Chapter 6

I woke up with a start, my heart racing. I was in a strange room, barren of everything except for a bed and a screen. I took a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts, raking my brain for any clue of where I might be when all of a sudden the memories hit me like a ton of bricks. The kidnapping, the drugging, my parents, my real parents, Nikky, Drew, training.

I gasped as the seriousness and reality of what actually happened to me started to sink in. My parents think I’m dead. I know they were never my birth parents, but they raised me, provided for me and cared for me. I would never again see the only people I had ever been close to in my entire life and though I always thought of myself as independent and solitary, I could still feel tears forming in my eyes as I realised just how much I actually missed them.

I missed my simpler life. It wasn’t the best life ever, I’d give you that, but I knew my purpose, I knew where I stood, hell I even knew where I was living. Here, I was trapped in a high tech ‘base’ upon an unknown island. I know nothing about this new life or this place I lived in. Damn, I didn’t even know where they stored the peanut butter, or if they even had any.

Another thing I missed was my baby, my pride and joy, my motorbike. My parents and I had saved every penny we could in order to afford it. The only thing I could find joy in now about leaving it is that I took such great care of it that my parents could make the money back, selling it as almost new. It stung knowing they would have to sell it, but it would never be used again without me there.

I swallowed the tears threatening to spill and with determination in my eyes I decided to make the best of the situation. I was going to set everything I’ve lost out of my mind. There was no use crying over the inevitable of me never seeing them again.

Just then the screen lit up with the time 3:50am boldly printed across it. I waited a few moments for the alarm from Nikky to sound to wake me up but none came. Confused, I sat up and stared at the screen now displaying 3:51am.

“Nikky?” I asked.

“Yes, Agent Zero?” Her face replaced the clock.

“How in the world is putting a clock on the screen meant to wake someone up? I thought I set an alarm with you?”

“You were already awake, Agent Zero. An alarm was not necessary.”

Ok, so maybe there was an upside or two to this new life. I mean, who doesn’t want a smart alarm clock? Yeah, ok, ignore what I just said. Loads of people probably don’t care about their alarm clocks, but you just have to admit that this was pretty cool.

“Sorry to interrupt, Agent Zero, but may I inform you that you have exactly eight minutes to be in the common room to meet Agent Drew.”

I leapt out of the bed and started running a couple circles around the room before I realised had no clue what I was doing.

“Nikky,” I said as I stopped spinning in circles. “Where would my clothes happen to be?”

“Ask and ye shall receive,” she replied and I smiled at the small but of humour it seemed I had a hand in teaching her. A small section of one of the walls started retreating backwards to reveal a small walk in closet filled with a whole range of different clothing. I grabbed a comfortable looking tracksuit pants, takkies and a hoodie. I had no clue what training Drew had install for me but I had a feeling it had something to do with fitness.

I glanced back the clock display and with one minute left I ran out the door and down the hall towards the room I had went to yesterday. I arrived in the room to find that Drew wasn’t even there yet. Just as I was taking a seat to wait in comfort, Nikky’s face appeared on the screen directly in front of me.

“Agent Zero, Agent Drew wishes to meet you in the fitness room. Would you like me to direct you again?” Nikky said.

“Uhhhh, yes please,” I said with a small smile. I knew it had something to do with fitness and though I hated fitness, I felt a small victory in being able to predict Drew’s next move when so far everyone has been anything but predictable.

I walked out the door and once again followed Nikky’s arrows to a room I had tried before to open only yesterday, two doors down from the common room. I touched the handle and this time the door easily slid open to reveal an area filled with machines, giving the room an obvious resemblance to a high tech gym.

Drew stood in the centre of the room holding a small tablet like device and a necklace with a circular pendent hanging on it.

“Soooo…. I’m doing fitness training? Goodie!” I said with fake enthusiasm.

Drew shook his head. “No, we’re actually doing a sort of check-up on your fitness and health so that we can keep track on how well your training is working. Most agents have been trained since they started to walk so you have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

Great, I had somehow managed to get out of every PT lesson my whole entire life by having extra drama during that time and now they’re saying I’m going to have to catch up for all of that and for when I was younger. I don’t know if they’ve realised, but I’m really not that keen an athlete.

“So please tell me again, why did I have to wake up so early?” I asked, slightly irritated at having to be up before even the sun had shown its face.

“Get used to it,” was the reply before he held out the necklace that was in his hand and motioned for me to put it on. I moved forward, taking the necklace while giving him a questioning look and putting it on.

“Ok, so I’m just going to ask you to do a couple different exercises, nothing difficult, and you just need to do them to the best of your ability, okay?” Drew said.

I just nodded, dreading having to do any exercise at all.

“Alright, so we’ll start off with something simple. Hop onto this treadmill,” he instructed. I did as I was told. He pressed a couple buttons on his tablet device and the treadmill started up.

