0 January Secret Agent #44

TITLE: CHASED
GENRE: YA Fantasy

According to her sister, Allie Davis was 3,586 years old. She only remembered the last seventeen of them, which was entirely her sister's fault, and no, Big Sis Tess was not the least bit sorry.

"You need a memory wipe sometimes," she said whenever Allie brought up the question. "Three or four hundred years of memories wears on you. You can't handle it."

On a normal day, Allie took whatever Tess said as an indisputable fact. But today was different. First off, the house was a sauna. A late spring heat wave had hit the Florida coastline with full force. Sweat ran in lines down Allie's face, and every breath felt like she was inhaling lead. Her best solution was to lay on the kitchen's cool tiled floor while Tess clanged things against the busted A/C in the living room.

"How come I can't handle all those memories and you can?" Allie moaned over the racket.

"Huh?" Another clang, followed by a thump and a clatter. "Ow! Blast this ineffectual human technology!"

Allie sat up. The room instantly felt ten degrees hotter, but she didn't care. She marched into the living room, which looked roughly like someone had beaten an army of robots to death in it. "I said," she began, stepping over a pile of wires, "why do you get to keep your memories and I don't?"

Tess looked up from a dismantled control box. She was working in shorts and a sports bra, exposing a good deal of her green, scaled skin.