The FIA was a secret government branch that connected the FBI and the CIA. They had many locations around the world but everyone’s favorite was base 52. Base 52 was located in wooded mountains. A third of the building was outside, a third in the mountains, and a third underneath the woods. The rules for names used to be a field agent would start out with the name of a baby animal and the name would change as they moved up in rank. Research agents would name themselves after a city, county, state, or county depending on rank. More recently that rule has been changed so that all agents go by fake names.


A shadowed figure peered through the trees, blue eyes glowing, a smile crossing his face. Quickly scaling a tree, he carefully found his way through the branches till he was near an open window. With a slight whoosh the branch was left swaying in the wind.
Picking himself up from a crouch, he padded silently down the hallway. Throwing a glance around the corner he found a quarry. A mischievous grin pulled at his face. His quarry started walking away from him and the water cooler. Slinking up the hallway he got close enough to touch. Lightning fast, he put one hand across his quarry’s mouth, another restraining the arms to the body, and one leg coming out in front, tripping the man into helplessness.
“Guess who.” The shadow whispered in the man’s ear. The man mumbled something against the firm hand. Then suddenly-
“Asher!” the shadowed figure’s head jerked up and the let go of his quarry. The man fell to the ground on his face. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you. Where have you been?” Asked a freckled red head as she stepped out of her office. Her green eyes sparkled happily.
“Zana, you of all people didn’t know?” Said the man as he threw an only half playful punch at Asher.
“No, harry, I didn’t.” Asher easily ducked the punch and jumped over Harry’s head.
“I’ve been working on project BlueCrimson.” Asher announced, roughly rubbing Harry’s buzzed head, and flashing his puppy dog grin.
“What part? Where you research or did you actually go in the game?” Asher gave her a look. “Oh, right. Field agent. Sorry. I’m still not used to the ‘no code names’ thing here. It was so much easier back in Washington.”
“You’ve been here three years. You should be used to it by now.” Said Asher, walking back down the hall towards the stairs. “Let’s go to the B.C. room. I hate calling it a lab.”
“They’ve moved it. I’ll show you the way.” Said harry, he caught Asher’s skeptical look. “Don’t you trust me by now or has that game gotten to your head?”
“You know me,” answered Asher as he forced himself to hallow. “I find it hard to put my full trust in someone. See ya later Zana.”
Harry led Asher down the stairs and under the mountain. They came to a door where Harry had his eye scanned so they could enter. Once inside the room Asher winced and took a step back from the hustle and bustle and glowing blue computer screens. Men and women hurried across the room and back with messy stacks of papers in their arms.
A woman with a messy hair bun, thick black glasses and a black pin stripped skirt and jacket walked by and slipped on a loose paper on the floor. She started to fall back, her papers flying in the air when Asher appeared there in a flash. After helping her get her footing, he stared picking up her papers. As he handed over the papers he could see her trying to recognize him. Then her face brightened and she smiled, but before she could say anything- a big hand clapped Asher on the back. He turned ready to fight but saw a familure face.
“Asher! You’re back! What took you so long? You’ve been out of the game for, like, two months now. Oh and I see you met my new fiancée Martha.”
“Ya. Congratulations John. To you and Martha. What happened was when I woke up after exiting the game I woke up in a hospital. They wouldn’t let me out so it took me a few days to escape. Then it took me about a week to find out where I was 'cause I left town without seeing what it was. The last several weeks I’ve been picking my way back, and stopping by some old friends.”
“So … uh … did you find our new Silver Suit?” asked Martha shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
“Ya. I didn’t get to talk to him after the transfer though because you guys pulled me out so fast.” Looking around as he talked, Asher found an empty computer.
Quickly he took it and started typing in a code. Martha and John stood behind him watching in silence. Suddenly pictures where flying by across the screen, pictures of the BlueCrimson players trapped inside the virtual world.
Then it stopped. Stopped on a picture of a mid-teen boy. A boy with spiky blonde hair and piercing silver eyes that matched his new Suit.
“This is Ike.”

