Agent Pitch Finalist #10 - Point Blank

POINT BLANK
YA futuristic fantasy
60,000

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Norah is a Tracker, a student of a government-run high school that specializes in the extermination of Shifters—monsters that look like humans but can transform into animals. For several years, Norah trained in martial arts, weaponry, and virtual reality simulations with only one objective in mind: exterminate Seth, the phoenix Shifter who caused the fire that killed her family.

When Norah infiltrates a community of Shifters hiding in the woods, she discovers that Seth and the other Shifters are disturbingly more human than she was raised to believe. Seth is not the ruthless monster of her nightmares, but a seventeen-year-old boy just trying to deal with the fear and pressure of being the leader everyone expects him to be. Seth claims that the fire was an accident due to his inability to control his Shift, which is a far cry from what her government told her—that Seth started the fire on purpose to rally the Shifters against the humans.

Norah must quickly figure out who’s telling the truth—the boy who killed her family or the potentially corrupt government that took her in when she lost everything— before she ends up shooting point blank at the wrong side.

POINT BLANK is a YA futuristic fantasy complete at 60,000 words. It is told in the alternating points of view of Norah and Seth. Because of its dystopian and sci-fi elements, POINT BLANK will appeal to fans of LEGEND and ENDER'S GAME.

First 150 words:

The Phoenix is watching. The walls of the virtual simulation room flicker around its flames, and the legendary bird stares me down with its ruthless, scarlet eyes.

Before its image can fade away, I get out my pistol from my pocket and fire, again and again. The beast shrieks and takes flight. It swoops down towards me, and its soot-colored talons reach for my face. I go flat on my back and continue to shoot at it, aiming at its head this time.

The bird recoils from the bullets and flies past me, landing several feet away.

And then, the flames that make up the phoenix’s feathers bristle for a moment, crackling like a hungry forest fire, before absorbing the bullets. Just like it absorbed all the heat and energy from the bomb, the grenade, and the rocket that I’d used against it in previous simulations.

The gun had been my last resort.