Gnotret (The Accidental Heroes Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Gnotret

  by

  S. E. Cyborski To my parents, David and Joann, who taught me to always reach for my dreams.

  To Nicole, John, and Kylie for their endless patience with rough drafts and frantic

  questions.

  To Nicole for her wonderful cover art Chapter 1

  It was a warm, lazy, spring day in Chicago when everything I knew about my life

  changed. The snow had finally all melted and people were walking and skating along Lake

  Shore Drive in shorts and T-shirts. Amy and I often joined them, taking a break from all the

  homework our grad classes were piling on. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Sometimes, to

  understand where you’ve gone, you need to know where you came from. And, no matter what

  we’ve become, we were normal, hopeful people at one point. People who were going to make a

  difference in the world. Until we met Dr. Carnesby and submitted to his medical trial.

  My name is George Ormond and I lived in Chicago. Before everything about me

  changed, I had green eyes, brown hair, and was tall and somewhat lanky. I was a graduate

  level anthropology student with a sociology minor at the University of Chicago. I wanted to travel

  and study tribal cultures, the ones considered “less advanced” than our own. Studying the

  differences between those cultures and my own had always fascinated me. I shared an

  apartment with my girlfriend Amelia Veksler, though she preferred to be called Amy. She was an

  Economics major and wanted to work for a Fortune 500 company once she graduated. She

  didn’t change much after everything, her short blond hair still waving about her face, blue eyes

  sparkling merrily. She was small and delicate, resembling the pixie of her favorite haircut. Amy

  took to all this much better than I did. But what happened to her didn’t change her fundamental

  nature as mine was changed.

  Which then leads me to the others who joined in on the medical trial. Billy Layfield,

  Sandra Johnson, and Michael Tusing were also students at the U of C. Billy was in medical

  school, Sandra was in law school, and Michael was an astrophysics major. We all had plans,

  places we wanted to be once we were all done. During the trial, when we couldn’t sleep for the

  side effects, we’d all sit in the lounge and talk in the dim light. We’d trade stories back and forth about our pasts and where we wanted our futures to go. It was in this lounge that we started

  discovering our powers, about two weeks into the trial.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself again. It was a Monday and I was taking a break with

  Amy in between classes. She had a flyer with her, thick block wording on a white background.

  She waved it at me, a grin on her face. Taking it from her, I read through the words quickly and

  found my mouth dropping open in surprise.

  “A medical trial?” I asked,confused. “You want to participate in getting new drugs

  injected into you to see what they do?”

  “I want usto participate in it,” Amy said gaily, flopping down in the chair next to me and

  pulling out her lunch. “You know we’ve been short on cash lately and it pays very well.”

  I looked down towards the bottom and my eyes widened. They were willing to pay five

  grand to each participant for a month. Though the only downside was we’d have to stay in their

  facility. That meant skipping class and work and I didn’t think that was going to fly. But it did

  sound interesting. I’d heard of Dr. Carnesby before, the man running the trial. He was a tenured

  professor at the U of C, working in the biochemistry department. There’d been whispers about

  him running around campus but, then again, there were whispers about every professor. Just

  because a man liked to keep to himself didn’t mean he was an axe murderer or in Witness

  Protection or any of the other hundred rumors floating around campus.

  “I don’t think I can get out of work for this,” I hedged, looking up from the flyer into Amy’s

  gorgeous cerulean eyes. She was giving me her puppy-dog eyes, a glimmer of tears showing at

  the corners. Which just wasn’t fair. She knew exactly what her eyes did to me, how she could

  make me do pretty much whatever she wanted just by shining her lovely eyes at me.

  “Please, George?” Amy said softly, one hand coming to rest on my arm. “It’s ten

  thousand dollars in one month. Imagine what we can do with that money. I know you’re fine with

  your classes, youalways work ahead. And if you can’t get a month off from your boss, after all the work and overtime you’ve put in, maybe you need to just quit. Kittlesby should be willing to

  work with you after all the work you’ve given him.”

  “We don’t even know what they’re testing,” I argued, pointing at the flyer again. “It only

  says “medical trial”. Who knows what the side effects might be. It could even kill us.”

  “If they’re in human trials, the animals survived the tests,” Amy said reasonably. She

  always tended to follow medical news and what new drugs and procedures were coming out

  since her family was in medicine. It was something of a hobby for her.

  “Yeah, the animals survived,” I repeated, nodding. Amy looked happy about that until I

  continued, “But how much like a human is a rat or a rabbit? What they can live through would

  kill us. I mean, look at deer. They can eat poison ivy and stuff and not have anything happen to

  them at all.”

  “Come on, George,” Amy replied, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like they’re going to give us

  poison ivy pills or anything. And it says on the flyer that they have an informational meeting

  before any testing goes on. Just come with me to the meeting and you can decide then.

  Please?”

