Operation: Agent Parks

2: Assignment-Memory Wiped

I went for the casual shrug. "Wandering around?"

Agent Three narrowed his eyes. "And you didn't get zapped by the tracking device?"

"What tracking device?" I asked, then glanced down at my wrist. "Oh, that tracking device. Well...."

Philips folded his arms menacingly. "Where did you put it, Parks?"

I did another shrug. "On Lydia Nells. She didn't notice, and I don't think she will."

"Miss Parks..." Three sighed and rubbed his forehead. "How much of that did you hear?"

"Ummm.... Just a few words here and there. My hearing's terrible anyway."

The two agents stared at me disapprovingly. I stared back with an innocent expression. Finally, Philips rolled his eyes. "Since you're flat out lying because there's no way you have terrible hearing, even when I tell you to go run a certain amount from across the ginormous training room, in my normal speaking voice, I'll have to give you this." He whipped out a dart gun and shot me right in the thigh with it.
I crumpled as whatever drug was in that was pumped into my bloodstream.

"You won't remember anything after our last training session today when you wake up." Philips stated as he looped one of my unresponsive arms around his shoulders, while Three did the same with the other.

"Of course, you also won't remember the fact that you were given a miniature tracker in the food you ate the night you were given the device." Three stated.

"Tom!" Philips exclaimed.

I smiled, already getting a little loopy. "Is that your real name? I'd always thought that it was something ridiculous, like Gerald, or Vladimir..."

"Sierra?" Three asked. His voice was starting to sound like it was underwater.

"Yes, Tommy Boy?"

"Go to sleep already."

I did just that.

%**%

I raced toward the fire, diving past firemen and other helpers to crawl into the burning building. If I had been a normal, sane person, I'd be the one to call for help. Instead, I rushed in headfirst, calling for my parents.

I searched through the flame-filled rooms until I found them, screaming for help out the window with hoarse voices.

"MOM!!! DAD!!!" I yelled over the crackling fuel.

They both turned in my direction, and my mom's auburn hair shone in the heated light. "SIERRA!!" They shouted, reaching for me. But as they did so, a burning beam from the house fell in between my parents and me, separating us. I screamed their names again, but no one answered as I was dragged out of the house by a fireman in his big suit, crying and sobbing.

"Mom....Dad...." I stirred awake, noticing the familiar whiteness hovering over me. Ugh. The hospital wing.

"What-what happened?" I asked, holding a hand to my weirdly sore right leg.

"You were running your last mile and suddenly stopped and fainted from dehydration." Philips answered from his position in a chair near my bed.

I snorted. "That's not what I remember."

Philips cocked an eyebrow. "Then what do you remember?"

"I....um....oh." The events of last night rushed inside my brain, the confrontation at dinner, eavesdropping on Three and Philips, and then.... "You shot me with something!" I accused him.