Chapter 1
Everything was set. I'd take out the two guards at the door, doing the two agents a favor also catching them off guard. Chaos is the best plan; you can always slip away with your target. The agents would recoil while reinforcements would arrive on the scene, by then I'd be in. She was in room 703. I'd have 5 minutes to set off the bombs in the hallway. If things went as planned, the rest of the rats would take the cheese and I'd have her to myself. The rest was simple, run up 3 floors through the fire escape to the roof top where a helicopter was ready to fly. We'd be home free. Who knew stealing the daughter of the American Ambassador could be so easy. We'd be a thousand meters in the air when the embassy became a melting pot of explosions. The agency would thank me if they knew I was still alive.
5-4-3-2- go. Everything goes as planned. I get into the building, land on 7th and begin setting off the bombs. But she isn't supposed to come out. It happens so fast, one minute I'm working my fingers in a frenzy jamming the codes into explosions set on every pillar; the next minute my presence is being alerted. I have to run. I take one last look at her, still so beautiful still so much the girl she'd been when I last saw her. It may be the last time I get to see her; I may be dead in the next 3 minutes, she might be in the next 8 – screw that, we might both be gone by the end of the night. And I know I have to do the most important thing in my life, what I'd failed to do that night 10 years ago before everything changed. I stop running. My loaded shot gun feels like fire in my hands as I take out the 3 body guards covering her.
5 minutes left. I run down the hall faster than I ever have in my life. My head-guard for protection and disguise hits the ground. In that moment we lock eyes before our bodies collided. "I love you", its only a whisper.
It's only one second, but that moment lasts forever. I pull away and tranquilize her. Leaving her body crumpled on the ground as I deactivate the explosions. There is a whole army coming for me to be sure. The helicopter lifts off and leave the scene just as the mowing guns fire in my direction. I've failed but not completely. The agency won't be happy, but I don't give a shit about them. My identity hasn't been compromised, and I still have a shot at completing my mission; my only mission since this all started.
I make it back to the van I hijacked from the government on ground level in record time. I have to see where she's being taken. I search every screen on the network with frenzy. If I lose track of her tonight it'll take me longer to find her again and time is running out. The news is already broadcasting the failed attempt of a terrorist attack on the American embassy in China. I quickly set up a secure window on the network that gives me 3 minutes to locate her tracker. I'd slipped it in her pocket in the split second of our embrace before I left her sedated. A red dot flashs on the grid map of downtown Beijing. Bingo, alley behind the embassy.
I run to a small alleyway between two block buildings, it's hardly a crack but it's enough to conceal my 'plan B' way of escape. I rev up the motor of the sleek racing bike before kicking it into full speed. A bomb explodes behind me. That'll give the news some excitement after the main firework display was laid off. The 'borrowed' surveillance van will have to do. Besides, no one needs to know I've been there.
I stealthily approach the government's bullet-proof cars in the dingy street between the embassy's two buildings. They are a huge contrast, the front – visitor building- is classically designed to show the beautiful Chinese culture. The one behind looks like an armor barracks found in the States; metallic and blocked shape – cold. Between them is the small street where a caravan of government vehicles is making its way to an unknown location. They have her. And I have to get her before they reach their destination. Out of sight, behind my spying corner, I check my ipad for her; she iss in the fourth to last car in the ten vehicle caravan. The three behind her are likely for protection.
I have to make my move now. My target is easy. He's been wandering about obviously on duty scanning for anything unusual but he's become wary and his guard is down. Perfect. I make a small noise which alerts him; carefully he drifts closer to my corner. I pounce on him from above where I've attached myself to the filthy piping. It only takes one blow to the back of his skull.
Before long the procession is ready to move out. I take the driver's seat of the 7th Sedan. We hit the open road and stay in formation. My partner is a young man. I can't see his face due to the concealing helmets we wear, but I can tell by his physique that he's not more than 20. This is great, I'm behind the wheels, I have a newbie for company and at the back – I hold my most prized possession.
We are entering a forested area now; deep in there somewhere is probably a safe house where no one can find the highly endangered ambassador. Tom Wilkins has done nothing wrong, just followed orders and didn't know he was set up. He doesn't deserve to die but many times that is the price of hiding the truth.
