Bounty Hunted

by Ian Cannon

  The pirates, in their twisted sense of humility, seemed to think this a joke, and they all bellowed laughter, some decrying—Har! Har!

  Axum flicked a hand at the enemy now stood unmoving across the chasm with their hands up in surrender. “Well, boys, go sweep ‘em up!”

  A group thundered toward the accessway across the space with their blasters still drawn to collect their prisoners of war.

  “Guilders,” Vekter called, “everyone alright? Anyone hurt or otherwise damaged?”

  A round of grumbles met him as Axum made his way over. The two stood before each other, eyeing the other closely. Years of distrust between the two parties flittered between them before Axum blurted, “Well, it’ll be pints and flagons for all, boy—hahaha!” He smacked the Guilder wormdog heartily on the back with a rough-hewn sense of triumph.

  The place was scarred and steaming, marks scoring multiple laser strikes, pieces of steel plasmatized into smoldering dollops of molten ore. A small, almost wretched voice squeeled in delight. Everyone jerked a look over to see Lyra Noot, the Jelu gnome, standing at the entrance to a side chamber filling with joy.

  Rennick stood over him staring into the room and cried, “Our damn weapons!”

  They’d found the armory where their personalized weapons had been confiscated and stored when they arrived under imprisonment. Vekter chuckled. He’d missed his plasma boomerangs. He would like to have had them throughout the ordeal. He moved to collect them.

  Toggin shoved his way into the storage room with his eyes scanning right and left. He froze when he found what he was looking for. His flames. He went to the apparatus, slung it around his back and connected the wrist attachments to his arms—two fuel tubes drawing from a methane/oxygen tank at his back with a spark light at the hands, complete with flame resistant gloves. Once secured, he snapped fingers on both hands and tiny arc lights danced over his palms. He looked around flashing his dirty Denubrian grin, content to have his flame throwers back.

  Shogun had been the first to engage, and Specter had fended him off with hardly any motion at all. But the battle had heated up, both combatants having tested the other, studying each other’s knowledge of swordplay and combat.

  Shogun’s proved to be time-tested, lethal and quick, but with a patient, opportunistic approach.

  Specter’s had been bought with technology, the noumenal download machine literally imprinting the knowledge in his mind, coding experience into his brain. His bio-tech suit pushed beyond the limitations of agility and speed of any living host, his motions a mechanized flurry of grace and decorum.

  Shogun stepped away from his opponent. Specter had no eyes to read, only that pulsing light. It didn’t matter. Only Shogun’s own deep understanding and respect for the art of the Nid mattered, and his approach to truth. Their skills were equal. This fight was a stalemate, except for one thing. In time, he’d begin to fatigue. His enemy would not.

  Shogun nodded to Specter with a notion of harmony. He’d found his final testament. But he’d find his satisfaction in the struggle, for all things must. Suns. Moons. Planets. The very life surging through his veins must struggle. It would be only in death that one could truly contribute their complete story to the ebb and flow of existence.

  “Thank you, Junga,” he whispered, and mounted his final charge, for in this moment would he expend himself fully—all that he knew, all that he was or could ever be, here and now, in the final testament of his life.

  Specter had to backpedal allowing his cybernetics to gage and respond, while the tiny piece of organic essence left within him was allowed its impulses. And with a final, unexpected counter, he left Shogun staggering back and clutching a mortal wound. He fell to his knees forcing breath as Specter relaxed and stood over him.

  “You, I fear, were the best of them,” Specter observed. “And now, they must fall, too.”

  Shogun looked up at him and murmured, “I go now to my sleep. A sleep that you, my friend, will never know.” He slumped to the floor.

  Specter nudged him with a foot, satisfied with his kill.

  WHAM—something enormous landed on the floor behind him. Specter took his time turning around. He knew the crew who’d blasted their way into his station was a close-knit group of heathens and mongrels. Kill one … the others will follow closely.

  He looked up to see the great Prax-Noossian standing before him, angrily snuffling through its enormous, green face. Somewhere under his cybernetic mask, Specter grinned.

