Last Chance Volume 2 - The Legend of the Hathmec: Planting the Seed

  LAST CHANCE

  VOLUME 2 -

  THE LEGEND OF

  THE HATHMEC

  PLANTING THE SEED

  BRADLEY H. BOALS

  Cover art by Les Macdiarmid.

  For more information on this and other books in this series, visit hathmecbook.com.

  © 2015 Bradley H. Boals

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 151530079X

  ISBN 13: 9781515300793

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015912502

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  I dedicate this book to all of my nieces and nephews: Amber, Nick, Zac, Dallas, Blake, Chase, Miranda, Seth, and Brandon. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish your goals and strive for the things that seem impossible. I’m proud of you all. Special thanks to my mom, Rose Mary; my dad, Benny; and my wife, April. You are still my biggest supporters, and I couldn’t do any of this without you.

  Thank you to Amanda Banker Schaser. Your honesty and enthusiasm keep things interesting.

  Thank you, Mark Huddlestun and Jim Simmons. I’ll be bugging you again next year.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  It’s Show Time

  CHAPTER 2

  Family Secrets

  CHAPTER 3

  Copycat

  CHAPTER 4

  Question of the Day

  CHAPTER 5

  The Field Trip

  CHAPTER 6

  A Horrible Truth

  CHAPTER 7

  Phase Two

  CHAPTER 8

  Home

  CHAPTER 9

  Brothers and Sisters

  CHAPTER 10

  It’s Just a Bird

  CHAPTER 11

  Flashback

  CHAPTER 12

  Ready and Willing

  CHAPTER 13

  I Love the Eighties

  CHAPTER 14

  A Little Birdie Told Me

  CHAPTER 15

  Keep it to Yourself

  CHAPTER 16

  Issue of Trust

  CHAPTER 17

  Hit the Road

  CHAPTER 18

  The Gray Bag

  CHAPTER 19

  Heartbreaks and Hathmecs

  CHAPTER 20

  Blood Ties

  CHAPTER 21

  You Should Be Flattered

  About the Author

  Brace yourselves for the coming battle between good and evil. But whom can you trust? For April, Matthew, and Connor, that’s a good question. In this second installment of the Hathmec series, we discover that actions have consequences, and the ramifications can be life changing. With the help of the Curry kids, the Chance family is once again thrust into action as their quest to build the ultimate weapon to combat the Minister continues with a trip through time and a separation that may destroy them all. New allies emerge, and old allies come to the rescue in this action-packed sequel. An alien pendant can help them, but the love they have for one another can save them in their battle against doubt and the fear of the unknown. Will the Chance family band together or fall apart in the face of their new obstacles? The stakes have never been higher. Whom will you trust? Join the resistance, save the future, and take a chance.

  Chapter 1

  IT’S SHOW TIME

  Total darkness can frighten anyone. The lack of light to the eye and absence of heat to the skin can take away the breath of the bravest of men. An unknown creak followed by the faint hint of a voice with no face would fray the nerves of anyone.

  This reality was all too real for one young lady as she sat strapped to a chair. A dark cloth bag covered her head. Just enough air seeped through it to accommodate her ever-increasing breathing rate. The drugs that had been given to her had worn off, and the true darkness of the moment took her to a place of panic that her mind couldn’t fathom.

  She tossed her head back and forth, trying to loosen the ties of the cover that blocked her sight. Her wrists and ankles were bound to the chair. It resembled a wheelchair, but both the seat and back were constructed out of cold steel, with no give for comfort. She felt the straps tighten as she pulled and struggled to no avail.

  Her breathing continued to escalate, and she started to hyperventilate. In the midst of her struggle for air, she could hear a muffled voice behind her.

  “Should I give this one another shot?”

  A female voice responded. “No, we don’t want the crowds thinking we’ve killed them before the show.”

  “Who is that? What’s happening to me?” In her panic, she tried to turn her head, but the restraints were too tight.

  “Can anyone hear me?”

  A weak response came from the side of the young woman.

  “I can hear you. Just try to calm down.”

  The woman turned her head as far to the right as she could and responded.

  “Who is that? What do you want?”

  “Let me guess,” a young male voice replied. “You’re strapped to a chair with a bag over your head. Yeah, me too.”

  The young lady, no more than thirty years old, asked, “What’s happening to us? Why are we here?”

  “I don’t know,” he responded. “I can’t see anything. I think I’ve been asleep for a while.”

  The young boy was quiet for a moment and then asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know your name, would you?”

  She started to answer the boy but soon realized that she couldn’t. She didn’t know who she was.

  “I don’t remember my name.”

  He asked, “Do you remember anything about yourself? I’m having the same problem. I don’t know my name either.”

  She started to cry. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t even know what I look like.”

  The boy tried to comfort her, doing his best to reduce the panic in his own voice. “Look, I have a feeling that we’re gonna be ok. We’ll get through this together.”

  There was no response, so he continued. “What would you like me to call you? Do you think you’re a Kate…or maybe a Becky?”

