There were hundreds of students at Altabena High School so that was a lot of people to get through to find my target. Information about him was scant. Though the year of his birth had been confirmed, I wasn’t certain I was at the right school, or even the right town for that matter.
Science was next, human biology to be precise. Hopefully this would be more stimulating than sewing and I’d fit in better. I was scanning the students heading into the classroom when I spotted Lauren.
“Over here,” she yelled.
Another act of kindness. I sat next to her while the teacher set us the task of reading a chapter from an E-textbook on our laptops.
The G-Top was a classic in design and technology, though to my eyes it was a heavy clunky thing, probably because plithium hadn’t been invented yet. At least it was largely intuitive, as Lauren had put it.
Meanwhile the teacher, Mr. Rodriguez, sat at his desk. He’d trimmed his beard into a goatee with a fine chin strap of hair along his jawline. I’d seen similar styles in the old movies I’d snuck off to watch whenever I had the chance. I loved finding out about other eras and getting a glimpse into different worlds, maybe a little too much.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Lauren.
“Going through the roll,” she replied. “If you miss a single lesson, the school sends a text message to your parents.”
The teacher wasn’t saying the names out loud which meant I was missing my big chance to find out who else was in the class. At this rate it could take days or even weeks to locate the person I was after. I could ask around, of course, as long as I didn’t make myself conspicuous.
A couple of boys at the back of the class were playing up, causing two girls to cover their mouths and giggle. I turned to look, amazed that this sort of behavior seemed normal here.
The teacher stood and made his way to the rear of the classroom. He closed the laptop in front of one of the disruptive boys and stared at him. So did I. The young man was good looking if you liked that sort of thing. His dark hair was wavy and a little too long, cut into no particular style but it didn’t seem to matter because he had a style of his own. His green eyes were striking, his smile disarming, and though he seemed to have impressed the two girls, the same couldn’t be said for me.
“Okay, Benny Boy, what can you tell us about the cardiovascular system?” Mr. Rodriguez asked.
My heart jumped to my throat. Ben? Was it possible?
I should’ve recognized him at first glance. He was much younger here than in the picture I’d seen and that must’ve thrown me. This wasn’t something I could take a chance on. I had to be certain.
“You need a strong cardiovascular system to keep up your fitness for sports and football,” he replied.
The teacher leaned across the desk. “A doctor or a football player – which will it be?”
Benny Boy shrugged. “Who says I have to choose? I might be a Nobel Prize- winning medical specialist by day and an NFL player by night.”
“A gigolo by night, more like it,” someone called out.
The class laughed.
I smiled, trying to appear amused to fit in. Ben didn’t look like a mass murderer but then, no one ever did. Serial killers looked like everyone else.
“Besides, he doesn’t play football any more,” another person yelled.
“You’d better have a good definition of systemic circulation if you want to avoid a detention,” Mr. Rodriguez said to Ben.
“Systemic circulation is the portion of the cardiovascular system which transports oxygenated blood away from the heart to the rest of the body, and returns oxygen-depleted blood back to the heart,” Ben stated without hesitation.
“Okay, how much blood is in the human body?” the teacher asked.
“A rough guide might be about five liters or more for a grown man, perhaps as little as 3.3 liters for a 50 kilogram female such as one of these two.”
He gestured to the two girls opposite him. They whispered and giggled, no doubt more impressed by his good looks than his knowledge.
I weighed somewhere over 50 kilos. Thankfully, the US had moved away from imperial measurements as part of the government revamp, so at least I didn’t have to bother with quarts and pints.
“I’m glad you’ve got that covered,” the teacher said.
Ben shrugged. “That’s just rote learning. It’s not creating cures for diseases or doing anything important.”
“However, you’re still disturbing the rest of the class,” Mr. Rodriguez said in a stern voice.
Ben nodded and put his head down. The teacher walked away.
Eventually the bell rang and we gathered our books, preparing to leave the room.
I was almost too nervous to ask Lauren the question. “Who was that?”
“Ben Tanner,” she said.
It was him.
Her lips curled to a sly smile. “Why? Do you think he’s cute?”
“Actually, I thought he seemed smart.”
She nodded. “He is. But do you think he’s cute?”
“Sure, there are lots of cute guys here.”
Hopefully I was starting to sound like the other teenagers around me. I’d thought the most difficult part of my mission would be locating my target, Ben Tanner, but I was wrong. The hardest part was yet to come. I had limited time to ingratiate myself into the school and the community, gather intelligence, and report back to my superiors. It’d compromise my mission to eliminate him too soon.
But that was exactly what I had to do.
Kill Ben Tanner.
Chapter Two
Only a matter of hours into the mission and already I was ahead of schedule. After the shaky start I’d made, that had to be a good thing.
I’d been chosen for this job because I was the top student at New Nation Military College. There was another reason too that had nothing to do with my skills and talent. In the one existing photo of Ben Tanner, he was with his wife who bore an uncanny resemblance to me. My superiors thought that if Ben was attracted to certain females or went for a particular ‘type’, that put me ahead of the other candidates for this role.
