Atlas Academy: Secrets Uncovered

After retrieving our notebooks and textbooks, we took the remaining empty seats at the table in front. “What do you think he’s gonna be like?” Morgan asked in a low voice.
“I heard he was the coolest teacher here besides Bear.” said Buddy, his voice low too.
“Hudson told me that if we fail his class we’ll get kicked out.” Morgan said nervously.
“They’re not gonna kick us out.” Mickey said, shaking her head, “And besides, even if they did, what would you have to be afraid of? You’re a scientist. You’re not gonna be on the field.”
“I might.” he said, looking slightly offended. “There are such things as field scientists. That’s why they make us take this class the first two years, so we can see if we want to be on the field.”
I just listened to them, relishing the sedative moment to rest my sore muscles, before the door suddenly slammed shut loudly and every whispering voice went silent. The loud bang made everyone snap to attention in their seats while a man walked to the front of the class without making a single sound and stopped before the dry-erase board, looking at us all.
He looked about a year or two younger than Mr. Atlas, had dark brown hair in a high and tight haircut, green eyes, and a rectangular face that was at that moment empty of any emotion. “Welcome to Fundamentals of Espionage,” he said, his voice calm and smooth. “I’m Mr. Black and I will be with you for the rest of your duration here at Atlas. There will be no notes taken after this year, because in the real world you won’t be able to flip through your notes if you get stuck or to remember something you’ve forgotten. And speaking of that, forgetting is unacceptable, period. You forget, you die, the end. So, being the nice teacher I am (the room remained silent, so I guessed he wasn’t trying to be funny), you’ll have one year to perfect your memory. Now let’s begin.”
All I could think was. Whoa. He erased his name and the name of the class, only to replace them with the words, ‘Awareness Training’ in red marker. “You have fewer lessons this year than you ever will with me, but these are the basics and they will also last longer than the ones in the years to come. Because before you can ever hope to move forward, you must master these.”
And with that he began the lesson. “Some of you think that the things I’m saying are along the lines of paranoia, and you’d be half right. Because it is paranoia, just with a calm face. You have to be a detective, ladies and gentlemen, one who detects every minor detail in their surroundings, someone who can feel the proximity of the people around him and know what they ate, what they drank, what mint they used to cover it up, and what perfume or cologne they’re wearing. A detective can identify whether they’ve seen someone before, whether it was a day ago, a month, a year, or even just a few minutes ago when they were wearing a different outfit, had different color eyes and hair. A good detective can sense when they’re being watched, and if they’re being tailed. If it’s crowded they use reflective surfaces available around them to see their tail, and if it’s a quiet street they can hear their tail closing in on them even if his feet aren’t making a noise, because he can hear the crinkling of their tail’s clothes, the tap of the shoe strings on their tail’s shoes.” He had grown steadily faster and louder as he spoke until near the end of the last sentence he suddenly dropped his voice and on the last few words was slow and just above a whisper.
Everyone was on the edge of their seat, leaning over the table towards him with our eyes opened wide as we pictured what he said. This was amazing, something I never thought I would be learning and now I couldn’t wait until I got to put it into action. I couldn’t wait to become a fully trained agent.
He remained silent for a few minutes, looking at us all in turn, and then said, “That, is what it means to be a detective. Now, have you written all this down?” He raised his eyebrows up in question. We all opened our mouths and then closed them, our eyes popping out of our heads for a moment because we hadn’t written a single thing down while he was talking. A smile crossed his face and before we could start really freaking out he said, “Okay, calm down. I’ll write it down for you, this time, but next time I won’t repeat myself and you’ll have to rely on yourself.”
He began writing down everything he’d just said, but in a less dramatic way, and when he was finished and we were all scribbling away, he began erasing each of the things he’d said, slowly though to give us time to write them down, to make room for words which he then put dashes next to. When our scribbling subsided and he wiped away the last of the examples he’d given he said, “Are any of these words familiar to you?”
I looked over them; tradecraft, safe house, OP, operative, legend, (the) eye, double agent, defector, dead drop, clandestine operation, brush pass, bona fides, asset, rabbit, and swallow. I knew some of them, or at least I had an idea from movies, but I definitely didn’t know its exact definition. But some hands were raised and Mr. Black called on one boy who said, “Tradecraft is what we do, right? I mean, it’s the business we’re in.”
“Yes, though the exact definition is ‘the methods developed by intelligence operatives to conduct their operations’. Anyone else?” he asked as he copied the exact definition of tradecraft on the board and we started writing it down.
As the class went on I began to realize something. It seemed these kids knew more about these words, or knew them even at all, more than I did. And it made me start wondering if they hadn’t been kept in the dark for thirteen years before finding out what their parents did, whereas I was seeing the light for the first time. Maybe it was because their parents were still active in their job as an agent and weren’t retired like my mom was. I sighed as I continued writing down the terms, feeling like I stuck out more here than I ever had in regular school.
At the end of class, Mr. Black erased the terms from the board and said, “Study these words, memorize them, and think of this as a vocabulary lesson. Because next class period you’re getting new words and at the end of the week I’m giving you a test on them all.” There weren’t moans, but only barely audible sighs. “And continue your awareness training, because from now on I’ll be asking you all questions about things you should have noticed, starting as soon as you walk out this door.” We were getting up and were just about to go out the door when he added, “And don’t try to slack off either guys. These walls have eyes, and if you can’t answer a few simple questions correctly, I guarantee you that your chances of graduating shrink almost to the realms of impossibility. Have a nice day.”
Everyone stood there for a second and then slowly made their way out of the room, becoming suddenly aware of all the little things they had to be aware of starting right that minute and immediately flipped their notebooks out to hurriedly start scribbling. “Idiots.” said Johnny, glancing at the frantic scribblers as we started our way up the stairs to the portal leading back to the hallway.
“Who?” I asked.
“Those people behind us. When Mr. Black said that, he didn’t mean write down everything you see. You’re supposed to build your memory skills and awareness skills, not study skills.” he said and then picked up his pace, catching up with Morgan a little ways in front of us.
“What’s next?” Buddy asked.
My stomach growled and I put a hand over it. “Lunch, I hope.”