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    Soul Substitute: Separation ( Book 1)
    Soul Substitute: Separation ( Book 1)
    Soul Substitute: Separation ( Book 1)
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    Soul Substitute: Separation ( Book 1)

    By Angela Hall-Anderson

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    About this ebook

    In the year 2151, the world has been taken over by a world wide conglomerate of governments called The Collective. It has imposed many unfair taxes on the citizens, including a child tax that must be paid every quarter. If the tax is not paid, the Collective takes the children of the citizens to be raised in orphanages and trained for various stations within the government.

    Zara Fulton was taken from her father, at the age of eight and made to live out her young life in an orphanage called The Home, where she was trained everyday to become a Soul Substitute Agent. Zara never forgot about her father and vowed that they would be reunited but during her journey, and transferring in and out of bodies, she quickly finds that the task may prove dangerous, even deadly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAngela Hall-Anderson
    Release dateMay 15, 2012
    ISBN9781476193373
    Soul Substitute: Separation ( Book 1)
    Author

    Angela Hall-Anderson

    Angela Hall-Anderson is an author who loves all things creative such as writing poetry, reading, sculpting and drawing but her first love is writing novels. Soul Substitute is her first published novel and she is hard at work on the next installment. When she isn't writing, she's spending time with her family in Missouri.

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      Book preview

      Soul Substitute - Angela Hall-Anderson

      Soul Substitute: Separation

      Book 1

      Angela Hall-Anderson

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 by Angela Hall-Anderson

      CHAPTER 1

      Zara awoke to thunderous pounding on the thick metal door of their citizen housing unit. Every thump sent vibrating waves throughout the small living quarters that she and her father shared. She quickly noted the time on the hologram clock that hung suspended above the small bookshelf. 11:53 it glared back in neon green. Something was wrong. Her father would never leave her alone this long. It had been seven hours ago, that he left to get her a birthday surprise and a realization dawned on her that she must of dozed off awaiting his return.

      BANG, BANG, BANG! Open up! The deep voices shouted from beyond the other side of the door. Zara was still somewhat disoriented from her nap. She was frozen to the worn, uncomfortable wool fabric of the couch. Her father had always warned her never to let anyone in, but the men seemed intent on breaking the door down if she didn’t open. If that happened, then the little bit of belongings that her and her father owned would become subject to thieves.

      The banging continued with even more fervor. Zara was sure the rusty metal would give at any moment. She finally removed herself from the small couch and approached the door. The id screen to the right of the door frame flickered with every hammering thump and it was hard for her to make out the human forms that stood on the other side of the door. There were two men, in uniforms. Black pants, black boots and long black coats without a collar. Zara knew immediately who the men were. They were security for the collective. They came around every quarter to collect taxes from the citizens. Normally they would just place their badge against the id screen on the opposite side of the door and the mark units, that used to be called money, would immediately transfer from the citizen’s house account to them. The only time that they knocked, was when a citizen couldn’t pay. Zara’s father told her that when a citizen couldn’t pay, the collective security would bust in and remove the children from the home, take the child to an orphanage and train them to become employees of the collective until such time as the child worked off their debt, as well as their family’s debt.

      But Zara’s father always paid their taxes. Every quarter he paid, which is the reason why they couldn’t afford the regular amenities that most people took for granted, like food and water. There were so many nights that her father would come home from a long day at the lab and there would be nothing to eat except an almost stale piece of bread and a small cup of water. Zara’s father always made her eat even though he had nothing. Then one day he came home early bursting with excitement. He had invented a liquid solution that when ingested, made you feel full for hours while also giving your body the vitamins that it needs to stay healthy. He was under the assumption that such an invention, could end the hunger epidemic and the people that lived in the citizen housing units, could finally be able to feed their families on a daily basis and maybe be able to save a small amount of their money, but it wasn’t to be.

      Shortly after the invention, the collective had burst into the privately owned lab that Mr. Fulton worked at, took all of the equipment and supplies and forced the employees to work for them. What they didn’t know was that Mr. Fulton, Zara’s father had taken a large amount of the solution to bring home for his daughter, and also help as many other families as he could.

      He had distributed a large amount of the stolen liquid among the poor over the span of a few weeks, while still having enough to last him and his daughter for at least a year.

      So Zara figured that maybe this was why these men were banging at the door this late at night.

      Zara immediately jumped into action and collected all of the illegal liquid and hid it behind the secret panel in the wall like her father had shown her many times before. In the midst of her gathering and hiding, she had resolved to open the door. She carried her small frame across the room, quickly said a prayer while scanning her living quarters and pressed open on the id screen panel.

      Everything after that happened so quickly, she thought she was having a nightmare on fast forward. She was immediately whisked away by the security, and taken to an orphanage called the Home. The date was May 22, 2151 and her eighth birthday.

      The bell had gone off too early the next morning for her taste. All the other children in her room were shuffling around, almost in unison, getting ready and making beds. She had decided that the horror of knowing she probably would never see her father again, had just been too much.

      She rolled over to go back to sleep, vowing that she would just sleep through this nightmare, until she and her father were reunited.

      But she was suddenly awakened to the sharpest pain she had ever felt in her life. Her back had been struck. Her veins suddenly felt like they were on fire, like they had been fried in a lightening strike. She screamed as she fell from the bed and hit the floor. As she turned over on her aching back to see what had struck her, she thought she smelled burning flesh.

      Her large green eyes settled on a creature she had never seen before. What stood over her was a rail thin woman, with almost transparent skin, black sunken eyes and a balled head, holding a banther rod.

      A banther rod was a long black stick, sort of like the billy clubs cops carried in ancient times but this stick had a powerful electric taser on the end of it.

      Zara had never seen a citizen with a banther rod, only government personnel or police bots where allowed to have them. Nor had she ever been zapped with one. It felt like a fifty pound stone block that was set on fire and dropped onto her back from ten stories up. These weapons had been banned back in 2136, but were reinstated around the year 2312 for authorized personnel only.

      This person or thing that had stunned Zara looked to be about 6ft tall, with long thin feet, a hairless body and a permanent snarl.

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