ShockWired
A teen mechanic on a desert world finds herself in heaps of trouble after a mysterious girl shows up with a broken solar bike and a lot of enemies...
Flipping her goggles up so the visitor can see her, Kelly calls out as she revs the quad, swings her leg over, and rolls it across the uneven ground to their client. “Hear you’ve got an issue?” She brings the quad to a stop far enough away that the girl doesn’t get dusted. “I’m Kelly.”
“Savannah,” the girl replies succinctly, flipping the toothpick she’s chewing on from one corner of her mouth to the other. Makes her look like an old-school Wild West cowboy, Kelly thinks, trying not to grin. “My solarbike took a couple of bullets. Made it a while but it’s beyond what I have to patch it. Saw your station on the GPS and figured you’d maybe fix it, or trade.”
“Won’t know ’til I see it,” Kelly replies, trying to be agreeable instead of impressed with the aura of “don’t mess with me” that Savannah is basically pulsing with. Shaved head, several visible black ink tattoos swirling out from her short sleeves over smoothly muscled arms. And she’s wearing fingerless black leather gloves with little studs on the
back of the knuckles. Punching gloves.
“Legit.” Savannah doesn’t wait for an invitation, but unfurls from the rock she was leaning on and puts her hand on Kelly’s shoulder to climb onto the back of the quad.
Tales of Heroines Who Hack
Welcome to the sci-fi worlds of brainy teen heroines who hack not just computers, but whatever puzzles come their way. A scrappy mechanic on an oppressed planet builds a device she hopes will be her ticket to a better future. A fledgling chemist uses her skills to catch a murderer. A teen inventor creates a weapon to battle the mysterious beasts attacking her city. A superhero-in-training puts her skills to the test when attackers strike her compound. A self-styled detective hacks an augmented reality game to solve a dastardly crime. Girls who code, explore, fix robots, pilot starships, invent gadgets, build high-tech treehouses, and more. With tales ranging from space adventures to steampunk to cyberpunk and more this 23-story collection will delight, thrill, and enthrall.
Proceeds from sales of this anthology will be donated to a scholarship fund through the Society of Women Engineers. Let’s show today’s girls that they, too, can be tomorrow’s inventors, programmers, scientists, and more.
STORIES BY:
Lyssa Chiavari, Jennifer Chow, Russ and Abby Colchamiro, MLD Curelas, Paige Daniels, Kay Dominguez, Mary Fan, Halli Gomez, Valerie Hunter, AA Jankiewicz, Nicholas Jennings, Jamie Krakover, Tash McAdam, MJ Moores, Jelani Akin Parham, Selenia Paz, Josh Pritchett, Jeremy Rodden, Aaron Rosenberg, Jenifer Purcell Rosenberg, Jennifer Lee Rossman, JR Rustrian, and Joanna Schnurman.
Featuring illustrations by Jacob Atom, Brandon Bell, Jo Belle, Lyssa Chiavari, Sharon Emmitt, Ben Falco, Fauzy Zulvikar Firmansyah, Christopher Godsoe, Liana Kangas, John Kovalic, MunkyWrench, Josh Pritchett, Emily Smith, Jennifer Stolzer, and Ronald Suh.
