Crisis Zero

For my mom

“W
HAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” PRINCIPAL GOMEZ
shouted at the men who had just barged into his office.

I had been four seconds away from getting expelled from middle school, and so I can't say this interruption was an unwelcome one. But I still wasn't sure if I should be happy or scared to see four dudes who looked like secret agents surrounding me. After all, I was something of a secret agent myself (codename: Zero). It's a long story, but the point is, it takes one to know one—and these guys definitely weren't just members of the school
board or a group of angry rival principals here to partake in a Principal Street-Fighting Tournament.

One of the men held out a badge.

“Mr. Gomez, I'm Agent Loften, National Security Bureau,” he said. “You're under arrest on suspicion of treason, terrorism, espionage, and activities deemed dangerous to the United States of America.”

My jaw swung open and I looked at Mr. Gomez in shock. He met my stare but said nothing. Was his lack of a reaction an admission of guilt? Or was he simply as confused as I was? I couldn't be sure. But I did know I was pretty relieved knowing that the agents weren't there for me.

“Son,” another NSB agent said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “we're going to have to ask you to go back to class now.”

I nodded without saying anything and stood up. Mr. Gomez's wide, unblinking eyes never left me as I backed out of his office in a daze.

“But he's expelled,” Mr. Gomez mumbled. “He's finally getting expelled.”

The NSB agents ignored him as if he wasn't even speaking at all.

Just as I was leaving the office, I saw Agent Loften
placing handcuffs on Mr. Gomez. Then I was out in the hallway, still too stunned to do anything but just stand there and stare at the now closed administration office door.

Could my bungling principal, Mr. Gomez, really have been an enemy agent all this time? That didn't seem possible. But then again, me becoming a secret agent and saving the world twice in less than a few months wouldn't have seemed possible at the start of seventh grade, either. Yet that's exactly what had happened, so I really couldn't rule out anything.

The one thing I did know was that the sudden arrest of my principal by the National Security Bureau had to somehow be related to the government agency I worked for, the one so top secret that its name was classified even to its own operatives. The agency with headquarters miles underground, right below my school. The very one who I'd now helped thwart the plans of an evil psychopath and former agent named Mule Medlock twice. Most recently by preventing him from getting a deadly virus called Romero that could have ushered in a near apocalyptic outbreak.

Either way, I knew I'd find out eventually. And I also suspected I'd once again find myself mixed up with
whatever was going on. That just seemed to be how things worked for me.

I'm Carson Fender, aka the retired Prank Master, aka Agent Zero, aka both the World's Greatest Hero and Screw-up, all in one, and I always seem to find myself smack-dab in the middle of trouble one way or another.

I couldn't see why this would turn out any differently.