Initiates (The Book of Adam 3)
Page 1
Contents
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
DEDICATION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Look for Book 1 and 2 in The Book of Adam series available now.
Book 1 - Town Secrets: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O3T2GS8
Book 2 - Aeturnum: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0166CNUJ8
Copyright © 2016 Scott Gelowitz
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
Adam stared at the writing on the tattered piece of paper he had just pulled from inside of the small box. The writing was clear, “The Heartstone safely resides at a new address. E.M.”
He had recognized the handwriting immediately and it made his heart race with excitement. E.M. clearly stood for his father, Edward McTaggart, and the familiar writing style that was so similar to his own confirmed that.
“You still OK in there?” a voice sounded from up the stairs behind Adam. It was the voice of his best friend, Kevin.
Kevin’s voice startled Adam back to reality. He suddenly remembered that he was standing in the small dark room deep under the cemetery in Killaly. That’s when the thought dawned on him that coffins full of dead bodies were buried way too close for comfort. It gave him a cold shiver.
“Yeah,” Adam called back, “I’ll be up right away.”
Adam’s mind and heart continued to race as he carefully placed the paper back inside the small box as if it were some sort of priceless treasure. To him, it actually was a treasure of sorts. Anything he could find that would connect him to his father was highly valuable.
Not only was this proof that his father had been alive at one time, but it confirmed that he had also been involved in removing the Heartstone without the knowledge of the rest of the Sentinel League. If Edward had been smart enough to do that, maybe he was smart enough to fake his own death! Maybe he was still out there somewhere, on his own and protecting the Heartstone for the good of all Mankind.
His emotions peaked at this thought, and then crashed back down around him moments later. He realized that it was only wishful thinking, selfish and childish. Even if Edward could have faked his own death, he could have moved the Heartstone well before he died, and that would leave them all in the exact situation they had been in before finding the note.
Clueless.
Adam closed the box and took the flashlight from under his chin where he had been holding it so he could use both hands. His neck was sore from the amount of pressure he had used to angle the flashlight toward the note, so he moved his head in funny ways to loosen up the tense muscles before turning back the way he had entered.
As he approached the stairs, he looked up and saw nothing. Literally – nothing. No light flowed down the stairs from above, even though it was a bright sunny day. At that moment a panicked thought hit him. What if the grave cover slammed shut somehow and he was locked inside?
“Hello,” Adam called out, panic in his voice.
“What’s wrong? Do you need help?” the clear, deep voice of Gurpreet Gupta rang in immediate reply.
“Is the cover still open up there?” Adam asked.
“Yes. Why?”
Adam breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry, it’s just that I can’t see a thing up these stairs. I panicked a little. I’m on my way back up.”
Adam stepped carefully up the stairs into the complete darkness, but it only took a few moments until he was blinded by the bright sunshine.
“Stop!” he heard Mark yell.
Adam stopped and his heart rate shot up again as he wondered what problem had come up now.
“Got it! OK, you can come out,” Mark said a moment later.
Adam wondered what Mark meant but he continued up the stairs. By the time he was out, his eyes had adjusted to the sunshine enough that he didn’t have to squint much anymore.
“Why did you make me stop?” he asked Mark.
“Oh, it just looked really freaky when your head popped out with no body attached to it, so I took a picture – wanna see?” Mark pointed the screen toward Adam.
“I thought something was wrong!” said Adam, slightly angry, but his curiosity got the better of him and he looked at the screen. In the picture, his head looked as if it were floating in mid-air with no body attached, and the expression on his face looked like he was in pain, even though he was only squinting in the sunlight. After a moment, he chuckled at the picture. It was a pretty strange sight.
“Did you find that box down there?” asked Marius as he pointed.
The question brought Adam’s thoughts back on task.
“Yeah, and there’s something inside - but not what we’re looking for,” he said as he handed the flashlight back to Gurpreet, “I don’t think we should discuss it here, though.”
The others seemed disappointed at the news. They had all been excited to find the Heartstone.
Jimmy chuckled, “Are you sure you don’t want to tell us what’s in there? I’m pretty sure no one here is gonna talk.” He pointed at the tombstones surrounding them.
Everyone looked at Jimmy. No one laughed.
“What? I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” he replied.
A few of them nodded and smiled slightly.
“Everyone was looking so grave,” Jimmy added, “and I’m dying to see what’s in there.”
Many eyes rolled. Kevin palmed his forehead.
“Let’s get out of here before he continues,” said Mark.
Even though everyone agreed with Mark, Jimmy’s terrible jokes had lightened the mood. The group was a lot more upbeat as they loaded into Marius’s van, while Gurpreet closed the grave cover behind them, making sure it was secure.
