If you’re taken with cyberware, sci-fi trans-humanism, and an unbelievable quantity of sassy characters, you then’re going to need to sit down for this ebook. From Rebellion Publishing, Aubrey Wood’s debut novel Bang Bang Bodhisattva will get an unique cowl reveal and excerpt on io9.

Bang Bang Bodhisattva follows a trans girl hacker-for-hire who, in an try and make lease, groups up with a luddite P.I. to unravel a homicide she’s been falsely accused of. A singular hard-boiled detective / science fiction mash-up story unfolds, with a vibrant and numerous forged of characters.’

Combine the perspective of Gideon the Ninth with the noir pastiche of Archer Dreamland, and you’ve got a reasonably good thought about what this ebook goes to ship. Here’s the total cowl, making its first media displaying on io9, adopted by the pulse-pounding first chapter.

The large fool’s robotic fist plowed into Kiera’s face like a bullet practice splattering just a little child bunny. As evenings go, this was a internet loss.

Kiera spun out and hit carpet. A second later Herrera dropped down subsequent to her. Their eyes met. Herrera brushed his good nostril together with his fingertips.

“Hey, kid, you’ve got a little’…”

Kiera touched her face. Nose blood poured down her entrance. She gurgled, “Th-thanks.”

The goon grabbed her by the collar—this was the large Black goon within the black swimsuit, the opposite one was a white man and wore a white swimsuit; they seemed like opposing chess items or ice cream bars—and he or she had a second to blearily admire his palms. Slick black shells with leafy gold filigree and smooth rubber fingertips. Nice prosthetics, Kiera thought in a fog. They look costly.

The lummox with the great palms hurled Kiera by means of a doorway, and he or she tumbled throughout a cheesy rug right into a room with some outdated screens and an enormous secure. Herrera, courtesy of the white goon, adopted promptly.

“Mr. Carson says you’re not allowed in his clubs anymore, Herrera,” mentioned the white one. The Black one shut the door.

“Hey, stupid,” Herrera wheezed, rolling to face Kiera. “Remember that thing I gave you?”

She groaned, “Uhh. Uh-huh.”

“Take it out and push the red button.”

The white goon knelt down and, with cyber-hands the colour of fantastic white chocolate, began punching the shit out of poor Herrera, who grunted and howled like—Kiera hated that she was reminded of this—somebody bottoming for the primary time. The different large boy was coming for her.

Kiera dug into the entrance of her underwear, the place she’d stashed the little grey system so it could simply appear like her dick bulge when the bouncers checked her for weapons. She pulled it out, thrust it up within the air, and pushed a wonderfully thumb-sized pink button on the facet.

The world burned to white. Something shrieked in Kiera’s ears and he or she yelped, stunned and horrified.

“Jesus fuck!”

She dropped the little factor. She blinked floaters out of her imaginative and prescient, and her smart-ear buzzed like old-school dial-up. When she might make issues out once more, the Black goon was rotating his fingers in his ears. The white one had flipped out his darkish lenses and was furiously massaging his eyes.

Herrera, the one one who’d been ready for the flashbang, was already up and snatching a great ol’ aluminum baseball bat, handily stashed on prime of a file cupboard—if Kiera hadn’t simply pushed that button, the large boys had most likely been on the point of swipe proper on her kneecaps with that factor. Herrera beaned the white man on the dome like he was going for a goddamn carnival prize, after which the Black one straight throughout the face, shattering his lenses. Both gorillas hit the ground like sacks of human concrete.

In the dystopian future, the straightforward options are nonetheless generally the simplest, thought Kiera. Lol.

Herrera brushed his nostril once more and motioned on the Black goon together with his fingers. He chuckled hoarsely.

“Hey-y-y, look, kid. Now he’s got a little’…”

“Yeah, funny a-ha-ha-ha-ha.” Kiera tried to blow her nostril and it harm and sprayed blood throughout her palms.

“Jeez, grouchy.”

“My goddamn nose.” She tried to inhale, and it made a loud cussed snuck. “It’s broken, I think. I don’t have health insurance, you dick. Why didn’t you warn me what that little thingy did?”