I know, when we arrive at our destination everyone is going to die along with the ambassador – except for me and her.
It'ss now or never; I step on the gas and rear off the road into the forest. I don't look back. I jam the communication system when the voice over the intercom demands I stop the car. I try my best to steer through the rugged terrain with my right hand while my left holds a gun trained on my seat-mate. He doesn't look like he's going to give me any trouble though, he actually looks terrified. Still, I've learned the hard way to never trust anyone.
I keep driving through the forest at break neck speed, pushing the limits of the Sedan. It's not built for the rough ground and I don't know how much longer before it falls apart. I note that we're not being chased anymore. I know why; she isn't their main priority, she's just an agent on the job and it's unfortunate that she has to be killed along with everyone else who knows about the operation. But then again they won't mind her being alive; they can always try to get her back. But that's not going to happen because I'm never letting her go; they aren't going to take her away from me again.
The car comes to a stop and I deal with first things first. I tell the boy to get out of the car while I open the back seat and carry my prized possession out; I take her up a hill and into a crevice padded with autumn leaves. I want nothing more than to sit here and look at her face but I have to finish securing our safety. I go back to the car only to find the young man among the forest ferns – crawling. Is the guy stupid? I tell him to follow me towards the crevice; he comes after me but keeps crawling. I notice he is using mostly his arms to move forward so I see if he's been injured. I take off his helmet and am met by the face of a boy – not under 20 but he could pass for one right now with that look of fear. I'm not going to hurt you I tell him, but you have to tell me what's wrong. I find out he was crippled from an accident at a young age. I scoop him up and carry him the rest of the way. Now that my two captives are out of danger's way I set to work wiring the car with explosives. I pull the trigger the moment I'm safely out of the zone. No one can find us now.
It's getting dark and as much as I want to get going, there's no way to navigatethrough the dense forest with two people who can't walk. I start a fire just small enough to illuminate the cave and take out some food from my backpack. I make small talk with the boy while we eat energy bars – it's the best 'food' I can do in this situation. The boy's name is Artie and he worked as a computer technician. He's the son of General Abrams one of the men behind the secret operation. I wonder how the agency got the enemy's son to work for them.
Just than my other captive starts to stir, she opened her eyes, and they are gorgeous and light. The flames reflect in them but all I see is what I have missed the most for the last 10 years of my life. There is movement to my right and the boy Artie shifts himself closer to her. "Stop", I tell him."Don't touch her". He gives me a questioning look and tells me "but she's my girlfriend."
So that explains the whole switching sides' thing. Apparently, this computer god in the body of a cripple has fallen for a trap set by the agency to work against his own father. And of course he's fallen in love with the bait. She always has a way of getting into people's hearts like that – she'd first done it with me.
"Get in line"! I don't remember how I got here. All I know is that when I woke up I was being ushered out of a strange white room along with dozens of other girls; they looked just as confused as I felt. We all walked down the hall of this really white building – it was seriously too white to be real. The walls, roof, and floor were all the same slick, white. We were directed to an auditorium, with enough seats to hold about 2000 people; and it filled up quickly. A man wearing a white suit, surprise, came out and started to speak. I wasn't really paying attention to what he said because his voice was annoyingly dronish; I found studying the faces of the people around me much more interesting. The man was talking about how this was a facility that would teach us everything we needed to know about defending our country. Great, we were specifically chosen to be part of this honorable service but I wanted to know why us – why me? Everyone in the room, male and female, had things in common, we were all young –around the same age, and we all wore the same white wife beaters with loose fitting sweat pants. The drone dragged on about how we would help keep the country safe and how the agency known as Millenicon would teach us everything from, physical combat, to advanced intelligence techniques that would put us at an advantage over capital enemies.
It was finally finished, and I was informed to go through a door on the east side. In a single file we went into the adjourning room and picked out an egg from a pool. A worker took it from us and opened the egg, keyed some information into a computer and sent us on our way to the next station. The robot worker at station one informed me that from now on I was Agent 595. At station two I sat strapped in a chair while another robot put a chip in my wrist – I guess they'd use it to keep tabs on me. At the final station I was to press a number at random on a widescreen, there were a thousand numbers to choose from and it didn't really matter which one I chose. The number I pressed would be my roommate for the next four years. 777 looked good; it was made up of my lucky number anyways. The screen displayed a picture of 777; she was a pretty girl with blond hair and blue eyes. Just my type I smirked. I got my – well mine and hers - room number, also I was given a map of the facility so I could find it. While the other girls went straight to looking for their rooms, I was instructed to go into the adjourning waiting room. That's where I met 777, in the picture she was pretty, but in person she looked 10 times better. I couldn't wait to get my hands on her.
