Gripping Jane’s hand, Tom maintained a cheery demeanor that betrayed the whirlpool of emotions inside him. In those few seconds before Jane shot out of her seat, something had possessed him to lean in closer to those red lips of hers. He had been so tempted to taste it that he hadn’t noticed his target walking towards the ferris wheel. 

What in the world was he thinking? Frustration mounted in him. He had never let himself get distracted on a mission before. Why was this one any different?

His pace picked up until the two of them were close to sprinting towards the ferris wheel. To his relief, Jane didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she seemed to be as eager as him to reach their destination.

There was no queue at all - a miracle in and of itself. Or maybe that was why the target had chosen the ferris wheel as a covert meet-up. Noticing his young, clean-shaven target get into the ferris wheel pod with another bespectacled middle-aged man, Tom slowed down. He didn’t want his target to notice him. As Tom gestured to the fair attendant that it was just him and Jane, he felt Jane tug on his hand.

“Can you wait three seconds before we enter?” she said.

Tom watched his target’s pod move slowly away. Anxiety built up in his chest. Struggling to find an excuse, he stammered, “U-Umm-”

“Oh, wait. It’s fine. Let’s go now!” Jane pulled him through the gate that the fair attendant held open.

Her weird antics didn’t bother him at all as long as it got him into that pod behind his target. As they hopped into the swaying pod, he sensed his target’s gaze drilling into his back with such intensity that it would have carved a hole into his tee. 

Fighting his natural instinct to react to the visual probing, Tom relaxed his body. The trick was in how to regulate one’s breathing. Needless to say, he was an expert. To add a cherry on top, he leaned in closer to Jane and chuckled loud enough that the target could hear. “Do you think we can catch the fireworks show by the time we reach the top?”

“I almost forgot about that,” Jane gasped. “That would be amazing!”

As the pod swayed with their movement, Tom took a seat on the half-broken bench with his back facing his target’s pod. Jane slid into the bench opposite him. She placed her bag beside her, narrowly avoiding the plastic wrappers littering the bench and the floor below. 

Tom’s eyes raked over the dirty, disheveled state of the ferris wheel. It was no wonder that almost all the pods were empty, making it the ideal spot for a covert meeting. He resisted a shiver of disgust and shifted his attention to Jane, pretending to be the attentive boyfriend who was totally into his girlfriend. 

Jane was the complete opposite. Her eyes flitted everywhere like a child. She even looked over her shoulder at the pods behind them, oblivious to the filth surrounding them.

“Do you like ferris wheels as well?” he said.

“What?” She spun around, blinking in surprise. “O-Oh. Yes, I do.”

Seeing that she was more preoccupied with looking over the side, Tom followed suit. He lifted his camera and pointed it towards the glittering city lights in the distance. From the side of the camera, he retrieved a tiny, flat disc and discreetly placed it in his ear. Then, he thumbed the selection wheel until a soft click let him know that the hidden long-range covert listening device was active.

Crackling sounds filled his ear. Tom panned the camera towards the pod ahead of them. As the target’s companion came into view, he stopped. He picked up bits and pieces of the soft conversation happening in the pod but dared not move too much lest the target notice his suspicious behavior. What he gleaned from the few words he heard was more than enough.

Talk of a new biological weapon that could easily be smuggled over borders made his blood grow cold with trepidation. As he made mental notes about the places and people they mentioned, he wondered how these people slept at night when their work had the potential to reap millions of lives.

He lowered his camera when the voices quietened down. Maybe they had caught on to him. He snuck a glance at Jane but her back was turned. She seemed so intent looking down on the pods behind them that he didn’t want to disturb her. He had no idea what captivated her attention but then again, she had always been an interesting oddball.

Lifting his camera back up, he felt the ferris wheel slow down as they reached the top. The sprawling city glimmered like a blanket of lights through his viewfinder. What should have been a breathtaking experience was dampened by the malignant conversation drifting through his earpiece.

