Bouncer Post #20

Title: NUMBERLESS

Genre: YA SF Thriller

Word count: 98,000

Query:

All her life, Eve Hayden’s either been recovering from or preparing for war.

When she was ten, her parents died in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem in front of her, and she spent years in a pediatric mental hospital where she was treated for what she was told were psychotic breaks resulting from post-traumatic stress disorder.

When she turned sixteen, she was placed in a clandestine program to teach psychically-gifted youth martial arts as part of an operation to prepare for the end of days. After information on the program leaked to the public, Eve was relocated to a pacifist religious community on the southwest coast of Wales so she could be reintegrated into society.

When she turns seventeen, she meets and falls in love with the enigmatic Dylan Rhys, who slowly reveals strange powers that suggest he’s more than just a university student studying astrophysics.

After a mysterious red rain falls, unleashing a technological plague that threatens civilization, Eve's foster parents claims it's the apocalypse. Dylan asks for her help in a war against a powerful enemy, revealing that all her life, she’s been destined to take on this role.

She agrees to help and while investigating a series of murders with him that he claims are part of the first strike, she learns just how alien he really is.

NUMBERLESS is a 98,000 word YA SF Thriller that explores the conflict between freedom and responsibility, science and religion. These themes are explored through Eve's relationship with Dylan, an alien-human hybrid sent to Earth as part of a pre-emptive strike meant to disable humanity’s defenses to prepare for an eventual invasion.

Eve's quest to uncover the truth will determine the future of her world.

First 250:

L'Abbaye De Saint-Michel, near Carcassonne, France

The night I won, twenty of us performed Nitō Ichi martial arts moves in the field beside the abbey, fighting double-sword Musashi-style. Bright overhead spotlights shone down over the field, illuminating four rows of five students with a dozen yards separating us from each other.

Although I'd lived in the abbey for a year, I knew none of their names. I'd learned the very first day not to bother trying to speak to anyone. Kevlar-suited guards patrolled the halls, cattle prods in hand, enforcing a strict code of silence. We weren't allowed to even whisper to each other without getting a club in the kidneys.

The guards referred to us only by number.

I wasn't Eve Hayden. I was number sixteen.

Full-dark, about nine o'clock at night, and we were still going through the routines, our instructor barking commands at the front of the field. With my two wooden Wakizashi swords in hand, I performed the moves, my braid tucked into my tunic and my feet bare on the cool grass.

Movement in my field of vision distracted me and I couldn't help but glance to the right. Three priests in black vestments entered through a gate, followed by three soldiers, their swords drawn. They marched to the rear of the field and a soldier stepped inside each of three rings marked out in chalk lines on the grass.

 "Eyes front!" a guard shouted, jamming his truncheon against my cheek so hard that my teeth cut my lip, drawing blood.