Rogue Sequence
A Novel
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
It's 2091 and independent contract companies around the world are producing genetically modified soldiers…to be sold to the highest bidders.
Ander Rade is a super-soldier, a genetically engineered living weapon, and has been dutifully following orders since he gave himself to Scythe Industries’ Gene-Mod Program several years ago. But when a mission goes sideways, he’s captured, imprisoned, and forced into brutally violent fighting pits for the better part of the next decade…until agents from the Genetic Compliance Department of the United American Provinces appear in the visitors room.
Things have changed since Rade was captured. Shortly after his incarceration, the World Unity Council banned human genetic engineering and deemed all modified individuals a threat to society. Overnight, an entire subculture of people became outlaws simply for existing. But instead of leaving Rade locked behind bars, the GCD agents have come with an offer: Freedom in exchange for his help tracking down one of his former teammates from that ill-fated mission all those years ago.
It's an offer Rade can't refuse, but he soon realizes the situation is far more volatile than anyone had anticipated, and must take matters into his own hands as he tries to figure out whose side he’s really on, and why?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dazzling high-tech combat pervades this roiling Ramboesque thriller from Topping (Wake of War). In a dismal near future, Ander Rade is a genetically modified combat mercenary working for Xyphos Industries, a U.S. producer of killer assault teams. After a mission goes suspiciously wrong, he ends up imprisoned in Bolivia, where he's caged and forced to fight other prisoners. Fortunately, Agent Moreno with the U.S. Genetic Compliance Department negotiates his release in exchange for Rade's help tracking down Xyphos team member Darius Turin, who has gone rogue and is suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on an upcoming World Unity Summit in Atlanta. Rade agrees, and Moreno smuggles him back to the U.S., where "mods" have been declared illegal. Together, they conduct a top-secret investigation that leads them ever deeper into a "corpopolitical" drama involving a Russian arms smuggler, the dark net, and a multibillion-dollar holding company invested in embryonic cloning. The plot is plausible enough to frame all the violent action, and Topping drives things to a flashy, cinematic finish. Despite skimping on backstory for Rade and Moreno, he does a decent job developing their relationship from deep distrust to soldierly camaraderie. In the infrequent breathers between fight scenes, there are some lovely, spare descriptions of the near-future American wasteland. Readers who prefer their action in overdrive should check this out.
