Part of the process?

You swim in a sea of data. In an otherwise solid wall of black, sheets of information float, disembodied ghosts that you've never seen before. Plans for a hotel, the Union Hotel. Seating arrangements, table plans. Memos and emails. There's the gala plan too: the speakers, attendees, and staff rota for the evening. Even the music cues.

The dossier on Scott Jones – photos, date of birth, political history. Nothing personal or private, just information any good private detective could glean. He's 45 years old and married to Naomi, a rather stunning wife aged 43 years: a trained lawyer who now spends her time keeping up appearances and attending social events; she also helps out during the day offering pro bono legal advice. One child, his daughter Robin, aged 19 years, strawberry blonde hair like her mother's and a svelte body - she's blossomed into a beautiful woman. Robin is soon to graduate from the prestigious Woodbridge Academy, where she's an honor roll student with a flawless personal record. She will be returning home for the gala to support her father.

You realize, in the inky blankness, that this is the data from the briefing you've just received from Harry. Evidently it's part of the Blanking process: cover the tracks, and give you all the information you need for the job. You're still not a fan.

It's at that point you wake up, sucking for air.

*****

“Whoa, easy there.” A figure looms over you, a tall, dusky woman with long, flowing black hair and a rich, exotic figure. In her hand is a black pen.

“Ugh,” you groan. The fuckers. They've just mailed you as a skin. And, to make matters worse, to prevent you questioning whether you've been intercepted by some unknown force, they've sent a friendly face to 'reassure' you that you're still an Organization trainee. You wish they hadn't... the memories that face conjures up are hard to take.

“I remember my first Blanking, too. Rough times, huh? Don't worry. The first time is always the worst - eventually it's little more than a tingling sensation. They don't do it before every op, but it's for your protection as much as ours.” Elena – for it is she – relaxes, a pleasant smile on her face.

“So what is this? You started this, so you'll finish my training?”

“No!” Elena's exotic accent rolls over the words as she shakes her head, earrings chiming. “I am not the one that recruited you. I was simply told to assume this "Madame Elena"'s body as an act of faith. You were thrown into something new, and we needed to snap you out of it. I guess your recruiter used this face, huh?”

"Something like that." You rub your head, and look down. You're now dressed in a modest T-shirt and pants. Your head still rings. “Why the hell did they do that, anyway?”

“What?”

“Send me as a skin?”

“Keeps you fresh. Journeys are fatiguing. Your head may be sore now, but in five minutes, you'll be right as rain and ready to go. I'll make a pot of coffee. You rest up, gather your bearings. You'll need them.”

It takes half an hour, not the promised five minutes, but eventually you're feeling ready enough to move. You're in a crumbling shambles of an apartment in a poor quarter of the city: it's not your home town, not even your home state. Evidently the Elena wake-up call took some arranging. Your new friend explains that the Blanking method typically knocks an agent out the first time, but eventually it becomes more of an unpleasant, controllable jolt. In addition to resetting your features – most agents use the red pen to return to their idea of 'normal' between missions– it adds a neural firewall to prevent anyone using, say, a blue pen on you, and downloads the mission briefing direct to the central cortex.

There is little small talk, and the topic quickly moves on to the task at hand. Elena explains that she is there to monitor your performance, but will not act unless absolutely necessary: you're on your own. She passes you your pen box, and you take your black, brown, blue, red and white pens from their slots. When you ask what the plan is, Elena shrugs.

“The plan is up to you. As a Type 2, you'll have complete autonomy as long as you accomplish your set goal. I'll be marking you on creativity, initiative and results. Subtlety is everything; if anyone suspects that something happened other than the events you present to them, you fail. You've got a time limit on this – whatever embarrassment you decide is appropriate for Mr Scott Jones, it must happen at the gala tonight. That starts in five hours, so, by my count, that gives you nine hours in total to accomplish your mission. Switch skins as often as you like, but do not under any circumstances get caught: that's an automatic fail too, and where I step in to clean up your mess. Once you accomplish your mission, leave your skin – again, they must not question whatever you did as them – and return here. I'll then give you your grade. That's it.”

You mull over your options, and the different routes you could take. The first way is to approach the hotel where the gala is held, perhaps become one of the notable guests for the evening or a staff member. That should give you plenty of scope to embarrass Jones and walk away. You could ask awkward questions, raise eyebrows with malicious gossip, 'accidentally' ruin the event for him in a way that hits his sponsorship hard. It's all relatively simple.

The alternative route, and perhaps the more obvious, is to replace Jones himself. As Jones it would be easy to make a gaff or error that would put the election plans into chaos. But you're being measured on creativity, too. As a politician, Jones' family are also in the spotlight. Perhaps it's time Naomi did something that affected her husband's chances. Or maybe, as Robin, you could drop her little-miss-perfect routine, get drunk, perhaps even get caught doing a line of cocaine in the restroom.