Chapter Text
School started the next day.
And Erica was completely exhausted.
The events of the summer had been a lot, emotionally and physically. She’d been forced to miss a full two weeks of camp because of the incident at the mountain, and probably would have been forced to miss more if she hadn’t started insisting she go back.
There would be time to rest later. But she had bigger things to worry about. Like her GPA.
And that time to rest had come at long last, she'd thought as she stumbled into Alexander's house in Virginia. Students were given a week between the end of camp and the beginning of the new school year (a gap necessitated by professors traveling around the country and letting the new batch of first years about their acceptance to the academy), and with Trixie back at boarding school as of the day before (her presence preventing full and complete relaxation), she was ready to crash.
Which was why she’d been sitting on the couch at 10 in the morning on the last day of break watching her third episode of Leverage that day when Cyrus entered through the front door with no warning.
“Alright, people, we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it,” he said, then paused, looking around, “where’s Alexander.”
“I’m right here, Dad,” said Alexander coming down the stairs, still wearing his pajamas. “What on earth is going on.”
Cyrus didn’t even acknowledge his presence, and instead sat down at the head of their dining room table and seemed to be waiting for them to join him.
Erica paused her show and took the seat to his right, and Alexander took the seat to the right of Erica. If Cyrus was as bothered by the lopsided nature of things as she was, he didn’t show it.
“We have intel on SPYDER,” he said, “and we need to get moving pronto. Starting tomorrow, we activate Operation Bedbug.”
“But what is Operation Bedbug?” Alexander asked.
“I’m getting there, numbskull. We’re sending Ripley undercover to infiltrate SPYDER.”
“They’re not going to buy that,” said Erica. “He already turned them down twice. What are we going to do, have him guess at the identity of some SPYDER higherup and have him be like ‘Actually, I think I would like the job, actually. Please give me money and a high security clearance’? He couldn’t pull that off, he’s too honest.”
“Exactly. Which is why we are going to get him expelled from the academy.”
That made sense, but also, “How? Are we going to do that?”
“We’re going to have him blow up the principal’s office during the SACSAs tomorrow.”
Erica had to take a moment to stare at the table and process all the information. Most of it made sense, but there was one part….
“When are we going to let Ben know about this? I’m assuming this isn’t something we’re advertising, and with campus not opening until nine and the SACSAs starting at ten, there’s not a lot of time to actually inform him.”
“Well, since we’re not going to do that, it won’t be an issue,” Cyrus retorted, seeming to grow more annoyed with every second.
Erica barely registered that, however, mostly because she was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Cyrus didn’t trust Ben enough to pull off a convincing ruse but was not only expecting him to pull it off once he knew that there was a mission on (because she really hoped they were going to tell him that eventually) but also pick up on the subtle vibes that there was a mission such that he’d accept SPYDER’s offer.
“You said it yourself, he’s incredibly honest, and the acting skills of people like that are crap on a cracker.”
Erica shifted in her seat, knowing the truth of that statement, but also feeling the need to defend Ben. “He’ll probably be fine,” she settled on.
“There is not room in this mission for ‘probably’. We’re already working on a major information deficit, and we’re going to be cut off from the CIA. And with all those variables out of our control, I am not adding Ripley’s acting skills to the list of things I need to worry about.”
Cyrus wasn’t erupting, but he was getting too close for comfort, so Erica decided to keep her mouth shut. Alexander had no such self-preservation skills.
“Well, if Ben’s the only one who’s going to be undercover, I see no reason why we need to be cut off from the CIA, so perhaps we shouldn’t worry about that,” he said, straightening himself and seeming proud that he’d drawn that conclusion.
“Are you an actual imbecile. A real life…” Cyrus started staring directly at Alexander, but Erica cut him off before he had the chance to say slurs.
“Moles,” she said quietly, but hey both stopped to listen to her, “The CIA is full of moles, and we don’t know who they are so if we send Ben in and they catch wind it would compromise the entire mission.” And then the implications of everything hit her with the full force of a Ford F150. “Wait, we’re going rogue?!”
“Yes, we are going rogue, which is one of the many details that I would love to be able to communicate before we actually have to go rogue. So am I going to be able to, or not.”
Erica had a million questions about the mission, but figured Cyrus would probably answer more that a few of them before the debriefing was over, and that would give him a chance to calm down, so she sighed and motioned for him to continue talking.