Absolution

by Rick Partlow

  Neither was the guy leaning over one of the metal worktables, stretching synthetic skin on over the frame of a very well-endowed male robot. Nothing about the man’s slack, sallow face screamed “genius” to me, and neither did the fact he’d no sooner broken out of federal custody than he’d run his happy little ass right back to the very last address on his file.

  I levelled the blaster at him and waited for him to notice me. And waited. And waited some more. Dog looked at me sidelong and shook his head. He didn’t speak, but I got the message.

  “You know, Mr. Schiff,” I said, “I wish I got along well enough with my ex-wife for her to give me a job while I was on the run from the cops.”

  His head popped up like a prairie dog who’d just spotted a hawk circling, eyes wide, mouth dropping open. He let the robot’s skin slip out of his hands and it whipped backwards, smacking him in the face with the pleasure doll’s main attraction and leaving a curiously-shaped red mark on his cheek.

  “What…,” he stammered, hands going up at the sight of the gun. “What do you want?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I felt bad, because I try not to laugh at the misfortunes of others, having been there myself, but the utter cluelessness of the man tickled me.

  “Abel,” I told him gently, “I’m a bounty hunter duly licensed by the Union of Aligned Worlds Law Enforcement Commission to act on their behalf in the apprehension of federal fugitives. Of which you are one, having been charged with hijacking, grand theft, assault with a deadly weapon and attempting to flee across interstellar jurisdictions. I’m here to take you in.”

  I pulled a flex-cuff out of my pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it by instinct, staring at it with incomprehension.

  “Put those on.”

  The light finally came on behind Schiff’s beady, dull-witted eyes and he made a sudden lunge for the door, as if my blaster wouldn’t have burned a hole right through him. Or heck, maybe he was smarter than I thought and he knew I wasn’t going to shoot him down in cold blood. And I wasn’t, but that wasn’t my only option.

  “Dog,” I said.

  Dog didn’t growl. He could growl, and I preferred it when he did because it made him sound more threatening, but he felt it was undignified. Apparently, he didn’t see anything undignified about grabbing a man by the testicles and biting down just hard enough to prove it could hurt.

  Abel Schiff screamed, falling flat on his back and yanking at Dog’s fur, as if he could somehow pry him off.

  “Please! No! Don’t hurt me!”

  “He won’t hurt you unless I tell him to hurt you,” I assured the man. “And I won’t tell him to unless you try to run.”

  I walked over and picked up the flex cuffs from where he’d dropped them.

  “Now let’s try this again. Get to your feet and put your hands behind your back.”

  I should have known something would go wrong. This had been too easy and, while I’d had my share of easy apprehensions before, not a one of them was in El Mercado. So, when we walked out of the repair center and straight into the yawning muzzles of a pair of old-style projectile weapons held in the hands of two very large men who I assumed were bouncers, I wasn’t surprised. I also wasn’t surprised to see Nikki Cortez standing behind them, fists on her hips and a disgusted look on her face.

  “Abel, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into this time, you worthless piece of shit?” she demanded.

  I ignored her for a moment and considered the guns. They weren’t blasters, weren’t any sort of energy weapon. They were short-barreled shotguns and if they were loaded with anti-personnel flechettes or lead shot, my armored jacket might stop them. But if they hit my head, I was going to wind up with my brains splattered all over the wall. I didn’t think they’d do Schiff much good either.

  “Ms. Cortez,” I said, trying to stay calm, my blaster pointed somewhere between the two gunmen, “I am a bounty hunter, duly licensed by…”

  “Yeah, I heard all that shit when you said it to this stupid fucker,” she cut me off, gesturing at Schiff, who looked quite the sight with his hands behind his back and Dog hanging off his balls. “That don’t mean I intend to let you haul my worthless ex-husband’s ass out of my place without a fight.”

  “Don’t do it, Nikki!” Schiff pleaded, his face a deathly pale, sweat pouring from his high forehead. “This here dog will rip my testicles off if you shoot him!”

