Double Life

by S. Usher Evans

  "So um...what kind of pirate stuff do you do?" Vel asked, clearing his throat. "Other than kidnapping your own brother?"

  "I’m a bounty hunter. Usually just hunt and capture pirates."

  "I don’t get it," Vel said. "You would think that the U-POL would like it when pirates are captured."

  "It’s considered part of the game, so it was outlawed," Razia explained. "Most pirates do some kind of bounty hunting anyway."

  "Game?"

  "The runners pay a lot of money to the U-POL," Razia said, leaning back into her pillows, "so that whenever a pirate is captured, they only spend a night in jail. And their bounty—which may be worth millions and millions of credits—is zeroed out. Which means that pirate—who may have been the fifth most wanted pirate in the universe—is no longer even on the list."

  "So?"

  "So, obviously, runners want to see guys in the other webs get captured," Razia said. "And they don’t want their guys to get captured. Pirates go to great lengths—multiple identities and bank accounts—just to hide from each other and not get caught."

  "I still don’t get why it’s a game."

  "The runners are very proud of the pirates they have in their web," Razia said. "They want the best pirates, the best bounty hunters, and the highest bounties—and not have to any of their own caught by another web’s pirate. It’s a constant competition between the four of them."

  "And the general population suffers."

  "Oh come on," Razia rolled her eyes. "Pirates only hit transporters, or really rich people with loads of insurance. And besides, the stolen stuff usually finds its way back eventually."

  "So how do you hunt a pirate?" Vel asked. "It’s a big universe."

  "Bank accounts, mostly. And the occasional tip from the pirate informant."

  "How can you track someone from their bank account?"

  "Most people don’t have breakfast, lunch, and dinner handed to them on a silver platter, nor are chauffeured around in a fancy shuttle."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning most people buy stuff at least once a day," Razia replied. "More if they’re drinking—which pirates usually are. Add in gas and ship docking fees, the occasional prostitute—"

  "Gross," Vel said, making a face.

  "Thanks to the Universal Bank, and to the money the runners pay monthly so I can have access to any bank account I choose, I can pretty much find anyone in the known universe by their money trail."

  "Anyone?" Vel asked, a note of curiosity in his voice.

  "Anyone," Razia replied, finally pulling the comforter off and slowly standing to stretch her sore muscles. She'd lazed around long enough.

  "Where are you going?" Vel asked, watching her walk out of the bedroom.

  "Where do you think? Idiot..."

  ***

  With Jamus not amounting to very much, she needed to pick her next bounty carefully. Since it was probably foolhardy to hunt the top pirates in the universe, she opted for the tenth most wanted—Zolet Obalone. She considered him a prime target—recently put into the top ten because of a major transport hijacking, he was young, and most likely stupid.

  He was probably going to slip up eventually. The trick would be for her to be ready before anyone else. Unfortunately, his information was rather sparse: nothing except one accomplice, whom she'd never heard of before.

  "This is boring," Vel said, piercing the silence of the ship.

  Razia completely lost her train of thought and sighed, annoyed. She could've sworn he was more annoying now than when they were excavating. "I'm sorry. Why don’t I drop you off on a planet again?"

  "Or how about you tell me what you’re doing?" Vel said. "Maybe I can help you."

  "Yeah, right." Razia rolled her eyes. "I don’t need help."

  She turned her attention back to the screen, but for the life of her could not remember where she'd been.

  "Does it normally take you this long to find a pirate?" Vel asked, piercing the silence again.

  "God in Leveman’s Vortex." Razia pinched the bridge of her nose. "Please shut up. It's really hard to concentrate with you yapping."

  She didn’t hear a response, and so turned back to trying to remember what it was she'd been—

  Suddenly, Vel was right beside her. "So what am I looking at here?"

  "You're looking at backing up before I eject you from this ship," Razia growled. Accomplices! That was what she'd been thinking about. She reached over to tap her dashboard when she ran into Vel, who was still standing next to her.

  "Move," she snapped.

  "Move what?" Vel replied, sweetly.

  Razia didn’t respond, but roughly elbowed him in the chest as she pushed her way to the cluster of screens showing accounts in the pirate intraweb.

  "Now what are you doing?"

  "I’m trying to see if the one accomplice this guy has listed is actually another pirate."

  "Of course he’s a pirate—"

  "I mean a well-known pirate," Razia snapped, frustrated that she had to explain her thoughts to someone else. "It’s strange that he only has one accomplice."

  "Why?"

  Razia took a deep breath and glared at him. "Are you going to ask questions the whole time you’re here?"

  "Yes."

  "Fantastic." She clenched and unclenched her fists. "Normally, pirates have accomplices—usually their crews, sometimes friends, sometimes other pirates who helped them pull off jobs. With a pirate like him, I have a feeling he was on a crew of a more well-known pirate to learn and gain some recognition."

  "Kind of like a DSE straight out of the Academy?"

  "No, not like…" Razia considered that for a moment. "Fine, kind of like that."

  "So you think this guy is a new pirate. What makes you say that?"

  "Well, for starters, he’s brand new to the web. He just got off probation about two weeks ago and made his first big hijacking two days later. Then some of the top guys got caught, and he was bumped up."

