Ark: YA Sci-fi
She lives on the Earth, underground. He lives on the moon, in a dying habitat. Only together can they save the human race.
In a not too distant future, Rima Birde lives in a matriarchal, restrictive society hiding underground on Earth, and Truman Forrester lives in the Ark, a decaying refuge on the moon. Both have always felt different from everyone else in their isolated societies, and they both feel they must find a way to journey to Earth’s dangerous surface.
But when they arrive they discover that the dangers on Earth are far greater than they imagined, for the bioengineered nanotechnology that nearly eradicated the human race has evolved to a menacing artificial intelligence bent on using Rima and Truman, whose “gift” is critical to human survival.
Now the two must find one another, and the way to control their gift, before their unique qualities put them in the crosshairs of a deadly mission to destroy humans forever.
ARK is a young adult speculative fiction/romance novel told in alternating points of view.
Here’s a snippet from chapter 1: Rima – The Mole People
I wake the instant my skin sizzles. I want to cry out, but not from the pain. The dream from which I’ve been wrenched was so dazzling I’m sure I’ve seen the real Skyworld.
I lie in the underground dark and cradle my hand, nursing the fingers that accidentally brushed the tip of the electrode, the harsh energy source that still snaps and frizzes at me in angry violation. I wish I could put some cool water on the burn, some of the drips that streak the rough walls of the winding tunnel deeps, or bathe it in the icy water of the lake. We are forbidden from leaving our cavehomes before the lights hum with day spark, and the deeps are forbidden in any case, but the rules are not what hold me on my pallet.
I should sleep, should rest, to be ready for what’s coming.
My quick smile at this thought turns to a grimace as the pain sears, a piercing throb.
I’ll cure this in the usual way. “Nan,” I whisper, soft.
Nan hums and spins to life by my left ear.
“My hand, Nan,” I breathe, and reach toward the noise, the comforting sweet noise, toward Nan.
Nan’s touch isn’t cool like the drips, but it is, after the initial sharp stab, fast and painless. I feel the healing nanites as they go to work, see in my mind’s eye the healing take place as the nanites swarm through my bloodstream, can picture how my skin would seem to rise and fall in waves, can sense how the billions of impossibly small nanites work on the cells of my skin, repairing, replacing. I can feel how my skin now softens and smooths and the burn is cured and I can fall back asleep, and maybe back into that dream.
Nan returns to its place beside my left ear and morphs to my favorite globe-like shape, whirring down to a slow, low hum. Such power in such a small thing. Where would we be without Nan?
In the Underworld, here in the underground, we are all part of Nan, the one made of many.