The processes in Herrera’s head visibly churned, overclocking no matter burnt-out bent bottlecap handed for his mind. “I thought you knew!”

“How would I—ugh. Okay. Can we go?”

Herrera slipped out the door into the hallway. He stored the bat. Kiera adopted.

He led her down a hallway stuffed with lights that turned every thing pink. After the punch within the face and the flashbang, she was growing an categorical migraine. The music from the membership downstairs pounded by means of the ground and partitions and seeped into her head, the best way radiation will get into groundwater. She had tight, throbbing fists of blood in her nostril and lobes.

“I better be getting five stars,” Kiera insisted.

Herrera didn’t flip round. “Of course, kid, of course.”

“And a review?”

“Okay.”

“And a tip for breaking my fucking nose.”

“Kid, I am two seconds from rolling you up in a carpet.”

They discovered a stairwell and climbed up a ground. A bald man with mirror-eyes obtained half of “Hey—” out earlier than Herrera clocked him for a house run and he went down.

Kiera squatted and fished round in mirror-eyes’ jacket and holsters. He had a gun, a collapsible baton, and—

“Gotcha gotcha.” Kiera had seen the bouncers exterior sporting the blue and yellow stun pistols on their hips. She took it.

A masculine voice from down the corridor: “What the fuck are you doing!”

More hassle had discovered them. While Herrera put his palms up and tried to think about a line, Kiera whirled left and fired the stun gun—all reflex, no hesitation. A white pin caught within the swimsuit’s chest, and he convulsed and pissed himself earlier than dropping.

“Mechanical-automatical,” Kiera murmured, cool sufficient to say it aloud however not so cool that she wished anybody to listen to her. She wished she might slip the stunner right into a hip holster however settled for holding the tip close to her lips.

Herrera put his palms down. “Why’d you go for the stunner and not the real gun?”

“I don’t want to fucking kill anyone,” Kiera mentioned, as if his query was idiotic, as a result of it was. “You’re in enough trouble with Carson anyway, aren’t you?”

“That’s my smart girl.”

“Whatever.”

Herrera took her to a door on the finish of the corridor. It was locked—however simply by an previous steel lock, with an excellent large keyhole.

“Oh, I can do this one.” Kiera started to achieve into her messenger bag.

Herrera swung the bat down like a katana and smashed the deal with clear off. Kiera rolled her eyes.

“Or that, I guess? Why did you even bring me?”

Herrera didn’t reply her. He kicked the door open. In the room there was an enormous four-poster mattress and actually cheesy fluoro blue and pink lighting. A doughy man lay on the mattress with three—strippers? Prostitutes? Both? All in various states of undress, and with assorted mechanized limbs. The man noticed Herrera and Kiera, and scrambled to cowl himself, hollering hysterically. The ladies have been

nonplussed, if Kiera had ever seen a state of affairs fitted to such a phrase.

“Wh-what! What the hell! What the shit!”

Herrera’s left eye made a flash-burst of white mild, then one other, throwing intercourse employee shadow-puppets on the far wall.

“Your husband says hello.”

Herrera wagged his eyebrows, grabbed Kiera’s wrist, and yanked her again out into the corridor.

A gunshot blammed and a bit of the picket doorframe exploded into splinters behind her. Kiera’s coronary heart kicked up and acid concern spider-fingered out throughout her ribs, because the night immediately plunged from shitty however most likely a great story to oh my god I’m going to fucking die.

“Jesus Jesus Jesus ohhh, I’m getting shot at,” Kiera blathered. “I’m getting shot at! I am done with you after this, I’m done. Do you hear me, I’m done!”

“Not the time, not the time, not the time.”

“For god’s sake,” Mr. Cheater again there screamed in a panic, “someone stop them! Shoot them!”

They stepped over the incapacitated guard and Kiera tripped down the steps, virtually wiping out. When they obtained to the pink hallway, the black and white large fellas have been stumbling round getting their sea legs again. And they have been blocking the best way out.

“Stun gun still good?” Herrera requested hurriedly.

“One shot.”

“Get the right.”