  "And how do you know this?" Vel said, looking at the screen. "I don’t see any of this information—"

  Razia pulled up the pirate intraweb and searched for Obalone. Three news stories came up, all dated within the past month:

  Vel looked over at Razia, slightly impressed. "How did you remember all that?"

  "Just do," Razia said, closing that and going back to her search on Obalone’s lone accomplice, just to see what would come up. As usual, it was mostly drinks and food from various bars around D-882. Some transactions were recent, but they were infrequent.

  "Dead end?"

  "Not quite," Razia said, deep in thought. "You see right here?" She pointed to the first few transactions. "These are a few days apart."

  "So what does that mean?"

  "Like I said, most people buy food at least every day," Razia replied. "So if he's not buying food on this alias—"

  "Then he's got another one?"

  "Yup," Razia said, bringing up a new window and searching on the bar where he was drinking most recently.

  "I still don't understand the bit about the accomplice. Why wouldn't a big-name pirate use his own name?"

  "Sometimes—especially with newer pirates—established guys don't want to put their name behind an unknown. If they end up getting captured or screw up. My guess is that whoever this guy is cared enough to put a name down, just not his own."

  "So how are you going to figure out who the accomplice is? And how is that going to help you find this Obalone guy?"

  "If I can figure out who the accomplice is," she said, pulling up the bar transaction history where his accomplice had last purchased a drink, "and if it's a big pirate, then by process of elimination I can figure out what the connection is between this guy and Obalone."

  "What if it's not a big guy?"

  Razia paused. "Then I try something else."

  "Sounds incredibly tedious and boring."

  "No, it's a puzzle." She chewed her lip and considered the bar's transaction histo
ry.

  Her gaze paused on the last name on the list. "Hello there, Silas Brendler."

  "Who?"

  "See that guy right there," Razia said, pointing to his name. "That’s one of Silas Brendler’s secret aliases."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because I’ve been hunting him for a few months," Razia said, bringing up her hit list.

  "You've found all these guys?"

  "Well, up until recently I wasn't allowed to hunt any of them," she said darkly. "And I'm not sure if any of these names are still secret. But I know," she pointed to Koa Fascinelli, "that is Silas Brendler."

  "Meaning that this Obalone guy was on Brendler's crew?"

  She nodded, the wheels turning in her head. "Most likely, but I still have to cross-check the names when the transactions occurred with other places Brendler’s been, just to make sure they match up. Then I need to dig into Brendler's back history of transactions to a time when Obalone may have been on his crew—different name, of course—then see if there was any time when a new name started showing up and...oh, I bet he's still using his original name as his alias—"

  Vel’s eyes widened as she continued rambling, her fingers dancing over the dashboard.

  ***

  As it turned out, Obalone, otherwise known as Kent Linus, had been on Brendler's crew for about five years before he struck out on his own. Based on his transaction history, Razia was fairly sure he believed no one knew his secret. Except her, of course.

  Obalone had paid for a few nights at a hotel near the casino district on D-882, so that was where Razia headed first. She skipped a little, a small smile on her face. Obalone probably thought he was completely safe, otherwise he wouldn’t have been staying at the same hotel for multiple nights. She played out in her mind how she was going to corner him—sneaking in through his balcony was absolutely out, and she wasn’t too good at picking locks—

  "So what’s the plan?" Vel asked, breaking the silence. "How are we gonna find this Obalone guy?"

  She glared at him. "I thought I said to keep out of sight."

  Vel had insisted on coming with her, and she'd been in no mood to convince him otherwise, eager to go find her bounty as soon as possible. She was sure she wasn't the only person looking for him; others were probably hot on his trail, too.

  "I'm telling you, nobody remembers me," Vel said, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I was at that transport station for hours and nobody even gave me a second look."

  "Except Sage Teon," Razia mumbled.

  "Well, I happen to think he's keenly interested in everything about you. He's the one who told me to bring up the whole Jukin's sister thing. Told me it would shut you up real fast."

  Razia stopped mid-stride, cursed Sage Teon and his stupid face, then kept walking.

  "How does he know so much about you?" Vel asked.

  "We've known each other a long time. Besides you, he's the only other person who knows about me."

  "Why's that?"

  Again, she stopped, turning on her heel to face the other way. Obalone had just bought a drink at a bar across town.

  "Because he was there when Razia was created," she said, turning to march the other way.

  "Where are we going now?"

  "Obalone's on the move."

  ***

  "It seems like," Vel huffed, wiping sweat off his brow, "this bounty hunting thing is a lot of walking around."

  "Yep," Razia said, eyes glued to her computer.

  Obalone was moving around now—hopping from bar to bar to bar. She'd checked at least five of them so far, but always just missed him. "If you're tired, go back to the ship."

  "I run five miles a day," Vel snapped back at her.

  "On a treadmill," Razia countered. "I run fifteen miles on planets regularly."

  "I also run at home. It's just really hot here."

  "That would be because it's a desert planet," Razia said, refreshing the transaction list again. Obalone hadn't purchased anything in the last half hour, which meant she'd no idea where he was.

