A secret medical lab abducts teens.
But they mess with the wrong girl.
This one fights back.
2039. Rebellious Ida lives in a delinquent Youth âImprovementâ Center. Sheâs one fight away from getting kicked out until a couple adopts her.
But they imprison her. In a rogue medical lab, scientists perform genetic experiments that change her.
Desperate to escape, she recruits a mysterious mutant guard to help. But the doctor in charge wants to break her spirit.
When she discovers a powerful side-effect, everything changes. Can Ida control it and take her life back?
Youâll love this sci-fi thriller with its broken characters thrust into desperate situations.
ALTERED is Book One in the futuristic Rogue Spark series about Ida Sarek, a soldier-medic with a knack for getting into trouble, backing the underdog, and kicking butt.
A secret medical lab abducts teens.
But they mess with the wrong girl.
This one fights back.
2039. Rebellious Ida lives in a delinquent Youth âImprovementâ Center. Sheâs one fight away from getting kicked out until a couple adopts her.
But they imprison her. In a rogue medical lab, scientists perform genetic experiments that change her.
Desperate to escape, she recruits a mysterious mutant guard to help. But the doctor in charge wants to break her spirit.
When she discovers a powerful side-effect, everything changes. Can Ida control it and take her life back?
Youâll love this sci-fi thriller with its broken characters thrust into desperate situations.
ALTERED is Book One in the futuristic Rogue Spark series about Ida Sarek, a soldier-medic with a knack for getting into trouble, backing the underdog, and kicking butt.
12 October 2039
Down on my knees and bleeding from my mouthâthis wasnât how Iâd hoped to spend my seventeenth birthday. I climbed to my feet despite shaking legs.
âFight. Fight. Get her,â the boys and girls in the yard chanted, their bodies forming a wall around usâa barrier to block the wary eyes of the adult supervisors at the Woodlawn Youth Improvement Center. As if the staff cared whether we beat each other to a pulp. They usually ignored the footage from the hovering aerial drones and only intervened in brawls when one of us fell unconscious.
Today, I fought Marcâthe biggest kid at Woodlawn. He faced me, fists raised before his chest. As he shuffled forward and threw a long jab, I ducked under his reach and slipped behind him.
Shifting my balance, I side-kicked Marc behind his knee. Just like Joanie had taught me all those years ago living on the streets in Hellâs Kitchen. Go for the weak spots, sheâd said. Eyes, throat, crotch, knees. And so I did. Usually, it worked out well for me, but Marc was the largest boy Iâd ever had to fight.
My kick caused him to stumble, but he recovered and snarled, âYou bitch, youâre going to pay for that.â His face gleamed red and sweat matted his greasy brown hair to his forehead.
How had I gotten myself into this situation?
I glanced at Reed who lingered on the inner rim of the circle. The shortest of the kids, his smudged glasses had been knocked crooked, and the birthmark on his cheekâa port wine stain as he called itâcould not mask the growing welt shining brightly where Marc had clobbered him.
Like an idiot, Iâd told Marc what a piece of shit he was. Youâre too much of a softie, Joanie used to tell me. You care too much, and one day itâs going to get you in trouble. Maybe she was right. How I missed her and my old New York crew.
Marc wasnât used to anyone landing a punch, much less a kick. He lurched forward, swinging his arms. This time, I couldnât avoid his attack, and he landed three solid hooks, knocking the wind out of me. The sound of his fists slamming into my ribs ricocheted off the institutionâs brick walls.
I staggered, and Marc let up, smirking as he checked for an audience reaction.
âCome on, Ida,â Reed encouraged.
âKnockout,â the others chanted.
Doubled over, I gasped for air. Winded by Marcâs brutal blows, I barely had time to react before he lunged forward and caught my chin with a swift uppercut.
God, it hurt. I fell on my back, and darkness edged my vision. Get up! I could hear Joanie like a voice in the crowd. Never let your opponent get you on the ground. I rolled onto my stomach where my face would be more protected. I started to crawl, scanning for an escape through the legs of the circle.
But Marc gripped my ankles and dragged me to the center. He circled, then kicked me fiercely in the side. Then he booted me again. Each time his foot jammed into my ribs felt like a log bashing into me. Why had I picked a fight with someone so big?
I curled up in a fetal position, and a frowning Reed peered down. âIâll get help,â he said and scurried through the mess of bodies.
âNot so tough now, are you?â Marc hissed in my ear as he squatted and seized my shoulder, twisting me onto my back. He gripped both shoulders and pulled my face toward his.