Premium users of the latest and best video/internet game: BlueCrimson would have monthly paid for use of the Arch. The Arch was a doorway to the virtual world. But that door is now only a one-way road to no escape. Users used to be able to enter and be thrown out within an allotted time or if someone on the other side pressed the yellow button. But then the game grew to smart. Sucking information from the internet surrounding it, it over rode the exiting ability and started its own government. With people, like gang members or people who would commit suicide, with nothing to lose illegally entering the game it has, and is still, becoming more and more dangerous.



“This is Ike,” said a figure on the other side of the Arch, pointing at the same picture. “Five months ago he received the Silver Suit from an Outsider. For the past two months we have been intervening messages from the Outsider to Ike. But also during this time Ike has gone from being one of our biggest informants to a possible threat. We can’t let him become the next Zeeb, selling our secrets and breaking out ‘innocents.’ That is why I have gathered you all here. We are going to stop him before he starts. About three months ago his Energy Wave flickered, grew weak, and has been slowly growing. This leads us to believe he may have had an Identity Swap. But if that’s so then the three month mark is almost up and- yes?”

The man who sat in the back of the dark blue hued room with is hand raised, stood. He had shaggy dark hair, olive skin and deep dark eyes. His voice was gruff and threatening as he spoke. “So you are asking us to go up against an already impossible target and now you say it may not even be him?”
A ripple of whispers passed through the crowd then turned into a louder mass of shouting Questions. The man at the head glowered out from under his eyebrows at the dark blood red crimson armor body suited man, who glared right back defiantly. He easily could have had the man executed on the spot with a snap of his fingers, had he been anyone else that would have been their fate. But this man was one of his best, and most loyal, agents; also one of his deadliest.

“Now, Switch,” the man said turning on the charm and charisma while thinking fast and craftily. Switch could easily kill him before the thought of executing him had finished crossing his brain. “You know that’s not true.” Switch was always a bit difficult but it was worth it to have his loyalty, this wasn’t a man to get on the wrong side of. “Since there has been an Identity Swap it will be easier to catch him. When the Swap goes back to normal we will have him. See?” Switch sat back down, but still glared skeptically at him. With an inward sigh of relief the man looked for any more confusion. “Any more questions? - Yes?”

“Ya, uh, Blair, um Swap Backs don’t always happen in the same spot … sir.”

“I know that. But it’s usually in the same area. So we will keep a premature of 75 feet covered at all times.” Blair looked over his briefed team. Some of the finest BlueCrimson players were here, at least the ones loyal to him. Grinning he nodded, “Let’s play.”
-*-

There was a flash of red through the shadows. A sleek form ran across the coral ground, past the glassy ocean. All was silent in the pre-dawn air. Then- a growling of several engines roared. A few camouflaged jeeps flew over a bump on the thin dirt road, and where fallowed by two black SUVs. They all screeched to a stop, leaving the dirt path and stopping on coral like ground in front of an old burned, toppled, abandoned building. On three sides it was surrounded by a large cliff like edges made from the coral textured rocks that made up the ground. The fourth side, across the road and behind more coral like ground, a 50 foot drop off down into the ocean below.

“Secure the area!” Yelled Blair’s right hand man: Screech. “Back up soldiers are on the way!” he continued, living up to his name. Turning to Blair he grinned and said: “We got ‘em this time.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Blair replied, clapping the large man’s muscular back. “Over confidence is what helped Zeeb escape all those times, and he must have picked this kid for some reason.”

A soldier walked into the ring crouching behind a shield. At 30 feet away from the heap he launched a spiky yellow ball of energy into one of the buildings windows. There was a bright white flash and the building caught on fire for the second time in 3 months. All the Agents and soldiers knelt to stabilize their guns. Guns cocked they all waited, crouching in a ring surrounding the dusty wreak, flames dancing against the almost dawn sky. Silence fell over them. Not a breath stirred the air. The only noise was the fire popping, and the unheard sounds of intensity and anxiety that rose from the line of Agents and soldiers like a heat wave. A single droplet of sweat trickled down from a young soldier’s hair line, silently making its way down his temple, over his cheek bone and finally to his jaw line. His tense muscles quivered as he resisted the erg to wipe away the drop and its path.

