Chapter 2

The Atlas Conference Hall at Atlas Headquarters in London was a wide auditorium in where chairs were surrounding the stage and podium in stadium seating. The auditorium, which was larger than a university lecture hall, soon began filling seats with all of the Atlas field agents who were instructed to attend the meeting. Carly and Emily got to their seats where Carly sat up alert and attentive while Emily simply slumped down on the chair as if she were had a rough day at the pub and decided to lounge in an easy chair. Feeling something tickling inside her right ear, Emily pulls out a pen and digs it into her ear trying to quash the feeling. While doing this, Emily scrolls her eyes over to her partner and asks “I thought you weren’t interested in these?”

“I’m not,” Carly answered, “But I have a reputation to uphold as an agent. And by the way you’re sitting there, pen lodged in ear, you’re more than upholding YOUR reputation.”

“Love me for who I am, Car. Love me for who I am.”

As the last of the agents took their seats, Fenwick Caruthers, the 57 year old Atlas chairman hare, made his way to the podium to address his agents on the current change in Atlas policies.

“Good morning agents. I’m pleased that you all have made it to today’s meeting. Our organization has been experiencing multiple changes as we approach Atlas’ 60th year in existence. These changes have been put into place to help our organization succeed in our quest to protect the history of the world. This meeting is to introduce a new change. The successes of the missions that have been assigned have widely varied based on the pairs. To ensure a greater mission accomplishment rate, our organization has devised a new plan. Based on the results of both mission rates and the intelligence tests that you have recently taken, the two member duos will be merged into four member teams. In one hour, a message will be sent to your communicators which will provide a list of the new teams. Each team will be designated an ancient letter of the alphabet. Half of these teams are assigned Greek letters and the other half with Roman letters. That is all for today. Thank you.”

After the meeting, Emily and Carly walked along the long, winding halls of the Atlas Headquarters while discussing the announcement from the meeting.

“I’m surprised they didn’t go with teams instead of pairs earlier,” Carly mentioned. “It beats the original concept of junior member-senior member duos in favor of creating more balanced teams and more completed missions.”

“Well ain’t you Miss Obvious!” Emily sarcastically quipped. “Anyway, it’s just what I need besides dealing with you: another know-it-all veteran and some useless rookie that’s gonna tag along!”

“That’s true. But what is the other junior member supposed to be?”

“Well that person would be-“ After a momentary pause upon realizing that Carly was alluding to her as the “useless rookie,” Emily becomes a bit more snarky and say, “Oh ha…ha…ha. I’ll ‘ave you know that I’ve been very useful in our missions!”
“Name one time that you’ve helped!”

“That time we was in Australia keepin’ them land developers from ruining that Aboriginal settlement to build Outback time-shares. Feh. A useless waste of money, they are. Especially in the Outback.”

“Yeah, it’s just as useless as your navigation skills! Got us lost five times! Even stranded us on Ayers’ Rock…on the top!”

“Yeah?! At least we ‘ad good surveillance!”

“And ended up invading a commune instead of a settlement!”

“Well it was fun givin’ them tree-‘uggin’ tossers a pinin’!”

“And ran the heavily-equipped company jeep into three of the construction machines, costing us both several grand to be garnished from our wages!”

“Sometimes ya ‘ave to sacrifice to make progress!”

This little disagreement was interrupted when both Carly and Emily’s communicators began to sound off, which listed the new Atlas teams.

“So where are we on the list?” Emily asked.

Carly scrolled down on the screen until she found her last name. “I found us! Team #574B, Stafford/Parker…we’re merging with Team #392D, Escobar/Crawford. The name Crawford sounds familiar…something significant.”
As Carly and Emily walk into their new team office, they see piles of books piled high on top of the four desks in the room. Upon inspecting the books, Carly saw that they were on the Chinese dynasties, mostly of lesser known dynasties.

“Blimey!” Carly exclaimed, “These books are stacked towards the heavens!”
“What the bloody ‘ell?” Emily added.

“Sorry…sorry…” Those words belonged to the cat girl who had walked into the office carrying a tall stack of books into the room. “I’m doing research on the Xing dynasty.”

“All of these books are on the Chinese dynasties,” Carly noted.
“They are, but I find the Xing dynasty the most interesting,” the cat girl replied as she struggled to get the books safely on a nearby desk. “There are more in my superior’s office.” She finally did, and the cat girl, sporting long blonde hair, eyeglasses which made her blue eyes gleam, and wearing the standard Atlas outfit only her shirt was dark gray, cargo pants brown, and the patches on her shirt sleeves were of the American flag. 

Carly was impressed by the knowledge the junior agent feline had in dynasties. She was about to note on that, but her own partner, her less-than-enthusiastic raccoon decided to take matters in her own hands by demanding that cat to, “Take yer books and piss off!”

The cat protested by saying, “But I had them arranged in order of time frame. It took me hours to arrange them!”

“T’aint my problem!” this remark earned Emily a hard slap on the back of the head from Carly.

“Emily, don’t be rude!” Carly admonished before turning back to the cat. “Anyway, your superior…who is he?”

