The Adventures of Princess Johanna in Propolis
1
The first strange thing that happened when Princess Johanna opened her eyes was the very fact that she opened them before nine in the morning. The second thing was that two complete strangers were sitting silently in her room, watching her.
Johana blinked once, then several more times. She peered through her sleepy haze at the small, messy room, trying to decide if this was a dream or reality. A lone sunbeam crept through the window, illuminating rebellious dust particles. Old clothes were scattered across the floor. Several dirty bowls were strewn about the dresser. All of this was perfectly reasonable, but these two people sitting right in front of her, staring at her - that was completely out of place. Even in her foggy, just-woken-up mind, she understood that much.
The princess glanced at the old digital clock, which undoubtedly showed 8:46, then surveyed the man and woman sitting on two kitchen chairs now positioned in front of her bed. The man appeared to be in his fifties-something, with short gray hair, a clean-shaven face, a prestigious gray suit, and a calm blue gaze. The woman looked slightly younger, wearing an equally prestigious brown suit and meticulously gathered black hair.
"Good morning, Your Highness," said the man. And that was the moment when the Princess decided she was definitely dreaming. She closed her eyes, turned over, and went back to sleep.
The next time she opened her eyes, only one strange thing happened. It was almost 9:10. But the two people were still patiently watching her. This time, the woman tried her luck. "Your Majesty, we apologize for disturbing your rest, but we've been sent by the CIA. It's an important matter, if you would kindly-"
"How in the name of Philip do you know I'm a princess?!" Johanna sat up nervously in her bed, wrapped herself in a pink Minnie Mouse blanket, and looked at them suspiciously.
"Well," the man shrugged, "you see? As we mentioned, we're intelligence agents, right? We are CIA spies. One might say it's our job to know things."
"You don't look like spies," Johanna shrugged.
"Yes, that's true," the man continued patiently, "a spy is supposed to not look like a spy, you see? It's one of the confusing aspects of our job, but-"
"You get used to it eventually," the woman nodded. "Every job has something you need to get used to, you know."
"Look," the Princess took a deep breath and tried to cling forcefully to the theory that someone was messing with her. That sounded way better than the alternative. "I've seen plenty of spy movies. There are always guns, shootouts, and dramatic music. I don't hear any dramatic music, which means you're totally not spies."
"Yes, I can understand that," the man nodded, "but look, movies don't always get all the details right."
"Especially not the music," the woman added.
"Yes," the man nodded. "Especially not the music."
"But-" Johanna looked at her dried passion fruit earring, resting beside the alarm clock on the nightstand. She knew she shouldn't have taken it off while sleeping. It was her lucky charm. One moment without it and suddenly-
"Look," the man cut her off, "if we're not spies, that means we're pretending to be spies. To pretend this convincingly, you'd have to be a spy, which means, however you look at this situation, we're probably spies, understand?"
"Uh..." Johanna's jaw dropped. The neurons in her brain hadn't even had time to stretch, and this mental acrobatics was completely beyond her capabilities.
"So if you're spies... that does explain how you know I'm a princess." She tried to piece together her shattered thoughts with basic logic. "Nobody else knows that. My mom told me about it in secret before she died of an overdose. She said we're direct descendants of Henry the Eighth, or Sixth, or anyway, some Henry. Even Philip, my cat, doesn't know that, and he knows everything about me."
"Exactly," the man cleared his throat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, "that proves we're spies. So now, if we've cleared that hurdle, we can continue. I'm David Lewis, and this is Miranda McCarthy. We've been sent to you regarding a rather... urgent matter and we thought-"
"In short," Miranda cut him off, "we need you. We've come to recruit you."
"Me?!" The Princess was so surprised her head bumped against the wall behind her. "Look, you've convinced me you're spies, but you must be very confused ones. I... I might be a princess and all, but I make my living cleaning stairwells. In my free time, I watch TV in my Bugs Bunny pajamas and eat onion-flavored popcorn. By the way, I have an excellent recipe if you-"
"We know all that," the man interrupted her, "as I said, that's more or less our job, Your Highness. Knowing things like that."
"The recipe too?" Johanna stared at them in amazement.
"The recipe too," David Lewis nodded.
"S-so what in the world do you want from me? Maybe you meant my neighbor? I-I mean, I think I have a neighbor. Everyone has a neighbor, don't they?"
"Is your neighbor a princess?" Miranda tried to appeal to Johanna's logic.
"Oh, I guess not, but-"
"Look," David cut her off. "This is not our usual way of recruiting agents. And you're not our usual recruit profile either. We have personality tests, intelligence tests, stress evaluations, technological aptitude assessments. But in your case-"
"You'd fail all the tests," Miranda nodded and leaned back in her chair, "so we just skipped them."
"Johanna," David shook his head, "to hell with all the tests. We need you. The CIA needs you. The country needs you. This is about Propolis."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Miranda stared at the floor with a serious expression while David silently surveyed the messy room. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from one pocket and a lighter from another, then spent a few contemplative moments trying to light the cigarette. Johanna stared at him, stunned. She'd never been taught what to say in situations like this. She wished Philip was with her, but Philip never woke up before eleven. And even then, he only woke up to purr for a few minutes before falling back asleep.
"Propolis," Miranda broke the silence, speaking in a serious tone, as if the words themselves were dangerous, "Propolis is a classified secret. Probably the most classified information in CIA history. It's an insane case, revolutionary, dangerous, earth-shattering. And honestly... we don't really know what to do with this thing."
