Bounty Harvest: The Ebook

By Rendell Mitchell

"I was now thinking differently and had a pulsing rage that matched the pulsing power through my body"

When Adrian Underwood receives an invitation to join an international competition held in California, he never expected his life and his view of the world to change so dramatically. The competition is shrouded in mystery and a promise of great fortune. Each contestant must choose a skill set and compete in stages through the worlds first ever lifelike role playing game. During his journey the young man discovers that the game show he has agreed to take part in is nothing like he could have ever imagined. The more he progresses the more the stakes seem to increase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312991415

Book preview

Bounty Harvest: The Ebook

BOUNTY HARVEST

BY: RENDELL MITCHELL

PREFACE

A message to the reader: Please do not read this book like a normal book. This story was originally written for a visual depiction. For that reason some details have been ignored for one of two reasons; Either to allow the reader to visualize something pleasing to their personal preference or to avoid providing unnecessary or uninteresting details to the reader.

CHAPTER 1: SIGNING UP

You have more to gain from this experience than you stand to lose…this thought echoed through my mind as I contemplated the offer I was given. To be honest, I never thought I would even get the opportunity to enter a tournament like this. Months before I signed up, commercials for the new upcoming show Bounty Harvest would run daily and at the end of each commercial the producer who was also the host of the show Brian Rochester would say that he was sending out invitations to exceptional young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 from all over the world to compete in his new television show. Most people didn’t look at me as an exceptional person, so I never expected to receive an invitation to be on the show.

That viewpoint quickly changed when I ended up on the front page of newspapers after unintentionally assisting police in the capture of an armed robber. The robber was the leader of a group of bank robbers who had successfully completed a string of robberies around the country. I say unintentionally because on the day of the robber’s arrest I was driving to the bank when I saw the bank robber running in front of my car with a gun in his hand. The robber was wearing a hoodie and a creepy facemask with a smile on it. He was looking back to see if he was being followed and he wasn’t paying much attention to anything else. I was terrified thinking that I would be shot at for even being near him. I intended to stop my car and duck down so that he wouldn’t spot me and continue running. I knew criminals weren’t well known for making rational decisions. I tried to push on the breaks to stay out of his way but instead I mistakenly hit the gas in panic. My car rushed forward instead of breaking and the robber was flipped across my hood once he made contact.

The lead bank robber was knocked off balance when my car slammed into him and fell to the ground leaving him stunned and disoriented. I could hear how hard he hit the ground and knew that if he was still conscious that I would be in serious danger. Luckily for me, he was too hurt to get back up quickly. I was able to exit my car from the passenger door as the police caught up to the robber. My little blunder allowed enough time for the police to catch up to him and arrest him. The other robbers fled the scene to avoid being captured as well. During his interrogation the lead robber revealed that before my assistance, the robbers had been running from the banks they robbed into large buildings. They would change clothes while in the large buildings. Clothes they had hidden away a day before the planned robbery. After they successfully changed clothes they would exit with disguises to blend in with panicking civilians. He revealed the strategy of his former allies in order to decrease his prison sentence.

Many people heard about me from the news broadcast that aired not long after the failed robbery. A few weeks later, I met Brian Rochester who found out where I lived through his extended network of connections…his words not mine. He said that he knew people in high places but he did not reveal any specific names. It wasn’t very difficult for him to find me since I lived in a small town. After he was greeted at our door, he sat down at our dinner table and proceeded to reveal his purpose for visiting my home. He stated that he was here to invite me to become a contestant on his television show. He said that his show could use someone with a humble attitude, someone that his viewers could relate to. When he mentioned humble attitude, I realized he was referring to my uncomfortable news interview. During the interview I was trying to explain to the news reporter that I had accidentally pushed on the gas instead of the breaks and she assumed that I was just trying to downplay my bravery.

My mother was apprehensive in allowing me to enter the tournament because she had no idea what exactly would take place on the show and she didn’t want me to miss out on time that I could be spending at college. I was three semesters into a college that I wasn’t particularly excited to be attending. I had no problem getting good grades in school, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed school. Especially, not a school I had no intention of attending. I wanted to leave my town after high school but things don’t always go as planned.

Rochester intended on surprising his viewers so very little was revealed from the commercials that aired on television and this bothered my mother. Rochester reminded her that the commercial points out that the winner of the tournament would receive five million dollars. Rochester added that he would be supplying the contestants with food and housing, using the money he received from his sponsors. I was pleased to find out that I would be well taken care of, but I was also suspicious of this unbelievable opportunity. I didn’t view Rochester as a very trustworthy man since he had a salesman vibe about him, but I felt like I needed this opportunity to try to better my future. My mother knew that she could use the opportunity to get some financial relief. She realized that if she allowed me to enter the tournament she could save enough money to help take care of some debts for her past medical expenses. Eventually, as the conversation continued she broke under the financial pressure.

When my mother agreed to allow me to enter the tournament and take a break from my schooling I shook hands with Rochester and he asked me to sign the terms of agreements for the show. He handed me a set of papers to read through and left saying that he would schedule my flight to California. I was excited to get to leave Texas and visit California, but that excitement dwindled when I read the terms of agreements. The papers were written as though the writer had intentionally designed the wording to be as confusing as possible. I couldn’t make much sense of what I was reading no matter how many different ways I tried to interpret it. I decided to sign it and hope for the best, I reasoned to myself that plenty of people had competed on television shows in the past and the terms of agreements would likely be similar. I was desperate to try to improve my current situation and help take care of my mother.

That night, I wondered if I could trust Rochester. Rochester had an interesting look to him; he was shorter than me and about 5’8" in stature, he had a 50’s greaser style hairdo, he wore fancy suits, he was likely in his 40’s, and he was a very persuasive speaker like a veteran salesman. He was the type of guy who could sell ice to Eskimos. I was really hoping that I had made the right decision. I didn’t want to add more problems to the ones I already had.

When my plane arrived at the California airport I was greeted by a man dressed in a black and white suit. He had slick and greasy brown hair combed to the side and he looked to be in his mid 30’s. He was holding a sign up that had my name on it, Adrian Underwood. There were some other people standing next to him. I found out that they were other contestants from different parts of America. We waited in the airport for two other contestants to arrive. I was caught off guard when I recognized one of the two contestants who arrived after me. It was my former high school classmate Dimitri. He recognized me and we exchanged greetings. We were good friends in high school, but he didn’t seem very excited to see me here and I couldn’t figure out why.

Now there were eight contestants present, our escort loaded all of us onto a bus to drive us to where we would be staying while we were participating in the tournament. During the bus ride, all of the contestants began introducing themselves.  Their names were Tony Jones, Rachel Evans, Alex Nguyen, Karson Cooper, Marco Sanchez, Ashley Mathews, and my friend Dimitri Markovic. The bus was not very talkative after