Marius backed the van out of the driveway and onto the gravel road separating the cemetery from the east side of Killaly. As Marius accelerated, Adam swore that he saw a face in the trees beside the road, directly across from the cemetery. The face was only visible for an instant before it disappeared into the trees.
Although he had only seen the face for a moment, Adam knew who it was. Derek Gunderson had been watching them the entire time.
Adam had first met Derek recently when he was tasked with trying to open the statue of Brutus Killaly in order to retrieve the Impression Stone hidden inside. Derek had been watching the statue for strangers that might try to damage it in some way, and he caught Adam at the statue moments after Gurpreet had left Adam there to try.
Derek was there when Adam opened the statue and retrieved the Impression Stone. Because it was discovered in Killaly, Derek forced Adam to meet with his father John Gunderson, who also happened to be the Mayor of Killaly, so that John could determine who truly owned the stone.
And now Karl was dead, killed by Butcher, the soldier sent by Larix to retrieve Adam. If it hadn’t been for Ben Casey rescuing him at the last moment, Adam would probably be dead too.
Adam wasn’t as sure about Derek, though. John had complained that the young residents of Grayson all knew about the Sentinel League and his own son was left out. That meant Derek didn’t know about the League, but that didn’t mean that Derek was any different than his father.
Now that Derek had seen them at the cemetery, he had to be on his way to report all that had happened to his father. At that moment, Adam was glad he hadn’t said anything about the note. Even if Derek knew nothing, he would have reported that information directly to John, and that would in turn be reported to Larix.
Adam turned to Gurpreet, who was seated in the second row directly behind Marius. Because of the tight seating arrangements, Gurpreet was twisted to face Adam instead of the side window, so he wouldn’t have seen Derek.
“Pretty sure I just saw Derek Gunderson hiding in the trees across from the cemetery,” Adam said to Gurpreet.
Gurpreet’s expression flashed concern for a moment, before returning to normal. “We can deal with him later. Right now we need to get that box to Elianora. She’s waiting for us at Town Hall.” Gurpreet nodded to end the conversation.
The trip back to Grayson was quiet and uneventful. Adam could have read the note to everyone in the van, but he was so emotionally drained from the events of the past two days that he nearly nodded off while he dreamed of his dad sneaking into the graveyard and stealing the Heartstone. As soon as the dream Edward had the Heartstone in his hands, he suddenly appeared at the Killaly Radome.
The sight of the Radome in his mind snapped Adam from his dream as if he had been slapped.
“Whoa,” said Marius. “It’s OK, we’re almost there. You just nodded off for a minute.”
“…I…I just...,” Adam scrambled to gather his thoughts. “The Radome in Killaly. I forgot about it until now. Butcher called it a transporter when he used it to escape. It looked just like you see on those old Star Trek shows.”
The van was silent until Marius cleared his throat. “I think we’ll let the boss answer that. Gurpreet?”
Gurpreet took a moment to compose his reply. “The short answer is that it is a transporter like the ones on Star Trek. The creator of that series came from a long line of Sentinel League members.”
“Gene Roddenberry was a Sentinel League member?” asked Mark, surprised.
“Yes. But the Radome transporters don’t work the same. In the show, you could send people to any point you choose, but the Radome Transport System only works between Radomes,” said Gurpreet.
“We just call it the RTS for short,” interrupted Marius.
Mark was following the conversation intently. “Wait wait wait. You’re telling me that there really are transporters?”
“The RTS,” Jimmy corrected from the back seat.
“OK, the RTS,” Mark continued. “When do I get to see someone try out this RTS?”
The other boys agreed with Mark, except for Adam who had already seen it work under circumstances he didn’t care to remember.
“So it only works between Radomes?” asked Kevin.
“Yes,” replied Gurpreet.
“You could send us to Killaly and back, just for the fun of it,” said Mark.
Gurpreet’s face contorted as he framed his answer. “Technically, yes. Realistically, no.”
“Why?” whined Mark.
“Well, for your information, it takes a large amount of power. It takes around an hour to charge the Radome on a medium sunny day just for one transport.”
“It’s charged by the sun?” asked Mark.
“Yes,” replied Gurpreet. “And the number of people you can transport depends on the size of the Radome. The Grayson Radome is rated for a maximum of 1,200 lbs, or roughly six adults. We have to make sure we are under that number or very bad things will happen.”
“Will you get lost in the air during transport?” asked Kevin.
“No, it actually sends you through the ground,” replied Gurpreet. “If you are over the weight limit, there won’t be enough energy to transport you all the way, so you’ll be spread throughout the earth as random electrons.”
“OK, that doesn’t sound very safe at all,” said Mark.