As I started running, Drew kept on wondering back and forth, fiddling with something on his tablet. After a little while of me running Drew had wondered to where he was unintentionally standing in such a way that I could see what was on the tablet’s screen. On the top was my name: Agent Zero, and underneath that was a whole bunch of statistics from my breath rate, heart rate to sweat levels and a few other things I didn’t understand.

“How are you able to keep track of all these things when I have no monitor stuck on me?” I asked, slightly out of breath. “I mean, I’m no doctor, but shouldn’t I have tubes stuck on me for you to be able get that kind of information?”

Drew glanced up, stared at me for a moment before he motioned toward the pendent.

“Wow, not taking much now are we?” I teased.

Drew just shrugged. My face turned serious… or as serious as my face can be when I’m sure it was as red as a tomato and I was starting to huff for breath.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Drew just glanced at me again, holding my gaze for an extended moment before saying, “That’s enough on the treadmill, weights are next.”

So for the next hour straight we continued with various different machinery, but the same sour Drew. By the end of the hour I had concluded that he actually looked more anxious about something than in a bad mood. Either way, he was still being quiet and only spoke when he needed to.

Once out of the fitness room I quickly went for a shower in my en-suite bathroom which, just like my closet, appeared with a section of the wall retreating when I asked Nikky. Feeling a bit more refreshed I headed back to the common room for breakfast with Drew. After I had finished my food Drew turned towards me.

“It’s time for your first test.”

Test. The word I dreaded in high school and now I get to dread it here too. Goodie, just my luck.

“Put this on,” Drew said, dropping a blindfold on the table in front of me.

Once it was on, Drew lead me down a couple passages and doorways I’d never been down before and soon I could feel a light breeze wrapping itself around me. The ground became uneven and I could feel stones beneath my shoes. We must be outside, and by the sound of lapping waves, we must be on the coastline.

We walked in silence as the minutes and then hours began to pass. I could hear birds all around us and every now and then a rustle in the bushes. Just when I had began to lose track of time and I started to feel the need to pee, Drew stopped and took the blindfold off of me. He put down the small bag he had been carrying and opened it up to reveal a small packed picnic.

We ate together in more silence, finishing off everything that was packed for us. I was now getting desperate for the bathroom so Drew told me to just go behind a bush. I was slightly embarrassed with having to do this but there was no bathrooms around so I had to suck it up.

When I was done I returned to where Drew and I had been eating, but there was no sign of him anywhere. I wondered in circles around the spot to see if I had found the wrong area where we had eaten but I kept on coming back to the same spot. Eventually I gave up and decided to sit on a rock and wait for Drew to return.

I had been waiting for a couple minutes when I noticed a little white flash in the corner of my eye. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was actually a small white piece of paper reflecting the suns light.

I picked up the paper and found that it was actually a note addressed to me. It said:



Agent Zero

Return to the base before sunset.

- Agent Drew



What?! He just ups and leaves me in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing and expects me to be able to find my own way back?! I couldn’t even seem to remember which way we had come because, oh that’s right, he had blindfolded me!!! He was so going to pay for this…. I am going to kill him! He can’t do this to me! What sort of a test is this? I’m pretty sure usually you were taught something before being tested on it and as far as I have noticed, Drew hasn’t taught me jack about anything useful.

I continued ranting on like this, pacing back and forth but eventually I stopped and collected myself. The only way I could actually shout at him was if I could find him so I would have to get back to the base anyway.

Ok, clear my head, think. I have a feeling Drew isn’t going to come looking for me if I get lost so I have to do this right. First of all, how much time do I have left

I could remember this trick one of my school teachers had once shown our class when we were on a camp where you could measure how far the sun was away from the horizon to tell the time. If you held your arm straight out and closed one of your eyes, roughly every two fingers you could fit in was an hour before sunset. From what I counted, I had 5 hours left to get back.

No pressure there. It's not like it took us half the day to get here in the first place or anything.... and it's not like that was with someone who knew where they were going or anything.

Ok, stay calm. Next is to figure out which direction to go.

But there was nothing here that I could use to figure out where I should start walking. I didn’t even know which way the base was. I racked my brain for any slither of a clue when finally I recalled my conversation I had had with Nikky the night before. From what I could remember she had said that the base was on the east side of an island. So all I had to do was walk east until I found the coast and then wonder up and down until I found the base. Simple enough. Now which way was east?

I didn’t have a compass, I didn’t have a GPS, I didn’t even have a phone or Nikky’s help. The only things I had out here was me, my clothes, the bushes and my five hours I had left of sunlig-

Wait… Sun! Everyone knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west! So since it’s after lunch, I must head away from the sun to go east. Oh my word, this is actually quite easy.... way too easy. Now for me to just get back before the sunsets. Drew better be proud of me.

