I was only fifteen when I was recruited to my agency.  And now here I am, twenty years old, and on the Agency Board Of Directors.  Agent Cardhart, that’s me.  I loved the way that gold name card looked on my desk.
I was sitting on my office chair, playing a game with myself, seeing if I could tilt my swivel chair back just far enough to suspend myself, but not too far so that I would collapse.  It had been a quiet day, with no one needing us to work for them.  I had almost become steady, precariously perched on one wheel of my chair, when I heard a familiar ring, but not one that I had heard recently.  The tone was the dirge that I had programmed to play when Mr. Reneir, my boss, was on the line.  His conversations were always terse.  No greetings, just a simple command.
        “I need you in my office. Pronto.”
        “Right away, sir.”
        I grabbed by laptop, and rushed out of my office door, jogging past the cafeteria, lounge, and conference rooms. I stopped at my aunt’s old office. I stood in front of the door with M. Cardhart engraved into the gold plate.  She was one of the founders of this company, and her office still stood as a memorial to her, almost untouched.  It was almost two years ago that she disappeared on a mission, and hadn’t been heard from since.  Everyone assumed that she had died in a reported explosion, but the body and fire-proof gear was never found.  I held a glimmer of hope but knew she was probably gone.  When I was little, she had taken me here a lot.  A cool tear streamed down my face as I stood there.
        Mr. Reneir’s room.  I wiped away the tear, kept moving, and frantically tried to collect myself.   Once I got there, I placed my hand on the identity detector and waited for it to scan.
        “Come on in,” a cool voice said as the doors glided open.
        Mr. Reneir‘s office was black and white, with tall mahogany bookshelves lining the walls with color-coded books placed neatly on them. His desk was minimal and simplistic, with his laptop centered on it.  Behind his desk, floor to ceiling windows looked out over Chicago and Lake Michigan.  They gave a spectacular view from fifty floors up.   Mr. Reneir himself was a well-kept man, who always looked neat and tidy.  He was tall and looked very official sitting up straight in his chair.  He had dark brown hair, and eyes to match.  I sat down in one of the white chairs.
“So, Cardhart, as you know, we have been suspicious of the government since day one.  In fact, that’s why the Agency was founded.  Now, is our big moment,” he paused and smiled a little, looking pleased.  “One of our agents has detected something strange.  We think it’s some sort of government conspiracy.  No, unlike all of the others that people call in about, this one is real.”
My ears perked up at this statement, and my mind soared.  This is the moment I had been waiting for my entire career.  A chance to go on a big mission.
“So I need you to fly out to New York and meet with Ms. Cascade, the head of our office there.  She will be instructing your mission.”
“How soon should I leave?” I inquired, eager to start.
“I will assign a helicopter to fly you.  It will be waiting for you tomorrow morning at 6 am.  I suggest that you go home now to prepare.”
“Yes, sir,” I said as I walked out of his office.
That evening, I packed as lightly as possible.  I filled my leather satchel with my laptop, cell phone, tool kit, and a variety of passports with alternative identities.
After barley getting any sleep that night, I threw some extra shirts and pants into my bag, and flew out the door.  I peddled my dark green bike down Lake Shore Drive as fast as I possibly could to our office building, narrowly escaping the collision of some annoyed tourists on rent-a-bikes.  I got through the standard building security, and jabbed the buttons on the elevator to the fifty-fifth floor.  On the way up, I gave myself a quick pep-talk.
“You’ve got this, Avery.  You need to show Mr. Reneir that you can do this.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid opened, and I walked out.   It was a windy day, especially a thousand feet up.  Pushing my hair out of my face, I spotted Mr. Reneir’s assistant, Ms. Aldridge, and hurried over.  She, like Mr. Reneir, looked very professional.  Her long blonde hair was in a neat up-do, unlike my own windblown tangles.  She wore a black skirt, blouse, and a trench coat with tall boots.
“Mr. Reneir has sent me to see to it that you have everything that you need,” she said, as she hastily pushed-walked me to the helicopter.
I felt myself straighten up and tried to act as professional as possible.  I climbed into the helicopter.  It was very spacious inside with white seats and a fur throws for warmth.  After a flight of several hours the glaringly brilliant skyscrapers of New York City came into view.  We flew along the Hudson River Valley, and I noticed that the foliage was in full autumn splendor, which was unusual for so early in the season - it was only mid-August.
The helicopter landed on a black building in downtown Manhattan. I was escorted by Ms. Aldridge down a long flight of stairs, where she opened a tall, black door.  Inside was a high-tech lounge.  I waited for a few minutes on an ottoman, and watched the city below me, anxious. Down the hall, I heard footsteps approaching.  In walked a woman whom I assumed to be Ms. Cascade.  She set a stack of papers onto the kitchen countertop, and then looked at me, giving me a head-to-toe glance.
“You must be Avery,” she said in a matter-of-factly voice.  I introduced myself to her, using the speech that I had planned out the night before.
Ms. Cascade wore her brown hair in a high ponytail.  Her voice was smooth and she spoke clearly.  Her green eyes shone.
“Well, we don’t have much time, so follow me.”
She led me down a hallway to her office, and gestured for me to sit.
“So… What has Mr. Reneir told you about this mission?”
