Her ex-mother’s offer of a truce scares her more than any threat the woman could have made. Both her new parents are former Special Operations soldiers, but even that provides little sense of safety. Barely a week goes by without an abduction attempt over her connection to Ascendant Pharmaceuticals.
After one such random attack, Maya discovers information that leads the Brigade to come up with a risky plan: use her unique combination of small size and large brain in an operation that could end the Ascendant threat for good. Hoping to peel the target off her back, Maya accepts the mission.
Her Brigade friends assure her it’s completely safe.
Freakishly intelligent kids can do many things well, but commando raids aren’t on the list. Her idealism leads to real bullets flying, crushing her hopes to live like a normal child.
She’ll be happy to live at all.
Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, the Prophet of the Badlands series, and the Daughter of Mars series take place.
His books span adult, young-adult, and middle-grade fiction in multiple genres, predominantly science fiction, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, and fantasy.
Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, developer of two custom tabletop RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of humanity, reality, life, and what might happen after it.
He is also fond of cats, presently living with two: Loki and Dorian.