Running out of the car, I follow the map on my phone and head towards the Steeles’ house. I hide behind the tree in front. Hope no one inside is watching out the dining room window, since I’m clearly visible. Scanning the interior, I only spy Shelly watching TV in the main room. I also detect her dad in the back study.
Now that I’m near the front door, my plan can go to work. I text Shelly with Aaron’s phone.
“Hey—Zach. Had to borrow Aaron's phone. Head outside and to the right, I’m parked in the woods.”
Shelly beats even my expectations by bursting out the front door less than a minute after I send the message. As soon as she’s halfway down the long driveway, I dash to the front door. Unlocked, of course. I had no doubt that Shelly would forget.
As I’ve already scanned inside, I know that her father is towards the back of the house. I take a few turns and find him reading a book in the study. Sneaking up behind him, I clear my throat.
He stirs. I hold out Aaron’s phone, which plays the video of Shelly morphing through the car. His face fills with terror and his mouth opens to speak.
I give him the shh gesture. “Say anything, and this video goes live across the country.”
He nods.
“My dad did nothing wrong. Just like your daughter. They got abilities that you’ve decided are Unsound. So, I’ve got a deal for you. You tell everyone that you made a mistake, or my dad is cured, whatever. But he goes free. And I don’t push this upload button and send Shelly’s video across the country.”
“You can’t do this.”
“Ok then.” I bring up a screen with a large button marked ‘upload.’
He raises his hand. “Stop. You do realize this is blackmail, right?”
“I thought that’s what you were doing.”
“I’m trying to protect everyone.”
“From my dad?”
“From destruction.”
“Not sure how being able to give power is so destructive.”
Maddock shakes his head. “It’s his knowledge that’s destructive. Your father claims there is a pattern to GEMO and that we can unlock it.”
“So?
“So what will happen when parents realize their baby will grow up to be an Eater? Or when a child realizes they can’t be a Jumper? When hope is gone, that’s when people act most desperate. Most violent. Society will implode.”
“What will happen when the world finds out your daughter is a Squeezer?” I move my finger over the button again.
He lurches up and snatches the phone. I jump after it, but he tosses it down. The phone smashes to pieces on the tile floor. “I won’t be threatened.”
“That won’t change anything,” I say. “It’s already been scheduled. Unless I do something, it will go live in—”
I nod towards the clock on the wall.
“30 minutes.”
“Who will find it?”
“Oh, it will be posted on Elevateds Acting Stupid. It’s a huge blog my friend runs. Gets thousands of views. I’m sure the media will pick it up after that. Big scandal to have the head of GEMO with an Unsound daughter.”
“You realize that when the truth gets out about your father, I won’t have to kill him. No one will want someone who can instantly kill you running around.”
I take a deep breath. “Which is why we won’t tell anyone. A secret for a secret.”
He sits back down in his chair, glares back at me, then at the wall. “Ok, your dad goes free.”
“I’ll delay the video until five o’clock tomorrow. That should be enough time to get a public statement out there. And if not, Shelly will be revealed.”
He raises his eyebrows. “No one can know the truth about your dad’s power.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m not kidding. He wouldn’t last a few minutes.”
“No one will find out.”
“I hope, for all of our sakes, you’re right.”
He stands up.
“By the way, there was a terrible accident today in the GEMO Control Center’s security room. It seems that all the videos of about five hours were destroyed, including camera footage showing you swiping the ID for Wendy Silvers to enter the Center. You’re welcome.”
He smiles and with a wave of his hand performs a curt bow. If he’s trying to impress me, he’s doing a poor job. Obviously, he wouldn’t want his daughter implicated for murder either, and she would be front and center next to me on those videos. I am grateful, though, that Shelly snuck in with me.
He sits back down.
“Don’t tell Shelly I know about her power,” he says.
“I won’t.”
“And stay away from her. She deserves better friends than you.”
His words smack me in the head.
A secret for a secret.
I was no friend to her. I told her I’d keep her secret, and here I used it as leverage. But I had no choice. Or ,at least, I tell myself that. My mind can’t shake the memory of her wiping away that tear after she hugged me in the car. I don’t know how I’ll be able to talk to her again.
Closing the door behind me, I scan the living room. Empty. Good, the last thing I need now is to run in Shelly. I run across the room, and out the front door.
***
A wave of relief comes over me as I pull up to Elliott’s house. I’ve beaten them. We’ve beaten them. We’re not going to have run, or hide. We can live like everyone else. But I know what lies on the other side of the door. To no surprise, my parents greet me with expressions of horror.
“Where were you?” Mom asks.
“I went to Maddock’s house.”
Dad’s voice rises a few octaves. “His house?”
“Yeah, his house.”
“What were you doing?” Dad asks.
“I made us a deal. Everything is fine.”
Mom scrunches her nose. “A deal?”
“Yeah, I don’t tell the world his daughter is an Unsound, and he’ll stop chasing you.”
“Blackmail, Rose?” Dad says. “Is that how you live your life now?”
“It’s a deal. And it worked.”
“For now,” he says.
It’s like a raincloud over my head. I fooled myself the entire drive home that everything would be different. That we could start fresh, pick up the pieces and build a new life.
“How could you do that?” he asks.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say.
“You could have let me handle it,” Dad says.
“All you two have done to handle it is keep secrets. I don’t want to live in the shadows. Waiting for some one to rat us out one day.”
