The inside of the Australian Intelligence Service was not particularly pleasing to

Lillianne Moore. It reminded her of one of those huge office buildings on Burke
Street in Melbourne. The ground floor had a huge, useless space in it, with a
single female manning the office desk. It may be useless, but it looks pretty
posh, and draws you in. Go to the first floor, however, youd find yourself in a
completely different situation. Maybe it was companies ways of inviting potential
employees in maybe they dont actually show you the workplace youre meant
to be housed for the rest of you time there.
It was a different situation for Lilly. While she had spent her time as an 18-19
year old as a personal assistant, she was able to travel a lot. Thats what
happened when your boss was sent around the world. Her family was so excited
for her, that shed go around the world, see Paris, Prague, and so on . . . but Lilly
never thought anything was different from the home city of Melbourne. She
didnt really want to see the world. It was really all the same to her landmarks
were boring, sights were bland; she was constantly called a boring person.
Seven years later, however, she found herself sitting in her old bosss office. She
had once been a field operative, collecting counter intelligence from the different
countries of the world. She was capable of understanding multiple languages
but wasnt, however, particularly fluent in all of them, other than he own
language of English. She was not skilled in combat, the best she could shoot was
on a gaming console. She was not what people would consider a cool spy, but
her work was, occasionally, dangerous. Australia was not really allowed to
participate in the spy game, which meant that Australian spies found
themselves talking a lot, and not really seeing a lot of hand to hand combat.
Howve you been?
Fivel White finally walked into the office, taking a seat behind his desk and
clasping his hands together. He was a middle-aged man, black hair, clean
shaven. Constantly found in a suit. Dont be fooled, however. Fivel was way more
skilled than Lilly when it came to hand to hand combat, shooting, killing
probably because he was in America when 9/11 occurred.
A lot of stuff about the 9/11 attack was falsified by the American Government,
and for good reason. The retaliation was not advertised as much, and for good
reason. The last thing the American citizens really needed was for their President
to turn around and say were launching an attack, and requesting that our allies
assist. Not many agents from Australia were sent over to help, but Fivel was
one of them. He returned bruised and battle-scarred, but ready to continue
training Lilly almost immediately. She thought it stupid of him to do so, but she
never questioned his decision.
Ive been good. Lilly nodded to herself, and crossed her legs. Why am I here?
Fivel sighed and looked down. Something seemed wrong, or off. He opened a
draw of his desk, and pulled out a folder. It looked like it was about eighty or
ninety pages thick, like a redundancy order hed make her get people to sign.
I got a call from the personnel department. I hear youve been dry on work
lately?

You hear correctly. I was told that I could sit back and relax until someone gave
me something to do.
He sighed again. Yeah . . . about that.
Lilly raised an eyebrow.
The Director of Personnel has given me the order to give you this. He pushed
forward the document. Carefully, Lilly opened the top of the flap. I need you to
read through it so that you understand what exactlys going to happen over the
next twenty years or so.
She frowned. This is a release form . . .
Yeah. The next hundred pages are about what you can and cant do, your
pension package, what you can and cant keep, so on. Its . . . its all there.
Lilly looked up. AIS is . . . firing me?
Seven years of her life working for the Australian Intelligence Service. The first
two years were rather stressful, working for Fivel. She had been his personal
assistant, handling all of his documents. Although she was never particularly
good at looking after them, Fivel believed that she might be better in the field.
For the next five years, shed be in Germany or something, personally asking a
translator to ask a German Intelligence operative if a job had been completed or
something. Lillys job was really just to hand out pay-checks written by AIS, or
investigate something suspicious that did not fit the profile of an average
criminal.
She was trained to look after herself. She hadnt actually seen her family face-toface in years because of AIS. Now . . . theyre firing her?
Her dad was going to love this.
Not . . . entirely. Really, this is just a glorified way of saying were forcing you to
go on holiday for the next twenty years or so. Youll still get paid.
Yeah, the minimum amount.
What could she do? It wasnt as if shed be able to tell the Department of
Personnel up front to keep her and that theyre making a grand mistake. Shed
have to go through phone call after phone call just to even get an appointment,
and, judging by how many people they have to deal with a day, she didnt really
want to spend at least five hours on hold, waiting for some douche to just
forward her onto the next douche.
And Lilly didnt even know where the Department of Personnel is. So even if she
wanted to barge into their office and give them a piece of her mind, there was
little chance shed find them first.
Alright. She breathed. When am I being told to go on holiday?
As soon as you have signed all the pages that need your signature.
Just . . . typical. The bastards were booting her as soon as possible. Why did she
know that was going to happen.

