This is the rough draft of Grub Stage, book 3 in Renegade Agents of A.R.S.A. Click here to get the first two books in this series.

Just inside the door was another door with a small space like an alcove with a couple of antique plush chairs. There were no windows on the walls and a small lamp left the corners pretty dark.

“Wait here,” she instructed. I looked at the heavy frame on the artwork hanging over the chairs and decided to stand while I waited. If that thing fell, it would probably break my neck. I studied the painting. Art was something I never looked much at. Growing up I studied reading, writing, and math. My parents were scientists. I just tagged along and I don’t think anyone really gave much thought about what would come after. After the missions to the jungles. I had become of age while living under the green light of high canopies. I had a custom made blow-dart gun to prove it.

While most girls were flirting with boys, I was killing monkeys. Perhaps if things had ended differently, if the world as I’d known it hadn’t ended the night we returned stateside in a panic… maybe I would have eventually become normal.

I dismissed that thought nearly as soon as it entered my head. Normalcy was a state of being that felt more unrealistic than my reality. And in my reality, I was standing in a dark alcove in the office of a doctor that wanted to implant me with devices to make my ‘normal’ self a lot more lethal.