Sterling Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Renee Jones

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover illustration by Aleta Rafton

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  FAX: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To Diego—for everything and more.

  He was created, molded, formed from life, love, and misery…

  Lethally daring and ruthlessly passionate. He invites death to his door, welcomes it with each breath he draws, each step he takes. And thus, he is danger—a volatile storm that will sweep across the calm realms of humanity and shake it to the depths of its core.

  And that storm is… Sterling.

  Glossary

  Area 51—Another name used for Groom Lake.

  Blood Exchange—A part of the Lifebond process done by choice, after the Lifebond mark appears on the female’s neck. This completes the female’s transformation to GTECH and links the two Lifebonds in life and death. (See Lifebond Process.)

  Dreamland—Though Groom Lake/Area 51 is often called Dreamland, in the Renegades series, Dreamland is the fictional military facility opened eighty miles from Area 51 by General Powell to take a stand against the Zodius who overran Area 51.

  Green Hornet—Special bullet that is so powerful it not only shreds human muscle and bone, it permeates the thin bodysuit armor that the GTECHs—both Zodius and Renegades—wear when no other bullet can do so.

  Groom Lake—Also known as Area 51, this is the military base where the Project Zodius experiments with alien DNA took place. It was later taken over by the Zodius rebels.

  GTECH—The Super Soldiers who were created under Project Zodius and who divided into two groups—Zodius and Renegades. GTECHs are stronger, faster, and more agile than humans; they heal rapidly and have low fatality rates. They can wind-walk. Over time, many are developing special gifts unique to them, such as telepathy and the ability to communicate with animals.

  GTECH Body Armor—A thin bodysuit that fits like a second skin. Extremely light and flexible. The material is made from alien technology recovered from a 1950s crash site. Until the Green Hornets were created, no standard issue ammunition could penetrate the suits.

  GTECH Serum—The serum created from alien DNA that was gathered at a crash site in the 1950s and then used to create the GTECHs. The original sample was destroyed. Since the alien DNA will not allow itself to be duplicated, there can be no new serum created without new scientific discoveries. The remaining serum disappeared the day Area 51/Groom Lake was taken over by the GTECH Rebels known as Zodius Soldiers. The GTECH serum cannot be created from GTECH DNA. This has been tried and failed.

  Lifebond Mark—A double circle resembling a tattoo that appears on the back of a female’s neck after her first sexual encounter with her GTECH Lifebond. After the mark appears, it will tingle whenever her Lifebond approaches. Only sexual encounters with one’s Lifebond will result in a Lifebond Mark appearing. After the mark appears, the female feels a tingling sensation whenever the male Lifebond first approaches.

  Lifebond Process—A Lifebond is a male and female who are bonded physically for life and death. If one dies, so does the other. This bond allows the GTECH male to reproduce, and it offers the females the same physical skills as their male Lifebond. The Lifebond mark, a double circle resembling a tattoo, appears on the back of the female’s neck after the first sexual encounter. A blood exchange is required to complete the physical transformation of the female to GTECH, if the couple makes that decision. There is physical pain and illness for the female during conversion.

  Neonopolis—The Las Vegas satellite location for the Renegades, covertly located in the basement of the Neonopolis entertainment complex off Las Vegas Avenue.

  PMI or Private Military Intelligence—A company run by General Powell, the officer who created Project Zodius. PMI is used as a cover for top-secret military projects that the government doesn’t want to officially show on the books.

  Project Zodius—Code name for the government’s top-secret operation—two hundred Special Operations soldiers who were assigned to Groom Lake (Area 51) and injected with what they believed to be immunizations, but which was, in fact, alien DNA.

  Red Dart—A red crystal found at the same UFO 1950s crash site where the GTECH DNA was discovered. The crystal enables a red laser beam that enters the bloodstream and creates a permanent tracking beacon that is sensitive to sound waves. These sound waves can also be used for torture and control of the GTECHs. Thus far, U.S. military attempts to use Red Dart have been fatal.

  Renegade Soldier—A GTECH who protects humanity and stands against the rebels known as “Zodius.” The Renegades are led by Adam Rain’s twin brother, Caleb Rain.

  Shield—A mental barrier that a GTECH uses to block their psychic residue from being traceable by Trackers.

  Stardust—An alien substance that is undetectable in human testing and causes brain aneurisms.

  Sunrise City—The main Renegades facility, an advanced, underground city located in Nevada’s Sunrise Mountain Range.

  Trackers—These are GTECHs with the special ability to track the psychic residue of another GTECH or a human female who’s been intimate with another GTECH. If a female possesses this residue, then only that female’s Lifebond can shield her from a Tracker.

