Gobi Desert
Kellett School, Matthew Chung, Fiction: Group 3
Chapter 1
The morning wind painted long, wavy lines in the cold, snowy gravel with delicate strokes.
Flicking up granules that pattered against the rock face like morning rain off a window. John
pulled the canister from his backpack and checked his compass: Northeast. That’s were the
monastery was. Still a day’s hike from the monastery. He pulled his jacket up around him to block
out the cold Mongolian wind, and with a marker, highlighted another rocky outcrop just a mere 5
kilometers from where he was now.
Is this where he was meant to be? Had A.B.C.O.T. sent him on this god – forsaken scavenger
hunt for nothing? 6 months, it had been since John had started this “training exercise” in the
frozen forests of Canada, from there sailing in an inflatable raft to the coast of Morocco. More
desert traversing. Then, through Northern Algeria. From eastern Tunisia it was back to sailing
until he reached the forests of Turkey. The one place he found respite and serenity in, was in those
lush forests. From there, it was a trek through a small bit of Russia, Kazakhstan, until he came
here, The Majestic, deadly but beautiful Gobi Desert.
In each country, he was forced to tasks that tested him to his limits, leaping from tree to tree
to escape wolves, fighting storms in the Atlantic ocean, diving into icy cold water to retrieve the
canister he now held and used. He wasn’t alone however. Each country had a contact waiting for
him. For one night, he would rest there. They would then resupply him with food and what he
needed for the next part of his journey, and he would continue on his way.
Here in the Gobi desert, he was to be expected by an elderly, kindly monk in a monastery just
a day’s hike away. With his water supply exhausted, he decided to attempt to reach the monastery
by the next day, to save time and energy.
Content, he put the canister into his pack and tucked the marker into his pocket. He steeled
himself and once again exposed himself to the raging winds, furious heat, and irritating sand.
Once more into the fray, He thought as his foot sank into the sand.
Chapter 2
The Archaic intelligence Bureau Concerning Overseas Targets (A.B.C.O.T.) had set up its base in
Boston, Massachusetts, back in 1964. A covert society founded by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, that had had its original base in Dallas, Texas. After, the assassination of JFK, they
moved. Known only by the highest ranking government officials and the president, it was
concerned with gathering intelligence on overseas affairs, and, if necessary, sending one of their
elite soldiers to aid a military investigation.
Project: PEACEKEEPER used to train 10 candidates a month. But, due to the failures to survive
the augmentation processes, they narrowed it down to one candidate a year. Each candidate was
required to have a basic fitness level and a basic knowledge of the chemical and biological sciences,
reading maps and recording data, perform the hardest mental math calculations in a maximum of
10 seconds and to be able to write descriptive and vivid reports of a mission.