  I looked away from her pleading eyes, growling under my breath. I knew that I was going

  to cave, so did Amy, but I didn’t want to do so right away. I really did have a bad feeling about

  this, although I’d seen flyers before for testing on campus. Poor college kids looking for money

  is always a fertile ground to find volunteers for just about anything. Reading through the words

  one more time, I decided to at least go to the meeting with Amy. And try to research Dr.

  Carnesby a little bit first. Who knows, one of the rumors flying around may have a basis in fact

  and I like to know everything I can about something before I get involved with it.

  “Fine,” I said finally, much to Amy’s delight. She pressed kisses to my cheek, all but

  squealing in delight. “Thank you,” she said, taking the flyer back and folding it before tucking it into her

  backpack. “I didn’t want to go alone and everyone I’ve talked to is scared to go. Dr. Carnesby

  has a bit of a terrifying reputation on campus.”

  “You’re welcome, Tink,” I replied, smiling at her exuberance. Amy really was a kid in

  some ways but she was adorable. She was mine and I loved her fiercely. If going to this

  meeting made her happy, then I’d go. Though I’d reserve judgement on actually going through

  with the trial. No sense getting into something if it was dangerous, right?

  We made plans to meet
at the cafe on campus for the meeting since it was sandwiched

  in between our classes in three days’ time. My alarm went off, warning me that I needed to

  leave if I wanted to get to my class on time. I gave Amy a kiss and walked away, letting the trial

  fade from my mind. It wasn’t important when I had to deal with identifying the painters from

  shards of Greek pottery for my upcoming class. Chapter 2

  The morning of the meeting, Amy reminded me that we were supposed to meet at the

  cafe. I had completely forgotten and was slightly annoyed that she had remembered. One of the

  best ways to deal with some of her stranger ideas was to just ignore them until they’d passed.

  I’d gotten out of trying jello wrestling and acupuncture that way.

  “I’m still having bad feelings about this,” I said, getting ready that morning. I was

  brushing my teeth in the bathroom while Amy made breakfast, so I had to shout a bit to be

  heard.

  “You have bad feelings about everything new,” Amy chided me, over-exaggerating in her

  annoyance. “Besides, you already agreed to go and just listen.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, coming out of the bathroom. “But I’m worried about you. You

  never listento my bad feelings. Remember that vacation we took to Vegas?”

  “That was one time,” Amy laughed, turning to hand me an egg and bacon sandwich.

  “Besides, I was doing fine at the blackjack table until that hand. We were up almost three

  grand.”

  “Which was then lost,” I said, taking a bite out of my sandwich and letting out a pleased

  noise. “I swear, you are one of the best cooks I’ve ever known, Tink.”

  “Stop trying to flatter me to get out of this,” Amy said, though a smile crossed her face.

  Cooking was one ofthe hobbies she’d actually stuck with and Amy was a genius when it came

  to food and our limited budget. “Besides, the meeting is only an hour. You can even eat during it

  and you won’t miss your lunch hour.”

  “All right, I give,” I said. I handed Amy her jacket and put mine on before opening the

  door. Spring in Chicago was a fickle mistress. One day it might be warm and sunny and the

  next, slush is falling from the sky. Today, it was somewhere in between. Gunmetal gray clouds covered the sky and a cold wind blew at us. But there was no rain and no snow. Thank god for

  small favors, right?

  The day passed quickly; my classes were easy today. I only had two before the meeting

  and was at the cafe about fifteen minutes before Amy. She hurried in, her hair whipping in the

  wind, and gave me a tired smile when she saw me.

  “Ready to go?” I asked, looping her arm through mine. The meeting was being held in

  the biology building, near Dr. Carnesby’s office. I knew the rooms in there were small so

  hopefully this trial wouldn’t be full of several students hoping for a little extra cash. We walked

  there quickly, heads down against the cold wind. The biology building was close to the cafe so

  we didn’t have to walk far. When we found the room on the third floor, six other students were

  sitting at the horseshoe-shaped tables but there was no sign of Dr. Carnesby. I recognized three

  of them, a set of triplets who’d been in a few of my classes before. They stayed silent and I

  couldn’t recall their names as they had rarely spoken in the class

  “Hey,” one of the guys said, waving at us. He had dark blonde hair, gray eyes, and was

  very muscular. He seemed short for all that he was sitting. “My name’s Michael. Michael Tusing.

  Who are you?”

  “I’m Amy Veksler and this is my boyfriend George Ormond,” Amy replied, introducing us

  both as we sat down. “You guys all here for the medical trial?”

  “That we are,” the only other woman said. She flipped her long brown hair over her

  shoulder, her dark brown eyes trained on us. She looked like a runner and had the wiry

  physique of one. “I’m Sandra Johnson. And the silent guy over there is my neighbor Billy

  Layfield.”