  "Why are we stopping?"

  "I need to think," Razia said, closing her eyes and resting her chin on her hand.

  If she were Obalone, and she was being hunted, where would she go?

  To a planet to lie low for a few days and make some money, the voice in her head said. Now it was starting to sound like Vel.

  "Shut up, Vel," she muttered without opening her eyes.

  "I didn't say anything!"

  She chewed on her thumb and furrowed her brow, struggling to quiet the different thoughts in her head. She needed to think like a pirate—without any kind of safety net.

  Except he had one—he'd been on Brendler's crew until very recently. So would he go back to Brendler if he thought he was in danger of being captured? The better question was would Brendler take him back?

  She opened her eyes and looked around. Obalone had been there half an hour ago, so he couldn't have gotten far. He had no ship to speak of. He was probably tipsy, if not drunk, at this point, having been to five different bars in the past four hours.

  But obviously not drunk enough to make a purchase.

  "So are we just going to stand here all day?" Vel drawled. "If so, I need to get my sunscreen—"

  "I bet he created a new alias," Razia said suddenly. "Or maybe, he's had the alias all along..."

  She opened the bank application to the transaction history of the bar in front of her.

  Methodically, she searched the history of every one of the men who'd purchased a drink, moving swiftly to the next one when the purchases didn't pique her interest. Finally, with the fourth name, she seemed to strike gold.

  "Got him." The two accounts synced up almost perfectly. Either Obalone had a close friend who'd been spending a lot of time with him over the past few weeks, or he had a second alias.

  "Good, I was starting to melt," Vel said, getting up from the bench he'd settled himself into.

  "That clever little…" Razia chuckled, ignoring Vel's complaints as she scrolled through her new find's history. "He's been double booking hotels..."

  "What?" Vel said, peering over her shoulder to look at her computer.

  "He'll rent out a room then not show up," Razia said. "Throws people off his scent, makes them think he's not as smart as he lets on."

  "Fooled you."

  "Temporarily." Razia scowled, looking up as the transaction history refreshed and a new purchase about three blocks away showed up. "But it looks like he's just around the corner."

  "So now what?"

  "Go back to the ship," Razia said, crossing the street. She rolled her eyes when Vel ignored her and kept walking beside her. There was no time to argue with him; she could see the bar where Obalone had last made his purchase. She was just about in the front door when someone stepped in front of her, blocking her entry.

  "Well, what do we have here?" Relleck said. He stood in the middle of the doorway, hands in his pockets, looking quite pleased with himself.

  "Out of my way, Relleck, I'm busy," she said, trying to step around him.

  "Can't be that busy." Relleck said, moving to block her. "Who's your friend?"

  "Nobody," Razia snapped. "Move."

  Relleck laughed. "So is this your new boyfriend or something? You'd better be careful, I bet Teon is the jealous type. Although I would love to see the two of them in a fight—pay money for it, in fact."

  "Get out of my way, Relleck," Razia growled, knowing that the pleasure of capturing Obalone would far outweigh any taunts Relleck could toss her way.

  "Get out of your way, what?"

  "Please, you son of a bitch," Razia responded, with the same level of sweetness.

  "As you wish, m'lady," Relleck said, bowing extravagantly as he moved out of the way to let her pass. Razia angrily stormed by him and into the bar...

  ...and to her utter horror and surprise, there was already a gaggle of pirates in the bar, signs of a struggle, and Zolet Obalone, bound and gagged
, in the center.

  "Oh, good job, guys!" Relleck roughly bumped into Razia as he passed her. "I trust he wasn’t too much trouble…"

  "Hey! That’s my bounty!"

  "Oh?" Relleck said, turning nonchalantly to look at the young man in his captivity. "Because it looks like I’m the one who captured him. Looks like my luck is finally changing, after all..."

  Razia’s mouth dropped and all she could do was sputter. "You…you…"

  "Thanks for the assist though." Relleck smirked, and her fury boiled. "It was a pleasure following you all day. I have to say, it is absolutely breathtaking to watch you work."

  Razia narrowed her eyes at him. "You weren't—"

  "And by work, I meant watching your ass run all over town," Relleck said, tossing a look back to his crew, who laughed and ogled her up and down. "Quite breathtaking."

  "Get sucked into Leveman’s."

  "Oh, I’d like to get sucked, but not there," he said, licking his lips. "You gotta quit looking so pissed off all the time though. You got a pretty face, you shouldn’t frown so much. You’ll get wrinkles."

  Far from smiling, Razia let loose a feral growl.

  "Well, if you’re not going to be pretty for me, then get lost," Relleck said, turning to walk back to the bar to join his crew, who were giving him high fives and staring at her as if her clothes were going to fall off at any moment.

  Enraged, she turned to leave with some shred of her dignity intact.

  "There it is!" Relleck called, to the cheers and whistles of his crew. "Walk slow, baby, so we can watch you go."

  Razia stormed out of the bar.

  "What happened?" Vel said, running after her. "Did you get the bounty? I saw that guy earlier today—who is he?"

  She stopped and clenched her fists. "My next bounty."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Unfortunately for Razia, Relleck's profile was already updated after his new capture: