Leaders of Civilization: The Two New Recruits

By Rahul Menon

A silent wish on a shooting star comes true, turning the two young orphans, Jack and Annies life upside down. Sent on a treacherous quest, to retrieve a powerful weapon; the two heroes travel from China, to Greenland, to unchartered islands of the Pacific Ocean, as they try to unravel the mysterious riddle of the ancient Seismoscope.
Will Jack and Annie pull through the trials ahead of them, and who is the mysterious hot dog vendor? To find out read the first action packed novel from the Leaders of Civilization: The two new recruits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482885705

Rahul Menon

Just like in the book, 17 year old Rahul Menon was born for the spotlight, be it while on stage, in school or almost every other field he enters. Known to most as a kind, thoughtful and slightly crazed friend, he is now also the author of the Leaders of Civilization.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Rahul Menon.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-8569-9

                eBook          978-1-4828-8570-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Index

1.   Introductions

2.   A shooting star

3.   The latest model of Ferrari

4.   Arachnids and reptiles

5.   Chairs and dusters versus teachers

6.   I join the family history

7.   I blast a dragon

8.   I Grow an Aura

9.   Training

10.   I’m a supernaturalist

11.   Our quest begins

12.   High tech leaves and Lionboy

13.   Jack roasts some pigs

14.   Strange dreams from another world

15.   My time with Lionboy

16.   I enter the land where up is down and right is wrong

17.   The Belt of Aelston

18.   Angry blimp

19.   Tnmwdeihpaiadtn

20.   Abducted!

21.   Jail break

22.   Love Hurts

23.   The strongest supernaturalist

24.   Kidnapped

25.   To be continued

To Rohaan,

The best brother one could ask for.

Don’t curse the darkness, ignite your soul!

-Max

Introductions

Hi, my name is Rahul. I’ll try to keep this short; the message I have to give you is long enough. I don’t know which civilization you’re from or what your lineage is but Jack and Annie told me to convey this message to you. I won’t be disclosing more names than I have to. I’m a sixteen year old boy from India. I consider myself a true ‘Jack of all trades.’ I excel at music, drama, literary arts, swimming, cycling, sleight of hand … And well, the occasional combat fighting and sorcery. It all started on the nineteenth of august, two thousand thirteen. Exams had gotten over last week, Friday and I was still tired after the weekend blast and late night of computer games and movies. I kissed my parents goodbye at the gate, little did I know it was going to be the last time I was going to be seeing them for many months to come. I waved to my brother and walked towards the stairway; trudging up the stairs, my heavy bag, sagging behind, putting weight on my back, threatening to overturn it. The place had been cleaned over the weekend, leaving the wooden stairs musty. Like usual the class was empty. I always came to school early; I enjoyed the peace and quiet for fifteen minutes, during which I either read a book or revised for a test. That day, I was reading Robin Sharma’s ‘The Monk who sold his Ferrari.’ I was somewhere near the tenth chapter when everyone started entering class. First there was ... that explosion sounded close! I’ll have to cut to the chase. So basically we all asked each other what we did over the weekend and made other small talk until the bell rang. We all took our seats as our class teacher entered the class to take attendance. I won’t describe how we studied and continued with our portion because honestly I am sure you know exactly the kind of fatal boredom one experiences at school. Anyway, we were all staring intently at the clock as the teacher in class droned on; 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1!!! The bell rang, we all sprang to our feet, wished the teacher and rushed out of class. We ninth graders were lucky, because just outside our classroom, there is a large empty hall which was only used during the exams, so we had a large space to play. (For their safety I shall not be mentioning the names of any of my friends.) So my best friend brought out his sponge ball and we all began to play hand squash along the wall. It was during the third match when it happened, my friend and I had sort of formed an alliance, knocking out everyone else, and so we were both left in the finals. He gave me an easy shot so that I would knock out the last boy left. I was about to hit the ball, when bright blue symbols flashed on the wall. Distracted, I missed the ball itself. Everyone broke out laughing as they saw me miss the easy shot and land hard on my butt; however no one gave any sign of having seen the light flash. I laughed it off and headed towards the classroom for a glass of water. I opened my desk, and was about to take out my bottle, when the symbols flashed again, this time in my desk. I hastily took a step back instinctively, causing the desk to slam shut with a resounding bang. All noise stopped as the bang echoed through the waves of silence. Everyone crowded near the door asking whether I was fine or whether I was feeling sick. I answered that I was just tired which was why the lid had slipped from my hands, and slammed the desk shut. They didn’t seem to buy it, but they left me alone. I shut my eyes and splashed a bit of water on my face. I held the desk for support as I tried to calm my jumpy nerves. I was breathing very heavily as I imagined the symbols, glowing on the wall and in my locker. However what freaked me out wasn’t the symbols itself, but the fact that I could read them; they said, ‘Stay sharp, we are coming.’