I dont suppose that youve been assigned to help me out?

Indeed I have.
Why was AIS so cruel, making her old boss help her sign her release papers?
Didnt he have something better to do? Like, oh, training some recruit in the
annalistic field?
Reading the second page of the release document, Lilly found it difficult to
believe that these were typed up individually. They probably werent. They were
probably computer generated, which explained why she found it difficult to
understand the extremely large and scientific words that really meant simple
things. With Fivel around to translate, it really wasnt that much of a matter. But
itd take at least two days to finish reading all of this, depending on if Fivel was
busy or not. This was a good sign, though. The front page said in very large and
bold text NOT TO BE SKIMMED. Huh, she thought, Maybe theyre not computer
generated after all. It was also difficult to believe that a computer would put on
the front page not to be skimmed.
Do we start now? Lilly didnt see a reason why they couldnt. Shed been told
to relax due to the lack of work no thanks to the Prime Minister putting his foot
down and saying no Intelligence jobs without my approval, and considering that
man in charge wasnt really quick on his feet to make decisions, that left AIS out
in the water which meant that Fivel was probably running low in the work
department as well.
The man sighed and stood up out of his chair. Ill go make us some coffee.
Tea for me, please.
Stopping at the door, Fivel frowned. The past five years, Lilly had been practically
living on coffee to keep her going such a sudden change from her was
uncommon and unheard of.
If Im being told to take a permanent holiday, She explained. I better start
making some changes.
And you are not eligible to put in an appeal for your reinstatement in the
Australian Intelligence Service field department. You are, however, allowed to
request reinstatement after a ten year period in a different department. Do you
understand and agree?
Yes, I understand and I agree. She groaned, leaning back on the couch and
closing her eyes.
The two had been at this for the last eight hours. It was two oclock in the
morning, and the fact that there was over six disposable cups from Hudsons
Coffee showed just how far the man was willing to go.
Your license to kill will be revoked as soon as you have been officially
discharged from the Australian Intelligence Service, as is your permit to carry
fire-arms and weapons. Your passport will also be terminated. Do you understand
and agree?

Aye, Captain. She said, in a Scottish accent.

Yeah, Lilly was starting to get bored.
Fivel, holding his head in his hand as he read the final paragraph, spoke the
words that hopefully ended the entirety of this ridiculously long document.
Ill get you to sign . . . here. He pointed to the line directly above her name,
and she signed it (much to her own distaste). And thats it.
There was a pause as Lilly sighed. So thats it, huh? Eight hours with a gazillion
cups of tea and coffee define the end of my life at AIS?
Think of it this way, Fivel pointed out, looking down. If youre ever really
needed, well contact you. Its not the complete termination of your contract
you still get paid.
Minimum pension. She muttered.
Not if I can help it. Ill pull some strings. You might not get your normal pay, but
a casual job or something would help cover that.
Oh, joy.
Somehow, Lilly doubted shed find it easy to move into a sort of casual job to
keep up her current pay-rate, especially one that happened to be in a
department store or something. She also refused to work in a fast-food joint. She
may need the money at some point, but she refused to work in a fast food joint
with annoying, painful customers that get pissed off when you dont get their
order right. She knew it was a hard life for those people mainly because her
dad was one of those who got especially angry if someone didnt give him the
right thing.
The good news is that you get to keep your badge. Ultimately, you can go
anywhere for free well pay for all your travel expenses. You get that new car
you wanted-
Stop trying to sugar the pill, Fivel, Im a big girl. I can handle getting fired. Lilly
crossed her arms.
With a sigh, Fivel stood. If it makes you feel any better, I got you an interview at
Hi-Store.
Ah, the department store that offered high-quality service to their customers.
While Lilly hadnt actually gone into one before, she had heard about their
reputation. Much like any other department store in Australia, there were no
visible problems with it. With Lillys command experience and organizational
skills, there was no reason to doubt that shed be valuable to them. Fivel had
apparently sensed that as well.
Thanks, Fivel. For everything.
Its no problem.

Standing, Lilly shook her ex-bosss hand once more, and without another look
back, she left his office with her cup of tea. Fivel would handle getting the papers
to the Personnel Department, and that would probably be the last time shed
hear from him professionally. So she walked to the elevator, refusing to believe
that this was the last time shed leave the AIS Burke Street office in Melbourne.