  Ben could only watch as GuradKing stalked closer, taunting with his sword and swinging it loosely in his grip.

  “They’re orders were not to kill you, Benjar Dash,” he said, indicating the Incarcerum warriors Ben had felled. “But knowing I was his last line of defense, my orders were to stop you at all cost. My sire accepts all possibilities, you see. His wisdom shows itself already.”

  Ben took on a defensive pose, poised for a strike. His eyes glided down to that sword watching it, measuring closely.

  “For here we are, Benjar Dash,” GuardKing concluded, “at the end.” He steadied his feet bringing the blade up, elbow high, both hands on the hilt, angling it directly toward Ben.

  “Then come on!” Ben roared.

  GuardKing darted forward. Ben lurched to meet him in a tackle pose, his own hands reaching out to catch the blade. But he feinted at the very last. GuardKing tilted to avoid and thrust it home, suddenly shocked at Ben’s unexpected maneuver. The blade sank deeply into Ben’s flank piercing his side and sliding easily through. It was uncontested. GuardKing looked down, confused, to find his gun holster empty. Ben had diverted in the last moment and gone for the blaster—not the blade.

  Panic rose up in a reflexive moment and GuardKing had to abandon the blade with one hand. He snatched Ben by the wrist and angled the gun up, away—any direction at all—and it went off.

  Ben felt the blast slide across his own shoulder leaving a steaming trail of deep red and making him scream. But he controlled the blaster with both hands. The two struggled momentarily for it before Ben forced the gun down and fired. GuardKing shrieked out and pulled back, his sword arm now a seared stump. His hand flopped to the floor at Ben’s feet.

  Ben reached for the hilt jutting from his side, unsheathed the blade from his own body, brought it overhead and slammed it home. It sank through GuardKing’s chest making him gag and stagger back, eyes wide, mouth open. Ben pointed the blaster … and fired. His enemy dropped to his knees with a look of sudden disbelief.

  GuardKing blinked and straightened, looking up into his killer. He said through weak, broken words, “Cut one off … others will … follow.”

  Ben said, “I don’t give a shit.” He fired again.

  GuardKing slumped over with a thud, dead and gone.

  The pain from his wounds hit him like a wave of exquisite heat. He clutched his side feeling warm blood ooze over his hand, between his fingers. He shook his head, fighting off the urge to faint and looked up. There was a clear path between him and the lab.

  Between him and his wife.

  Specter ran forward and slid across the floor, ducking a blow from the Prax-Noossian. He was a big, powerful creature. But slow. Specter regained his feet in the same motion and sank the sword deep into Oonta’s belly. The creature boomed out a roar and reached down gripping the blade with a big, meaty hand. Specter yanked it back leaving a stripe of blood across Oonta’s palm and fingers.

  The beast spun around regaining his foe. Specter paced one way, then the next eyeing his next kill through that sensor node. He said, “You are not alone, Noossian. Except in death.”

  A storm of feet pounded forward from behind Oonta. The creature heaved knowingly without turning around. Within seconds an army of privateers flooded over the foundry floor encircling Specter like a motley bunch of weaponized, tattooed, half-armored renegades—Guilders and Knave’s Blade alike creating a mob, each eye, each vindictive sneer betraying a crew ready to kill.

  Specter faded back. From
somewhere inside that suit echoed a snicker. It was exactly what he wanted, the enemy congregated in a single spot. It would only make killing them easier … until Toggin stepped forward shooting licks of flame vertically from his fire hands. The bursts of fire stretched six feet directly up in searing flashes, a sign of threat.

  Specter experienced a neural glitch from deep inside his processing, a natural brain feed his cybernetics could not squelch.

  Burning. Searing. Melting.

  Toggin blasted more flame, taunting him.

  Blistering. Sizzling. Incinerating.

  The sword left his hand and clattered to the floor.

  Ben made it painstakingly across the extended bridge and to the lab, clutching his wound and dragging himself along the railing. The doors slid open and he stepped inside stabilizing himself on the white walls and leaving hand-printed smears of blood. The machine hummed away before him, that big multi-lit wheel spinning. His wife was inside it. It made him nearly hit his knees, but he forced it away and steadied himself.