So I headed off at a brisk pace, walking away from the sun and hopefully towards the base. After a while the scenery started to change as I kept walking on. Slowly the bushes started to disappear and the land opened up to open grassland before suddenly a forest line appeared. Under the cover of the forest I got a welcome break from the heat of the sun but with the heat of the sun no longer there neither was the direction the sun gave me. All I could do was hope I was still going in the right direction.

I felt the hours pass and my body was beginning to complain from all the excercise I've made it do today. This test wasn't turning out to be as exciting as I had hoped for. I was getting bored of jogging non-stop and the most exciting thing was the few different landscapes I had jogged through. I surely hoped missions would not turn out like this too. Then I would have to say that this new life for me as an agent is turning out to be a slight disappointment.

Just as suddenly as it had started, the forest ended and I was faced with yet another type of terrain… rocks. So for about half an hour I hurriedly scrambled over the rocks and soon I started to feel soft sand beneath my shoes. The beach must be getting closer.

As my hopes were getting up I felt a shadow loom over me. Actually, all around me. Looking up from my feet for the first time, I noticed that I had stupidly walked into a dead end of huge rocks surrounding me. It was an impenetrable wall of jagged, dangerous boulders. Great, I had made it so far just to have to back track. I checked the sun quickly and realised I had only one and a half hours left and still haven't reached the beach.

Giving a frustrated sigh I wiped the sweat from my forehead. There was too little time to turn back and find another way, I had to push through. Taking a deep breath I walked up to the the wall that stood in the way of completing my first test and me. I was going to have to try climb up and over it.

Taking another breath I wasted no time jumping as high as I could to try reach the first groove in the rock. It was the only break this low in the rock where I could see myself being able to get grip. The jump wasn't high enough so I tried again.... and again and again, each time falling just short of the groove and each time adding more cuts to my hand.

Wow, these rocks seriously are sharp.

I jumped one more time, getting no closer.

"Aghhhhh!" I shouted out in frustration, causing a bird that was apparently resting between two rocks to take off in surprize. I guess I'll have to find another way over. I walked up to where the two bolders stood side by side. There was no way through them as the gap between them became increasingly smaller until they touched. No, there was definately no way through them but I'm pretty sure I could try push my way up between them. I remember doing it as a child between doorways in my house. All you have to was lever yourself up bit by bit.

With my back pressing against one rock I lifted my right foot to the opposite rock. Pushing outwards I had firmly wedged myself between the two rocks and lifted my left foot against the rock I was pushing my back to.

Leaning slightly forwards so my back had no more contact to the rock and I was relying solely on my feet, I stood as high as I could while staying wedged and then pressed my back to the rock again allowing me to lift my right foot, followed by my left foot up to level with me again. I repeated this motion over and over but soon found the two rocks getting further and further apart, making it harder to keep my pressure to keep the friction. Luckily the rock my right foot was pushing on had began to get a gentler slope and I was willing to try risk climbing just on that slope to the top.

Taking yet another breath to calm my nerves I jumped, pushing off my left foot and ending up lying flat against the sloped rock. Slowly I began to climb how I pressume a lizzard would climb such a rock. As I reached the top I looked down to see that these huge rocks seemed to be protecting a small cove. The water was crystal clear and the sand as pure as you can imagine. And when I say pure I mean no blue bottles or shells littlering the beach. Nothing and no one has been there. When people talk about a slice of heaven, I'm pretty sure this is what they would think of.

I jumped down and immediately took my shoes off and ran down to the water’s edge. The cool water lapping on my feet gave them a much needed break from all the walking but I couldn’t stay for too long. By the look of the sun, I had about only an hour left before sunset. My hands were way too sore and cut from the rocks to try climb them again so I opted to risk swimming out around the rock, hoping there will be more beach and not more rocks on the other side. If there was more rocks, then I'm screwed.

The coolness of the water felt refreshing and it was as if my body was filled with new energy. Lucky for me, there was more beach around from my cove and I started to jog northwards up along the beach, hoping the base wasn't actually on the opposite side of the cove.

All this exercise I was doing was starting to take its toll on me and soon I was forced to continue at just a walk. Waking up so early this morning was making my eyes feel droopy and my pace was slowing down more and more. Just as I was contemplating taking a break I saw a building in the distance. It looked more like a small fishers cabin than a high tech base but at least it was somewhere where I could take a break before continuing on.

I picked up my pace once more, wanting to get there as soon as possible. When I reached the door I saw a sign that warned trespassers away. Taking a breath I decided to risk being considered a trespasser and rang the bell.

To my relief, a few seconds after ringing the bell the sign about trespassers suddenly changed to show Nikky’s face.

“Welcome back, Agent Zero,” she said before the door opened for me to enter.



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