  Wind-walking—The ability to fade into the wind, like mist into the air, and invisibly travel far distances at rapid speed.

  X2 Gene—A gene that appears in some, but not all, of the GTECHs by the fifteenth month after injection of the GTECH serum.

  Zodius City—Still known as the top-secret U.S. military facility. Located in Nevada and often called Area 51 or Groom Lake, it was taken over by the rebel GTECHs led by Adam Rain. This facility is both above and beneath ground level.

  Zodius Soldier—A rebel GTECH soldier who follows Adam Rain, the leader of the rebel movement. Adam intends
to take over the world.

  Prologue

  Rebecca Burns was sitting behind a scuffed wooden table in the Killeen, Texas, library when he sauntered by, and every nerve ending in her body went on alert. “He” being Sterling Jeter, the hot blond hunk of a guy who’d graduated a year ahead of her. And try as she might to keep her attention on Bobby Johnson, the second-year high school quarterback who she was tutoring for his SAT test, she failed pitifully. As if drawn by a magnet, her gaze lifted and followed Sterling’s sexy, loose-legged swagger as he crossed to the computer terminals he’d been frequenting the past three weeks.

  Sterling yanked a chair out from behind a desk, and she quickly cut her gaze back to Bobby, who was still struggling through the worksheet she’d given him. Unable to resist, she slid her attention back to Sterling only to find him looking right at her. He grinned and winked, holding up a Snickers bar. She blushed at the realization that he’d brought it for her, after she’d confessed an undying love for their peanuty goodness just the afternoon before.

  “I just don’t get why I need to know algebra on the football field,” Bobby grumbled. Reluctantly, Becca tore her gaze from Sterling’s and refocused on Bobby who, at six foot two with brown hair and eyes and stud status at the school, was no grand dictionary of knowledge.

  “Either you meet the required SAT score for the University of Texas,” she reminded him, “or you’ll be passing your ball to whoever is open somewhere else.”

  He shoved the paper away and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “This is bull. I don’t want some fancy NASA-sponsored scholarship like you got, so I don’t see why I have to be some geeky bookworm like you either.”

  She stiffened at the familiar jab, wondering why she let it bother her, why every once in a while she wished she was the cheerleader or prom queen. It wasn’t like she wanted to be some brainless blonde beauty. Her mother was a teacher, both pretty and smart. Darn it, Becca liked having her mother’s dark brown hair and brains, and she was proud of the NASA scholarship. Her parents were proud of her, and that’s what counted.

  Resolved to ignore his remark, she pushed the paper back toward him. “Let’s try again.”

  “I’m done,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Coach. He has to get me out of the SAT.”

  “Get you out of the SAT?” she asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  He pushed to his feet. “As a touchdown.” And with that smart remark, he headed toward the door.

  Becca tossed down her pencil and sighed. Please let the summer end. She couldn’t get to Houston and her new school soon enough.

  The chair in front of her moved, and a Snickers bar slid in front of her. “You look like you need this urgently.” Sterling sat down across from her, his teal green eyes a bright contrast to his spiky blond hair. She decided right then that her summer goal was to run her fingers through that hair just one time before she left for Houston. And kiss him. She really wanted to kiss him.

  “It’s a wiser and safer man who brings a Burns woman chocolate when she’s upset. Or so says the Burns men. They swear it’s a better survival technique than anything they learned in basic training.” Both her father and brother were career military, same as her grandfather had been. She reached for the candy bar. “Thank you, Sterling.”

  He grabbed the worksheet Bobby had abandoned and started working an algebra problem with such ease that she assumed he was just doodling. They chatted while she waited for her next tutoring session, and she decided he was the best part of her summer wait for college. He took care of his grandmother by doing computer programming work. She thought that made him amazingly sweet.

  When it was nearly time for her next student, he abandoned the worksheet and studied her. “I should go.”

  “Okay.” Dang it, she really didn’t want him to go.

  He didn’t go. He sat there, staring at her, the air thick with something—she didn’t know what—but it made her stomach flutter.

  “You want to catch a movie or something Friday night?”

  She smiled instantly, knowing she should play coy—after all, Sterling was older and more experienced—but not sure she would know how if she tried. Dating wasn’t exactly something she’d excelled at.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’d like to go to a movie.”

  His lips lifted. “With me, right?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, with you.”

  Once they’d arranged to meet at the library at seven the next evening, Sterling headed back to the computers. She glanced down at the math he’d done and smiled all over again. He’d gotten all the questions right. Good looking and smart. She might just fall in love with her hot cowboy.

