Maggie Smith is an agent with the Collective.
A young one, mind you. Sixteen years old when we first meet her. Not yet old enough to vote and certainly below the recruitment age for any government agency, bureau, or department. She, though, works for none of those. She works for the Collective.
She admits right away that "I'm still not sure who or what the Collective even is. I know only a few details: there are about two hundred spies stationed around the globe, moving to wherever we're needed. Some of us are forgers (more on that later), computer hackers, statisticians, weapons experts, and I think a few assassins, too, but my parents won't answer my questions about them. I don't know how many safecrackers there are, but my family moves a lot because of me. Apparently a lot of safes need cracking."
That last bit is interesting because the very first words we hear about her tell us that "I cracked my first lock when I was three". She says that her parents, also operatives with the Collective, gave her a Master Lock when she was three as a toy but she doubts that. "How many of you had a Master Lock for a toy?", she asks. She is certain it was really a test and she passed.
Officially her name is Margaret, chosen because "it has so many different nicknames: Peggy, Maisie, Molly, Margie, Meg - the list is endless. My parents have called me Maggie since I was born, but I have twelve birth certificates that all say something different."
As mentioned, her parents were agents and had been for many years before Smith was born and continued after her birth. It was what they did and they did it well. And they taught her all the tricks they knew to be a good spy and to not get caught and to always have a back-up plan and to never, ever let her guard down. She learned well. For one reason, she did not know how to learn poorly. For another, she really, really liked being a spy.