I sat in the classroom for a while, playing around with my deck. As I mentioned I practice magic, (only the sleight of hand kind at the time.) and having the deck in my hands always seems to calm me down. I walked back to the hall and managed to imprint a smile on my face, but my mind was racing. I watched as my friend competed against this really fat kid from my class, in the finals, everyone cheering for whomsoever they wanted to win. Suddenly he saw an opening and took it. My friend faked, making it seem like he was going to hit the ball to the right, then with the back of his hand he lobbed the ball in the opposite direction. The plump boy, who had been running to the right, now stopped and jumped desperately trying to make contact with the ball, when all of a sudden he just stopped in mid-air. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, my brain not willing to accept what was happening. I waited for someone to exclaim, what my mind was thinking, ‘****, ****** had been suspended in MID-AIR!’ That’s when I realized everybody else had also been frozen in their tracks. I got to my feet and walked between them, my mind trying to process what was happening. My first conclusion was an elaborate prank at my expense, but as I waved my hand in front of their faces, trying to shake them out of the trance, I realized they weren’t acting. My heartbeat raced as the organ tried to beat its way out of my chest. The world seemed to be spiralling around me as I found myself hyperventilating with fear. I tried coming up with rational reasons behind what was happening but each option seemed more unlikely than the last. I ran to the office to call for help but found everyone in the same state, frozen in time. After a quick survey I found everyone in the school had been immobilized. My mind stopped thinking rationally as panic began to set in. I was going to run off campus, when I heard a loud crash resonating from upstairs. I hesitated at first, but then I steeled my nerves and ran up the stairs, two at a time. As I reached the second floor, I paused outside the door, beads of sweat lining my forehead. Once I was certain there was no one there, I dashed into the hallway, expecting something to be wrong, or something to be broken. Instead everything was just as I had left it, I was standing in the middle of the hall trying to suppress my fear, struggling to make sense of what was happening. I had just decided that this was some sort of hallucination and I was going to wake up in a hospital bed, when someone tapped me on the back, scaring me out of my shoes.

I whirled around, lashing out with my hand, only to have my blow blocked by someone’s palm. Standing there, in front of me were two kids, a boy and a girl, the boy looked older than me, while the girl seemed around the same age, they will be spoken about later. The boy took my hand and shook it saying, "Hi, I am Jack and this is my sister Annie, I would love to stay and chat but I don’t think you have the time. We will explain everything later but right now we have to hurry."

Annie reached out and shut my mouth. She smiled sweetly, sending butterflies fluttering in my stomach and said, Rahul, look, I know this is a lot to take in but we have to leave, now!

My mind was losing its capability to think as it tried to process and comprehend all that was happening.

What happened to everyone? I mumbled, desperately looking for an escape route.

Oh, not to worry, it’s just a temporary spell; we just needed to get you alone. Jack said, Rahul, believe me I understand your confusion, but we have to leave now!

I stared at him as I managed to whimper, But what will I tell the others?

Already in hand. He replied as he took out a small clay doll and set it in my hand. He muttered something, and the statue began to glow, Press its nose.

I reluctantly did so and the statue began to convulse and grow, human features forming over its clay. It kept growing until I was looking at an exact replica of me. They say that for every new experience you have, a fold forms in your brain. I am certain that, I created my own little Grand Canyon in my head that day.

The robot is as smart and talented as you are, and will be in constant contact with you the entire time. said Annie, It is an exact replica of you. We’ve been studying you for days Rahul, and now we are sure that you are one of us.

Though I couldn’t understand even a fragment of whatever it was they were saying; I took their word for it. See, I’m not stupid, I didn’t want to waltz out of there with two strangers, but after they froze all my friends, I was terrified of what would happen to me if I would refuse their offer.

Jack took out two rods, from his bag and handed them to Annie. Very soon, two bikes were parked in the middle of the hall. By this time my mind was mush, I just wasn’t able to process what the hell was happening around me. Jack got onto one and Annie got on to the other. Jack’s backpack took up most of the space on his bike, so I had to sit with Annie. As I sat behind her and wrapped my arms around her, I was absolutely certain I had accidently swallowed a stray swarm of butterflies at some point because my stomach was fluttering uncontrollably. I study at a boy’s school and so I had little experience with girls.

I was about to ask how we were going to go out of the school, when the wall in front of us disappeared and the two revved up their bikes and drove of the building. I closed my eyes and grit my teeth, waiting for the bikes to slam into the floor but no such thing happened. I opened my eyes to find us soaring above the buildings. Large metal wings had sprouted out from the sides of the bikes, and the body had morphed such that we were sitting in a mini plane like vehicle.

Annie began to say, I’m glad everything went ... when she was stopped mid sentence as a mini explosion near our back