Kiera popped off her second shot and hit the Black goon within the pec. He convulsed like somebody was shaking an enormous child and slumped all the best way down. Herrera reached the white one earlier than he might get a gun out and clop-thok, first the knee then the again of the pinnacle with the bat. Smooth

crusing all the best way to the steps. Kiera adopted Herrera down the following stairwell to the membership stage.

“You know two hits to the head like that can kill him,” Kiera warned, possibly even admonished. “Shit, just one could.”

“Are you being cranky because you have an iron deficiency or something?”

“I am being shot at!”

They hit the primary ground and stumbled into the illicit casino-slash-strip club-slash-absolutely a mobster hangout. This place is making an attempt to do an excessive amount of without delay, thought Kiera, numbly, as Herrera dragged her by the wrist previous the sport tables after which by means of the dancefloor stuffed with bright-haired freaks (her folks). It was darkish, choked with vape smoke, noisier than hell and stuffed with our bodies in right here. They ought to have the ability to get misplaced within the shuffle and escape—

Blam blam—except the blokes with the weapons had higher imaginative and prescient than Herrera, in fact, which wasn’t stunning since his false eye was an historic piece of shit. Blam blam. People screamed and scattered. They most likely thought it was one other fucking mass capturing.

“Stop, you fucking morons!” yelled somebody. “You’re gonna hit customers!”

It was a fucking miracle they hadn’t already. Had they? Kiera stored working. The door was shut—in the best way {that a} stage along with your favourite band on it was shut when there have been layers and layers of moshers between it and also you. People have been beginning to shove their manner out. The rap music was nonetheless taking part in, thudding in Kiera’s ears and contributing to her headache.

“My pussy taste better than your girl’s. My titties pop-poppin’, they better than your girl’s.”

Kiera knew this track; her girlfriend cherished it. She hoped she would stay to see her girlfriend once more. She was achieved after this shit. Doneskis. Outtie 5 thousand.

Kiera and Herrera hit the grey streets with out getting holes of their heads. A chilly drizzle kissed Kiera’s cheeks. Her smart-ear jingled. She hissed, “Shut the fuck up!” however in fact that wasn’t a legitimate command. “End call, end call, decline!”

The ringing stopped in time for her to listen to two extra gunshots and really feel the air at her shoulder whip. Someone in entrance of her with a shaved head took each pictures within the again and dropped. Kiera’s coronary heart did a flip and her abdomen lurched. No. She threw a glance behind her. That man from the room with the strippers, he was out right here on the sidewalk in a blazer and his goddamn underwear waving a gun, and there have been two extra armed dipshits with him.

Herrera and Kiera moved half a block with the group, previous a clothes retailer and a kiosk promoting eye-and-ear equipment. Herrera minimize left into an alley. He had his cellphone out—that janky previous factor, that brick.

“What are you doing?” Kiera demanded.

“Looking for a car.” He paused. “I’m not logged in. For fuck’s sake, why am I not logged in?”

“Mimi, nearest U-Ride please, nearest U-Ride please, nearest—” Kiera ducked behind a dumpster simply earlier than a bullet bit the steel nook and flung sparks.

“Sure, let me get that for you,” the AI assistant answered with an infuriating lilt in Kiera’s left ear. Herrera obtained up, made an enormous vast swing, and threw the bat. Kiera heard it clatter into one thing, and a deep male grunt. Herrera grabbed her and so they stored working.

“Anything yet, kid?”

A pixelated blue arrow popped into Kiera’s imaginative and prescient, pointing up and proper. “It says three hundred and forty meters, that-a-way.”

“How’s your cardio?”

“I mean, I don’t own a car?”

“Good. I mean, not good, but.”

“Whatever! Fuck! Run! I hate you!”

They sprinted out the opposite facet of the alley and tried to vanish within the crowd, however Herrera’s ridiculous trench coat and Kiera’s Statue of Liberty torch-flame of magenta hair have been going to be simple to pick. “Which way?” requested Herrera. Kiera pointed. Herrera minimize straight throughout the highway, virtually getting hit; the black automobile screeched to a cease, blasted its horn, and Herrera hopped and skidded proper throughout the hood. Kiera went for no such theatrics, pleased to go round. One of the weapons behind them went bang bangand the windshield spiderwebbed and the automobile chunked ahead, rushing off like a scared, chubby cat.

