DOUBLE TWO-ONE

Double Two-One is a Special Agent with the Special Investigating Branch.

The SIB is an interplanetary Intelligence and Police bureau one hundred years in the future (from the time the recorded adventures were published). The head of that agency is Air General Zodiac, previously named Steve Kalinski and now referred to simply as 'S'. That gentleman is the one who decides which agent will be assigned to what missions and in his mind there is no doubt that the best of his many agents is Double Two-One.

If this agent has a real name, we are never given it and in the very short two missions we follow him on, he certainly does not need it. There is nothing personal ever mentioned about this intrepid operative outside the fact that he really comes across as strictly business and not one for small talk. This is especially true in the second assignment when he is pulled suddenly from his vacation to look into the problem and he is not happy about it.

Keeping in mind the severe lack of info about this agent, we are told he has "cold blue eyes'. When given the details of his assignments, he maintains a solid emotionless demeanor and even when being told how dangerous the task is, he doesn't blink. Either he is that confident, that cocky, or that clueless that he does not have to make any comments.

One person who is forced to work with Double Two-One and does not like it regards the agent as a "squared-jawed, public-school officer worker who thought he was such a great Special Agent".

Spoiler Alert: Shortly after an unfortunate result of the second mission, Double Two-One's field career is ended in an accident but his role in the organization will be elevated to be the position of Chief Officer for all Special Agents. From that point on, it will be he who calls the shots in assignments and he who will be the one to receive any queries from them when they "Contact Twenty-One". His designation will be Twenty-One (which will be strange because there will also be a Secret Agent 21 in the organization.

When the magazine TV Century 21 first came out, the person giving information about what was happening or was going to happen in the various storylines did so under the article heading of Contact 21. That makes sense as it gives a bit of personality to the position.

So what gives with making this information broker being a former operative now injured enough to be pulled from the field, designated as "21" in a publication which has as a different person still very much in the field with the codename of "Special Agent 21".

I do not rate this two-story series very high because it really confused me. Granted, the older I get the easier to do that but that is odd. Maybe I missed something.

As to the stories themselves, they are not bad although they seem to require a knowledge of the future colonies that escaped me. Oh well.