Episode 19-4: MVP

Perhaps this way of thinking isn't professional. Maybe my current position is more beneficial since all eyes won't be on me, especially the group's eye that takes the champions away, but by the sweet cheese, I deserve that position. I leave Levi to his exercise and daintily make my way towards Isaac who has isolated himself by the table with water bottles on top.

"Hi," I start, "you're Isaac, right? I'm Michelle, I'm your runner-up."

He's swigging giant gulps down with the bottom up, but he opens one eye to look at me. He stops drinking and wipes his mouth. "Hey, nice to meet ya. You're a tiny thing, aren't you? Must be a whole ninety pounds, haha."

I pity laugh, as Levi's advice is to pet his giant ego on its head and kindle the already colossal flame. "Heh, yeah, that's uh...that's funny. Gosh, you're really tall, I'm guessing six foot?"

"Six foot four inches actually, but you were really close."

I pretend to gush. "Wow, they must have to jump to hand the baton to you. Those long legs of yours must give you such an edge over the competition. How long have you been competing in these local tournaments?"

He looks away, reminiscing about his false wins. "Oh, about three years now. That's three years in a row, mind you. It's usually me and my cousin Monica that are consistent, but she's been doing this much longer than I have."

It's hard to maintain this fake smile with all this nonsense spewing out of his mouth. "Three years? In a row? That's quite amazing, Isaac, seems like no newcomers could ever dream to take your spot. Don't you get bored of this though? I mean, year after year of competing in a small town tournament that maybe goes to the state, if I were you I'd look for something much bigger."

He leans on the table, his eyes focusing more intently on me. "You think so? I mean, I know I do well around here, but broadening the competition... you really think I can make it?"

I lean with him and get a little closer to his personal space. "Oh absolutely, you're overkill in your hometown, going for gold would only make it fair for everyone else."

He gets even closer, I can feel his breath. "You're like a cute, little cheerleader trying to encourage me and inspire me to be better. Didn't know I had a fan," even closer now, our snouts almost touching, but pulling away now would cause mixed emotions, "and a very attractive one at that. You know, I'm gonna be bored tonight after this and need a plus one to hit the clubs. Ever been on the VIP dance floors before? That's an invite by the way, so you coming?"

Ah geez, I'm sorry Clyde! My snout slowly crawls closer to his and I lower my eyes to a sleepy gaze. "Maybe, but only if you do something for me. Pretty please?"

His eyes shift the same way as mine. "Oh, the kinky type? Name it, sweetheart." I try to get my request out, but an immense crash happening behind me makes a shriek come out instead. In an unplanned manner, I jump into Isaac's arms who holds me with ease, but we both look and see that a javelin spear has struck the table, knocking it and the waters down into a battered mess. Everyone stops what they're doing and looks in awe while getting closer to inspect the damage and incident. Even the javelin throw team all show up, with Clyde in front of them.

"Whoa! I'm so sorry about that, is anyone hurt?" Clyde asks, his fake worried tone needing some work.

I hop off of Isaac's arms. "No, I think we're okay. That was some misfire."

Isaac struts up to Clyde puffing smoke out his nose. "What the hell was that!? You could've killed us, you idiot!"

Clyde puts his hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry, buddy, it was an accident. I didn't mean to-"

"You're throwing the opposite way, how did you mess up that badly!?"

One of Clyde's teammates' steps next to him. "Chill out, Isaac, he said it was an accident. No one got hurt, just get back to practice." He turns to Clyde, "Why don't you take a break, guess you need it."

"Guess I need it," Clyde repeats and walks off to a nearby building for the shade. Everyone goes back to what they were doing, the relay team hollers at Isaac to rejoin them on the track.

Levi comforts me and puts a hand on my shoulder. "You okay? That was really close, nearly tore you in two."

"I'm fine, I just need a sit down is all."

He lets me go. "Okay, just let me know if you need anything. I don't know how you're so rock solid after something like that, what are you used to danger or something?" I figure it's a rhetorical question as he leaves my side before I can get a word out. I head for the same building Clyde went to and find him leaning on a corner with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

I waste no time nor do I spare him my tone. "What the hell was that!?"

Without turning around, he responds. "You sound like your new boy toy." I realize that he has disconnected from Amy's channel and stopped recording his daily report. Before I say anything, I do the same.

"Boy toy, really? You know what my work consists of, and you said you'd be okay with it."

"Sure, I said that but I meant when it was necessary," he finally turns to face me, "flirting with that walkin' Monster Energy Drink advertisement ain't necessary."

I cover my mouth in shock. "Clyde, you can't say that, it's copyright material."

"There are tons of people around your spot alone, you could've asked anyone else for information, but ya chose the one who...who...," he searches desperately for the right words.

"Who is a threat to you?"

He scoffs, but a little too hard. "Ha! Him, a threat? You're talkin' crazy, little fox. Sure, he might be just as tall as me, maybe in good shape, I can't really say, but he ain't much of nothin' besides a big baby."

I unclench my fists, I'm going to try and calm him down. "Babe, you're mad."

"I ain't mad."

"You sure are, your little Missouri accent comes out when you're mad." He doesn't say anything, just takes another puff of his smoke. "I agree with you on the big baby part, but he's been entering these tournaments for three years. He and his cousin are persons of interest right now, and I need to interrogate them both if I want a good lead to go on. Honestly, I was just trying to flirt my way into position four right now, you caught me on that. It's not fair that I put in all that work just to be pushed back because of some high-status bull."

