Ground Zero

Chapter 1

The metal chair that I was strapped to was freezing against the bare skin of my arms, and the ropes that tied me to it weren't doing anything to warm me up against the cold. The pain the coldness was making me feel was starting to go away and numbness was coming to take its place. I couldn't believe that I –Carla, of the best spy school ever- had been caught. If I ever got back, Seth Burmingham was going to rub it in my face forever! I knew that my cover would have been blown eventually; I had just hoped that it would have been after I had the disk with all of Canada's National Secrets on it. I had been under cover as a maid when my cell phone had gone off saying 'have you got the information yet?' Right when I was about to respond, Mr. Richardson had come up behind me and tasered me. I wasn't able to move and now I was strapped to a freezing metal chair, in an all metal hotel basement with a block of muscle guarding the door. Apparently he was a black belt in karate and knew how to kill someone with just a plastic spoon, but he did not know any English whatsoever. Since he couldn't talk to me though, I was a little weary on that plastic spoon theory.

I knew that I had to escape but they had searched me and taken all of my gadgets when they caught me, even the harmless stuff like my lunch which was yogurt. Thankfully I was an expert knot tier so I could also untie them as a result.

Since my gadgets and my lunch had been taken I would have to fight the man off the old fashioned way. Hand to hand combat. It took me about a minute to untie the ropes. Then I took a deep breath and prepared to attack my guard. One, two, three and I pounced. He was so startled that it took me only two seconds to knock him out and even before he set the alarm. He couldn't have been trained if he hadn't been ready for me to attack. So Mr. Richardson must have been trained like I had, to be able to lie effortlessly and believably. I shrugged off the ropes and tied him up with them. Then opened the door a crack so I could peek out. There were no guards out and I didn't blame them, it was freezing down here! So I crept out of my prison and went down the hall towards where my instinct was pointing me.

It wasn't hard to find out where they were keeping the disk. All I had to do was walk down the hall, following the beeping, and there I was.

The room was full of bright flashing lights of all different sizes and whirling and beeping sounds were coming from everywhere! I was nearly blinded by the red and green and blue flashing lights. They were going off in all sorts of patterns and then there were the computer screens. It was the most high tech facility I had ever stepped foot in. To my left were hundreds of super-computers, all humming along hacking who-knows-what. There were only a few people in the room so I thought it would be easy to get the disk back. But I was clearly mistaken.

There was a screen that said 'Reading...' on a huge computer at the back. So I crept past everyone and ejected the disk. One man at a computer had almost caught me but I had crouched behind the closest object which happened to be a trash can, obviously metal, and he just went back to doing whatever he was doing on the computer.

"Well done Carla, I was wondering when you were going to escape, although I thought that it would have been an hour ago." I heard from behind me. I turned around even though I knew who had spoken. Mr. Richardson, the man representing all that is evil. Melodramatic yes but I was being serious.

I slipped the disk into my back pocket and gave him my most evil stare that is normally reserved for either Seth Burmingham or someone who was trying to kill me. Mr. Richardson happened to fall under the later category.

"It's ok Carla, just give me the disk and I will let you go." Quickly I thought of a plan. I knew that it would get me into trouble but it was the only way out since even if I gave him the disk he sure wouldn't let me go. I slipped the disk back into the computer and the 'Reading...' appeared again. I fell back and hit every single key on the computer, hoping that the delete button would work. It did, now the computer read 'Deleting...'