“Actually, it’s incredibly safe and reliable, especially since we don’t send anyone directly between Radome Towers anymore. There were a few ‘accidents’ in the past, so we now use a central processing station called the RTS Hub. In order to go to Killaly, you would need to go from Grayson to the RTS Hub and then to Killaly. The same process would happen in reverse to return,” said Gurpreet.
“So where is the RTS Hub?” asked Mark.
“In the USA,” replied Gurpreet, obviously holding back a lot of information.
A thought came to Adam.
“If you use a central processing station, you must know where Butcher went? They’d be able to track him, right?” asked Adam.
Gurpreet shook his head. “That’s the problem. Butcher jumped directly to another Radome without going through the RTS Hub and set a small explosive so the controls were damaged afterward. There’s no way to track where he went.”
The conversation died as all passengers returned to their own thoughts. Soon, Marius pulled into Grayson, and after a couple of turns they were parked in front of Town Hall once more. The passengers piled out of the van and Gurpreet opened the double entrance doors.
“Hello?” he called out.
“Hello,” came Elianora’s reply.
“It’s safe to come out,” Gurpreet continued, and a moment later Elianora stepped out of the boardroom near the back of the large building. She walked quickly toward the group at the front door.
“Did you find anything?” she asked as soon as she was close.
Everyone looked at Adam and he nodded in return, holding up the box.
Elianora looked at it. “The Heartstone isn’t in there?”
Adam shook his head. “Just a note.”
He opened the box and handed her the piece of paper. She read it in a heartbeat and Adam could see the confusion cloud her eyes for a fraction of a second.
“E.M.,” she said, and looked around the group.
The group, excluding Adam, returned looks of confusion.
“You haven’t seen the note?” she asked as she picked up the meaning on their faces. Everyone shook their heads.
“Adam felt that it would be best not to read the note to us while standing in the middle of the graveyard in Killaly, and when we drove away his suspicions were proved correct because he saw Derek Gunderson hiding in the trees,” replied Gurpreet.
Elianora nodded. “We’ll take care of that soon enough. Let’s get this out of the way first.” She read the note to the group and let it sink in for a moment.
“The handwriting looks a lot like mine. I think it’s my dad that took the Heartstone. Edward McTaggart – E. M.,” said Adam.
Adam’s friends were all nodding until Mike Baranov spoke. “It could also have been your grandfather, though.”
Adam looked confused.
“My grandfather?” he asked.
Mike gave Adam a surprised look. “You know his name was Edward too. Edward Senior. Your dad was Edward Junior.”
The look on Adam’s face answered the question clearly.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard it,” he replied.
Mike looked surprised and a little angry as he looked to Elianora. “How can Mary not even tell him about any of his relatives? I know she wanted to keep him in the dark about his dad while he was little, but I think she went too far…”
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Elianora held up a hand and Mike stopped speaking. Adam had never heard Mike get upset at anything before, let alone some of the things he was beginning to say. It was strange to think that people had discussed exactly what information was going to be shared with him as he was growing up, let alone for them get upset at what wasn’t told to him.
“It’s always been up to her to decide what to share. That’s parenting after all, right? You get to raise your children as you choose,” Elianora replied.
Adam couldn’t stay silent. “I never asked her any of those questions either. Maybe she would have told me some things if I had shown any interest. Honestly, up until now I haven’t really wondered about it too much.”
Mike seemed to calm down and Elianora continued speaking.
“Well, now we know that the Heartstone truly is gone. If my memory is correct, both McTaggarts had similar writing. I do have a feeling that this writing is Adam’s dad’s though.”
Adam got excited at this news. “Do you think he could have faked his death? Maybe he’s alive after all!”
Adam looked from face to face, until Mike spoke up.
“No, Adam. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but there’s no way.”
“What do you mean? Why?” asked Adam.
Mike looked to the other adults in the room who nodded their approval.
“Because I was there when he died.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mike looked sheepish as Adam stared at him. The silence in the room was uncomfortable and awkward for a few moments until Mike spoke again.
“I don’t want to talk about it, though, and you don’t need to know the details anyway. I only told you that because I don’t want you getting your hopes up for a fantasy. Just know that most of us saw him in the casket, and he is gone.”
All of the adults, including Elianora, nodded agreement.
Adam thought about it before he nodded his head as well. He couldn’t find his voice at that particular moment to say anything. His logical side knew that his dad was dead, but his emotional side wanted to hold on to some sort of hope, however faint.
Elianora spoke next. “Thank you all for doing this. Especially you, Adam, and especially today. You’ve had a really difficult time recently, so I want you to go home and rest now while the rest of us make plans. So much has happened that we’ll need some time to sort it all out.”