  “Shut the hell up, Abel!” she snapped. I got the sense from the look in her eyes that, despite the verbal abuse she was heaping on the man, she actually did still care about him.

  “Ms. Cortez,” I tried again, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, not you or your men, or your ex-husband and least of all myself.”

  Dog uttered a low whine, complaining I’d forgotten about him, but I ignored it.

  “I know going to jail sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. They teach you a trade inside, and try to get you a job when you get out if you’re nonviolent and haven’t caused trouble during your sentence. Abel here seems like a nice, well-mannered fella, and I’m sure he’ll do fine in prison, right Abel?”

  “I’ll do just fine, Nikki!” Schiff insisted, eyes never leaving Dog’s teeth. “Swear to God, I’m looking forward to it!”

  “I said shut up, Abel!” she told him, glaring at me.

  “I’m being straight with you now, Ms. Cortez,” I told her. “I’m a former Marshal, with all the training and skills you might think that brings with it. I can kill both of your men before they squeeze the trigger.”

  Maybe. I was a fair shot, and the armor would help, but they were really damn close.

  “I could do it and get away with it,” I went on. “Being how this is El Mercado, I wouldn’t even have to report it. But I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’m just doing my job.”

  Then one of the big boys fucked up. I knew if anyone did, it’d be one of them. They looked ugly as sin and twice as stupid and from the nearly matching scowls on their faces, they were itching to try something whether or not this Nikki woman ordered it. I’ll give the guy credit, at least he did it the right way. He didn’t talk, didn’t start posturing like a mountain gorilla beating his chest. The only sign I had was the muzzle of his shotgun raising slightly as he went for the headshot, the cabled muscles of his forearm tightening as he began to squeeze the trigger. It was enough.

  Bear in mind, the way I’d learned to shoot was fairly straightforward. You aim center mass and fire till the threat is resolved. Nothing tricky, and most of the time it winded up with someone dead. I was trying to avoid that and I had the luxury of standing there for several seconds with a gun in my hand, thinking about ways to avoid it. So, when I saw the hired muscle on the left make his move, I was ready. All it took was a half-step to the side and I fired.

  The blaster discharge was a lightning strike in the enclosed hallway, the flash enough to have blinded me if I hadn’t already slitted my eyes against it. It burned right through the stamped-metal receiver of the shotgun, splashing the big ape holding it with molten metal. He was halfway to a scream but I was already moving, slamming my shoulder into the chest of the other goon, his shotgun pinned between us as his back impacted the wall. I swung the butt of my blaster into the side of his neck and he dropped, his eyes rolling back into his head.

  The other one was screaming now, rolling on the ground trying to put out bits of his shirt that had caught on fire with hands scorched black. Schiff was screaming, too, begging Dog not to bite him, while Nikki Cortez was trying to pull a compact handgun out of her pocket. I levelled the blaster at her and shook my head.

  “I believe I have demonstrated great restraint,” I said, stepping over and kicking the shotgun away from the guard I’d hit. He was coming to, and I didn’t want him to get any funny ideas. “I’d appreciate it if you could leave that gun where it is until after we’re gone.”

  She glowered at me, but she pulled her hand out of her pocket. Heads were starting to pop out of open d
oors now, customers checking on the screaming. I aimed my weapon at the ceiling on the far end of the hall and fired off another round, sending flaming insulation dropping to the floor and touching off a chorus of curses and slamming doors.

  “Come on,” I grunted to Dog, backing away from Nikki and her two goons, trying to watch them and our avenue of egress. I needed another pair of eyes, but Dog’s were buried in Schiff’s crotch and don’t think I wasn’t planning on giving him grief about that for the next several weeks either.

  “I’ll see you again, cowboy,” Nikki Cortez promised, the glare in her eyes as hot and dangerous as a naked nuclear core.

