Initiates (The Book of Adam 3)

by Scott Gelowitz

  Jimmy and Adam chuckled, excited for the game ahead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mark ended up winning again, but just barely. Kassie was an excellent shot but Mark was much faster and that proved to be the deciding factor. The rest of that evening ran by quick.

  After a few more introductory classes, the days rolled into weeks of the same patterns. Horton was always late for everything except lunch, and he didn’t take them on any more special outings, which the boys missed. Their days were filled with regular classes to keep them moving forward with their normal grades, and the evenings were full of special League classes. Self defense was two nights a week, followed by stealth and tactical training two more nights a week. The weekends and any time they had left were filled with homework, and the boys helped each other as much as they could.

  In the spare moments, the boys met more and more of their fellow initiates, especially since they now had a measure of celebrity. The people they met came from all over North America and had all sorts of accents. The three valley girls from California had one of the most unique accents, along with a large girl from Minnesota who kept adding ‘don’t-chya know’ at the end of most sentences.

  Interviews happened every few weeks, and Horton continued to say that he was sure that one of Adam’s friends was going home, and another was in jeopardy – but he wouldn’t give any further clues. When Adam asked him how long it would be until the person in question would be leaving, Horton would shrug and say, “Depends on when management makes the call.”

  “But why?” Adam would ask.

  “I can’t tell you that,” said Horton. “You might figure out who it is and warn them. This is a practice that’s gone on for a long time now, so I’m just asking that you trust the process.”

  Adam felt worse after each interview and worried more each time. He continued to work with all three of his friends on every assignment they had, trying to make sure they completed everything as perfect as possible. He even made them stay extra hours to practice their self defense, often asking Derek to help out because Derek was the only one who was as big as Kevin, and Derek had been training in martial arts since he was little.

  “Dad forced me to learn martial arts, but I’ve hated every minute,” Derek said, soon after telling them about his training.

  “Really? Why?” asked Adam.

  “Because he always forced me to learn attacks. I don’t want to attack anyone. All I wanted to learn was self defense.”

  They could tell that what he said was true, because while he was excellent at both attacks and self defense, every time he attacked he would apologize at length if his opponent didn’t block in time or was grazed even a little.

  And so the days went by until Christmas neared, and Adam had been so focused on figuring out who was getting kicked out of the Sentinel League that he had almost forgotten about his quest for information regarding his dad and the Heartstone. He hadn’t even thought about Grayson in what seemed like forever, until everything came rushing back late one morning.

  As usual, Adam and his friends were the first group at the cafeteria for lunch, but that day they walked in to see a group of people sitting at a table where they were used to seeing an empty room.

  To their surprise, Tilda, Gurpreet, and Don Chen were sitting around, eating and talking when they arrived.

  Mark ran up to the table, full of excitement. “Dad!” he exclaimed, but he stopped short of hugging his father, opting instead for a firm handshake.

  “Hi Mark. Hello boys,” said Gurpreet as they neared.

  Once they had all exchanged formalities, Mark asked, “Why are you guys here?”

  “I told you I like to check in once in a while, although I usually make it here sooner. Sorry about that,” said Gurpreet. “Don decided to tag along. I think he’s afraid I might not come back.”

  “I’ve eaten Betty’s food. It’s so good that I know how difficult it is to leave,” said Don.

  Betty stuck her head out from behind a set of double doors and called out, “Thanks!”

  Don smiled and waved. “It’s true!”

  Jimmy looked at his friends. “How does she do that?” he said.

  Don, Gurpreet and Tilda laughed. They pushed away from the table and stood to leave.

  “Where are you going?” asked Mark.

  “Tilda and I have some business to take care of,” said Gurpreet. “Maybe you guys could take Don on a little tour. He hasn’t been here in a long time. He can meet me at Tilda’s office when he’s done.”

  They agreed and ate quickly, trying to get out before any other classes arrived.

  When they finished, Adam asked, “What do you want to see first?”

  “How about the pool? That’s always been my favorite place,” said Don.

  “Sure,” said Kevin. “Let’s go.”

  Off they went, and along the way Don reminisced about his time at Area 51.

  “You guys are lucky,” he said. “I didn’t know a single person when I came here. Turned out fine, though, because I met some life-long friends. I even dated one of my classmates - and no, it wasn’t my wife.”

  They wandered through the Arrival chamber, and Don told them a story about a couple of boys who tried to sneak out in the middle of the night to get some alcohol from the RTS Hub, but they didn’t have a clue how to use it and somehow ended up locked inside the Radome for the night.

  “You probably can’t use the Radome at night, right? There’s no sunlight,” said Adam.

  “Yes and no. They try and have it fully charged before the end of the evening so if they have an emergency, like someone needs to go home because someone is sick, they can use it once or twice if it’s a light load. Worst case, the RTS Hub has enough power storage that it can send some energy here to charge it, but it’s not a fast process and uses a ton of power on the other end. Otherwise, it’s locked tight so even if someone that isn’t supposed to be here were to find a way to get here, they would be locked inside.”