He lets the cigarette linger between his fingers. "Really? Your runner-up position is perfect for the job, you sure that's what you want? Because if it is, then I'm sorry for ruining your chance. We'll make another."

"Hmm, that's such a sweet boyfriend thing to say, but let me ask you as my squad leader: can I have position four?"

The smile I worked hard to get him to wear leaves his face as quickly as it came. "Ahhhh.....no, I'm sorry Agent Hearth, you need to do your best to hold the runner-up position. It's the most advantageous one we have, but if something happens to Isaac, then there's no way around it. Let's just try and keep our heads down and dig into this case."

This big brute makes me turn on the charm twice and I get zero results! "Fine! I'll stay at the crummy benches while you get to compete," I quickly snatch the cigarette out of his hand and throw it on the floor, "and you promised me you'd stop smoking!"

"I guess I deserve that. Just relink up with Amy and we'll talk about this later."

Just relink with Amy, we'll talk later. Oh, I hate this man! No, not really, I could never hate him. I think now might be the time to consider the option that maybe it's me acting childish in a professional environment. Couldn't be, sure doesn't sound like me, does it? Yes, yes it does, and now I wish there was a way to just redo all of that.

*** *** ***

Practice ended shortly after our dispute, and with no further action planned for today, we headed back to our room for a review and swapping of intel.

Clyde leans back in his chair twirling his little pocket knife around, sometimes throwing it in the air and catching it effortlessly. I sit on the couch filing some of my jagged nails, it's been a while and I've been running a lot of missions lately, been rough on the poor beauties. It stays silent for a bit, so I initiate the review. "So, who wants to go first?"

"Aside from the local rumors, I found nothing today."

"Oh how interesting, I found nothing of use as well. Most people tend to acknowledge the missing victims, but they don't seem too worried about it, as if they truly believe the victims just didn't keep in contact."

He does a flourish with his knife where he spins it between his fingers, it's admittedly quite cool. "End of story? It's highly doubtful. This is going to be one of those tough cases, isn't it? I wish those nerds packed the gadgets we need, even better if we could bring our own stuff along. You know how far we could already be if we just had the right gear?"

"Really? There's a gadget out there that could magically conjure up a lead to follow for us?" I blow on my nail and look at Clyde, he has his finger pointed at me and a wicked grin. "No, we're not using Fake Troy ever again. Nearly got both of us killed."

He settles down and sheathes his knife. "It was just a joke. So just exactly what was useful today that could look good on the daily report?"

"Good news is we don't have to write it, bad news is that Carlotta is going to find out we didn't score any points today. Hopefully, she won't care as much and give us time to come up with something."

He gets up from his spot and joins me on the couch. "You really think that suits her personality?"

"She's got a lot on her mind right now. With a bit of wishful thinking, some poor fools will get in trouble and trivialize our status."

His eyes follow my nail as I move it around for inspection. "That's one way to think about it." He blows on it for me to my surprise. "Very pretty claws," he says while taking my hand and planting a small kiss.

I stifle a giggle that was about to erupt, I have yet to disconnect with Amy even though she is overseeing another unit. I do so, feeling much weight lifted once I'm allowed to speak freely again. "I'm sorry about my behavior today, Agent Barker."

He gives another kiss. "I'm sorry about mine, Agent Hearth. By the way, I knew I wouldn't hit you with that javelin. So we're clear that you weren't in danger?"

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. "I know all your throws are accurate, you hit what you want. I'm just glad it was the table and not Isaac. Explaining that would be another migraine for Adams to deal with."

"You think she'd just let me rot in prison?"

"No, she does everything she can to help the agents under her employment. She's good like that. Ugh, remember when that one unit in the South West quadrant killed a civilian? They got docked so hard it was painful to just hear about it, but if you think about it, it could've been much worse. They still work with Ispio, still out of prison."

He begins to caress my hand with his thumb. "Why are we talking about this when we could be doing..."

Finally, some stress relief. I reposition myself to be on both knees and lean closer to him. "Doing what?"

"Doing some preparations for tomorrow. It'll be a new day and anything can happen, I wanna be prepared with the gadgets that we do have." He drops my hand and sets up his usual brainstorming office on the kitchen counter, leaving me totally stunned and unmoving.

I let out the breath I didn't even know I was holding. "Oh, indeed, that is what you meant."

*** *** ***

Tomorrow comes after an evening of pre-planning and we show up at the same place at the same time. Seems like everyone is already up and going on their reps, but the relay team isn't doing anything but stretching right now. Clyde breaks off to his group, and I get to mine, Levi more specifically.

"Hey Levi, what's the relay team doing?"

His face shows suspicion. "Waiting for their fourth. He's not picking up his phone, I wonder where he could be." Before I can say anything back, Sasha finds me.

"Hey, you're here! That's more than I can say for Isaac. Okay, so today you'll be training with the team, I'm sure they'll be happy to have your skills with them. Go get 'em, tiger...er fox! The tiger is on the javelin team."

I'm confused, Isaac seemed healthy last I saw him, albeit angry at Clyde. "Wha--huh? Where is Isaac?"

"Not sure, Michelle says he often goes out partying at night, probably sleeping off a hangover. He's been on this team for years already, he's done this before. I can't have him compete while missing practice like this. He's gonna have to warm the bench from here on out."

This is an odd but coincidental event, I'll take it!