He was in the middle of memorizing the chemical formulas spewed out by his target when a loud thump tore his attention away from the viewfinder. Spinning around, he found Jane holding a long, thin pipe-like object as she leaned over the edge, facing the pod behind them. He frowned.

“I-It’s a selfie st-stick!” Jane squeaked out.

Before he had time to ask her where her phone was, a scream from below sliced through the air.He looked over the edge, scanning the ground for the source of the disturbance until he found a crowd gathered around a growing pool of blood and… a dead body. His eyes widened in shock. Was the dead person related in some tangential way to his target?

He shifted his gaze to the pod above them… only to find the target looking straight at him! Tom slipped on his mask of innocence but in that brief second of eye contact, his secret identity was betrayed. 

Before he could react, the target’s compatriot - the bespectacled man with the physique of a gymnast - leaped over the pod’s railing in one clean arc and landed with a rattling thump behind Tom. 

Swinging around, Tom threw a punch, hitting the spectacled man in the abdomen. His enemy barely moved, letting out a single grunt before lashing out with a vicious kick to Tom’s stomach.

The wind knocked out of him, Tom crumpled to the ground, clutching his gut. He gritted his teeth through the pain and scrambled to find the one weapon he had. With two hands, he brought the camera crashing down on the enemy’s foot. The lens shattered into a hundred jagged pieces.

A sharp hiss left the enemy’s lips as he tottered on his good foot. Tom made to tackle him but in the split of an eye, Jane kicked the man over the edge. Before the body even hit the ground, Tom’s target crashed down into their pod. Tom landed a blow on the target’s gut, causing the target to stumble back. But before Tom could get back to his feet, the target whipped out a knife, slashing a wide arc that nicked Tom’s arm.

As Tom stumbled backwards, the target dealt a resounding blow to his jaw. Stars burst across his vision. He slumped down onto the bench, his body screaming in agony. His heart hammered like a racehorse, pumping blood and adrenaline through his veins. Through blurry eyes, he saw the enemy whip out a gun and point it at Jane who had a trickle of blood running down her chin and the enemy’s knife in her hand - she must have gotten it while Tom had been down. 

Tom’s eyes widened in fear. He wanted to scream at the enemy to shoot him instead, to spare the innocent Jane. She didn’t deserve such a fate, not when she had her whole life ahead of her.

He forced himself to his feet, ready to leap at the enemy. Jane was faster. In one lightning quick movement, she disarmed the man of his gun. The man lunged at her, narrowly missing her as she spun out of his way. 

With a deadly look on her face, Jane took a lower fighting stance. Before the man could make his next move, she swung her leg in a semi-circular arc - almost hitting Tom as he ducked down in time - and hit the man squarely in his ribs. The force of her kick sent the enemy flying several feet away…

…right as the fireworks show started! A burst of light shot up from below the ferris wheel, hitting the man right as he started his downward descent to the ground.

Jane gasped in horror. Tom got up from his seat and watched with dark humor as the enemy spy was rocketed up into the sky. 

“Oh my god,” Jane murmured, wincing when the fireworks and the man burst into colorful shots of red. 

Satisfied that such a dangerous man was as dead as dead could be, Tom let out a sigh. He looked at Jane, noticing the trail of blood down her chin. Using his thumb, he gently wiped it off. “I’m glad you’re okay, Jane. Thank you for saving us.”

Jane turned scarlet red. “I-I took self-defence classes! B-But more importantly, are you okay, Tom?”

Despite the aching pain in his body, Tom chuckled. “I’m fine. More importantly, we’re missing the fireworks.”

“Oh, right.”

As they looked out at the wonderful display of colors, Tom let himself relax at long last. His mission was complete. His fake girlfriend was happy. He was, for the most part, fine. And the view was nothing but spectacular.

“Thank you for this date, Tom.” Jane beamed.

A sincere smile lit up his face. 

“It certainly is a memorable one.”

---