  “Good to know,” said Kevin.

  “Other than that, how's it going?” asked Don.

  “It's still school, just with a bunch of other stuff to do at the end of the day,” said Mark.

  “Yeah, no one warns you how much work it is until Christmas. It gets easier soon after. You don't realize this but you're almost done classes for your normal grade level. You'll be finished by the end of January and then you get to spend time working in the areas you might specialize in and learn some more of the interesting League things.”

  Adam thought that sounded great, because they were feeling burnt out from all of the extra work they’d been doing.

  When they reached the windows outside the swimming pool area, Don opened the door and stepped inside, waving the rest to follow. As soon as they were in, he closed the door and turned to them, his face no longer happy but filled with concern.

  “I didn’t actually need a tour. I wanted to get you all alone so we could talk,” said Don.

  The boys looked at each other in turn, each looking wary.

  “I’ve heard you guys have been hanging around with Derek Gunderson,” Don started.

  They nodded.

  “Aren’t we supposed to?” asked Adam.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m just wondering what you think of him?”

  Adam hesitated before speaking for the group. “We were worried about him when we first got here and wondered if he would retaliate because of what I said about his dad, but he came to us and apologized for what his dad did. We’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the last few months, and he seems pretty much the opposite of John.”

  Don’s smile returned and he nodded. “That’s why we let him come here at the same time as you. John asked us to send him in order to keep him safe and give him League training so that he knows what he’s up against. You know John, ‘knowledge is power’.”

  The boys agreed.

  “The reason I wanted to talk to you is that we’ve fou
nd a few things incriminating John, and he’s being sentenced soon. He will most likely be sent to prison for a long time, and we don’t know how that will affect Derek.”

  “Derek told us that if his dad is guilty of trying to sell me to Larix, he needs to pay for his crime,” said Adam.

  “Why wouldn’t the League just wipe John’s memory?” asked Mark.

  Don grimaced. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask this in the past. The memory wipe works best with smaller amounts of time being wiped. That’s why we do it to the new initiates, because we won’t have to wipe much of their memories in order for them to forget about the League, and they can continue on having normal lives. Someone of John’s age would lose most of his life, be it good or bad. That’s pretty traumatic and we think that’s why it doesn’t work very well. George Fritz is the prime example of this, and his wipe worked better than all of the rest. In the history of the League, it’s been tried only a handful of times for long term memory and it’s been unsuccessful every time, sometimes leaving the person unable to do the most basic things like put on clothes. That’s why we believe it is better to leave the memories intact and send the person in question to jail.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about Derek,” said Adam. “I’m sure he won’t retaliate against us or the League. Are you going to tell Derek that his dad is going to be sentenced?”

  Don nodded. “That’s what Tilda and Gurpreet are doing right now.”

  “Will he get to see his dad before he goes to jail – if John goes to jail?”

  “Yes. We’ll make sure that they see each other at Christmas, and if he goes to jail, we will arrange for them to visit each other.”

  Adam decided that since Don was there and seeming to speak freely, he might be willing to tell them about any progress they had made finding the Heartstone.

  “Have you found any more clues about where the Heartstone is hidden?” asked Adam.

  Don’s face didn’t change, but it looked like he was concentrating to make sure it didn’t.

  “No. Nothing yet,” he replied. “Have you?” He stared at Adam, reading every expression.

  Adam couldn’t have lied if he wanted, because he wasn’t prepared for that question in return.

  “No, but I wish I did.”

  Don nodded. “We were wondering if you had.”

  “I’ve questioned Horton, trying to figure out if Dad had help from him, but he says he doesn’t know anything, and I kind of believe him.”

  Don thought for a moment. “The thing is, I don’t think your dad would have come right out and told Horton anything specifically, but maybe Horton noticed something your dad did that he would tell you that he hasn’t told us.”

  “Really? What do you want me to do?”

  “Just talk to him. Pick his brain to find out what he saw your dad doing here in the last couple of months before he died. We know your dad came a few more times than usual toward the end. Keep in mind that Horton has been mentally retired for quite a while, and he is pretty oblivious to things because of that. We thought that maybe just the fact that it’s you asking might jar some memory loose.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” said Adam.

  Adam wondered just how he would get information out of Horton that no one else in the League could, but since it concerned his dad, he was going to try again. Another thought that had been lurking in his subconscious up until that point came to the surface next.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he asked Don.

  “Sure,” Don answered.

  “Why would my Dad move the Heartstone? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. There were so many levels of traps and secrets that it would have been impossible for Larix to figure out.”

  “We’ve wondered the same thing,” said Don. “About the only thing we’ve come up with is that he thought someone was going to leak the information to Larix – which did happen eventually – and decided that if he was the only one who knew where it was, it would be hidden forever.”

