Kirk Eugene - The Neon Amazon

The Neon Amazon

Once Giants Series: Book 1

Eugene Kirk and Garan Mad

Copyright 2017 by Eugene Kirk & Garan Mad

All Right Reserved.

VER 1.17

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Artist - Garan Mad

Editor - Kisa Whipkey www.kisawhipkey.com

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Foreward

Thanks for picking this up and giving Once Giants a try! This is the series opener and the best place to start.

If you wish to join our reading list, click the cover image below and receive a free copy of Girls Night Out, a Once Giants short available exclusively to subscribers. You can read a quick sneak peek at the back of this book.

Will you leave us a review ? Your feedback and thoughts really make a difference to our writing. So if you can, please leave us a review on Amazon.com.

Our thanks in advance if you do so!

-Eugene Kirk & Garan Mad

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Books in the Once Giants Series

The Neon Amazon

Once Giants Series: Book 1

May 2017

Once Giants

Once Giants Series: Book 2

May 2017

Cut Down to Size

Once Giants Series: Book 3

June 2017

Deal with the Devil

Once Giants Series: Book 4

July 2017

Predictor

Once Giants Series: Book 5

August 2017

Bad Moon Rising

Once Giants Series: Book 6

TBD

These Boots were made for Killing

Once Giants Series: Book 7

TBD

Carbon

Once Giants Series: Book 8

TBD

Weightlifter, Wrestler, Soldier, Spy

Once Giants Series: Book 9

TBD

Part 1

Size Queen

Chapter 1

Tinas thoughts left her as she slammed full force into the side of a grav-van. Or maybe it had slammed into her. Either way, the cheap SEAUX-Korean import crumpled like a beer can as it bounced off her eight-foot frame and spun out in a shower of sparks and exploding glass.

Caralho ! she cursed. Damn idiot!

She launched a barefooted kick into what was left of the van and sent it careening across the rain drenched highway on its busted repeller coils and into the curb. She resisted the urge to take out the rest of her pain and agitation on the crippled vehicle, more out of self-preservation than self-control. It was probably her fault for running across a highway in the middle of the night without looking, anyway.

Still, the least they could have done was hit the friggin brakes!

Stupid schmucks, she muttered as rain pelted her from the night sky, soaking her through. That damn well hurt.

Tina brushed chips of broken glass from her wet shoulders as she peered through the vans busted windscreen. She couldnt tell if the occupants were badly injured or not, and she didnt really care. They were still moving, and it was clear they were a couple of civilians, not members of some rival jacker gang trying to take out Boss Marcoss elite prized champion. Plus the cops would be on their way now, and she didnt have time for that crap.

Tina fled the highway and jumped the guard rail, falling thirty feet to the darkened confines of the favela below. She impacted with a spray of wet earth and took off in a sprint through the dimly lit shanty town.

A midnight collection run. Solo. Howd she end up working for a bastard whod make her pull a job like this? Her last conversation with him was over an hour ago, but Marcoss parting words still had her seething with rage.

Don t forget . I own your ass , you big dumb bitch .

The mere echo of those words had her punching the backs of plastiply shacks as she barreled through the muddy alleyways. Shed fix him one day. When she could finally get free from him, and out of this hellhole called Brazil.

The rain hissed in a steady snare-drum roll as it pounded the corrugated zinc roofs of the three- and four-story tenement buildings lining either side of the alley. She reached a stairway and bounded up the crudely cast concrete steps three at a time, a sudden pain shooting through her body with each lunge.

What the hell?

She forced her mind to push past it and kept going, her lungs struggling to placate her aching cells with as much oxygen and synthetic endorphins as her body could muster. That van hadnt hit her that hard.

Had it?

She reached a platform and stopped, her breathing ragged, a coppery taste in her mouth. She sucked in air and hacked loudly into her hand, leaning against one of the tenement buildings for support as a coughing fit took hold. When it finally subsided, flecks of rust-colored mucus covered her palm.

Shit... Dying again, alreadynot even three days this time. Cheap-ass nanites.

Tina faced the rain-blurred city lights in the distance. So Paulo. Smart money said to leave now, go back and beg her asshole boss for another dose of mercy while she still had blood pumping through her veins instead of battery acid. But Marcos wasnt one for mercy. In fact, it was just his style to be sending her out on a run this close to zero. More control. And returning empty-handed would be out of the question. Not unless she wanted him to double her debt again.

And that shit wasnt happening.

A light flickered on to her right. Tina turned reflexively toward it and found herself staring into someones apartment hovel. Movement fluttered, and a woman screamed. A dark-skinned man poked his head through the window, and then jerked back in surprise, clearly not expecting to see the face of a woman hovering outside his second-story bedroom.

The man swore and rattled off something in Portuguese too garbled for her to comprehend. All save for one word: Rainha . Queen. He stood frozen in the window, his chest heaving inside his sweat-stained undervest as his heartbeat raced within her ears, louder even than the rain falling on the rooftops outside.

Relax, asshole, Im not here for you, she said in English. And then, remembering she had a reputation to uphold, she added, Today. Then she pushed off the apartment building and continued up the steps to find her true prey.

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Tina kicked in the warped plastiply door of the rusted zinc shack.

The people within jumped as the door flew off its hinges and through the flimsy corrugated wall on the opposite side. She ducked under the doorway and slipped into the room, her bare feet yielding to the hard-packed clay of the dirt floor. Tina remained stooped to fit inside, a situation she was so accustomed to she could almost do so without thinking. Three men stared up at her, seated on overturned plastic buckets around a white picnic table littered with empty food containers, half empty beer bottles, and full ash trays.

Raul sat at the far end of the tablea pudgy, full-blooded Portuguese man with greasy black hair and a beard to match. He exhaled heavily and leaned his head back with a roll of his eyes. Puta Merda ! he swore at her in Portuguese. You really got to come at a time like this?

Voc t atrasado , she replied in kind. You re late . And you know it.

Tina forced herself to focus on him and him aloneor at least that was the impression she wanted to give. Raul wasnt really a threat. She had kicked his ass enough times to make him think twice before trying anything stupid. But the other two were unknown to her.

And that made them dangerous.

They were chestnut-skinned, with dark dreadlocks that hung loosely about their shoulders. They wore camouflage fatigues, hidden poorly beneath expensive brown leather dusters. The sight of the fatigues caused her adrenal glands to kick in, speeding her pulse and forcing her senses to acuity as her muscles began to swell beneath her own skin-tight apparel. She regretted it immediately, tasted more blood in her mouth as her body pulled for nonexistent resources, cannibalizing itself.