G.U.A.R.D. Book #3: Recusant

-2-

   On floor thirteen, I lay down on a hospital bed, staring at the white ceiling above. It was plain, just like the rest of the small room.

A few doctors and nurses had already come in and assessed me, but I barely remembered much of it. They undressed me quickly and examined the wound. They then X-rayed it and verified that the bullet was, indeed, gone. Nonetheless, they still cleaned the wound and gave my stomach a new bandage. Then, the medical team placed five special stickers on my torso are, which connected to wires. These monitored my breathing and heartbeat. And it was only then they allowed me to put clothes back on. And it was a hospital gown. Yay.

They found a few other injuries in addition to the bullet wound. My left ankle, for example, had a medium-level sprain. I hadn't noticed it earlier because I hadn't put any weight on it. They wrapped it and said it would be all right in a week, if not, less than that. Afterwards, they turned their attention to other things. They drew blood from one arm and injected an IV needle into my other noe. Fluids pumped through my body from a bag that hung on a pole above my head. A blood pressure cuff covered my right, upper arm, squeezing every fifteen minutes. Finally, a clamp measuring my heart rate attached to my finger.

Through all of this, I was in a daze. I couldn't remember a thing about me, or my life. But after everything had settled down, when all was done, my eyes fell on one place. There was a door leading to a bathroom in the room, just a little to the side. No, I didn't need the bathroom. But, somehow, I just knew there had to be a mirror inside. And that was all I could think about.

Maybe that made me sound vain. But I couldn't help it. All I could think was, What do I look like? Did I have green eyes or blue ones? Were they stunning and stood out like no others? Or were they dull and set so deeply in my skin they looked beady? Was my nose pointed or soft and rounded? Did I have pimples? Pale skin? Tan skin?

With much self-control, I tore my eyes from the door and stared at the white ceiling. It was slick and smooth, without so much of a groove in any of its surface. Just like the rest of the room. There was a tall tray with wheels to the side of the bed. That, and the monitors encircling my bed, were the only other things in the room.

The door suddenly clicked open. Turning my head warily, I gazed at a man on the shorter side of the height spectrum. His build was fit, if not stout, and over, he wore a rusty red leather jacket. On the shoulders of the coat, there was the same picture of a dog's head that was on the wall of floor twenty-five.

"Natasha Hawk?" he asked, walking over slowly. His hands rested in his cargo pants.

I stared up at him for a few moments, but then broke gaze and looked around the room as if it was the source of my problems. "Where am I?" It was the question that had bugged me for hours, but the question that everyone seemed to ignore.

The man reached behind him and grabbed a chair, placing it next to the bed and sitting. "My name's William Barnes. Agent Masters told me you don't remember anything before you arrived."

I looked to him in confusion. "Agent Masters?"

"Daniel Masters," he clarified.

Slowly, I nodded, confirming the man's words.

"I'm a part of an organization called G.U.A.R.D.," Barnes continued. He paused. "Right now, you're resting in the infirmary of its twelfth base."

I still just stared at him, mind trying to process what he just told me.

"Usually, a person becomes an agent by choice-"

"Then how did I end up here?"

"There... are rare occasions," he began, choosing words carefully, "when someone can come close to uncovering secrets. Secrets that shouldn't be uncovered. And... when that happens, G.U.A.R.D. agents are forced to wipe the memory of that person. And register them as someone else, in a random base."