“You mean she? Her name is Paulina Escobar, the assistant chair of the cartography department.”

“Ah, yes…Escobar. And you’re her subordinate Crawford.”

“Yes. I’m Sarah.”

Suddenly, the name Sarah Crawford was finally recognizable to Carly. “Of course! Sarah Crawford. Now I remember! The youngest to be an Atlas agent by means of academic achievements that have never been achieved by any other agent. Bachelor’s degree world history and languages from Boston College at 14. Master’s from Harvard at 16. And I believe you are in the midst of obtaining a Ph. D. if not mistaken.”

As both Sarah and Carly shake hands, Sarah confirms the accomplishments. “Yeah, I just have to pass a few tests and complete my dissertation on the similarities of the tribes of Africa and the American colonists…which I really need to finish. I’ve only done 24 pages so far! I’m far behind! I hope my flash drive can hold the space.”

“It’ll be alright. I’ve had to do dozens of papers when I was in college, and I was quite the nervous wreck. You just have to take it easy and pace yourself.”

“Okay…thank you. You know you’re actually quite the history maker yourself. Twenty complete missions in the first year as an agent. And those led to six new findings in history.”

“Well somebody had to find more information concerning pre-Alexander Babylon.”
Feeling left out in this, Emily pipes up asking, “Ain’t I a ‘istory maker in ‘ere?”

Sarah turns over to Emily in indifference and asks, “You must be Carly’s partner. Emily Parker right?”

“Yes I am.”

“Then you actually have made Atlas history yourself.”

“Oh yes. You were actually one of the first two agents to be reprimanded for making out in the forensics lab.” To prove evidence of this, Sarah provides a photograph of a CCTV image of Emily making out with another raccoon Atlas agent.

“Bollocks! That wasn’t making out! If it were making out, he would ‘ave tried and open ‘is lips a little bit more. It was like kissing two pieces of glued wood, it did.”
Carly looks at the photograph and found the reason why the lover was so tight-lipped. “I don’t know…it looks like he was a bit too busy getting a ‘grasp’ of things if you know what I mean.” She says this as she points at a shot of the guy grabbing Emily’s butt while making out.

“At least he got good taste.”

“But what about Shaun, your favorite bartender?”

“I’m considering other options! Y’can’t just bet on one ‘orse.”

Just then, a mouse girl with curly black hair walks into the room carrying cartography equipment. She too was wearing the standard Atlas getup, only her shirt was mint green and her cargo pants were dark green. It was also evident that the mouse was from Mexico based on the Mexican flag patches on her shirt sleeves and the Mexican flag on her belt buckle. She was recognized once Sarah came over to help her out. “Ah, Paulina. You’re here.”

“Sarah, where were you?” Paulina asked. “I was working on these maps of ancient China, and you still had all of the books! ¡Madre de Dios! You know I can’t work freehand!”

“Sorry, Paulina. I got swept up talking with our new teammates: Carly and Emily.”
Paulina dropped her cartography equipment and stared wide-eyed at the tigress before sharply turning to her partner and asking, “¿Tu seriosa? THE Carly Stafford is on our team!”

Carly confirmed it as such. “Yes…it is true.”

” ¡Fabuloso!” Paulina exclaimed as she walked over to Carly. Instead of shaking hands, as Carly had thought as she extended her hand out, Paulina grabs Carly and hugs her tightly. “I cannot believe that we are teamed up with Atlas’ top agent!”

Carly was very surprised that a mouse Paulina’s 5’2” frame can have so much strength as her hug was extremely tight with Carly straining to get a word out. “I’m…very glad you feel that way. ….ow…but you might not have me as a team member for long unless you let go.”

“¡Ah, lo siento!” Paulina let go of Carly and allowed her to breathe. “Sometimes excitement gets the better of me.”

“It’s quite all right,” Carly assured Paulina once she got her breath back.

“And this must be your partner Emily Parker!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Emily said.

“Sí. The Library Lolita!” Carly, Sarah, and Paulina had a good laugh at that comment. Emily was not that impressed though.

“Very funny,” Emily retorted. “I didn’t think I’d be gettin’ comedians for new teammates.”

“And I’m sure they weren’t expecting a cynic for a teammate either,” Carly countered.

“I ain’t no cynic! Just ain’t as thrilled with all this bleedin’ ‘istory rubbish you lot go on and on about! I need a fag break!” With that, Emily goes out to have another cigarette.

“Boy is she going to be a lot of fun,” Sarah commented.

“What the hell is wrong with her anyway?” Paulina asked Carly.

“Emily…well…she was forced into Atlas due to some problems with our previous employer. They thought that putting her in Atlas would give her an attitude adjustment. Surprise, surprise, it didn’t.”

“I take it that from her lack of interest, she doesn’t have a degree in history or anthropology,” Paulina noted.

“She never even graduated high school!” Carly added.

“So why did they have you as her partner?” Sarah asked.

Paulina would answer that question for Carly. “It’s mostly based on performance compatibility. Each duo is formed based on factors to ensure the best success potential for missions. The same came into play with the new teams. However, I do have a friend who is the head of the records here, and she will explain this better than I could.”