  “Just call me Ap—”

  A masculine hand grasped the back of the young lady’s neck before she could finish. Its unsympathetic owner said, “There will be silence in this room at all times. We are mere moments from making the Minister a very happy man, and I will have silence.” The man released her neck, and she continued to cry.

  In response to her tears, he added, “It’s a real shame that you have been put into this situation, but it’s your own fault. You people just don’t belong here.”

  The young woman continued to weep but through her gasping sobs managed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Just let us go!”

  The special agent to the Genesis Camp’s security signaled another guard to raise a door. She could hear the grinding of gears as the door creaked and cracked to an open position. Without warning, the bags that had covered the faces of the young woman and the boy to her right were removed, and light poured into the pupils of their eyes. It blinded both of them, but within a few seconds, the boy could clearly see the frightened young woman to his right.

  “I can see you now, and you’re very pretty. I like your blond hair.”

  The young woman peeked to her side and found that she could now see the boy. “He couldn’t be more than fifteen years old,” she thought to herself. She felt a strange bond with the boy, but she didn’t know why.

  “Prepare the tanks. We only have ten minutes.”

  As she continued to focus h
er eyesight, she asked, “Ten minutes for what? Ten minutes for what?”

  Ten minutes doesn’t seem like a long time. In fact, it would be considered a mere blip in the lifetimes of most people. Much like the last two weeks in the lives of the Chance family, the last two weeks for the leaders and government officials of Sector 1 had been full of unknowns.

  The Supreme Leader, Minister Hathmec, had been rather silent about the issues that had occurred in Sector 37. An explosion and murder had rocked the very core of the Supreme Leader’s perfect society, but he had not involved himself in finding a solution to the issue.

  Keith Kellington and the Supreme Leader’s son, Thomas, had taken the lead in determining what had happened in Sector 37. Thomas, who was the head of world security, had increased details in the sector for an entire week after the events involving April and her boys. He and Keith had worked the scenes at April’s apartment and the explosion site, but they were coming up empty on clues to what she had been up to and were no closer to determining the real cause of the explosion.

  While the security had tightened to an almost strangled point in Sector 37, word about the explosion and the murder of a security lead had started to spread to other sectors. Citizens worried about their own safety and demanded to know what was being done to ensure that nothing like this would happen to them. Sector 1 and the Council of Compassion and World Order had received numerous calls from other continents. They were concerned about attacks on their own soil.

  Thomas, always one to downplay the concerns of the people, called for a massive manhunt to track down April and her sons. Keith led the teams around Sector 37. Intimidating citizens as he needed to, he’d still been unsuccessful in the search. He had used his persuasive techniques and Hathmec powers to terrorize everyone with any connection to April. This included coworkers, neighbors, and even the dinner-delivery personnel.

  Thomas was incensed that he couldn’t track down a mere woman and two young boys. He was also getting frustrated with his father’s lack of action. Any act against the society his father had built had to be handled with a swift reply. He knew that citizens were only content in their own safety as long as they knew they were protected. When they no longer felt that government was keeping them secure, they might start questioning, thinking they could do a better job themselves. Time was running out for a solid response to the problem.

  The day before the Chance family was due to arrive back in 2185, the Minister called for his son and Keith. They organized a transport to bring them to a meeting location in Sector 1.

  The men entered a secured room, expecting to see Evan Elliott, otherwise known as the Supreme Leader or Minister, but they were greeted by Roger Timmons instead. Roger was a direct aide to the Supreme Leader and handled most of his day-to-day activities.

  “Well, if it ain’t Thomas and Keith, the two musketeers of the security world. I haven’t seen you blokes in ages.”

  Thomas recognized the heavy accent and replied, “Can you not get rid of that horrible accent? I was expecting to see my father. Where is he? Scaring the council again?”

  Roger grinned and said, “He’s monitoring a very important project and wasn’t able to make it. He’ll be here tomorrow. And no, I can’t get rid of my ‘horrible’ accent.”

  Keith asked, “Why did he send for us today if he isn’t coming until tomorrow?”

  Roger poked Keith in the stomach and said, “He wants you two to get everything set up for his arrival. You see, he’s goin’ onto the worldwide communications stream in the morning to calm the public. Since you two yankers have done such a lousy job of tracking down these terrorists, the Minister’s gonna take things into his own hands.”

  Roger thrust a piece of paper at Keith, who took it and looked it over.

  “What’s this address? Are we supposed to meet him there?”

  “You’re supposed to go to that location tomorrow, no later than ten twenty in the morning,” Roger replied, “You’ll know what to do when you get there.”

  Roger turned to Thomas and handed him a second note. “You’re supposed to head to the studio and meet up with your father. He’s plannin’ on going live by ten thirty-five. There’ll be an announcement to all the sectors this afternoon. I’m sure we’ll have a hell of a crowd.”

  Thomas took the note and threw it to the ground. “So, my father wants me to set everything up so that he’ll look like the hero of the planet again. He could have at least asked me himself instead of sending his lapdog to do it.”

