Ch. 12

        “Your mission is to maintain 24 hour surveillance over this person.” Paula said, once she had me seated down in her office. Technicians had sensors attached to my head, monitoring my status. “There better not be any mistakes this time!” Paula snapped at them. I felt something prick me in the back of my neck. It was one of the technicians injecting me with something. I ignored the feeling of cold serum being injected into me. It was meaningless; pain was meaningless. All that matter was following orders and accomplishing my objectives. Failure was not an option, as cliché as that sounds. I opened the manila folder with its contents. In it were pictures of a blonde, blue eyed, young girl. She attended N.Y.U, and for some reason, my boss wanted me to keep an eye on her. I was to allow the girl to see me once in a while, and if she initiated any contact with me, she was to be apprehended and brought back here. Apparently, she had witnessed my exploits outside of this facility. She had supposedly had her memory of it erased, but as anyone can figure out, technology has its shortfalls, which explains how I escaped. I stared hard at the girl’s face and memorized it. She did seem somewhat familiar to me. I glanced over the sheet that had her profile down on it. Spencer Carlin. Age: 18. Occupation: student. Residence: New York, New York. I looked over photos of her apartment, familiarizing myself with its layout. I was to take up residence in the same apartment as hers, right across the hall from her and continue working under my alias at NYU as a security guard. Other assignments would soon be issued to me in addition to this one by Paula, who was now my handler.

            “Go.” She said, handing me keys to my new apartment. “It will have everything you need, including your equipment.” She said. “You will report back to me whenever I contact you.” She said icily. I nodded and was taken back to New York by one of her subordinates. I felt a tingling in the back of my head. They had installed some device to monitor my behavior; if I got “out of control” again, they would know and render me unconscious until someone could retrieve me. I had no doubt that they could probably kill me with the device also. I wasn’t afraid though; my purpose was to achieve my objectives. I wasn’t concerned with being killed since I was not going to give them any reason to kill me in the first place. I fit the key into the slot of my door’s handle quickly, shutting the door right after me. I was to report to my shift as security for NYU in 15 minutes. I changed into my uniform and pulled out my 9mm gun and holstered it. As I was exiting my apartment, I glimpsed my target. She was heading out at the same time. I followed her at a distance to the campus. I patrolled the area near her class during my shift, hoping to make myself seen to her to determine whether she recognized me. When she was finished with her class, she walked right up to me. I was taken aback by how shockingly bright her blue eyes were. I avoided her gaze. It made me uncomfortable. “Excuse me, but could you walk me home?” she asked. I nodded. It was security policy to escort students whenever upon request. The neighborhood around the campus was nice, but incidents have occurred here in the past. My target seemed cheerful as she walked beside me home. She had brilliantly white smile to go with her bright blue eyes. She asked me pointless questions along the way. “Have you always worked here? I always have a security guard escort me home since it’s not always so safe around here…I’m not sure if I’ve ever had you walk me home. I hope you don’t mind, since I can always ask one of your buddies to if you’re too busy. Wow, you don’t talk much do you? What’s your name?” I glanced at her blankly. She looked at my name tag. “Elizabeth Johnson.” “Well we’re halfway there, so you don’t have to deal with me anymore…that is, if you think I’m annoying you right now.” “No.” I said truthfully. For some reason, she wasn’t irritating me. If it had been someone else, I am certain I would’ve made it clear to them. Something about this girl made me uncomfortable.