"Apology accepted sir." The female AI voice replied. "Now let's kick some butt."
"You're very enthusiastic today." Yash chuckled at his AI friend.
Alexa (as part of the vehicle) had been gifted to Yash on his fifth work anniversary by the South African Secret Services (SASS). Robert, his, now late, commanding officer, had gifted the AI enhanced vehicle to him after Yash successfully managed to achieve the data that SASS was after for the safety of the country. It was a particularly difficult mission (entailing high speed car chases and even a fist fight, which had started in New York City, USA and ended in Sydney Australia.
Yash still had the scar from the fight under his chin.
At the time, Celine was his trainee and had used an opportunity to sabotage his mission, when hw asked her her cover for him as he broke into an old storeroom which housed the antique vase he was to retrieve before theor rival organisation. Celine, feinting ignorance at the time, had intentionally sent the coded message to the rival organisation, which led legend Yash nearly being killed and the rare antiqued vase of a thousands years old almost smashed to pieces. He'd miraculously managed to save both the vase and himself. Though once Yash had overseen the safe delivery of the vase to its rightful owner, Celine had disappeared and had landed in Yash's bad books forever.
The rest of the organisation refused to believe him, as he was still a fairly new agent, despite excelling up the ranks faster than most agents. Everyone in upper management refused to hear anything further on the matter, except Robert who had personally trained him.
But the last year and a half had proven to the agency that he, Yashvardhan Singhania was never wrong.
Meanwhile, Celine had slowly wormed her way into the good books of the organisation by then and it became difficult to prove her actions were detrimental to the organisation.
But now all is lost... Robert is dead! He's gone and no one else will belive me... Yash thought to himself.
Shaking himself free of his reverie, Yash decided to focus solely on the task at hand instead. There was no point in harping on the past.
Urmi was dead.
Now Robert was too.
And Celine was responsible for both these deaths.
"Have you already worked out the first clue?" He had plugged the flash drive into a concealed USB port on the dashboard for Alexa to analyse.
"Affirmative Master Yash." Alexa responded. "There are five files of interest to you and our mission."
"Okay girl." He smiled. "Give me the coordinates to the White Lab. Let's find Fig and figure out what that blonde bimbo, Celina is up to."
Immediately, on the screen before him, Yash viewed a series of geographical coordinates that pointed the location of the new assignment. While parked in the underground lab, Alexa's system had hacked into the lab's network, completely undetected, finding a library of useful information for Yash's perusal, and matched it to the information on the flash drive.
"Master Yash, the data on this Universal Serial Bus is relevant specifically to The White Lab. The coordinates I have mapped for you now, show the current whereabouts of Celine De Villiers. However, she has no relation to the Lab. Her hideout is located ..."
"Right on the otherside of Durban! In the middle of Umhlanga Ridge! Okay, Alexa, let's see what she's been hiding in her secret lair." He growled out, almost happy to finally have some reason to tear that bloody nuisance woman's lair down.
Celina, who used to be a trainee under Yash's supervision, had developed her own ideas of how the organisation should function. Driven mad by the fact that Yash was married and would never be interested in her romantically, she sought to make his life a misery. In recent years, after mysteriously rising to power within the organisation, Celine finally began to show the monster she truly was. Unable to act against her, the organisation assigned Yash on the case, hoping he'd be able to reason with her.
However, interestingly enough, Yash had uncovered many of the secrets to Celine's success. According to the organisation's secret archives, the moment she graduated at the academy, Celina began to sabotage different assignments at SASS, including a few of Yash's; almost compromising his secret identity.
Because, Yashvardhan Singhania was not his real name.
No one knew his real name.
And Yash preferred it that way.
That information is highly classified; and only Robert knew about it...
But Robert was gone. Out like a flame, only the smoke dispersing in the room as evidence of what he once was.
"Hmmmm....." Alexa hummed in agreement to Yash's thoughts.
"Hey. That's private Alexa!" Yash scolded, chuckling at the AI's telepathic abilities.
"Master Yash has been having nightmares recently?" She analysed.
"Yes. I didn't expect you to read into that though. It's just my anxiety acting up from old missions. No need to peruse through that, girl." He brushes off Alexa's attempts at consoling him.
"Incoming call from Lakshman Singhania, Master Yash."
But before Yash could grant the command for Alexa to answer, she already answered it, still linked telepathically.
"Naugty girl." He chuckled.
"I do hope you meant Alexa and not me, Yash." Lex scolded, his face stern on the screen in front of Yash.
"Lex? Since when were you with the organisation bro?" Yash ignored his statement and asked a question of his own.
"It's been a while cuz. Robert had selected me after you and I stopped those robbers on Smith Street after Greg's wedding. He took me by surprise and had trained me himself. I'm in the IT department and I've been taking you through missions for the last four and half years." He grinned, his lip ring glinting in the morning light as the sun rose for the day.
Just like Yash's cover story stated that he worked for an upcoming marketing firm, the cover story for Lex, according to him, was that he was a passionate foodie and tattoo artist, who sometimes freelanced as a food critique for a local newspaper.
"Bro, where are you? Did everyone else manage to evacuate the building safely? I heard that it collapsed as soon as I'd left."
"Yeah... we're all fine and waiting outside for the chopper to collect the survivors before the SABC drops in." He rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Man I hate the media. Nothing but a bunch of nosy, mouthy dimwits if you ask me..."
Celine decided to rig the building with dynamite as her failsafe plan if she'd ever been caught out. Lex had managed to escort five of the staff members who remained, of the fifty that worked at their headquarters, a building that posed as an upcoming marketing firm called 'Blueberry Worx Co'.
"Yash! Check your watch man, I updated the information on the alerts." He rubbed his hands together then on his lime green golfer, his pink hair contrasting boldly with the colour of his shirt.
"Okay. Well I guess as Robert's 2IC, you're now interim commander?"
"Affirmative, and you'll need to report to my new office in the next 24 hours, dearest cousin."
"Alright, I'll see you there. But first, I have to tie up a few loose ends before I see you and head to the Lab." Yash nodded, ending the call, as he took control of the steering once more, allowing Alexa to analyse the data by herself, in silence.
...
After a moment of silence, Alexa finally spoke.
"Master Yash, for what it's worth, you make a fine field agent."
"Thank you Alexa, that's very kind of you." Yash smiled softly at the dashboard, specifically the part that lit up in blue and purple LED lights.
Alexa, an AI capable of appearing with a humanoid face, proffered to keep her appearance old school and acted more like her celebrity crush, Kitt.
Occasionally, when Yash was in a good mood, he'd tease Alexa about her choice in appearance.
...
Flashback
"Y'know... for an AI, you're really obsessed about a TV show. I knew I shouldn't have watched The Knight Rider with you!" Yash teased Alexa, after a particularly difficult mission a year ago, he'd adjusted the seat so that he now reclined as if on a hammock. Soft music played in the background.
"Master Yash! Stop it!" Alexa blushed, and the dashboard had turned a shade of Barbie pink to indicate this.
...
The drive from their, now ruined headquarters in Marine Parade, to Umhlanga Ridge didn't take them as long as it would take the average civilian.
Alexa had the ability to cut niftily through traffic, wending her way past the early morning traffic on the M4 pleasantly, while Yash remained unaware of the helicopter following them up above.
"Master Yash. We're being observed." Alexa responded once she had analysed all the data on the screen.
Reaching for a two-way radio that had been concealed by the dashboard, Yash called out to their new guest.
"Hello Celine. I see you sent me a little present. How sweet of you, but you know... it's not my birthday."
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