  Roger smirked at the son of the most powerful man on the planet and straightened the blood-red tie that drooped down over his black suit. Roger loved wearing black suits.

  “Your father trusts you, Thomas, but he’s known me a lot longer. He’s trusted me with his most important projects. Things you’ll never even know about.”

  Roger had killed the Supreme Leader’s only brother and was therefore trusted beyond all other men in his structure of power. Roger knew all of Evan Elliott’s secrets, and he wasn’t about to share them with anyone.

  Roger patted Thomas on the shoulder and said, “I’m sure you’ll understand your father’s actions eventually.”

  Roger walked to the entrance of the room, rubbing his chest. Turning one last time, he said, “Remember, mates, we’re all on the same team.”

  Keith showed Thomas the address that Roger had handed him and told him that he was on his way back to Sector 37. Thomas remarked, “We just came from there. What’s he sending you back for?”

  “I don’t know,” Keith said, shaking his head. “Maybe I’m meeting someone there, or killing someone. You never know with the Minister.”

  Thomas walked to the elevator with Keith, and together they made their way to the lowest level of the building. They were both quiet until the elevator reached its destination.

  Thomas broke the silence. “There’s something going on with this incident and my father. I don’t know what he’s up to, but we need to figure it out, and soon.”

  “I try not to involve myself in anything that the Minister doesn’t want me involved in,” Keith replied. “That’s just asking for problems.”

  Thomas chuckled and said, “Don’t worry about my father, I can handle him. He may have secrets, but I have the brains in the family.”

  Both Thomas and Keith headed out to fulfill the duties the Minister had directed them to complete. Thomas began organizing the feeds for the communications his father would make to the world. He had an entire team working for him to get this done, running cable, setting up backdrops, and preparing for the Minister’s arrival.

  Morning couldn’t get there quickly enough for Thomas. He wanted to know what the Minister had up his sleeve. All he knew for sure was that his father was going to talk to the masses and that there would be a feed from another location at some point in the speech.

  After several hours of work, 10:35 a.m. arrived, and the communications room was ready for the Supreme Leader.

  The roar of the crowd was deafening. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the monitors surrounding them, and cries of “Help us!” and “We need answers!” filled the daytime sky. From Sector 1 to Sector 101, fear had started to take hold. Stories of the attacks that had rocked Sector 37 had made their way around the entire continent, growing into ridiculous tales of large terrorist groups roaming the streets of Sector 37. As the stories were passed from person to person, they grew in scale and impact.

  Scared citizens crowded the areas that had been designed for mass communications to the public. Most of them were positioned in the government-run parks that dotted each sector. A message from Minister Hathmec was due at any moment, and a frightened populace was giddy with excitement.

  “We almost never get to see the Minister,” said one older gentleman.

  “I bet he’ll have this taken care of before the end of the day,” exclaimed one of the security leads.

  The monitors hovering overhead were quite impressive. Used only when Sector 1 felt the need
to emphasize a message, they were well over one hundred feet long and fifty feet tall. Each monitor levitated in the air, as if gravity didn’t affect them. There were thousands of them all over the world, just hovering over the public, awaiting the arrival of the Minister.

  One citizen, a female wearing a dark coat and sunglasses, seemed quite interested in what was to come. For someone who hadn’t wanted to stand out, she certainly didn’t blend in well with the stale colors of work clothes that dominated the area.

  She wasn’t saying anything or joining the crowd in their chants to the empty screens. She stood in one spot among some other ladies in their midthirties and watched the reactions of the others around her. Her slick black hair blended in well with her newfound friends.

  “That’s a nice coat,” remarked one of the ladies at her side. “I like those boots, too. I didn’t know they made boots that came up to your knees anymore.”

  The woman in the black coat replied, “You just have to know where to look for them.”

  Without warning, a familiar jingle engulfed the crowds at every location, the same jingle that would play at the end of each workday to pay homage to the leaders of the sectors. In this case, it was the signal for everyone to be quiet and to pay attention to the screens. All of the citizens lowered their hands and stood in reverence as the monitors started to flicker on and off.

  One of the younger men standing near the woman in the black coat said under his breath, “Where is he? I don’t see him yet.”

  His partner replied, “Be patient.” She took his hand, and he shook his head in excitement.

  The monitors continued to pop in and out of focus until a final spray in the center of the screen gave way to the image of the Supreme Leader, Minister Hathmec. The crowd started to roar with excitement. Men were clapping their hands and women were jumping up and down. The few children in the crowds sat in awe and wonder at the jubilation they were witnessing.

  Crowds from all corners of the earth began to chant “Order! Order! Order!”

  The Minister looked over the crowds, turning his head from left to right. He was able to see many of them on the monitors placed in front of him. He had performed this task many times and had grown used to portraying the proper image to the crowds. He allowed them to continue their exuberant chant for a few minutes, and then he raised his gloved hand into the air.