Chapter 1

• Melanie's POV
• "Alright, you guys know the drill. Get in get out, don't be seen," Ian said as he stuffed a gun in his back waistband, pulling his jacket down to conceal it.
• "Noelle, Ryan, you two are to stay in the lobby. Cause a distraction but don't get caught. Alejandra, Melanie, you two know the drill. You're getting in through the air vents. Melanie, you're going straight to the computer mainframe and getting a layout of the place, you'll be giving us directions on which way to go. Alejandra you're going to disable the security systems floor by floor as we go. The controls for that are in the head of the security's office. Eric and I will go up floor by floor to get what we came here for. Try to leave no trace of ever being here," Ian added in and we all nodded our understanding.
• I pulled the black beanie lower over my head and tucked my curly light brown hair into it. Alejandra gave me a look that asked if I was ready as she pulled on her own beanie over her bun of dark brown hair. Both of us in the same get-up. Black pants, long-sleeved black shirts, gloves, and converse sneakers. I slipped on the climbing harness over my clothes same as Alejandra.
• "Ready when you are," I told her and she nodded as she threw open the trap door in the bottom of the van we were all camped out in.
• "One more thing," Ian called out as Eric leaned down the trap door to remove the sewer grate from the street below for us.
• "Only use numbers when communicating over comms," We all chorused in unison. Ian gave us a look of irritation. Mostly directed at Eric's high pitched representation of him.
• "You say it every time we've got a mission," Noelle said calmly. "It's kind of drilled into our brains by now."
• "And that's not necessarily a good thing," Alejandra added dryly before jumping down through the trap door straight into the sewer with no hesitation.
• Ian made a face down the hole where she had disappeared. "Sometimes I worry about her."
• I smiled widely as I moved into position. "Hey," I started off, getting his attention. "You have to be half insane to be an agent."
• I gave him a mock salute before following Alejandra's example and jumping down into the hole. I braced myself for the impact and as I soon as I landed a bright light was shone into my face. I blocked it with my arms.
• "Really Nineteen? Is that seriously necessary?" I questioned when she still didn't lower the flashlight.
• "Just making sure you're not someone you shouldn't be." She shined her light around the tunnel. "I'm too young to die," She joked, or at least, I thought she was joking. It was impossible to tell with her. She had one tone of voice and three different facial expressions. Anger, usual unreadable expression, and occasionally a small smile. That was it.
• I pinched my nose shut with my fingers. "It smells worse and worse the further down you go," I grumbled as we moved further down the tunnel. "Seriously how do you stand this?"
• She shrugged. "Use to it I guess," She said as she stepped over a pipe running along the floor. "Grew up using the sewers as a sort of secret passage system throughout my city. It was a better alternative to using the streets where you were most certainly going to get shot. Most of the kids just began using the sewers to get to school instead, and then eventually for everything else."
• She talked about her past like it was no big deal. Like it was something everyone had to go through. Like it was something everyone's already experienced, and there was no point trying to explain to her otherwise. She's got a very negative view of the world and the people in it. To her, the world itself was downright evil and cruel. There was no point trying to convince her of anything else.
• Alejandra grew up in a heavily gang-influenced and run city. Cops weren't ever any help because most of them were being paid off by the gangs themselves. So, people like her just kind of learned ways to avoid them and get around all of it. To remain unseen, and it's those skills that got her a job at the agency.
• She didn't mind talking about her past and was actually very open about it despite everything that had happened not only to her but to her family.
• She's got five older brothers. Three of them went off to become some of the only policemen in their city to try and stop the gangs, and the other two became doctors, mostly specializing in gunshot wounds and gang-related activity. She had two sisters . . . but they were killed years ago. That was the only subject Alejandra would close up on. She didn't talk about her sisters, except a casual mention here and there, but if you started pressing her . . . man, she really got fired up.
• The only reason Alejandra or I knew anything about her family now, was because she hacked into several security cameras throughout the city to check in on her family every once in a while. She hasn't had any contact with them for years and refuses to have any contact with them.
• "How's your family doing?" I asked as we continued on to our destination.
• Alejandra shrugged as she continued to walk in front of me. I couldn't see her face but I could picture the blank expression I knew was already on her face.
• "Don't know," She said. "I haven't looked in on them in a while. My mom was in the hospital last I checked, but I don't know anything about it."
• "Why don't you go to her, to them?" I asked. I had asked this before, but I always got the same answer. She said her life was here, not in there. I thought it was stupid, but there was no arguing with Alejandra when she had made up her mind on something.
