Ugly Camp

No AI was used in the writing of this work of purely human imagination.

In Dominion, you don’t know whether you are pretty or ugly until you are fifteen. Not officially, anyway.

It comes as no surprise to Rissa Marlow when she rated AP—Aesthetically Prohibited. She’s ugly, after all. Not stupid. The surprise comes when she arrives at ARC Three—Ugly Camp—to begin training for either a life of labor in the Corporations or a much shorter life in her nation’s endless war with the Enemies.

Everything changes though when Rissa finds herself the unwilling leader of a group of fellow Aps ordered on a mission to find a madman operating without official sanction deep in the Forbidden Zone. But one more surprise awaits: Cannen Ramsey, a beautiful Aesthetically Optimal boy will be joining this impossible mission.

Their journey down the Desert Sea is fraught with peril. Violent weather, dangerous animals and even more dangerous people greet them around every bend. But for the first time in her life, Rissa finds friendship. With cheerful Birdie, stoic Tree, and even with the arrogant Ettie and the unpredictable Shora. And as the reluctant adventurers are drawn deeper into the desert something even stronger seems to be growing between Cannen and her

Only when Rissa finally comes face-to-face with the man whose command she has been ordered to terminate does she begin to learn the terrible truth. About him. About her country. About herself.

While virtually everything Rissa thought she knew turns out to be lies perpetrated by the government, the corporations and even by her own parents, now she learns that the madman has found something here in the wasteland. Something ancient. Something horrific. Something deadly.

On this journey into the very heart of darkness Rissa may have to sacrifice everything including those she has come to trust, respect—and love.