Operation: Agent Parks

1: Operation Training

Director Shraeder glared at me from his high-backed chair. I shrunk down slightly in my seat under his piercing gray-green eyes.

"Never before have I had a trainee be so utterly and simply stupid as to pull off a prank in my office." He folded his hands on top of his desk. "Especially when it's right under my nose."

I squirmed in my seat. It had been a long month, and I had only executed the planned prank yesterday. The prank that was the first I had done in five weeks, ever since the episode with Cole Vance (my fellow trainee) and pennies.

"How you managed to shove as many plastic, ball-pit balls into my closet as possible is extraordinary. But, Ms. Parks, you do know what is going to happen now, don't you?"

Choking down a snort, I nodded solemnly, giving a small, polite smile to the man in front of me. When the director's door had opened after the round bits of plastic had tumbled out, the first thing heard throughout the building and in the girl's barracks was an incoherent shout. Many of my fellow trainees' heads had automatically focused on me, getting dressed for dinner.

"You will be suspended from all trips to the outside, and I am assigning you one-on-one training with Agent Philips, from dawn to dusk, for the next two weeks." The director of C.A.P.H.U.T.'s training facility stood up, towering over me. "Along with this." He walked over to me with a small, black, Velcro bracelet, with wires stitched around it, and strapped it onto my wrist, placing some sort of glue on the Velcro so that it wasn't easy to pull off.

"Oh. A tracking device. How smart." I commented. He tightened it and I flinched as my hand started to lose circulation.

"If we find that you have taken it off, you will be expelled." Shraeder loosened it enough so that my hand could move again. "Do you understand, Ms. Parks?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed. And do tell Mr. Huert to come see me for his monthly medication."

Scowling at the band around my wrist, I exited the office, stopping only in the trainee lobby on my way to the girls' bunks to pass on to Jerry the Director's message.

"Get packing, shrimp." Ethan Jensen towered over me, squinting as he glared at me.

"Actually, it's just this." I raised my wrist so that he could see the black band.

"Well, that's a disappointment. I was actually hoping they'd get you out of here for good." He sneered at me.

"Why? I didn't do anything against the CAPHUT guide and rule book." I smirked and slipped out of the lobby, calling over my shoulder, "You would know that if you could actually read, Jensen!"

Wait a moment...."PARKS!!!!"

Time to run, and run I did. Bolting my way to the girls' bunk, I checked my iPod for the live feed of my fellow trainee and others in white flour, ranting against me and my silly little pranks. Ah, how good it felt to exercise my slight of hand and angering people skills.

"So, not expelled then. That's....good?" Lydia Nells, another fellow trainee, asked tentatively.

I shrugged. "If you count this and being assigned a mentor good, then yeah." I showed her the tracking device.

"You are going to get out of that as soon as you can, aren't you."

"You know me too well, Nellie." I checked through my box of pranking supplies and personal items to make sure no one had tampered with it while I was in the Director's office. Photo album, extra clothes, a now-empty bag of flour, tape, string, fish line, other little odds and ends, all in tact and un-tampered with.