“But what has changed, Rose?” asks Dad. “They aren’t going to let me tell the world about my ability, are they?”
“You can’t.”
Dad sighs. “So we lay low. We can’t afford to make any slip-ups. We hide our powers.”
I nod.
Mom steps in between us. “What’s done is done. We have to take it one step at a time now. What matters is that we are a family, and for the meantime, we can be safe.”
She hugs us all together.
For the meantime. As much as I try to run, or deal, or change things, there’s nothing I can do. A normal life is impossible. It’s been impossible my entire life. It’s like Elliott told me on Elevation Day. We can't control which system we are born in. We can only control how we cope with it.
Anything else is an illusion.
***
I soak in the warm breeze as Elliott and I stroll through Fowler’s Grove. The air smells of freshly cut grass. As we stroll, I think about the crazy fact that school begins tomorrow.
Considering the weekend I’ve had, going back feels bizarre. I’ll step into class and everyone will look at me as if I’m the same kid who left. If only they had a clue of what I’ve been through the past few days.
“It was a brave thing you did,” Elliott says. “Going to face the Shelly’s dad alone.”
<
br /> “Thanks, my parents seem to think it was stupid.”
He smiles at me. “Oh, it was stupid. But brave.”
I laugh. “And I thought that somehow I could put things right.”
We sit down on a park bench and I gaze out over the field. The glowdaises illuminate the night air with a radiant sparkle.
“You have,” he says. “You can go back to school, your dad can get a job, things can return to normal.”
“Don’t you understand, Elliott, we’re can’t be normal.”
His blue eyes shimmer in the light from the glowdaises. “Maybe not, but normal people don’t change the world, do they?”
“I don’t want to change the world, I just want to have a family.”
He puts his hand on mine. “You can have that too.”
I lean into his shoulder, gazing out at the glowdaisies, drifting peacefully. He strokes my hair gently. Somehow, I feel safe. He kisses my head and I grip his legs tighter.
“I don’t want to live in fear, Rose,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s say that people found out about me. What would happen?”
I jolt up. “You’d be killed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t see how people could adapt.”
“People adapt all the time. Isn’t that what your father believes?”
“Yes but—”
“And doesn’t he believe that Catalysts are going to keep coming?”
“Yes.”
“So how many will it take before people accept them? Five, twenty, three hundred?”
“That’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
Elliott snaps a grass blade. “I’ve been thinking. Do you think me and your dad are the only Catalysts out there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I think there are more. And I think if we search for them, we’ll find them. If others don’t find them first.”
I hold him close. “I don’t know if I want anyone finding out anything.”
“It’s only a matter of time. The truth always gets out.”
As he strokes my hair again, I whisper to myself, “And the truth is power.”
***
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my parents and family for putting up with all of my ridiculous stories I threw at them over the years. Thankfully, most of those stories are in Word Perfect DOS format and will never see the light of day again.
I need to give special thanks to my wife, who convinced me to go on this quest to write a novel in the first place. It took much arm twisting, hair pulling, and coddling to get me finally to believe in myself. For those who have never lived with a writer, consider yourself lucky. We’re not easy to get along with.
The story of Elevated would have not been possible if not for the support I received from the Playwrights Round Table. When they read my original script for the play that inspired this story, we ended up having a lengthy discussion about the implications of the world and technology. What I thought was a cute nugget of a ten minute play (then titled, “Gamma Day), became a huge world that I had to explore. It also gave me the first excuse to depart from playwriting, as I knew my vision could never materialize on stage. Although, if anyone out there has the proper rig to do a Zach flying sequence, I’m more than happy to work on a stage version. So thank you Chuck Dent, Al Pergande, David Strauss and the original cast of Gamma Day: Rob Del Medico and Lyndsey Elizabeth.
Thanks to my original readers of Elevated: Bethany Janovec, Marcus D’Amelio, Anna Zumbro, Marcia Kuma, Suzanna Linton, Kim Beck, Geoff Ring, Jennifer Orth, Beca Johnson, and J. Anthony D'Aguiar, you all provided great comments and support.
Thanks to my wonderful editor and proofreader Ashley Clarke, who has become a wonderful cheerleader and moral support. Thanks for saving me from some of my unfortunate word choices.
And finally, thanks to the hosts of Writing Excuses: Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Dan Wells. If it wasn’t for your terrific show I would have never been the writer I am today. Hopefully I made you proud.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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
Acknowledgments
Roger Wesson wiped his glasses off, still dusty from the archaeological dig site. The long hours digging made him weary, and he now looked forward to a quiet evening at home.
Taking a seat on his couch, he turned on the TV with a wave of his hand. The theme song for Elevated Love blared through the speakers, and he groaned.
“More reality TV trash,” he says, flipping through the channels with a wave from his wrist.
He finally settled on a documentary about the Naturals. While most of the TV shows about them were complete bunk, it was fun to see the crazy theories from the wacky investigators. Usually, they saved the best stories for their book, which they advertised at every commercial break.
Just as the researcher was about to uncover a Natural in the woods, Roger heard a thump from his bedroom. He brushed it off as his imagination.
But then he heard the sound again.
Roger stood up and turned towards his bedroom. He jumped back in shock as the door flung open toward him. A tall shadowy figure stood in the doorway, a blue light radiating from his hand.
Then Roger fell to the ground. Dead.
Table of Contents
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
Acknowledgements
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Elevated (Book 1): Elevated Page 20