Unintended Rebel

By Lance Erlick

This is a prequel novelette to The Rebel Within yet reads as a standalone story. In a world where males and females are forcibly segregated, Annabelle Scott fancies a boy she spies in a nearby prison. When she attempts to make contact, she runs afoul of the law. She tumbles into situations that challenge her beliefs and just may turn her into an unintended rebel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lance Erlick
• Release date: Dec 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943080151

Lance Erlick

Lance Erlick writes science fiction thrillers for adult and young adult readers. In 2018, he launched his Android Chronicles series with Reborn and continued it with Unbound and Emergent. This series follows the challenges of Synthia Cross, wrestling with the download of a human mind and emergent behavior while confronted by humans who seek to control her. Xenogeneic: First Contact is about alien pilgrims who lost their civil war and come to our solar system. They kidnap aerospace engineer Elena Pyetrov to prevent her from discovering them. As their prisoner, she’s the only one who can uncover their plot and stop them from decimating Earth. The Regina Shen series takes place after abrupt climate change leads to collapse and a new World Federation. As an outcast, Regina must fight to stay alive and help her family while she avoids being captured. In the Rebel series, Annabelle Scott faces a crisis of conscience after she’s drafted into the military to enforce laws she believes are wrong. Find out more about the author and his work at LanceErlick.com.

Book preview

UNINTENDED REBEL

Lance Erlick

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or events is entirely coincidental. Also, though locations used in this work exist, for dramatic effect details have been altered. Accordingly, they should be considered fictitious.

Copyright © 2015 Lance Erlick

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form.

Smashwords Edition

Finlee Augare Books, Chicago, IL

ISBN: 978-1-943080-13-7 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-943080-15-1 (e-book)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Also by Lance Erlick

About the Author

ONE

I studied the black-haired Chinese boy on the roof of Michael’s School for Boys. The private concrete institution stood diagonally across the street from my public high school with bars on the windows, razor wire all around, and security patrols dressed in black mechanical exoskeletons despite the heat.

How did you end up behind barbed wire? I whispered, wishing my words could reach him. By the way, I’m Annabelle Scott, a junior. My mom’s a state senator, in the political opposition; and I could get prison just for watching you. Yet I couldn’t pull away.

I’d been observing the orange-uniformed boy for weeks, trying to get up the courage to do something. But what? I jumped like a paranoid squirrel at the slightest noise: the wind brushing against nearby solar panels. Or was that one of the wind generators shifting direction?

Why does our glorious Federal Union lock you boys away? A rhetorical question I was forbidden to ask. Are you a dangerous brute as my Cabbage-faced Civics teacher says? Would you hurt me given a chance?

Another white flash came from his direction.

Are you signaling me?

I wanted to talk with this other to find out if we had anything in common. I couldn’t use e-com; our beloved Federal Union tracked every wave. They probably had eyes watching me even then. Separating the boy from me was a busy street filled with bicycles and buses. Next to the boy’s institution and directly across from me was the local hospital, a building that looked the mirror image of Michael’s so-called school.

While viewing the Chinese boy’s cute masculine face through my