wouldn't create all of your assignments, but I would be in charge of seeing that they are passed to you, sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly, so hopefully, you've enjoyed that Queen Charlie and didn't min
d my flirting." She smiled. "If you were uncomfortable though, I could have another case manager assigned to you and I'd just be jealous because hey, I only did the whole prep study and interview."

  Seph couldn't help an amused exhale. But that was about the only thing Rhodo'd said in the past few minutes that she could take lightly. Assignments. Information passes. Cover. Commander Grasmus. Rhodo. It would be a lot. She was already carrying so much inside of her, secrets and classified information would be a tight squeeze. But worth it, perhaps. At least she would get to dump something on someone else every once in while. At least she would get to contribute something meaningful for a change. She hadn't felt useful or justified in any of her actions in so long, not other than in keeping her silence, and she had to face it, that wasn't as far reaching or impactful as she'd hoped. This could be very good for her then. New little projects for her anger.

  "I'm sorry about your brother, by the way." Rhodo interrupted her thoughts, probably worrying that they were doubts. "What happened to him was fucked up. I've read some accounts." She nodded, her jaw set. She took a breath. "…My agency and I, we both admire your response to it, though. We admire your personal brand of quiet sabotage. We're just wondering if you'd be interested in keeping the quiet, and just expanding on the sabotage, honestly."

  Seph believed Rhodo's apology. Believed that she was genuinely sympathetic of what had happened to her and the original Joseph. But she also knew Rhodo had a job to do, and was doing it, by fingering her trigger a little. And that was ok. Because she hadn't really needed to. Seph had made up her mind, and the mention of her brother was just a reaffirmation.

  "Yes. Ms. Light," Seph said.

  Rhodo smirked.

  "You can call me Rhodo."

  * * * *

  Seph's first assignment was to feign hearing loss in one of her ears so Reperio could send her an earpiece and transmitter under the guise of a hearing aid issued by the army. She picked the right ear. It would be easy enough given the amount of time it spent in close proximity to gunfire and the amount of time she spent around explosions. And she knew her team, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary and their general respect of her, judged her small stature and country of origin as being contributors to a somewhat inferior physique. It would be highly plausible then, that with the perceived delicateness of her body and all the noise trauma over her years in combat, that her overall ability to hear had been slowly declining the whole time, rather unnoticed to her, and it had only just now finally reached a threshold that she couldn't compensate for. Particularly in her right ear, which had suffered more acutely than the left. Sure.

  So when her commander called out to her the next morning after breakfast, she ignored him. It was probably the simplest action she'd ever do as an agent, but she was surprised at how much effort it required to not react to his voice. And not just because immediately responding to a superior was an ingrained habit.

  If there was anyone she could put up with in this entire military, it was Commander Daniel Grasmus. Only a few years her senior, Grasmus was a foreign kid too, foreign even to Seph, and that alone was enough reason for her to like him. He too could appreciate not being particularly welcome in the ranks, even though he'd still managed to rise fairly high in them. But she also shared in the widely held opinion that he was smart and compassionate and charismatic--an overall outstanding leader to march for. And she had a rather personal appreciation for his sense of humor, and his attempts to use it to get reactions and noises out of her. A snort. A chuckle. Maybe even a sigh of annoyance. He'd made her laugh once, loud and bright, with some snarky comment about the commander of a rival team, and the surprised joy that lit up his face when he heard such a sound escape her was like a child watching a firework explode. He had been the one to abridge her name to Seph. He'd noticed how uncomfortable it made his higher-ups when he referred to her as Joseph, and he was sly enough to have heard stories as to why she went by that, so he'd told her that while he respected that, he'd have to address her otherwise. Originally he suggested shortening the name to Jo, but when Seph crinkled her nose at the idea, he joked, "What else can I call you? 'Seph'?". She pondered that a moment, then set her jaw and nodded. He'd laughed. "Seph it is then."

  And Seph it was. Seph the kindred foreign spirit. Seph the laughter challenge. Seph the matchmaker. And now, Seph the liar. She wasn't worried about whether she could do it or not, even before she'd come to the realization that her life now depended on her ability to lie to him. But it didn't sit with her quite the way she'd figured. And she didn't want to spend too much time dwelling on that fact.

