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    Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4)
    Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4)
    Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4)
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4)

    By WILLIAM BERNHARDT

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    About this ebook

    After her unsuccessful attempt to escape from the Transforming Your Light "rehab" on Antolina Island, Aura was subjected to abusive treatment and increased pressure to submit to invasive brain surgery and testing. Aura remained strong and tried to unite the Shines into a cohesive unit. To her astonishment, during a twelve-step meeting, the TYL complex was destroyed. After a skirmish with Agent Coal and her quasi-military team, Aura and the other Shines managed to escape. Now free but hiding as outlaws, Aura must find a way to combat the anti-Shine threat led by Reverend Trent and the SSS, and find out what happened to her mother and the other Shines imprisoned underground at TYL--before it's too late.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBabylon Books
    Release dateNov 21, 2017
    ISBN9781948263108
    Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4)
    Author

    WILLIAM BERNHARDT

    William Bernhardt (b. 1960), a former attorney, is a bestselling thriller author. Born in Oklahoma, he began writing as a child, submitting a poem about the Oklahoma Land Run to Highlights—and receiving his first rejection letter—when he was eleven years old. Twenty years later, he had his first success, with the publication of Primary Justice (1991), the first novel in the long-running Ben Kincaid series. The success of Primary Justice marked Bernhardt as a promising young talent, and he followed the book with seventeen more mysteries starring the idealistic defense attorney, including Murder One (2001) and Hate Crime (2004). Bernhardt’s other novels include Double Jeopardy (1995) and The Midnight Before Christmas (1998), a holiday-themed thriller. In 1999, Bernhardt founded Bernhardt Books (formerly HAWK Publishing Group) as a way to help boost the careers of struggling young writers. In addition to writing and publishing, Bernhardt teaches writing workshops around the country. He currently lives with his family in Oklahoma. 

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      Book preview

      Renegades (William Bernhardt's Shine Series Book 4) - WILLIAM BERNHARDT

      RENEGADES

      by William Bernhardt

      Copyright © 2015 William Bernhardt

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Babylon Books

      Distributed by Smashwords

      No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

      Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

      Other Books by William Bernhardt

      The Ben Kincaid Novels:

      Primary Justice

      Blind Justice

      Deadly Justice

      Perfect Justice

      Cruel Justice

      Naked Justice

      Extreme Justice

      Dark Justice

      Silent Justice

      Murder One

      Criminal Intent

      Death Row

      Hate Crime

      Capitol Murder

      Capitol Threat

      Capitol Conspiracy

      Capitol Offense

      Capitol Betrayal

      Other novels:

      Challengers of the Dust

      The Game Master

      Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness

      Dark Eye

      Strip Search

      Double Jeopardy

      The Midnight Before Christmas

      The Code of Buddyhood

      Final Round

      Nonfiction:

      Story Structure: The Key to Successful Fiction

      Creating Character: Bringing Your Story to Life

      Perfecting Plot: Charting the Hero’s Journey

      Dynamic Dialogue: Letting Your Story Speak

      Sizzling Style: Every Word Matters

      Excellent Editing: The Writing Process

      Powerful Premise: Writing the Irresistible

      The Fundamentals of Fiction Video Series

      Poetry:

      The White Bird

      The Ocean’s Edge

      For young readers:

      Shine

      The Black Sentry

      Princess Alice and the Dreadful Dragon

      Equal Justice: The Courage of Ada Sipuel

      Edited by William Bernhardt

      Legal Briefs: Stories by Today’s Best Thriller Writers

      Natural Suspect: A Collaborative Novel of Suspense

      For Alice, Beth, Kadey, and Madeline

      You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same.

      Jonathan Davis

      Contents

      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

      Note from the Author

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Chapter 1

      Bristow Genetics

      Five Years Before

      The nagging voice in Dr. Emily Coutant’s head wouldn’t go away. The one that told her she’d made a tragic mistake. That she should never have come here. That she’d let curiosity and vanity overcome her common sense.

