Curiosity Can Kill

Chapter 4: Home Sweet Home?

 I extended my hand out to the woman in a friendly manner and she happily shook my hand.

                “You must be Reagan Marie Dalton, we’ve been expecting you.”

                I looked around only to see a bunch of teenagers acting like they were going on their marry way, only they weren’t. They were all staring at me, trying to pass it off as a walk by. I lifted both my eyebrows towards the teens and said, “So, I guess word spreads fast.”

                “You’re a quick learned Miss Dalton, just what we need here.”

                “I’m new to this whole secret agent academy thing, so what’s first on the itinerary?” I quickly examined her. She was younger than you would expect the school’s official welcoming committee to be. I was expecting some old agent who was going to tell me he knows all. She was tall, had gorgeous hazel eyes, and her brown hair with glimpses of blonde was tied up in a loose bun. She was also dressed quite well too. She worked the color blocking trend pretty well. She looked as if she was in her late twenties, maybe younger. She noticed that I was trying to lighten the mood, so she simply chuckled.

                “I know you got in pretty late but we have to do a lot of procedures before we can get you settles in. Don’t worry though; we will excuse you from class tomorrow to do a bunch of easier things than what we have planned now.” She began to walk and I followed her.

                “So, do you mind me asking what’s first?”

                “Well here at the AOSS Institute of Education you need ID cards to do anything and everything. But before we can do that we need to find out your skills.”

                “You mean my powers?”

                “Not just your powers, not everyone at the Institute have powers. First stop, the Emerson’s Laboratory. It was named after an agent from decades ago.”

                “Wait.” I stopped and it took her a couple of seconds to realize I was no longer following her. “You guys aren’t going to dissect me or prod at me are you?”

                “I assure you it’s just tests. No blood work or surgery, just physical and mental tests.”

                I began to follow her again. We stud in front of a large glass building with lights that made it glow almost magically. “Um, I’m sorry but what’s your name I don’t think you said it.”

                “Oh, wow, how embarrassing. I’m Renee Kindler. Anyways, we are here.” She led the way across the huge building and after two elevator rides to the underground part of the building we reached a door with a card swipe by the door knob. Renee swiped her card and then entered a code that I didn’t catch quickly enough. “Miss Dalton this is Dr. Kindler, my husband.” She said as we walked in “He is going to help me distribute the tests, follow me into the next room, we will be observing from here through the glass.” There was one whole wall that was glass and if it had been separated into floors it would have been five stories tall.

'               Renee left me to go into the other room where they could see me but I couldn’t see them. The wall was opaque on my side. “What’s the first test?” I slightly screamed, just in case they couldn’t hear me.

                Through the speakers Mr. Kindler said, “Just in case you don’t have powers we are going to test you like a normal agent first, so we don’t waste time. The room you are in can amount to one mile if you run 20 laps. If you don’t feel like you can do it, drop out when you’re at your top point of exhaustion. I will signal a beeping noise when the timer starts.”