Spy School: Danger is my Middle Name

The Hale Legacy

The last thing I remembered was being thrown into a net, carried to some kind of foreign civilization, and blacking out again.

There were mumbles coming from the outside world, but my brain passed over them. I couldn't make out where I was, and the only thing that stuck to my mind like duct tape was the gruesome picture of Erica Hale lying on the ground with a pool of blood surrounding her.

To be honest, I wanted to rip out of this net, punch that girl in the face, then wreak havoc on their living area. But I had nowhere the energy to do that. And my skill wasn't anywhere on that level either. If I just had Erica with me...no, stop thinking about her.

About three hours into laying inside the bag motionless, I started to regain my consciousness again. I could make out a few houses around me, a cleanly paved road, and a mailbox. Seeing that I was still on the island, this was a truly surprising sight. How had people established an orderly civilization here without the government knowing? I remember the CIA telling us that this place was abandoned.

Another hour later, I was finally released from the bag, but quickly pinned down once again. Strong hands kept me from moving anywhere, but I still could wriggle around against the grip on my arms.

"Let me go!" I shouted to my kidnapper. "There's no point of putting me in this trap! I'm worth, like, 2 cents in bounty!"

The kidnapper said nothing, just shoving a sock into my mouth and shaking her head. I tried screaming, but nothing made it past the muffle. It didn't help that the girl kept tightening the grips on me the more I struggled.

"You aren't worth two cents in bounty," she said after a long period of silence. "You're worth at least a whole society in bounty."

A whole society? I thought. What's that supposed to mean?

"Also, if you want to get some comfort, then stop struggling. I'll release the grips on you if you stop trying to escape. Not only that, but it'll make my job easier."

I immediately stopped moving. After all, it had been at least 4 hours in the bag. Without water and the bag providing insulation, the temperatures were soaring. And so was my heart, so struggling against the bag probably wasn't doing much for my cardiovascular health.

Instead, I moved on to a strategy that fit more to my skill set: negotiating.

"Hey...uh, if you let me out of this bag, I swear I won't run away. It's getting really hot in here, and if you keep me like this, I don't think I'll be alive by the time you let me out," I wiped my brow. This statement was 100% true. It's not like I could outrun them anyway.

There was no response. I immediately assumed the girl just didn't care. This left me with another option, but I was really hesitant about using it. Especially because it wouldn't just affect them, it would affect me too.

Screw it, I thought after a minute of consideration. I'm doing it.

Pulling out my phone, I scrolled through my recordings. You see, I had arranged a deal with Murray the past year. In the case of emergencies, I had an hour-long recording of him yodeling at the top of his lungs in exchange for 5 Snicker bars. I mean-- the recording had the weaponized power of a thermonuclear bomb. How could I not take him up on the offer?

I put my phone up at the thinnest point of the bag, and set the volume to max. As my thumb lowered onto the play button, I made sure that my ears were blotted as much as they could by stuffing some of my shirts in them.

Then I hit play.

A lot of things proceeded to happen after this. For the first three straight seconds, the girl's grip just completely released on the bag. I could've jumped out, but I was too surprised to react myself. Then, the grip came back on, but tenfold the original force.

"Turn that off now!!" the girl screamed along with at least 5 other voices from around the bag. I refused to act, and screamed back the terms of my agreement.

"I will turn it off, as long as you release me!" I replied at the top of my lungs over the yodeling. Murray's voice was starting to get to me too-- and my brain was already hurting. At this rate, I probably could last at most a few minutes more.

The girl kept screaming stuff, but I had plugged my ears even more. The yodeling kept playing, and chaos ensued outside the bag.

I'm pretty sure this went on for a full 10 minutes. Then eventually, sometime around the 11-minute mark, the grip released on the bag. The opening was untied, and a rush of air and coolness collided with my lungs.

I immediately scrambled out and gasped for breath, pausing the recording of Murray. The bright intensity of the sunlight hit my eyes, and I was temporarily blinded. As my senses came too, I took a good look around me before I got detained again.

To my left, the girl had collapsed on the ground, gripping her ears in agony. Everybody else in a good twenty-feet radius had abandoned the area, leaving me alone with the girl, who looked as if someone had just shot her ears with a grenade launcher. (I'm exaggerating, she probably would not have survived a shot in the ear from a grenade launcher)

Taking this as an advantage point, I quickly booked it towards the most rural location near me, which was a patch of bushes to my left. I needed to make sure that I was out of sight before I started to do anything else.

After settling down and covering a decent part of my body with leaves, I opened my phone and started working on contacting my friends. They probably assumed that we were still out exploring the island.

As I scrolled through the notifications, something passed by my eye that gave me the chills.

Erica Hale had left me three text messages. 

"Ben, head southwest for about three miles. Then knock on the largest tree there three times."

After being impaled with a spear, she had managed to escape, heal, and send me alerts of what to do. 

There was no way that was possible. But this is Erica Hale. And she carried on the Hale legacy.

So I stepped out of the leaves, opened my compass, and started heading southwest.