  ***

  With a smile on his lips, Sterling whipped his battered, black Ford F-150 into the driveway of the equally damaged trailer he called home and killed the engine.

  He leaned back in the seat and pulled the wad of cash from his pocket. Ten thousand dollars and a date with Becca tomorrow night. He was going to kiss her, see what honey and sunshine tasted like, because that’s what she reminded him of. Ah yeah. Life was good.

  “Yeehaw,” he whispered, staring at the cash again. How many nineteen-year-olds had that kind of dough? He was liking this new job. Hack a computer, get cash. He snorted. “And they say that government databases can’t be hacked. This low-life trailer trash proved them wrong.” That’s what the kids at school had called him after his grandmom had gotten arrested for public intoxication. Trailer trash. Misfit. “Screw you,” he mumbled to the voices of the past. “Screw you all.”

  Once Sterling had counted the money, down to the ten thousandth dollar, he grabbed a hundred for his date with Becca and stuffed the wad of cash back in his pocket. Then he snatched the bundle of flowers on the seat. He left the Snickers bar for himself and then decided better. Candy had worked with Becca, after all. And he’d need all the sweetness he could muster to convince Grandmom to head to that fancy alcohol-rehab center he’d arranged for her to enter up in Temple, Texas. It was even close by, only twenty miles away, which he hoped would help convince her to go. She’d curse and probably hit him. She was good at that, but it didn’t hurt anymore. Hadn’t for years.

  He knew she couldn’t help herself. He’d read enough about alcoholism to know she was sick. Yet she’d raised him despite that. Heck, he was to blame, he supposed. He was why his mother had died—the trigger that had set Grandmom off.

  He climbed out of the truck and whistled down the path to the front door. The whistle faded the instant he entered the trailer. Grandmom sat on the couch, wrapped in the same crinkly blue dress that she’d gone to bed wearing, a big bottle of vodka in her hand. Two men dressed in suits sat next to her.

  “Look what these men brought me,” she said, grinning, holding up her prize.

  “We know how you like to take care of your grandmother,” one of the men said, his buzz cut flat against his skull.

  “Kind of like your father took care of his family,” the other man stated, a clone of the first one. They had to be army or government. Fuck me!

  “The resemblance between the two of you is amazing,” the first man said, picking up a picture of Sterling’s father. He was standing in front of a helicopter, his blond hair longer than it should have been because he wasn’t normal army. He’d been Special Forces, working undercover all over the map. And it had gotten him killed when Sterling was barely out of diapers. The man set the picture back down on the coffee table.

  Grandmom grabbed the picture, mumbling to herself. “They’re the spitting image of each other.” Her gaze lifted, her voice with it. “But Sterling ain’t got no clue who his daddy was. Man was never here. Neither was his mama.” She took a drink. “They died. Didn’t they, Ster… ling?”

  The captain focused on Sterling. “We think you’re a lot like him. For instance, you both showed an interest in official government business.”

  Sterling’s gut twisted in a knot. He was busted. Big-time freaking busted and going to jail. �
��I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He wasn’t admitting shit. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. He had Grandmom to take care of.

  “You know,” the second man said, “there’s a lot that can be forgiven if you serve your country. Enlistment is favorable in certain circumstances.”

  The first man took the picture from Grandmom. “I’m Captain Sherman, son.” He gave a sideways nod to the second man. “This is Captain Jenson. We served with your father.”

  Thank the Lord above. They weren’t Feds. “What do you want from me?”

  The captain answered, “Your father was part of a Special Forces unit where certain ‘skills,’ say—computer expertise, can be useful.” He wrapped his arm around Grandmom’s shoulders. “In exchange for service in this unit, your family will be well taken care of. It’s time you enlisted, son. Be all you can be, like your father.”

  Grandmom gulped from the bottle, and suddenly Sterling realized he was still holding the flowers—those damn flowers that weren’t going to erase his problems any more than the wad of cash sitting in his pocket.

  “And if I say no?” he asked.

  “I don’t remember asking,” the first man said.

  “I’m not a soldier,” Sterling said. He was just a kid in a trailer park who knew how to hack a computer.

  “You are your father’s son,” the man said. “Mark my words, boy. You will be a soldier when I’m through with you.”

  Sterling looked at his grandmother, watched as she gulped from the bottle, her teal green eyes that matched his own the only familiar thing left in her. He saw the hint of contempt that lurked in their depths—the blame for his mother’s death. The booze could never quite kill that. Sterling realized right then and there that the best thing he could do for her was to leave and give her a chance to heal. To get as far away from her as he could and stay there.

  His gaze shifted to the man to his grandmother’s right, and Sterling fixed him in an accessing stare. “She’ll be taken care of?”