Outcast Regina Shen caught between rival World Federation inspectors amidst political struggle over who will become the new World Premier.
Outcast Regina Shen continues her adventure as a hunted fugitive and as a pawn in a worldwide grab for power. Competing World Federation power brokers seek to control Regina for her unique DNA that could reverse a global fertility collapse. They make use of her unique memory for ancient forbidden texts that help her locate illegal artifacts from before the Federation, which agents then destroy.
For months Regina has been treading a fine line, trying not to let the Federation destroy any more of their past while doing all she can to rescue her kidnapped sister from agents who dangle the sister as bait. Betrayed again by her mom, Regina flees to the Southwest Desert with a close companion to hunt down a vault to exchange for her sister’s freedom. Nothing goes according to plan.
Before her journey concludes, tragedy will shake Regina to her core. It will also open up new possibilities that could lead down an even more dangerous path closer to her destiny but farther from her sister.
Excerpt
Alaska Wilderness, August, Year 298 ACM (After Community Movement):
The advantage of being a Marginal outcast was that I didn’t need much more than food and water to survive. Well, maybe a blanket, since we didn’t have Alaska’s chilly nights in the Richmond Swamps where I grew up.
While my mother cooked squirrel over a shielded fire, I used my binoculars to scan the spruce-covered mountainside, fields of wheat in the valley below, and Fairbanks in the distance. The last of the snow had melted from the peaks up north months ago, drying up some of the streams. I looked for telltale signs of Department of Antiquities’ gray-uniformed agents with their marked all-terrain vehicles and their aerial drones out hunting for me.
A ridge hid Mom’s fire from the valley. She was talking to Ester Grayer, who was a year older than me. Ester had been my travel companion for almost three months, ever since I met her during a storm back east.
I brushed away a swarm of black flies and joined them. I stared at my mom’s wrinkled face. She was the only person of Chinese ancestry I’d known until I’d come out west. “I can’t believe you worked with the Department.”
Her expression blank, she handed me a scrap of squirrel meat. “It kept you free for a while.”
“Until the Federation discovered that my DNA might prevent a worldwide fertility collapse.” I took the meat and chewed off a stringy bite. “Speaking of which, why are my genes so valuable? So unusual? Maybe even one of a kind?”
Assistant County Attorney Ken Anderson spends his weekends drinking and running around. After waking up with another hangover, Ken decides not to drink so much anymore. Ken and his buddy, Tony, go out to eat and see Mia Correa and Faye Kincaid at the
She was quite capable of taking care of herself...She appreciated everything he was doing for her and the Grandmothers Four, but she needed his help, not for him to take over.