“Nothing, really,” I replied.  She nodded, eyes transfixed on a couple of documents.
Ms. Cascade looked back up at me from her papers, and cleared her throat.  “We suspect that the government has been tracking and monitoring citizens through these,” She held up a small orange leaf, and placed it in front of me to examine more closely.  It looked pretty normal, but when I turned it over, I noticed that there were a couple of bumps on an otherwise smooth surface - it looked like tiny beads of water adhering to the leaf.  When I shook the leaf slightly, they stayed in place.
“These have been found throughout the city and the surrounding areas, mixed in with ordinary leaves.  They themselves seem to be ordinary, but we’ve analyzed them in detail.  The spots that look like droplets are camera lenses, but we can’t figure out how they work.  Somebody is planting these for some reason, and we need to figure out why.  Avery, there are tons of these, and we are finding more every day.  The leaves are also changing color much earlier than they should, and falling at unprecedented rates.  We’ve had agents running around the area, gathering what information we can.  It appears that the government is using them for something, and ‘disappearances’ in the area have increased dramatically.  I called Mr. Reneir and asked if he had any agents right for the case, and he recommended you.”
I have to admit, I was kind of stunned by that. 
“So how are we supposed to go about this?”
“First step for you would be to figure out where these are coming from, and how they work and how they’re being used.  If the government is behind this… well- it has to stop.”
Later that night, I went about, searching the streets, and I realized that they were indeed everywhere.  The almost unnaturally bright orange and red leaves were piled under trees, on streets, and everywhere else.  Thousands of camera lenses, just barely concealed on ordinary tree leaves.  I collected a couple of leaves as a sample, and sealed them into an evidence bag.
When I got back to the office, Mrs. Cascade and I discussed the case.
“So do you think that this is just New York?” I asked.
“We suspect the federal government is in charge of all of this, and they are just testing out the project with New York City, but we have to be sure so that we can put a stop to this soon.  Now- for the next step.  We have to find the origin of the devices.  Where these little people-spiers are being made.  The technology department will provide you with a tracking device that is honing in on the greatest concentration of a chemical element, one that we’ve been able to detect in small quantities within the lens itself.  It’s not like anything we’ve seen before, but it has a strong chemical marker.”
At around midnight, I left the building and followed my GPS to the first possible location, but found myself at a subway stop.  It must be down here.
After making sure that there was no one there, I carefully crept down to the subway stop and looked around.  The GPS said that the location was in the train tunnel about fifty feet down.
I ended up sneaking across the narrow ledge to get to a small opening in the wall.   I slid inside the opening.  As my eyes adjusted in the narrow space, I crawled down a tunnel that led down to another room that was better lit.  I checked the room for movement before I carefully slid out from the tunnel.  I was dangling about eight feet up from the floor, and had to risk the jump to get inside the room.

Once on the ground, I took a good look around.  The room was huge, about the size of a basketball court. It was dimly lit, but I could make out about twenty rows of connected desks, all facing a huge map of New York City, with millions of tacks and files stapled onto it.
Before I did anything, I slid on the white gloves that I brought everywhere, and took out my flashlight.  I scoured the desks for anything of importance.  There were leaves on each of the desks, and chemistry equipment and computers on each as well.  Whoever was controlling this was clearly spending lots of time and resources to create these.  One of the front desks had a control panel.  An array of buttons of various shapes, sizes, and colors beeped and blinked.   There were laboratory tables I slipped my gloved hand over one of the buttons that said ‘POWER’.
   I jolted back in surprise as all of the monitors in the room came on.  I quickly jammed the volume button onto mute, and I stood there a few moments.  Why had I done that?!  What if someone heard? Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I recollected myself, focusing on the task at hand.   I crossed over to view a dark laboratory space.  White lab coats hung neatly under name tags.  Large microscopes focused on perti dishes containing the leaves. 
Just then, I heard a quiet rustle from upstairs.  I heard some more loud banging from upstairs, and I was sure that someone was coming down.  I quickly squeezed myself under a desk that was in front of a cabinet, so I wouldn’t be visible.
Another door to the room creaked open.  Through the crack between the desk and the cabinet, I could make out the figures of two men.  One was a tall, muscular man.  He was ordering a scrawnier, shorter man around.
“I heard someone down here,” he barked.  He turned to the smaller man, making him flinch.  As he scanned the room, I saw the exact moment that he laid his eyes on the monitors on the far end of the room.
“What have you done?!?” he screamed, flying into a mad rage.  “Just wait until Cardhart hears about this!”
Cardhart?
I ducked even lower behind the desk, my heart pounding in my chest.  I attempted to control my breathing.  I heard a familiar voice, and my ears perked up.  “Hears about what?”
Without saying a word, the smaller man lifted his finger, pointing in my direction.  I held my breath as the larger man whipped around to see me.
I stood, knowing that I had been caught.  I was stunned and frozen.  My aunt turned and stared straight back at me.
“Aunt Madeleine!  What’s going on?  I can’t believe you’re here… and working with them?  Spying on American citizens with these cameras?”
She was obviously flustered, and so was I.
“Avery, you don’t understand.  It’s not what you think.  Yes, I’ve been working with the government for the past two years, since we discovered these… these eyes.  We thought they were cameras too, but they’re biological.  Some life form sent them, and we need to find out why.”