  “But if he was caught and they used that gas on him, he would have told them where it was anyway, so it still wasn’t foolproof,” said Adam.

  “But it became foolproof when he died,” said Don.

  “Yeah, but he didn’t know he was going to die, though,” said Adam.

  Don’s face gave up a little too much information.

  “He knew he was going to die?” asked Adam.

  Don grimaced and then nodded once.

  “How?”

  “After he had passed away, we found out that he had been to see some specialists because he felt bad one time while he was away from Grayson. They ran some tests and found out that he had major heart problems. We didn’t find out about it until afterward and had forgotten about that information until we began investigating what he had been doing near the end. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter, and it wasn’t the kind of thing we wanted to tell your mom since he had already passed away when we found out.”

  “What kind of heart problems did he have? Couldn’t he have gotten treatment? Couldn’t the Teneo have fixed it?”

  “I really didn’t want to tell you any of this, Adam. This isn’t the kind of stuff I think you want to hear, but yes, he could have received some treatment and even possibly a heart transplant. The odds were still only 50/50 at the time that he’d recover, but he refused treatment.”

  “He refused?” Adam asked, not believing what he was hearing. “Why would he do that?”

  “Well, your Dad was one that always looked at the greater good. We think that he refused treatment so that after he moved the Heartstone and then he died, no one would be able to find where he hid it. In his thinking, he was sacrificing a few months or even a year of his life to save others, specifically your family and the people in Grayson.”

  Adam was shocked, but Don’s words rang true. In all that he had heard about his father, that sounded like something he would attempt.

  “But if that’s the case, it will be nearly impossible to find. I mean, he didn’t want it found again, so he would have covered his tracks,” said Adam.

  “As you’ve learned here, there’s always some sort of trail to follow, and he knew that better than anybody. I mean, he was so high profile in the League that it would have been tough for him to go anywhere unusual without being seen. But besides that, we don’t think that he hid it somewhere to never be found again. Otherwise, why would he have left clues?”

  Adam was confused. “What clues?”

  “The Aeturnum symbol hidden in the fake Heartstones for one,” said Don.

  “So that truly wasn’t part of Elianora’s plan?” said Adam.

  Don shook his head. “Someone else put it there, and it makes sense that it was your dad. He was the only one who had the skill to do it, although Elianora didn’t think he was able. And then you have the note in place of the Heartstone. Why leave a note at all, and on top of that, why initial it?”

  “If he knew he was going to die, wouldn’t the note just confirm that there’s no way to find any information about where it’s hidden?”

  “That’s what we thought at first, but you’ve already said it. If he hadn’t left anything at all, wouldn’t that be the safest? No one would know he took it and no one would have any clue who did. Because of the note, we at least have a starting point.”

  Suddenly things were becoming clearer.

  “My mom didn’t demand that Horton come back to teach us this year, did she? You guys did,” said Adam.

  Don grinned. “See, that’s the kind of thinking that’s going to help you a lot. You’re right. We knew that if Horton thought your mom requested him we’d have a better chance that he’d come back. We also thought that you’d be able to get more information from him than us, just because you’d make him remember things merely by the fact that you look a lot like your father.”

  Adam thought about it for a moment.

  “Why does Elianora even want to find it? She said last year that it was a w
eight off her shoulders that it was gone. If she gets it back, she’ll still have to deal with hiding it again.”

  “She knows that you will be in a lot of danger until the Heartstone is found again, so she feels that if we can locate it we can protect you.”

  “Besides the fact that Larix wants to make an example of me, isn’t everyone in danger?”

  “We think you are especially because we believe your abilities will be the key to finding the Heartstone again. We don’t know how much Larix knows, but if he finds out that your father is the one who hid it, you’ll be in extra danger. You seem to have the same abilities as your father, you know. Besides, he thought you had it last year and kept it from him.”

  Adam nodded. “What about my mom and the rest of the people in Grayson? Won’t Larix try and use her to get to me?”

  “When you come home for Christmas you will see the changes. Your mom is under 24 hour guard, and we’ve brought in the best security we have to protect the town.”

  “It’ll be nice to be home for a couple of weeks,” said Mark.

  Adam had almost forgotten the others were there due to the intensity of his conversation with Don.

  “Sorry,” said Don, “But you get three days. Christmas Eve through Boxing Day. That’s it.”

  “What? Come on!” exclaimed Mark.

  “Calm down,” said Jimmy.

  “Hardly enough time to play with my presents,” Mark huffed.

  The others ignored him.

  “I’ll try and talk to Horton before coming home and see what I can find,” said Adam.

  “Good. Hopefully you’ll have something to tell us over Christmas,” said Don, a smile returning to his face.

  Don looked at his watch. “We had better get you guys back to class. Don’t want you to be late,” he said. “But if I know Horton, you’ve got a little extra time before he even gets there.”

  Don led them back to the classrooms, reminiscing all the way, but Adam had other thoughts on his mind.