Gearbreakers

by Zoe Hana Mikuta

Genres: YA Dystopian; YA Romance

Synopsis

Two girls on opposite sides of a war discover they're fighting for a common purpose?and falling for each other?in Zoe Hana Mikuta's high-octane debut Gearbreakers, perfect for fans of Pacific Rim, Pierce Brown's Red Rising Saga, and Marie Lu's Legend series.

We went past praying to deities and started to build them instead...

The shadow of Godolia's tyrannical rule is spreading, aided by their giant mechanized weapons known as Windups. War and oppression are everyday constants for the people of the Badlands, who live under the thumb of their cruel Godolia overlords.

Eris Shindanai is a Gearbreaker, a brash young rebel who specializes in taking down Windups from the inside. When one of her missions goes awry and she finds herself in a Godolia prison, Eris meets Sona Steelcrest, a cybernetically enhanced Windup pilot. At first Eris sees Sona as her mortal enemy, but Sona has a secret: She has intentionally infiltrated the Windup program to destroy Godolia from within.

As the clock ticks down to their deadliest mission yet, a direct attack to end Godolia's reign once and for all, Eris and Sona grow closer?as comrades, friends, and perhaps something more...

Praise for Gearbreakers:

"An absolute joyride of a story set in a vivid, arresting world. Gearbreakers is sci-fi at its very finest, combining the grandeur of mecha fighting machines with the intimacy of (splendidly feral) found family. Zoe Hana Mikuta is a talent to be in awe of." ?Chloe Gong, New York Times-bestselling author of These Violent Delights

Release date: June 29, 2021

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Print pages: 416

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

SONA


It makes sense that, when the times were desperate enough, when the people were frenzied enough, at a certain point we went past praying to deities and started to build them instead.

I never truly appreciated that before.

Then my eyes open, and I choke at the sight of the bleeding heavens.

Even as I grapple for the edges of the bed, dry heaving over its side, even as the red sky burns above me, I understand. The logic of it all. The brutal, human need for greater beings.

Human.

I blink once, slowly, waiting for the rest of my thoughts to align.

They left those, at least.

I sit upright, bringing my hands around to inspect, noting how my fingertips still twitch at my command. They look like mine. All the calluses are still there, hard and smooth like river stones across my palms. I peel back my left thumb, searching for the thin, pale scar that marks its base, where again and again I would bury my nail to suffocate the quivering of my hands.

My hands will never tremble again, but not because I am absent of fear now. In that respect, they have not changed me at all.

There is no scar.

This, too, makes sense. Calluses have use. Scars have memories and not much else. Keep the soldier and discard her flaws, and make her a God.

I press the nail of my forefinger to where the scar should curl.

Coil inward, tighter, tighter, knuckle flashing white, wait patiently for the skin to give-

The small sliver splits open. A red drop rolls off my skin and breaks against the tile floor.

They did not take away my blood, but they did take my pain.

I will not get that back until I am synced with the Windup.

My Windup.

I look back up again to watch the red morning sky, still scattered with specks of aether and a pale moon that remains resiliently pinned despite the blush of the horizon.

If I opened my mouth, I could ask the ceiling to flicker to a star-choked cosmos, or an eternal thunderstorm, or any of a million other fantastical images. Only the best amenities for the Academy's top students.

I do not speak. Whatever I wish for will still be glazed with red, just like the walls, just like my limbs. I am terrified that my voice has changed. They could have altered it in any way they pleased, or taken it altogether. Just like they took my pain, my breath, my eye.

It does not matter-whatever projections splay across the ceiling, they are nothing more than a collection of mirages against cold concrete. Just pretty things suffocating hard truths. I have long learned to be cautious of pretty things. Of beauty, of the grace of Gods formed from steel and wire .

It is all just warm skin hiding wires and bolts and the sharp edges of microchips.

Move. The thought flourishes, brittle with panic. You need to move, or the fear will seal you here.

I peer over the side of the bed. Slowly touch a toe against the ground, testing my weight, waiting for some seam to split the length of my leg, some part of me they forgot to seal up when they were finished bestowing the Mods.

I put my other foot to the ground and ease myself fully off the bed.

I do not unravel.

I do not even waver.

There is no longer a need for breath, and without the rise and fall of my chest, I feel so very still. My panic is a soundless, hollow thing.

The lights lining the mirror flicker on as I enter the bathroom. The tiles that encase the walls are pure black. Blue stone flecks the white marble sink. I know this. I know this, but as much as I cling to the memory of shades past, everything around me bleeds crimson.

Although . bleeds is not quite the right word for it.

I have made things bleed before; that red is always contained. It stains clothes and floorboards and lips, only things that I have permitted it to.

But this hue laps at my feet like ocean waves and corrupts the air I struggle to remember not to breathe, and it does not feel like victory.

This damn eye.

The left eye, to be exact. The distinction is important. One is artificial, one is not. One holds red and soaks the world through with it, and the other belongs to me.

It takes a while for me to drag my sight from the counter to the mirror, and when I do, Windup Pilot Two-One-Zero-One-Nine is there to catch my gaze. She wraps her fingers around my arms, parts my lips and folds my shoulders inward, and pulls a grating, splintering sound from my throat-part gasp, part ragged cry.

Right before the sound dies, it skips into a laugh.

What the hells have I done?

The Pilot moves her hands from her arms to her face, taking inventory of the features. Her father's strong jaw, the curls that bow against it. Her mother's soft nose and mouth, the fine, lovely shape of her eyes-but mine are larger, like they were drawn into place with an unhurried hand, or so she used to say.

They never dreamed that their daughter would hold so much more than bone and blood.

"My name." The whisper comes at a crawl. "My name is Sona Steelcrest."

Their daughter is still here.

"My name is Sona Steelcrest. I am still human."

I am still here.

They could not carve me away completely, not without also removing the pieces that they wish to use. That they need to use.

How lucky I am, to be perfect now.

I pause, then place my palm over the left eye.

Color comes crashing back into place as the Mod disengages. Black spills against the tiles and brown pours into my hair and my eye. It is all so much better than the red that gleams beneath my hand, the red that they forced into me.

How lucky I am that when the Academy surgeons were sifting about-ripping away those pesky human imperfections-they did not burn their hands on every venomous thought that festers under my skin. That they did not think to look closer, where across each vein and bone, I have carved out the promise that in time, I will take them apart, too.

I pull my palm away slowly, leaving their eye closed, and stare at the half-blind girl staring back. She is wrought of bolts and wires and metal plates. She is wrought of bone and blood, and of rage.

"My name is Sona Steelcrest. I am still human." I take a breath, allow it to coil through me, to ignite me. "I am here to destroy them all."


Copyright c 2021 by Zoe Hana Mikuta.