I’d also been chosen because I was a hero. Except I wasn’t. I definitely wasn’t the killing machine the authorities thought I was. Nowhere near it.
But I was a good soldier and I had to do this.
Meanwhile I was also supposed to be a high school student and it was part of my job to fit in. This was going to be harder than I thought.
Lauren slammed her locker door shut. “Have you got physical education next too?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You wouldn’t believe the stuff they get us to do at this school.”
“What stuff?”
“Today we’ve got specialist training. Honestly, it’s torture.”
Now she had my attention. “Really? What’s involved?”
“Everything from sprints and running mini-marathons to weights and even boxing. It’s like we’re in the army.”
“Is there a problem with that?”
As soon as the words slipped out, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Lauren looked at me as if I was an idiot. With so much to learn in this new environment, I was beginning to wonder if I was.
She threw her hands up. “You’re not going to go all weird on me again, are you?”
I shrugged. “I hope not.”
The PE program she described sounded familiar to me. It must be the beginning of government programs to strengthen young people and help them build moral fiber and physical endurance. Where I was from, we took it for granted that everyone had to go through the same grueling schedule designed to separate the weak from the strong.
Lauren’s reaction was harder to work out, though. Schools and young people had welcomed the initiatives. Everyone knew that.
“Just warning you,” she said. “Mr. Matthews is a slave driver. You’re not going to like this.”
I figured I’d start off easy when the physical education session b
egan, try to fit in with the other kids and do what the teacher told us to. Thousands of other teenagers did this every day, so how hard could it be?
Lauren picked up the bag with her gym gear in it. “Let’s get a move on.”
Okay, time to get changed. I reached into my bag, dug out a pair of navy shorts and a dark green sports shirt, leaving them on top of my bag in readiness.
Lauren looked puzzled as she motioned for me to get going. “We’re late already.”
I could hurry if that’s what she wanted, so I pulled my school shirt off over my head, ready to get changed.
Her mouth fell open. Other students pointed and giggled. If only I had a clue what I’d done wrong. It wasn’t as though I was naked. I was wearing a bra, after all.
A boy with long wavy blond hair stopped and wolf whistled, his eyes riveted to me. A whistle? Even for a teenage male, that was immature, not to mention unnecessary.
Lauren stepped between me and the passers-by, panic in her eyes. “Are you crazy? Get some clothes back on. Quick, before anyone else sees.”
I reached for my sports shirt and slipped it over my head, which is what I’d planned to do in the first place.
Behind Lauren, I caught a glimpse of Ben Tanner, a smile on his face. He’d seen. But what had he seen? Why was this such a big deal?
“You said we were late.” I looked behind Lauren and saw people were moving on, Ben included. “I thought we were getting changed into our sports uniform.”
“Not here,” she said, clearly exasperated. “In the locker rooms. What is with you?”
“I…I’m…”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll show you where we’re going, then that’s it. After that, you’re on your own.”
She grabbed my arm and we walked down the hall to the locker rooms, the girls’, I noticed. Inside, we got dressed into the rest of our physical education uniform.
Lauren shot me a sideways glance. “Were you trying it on back there?”
“I’m not from around here,” I said.
“You can say that again. Come on.” Her voice was sympathetic as she motioned toward the door and we headed for the oval along with the other girls. “By the way, how’d you get the six pack?”
I had strong abdominal and core muscles from years of military and martial arts training. I wasn’t bulked up because I didn’t have the frame for that, however I was strong and toned and had earned every ounce of muscle mass. Maybe it was vanity on my part but I was also flattered she’d noticed, not to mention grateful she was still talking to me.
“Long story,” I said. “I’ve done some fairly rigorous training.”
“Maybe you’ll like Mr. Matthews, after all.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s the king of rigorous training.”
He was a little taller than me with broad shoulders, a strong chest and muscular legs beneath his running shorts. With tanned olive skin, he looked like he spent a lot of time outdoors. Lucky him. On a sunny day like this I was glad to be out here too. It seemed too much of a treat to be part of the curriculum.
On the oval, the students in our group followed Mr. Matthews’ instructions and limbered up slowly before launching into a workout similar to the one Lauren had described earlier.
It was nothing too demanding, a combination of strength exercises such as push-ups and squats, interspersed with cardio which mostly consisted of running. I forced myself to hang back but it was difficult when I finished each exercise before the others and then had to waste time to allow them to catch up.
“For the next drill, we’re going to alternate rounds of boxing with sprints,” Mr. Matthews said.
The students around me moaned so I added a small groan of disapproval myself.
“Nicola, you’re with me,” the teacher instructed.
All eyes were on me. Maybe I wasn’t doing such a convincing job of ‘hanging back’.
“Do I have to?” I asked.
He picked up a pair of hand mitts and tossed me a pair of boxing gloves. “Yes, now get over here.”