  “I doubt it, ma’am,” I assured her, pausing beside the gun lockers to peel off a glove with my teeth and use my thumbprint to retrieve my blaster. It slid into the holster with a relieved hiss of metal against leather. “I tend to prefer my female companions breathing and thinking. Maybe my dog might want to come back though.” I grinned at him, backing towards the exterior door. “He seems to enjoy the company here.”

  “Fuck you,” Dog remarked around the material of Schiff’s pants as we exited. I clucked at him reprovingly.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  Chapter Two

  Government Central was a much more civilized section of the Panicle, sedate and well-organized, with reserved and tasteful signs telling you where to go and what rules you had to follow. No guns here, of course, unless the Marshals carried them, and I certainly didn’t bring Dog along. Robots weren’t welcome, bounty hunters only slightly less so.

  I ignored the glares and dirty looks as I walked Abel Schiff into the Fugitive Recovery Department of the Union of Aligned Worlds Law Enforcement Local Headquarters (Epsilon Indi) past hallways decorated with certificates of recognition and awards of achievement on one side and memorials to the fallen on the other. The blue uniforms were neatly-pressed and spotless, the haircuts all perfectly regulation, and the frosty disdain almost universal.

  Bounty hunters were living proof the Marshals weren’t perfect, that they didn’t always get the bad guys and needed help from the unwashed, barely-regulated scum of the galaxy. And I was a step below that.

  A tall, broad-shouldered senior Marshal with blond hair buzzed down to his scalp was coming down the corridor from the lobby with a shorter, slimmer, younger officer to his right and he made a point to bang his shoulder into mine.

  “You should watch your step,” the blond growled at me, lip curling with disgust. He snorted a humorless laugh and spoke to the man next to him loud enough so everyone in the room ahead and the hallway behind could hear. “You know, Junior Inspector Calvert, you’d think a man might be smart enough not to keep coming back where he’s not wanted.”

  I brushed past him, not bothering to respond. No use giving the asshole exactly what he wanted.

  “What’s with him?” Schiff asked me, whispering. “What’s he got against you?”

  “I used to work here,” I admitted.

  Schiff stared at him in obvious disbelief.

  “But you seem like an all-right dude,” he said, “except for the whole arresting me thing. These guys are dicks.”

  “I’m sure they’re nice to their families.” I pulled open a door and guided the fugitive through it. “Here we are.”

  “Another one?” the matronly woman behind the counter asked, grinning when she saw me stepping up with Schiff in tow. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “I got ship payments to make, Gracie,” I told her, smiling for the first time since I’d entered the facility. Gracie was a civilian employee despite her blue uniform, and just about the only friendly face in the building. “Meet my good friend Abel Schiff, wanted for hijacking, assault and grand theft.”

  I took out a multi-tool and snapped the flex cuffs off Schiff’s wrists, then nodded toward the ID screen mounted on Gracie’s desk.

  “Do I gotta?” he asked in a plaintive whine. “I mean, is there some technicality where if I don’t volunteer my ID, you have to let me go? Or something?”

  Gracie rolled her eyes at me. “Is he serious?”

  Schiff seemed hurt by the comment and I’d kind of grown fond of the little guy so I put a supporting hand on his shoulder.

  “Look at it this way, Abel,” I told him, “the quickest way out of prison for you is good behavior. This isn’t like the local jails you’ve been in where they’re more interested in how big of a fine your relatives can pay them to get you out early. The feds love well-behaved, non-violent prisoners. It can knock as much as half your sentence right off the back end. So, why not start now and get in practice?”

  Schiff seemed to consider the concept for a few seconds before he put his palm against the ID pad. The holographic readout projected above it confirmed his identity, the list of crimes and, most importantly to me, the reward.

  “Well, there you go,” Gracie said, slapping the counter in satisfaction. She touched a button to activate the intercom. “I need two officers to Fugitive Recovery for a transfer, please.”

