Chapter 1

POV: Armstrong

First off lets get one thing strait. I am an American. I was born in New York City. When I was nine my mom took my eleven year old sister and I to England for a vacation. We were driving in a rented car when we were side swiped by a truck. The authorities contacted my dad to try and get him to take us but he refused. He didn't want us. Ok, that was a lie. He didn't want me. He took my sister back right away but told the english to keep me. He wanted to avoid the headache of raising an ADHD kid. There was this hole court case over wether or not that was legal. Eventually I was left in England. I have reviewed the reason I was left here a thousand times and I still don't get why it was allowed. At the very least I should have been brought to an American orphanage. There my story truly began. I was picked up by CHERUB and trained to be a spy. That wasn't my calling though. I was fast and smart. I had a weird ADHD side affect as well. Instead of the single thought at a time as a normal person or the rapidly changing thoughts of a stereotypical ADHD kid I had multiple thoughts at once. Over a thousand of them. All overlapping. It drove me crazy at times but it was useful when I needed to think hard. Instead of one thought on a problem I had about six hundred. The rest were uncontrolled things like the color of a sock. But the ones I did control would let me analyze hundreds of ways to do something in less then a millisecond. It was for this reason that CHERUB refused to give me ADHD pills. Not that I would have taken them but my mind was the strongest weapon I had and they knew it. Putting me on those pills would be like putting a cork in your gun barrel before a big shoot out. It made no sense.

After I had been at CHERUB a few years they put me through basic training where I excelled at the combat coerces because I could see all the lanes of attack and all the defendable positions the second you would throw me into the battle field. When I graduated I was put into the Mud Crawlers. We were the Delta Force of CHERUB. An ace commando unit that could fight and kill any enemy at any time. I ironically my squad was actually called Delta squad. The other squads would joke with us and say we were the cowboy unit because Jessica and I were both born in America. So naturaly we were going out.

"Yo, Buzz!" Jess used to joke. "How many times did we pull their buts out of the fire?" She was referring to World War One and two when America entered the war to help the british. "I'd say thats pretty good for a bunch of cowboys. Wouldn't you?" She used to say this with a tone that would make any one laugh no mater what nation you were from. The jokes slowed for a while though when we were deployed to Afghanistan on a recon mission. Why not send the SAS? You ask. Well it beats me too. The fact is and order was an order. We did our jobs. Up until they caught Jess and I. We were hauled deep into a cave. They tortured us in many ways. First they beat us in separate rooms. Then when they got nothing from us they dragged Jess into my room and beat one of us while the other watched. Then they got fed up with their lack of progress.

"Fine!" Their leader screamed at Jess. "If you don't tell us what we want to know than I will kill your friend slowly." One of his goons stepped into the room with a circular saw. I had no idea where they even found a circular saw. It's not like there's a Home Depot in the middle of a desert. The man walked up to me and held the saw over my right thy. All my thoughts were on one topic. Trying to get away from the saw but all my limbs were tied to the chair I was in and the chair was screwed into the rock floor.

Shit. I thought in desperation.

"I told you we know nothing!" Cried Jessica.

"Than why did we find two white Americans in full combat armor only a few miles from our base?" Demanded the leader.

Well he had us there. I thought. Jess didn't answer.

"Well?" Demanded the leader.

"We're jest kids." Jess pleaded. The leader apparently didn't like that answer because he gave a signal to his goon with the saw. The saw blade revved and proceeded to cut through my right leg like it was tissue paper. pain shot out from jest above my right nee as the blade passed through my leg. My jaw clenched. I was unable to even make a sound. Jess screamed enuf for the both of us though.

"No!" She screamed. "You fucking bastard!" Then a scream escaped my lips as the saw passed through the last mussel that was holding my leg on.

"Tell us what we want to know or he looses the other one." Demanded the leader. Jess looked like she was about to cave.

"We don't know anything!" I shouted through my pain. "I swear we don't know any thing!" Jess stared at me in shock. I had jest lost my leg but was still refusing to give in.

"Then say goodby to your left leg." The leader said. His goon moved the saw over my other leg. He was about to start cutting when the door to the room burst wide open and special forces guys swarmed in. They killed the goon with the saw and captured the leader. Then they evacuated me and Jess. I was fourteen then. A year latter I was walking around campus on my prosthetic leg with Jess when I was pulled aside by mission controller Zahara for an mission. I never regretted accepting the Afghanistan mission. It was important work to keep the free world free and our capture led to the arrest of a very important terrorist. I would always regret accepting the mission Zahara gave me.

Jess and I were sitting in Zahara's office when she told us of the mission.

"I know you two are normally a combat unit but I have a situation that requires two spies." She said.

"So go get two CHERUB agents." I said. Zahara shook her head.

"You see we need you Buzz." She said. "And we need and agent to back you up." She turned to Jessica. "You two work well together according to your files."

"Why do you need him?" Asked Jessica. "We're combat trained." Zahara nodded.

"I know" she said "but the target is a boy's father." She said. "The boy's name is Alec Martinez. I believe you know him?" I nodded.

"That was a long time ago." I said.

"Who is he?" Jess asked.

"We grew up together." I said. "So you want me to play myself and get dirt on his dad?" Zahara nodded. "Well ok then." I said. "No problem."

"His dad is believed to be a weapons smuggler and the Americans have asked for our assistance to capture him." She paused. "We have you booked to stay with a local family while your there." She said. "Your to use you old name. The one you had before you came here." I nodded.

"What family?" I asked.

"The O'Malley's." She said. My mouth went dry.

Not that. I thought. "Your joking right." I said.

"No." Zahara responded. "But a few weeks with your dad won't kill you."

A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Thanks for reading. If you want to read more please post a review or PM me and I will update when I can.