  Billy waved at us, his black hair at odds with his violet eyes. He was very quiet and acted

  shy, hiding behind the cover of his book. He was very tall, sitting taller than anyone else there.

  I’d seen violet eyes on only one other person before and it was startling to see them on a guy. He turned back to the book he was reading, something about medical procedures in the 19th

  century to judge by the cover. We sat in silence for a few moments before I laughed nervously.

  “So, you guys know anything about this trial?” I asked, looking around the room.

  “Not a thing,” Sandra replied cheerfully. She blew a bubble and popped it loudly, the

  sound echoingaround the small room. “But I could always use five grand. I figure it can’t hurt to

  come listen.”

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Amy exclaimed, smiling at Sandra before slanting a knowing

  look at me. “George didn’t want to come, even with the promise of payment after the trial.”

  “I just don’t like this. What if it turns out to maim us or kill us in some horrible fashion?” I

  muttered, glaring at Amy. Though the look held no real heat; I was just as curious about this

  now as she was.

  “So what are you guys studying?” Michael asked. “I’m an astrophysics major and I’m

  hoping to work for NASA once I’m done here.”

  “Econ for me,” Amy replied and I was grateful for the change in topic. “I want to work in a

  Fortune 500 company. Maybe make CEO one day.”

  “Well, you dream big,” Sandra laughed. “But I guess I’m no different. I’m in law school

  and I want to be a district attorney at some point. What about you George?”

  “I’m in anthropology,” I said, getting the blank looks I was expecting. Not many people

  knew what it was. “I want to study tribes in the Amazon.”

  “So you just study people for a living?” Michael asked, arching an eyebrow at me. “What

  kind of job is that? I do that when I’m bored in restaurants.”

  “It’s something that’s always interested me,” I said, shrugging. “And it’s not the same as

  just watching people in a restaurant. I study specific actions, traits, or beliefs and try to

  understand a whole culture based on that research.”

  “George is protective of his work because so many people are dismissive,” Amy said,

  rubbing a hand over my shoulder. “And I think if more people thought like him, the world would be a nicer place. There might be less fighting and discrimination if we all understood where

  everyone was coming from.”

  “All right, truce,” Michael said, laughing. “I’ve just never met anyone studying

  anthropology before and why they do it. So, Billy, what about you? What are you studying?”

  “I’m in medical school,” Billy said, his deep voice soft. “I’m training for surgery and I want

  to work for the U of CHospital once I graduate.” He brandished the book at us, the cover easy

  to read now. It was indeed about medical procedures and now the subject made more sense.

  Though the picture on the cover was making me a little queasy. We looked expectantly at the

  other guys, John, James, and Jerry I finally remembered their names to be, but they just shook

  their heads in eerie unison.

  Once the initial introductions were out of the way, I fell silent and just watched everyone

  interact. Amy and Sandra took over the conversation, laughing together as if they’d known each


  other for years. Billy went back to his book, looking up every once in a while to offer a pointed

  question or comment before going back to his reading. Michael just flirted with Amy and Sandra,

  harmless jokes and innuendo flowing from his mouth.

  Soon, the conversation turned to Dr. Carnesby and the medical trial. The others knew no

  more than us, having found the flyers tacked up to the notice boards that littered the campus. I

  rolled my eyes as Michael and Sandra started repeating all the rumors about the professor,

  each one more ridiculous than the last. I couldn’t keep back the snort when Michael suggested

  he was royalty that had been exiled from his home and decided to come teach here under a

  pseudonym.

  “That sounds like the plot to a bad spy novel or something,” I said when Michael looked

  at me quizzically. “Besides, Dr. Carnesby’s been here for years. He’d have to be since he’s

  tenured.”

  “Doesn’t mean the man we think is Dr. Carnesby didn’t kill the real one and take his

  identity or something,” Michael retorted, a grin on his face. He, Sandra, and Amy were really getting into the conspiracy theories. “I mean, what if he’s really a murderer and he uses these

  trials as a way to find victims?”

  “Then we’re all idiots and should probably leave as soon as possible,” I replied

  sarcastically, shaking my head. “He’s not here yet so now’s the time to escape him.”

  “Escape who?” a light voice enquired. We all turned to see Dr. Carnesby walk in, a

  manilla folder tucked underneath his arm. I’d never had a class with him before so I took a few

  moments to study the professor. He had salt-and-pepper hair, a gray beard, and piercing brown

  eyes. He was of medium height, slightly shorter than me, and wore a green polo shirt and black

  jeans. Dr. Carnesby moved quickly, his limbs easy, though he was slightly overweight. The

  professor sat down at the head of the horseshoe we had left open and surveyed us.

  “You must have been talking about the rumors about me that inundate the campus,” he

  continued, a quiet laugh escaping him. “Well, I can promise you I’m not a murderer or kidnapper

  and I am the real Dr. Carnesby. Though you can call me Adam if you decide to go through the

  trial. No sense resting on formalities there.”