The drop fell.

It hit the ground.

The door to the burning building was kicked open and smoke flowed out making the already darkness of the very early morning even more unsightly.

All the troops opened fire.

The kid soldier opened fire too, clutching the machine gun as it rattled away in his arms threatening to overtake him. Suddenly a man in a blood red suit plopped down beside him. It took the kid a bit to realize that: 1 this man was an Agent since his suit wasn’t the army issued camouflage green, and 2 that this Agent’s name was Switch, the kid’s group commander.

“Hey Snap,” Switch smiled casually over the sound of gun fire that was slowly, but steadily, coming to a stop. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” Switch’s smile shaky from his gun’s rattling.

Throwing the gun down Switch beckoned Snap to fallow. Dropping his own gun he fallowed his commander into the gun fire. He ran after Switch, and dodged bullets, across 15 feet before slamming face first into a giant glittering half sphere. Falling to the ground he realized that Ike had started up a force field, those were hard to get, you had to know someone in the black market business. Switch’s hand suddenly reached out and pulled Snap inside the bubble. The ability to enter a force field was impossible to get, so how did Switch have on, thought Snap, maybe his commander wasn’t as loyal as everyone thought.

“I need you to head straight for the center to distract him, ok? I’m going to circle around and grab him from behind.”

After saying that Switch turned and disappeared into the rolling smoke clouds that covered the ground. Snap gulped and walked forward not sure he wanted to do this. The bubble had about a 20 foot radius. Halfway to the center he started to feel Ike’s Energy Wave. Something wasn’t right about it though. When Snap first saw the figure fear filled him. Then he realized what was wrong, he was looking at a girl in a bright red suit. Then he was filled with terror as she lifted her arm, her hand hanging from the wrist, and fire balls of lightning blue energy were shot at him from the top of her wrist.

Dropping to the ground only his light brown hair was singed. The energy balls went through the force field wall and into the crowd outside. The girl took a step closer and raised her arm again, aiming at his face. Snap then caught a glimpse of a silver 5th callus and that, though obviously female, her Energy Wave gave off the gender male. That’s when he realized that this girl was the one who had Identity Swapped with Ike.

A dot on her wrist started to glow yellow with a blue center. Snap cringed waiting to be shot with an electrical field as powerful as lightning when- A darker grey form appeared in the smoke behind the girl. Switch tackled the girl from behind and the half energy ball disappeared. Then the force field flickered out, and the gun fire stopped.

Switch and the girl were just a blur of 2 different shades of red. The ring of armed Agents and soldiers came closer forming a circle around the brawlers. The fight was fast, the kicking, hitting, scratching, and biting ended fast with Switch easily winning. Landing on top Switch pinned her to the ground and gave a growling laugh in her face. He pulled her up roughly from the ground, pinning her arms behind her back, and shouldered his way through the circle towards an impressed looking Blair.

“What’s your name, sweet heart?” He asked with a threateningly calm voice.

“Lehi.” She said confidently, holding her chin high. She seemed to know she was dealing with the GG and that you can’t show fear in their presents.

“Lehi? What kind of name is that?”

“In the Bible it means jawbone and someone had already taken that name.”

“Mmhmm. Ya, well Lehi, we are looking for the Silver Suit,” he said taking one of her hands he looked at her Print. “It looks like you’ve met. You know that it’s against the law to Identity Swap with a fugitive.”

“It wasn’t the real Silver Suit. I met him once before he turned bad; this kid wasn’t him so I thought it was ok.”

“I’ll let you off the hook this once, if you tell me where he is.”

“Cool your pants.” She hissed. “He should be here any minute.”

Suddenly a roaring growl of thunder echoed across the sky. The sky was turning bright blue with a mix of purples, pinks and reds that led to the sun as it rose; it was torn and a hole ripped through the pure blue above them. Spitting out a grey blur that landed in a heap on the ledge to the ocean. The hole patched its self back up and disappeared, the sound immediately stopping.

Ike stood slowly and looked around watching through narrow eyes. He let out a small snort and then growled menacingly like an animal. Then he stepped off into the void.