Miranda looked out the window in triumph. Now her mother was gone, and she had the house to herself. Besides the cats, of course. Time for the next phase in her plan to become a world-famous vigilante: go out and fight crime!

She rushed to her closet and pulled out the costume she'd been working on for the past three months. It was a gray jumpsuit, with black tabby-like stripes on the back, built-in black boots, and a fluffy gray-and-black ringed tail. She donned it, then turned to her dresser, where rested the headpiece: a black mask and a headband with felt cat ears.

Fully costumed, she left her room and headed for the door. “Watch out, villains! Here comes the Black Miracat!” With that, she strode through the door and tripped on the toilet.

Recovered from her ‘Wrong door incident’, Miranda had successfully made it to town, just in time to see two black-clad figures fleeing from the bank. Their flight had somehow gone unnoticed by anyone else, and the robbers made their way to the getaway car. They threw in their loot, and drove away, followed not so quickly by the inexperienced vigilante.

She finally found the car, parked in front of a busy pub. Finding the car empty and locked, she entered the filthy building. She found the scoundrels at a table near the center, nearly drunk to the point of blubbering.

She didn't want to be seen. There were some really big muscular guys there, and she didn’t want to run into them. So she walked right up to her prey, going strangely unnoticed by anyone, except her quarry. They definitely noticed. Not that they cared for much other than their empty tankards.

“Hey!” one called with unnecessary volume at her. “Barmaid! Gimme a refill!”

Miranda stopped in shock. Barmaid? She slammed both hands down on the table, which scared everyone at the next table. “Do I look like a barmaid to you?” she screamed at them, though they seemed unfazed.

“She looks like a raccoon to me,” the other guy said.

“I’M THE BLACK MIRACAT! NOT A RACCOON, NOT A BARMAID!”

Neither of the thieves seemed to notice her bad humor, though half the pub was staring at her by now. “Meerkat?” the first guy asked his friend, looking Miranda over. “Yer right, Frank, she does look more like a raccoon.”

Frank, glad of his victory, stood excitedly, shouting, “RACCOON! RACCOON! RACCOON!”

As the drunken crowd joined his chant, Miranda fumed and flipped the table. She then stormed out, but not before tossing a lit match into the nearest barrel, causing a chain reaction that burned the place to the ground.

Standing under a tree outside the airport in Minnesota, Wales, Spicy McPie tapped her foot impatiently. Why were plane schedules so inaccurate? The planes in this airport all waited five minutes in case people were late. And then the airport was nearly impossible to navigate, which was more annoying than anything. She looked back at her phone’s messages, double-checking that she was at the right place.

The sound of a blaring car alarm snapped her out of her head. Looking towards the direction of the sound, she saw a man with some tool stuck in the driver’s side door. Looking down at her watch, Spicy grinned under her fake mustache, remembering a scene from that popular American movie about a superhero family.

“Yeah I’ve got time,” she quoted and sprinted to the car. The man, hearing footsteps, looked up to see a teenager running at him at an alarming speed. Frightened, he dropped his lock picks and started running away, parkouring over the hood of the car next to him to escape into the open. Spicy grinned wider, her eyes twinkling behind the sunglasses that covered much of her face.

She loved it when they ran.

She jumped over the top of the car with ease and landed with a roll. She smoothly popped back up and gave chase. Looking back, the man’s mouth dropped in awe and fear. He ran into the car in front of him and fell onto the hood. Spicy couldn’t help but feel a little overqualified for this car thief as she cuffed the man’s wrists behind his back.

“Hey, who do you think you are, short stuff???” he cried.

“Bubbles,” she said, towing him back toward the airport entrance.

“How are you so strong?”

“You’ll be as strong as me someday. Just keep drinking your milk.” She walked up to a security guard and pointed to the captured man. “This guy was trying to steal a car. I caught him for you. Happy birthday!” She handed off the man to the officer and started walking away, smirking at her job well done.

“Wait!” She stopped at the guard’s bewildered call. “How did you...”

She turned to face him. “Bubbles.” She smirked and turned back. As she was looking away, her eye caught a glance at a tattoo on the thief’s wrist. It was a torch, with barbed wire wrapped around the handle. She took a mental note of it and went back to wait beneath the tree. A young woman was standing there, dressed in black and scanning the area with apparent impatience.

Ninja surveyed the parking lot with a meticulous eye but saw no sign of the agent she was supposed to meet. She saw a security guard escorting a dirty-looking man off the premises, and many people were going to and fro, but of the people waiting around, none seemed to be searching for an American BOSO agent. She reached out with her mind. In her experience with agents in general, both in the US and out, she’d come to find similarities in tone and perceptions in their ways of thinking: there was a slim sort of efficiency to them. She expected she could pick out an agent in a crowd no problem, with only her mind to guide her.

But Agent McPie was supposed to meet her here under this tree, and Ninja could sense no agent-ness from any of the people around. Had her time of arrival been miscommunicated? She needed to get on the case ASAP if she was to find those kidnapped orphans.

Ninja squinted towards the parking lot. A strange girl was approaching her. She wore a fake mustache and sunglasses, and she carried herself like a bird of fancy plumage. But the strangest thing about her was the thought that seemed to play repeatedly through her mind: Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, BUBBLES. Bubbles, etc. Ninja was so thrown that she could make no comment when the girl stopped next to her. Bubbles pulled out a picture, stared at it for six seconds, then asked, “I’m here now. All your problems are solved! Let’s go.”

“Who are you?”

“Spicy McPie, only the top of the Secret Agency of the Junior Spies of Great Britain.”

“You’re Agent McPie?”

“Does it look like I’m introducing someone else?”

Ninja stared, aghast. “But you’re a kid!”

“Like I said, Junior Spies. SAOTJSOGB, est. 1792.”

“Did you just abbreviate ‘established’ in speech?”

“Yep, yep I did. Also we were renamed by a committee in 1974. The acronym isn't my fault.”

Ninja sighed. This was going to be a long case. She wished her briefer, the loud man, had told her that her guide was so young. “How old are you, anyway? Thirteen?”

“No, I’m fifteen! I’m just… short.”

“Okay, then.” Ninja sighed again. “Let’s go. I’ll fill you in on the way.”