  His manic eyes swept across the room and landed on Jinn-Junn hiding behind his control station. The man stared back through wide, gawking eyes. Still clutching the stab wound in his side, Ben took a labored breath and raised the blaster. “Stop it.”

  “It … It’s too late.”

  That was not what Ben wanted to hear. He adjusted the gun in his grip and said, “Then you better fix it, too.”

  Jinn-Junn swallowed hard and chanced stepping around his console, hands up. He said, “I … I can’t.”

  Ben groaned, “Can you die, right here, right now?”

  Jinn-Junn blinked punily, his jaw going slack. He muttered, “Uh … no?”

  “Then I’m only going to tell you once.”

  Jinn-Junn threw his gaze beyond Ben, out into the foundry. His greatest fear had always been Specter. Now it was Ben. He blinked and said, “I never liked him anyway.” He went back to his machine, started manipulating controls and speaking fast. “Maybe there is something I can do.” He went to a panel on the machine, checked it, started throwing more switches. “I have to create a stop point, a, uh, a dream cut—something I can use inside the noumena to end the process, delete what’s been done while identifiying where to discontinue the psychic overlay so I don’t put memory on top of memory.” He shot an apologetic glance at Ben and said, “That would rip her mind apart.”

  Ben squinted at him, shook his head. He’d heard the embed mention something about noumena waves. He had no idea of the science behind mind replacing, but it sounded like Jinn-Junn was talking about fixing the damage done, omitting what manufactured memory he’d implanted and restoring her natural memory. He shook his head still pointing that gun at him and said, “Look, I don’t care what it is. Just do it.”

  Jinn-Junn paused and looked across at him. “It’s … it’s risky.”

  Ben grinned bitterly and said, “So is pulling this trigger.”

  Jinn-Junn pointed a finger in the air and said, “That is an overwhelmingly clear point for which I understand perfectly.”

  “It’s fire,” Vekter murmured to himself. He’d watched Specter submit to the Guilder crew and wondered why. Perhaps it was the blasters everyone had trained on him. Perhaps it was something else. The mob’s animosity toward him over their dead friend hadn’t seemed to phase him. The mech-man seemed perfectly happy to gird himself for combat as they surrounded him … until Toggin and his flames showed up. Now, each time those flames spurted from the Denubrian’s hands, something inside their captive’s processing seemed to conflict with his tech-driven programming. “It’s fire!” Vekter yelled.

  The realization spread through the crowd. Everyone slowly looked to Toggin who stood grinning and flashing those flames.

  Axum marched over to Toggin, grabbed him and walked him back over to Specter, holding their adversary at bay. He wrenched Specter up by the sash and snarled, “Where’s Benjar and Tawnia Dash!”

  Specter’s masked helmet turned to the flames, then back, but said nothing.

  “You bucketheaded mech man—speak, or we’ll throw you to the flames!”

  Specter didn’t say anything, too stoic and proud to show fear, yet too afraid to resist.

  “Torian!” someone boomed from behind.

  The bounty hunters and roughians turned to look, grumbling amongst themselves. They parted away revealing Ben standing firm at the rear, light shrouding him in a powerful silhouette. He was clearly injured, clutching the wound in his belly, his shirt swathed in red. But his eyes were predatory and angry with a strong determined light burning behind them. He limped forward staring Specter through his very mask.

  The creature-man snarled through his robotized mask like a mad animal caged and desperate as Ben approached. His single sensory eye grew in brightness as a show of his defiance, his internal cybernetic processing spiking his senses to a honed point. But those flames …

  Those flames.

  Ben hesitated, just looking at him, reading. He inhaled large and said through a balanced, serene voice, “There won’t be any more Incarcerum for you. And there won’t be any of this … New Frontier.” He leaned closer and whispered, “You lose … yet again.”

  Specter twitched denying the computerized impulse to attack, to secure his long-term goal. But he was still too alive. Not android enough. Too much a coward.

