Mirror World Publishing and Sapphyria’s Book Promotions present the 1-week virtual book tour for
It Hurts Every Time by L.P. Mills
Pluto Garcia is a lieutenant in the Community Militia of Morrisette, a post-communist city-state where a miracle drug has advanced enough to allow the dying a second chance at life by launching them into the nearest available universe in which they are still alive.
In his latest incarnation, Pluto is tasked with investigating the death of Krishna Klein, a brilliant but troubled philanthropist who has been found with a bullet in his head following a week-long bender. With the aid of his assigned partner, Esther Dupont, Pluto uncovers a techno-fascistic plot to plunge the flawed Utopia of Morrissette into authoritarian control once and for all.
As part of the Book Tour celebrating the December 1st Release, here is an exclusive excerpt from the book:
It is 16:37 in Morrissette, and Pluto Garcia is bleeding out again.
The afternoon sun glints blindingly off the water, fluttering like TV static as blood pools from the hole in Garcia’s back and out onto the pavement. The pain is cold and heavy, resting on his body with the weight of an anaconda, squeezing the air out of his lungs in laboured gasps. Somewhere overhead, a seagull drifts lazily on the thermals that criss-cross the Waterfront district, watching as two cats fight over a discarded sandwich with its keen yellow eye. Pluto Garcia is dying.
It isn’t his first time. Now aged fifty-seven, Pluto Garcia has thus far died three times: The first was during the winter of 1969: a jetty he was standing on had been washed away by the surging Pallias river, carrying him screaming along with it. The second time was in 1973 during a scuffle with Khazi’s boys up at the Shipyard, back before the Coalition had been established and the districts were more eager to settle things with a short, sharp whack to the base of the skull. And now the third, bleeding out on the Waterfront, having been stabbed in the back by an unknown attacker. He lies there now, cheek kissing the pavement, a cocktail of blood and mucus dribbling from his lips.
With a grunt he tries to force himself up, contorting into a twisted yoga position as his trembling fingers reach for the pillbox in his left pocket. Standard issue: cool, durable aluminium, embossed with a stylish red CMM – the Community Militia of Morrissette. He feels its weight in his rapidly numbing hands, hearing the gentle rattle of the pills inside. Three pills, each the shocking lemon yellow of a paper wasp. Repodimethyltryptamine. Tryp.
He takes one pill between his fingers, rolls onto his side and, ignoring the agony coursing through his body, brings it to his lips. He grits his teeth and bites down on a slowly rising scream, channelling the energy instead into forcing the pill into his mouth and dry swallowing. His arm gives way and he collapses, the obtrusion sliding awkwardly down his throat. As he splays out in a rapidly-expanding pool of his own blood, a thought floats to the surface of his mind and rests there amidst his dying neurons.
Next time: Turn around.
Three.
Two.
One.
There, there we go, streaming from one consciousness to the next across the raging psychic seas of the Wider Probability Matrix – ProbMat – its neon waves crashing into the lingering ego as HERE becomes THERE. Every thought, every synapse fires in conjunction, the dull pinkish-black space behind his eyelids exploding into a vibrant magenta as he vacates his dying body and enters the nearest similar equivalent. The closest available universe is 0.0026% variations away, identical in almost every conceivable manner to his point of origin with one major exception.
It is 16:36 in Morrissette, and Pluto Garcia is about to be stabbed.
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ZUeghc
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LC W. Allingham 
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