Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 68870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
This is our schedule and we do the best we can, but on Friday morning, everything changes.
As always I set the stage for my class on Friday morning. I turn the lights to low and about twenty people trickle into the room. One by one they open their expensive handbags, as always, to let me inspect the contents. I have to make sure no one brought in their phones or any sort of apparatus to record this.
I take my seat at the front of the class and begin. “Close your eyes and take a breath. Feel your abdomen filling up, then slowly receding and pushing out the air. Good things in, bad things out.”
I listen and watch, making sure everyone is in sync. It’s a lovely thing to see people doing something in unity like this, slowing down and just being together and not competing. I wonder if my mother ever had this feeling. I watch carefully, looking around the room at all my students as we switch positions. All the usuals are here today, in their tight yoga leggings and fitted tops, exposing their collarbones and the shapes of their lifted asses and perky breasts. Most of them are various shades of blonde, with light brown hair, grown long, past their shoulders.
They all have strong bodies and good builds. It’s a shame that they had to come here covered in bulky, Regime-approved clothing for women. They’re forbidden to choose what they want. We might not have a lot on our side of the wall, but we have more freedoms, that’s for sure.
The elites know how to access sexier, more form-fitting clothes, but they wear them at home, the only place the Regime lets it slide.
I call for the next position, and all of my students move, except one. The new student in the back, in the expensive pale pink outfit. Instead of doing the move like someone who needs to come to a yoga class, she sweeps her leg and balances perfectly like she could be the one instructing. Either this woman has beginner’s luck, or she’s here for something else.
I stand up and excuse myself so I can go to the restroom. I head out of the room and through the small anteroom where everyone keeps their coats and shoes. I scan the space for a moment and count to twenty, then flush the toilet. Turning on the water in the sink, I try to muffle my snooping sounds. I feel a slight pang of guilt over wasting perfectly good water, but it’s necessary.
Bingo. I find the new chick’s bag because I remember she wore an expensive-looking camel hair coat and carried a large bag. It’s also a dead giveaway of a government worker. Rifling through the bag, I find a handgun, which is no shock, and in the wallet is a government ID. Department of Non-Loyal Activities. Undersecretary.
Shit. This is a big-wig, or someone very close to the big-wigs.
This is trouble.
Taking a deep breath, I get myself under control. This is not going to bring me down. No basic blonde bitch of a temporary Regime is going to sabotage what I’ve done. Digging through her bag, I see there’s no phone, but I checked everyone for phones and cameras as they entered the studio. What I do find in the blonde bitch’s bag is a spy camera. It’s disguised as a metal stud in the bag’s trim, but there it is.
She’d no doubt taken footage of everyone in the class while they were checking in. Anger flashes through me and I grab hold of the camera’s tiny lens and destroy the camera. Then I grab a magnet closure from a nearby bag to erase the digital storage that might be left on it. The basic hardware of the bag is left intact, but the tape will contain nothing.
Once I’m finished, I put everything back exactly the way it was before. Then I turn off the water and return to class.
I go about the class like everything is normal. The new girl follows along with the flow at a decent enough pace. She’s fit and lean with very little fat on her for an elite. But this is not the average, soft member of elite society. This is an agent.
I place my hand at the small of the suspected informant’s back, then put my other hand on her shoulder. Without words, I adjust the woman’s position so the twist goes a little deeper. Then millimeter by millimeter, I adjust her neck, then shoulders, then hips. The adjustments are barely noticeable, but they’re enough to do the job.
After class, everyone leaves without incident. I pack up the supplies and cover them with the shabby painter’s tarp in the corner before heading to the locker room. I change into my scrubs as if nothing is out of the ordinary and clock into work right on time. But in the back of my mind, I know I need to hit the supply room as soon as possible.