Agent (Book 1)

Chapter 24-Nolan

24

Nolan Hood

Agent: 21

Mission: Not Applicable

Location: Unknown

Date: September 4th, 2089

Time: 1100

Something is off.

I can't be sure through the haze, but something just feels...different. Like there is a sudden stillness in the air. After I'd woken up from their sedation, I found the tubes reinserted, but this time, my hands are bound by shackles. I'd tried breaking out of them a long time ago. I've stopped now.

It's strange because (though I've no idea how they've managed to get such expensive equipment) I'm feeling significantly better, at least, by the standards of living on death's door. I've kept telling myself, over and over again, that I shouldn't want to feel like I'm healing; that I'm only putting more lives at risk that way. But there's only relief.

It's really no wonder, with the technology these days, that they could bring me back up like this. I'm still weak, very weak, but it's almost as though the tubes are sucking the infection right out of me. With the major advancements in healing, they could practically bring someone back from the grave if they had the mind to. Even the worst of illnesses, the ones that killed off millions of our people, have been eradicated. And for the better.

But even with technology this far along, it will take at least a week for the majority of my strength to return. I bet they figure they only need to keep me alive for a few more days, so they should be good to go, for now.

So while I lay there, staring off into the blank canvas of wall in front of me, I hear it. An impossibly loud thunder of footsteps in the hall. I suppose my dulled senses forbade me from noticing it before, but the door nearly flies off of its hinges as a man races in.

It is an unfamiliar face this time, neither Tenor nor Scar Face. This man wears the same long cloak, but his eyes are wild with rage and his short black hair sticks to his forehead with sweat. It is rather hot in here. There has to be sweat on me too.

"We're going somewhere different," he huffs, sliding to his knees to remove my tubes. I don't concentrate on what he's doing. I watch his face, as he works, and study the creases of his forehead with age, the way he bites at the corners of his lips. What could possibly be the problem?

The man un-cuffs the shackles on my wrists next, and loops his arm under my elbow. Then, with a grunt, he yanks me to my feet.

I can't feel myself. Or maybe I can, I'm just in too much pain to think about it. The man seems to figure I'm stronger too, because he lets me try walking on my own two feet first. He has to reach out to catch me before I go slamming to the floor.

Within the first ten yards (even with the man's hand wrapped securely around my back) I know I'm going to black out. Red spots pierce my vision everywhere I set my focus, and I give up trying to figure out where we're headed. I let my head drop to my chest, and allow him to drag me along.

My head works massively to comprehend everything that I'm seeing, but all I can do is concentrate on my breathing, and tell myself to hold it together. We turn a corner, and then one more when the man suddenly slows, and his hold on me slackens. I slump against the wall in exhaustion. My legs feel like jelly and I'm shaking all over, but I muster the strength to raise my head.

My vision is fuzzy from the overexertion and in the time it takes me to make out what I'm seeing, the man has thrust open the nearest door and pushed me, stumbling, inside. My breath catches in my throat as I go crumpling to the floor.

That person I just saw. Her silhouette against the white.

Fifty-three.