  “When you get to your long-term holding facility,” I said to Abel, trying to sound serious to get his attention, “the first thing you need to remember is keep your mouth shut. Just keep your head down, do your time and don’t mouth off to anyone, not the guards, not other prisoners, no matter how much they deserve it. It might feel good when you do it, but it will bite you in the ass. Second thing is, don’t get involved. The guards aren’t your friends, the prisoners aren’t your friends, so don’t expect them to be. You see someone getting pushed around, just turn and walk the other way. Your only concern is getting out of there as quick as possible.”

  Schiff was nodding when the two uniformed officers came for him. They quickly and efficiently put him into neural restraints and marched him off toward processing. He didn’t say anything—he couldn’t with the neural web in place—but I thought I saw gratitude in his eyes. Unless that was fear.

  “Wow, that’s some great advice you gave him.” The voice came from just over my right shoulder, and should have startled me, but I’d smelled him coming. Larry fancied himself a player and wore just a bit too much cologne. “Not bitter or anything, are we?”

  Larry Daniels was looming behind me, arms across his chest, looking down from his towering two meters with a glower of disapproval. He had one of those faces, too good looking to be a cop but not quite as good looking as he thought, and he wore his brown hair at the very edge of regulation, swept back and styled.

  “Just speaking from experience, Larry,” I told him.

  “I’ll have your voucher in a couple minutes,” Gracie promised, inputting the apprehension details so she could process my payment. She shot Larry a smile. “Hey there, Deputy Marshal Daniels. Looking good this morning.”

  Larry nodded back politely, always happy to be told how good he looked but too upset to bother with his usual flirting.

  “Grant, you’re wasting your talents with this bullshit. You need to move on, make a life for yourself.”

  I sighed, suddenly feeling very tired.

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” I reminded him. “Where the hell do you think I could get a job? You think I could get hired on anywhere in Union law enforcement the way I left?”

  “The Union isn’t the only one hiring out there. You could get a job in corporate security out at one of the other colonies. They’d love to have someone with your qualifications!”

  I couldn’t help it, this time. I laughed in his face.

  “Yeah, right, that would be the perfect end for me. A disgraced former Marshal would fit right in with the corrupt head-breakers the corporates use to keep their workers in line out in the colonies. Then I could just prove to everyone including myself that Internal Affairs and Tom Caty were right about me.”

  I clamped my mouth shut, realizing I was getting a bit loud.

  “Anyway,” I went on, a bit quieter and much less strident, “since Janie took Luke and went back to the Solar System, I got no
pressing urge to settle down anywhere more permanent than a ship.”

  I raised a hand to forestall his next protest.

  “I do appreciate the fact you’re worried about me, Larry,” I assured him. “But this way, I get to keep doing what I’m good at and get paid for it. And I kind of like the freedom. I’m sorry my being around this place embarrasses you, though. That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Now, Grant,” Larry objected, looking stricken, “you know that’s not how it is…”

  “Okay, Grant, here’s your voucher,” Gracie announced cheerfully, handing me the data crystal. “Just upload that at any terminal and you’ll be good to go.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Gracie.” I slipped the chit into my shirt pocket and was about to walk away without another word, but I figured I owed Larry better than that. “Look, this is my job now, and probably for a while. I could try working further out from the Panicle for a bit if it makes you feel better, but this is the Fugitive Recovery hub for the whole sector. I go to another sector, I don’t know the lay of the land, I don’t know the people, I got no connections.”

  Larry nodded, though I could tell from the stubborn-mule look of dissatisfaction on his face he wasn’t happy with it.

  “You do what you got to do, Grant,” he said, then turned to walk away. “But then you always have.”

  The words twisted a knife in my gut. It was an old wound, a reminder my decisions had consequences for more than just me. I thought about going after him, trying to explain better, but we’d had all these conversations before and they never changed anything. My career, my marriage, my life were all ruined, and I’d dragged Larry’s prospects for ever being more than a Deputy Marshal down with them. Talking more would just make it worse.