CHERUB: SILVER

Chapter 3: The "Escape"

Dan slowly started to stir in his sleep and started opening his eyes. He was in a white padded room, which was strange. He'd been arrested but he didn't think he was that bad. Remembering being drugged he started panicking, where was he? What the hell was going on? He looked around, there was a toilet in a little room off the side and a table with some clothes on. After releasing he was naked and feeling quite embarrassed he put them on quickly, he'd never seen the brand before. It was orange and had a little angel sitting on a globe on it. It had the words CHERUB written on it. He didn't find this important. He wanted to get out of this place, he didn't know what to do. He went to check the front door of the room and was surprised to find it wasn't locked. He eased it open and stepped into the corridor. It was desolate, and obviously quite late, so he sneaked down the corridor to look for a way out. When he got to a junction he saw an emergency door to his left. He ran up to it and pushed the bar open. The alarm didn't go off and he came out to a metal staircase outside.

He deftly made his way down it making as little noise as possible and finally was on solid ground. He estimated it to be around 11 in the evening as the lights were still on in some of the rooms. He then sprinted, staying close to the wall, looking for a map of the complex. He heard a distant shout and panicked. He looked for an escape route and a tennis court caught his eye. He sprinted over to it and hid down the side of it, in the bushes. A couple of people dressed in Black shirts ran past him. This was strange, people wearing the same shirt as him? After they had passed he walked past the courts and found himself at a road, he decided to follow it left and found himself looking at a dimly lit fountain, this must have been the main entrance to his building. He crept down the side towards what looked like a car park. When he reached his destination, he looked around for an escape route. Spotting the main gate he made a run for it, then stopped in his tracks when he spotted the security guard. The procedure looked quite thorough, so he need to make a distraction, he scrambled around and found a small rock. He was surrounded by cars, so he chucked it over a few cars and smashed a window in. This raised the attention of the guard and he got out a flash light and walked slowly over. As soon as the guard walked over to investigate, Dan made a break for it, and found himself in the guard's room, looking for a key of some sort.

Sadly finding nothing, he decided to find another exit. He snuck out and kept walking down the wall. He did this for another 15 minutes before finding a recycling plant of sorts. To Dan's surprise there was a truck loading up the rubbish. Dan ran as fast as he could staying under cover and hid down the side of it. There was a little gap in between the rubbish which he could easily fit in. He managed to hide in the gap and stayed deadly silent. It was 20 minutes before the truck set off. They came to what looked like a maintenance gate and the driver pulled up and started talking to a security guard. As soon as they were about to pull away Dan heard something over the guard's radio.

"Stop that Truck!" a female voice shouted.

"Uhm, sir I need you to stay here for a bit please." The guard said calmly.

A small car came rioting round the corner and pulled up behind the truck. A woman appeared out of the driver side door and met eyes with Dan, he panicked and jumped out and made a run for it. ]

"Stop" the woman shouted.

She chased after him and easily made the distance. She tackled him and rolled him over.

"Stop panicking, it's fine. Just calm down and I can explain things in my office" She said calmly, "Oh I'm Zara by the way"

Dan didn't fancy his chances so gave in and got in the passenger seat of the car. He sat in silence before Zara started the conversation.

"You were extremely unlucky today, usually we have someone to keep an eye on you, but sadly our main block security guy fell asleep. The funny thing is I'm not really mad about it. You showed extreme talent at getting out of sticky situations. But Dan, don't worry this isn't a bad situation, this is probably the best situation you could be in right now. Welcome to Cherub. I would first like to point out that this isn't a place for normal children. This is for the highly skilled. Like you, people who can think on their feet, people who can deal with a tricky scenario. We are a undercover branch of British Intelligence who specialise in teenage agents." She explained.

"But why teens, wouldn't adults do it better?" Dan asked.

"Oh, how many times I've been asked this question. Think of it this way, if you wanted to get into someone's house, would someone suspect a middle aged man asking for help because his car has just broke down, just down the road, or the crying child saying his mum has been hit by a car? Nobody suspects the child is going to be working for us. So we use them to infiltrate and investigate for us. Pretty neat right?"

"Yeah I guess, isn't this quite dangerous though"

"Well it would be to the untrained agent, but you go through rigorous 100 day training and spend most your days learning a martial art to black belt standard, learning a foreign language fluently, or learning espionage tactics and how to hack, bug and de-bug a house."

"Wow, that's quite advanced for teenagers" Dan smiled.

"Well you guys aren't any ordinary teenagers" Zara smiled, "Well here we are"

She pulled up outside the same main block and parked up in front of it. They walked through a few corridors to an office.

"Zara Asker..." Dan read off a plaque, " So you are the chairwoman?"

"Yes, at your service" Zara replied.

They sat down and talked about the place for a while and Zara informed him that in the morning he would be doing a medical and that he needed a lot of sleep to pass them. She gave him the option to opt out, but he didn't think that was necessary for some reason. He said goodnight and slept on the excitement of the next day.

Read next Sunday for more excitement!

Sorry this was so late and so short, literally wrote this in one hour on Monday Morning. Hope you enjoy and forgive me for any grammar mistakes xD'

Charlie