Agent (Book 1)

Chapter 8-Nolan

8

Nolan Hood

Agent: 21

Mission: Not Applicable

Location: ACA Headquarters, Quarter 1

Date: August 24th, 2089

Time: 1400

This computer chip is the only thing holding my sanity.

The threads pulling at each other, ripping apart, are held together by this one little rectangle. It might be the only thing I have left.

Less than a day has gone by. How can that be, when it feels like ages, and my heart still clenches when I see her face? The Commander, so marble white under my fingertips, yet, so warm with fresh blood. Her image will never leave, I know that. These things fade, but their scars never do.

It's ironic, really, because I'm quite certain that Commander Pyle would value her death, if it meant finding inside information on The Kings.

And it's true that this chip could be the difference. After all, if there's anything to be retrieved from the them, it's their plans.

If only she were here to see, I think hazily. And then I swallow, because I know that if she hadn't died there, I wouldn't be holding it in my hands.

I close my eyes, leaning up against the wall. It's easier then keeping them open, when I could so easily imagine her face among these halls. Smiling at me, shaking my hand. Her hand was always so warm. I could've done more for her back there. Tried to cause a disruption...

"Stop," I whisper to myself, too quiet for anyone else to hear. There is no thinking of the Commander now. No thinking of her ever.

But too soon, I am thinking of her. And I can't stop.

"Mind if I interrupt?" she'd said, knocking lightly on my door frame. Even sensing her arrival, my head still flew up when she spoke, and I struggled to compose myself as she took a step into the bedroom.

A woman, with perfectly flat bronze hair tight against her head. She wore something quite normal, a plaid shirt with jeans and cowboy boots. She was distinctly motherly, a wise woman who must've lived through the bad but seen light in the good. Her smile was rich and calm, and it touched her eyes."I didn't mean to startle you," she said. I shook my head several times. She hadn't startled me. She couldn't see how suspicious I was. I looked away when she approached and settled herself next to me on the bed.

"Your grandfather seems like a reasonable man," she said. She'd already met him, after she came to me the first time. I'd seen his resentment towards her, his mistrust. And there's no one that can blame him.

Silence followed her words. It seemed to last for a long while. Her eyes were forward, but she turned her head to look at me. I forced myself to meet that hazel gaze. "You wish to leave him, Nolan. Don't you?"

The thought had been a selfish one. Already, I could feel my face flushing as she spoke the words. She must've noticed how uncomfortable it made me, because she turned back to the wall. "You don't trust him. You think he's lied to you." She glanced in my direction. I looked away, wiping my face with my hands so she couldn't make out the expression on my face.

Everything she said was so true. And yet, I hated it.

She stood up now, having grown more insistent, putting her hands on both of my shoulders. I got goosebumps when she touched me, when she squeezed my arms in her cold palms. "I see it in you Nolan. Your tired of searching. You want something for yourself." Unlike a moment ago, now I couldn't look away. She had me locked in a daze, where I was seeing a life where I wasn't searching. Sure, I might've given up the hunt for answers a long time ago, but on the inside, I'd always be looking.