At the Institute, they breed people like livestock. One powerful doctor decides which children get to grow up, and which will die. Losers are dumped in the savage slum outside Institute walls. Those kids never come back. Sixteen-year-old Michelle is a perfect specimen, destined for a luxurious life as a breeder. When her brother and her boyfriend are both mysteriously culled from the breeding program, she jumps the wall to find them. Alone in the ghetto, she’s in trouble until handsome, streetwise Dillon stakes a claim to her. She’s mortified by her attraction to a Normal. But the doctor is using the missing boys in a twisted experiment, and she needs Dillon’s help to stop him. Michelle must rescue the boys, but a plague is spreading, the doctor is after her, and Dillon isn’t thrilled to help find her lost boyfriend.
Excerpt:
Brian could go no farther. Below him, Carissa
rounded the corner, sticking close to the only home she ever had.
“Carissa!” he shouted. She
hesitated, looking up, and then shook her head at him.
Brian waved wildly. “Wait!” That
threw him off balance and he windmilled his arms, trying to stay on his feet.
Fresh pigeon droppings made the metal slick, and the Institute’s star athlete
failed. He slipped and crashed hard onto the broken pavement Outside. Pain
exploded through his knees and back, but he struggled to his feet almost
immediately. Bloody abrasions covered Brian’s forearms and knees. Pain screamed
from the crushed knee, triggering an animal instinct to hide. He backed into
the shadow of one of the little Norm hovels that lined the alley.
He took a deep breath to call Carissa’s
name again, but a flash of blue in his peripheral vision stopped him. A couple
of Augment security guards lurked in the alley outside the gate. Cooking fires
made the air gray with smoke, giving the place an eerie feel. Brian
concentrated, trying for a pain block, but these things take a focused mind. He
limped around the corner, finally forcing himself into a shambling run. Carissa
slipped along ahead of him like she didn’t even touch the ground.
Brian did his best to catch up, but he never got
any closer. The cull entered a sunny stretch and he suddenly saw why. Carissa
ran for her life, pursued by a man in blue. Pain from Brian’s shattered knee
shot up his leg, slowing him down, but he wouldn’t give up. Ahead, the blue
uniformed man dropped to a crouch and pulled out a crossbow equipped with a
laser sight. Ignoring his injuries, Brian pounded down the alley.
The cull must have seen the little red dot dancing
along the wall, because she stopped running and turned around to face her
hunter. Sunlight caught her hair, turning it to gold. She spread her arms like
an angel, and the bolt took her in the heart. Carissa fell more gracefully than
any cull had a right to, dead before she hit the ground.
“No!” Brian screamed. He turned on her murderer.
The Augment security chief knelt in the dirt with a second bolt already fixed
in his crossbow, aimed right at the boy’s chest. For a moment, neither one
moved.
Brian didn’t want to know, but he had to ask. “Do you,” he gasped for air and spit
out blood. “Do you kill all the culls?”
The man’s face crumpled, making him look decades
older. “Them fancy genes of yours, they don’t want ‘em mixing with the common
folks’.”
“They? Who gave the order?” But Brian already knew.
“Salomon.”
“So there’s no colony of Imperfects…that’s just what
they tell the culls, so they go quietly.”
The security chief nodded, his weathered cheeks
streaked with tears. “I told ya, boy. Givin’ her food wouldn’t matter none.”
The Augment unexpectedly pivoted the weapon in his
hands and held out the stock. Brian snatched it away and leveled it
threateningly. The chief clambered to his feet, gripping his knees like an old
man, and straightened up to stand at attention. His blue eyes locked fearlessly
on Brian’s brown ones. Brian froze, and the man gave him an encouraging nod.
“Go
ahead, son. Do me the favor.” The chief slowly lifted his arms and held them
out, just like Carissa had. Strangely, that little movement saved his life.
Brian
couldn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he swung the bow savagely against the
Institute wall, beating it over and over until it flew from his hands. Then he
walked away, leaving the Institute security chief alone with the body of the
first girl he ever loved. At the corner Brian turned and looked back.
“Are y’ gonna tell ‘em?” the chief called down the
alley. His voice echoed strangely from the ruins of the old city. “Are y’ gonna
tell’em, or will you let ‘em hope?”
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