  Ben admitted lowly, “You were right, though. Hatred is a delirious thing. Especially mine, Torian.” He snapped a sharp look at him and said, “But not any more.” He chanced a step closer bringing Torian to his full height, the two staring each other down like colliding storm fronts. Ben said, “I will never again … let my hatred for you … or anyone else … outweigh the love I hold … for my wife.” He spit the words, “Not ever!”

  Torian’s mask angled toward the floor, beaten.

  Ben stepped back, stoic in his presence, confident in his decision. He boomed, “Knave’s Blade!” Axum and his henchies focused on him coolly, ready to accept his orders. Ben called, “Guilder wormdogs!” The others did the same—Vekter Ramm, Sindra Klaire, Oonta Goomba, Rennick, Tiffa, Toggin and the others—all attention pointed at Ben. He cooled and said, “We lost friends today, so do with him as you will. Arrest him. Set him free. Burn him alive. I don’t care anymore.” Turning away and limping off, he murmured darkly, “He’s yours.” With that, he faded off, returning to the primary lab at the top of the catacombs.

  Oonta put a hand on Specter’s shoulder and forced him to his knees gruffly. The others huddled around him, all staring down with vengeful delight. Toggin moved front and center sparking the flames in his hands and grinning down at him.

  Axum looked around from face to face and found himself marveling for a moment to see his Knave’s Blade standing side-by-side with a dozen Guilders, all beaming down at a common enemy. They wanted to burn him. Incinerate him into dust. He looked at Toggin’s flames as they hissed and sparked, then back to Specter. He suggested, “I think the sentiment is unanimous, boys and girls—heheheh.”

  Tawny’s cerebro table slipped out from the machine as that spinning light wheel wound down into a low hum. Despite the pain of an injured body wracking him hard, Ben had forced himself to remain standing. He refused to fall to his knees before knowing his wife’s fate. But seeing her sleeping peacefully, that brilliant red hair framing her face, her hard warrior’s body splayed lax on the table, drove him to stumble. He hit his knees still looking into her. He caressed her face gently and she twitched. He waited, frozen in time, until her eyes fluttered open lethargically. She looked over, saw him and smiled. When she whispered, “Hey, baby …” He put his head down and cried.

  Twenty

  “With neural re-patterning, the noumena waves are read chronologically, you see?” Jinn-Junn explained. “It arranges memory on a timeline. Once the process begins, you must let it run its course without interruption, otherwise the subject may experience permanent memory loss, entire swaths of their memory gone forever, beyond recall.
”

  Ben sat propped up in his hospital bed as Jinn-Junn paced nervously one way, then the other. Much like its lab, Incarcerum had a wonderfully updated infirmary. Computers booped and beeped. Medical process bots protruding from overhead swing arms or scooting around on mag-lev casters offered a pleasant, technological ambiance. Everything was sterile and peaceful. He tried to follow Jinn-Junn’s explanation of his wife’s experience.

  “What I had to do, upon your rather convincing behest, was to pause the noumena wave abruptly, and that is to say interrupt the neural timeline, then return to the start of that timeline and—how should I put this—redo the process from the beginning in order to—uh—reinsert her original, unaltered memories. One problem. There was no way for me to know at which point in the neural timeline I interrupted the wave. Therefore, I had to—hmm, how should I say—manufacture a dream stop in the timeline that the machine could visually recognize in the wave—like a noumena blip—at which point I would pause the reinsertion of her original memory and allow her natural timeline to remain unscathed.” He squinted at Ben and said, “Do you see my problem?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. Then, “No.”

  Jinn-Junn scratched his head, perplexed. He started over and said, “Her memory was altered part way through her memory timeline. I had to go back and fix it. But the machine needed to know at what point to stop fixing it and allow her natural memories to remain unchanged. Got it?”

  Ben nodded in deep thought. “I think so.”

  “Splendid.”

  “So, how’d you tell the machine when to stop?”

  He shrugged matter-of-factly and said, “I introduced a dream cut—I gave her a dream the machine would recognize as its stopping point. She’ll remember the dream. It may even be recurring.”

  “What dream did you give her?”