I hawked and spat. Red-faced, he flung me down and straightened as he wiped his face with a sleeve. âBitch!â
The adolescent horde erupted in a frenzied chorus of jeers. âYou gonna let her treat you like that, Marc? What the hell?â
He answered with a loud roar and clenched fists, parading for the rabid circle of fellow delinquents. Joanieâs voice echoed in my mind. Bold move. Girl, I hope you can back it up. She was right; she was always right. Now, I needed to be brave or this guy might do permanent damage.
Scrambling onto all fours, I crouched in wait. Caught up in a furious display as he paced the edges of the throng, Marc hadnât noticed yet. I rose and straightened, feeling every tender inch of my battered torso. âHey, asshole,â I said.
He turned in surprise and headed toward me. I swiveled on my left hip and swung my right leg out and up in a massive roundhouse kick that struck his shoulder. The kick, my most powerful, pushed him off kilter a few inches. Oh, crap. Was this guy made of steel?
He clamped his mouth into a thin line, eyes narrowed and fixated on me. He surged forward, meaty fists raised. But I pivoted my right knee forward and slammed my foot into his groin. A grunt emerged from deep in his throat. His hands flew to his crotch and he sunk to his knees. The mob grew quiet.
I followed up with another roundhouse that struck Marcâs temple. His massive frame dropped to the ground with a thud.
The onlookers withdrew a few steps. Then the outraged whispers began. âDamn, who does she think she is? How could she do that to Marc? Is he going to be okay?â
I was used to getting shuffled around between Improvement Centers. It meant coming up against the ringleader every single time. I had to send Marc and the other kids a message. Could I make life a little bit easier for Reed and the other bullied kids?
I dropped heavily onto him, my knee jammed into the small of his back. Then I grabbed his right arm and wrenched it sharply behind him, close to the breaking point. He yelped, a surprisingly shrill noise for such a large dude.
Reed had returned, and a huge grin lit up his face.
With my other hand, I seized a tangle of Marcâs hair at the scalp and yanked it hard, twisting his head so I could whisper in his ear. âAsshole, do I have your attention now?â
He panted and gulped. âYargh.â
I twisted his arm tighter, sharpening his pain. âI canât hear you.â
âY-yes! Let go! Please!â
âListen to me, douchebag. The next time you pick on someone smaller, Iâm going to find you and hurt you real bad. If you even so much as look at Reed cross-eyed, I will hunt you down and make sure you never walk the same again. Got it?â
âYes,â he whimpered.
âThis holds even if Iâm no longer here. I have spies here now, and theyâll tell me what you did, and Iâll send my gang to hurt you. If you think Iâm tough to fight, you should meet my friend Joanie. Sheâll come for you.â
I tossed him face first into the dirt and stormed off to my corner of the yard, under the small tree where I often sat alone.
The crowd dispersed. Marcâs entourage left with their chins down.
That afternoon, the younger bully victims like Reed carried themselves a little taller.
Never trust something that's too good to be true. When a suspiciously nice couple comes to Woodlawn Youth Improvement Center to adopt Ida Sarek on her seventeenth birthday, Ida knows that something's wrong--and she's absolutely right. Instead of landing in a comfortable family home in Connecticut, Ida ends up imprisoned in a secretive medical facility and subject to strange experimental surgeries.
Altered (Book One of author Cameron Coral's Rogue Spark series) posits a world slightly in the future, where the US government rounds up homeless youths and forces them to live in dangerous camps. Unbeknownst to the rest of the population, the government is also anticipating an alien invasion. The military wants to create super soldiers for the inevitable upcoming battle: what better experimental group than a bunch of lawbreaking teens with no families to protest? Unfortunately for those in charge, Ida Sarek--a scrappy rebel with a powerful roundhouse kick who grew up on the streets of Hell's Kitchen--isn't going to go down gently.
Coral creates some great characters in the medical laboratory, like the evil head of surgery Dr. Kenmore, who views his charges as research subjects to be used and easily discarded, and the kind security guard Peterson, who is a test subject himself. Peterson is a Hybrid, a half-man half-wolf product of DNA splicing, but he's also a sensitive soul who keeps a mouse as a pet in his pocket and slips Ida chocolate bars. Ida undergoes nanobot implant surgery, with abnormal results that surprise her superiors--and put her life at risk.
The choice of setting unfortunately causes the pacing of this novel to be uneven at certain times. When Ida is confined, the plot proceeds a little slowly, while the ending epistolary passages about the alien invasion go by very quickly. But now that her backstory and the world have been established in the first book of the series, we can start to see Ida on the move, navigating the challenges of her new life--which is when Coral's writing really shines. Altered is not only an enjoyable sci-fi adventure, but also a smart commentary about government and military corruption and the treatment of the oppressed. Similar to Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga series, Coral delves into the social consequences of mistreating the underprivileged--and what happens when the underdog is given the tools to fight back.