"Well, if it's so secret..." Johanna tried to wiggle her way out, "then you probably can't trust me. Honestly, I wouldn't trust myself. I'll probably tell everyone about this Propolis thing within like a minute. For real, it'll be in the newspapers tomorrow morning. Maybe even in enemy countries' newspapers! If I were you, I'd go to my neighbor. I mean, I think I have a neighbor. And she's probably fantastic with guns and stuff. I think I once heard dramatic music from that apartment. Maybe she's even-"
"Oh, that's not a problem," David shrugged, "you can tell whoever you want about Propolis. Nobody would believe you."
"Anyway," Miranda continued, "Propolis is something between a large city and a small kingdom. For years, we weren't even sure it existed. We started getting hints more than forty years ago, but only five years ago, we understood it was actually real. Such a kingdom exists. And it's mysterious and strange and scary and incomprehensible. Oh, and it's located in the middle of New York."
"What?!" Johanna shook her head, her wild pink hair swirling around her, but that didn't change the agents' minds.
"Yeah, there are lots of surprises in New York," David sighed, inhaled from his cigarette, and filled the room with a suffocating cloud of smoke and forty-three carcinogenic substances.
"We sent agents there, of course," Miranda nodded through the cloud, "Proper agents, Your Highness. Ones with thorough training. Agents who worked with us for many years and whom we knew personally. In fact, we've sent twelve of them so far. We lost them all."
"What?!" A slight shiver ran down the princess's royal spine. She only liked dangers when they were confined to the TV screen. And she preferred watching them while wearing pajamas, eating onion-flavored popcorn, and accompanied by a purring cat. The current situation was completely different. "S-so what did you do?"
"Oh, well," David shrugged, taking the cigarette from his mouth and holding it between two fingers, "we did what we do best. We ignored the problem. Pretended Propolis didn't exist, stopped sending agents there three years ago, and it worked. We haven't lost any more spies since."
"But then-" Miranda sighed and ran a hand through her black, tied-back hair, "two months ago, something terrible happened, Your Highness, and that terrible thing is called Michael Lindero."
"What?!" The shiver in the princess's spine turned into an earthquake, two and a half on the Richter scale. "You mean the famous Michael Lindero?"
"That's exactly who." David sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "The greatest criminal in United States history. Charged with murdering forty-two people, passing information to enemy states, money laundering, extortion. Any other crime you can think of, he's already figured out how to do it and how to escape punishment. We conducted a relentless pursuit, together with the police and the FBI. We were very close to catching him, but he escaped."
"To Propolis?" the princess asked anxiously.
"To Propolis," Miranda nodded. "In fact, we suspect he's been going in and out of there regularly. We suspect that's his base of operations. We have to find him. And that's why we need you."
"Hey, look," the princess shook her pink hair, "I-I, I mean, I understand how important all this is, and I totally believe in patriotism and heroism for humanity and all that. The best movies are about people of that kind, you know, but why me specifically?"
"Look," David Lewis played with the lit cigarette in his fingers and shook his head, "look around you for a moment, Your Highness. What's that behind you, on the wall?"
"Oh, that-" the princess furrowed her brows in confusion, "that's just a poster. You know. A Beatles poster, what's wrong with that? I bet half the homes out there have-"
"Your Highness," Miranda came to David's aid, "you're forty-three years old, you're not supposed to have a Beatles poster. Or a chubby ginger cat named Philip, or pink hair."
"I-I don't get it, that's just my personal taste. Why do you care about-"
"Speaking of things you're not supposed to have," David explained in a relaxed voice and pointed to the dresser, "I don't know how to put this delicately, but you're not supposed to have a passion fruit earring."
"It was an organic passion fruit-" the princess tried to justify, but the agent wouldn't let her.
"And here, on the wall behind me," he cut her off and turned in his chair. The entire wall was covered in messy, crooked writing in red oil pastel. "Let me read this, please."
David cleared his throat and began. "One hundred and forty-eight reasons why I'm still single."
"Well," the princess ran a hand through her hair, "lists are always a good thing-"
"If I may," David continued, "let's read some together. Ahem... let's see, here. 34. Because I love raw onions. 46. Because I hate men. 47. And women too. 53. Because I'm too smart (that's what mom said before she died of an overdose). 121. Because I don't like leaving the house. 122. Or my bed, either. Well..." the man sighed, "I think you understand what we're talking about?"
"No," Johanna shook her head, "I don't understand."
"Well..." the man took a drag from his cigarette, "do you know what happened to the agents we sent to Propolis?"
"How am I supposed to know? You didn't tell me." Johanna grabbed the passion fruit earring and attached it to her left ear before things got even worse.
"Ah, right," David nodded. "I was just about to tell you. Well, three of them were killed before they even reached the place. Four disappeared in Propolis and never returned. We have no idea what happened to them. Five managed to come back, but we couldn't get any information out of them."
"Why?"
"Because..." David hesitated, searching for words. He opened his mouth, then closed it, and finally looked at Miranda with a desperate expression.
"Your Highness," Miranda leaned forward and came to David's rescue, "these agents, they didn't come back the way we sent them. Something happened to them. Something bad."
"W-what happened?" Johanna asked fearfully.
"Let's just say," Miranda said quietly, "that nowadays... their sanity is questionable."
"B-but what about me?" fear took over the princess, "If I go there I-I-"
"That won't happen to you, Your Highness," Miranda said immediately. She reached out and patted the princess's shoulder. "You see? Your sanity is already questionable."