Back to Square One

Chapter One

It was a moderate-sized classroom, and most of the students seemed interested in what the teacher was saying. Unfortunately, Aaron Wells was not one of them. He remembered school all too well. His superiors at The Center took the time to drill all twelve grades of school into his head in the course of one month, which left him drained for weeks after. It was his least favorite training session. He preferred Combat and Firearms, but that had only lasted two weeks. Nevertheless, he excelled in that field. 

It was essentially the first month of school, so most students were still asking each other what they had done over the summer. All Aaron had done was work. Not that that was a bad thing, he thought, because he enjoyed his work thoroughly. In the last two months alone he had befriended the son of a drug lord, gathered as much information as he could, and then kidnapped the son. On top of that, he had also assassinated the leader of a new "Hitler's youth" group that started up under the guise of a boy scouts troop. All sanctioned by The Center, of course. He did work for them. 

The Center was also known better as the CTLA, or the Center for Turning Lives Around. They were a global organization devoted to helping orphans, problem kids, and other minors and minorities worldwide. But that was a pretty well done cover for a group that takes orphans and other kids and trains them to go places adult agents and operatives cannot go, lest they arouse suspicion. That was why his bosses asked him to attend Wymore High this year, to find out about an up-and-coming gang which was starting to grow a little too big for The Center's liking. It was his job to infiltrate the group and find out as much as he could. It would not be easy, a gang of this small size would be paranoid, and it would be hard to get in. Therefore Aaron decided he would gather info from the outside for a few months, and then try to join the gang, and work his way from there. 

"Aaron? Could you answer number twenty-three for me?" his teacher must have thought he was drifting off, or not paying attention at all. 

Aaron did not even look at his paper, he knew math by heart. "Two hundred thirty eight and fifty six hundredths, sir." 

His teacher nodded, and turned back to the board to explain the problem. A couple students behind him snickered. It had only been a month, and yet the new student was now "the smart one". They joked about him, and laughed, and even made fun of him sometimes. Yet Aaron reveled in the fact that he could easily kill or maim any one of them. Oh, he could count the ways... 

But mindless revenge did not get him to Operative ranking. It was cold, hard planning, cunning, and skill that kept him in favor with his superiors. That and obeying them of course. 

Aaron could hear an incessant beeping in his ear. His implanted speaker was signaling him. He tugged at his earlobe and the beeping was replaced by the voice of Mr. Mark, his councilor, and coincidentally, his handler. 

Mark sounded scared. "You need to use your counseling pass. Morellon and his men are on their way to your classroom. Hurry up!" 

Aaron tensed up. Morellon was the leader of the targeted gang. If Aaron had been tracked down, that meant he had been careless, or they were smarter than he and Mr. Mark had anticipated. 

Aaron stood up from his seat. He had already written down the date and time on his counseling office pass. It gave him anytime access to his handler, whenever he wanted. And Aaron definitely needed to leave this class now. He showed his pass to the teacher, who dismissively waved him away. Aaron walked briskly out the door. 

The hallways were bare, devoid of life, and they would be until the bell rang. This event would occur very soon, so Aaron made his way to the counseling office as quickly as he could. If he had to evacuate, he would want to do it under the cover of a horde of students. It was not a long walk.