One of these police dog-robots was patrolling on the sidewalk. (They all the time seemed to Kiera extra like small, bizarre giraffes or dumbass brontosauruses.) It turned to face the gunshots, and LEDs alongside its physique lit up pink.

“ROOF ROOF ROOF. STOP. CEASE. ROOF. CEASE FIRE. ROOF ROOF. BY ORDER OF THE NEW CARSON POLICE DEPARTMENT. YOU WILL CEASE. ROOF ROOF ROOF.”

Herrera hauled the factor off the bottom like he was going to provide it the Heimlich. Kiera ducked behind him.

“ROOF ROOF. UNHAND ME. RELEASE ME, CITIZEN ROOF ROOF ROOF.”

“Yeah, yeah, shoot back already, you fuckin’ waste of tax dollars.” The canine’s mounted gun fired a teeth-chatter burst throughout the road, whereas Herrera wrestled with the flailing robotic to maintain it pointed in the fitting path.

“CITIZEN, RELEASE ME. ROOF ROOF ROOF, CEASE FIRE.”

Three bullets hit the home windows behind Kiera. She yanked on Herrera’s coat collar.

“Okay, enough Die Hard shit, maybe?”

Herrera threw the machine-gun-dog apart. It launched staccato bursts of random gunfire prefer it was farting and struggled in useless to proper itself.

Herrera pulled Kiera by her fingers. “You’ve seen Die Hard?”

“I’m thirty, not fifteen.”

They minimize by means of one other alley, ran previous one in all Kiera’s favourite donut outlets—would she ever have the ability to come by right here once more?—and there was the promised automobile parked on the alternative nook, an unpleasant little lime inexperienced field. They crossed throughout a merciful break in site visitors and sprinted to the automobile,

Herrera climbing within the driver’s facet and Kiera shotgun.

Kiera scrambled for the keys within the glove compartment and tossed them to Herrera. In only a second the automobile roared, dashboard and radio lighting up neon inexperienced. The very first thing Herrera did was again straight into the automobile behind them, crunch.

Kiera winced. “Nice.”

“Shut up, did you see this parking job? This thing was packed in tighter than your skinny little ass.”

“Don’t talk about my ass like that.”

Herrera pulled the automobile out and it seemed like a straight shot to the following mild. Then for a second she was blind. On prime of pressing message prompts taking on the edges of her imaginative and prescient, climbing within the U-Ride introduced up a full-splash, both-eyes advert for Mamma Mia, which was by some means, sure, to today, nonetheless a factor. Kiera angrily flapped her palms to eliminate all of it. When she might see once more, the automobile had

made it midway to the sunshine. She ready to chill out.

She heard the pepper of gunfire, and the driver-side window shattered. The dashboard chinked and the inexperienced lights went out, and Herrera howled.

“Aaah, son of a bitch!”

He let go of the wheel, and the automobile curved into the flawed lane.

“Whoa!” Kiera grabbed the wheel and wrenched them again simply in time to keep away from a head-on collision. Herrera clutched his proper hand. Kiera noticed blood.

“They get you?”

“They got me. Steer. Go left.”

Herrera stored the fuel down proper right into a pink mild. Kiera clenched every thing for, like, the 5 millionth time that night. She swung their fugly, ruined lime-green U-Ride across the nook like a purchasing cart, virtually entering into one other accident and making folks honk at them, after which held the course regular as they tore off down the following road.

A complete ten seconds handed the place they didn’t hear any gunshots. Then fifteen, then twenty.

Herrera caught his shot hand in his jacket, checked out Kiera, and set free an extended snort that rolled into an enormous giggle.

Kiera blew her damaged nostril at him, exhausting. Blood and snot spattered his fairly face. Herrera cringed like he’d sucked a lemon.

“Hey!”

Kiera scrunched up her lips, glared at him, and put her eyes again on the highway.

Excerpt from Aubrey Wood’s Bang Bang Bodhisattva reprinted by permission of Rebellion Publishing. 

Bang Bang Bodhisattva will launch in 2023. Preorders will likely be out there on the Rebellion Publishing web site quickly.

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