Secrets

Prolouge

He explained that this was a base under the authority of an organization called Pheonix. Sam and Drake were agents. The job of these agents was to undertake missions specially adapted to changing social norms. Apparently there are more and more underage, criminal masterminds these days and the best way to defeat them is to hire your own.

After the tour he offered me a job.

Sam held out his hands. In one was a blue capsule, in the other a red one. He offered me a choice, the red capsule to forget everything I'd done in the past twelve hours, or the blue one to take the job.

I couldn't decide and he said that I should take a day or two to think it over. When I was ready I'd tell Drake.

We went home and back to bed. I woke up the next morning, and wondered if all that had happened the night before was just a dream. Drake assured me it wasn't. I thought about it all day. A few hours before bed I made my decision. As I walked to Drake's room Dad stopped me. I was ten feet away and I tried to get there but I was too slow.

When I did get there twenty minutes later, a broken nose and a black eye had changed my mind. "I'll do it."

My first day was pretty simple. Filling out a bunch of paper work. It's good fun when you're feeling overly lethargic. Unfortunately people have an odd tendency to be pretty far from lethargic on their first day of work.

About noon I went to lunch. Sam approached. I'd seen him from a distance but he hadn't seemed to be paying attention. He said that he would be my instructor. His job was to teach me about everything an agent has to do.

"Cool. Where do we start?" I asked eagerly. I couldn't wait to get started on real stuff instead of filling out all that gross paperwork.

Sam explains that I have to specialize in something; undercover work, demolitions, armed strikes, etc... He starts by asking what I like to do, I tell him I'm an actor and a nerd. I play soccer, and I'm a novice in swordfights, I'm fast but my arms are weak.

He decided to start by getting me in shape. Push ups, weights, pull ups, any kind of exercise imaginable.

It went on like that for weeks. Until finally I was ready. On top of the physical training I had been studying the codes, guidelines, and tips for agents. School became secondary, though I got better grades in those six months than ever before.

Sam came up to me one day, just after lunch, about six months after my first day and told me that I was ready for my first field mission. We were to roll out at five o'clock that next night. Our target was a crime boss in Manhattan. He was going to see the opera, and to make an exchange. Our job was to catch him red handed.

I came home that day and saw my dad, standing in the doorway, smirking. "Your mother has something to tell you." He said with a note of triumph in his voice. At first I was confused. Then she said it. With tears in her eyes, her voice was unsteady, Drake was dead.

"Dead! Who did it?" I screamed at him. Clenching my fists.

"Car crash. His exhaust pipe was blocked. The whole car went up." Dad answered matter of factly. Like he knew exactly how it happened. "And now big brother isn't here to take care of you. What will you do without him I wonder?" As he said it he took a swing at me.

I ducked under his fist and stuck my leg out. He rolled over and kicked at me, I dodged it easily. He stood up and as soon as he was off the ground I punched him in the face. He went down again and this  time I was on top, hitting him, over and over.

When I had finished he was no longer conscious. Mom took him to the hospital and said he had gotten hit by a car, a hit and run.

I stood at the kitchen sink, washing blood from my hands, thinking how good it was to be washing it from mine instead of his. Then I remembered Drake.

The rest of the night is a blur, but I remember waking up the next morning and wishing I knew how to fix windows.

I went to the base at four, ready to go. Sam was there with a hug and a word of comfort. Then we were  off. It was nice having a job close to home . We arrived slightly early and parked the car around back in the alley. We showed our tickets to the man at the door and went to our seats.

We sat in a box, directly across from the target, and two floors up. The show begins and we watch him closely. He gets up with his two henchmen and walks out. We follow him, as we get to the parking lot and I activate the tracking device on his car I see a girl following us. About Sam's age.

"You know her?" I ask. Sam shakes his head and we go to the car. As we get there I look back, the girl is gone. My hand touched   the door and I felt a tingling in my arm. I looked down to see a tranquilizer in it. I passed out.

When I woke up there was a rope around my middle and Sam was at my back. I looked around and heard a girl's voice say something about how we were about to die and how stupid we were. She mentioned something about the giant laser beam pointed at us and how we were about to be vaporized.

"Here. When she fires be fast." Sam handed me a knife. I tried cutting the rope but it was some sort of metallic material. I wasn't sure what he meant until, as the beam fired, he turned to absorb the blast and saved me. The rope was broken and I realized I was supposed to use the knife on the girl.

I wasn't fast enough and she escaped. Upon my return to base I filed a report on the whole thing. Hammond read it and decided it wasn't my fault. But I told him I couldn't go on here. I was resigning. He had a better idea. To fake my death and send me to another base.

A school trip was planned and I was  sent with a few other agents to Portland. There I was "pushed" from a building and woke up in The Academy. My new home.