  When Seph didn't respond, Commander Grasmus called out to her again in the same pleasant tone, knowing she wasn't one to disobey or daydream. And when she ignored him again, he called out again. She waited for the fourth time before finally turning, raising an eyebrow politely as if it had been the first time he'd tried to get her attention. Her commander frowned, approached her, and spoke his piece. He had stopped about two feet from her, but she leaned in to hear him, left ear first. Grasmus frowned again, asked if she was feeling okay. She nodded, and he pursed his lips. After thinking for a moment, he "hmm"ed, and wandered back to whatever his previous business had been. He knew she'd gone off to a club of her own last night, and he probably, hopefully, racked up her difficulty hearing to being due to the loud ringing of "concert ear".

  Seph repeated this for days with anyone who spoke to her. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Acknowledge. Lean in left ear first when they spoke. Her commander watched her carefully, even employed some of her teammates to try and sneak up on her, or walk up just behind her and clap their hands. She let them surprise her and let them clap several times before finally turning and giving them a quizzical look.

  When a week had passed and this behavior had persisted, her commander made their medic take a look at her. He checked in her ears--with what even he acknowledged was pretty lousy equipment--and he tried his own hearing tests. Employing all her acting skills gained from faking sick to stay home from school, Seph failed them.

  A report was then sent to medical headquarters and combat headquarters, informing them of Seph's "injury" and requesting a hearing aid so that she might continue fighting with some assured effectiveness. While the army wasn't really one to accommodate the people of her background, they needed her gun in the field, and they regarded her commander too highly to let him march a squad that was any less than at maximum combat readiness. Not that the reports ever made it to either location, as they were intercepted by Reperio. They then sent the "hearing aid", in a box marked "Army Issue".

  The earpiece fit comfortably and discreetly into the small hollow just outside her ear canal. On an almost daily basis, the device downloaded her assignments, and instructions on how to fulfill those assignments in cases requiring specific skill sets that Seph didn't have--like computer hacking. It was a very powerful little machine, able to access encrypted wi-fi hotspots from as wide a range as 1,000 miles away, so it could still download even when Seph was stuck in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. At the careful push of a tiny button, a vaguely female-sounding computer voice issued her missions, contact details, and deadlines. Seph checked it every night before lights out, and whenever she could excuse herself to pee throughout the day. She could only listen to each download once before it was deleted without a trace, and so she needed to be positive she was alone when listening to it.

  In the woods her assignments were boring, because they were mostly all the same: try and overhear what Commander Grasmus and his second-in-command were planning. If she heard anything on broad troop movements, where her squad was relocating to next, any kind of strategic information, she was to report it as soon as possible into the little strand microphone that, with the push of another tiny button, telescoped out from the earpiece and turned the unit into a discreet headset--because what couldn't this device do.

  Bases were much better. Her assignments almost always involved hacking a com
puter for maps, blueprints, or other classified tidbits of information coded into a secure database. After figuring out the frequency of guard rotations, and the locations of shift changes, Seph slipped away from the rest of her squad, who were usually busy relaxing in the comfort of a cot surrounded by four solid walls and a solid floor instead of a tent in the dirt. Once she was en route to her mission location, she tapped a button on her handy little earpiece and it guided her through.

  It started by providing an advisory time limit, an estimation of how long her assignment should take her to complete, barring any complications. This, along with a notification every time five minutes passed, kept her mindful of her time as she spent it. Otherwise, it could be too easy to lose herself in concentration, or frustration, if she did encounter problems accessing the requested knowledge, and she couldn't risk suspicion or capture because she'd lost track of how long she'd been gone.

  When she finally accessed whatever device her assignment required, the earpiece prompted her step by step: what passwords to use, what to open, what not to open, how take apart the computer or tablet itself if necessary, with what tools, what to remove or implant and how to do so without detection. It told her the best way to cover her tracks, stash or destroy evidence of her presence, and then it reminded her of her time limit, still notifying her every time five minutes passed as she slunk back to her squad's part of the base.

  A lot of research went into each of these downloads, and Seph often wondered who was responsible for that information, and just how big Reperio really was. She'd already understood quickly that "group" was a misnomer to throw people off, and that underground bureau was a much more accurate descriptor. But still, how big was it?

  Cities and towns were by far the most fun. There she got to sneak off for drops. She would know within three minutes of her arrival if it was a live drop, where she'd meet with a person, or a dead drop, where she'd just leave the item for an agent to recover at a later time. She'd report to the south corner of the city or town's largest park--a personal Rhodo touch she believed, as her brother had been killed in the north corner of her town square--and wait to see if an agent arrived.