• Which is why I was shocked when she gave me a different answer this time.
• "You don't get it. There's no getting out of that city once you get in. Plus, it would bring my family more pain than anything else if I went back. I'm not the little girl they lost, and they'd hate what I've become."
• I just stared at the back of her head as we continued through the tunnel. "Do you think she's going to be ok? Your mother?"
• She shook her head. "No. She's sick. I don't know exactly with what, but it's bad. So, if she dies, she dies."
• She turned to look at me and she must have seen the horrified look on my face as I stared at her with wide eyes. She let out a groan and a puff of air.
• "I know that sounds bad but you know how I am when people die," She stated.
• And I did, I knew too well. We had lost a member of our team a couple of years ago and she just looked at his body in the casket and said 'Well, it was going to happen at some point or another' we all stared at her horrified. Especially since she said that out loud and she was not a quiet person.
• She was weird when it comes to people dying. It was almost as if she was cut off from her emotions at all times but especially when there's a death involved. She tried explaining it to us once and I guess I kind of understood it . . . to an extent.
• In her mind-remember, she had a very negative view of the world-death was death. You could do whatever you wanted to try and prevent it, but in the end, you always ended up dead one way or another. So, there was no point in crying over the dead. Since they lived in this 'jacked up world'-her words, not mine-she looked at death as finally allowing them to be free.
• Ian told her that was no excuse to laugh at a funeral or not show any compassion to the people who were going to miss the deceased. Alejandra had just looked at him as if he had suddenly turned into a unicorn right in front of her.
• "My father doesn't have the money to pay off the hospital bills. I know I do but there's no use trying to send the money, it'd just get intercepted and stolen by the gang . . . and I can't exactly go in person. It's not like my brothers aren't helping out the best they can but they're not exactly getting paid fair themselves," She added in and I knew what she was referring to.
• Her family believed her to be dead. They believed she died the same night her sisters did. Obviously, that wasn't the case, but not even any of us knew how she got away. They said you could enter the city, but once you were in you could never leave. To this day I thought the only one other than her who knew how she got out of that city was Chief Zero, and it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone.
• "So, what's going on with you huh?" She questioned as we got closer to where we needed to be. Obviously, trying to change the subject. "You still planning on getting out of the agency long enough to go to college?"
• I nodded and then remembered she was facing away from me. "Yeah. Mom's all for the idea and everything and has been helping me decide on a major and look at colleges. She's going to take me to tour a few of them when I've finally got some time to myself."
• "That's cool," She replied. "So, your Dad . . ." She trailed off and I groaned.
• "I haven't even mentioned it to him since last time," I said. "I told you how upset he got with me. God forbid I want to get a real job one day instead of taking after him and becoming an agent for the rest of my life." I shook my head.
• "We're here," She said as she pulled out a blowtorch and sledgehammer from the large duffle bag she had brought with us. "You should really talk to him about," She said as she swung the hammer full force into the wall. "Give him the whole, 'I'm an adult and this is my life and I won't let you control me' speech."
• "I've tried. He doesn't listen . . . or care for that matter."
• She continued banging away at the wall, knocking pieces of cement away to make a hole. "So, you and your Mom have just been going behind his back? Man, he's going to blow a gasket when he finds out."
• I winced at the thought. "I know."
• She finally knocked away enough of the wall to create a large hole. She climbed through and I followed suit. We ended up in the boiler room in the basement of the building after she took a drill to the second wall.
• "You do remember Ninety-eight saying leave no trace, right?" I asked her and she just fired up the blowtorch.
• "Yeah . . . vaguely."
• "You two do remember I can hear both of you right?" Ian's voice filled our ears.
• "Now I do," Alejandra said as she slid a pair of goggles over her eyes and began cutting away at the air vent.
• "Ninety-eight don't say anything else. Nineteen, Thirty-four, keep focused and keep working," Noelle said softly, her voice a whisper. She was keeping Alejandra and Ian from verbally sparring . . . again.
• "Copy that Ninety-nine," I said quickly before turning my focus back on Alejandra's progress. She kicked away the hole she had carved and gave me a thumbs up. I nodded and pulled the straps of my backpack tighter on my shoulders before diving into the freshly made hole headfirst.
• "Let me know when it's time for me to come through Thirty-four," Alejandra said to me.
• "Will do," I replied as I slid through the extremely narrow vent until I made it to the intersection at the end. I looked up the vent as it went all the way up to the highest floor. I pulled myself up so I was standing.