      For months she’d been pursued by the exorbitantly endowed Bristow Genetics lab, a scientific research outfit known to have some of the brainiest scientists in the nation and several lucrative government contracts. What she couldn’t figure out was why they wanted her. Her field was neuropsychiatry. She was a clinical and therapeutic analyst, not a data cruncher, not a lab slave. And the Institute kept her completely occupied. So what possible good could she be to Bristow? Made no sense, but the relentless offers kept coming.

      Today they offered her a preposterous retainer just to sit in a chair and watch a presentation. No strings attached. Sounded more like the offer of a time-share salesman than a scientific headhunter. She scanned the check with the Secure Funds app in her glasses. The money was there, already transferred to her account. Technically, she could leave now and keep the cash. But no. She’d fulfill her end of the bargain. But even if she kept their money, they did not own her. Nobody told her what to do. Nobody charted her course.

      Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining me today.

      The man behind the podium was, of course, Dr. Simon Estes. She’d heard of him. He’d made a big splash with his findings on these people called Shines. Estes’s involvement with Bristow guaranteed a high level of respectability.

      So why were they bribing people to get them in the room?

      My friends, donors, and scientific colleagues, Estes continued, I am proud to tell you that we stand on the threshold of a dream. For years, humanity has been victimized by the vicissitudes of genetic fate. Forced to live with the cards we were randomly dealt. Often leaving some of the greatest minds and the most valuable public servants trapped in physical bodies that made their work difficult if not impossible. My friends, I am happy to tell you that those days are reaching an end.

      She supposed she should be more excited, but she’d heard this declaration before. Since the human genome was first mapped, many a soul trumpeted the dawn of a brave new era in human evolution. So far, however, the actual benefits were few. And some of the proposals were not so much promising as terrifying.

      She glanced around the room. The woman sitting beside her was a middle-aged brunette, reasonably attractive and able to apply a little makeup properly, unlike some of the female specimens who worked in these laboratories. She knew some of the others sitting around the oval acrylic table. Scott Banner used to work at the Gen32 lab in Las Vegas. Mark Fisher had something to do with neuroprogramming, but she was sketchy on the details. Last she heard, Emerson Ogilve was doing some kind of top-secret work in North Korea on quantum computing. George Mason was trying to make teleportation a reality. Was Schreiber still trying to develop that extra-dimensional ray gun, or did the government finally shut him down? She couldn’t remember. But it was an impressive assemblage. Estes appeared to have gathered a diverse group of people from the top echelons of the scientific research community.

      Yes, we have reached a new frontier in human evolution, one that will yield a bountiful harvest for every man and woman on the planet. Behind Estes, a fast-paced array of images from the history of science flickered past. Galileo. Copernicus. E=mc2. Dinosaurs. The Vitruvian Man. A mushroom cloud. But this is not something we can do alone. That’s why we’ve invited you to witness this presentation. We need your help. We need your genius. The threshold work has been completed, but there are still many tests to be run, applications to be developed, and trillions of lines of code to be written. Whatever it is you are asked to do, I can assure you it will be worth your time. Indeed, it will be the most important work of your life.

      Mark Fisher swung around in his seat. Hate to tell you this, Dr. Estes, but I’m swamped. No way I can take on a new project. In fact, looking around the room, I don’t see anyone who doesn’t already have a full plate.

      Whatever you’re doing now, Estes replied, it dwarfs in significance to what you could be doing tomorrow.

      That’s your point of view, of course. We’re all fond of our own projects. But even if yours were the most important work on earth—it’s still yours. And no one ever made a name for themselves doing someone else’s work.

      Estes kept his smile in place, but she felt certain Fisher had ruffled the scientist’s empirical feathers. If Galileo offered to let you peer through his telescope and be the first to glimpse the moons of Saturn, would you refuse because it wasn’t your telescope?

      Are you suggesting that you’re Galileo?

      An even better question, Estes continued, "might be this:

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