A woman - this time human – came in and said that since I had been the one to pick my mate, I was the leader. We were a team, responsible for each other but I would be held more accountable. Inwardly I was amused, things just got better because I loved to lead and this girl was going to have to do everything I said.
She walked behind me as I navigated my way to our room. And she was just as I predicted, very blonde and very talkative.
"You know why it's so clean in here?" I wasn't the least bit interested but it didn't stop her from answering her own question. "It's because little white men with squeegees come out at night and wash all the surfaces. They use white suds too so that no one will se"e. I did actually wonder about the walls – not why they were so clean, but why they had to be white. I love black.
I thought of a way to shut her up, at least for a minute. "I don't care if it's clean, but I want to know why they had to make everything so white, I'd much prefer black", I said. I thought that would keep her silent for a while but she answered back as soon as I'd finished. "It's because the men can't see the dirt if the walls aren't white – and if the walls are black then I'd bump into you because there'd be no lights". For all the crazy stuff she said, she did have a point there. The only way we were seeing anything was because the walls were illuminating with some sort of energy that was nothing like natural sunlight or regular tungsten lights. It was softer on the eyes yet harsh in a way that made everything look plastic and surreal. I touched the wall out of curiosity, it buzzed not in a shocking way but it certainly vibrated. Finally we found our room, all this time she had been talking about her squeegee men.
The room was pretty large for two people. It had two single beds, two closets, two desks with two large flat-screen computers and the rest was just empty space – white empty space. There was also a door leading to the bathroom where everything was predictably void of color, from the bathrobes to the shower stall – even the mirror, no not the frame, the actual mirror was some sort of white surface that although gave off the normal reflection still managed to annoyingly fit the color theme. At least the bathroom had a hot tub.
We didn't have anything to unpack seeing as everything had been provided for us; the closet was full of clothes that thankfully were not all one color. Not knowing what to do, I hopped onto the bed furthest from the door – closest to the bathroom – and just lay there in bliss, I might as well catch up on some sleep. I didn't know what my partner was doing and I didn't care, except I could feel her eyes on me as I covered my face with my pillow. I was right; she was looking at me, in a sort of lost kind of way.
"What do you want? Why are you looking at me like that?" I challenged her but she didn't move or look away. I seriously hoped there wasn't anything wrong with this girl. "Nothing", she said softly, "I just don't like to sleep near the door". Now there has got to be some crazy reason for that and I thought I'd humor myself with her story. "Why?" I question. "I don't like doors." She said bluntly. "That's it?" I was hoping for something over the top, maybe involving monsters. "My brother put a bucket of paint on top of my bedroom door once, she began to say, and I opened it and it fell on my head. Then he ambushed me with a paintball gun when I was sitting in bed crying. I was blue for days from the paint and bruises. Now every time someone opens the door I go all numb."
I laughed at that, it was funny and something I would totally do if I had a younger sister, or brother – but I was an only child. I actually had something like that planned for 777. That is until I looked at her face after recounting her story and enduring my laughter. I never wanted to see that face again, and from then on I did everything to make sure I never had to.
"Hey, don't cry." She didn't listen to me but ran to the bathroom instead. I rolled my eyes like I always do when I screw things up and have to fix them. Slowly opening the bathroom door I saw 777 standing over the sink. She'd calmed down somewhat and had splashed her face with water to hide her tears, but her eyes were still a little red. "Hey", I tried to sound sweet, "you can have my bed". I wanted to say sorry for laughing, but I don't usually apologize to anyone; but this wasn't just anyone. "I'm sorry for laughing at you", it almost didn't come out of my mouth but she heard me.
"That's ok, everyone laughs at me when I tell them my doorphobia story but you're the first to ever apologize". She smiled so big and bright that it outshined the white walls. And that was the first day Brittany S. Pierce forced her way into Santana Lopez's heart.