Lucas sat on the edge of his bed at MAYHEM headquarters, staring at the message burned into his brain:
"ZERO LIVES. AND HE'S NOT ON YOUR SIDE."
He hadn't slept at all. His mind kept spinning with questions he didn't know how to answer. Agent Zero was supposed to be missing—or dead. But now, someone had broken into MAYHEM's most secure vault and left a message that only Zero could have sent.
The worst part? It sounded like Zero wasn't happy.
The next morning, Ava burst into Lucas's room and tossed a black backpack at him.
"Get dressed. We're leaving," she said.
Lucas blinked. "Leaving where? I just figured out how to use the coffee machine."
"You're not safe here. If the real Agent Zero is alive, and he sees you using his name, his gadgets, his clearance... he might think you're the enemy."
Lucas gulped. "That's fair. Honestly, I'd probably want to punch me too."
A few hours later, they arrived at a dusty little bookstore in the middle of nowhere. The sign above the door read: Chapter Zero.
Lucas followed Ava through the empty shelves until she pulled a hidden lever. A shelf swung open to reveal an elevator. It led to a hidden underground room.
"This was Agent Zero's personal safehouse," Ava said. "No one else knew about it. Not even Spymaster Quinn."
Lucas stepped into the room. The walls were covered in maps, notes, photos, and old spy gear. It looked like a conspiracy theorist's dream.
As Lucas walked around, something in the back of his mind stirred. A strange memory… blurry, but real.
He stopped in front of a photo pinned to a corkboard. It showed a man in sunglasses and a black coat handing something to a teenage boy.
"That's me," Lucas whispered. "At the train station. I remember this. He gave me a weird black pen and said something about how the world isn't what it seems."
"You met Agent Zero?" Ava asked, stunned.
Lucas nodded slowly. "I didn't know who he was at the time. I thought he was just a creepy stranger trying to give me free pens."
Ava took out her tablet and pulled up security footage from that same station. The date matched. The man was Agent Zero. And the kid... was definitely Lucas.
"He vanished after that day," Ava said. "Maybe he didn't disappear randomly. Maybe he chose you. Maybe he passed something on to you."
Lucas sat down, trying to make sense of it all. "So let me get this straight. A super-spy goes missing, gives me a mystery pen, and now all of MAYHEM thinks I'm him... and the real guy might be out there, angry that I've taken his place."
"Yep," Ava said. "And now we need to find him—before he finds you."
Lucas groaned. "Fantastic. I'm being hunted by a secret agent I once accepted a pen from."
Ava smirked. "It's official—you've had the weirdest job promotion in history."