I joined him, but only after letting out a long sigh as if annoyed. This wasn’t so bad. I was finally starting to get the hang of being a teenager.
“Okay, guys, you know the drill,” Mr. Matthews yelled. To me he said, “I want twenty strong, hard punches, then you sprint to the tree and back. After that, we do it all over again.”
I nodded and sent in twenty punches. Mr. Matthews looked shaken as I drove him back with my strikes and he struggled to keep the pads in place.
When I came back from my sprint, he asked, “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Um, I’ve done this before,” I mumbled.
“Then do it again.”
After several rounds, the punchers and pad-holders switched roles, however I didn’t have to swap with Mr. Matthews so I got to do extra training. Just lucky, I guess.
This was nothing compared to the program I’d been through in New Nation where physical exercises were only one side of our training. It didn’t compare with being locked in complete darkness to test my mental resilience or some of the simulation exercises. Then there were fear exercises that were definitely not simulated, exercises involving deadly spiders, snakes and even alligators.
I always did well, mostly because I was skilled at appearing calm on the outside, and the tests didn’t measure what was going on inside. I was good, just not as good as I wanted to be or as good as anyone else thought I was.
At the end of the final round, I doubled over to catch my breath, and glanced up to see a smug smile on the teacher’s face.
“I knew I’d break you,” he said under his breath.
I straightened, my gaze riveted to his.
He reached for a kick-shield from the pile of sports equipment and said, “We’re not finished yet. Do you know how to do round kicks?”
“Yes,” I replied.
He held the shield in place for leg kicks. “I want you to kick,” he added under his breath, “until you drop.”
I was up for the challenge, so I round kicked the shield, ten kicks left, ten kicks right, over and over again. I was like a machine as I sent in kick after kick, pushing Mr. Matthews back with each strike. The drill was clearly meant to wear me out – and it was – but I knew what he didn’t. I would never give up.
“Excuse me, Mr. Matthews,” called a man coming up behind him.
The teacher looked toward the sound, his eyes off the shield and the kicker. Big mistake. The first rule of pad holding is to keep your eyes on the striker.
Too late. I’d already launched my kick and there was no stopping it. Mr. Matthews’ leg slipped out from under him as I swept it away and he landed on the ground on his butt.
“Oh no,” I yelled, leaning over him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said.
He wasn’t seriously hurt because the shield had done its job, but he didn’t look fine either. He looked embarrassed, not to mention extremely annoyed. And it didn’t help that the kids were all laughing. I’d messed up. Again.
The male teacher who’d been headed our way and I helped Mr. Matthews up.
“Dismissed,” he said. “Show’s over.”
That was the second time I’d heard those words today. I wasn’t trying to put on a show. I was supposed to be blending in and gathering information, an important part of my mission.
It was also the reason I couldn’t eliminate my target right away. Because if I was thrown into jail on a murder charge, I wouldn’t be able to document my surroundings. And now I was about to be blasted by the teacher.
Mr. Matthews shook his finger at me. “We start a new martial arts program next week. I expect you to be there on the first day.”
“Is that an order?” I asked.
“Absolutely. You will be there or else.”
Lauren put her arm around me as we walked toward the change rooms, a grin on her face. “What a hero!”
I looked around. “Who?”
“You, silly,”
she said. “We’ve been dying for someone to teach that dude a lesson.”
Great, I was a hero again, except I didn’t think I’d behaved heroically. Far from it. I’d stuffed up and the only good thing was that the teacher wasn’t badly hurt.
“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” I said.
“I know. Ain’t it sweet!” She put her hand up as we walked and I stared at it blankly.
“High five,” she said.
Luckily I knew what that was and slapped her palm. Back at the academy, no one had celebrated and supported me like Lauren. And we’d only just met.
The two girls who’d giggled at Ben Tanner in science class joined us briefly to give me high fives as they passed, still laughing. They were both very attractive, one of them blond, the other African-American, both of them professional gigglers if past experience was anything to go by.
Lauren’s gaze was riveted to the girls ahead of us, a look of admiration on her face. “Simone and Taylor are so cool.”
“Are they?”
“By the way, Mr. Matthews can’t force you to do that additional training. It’s optional, like joining the band or the rowing or basketball team.”
Optional? These kids had the option of joining a team, or playing some other sport or activity – was that what she was saying?
At the academy in New Nation, we had a military band which performed at formal events. Students with musical aptitude joined the band. There was no choice, and you certainly couldn’t choose to do something as futile and impractical as basketball.
Anyway, it sounded like the teacher couldn’t force me to go to the martial arts arena after school when I had other things to do and that suited me fine.
I nodded. “Mr. Matthews is one mean dude.”
Lauren stopped, her hands on her hips. “Nicola, can’t you talk like a normal person?”
“But you said ‘dude’ not two minutes ago.”
She shook her head. “Just be yourself.”
We kept walking. Be myself? That was not a good idea.
Infiltration (Infiltration Book 1) Page 2