Ben comes home from school to find a man sitting in his living room. The man introduces himself as Alexander Hale and tells Ben that he works for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a government agency responsible for collecting and interpreting foreign intelligence—in layman’s terms, the United States’ spy agency. Ben thinks: “And just like that, my life became interesting” (1). Alexander has specific personal information about Ben, including his crush on a girl named Elizabeth Pasternak, which convinces Ben that the man’s claims are legitimate. Alexander explains that Ben has been accepted into the CIA’s Academy of Espionage based on his 728 visits to the CIA’s webpage, his consistently high performance on the Standardized Test Inserted Questions (STIQ) that the CIA “places […] in every standardized test to assess potential espionage aptitude,” and his math skills that allow him to “do complex mathematical questions in [his head]” (5).

Alexander asks Ben for a drink and specifically requests: “Something with electrolytes, just in case I need to leap into action. I had to ditch some undesirables on the way over here” (3). Ben and Alexander go upstairs to pack; Alexander is disdainful about Ben’s lack of a “decent suit” (6).