Humans And Foes

Chapter 6

** This is my first novel. If you have any tips on how to make the chapter better or make more sense, please leave a comment**

The weekend passed quickly. I spent most of my time with Noah, Zach, Luke, and Isadora. The Agency had a small courtyard garden, so that's where we hung out.

According to Zach, weekends at The Agency were pretty routine, there wasn't much to do so we walked in the garden, telling stories of our lives with our families. Noah never had a family, so he told stories of his childhood with the agents.

I learned that Isadora had loved softball, and played on a team at her high school. Her protector, Tracey, had been on the team with her. Isadora and Tracey had gotten in a big fight when she learned about The Agency. They had only started talking to each other again recently.

Zach and Luke were best friends, even before The Agency. They spent almost every day after school at Luke's house, playing video games. Luke wasn't mad at Zach when he learned he had been lied to. He mostly thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to him.

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"Okay class, it's almost 2:00, Pack up your projects and put them against the back wall to work on them Thursday." Agent Williams said, smiling. We were in science class on Tuesday, working on another project. I gathered my supplies and put The City of the Sunrise, which I had brought in just in case I had free time, in a small cross-body bag I had found in my dresser earlier that day.

As we stood up, a tall man with dark hair barged into the room. The door hit the wall, denting it. He walked to Agent Williams and whispered in her ear. Her eyes grew wide and her ever-present smile disappeared.

"Right now?" she asked, sounding concerned.

The man nodded. "Children, I need you to come with me," he said, raising his voice.

The rest of us looked at each other confused.

"Now!" he commanded, rushing toward the door. He led us to the elevators and told us to go to the top floor.

I followed Noah to the far right elevator, Luke, Isadora, and Zach were already in there. Luke pushed the button for the twelfth floor and the elevator doors closed.

"What's happening?" I asked, as we started moving upwards.

"I don't know," Noah muttered, deep in thought. "This has never happened before."

"It's going to be fine," Isadora said, confidently. "The agents wouldn't let anything hurt us."

Luke smiled, and it looked a bit forced. "Yeah, have you seen the security in this place? They have more cameras than all those tacky tourists at theme parks."

"We can ask when we get to the top. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all of this," Zach reassured us.

"Do you know what's on the top floor?" Isadora asked.

"No, I've never been up there," Zach said. "We'll find out in a second I guess."

Right then, the elevator made a ding sound and the doors opened. We shuffled out quickly. The twelfth floor was dark, there were no windows, and it took my eyes a second to adjust. A large dark shape slowly swam into my vision.

"What is that?" I gasped.

"I-I'm not sure," Noah stuttered. "Some sort of machine I would guess."

The elevator doors closed behind us and it began to make its way back down. The tall man stepped out of the elevator to our left and he flipped a switch that turned on the lights. I shielded my eyes as the room turned bright white. The large shape in front of me reflected the light, making the room ten times brighter. It was sleek black, with four large propellers. It looked like some kind of giant drone.

The room became loud as dozens of agents arrived on this floor. The man stepped toward the aircraft, and punched a code onto a keypad on its underside. Part of the bottom of the drone lowered to the ground, creating a ramp.

"Children, I need you to board the aircraft quickly, go as far in as you can, take a seat, and buckle in. We need to move fast. We will explain later," the man shouted over the noise.

The crowd began to move forward, and us with it. This isn't the craziest thing that's happened to me this month. The drone was bigger than I thought. It looked like it could fit a hundred people. The seats were in rows, like an airplane, and we made our way to the front.

We found seats in the second row and squeezed in. Isadora, who was sitting on my right side, held my hand, and I could feel her's shaking. I gave it a little squeeze, hoping it would help comfort her.

The seatbelt was complicated. There were four straps and I struggled to find all the buckles. Noah reached over me, grabbed the strap by my right shoulder, and pulled it down to a buckle next to his leg.

"Thanks," I muttered, a little scared to talk.

"Mhm," he responded, almost whispering the noise, as he finished buckling his own seatbelt.

A few moments later, all of the agents were seated behind us. I spotted Agent Johnson and Agent Mortez having hushed conversations with their neighbors.

A couple of agents walked quickly past us, and into a small cockpit. I heard a few quiet whirrs as the engine came to life and the drone warmed up. A groaning of gears came from above us, outside of the vehicle, and we lifted off the ground, climbing vertically. I heard many gasps of surprise and I realized that the noise was the rooftop of The Agency opening. We were moving almost silently. I glanced out the small window at the end of our row, on Noah's left side, and saw the tall glass building getting smaller below us.

"Won't someone see us?" I whispered, concerned.

"It's not likely," he whispered back, turning towards me. "The Agency is miles away from the nearest town. Nobody should be out here."

The tall man stood at the front of the aircraft. He unhooked a microphone from the wall and held it up to his face.

His voice boomed from speakers above our heads as he spoke. "Children and agents, I'm sorry for the disruption today. Unfortunately, NASA has tracked us down and we need to relocate. We reprogrammed all of the microchips but it seems that they have gotten through our coding. We are headed toward our backup base in France. Please make yourselves comfortable, we are in for a long flight."

He hooked the microphone back up and returned to his seat. The hushed conversations got louder and more panicked.

"Do you think that NASA wants to put us back in the experiment?" I asked.

"I would assume that's why they tracked us down," Noah answered.

"What about the other subjects? Will we rescue them?"

Noah sighed, "I hope so. That's the whole point of The Agency."

"Have you been to the base in France," I asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah," he responded. "I was adopted from London when I was little, and the American base was full of new trainees, so I was trained there before I came to America a couple of years ago."

"What's it like?" I wondered.

"The base is smaller and not as beautiful, but the courtyard is bigger."

"I've always wanted to go to France. Will we be allowed to go outside?"

"We can go outside if we have an agent with us. NASA won't expect that we've left the country. Plus, France has a different government, so that will make it much harder to find us."

Noah then turned away from me to look out the window. That was when I remembered I still had my book. I took the book out of my bag and settled back in my seat to read.

** This is my first novel. If you have any tips on how to make the chapter better or make more sense, please leave a comment**