• I jumped up and grabbed the edge of one of the vents higher up and began to climb, pushing off every so often to grab a higher vent, and then a higher one. I finally make it up the floor I'm supposed to be on. I took a minute to catch my breath and looked back down the vent. I shuddered as I thought of what would happen if I fell.
• I pulled the heavy-duty magnet out of my backpack and clamped it onto the wall of the vent shaft. I pressed the buttons to turn up the magnetism on it and tried pulling it down a couple of times, satisfied when it didn't slide or fall the slightest bit. I pulled out the rope I brought and tied the end of it to the handle attached to the magnet. I tossed the other end down the vent.
• "All clear," I said into my earpiece. "Your turn Nineteen."
• "On my way," She replied. Her head popped up a few minutes later as she used the rope to haul herself and her giant duffle bag up the vent with her.
• "Met back at the van as soon as we're cleared to leave," She said simply. She crawled off through the vents in one direction and I took the other.
• I made it to the room I was supposed to be in and pulled the vent grate further into the vent with me quietly. I stuck my head out and glanced around, making sure no one was there. As soon as I was sure of that fact, I lowered myself out of the vent and onto the file cabinet directly below it. I jumped off onto the floor and landed in a crouch, my feet barely made a sound on the carpet floors.
• I walked stealthily to the computer mainframe and slid my backpack off my shoulders and onto the floor beside it. I got on my knees and pulled out my iPad and several connecting cords from the bag. I plugged in my iPad and synced it up with the computer hard drives there. I pulled up a map of the entire company building, along with the information on what we had come there to retrieve.
• "It's being kept down the hall from the executive's office," I said so Ian and Eric could hear me.
• "You got a way cleared for us there Nineteen?" Eric questioned her.
• "Stand by Fifteen," She said. "Take the elevator furthest from your left," She told them.
• I waited for them to get to the floor they needed to be on. "Take the next left, then a right," I said as I monitored the map and tracked their comm locations. "Another right. The door's going to be the first one on the left."
• "Alright give me a second to open it," Alejandra said. "Go now."
• We waited in silence. The only sounds we could hear was the occasional intelligible murmurs from Eric and Ian.
• It seemed like an eternity before Ian spoke once again. "Got it. Everybody get out before we're spotted. Meet at the van."
• "Copy that," I replied as I began to pack up my iPad and cords. I stuffed them back into my backpack and got to my feet, moving quietly along the floors.
• I pulled myself back up on top of the cabinets to reach the air vent. "Nineteen, are you going to be down first?" I asked. "Cause if so I'll clean up the rope, if not then you need to do it."
• No response.
• "Nineteen? Hello? Where are you?" There was still no response.
• "Ninety-nine, something's wrong. I can't get a hold of Nineteen," I said into my earpiece, getting into the vent suddenly seemed secondary.
• Again, I was greeted with no response. "Hello? Is anybody there? Hello, come in," I let out a huff of annoyance. "Is this is your guys' idea of a joke? Because this is seriously not funny. I'm going to personally gut all-"
• I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence. My ankle was grabbed and I was pulled down. My head slammed into the top of the cabinet before I made contact with the floor. My shoulder bared the brunt of the fall.
• I groaned and my fingers touched at my head. I pulled my fingers back to see a light coating of blood on them. I saw a pair of boots out of the corner of my eye and reacted on instinct. My legs swung out and knocked the person to the floor.
• I rolled away quickly and got to my feet, pulling a knife from my belt. I'd have used a gun but we were supposed to be on a stealth mission. Leave no trace.
• He got to his feet too, and I couldn't see his face. It was obstructed by a strange helmet. He took a swing at me and I dodged it effortlessly. He tried to take another swing at me and I drove my knife into his arm, only, it connected with some kind of metal and just seemed to bounce off, falling from my grasp.
• I ducked away and pulled another knife from my belt and threw it at him, it hit his side and stuck.
• It was like it didn't even affect him. He pulled the knife out of his skin calmly and threw it onto the floor next to him. It slid across the ground. He swung out his leg and I blocked it.
• I noticed too late that he was purposely pulling his punches. I didn't see the other guy coming until it was too late. I felt the prick of the needle in my arm as he held onto me firmly from behind. I struggled in his hold but I could feel the drug begin to cloud my senses.
• He dropped me and I couldn't keep myself from falling to the floor, my vision fading in and out and I couldn't do anything to fight the darkness I fell into.