Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  On his way, he stopped by a store to have enough light to read the news update. A smile spread on his face as he found an ad with an address for the slave market. The smile disappeared again when he saw a picture of himself, his rap sheet, and a fifty-thousand credit reward for his capture. He read the attachments and sighed in relief, as Silliton was not mentioned as last known location. Motáll was, but that didn’t surprise him.

  News Silliton 21/4-2612

  Date 35/01 2612 Keelan Hunter, murderer and rapist, managed to escape the medium security prison Delta Zeich. To do this, he stole one of the United System’s prison transporters. Delta Zeich has not yet released an official statement, but the warden did have this to say:

  “Our security has never before been breached, and no one has ever gotten this far in an attempted escape. Therefore we don’t think our security is compromised, but the hole Keelan Hunter found has of course been shut.”

  Keelan Hunter was last seen on Motáll where officials found the stolen prison transporter. Hunter is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If anyone sees him, they are not to attempt to detain him on their own. Please contact your local authorities or lawmen instead.

  Irritated, Keelan put the update in his pocket and went to the town square where the slave market would be held. He spent the rest of the night finding good lookout posts, shortcuts, and escape routes.

  Just before sunup, people began populating the streets, so Keelan hurried back to his hideout.

  Long before darkness would fall, Keelan woke up as someone closed in on his hideout. As silently as possible he pulled his backpack closer and backed away from whoever was disturbing the entrance to his lair while he pulled his knife.

  “Hey, I think I found a good hideout!” a child yelled. Keelan snorted and packed away his knife before backing further into the tunnel and into a T-junction.

  More children arrived.

  “I think someone else is using this one. It looks used.”

  “Or it’s a monster’s lair,” a kid said and laughed low and menacingly.

  “Don’t say that! I’m telling Mommy that you’re mean!”

  “Scaredy cat, scaredy cat,” one laughed. Keelan smiled and stayed still.

  A kid snorted angrily. “You’re mean!”

  And a kid stomped away.

  “This is a stupid hideout, anyway. There’s not even enough room for all of us.”

  Imagine how I feel.

  The kids left, and Keelan crawled closer to see how much of the cover they had destroyed. Quite a bit, so Keelan had to stay far inside the tunnel and fix it after dark.

  He made himself comfortable using the bag as a pillow and drawing the blanket up close. But he couldn’t fall back asleep. Instead, he wondered how he was going to walk around unnoticed with his face all over the news on the planet.

  He signed and rubbed his face. Stubble scratched against his palm, and he remembered that he’d been somewhat clean-shaven on the photo. His hair had been about the same length, and he hadn’t trimmed it the past ten weeks.

  He snuggled under the blanket. I need to find new clothes.

  After dark, Keelan went on the hunt for clothes that could help hide his identity. He found a laundromat where only two people sat and waited for their clothes to be finished. A woman was folding clothes. Keelan didn’t really care if the clothes fit. He just needed something to tie around his waist to change his figure.

  The woman finished and left the laundromat. She instinctively looked around and walked the opposite direction of where Keelan was watching her from, so he followed at a safe distance. As she crossed an alley and streetlights didn’t cover her, Keelan moved in and covered her mouth. She was definitely a lady from a tough neighborhood, because she put up quite the fight. His shins would certainly hurt for a few days, but it was the last punch that made him retreat.

  He limped to safety in an alley and collapsed against the wall. If his nuts hadn’t hurt, he would have laughed.

  Tough lady, but I got what I needed. He stuffed the clothes under his jacket. Groaning, he got to his feet and made his was toward the end of the alley to climb the fire escape to get to the roof. He took a seat at the ledge so he’d have enough light to see what he’d stolen. He held up a jumpsuit size very tiny and shook his head, smiling.

  His backpack, a sheet, three socks in different colors and sizes, plus a sweater and a bra later, Keelan had changed his figure enough to look like an overweight guy with bitch tits. The bra couldn’t close around his torso, and the straps were irritating the life out of him.

  The fact that I’m wearing a bra is the best reason to definitely not get caught in this disguise.

  He made his way back down. He still needed a hat and a scarf. These he stole from a few homeless guys too drunk to pose a threat. Close to the nightlife streets, he found a long coat draped over the backrest of a bench with a man sitting on it, sleeping. Keelan carefully managed to free the jacket and hide before the man was awoken by an angry female voice, screaming at him for not being home hours before.

  Keelan put the coat on and drew his shoulders up, looking at his reflection in a store window. The disguise worked.

  Once again up on a roof scouting for Cecil or Mike, Keelan read the news. His picture was still in it, but placed further to the back.

  Wonder if I was on the front page at some point?

  He felt a strange mixture of panic and a perverse career pride. He pocketed the news and warmed his fingers on his mug. Somewhere in the horizon, the sun was coming up, so Keelan drank the rest of his coffee and left the heights. He had to make it to one of the lookout posts before the slave market opened.

  Nearly nine hours later, Keelan had stared at the many people and species looking at slaves. But Cecil hadn’t shown up.

  He stretched and adjusted a strap on the bra. He was thirsty, tired, and cold, but he had to stay put for another two hours.

  The mass thinned out as time went, but to sit and stare at people’s faces was terribly boring. It thus took a few seconds before Keelan’s tired brain registered that the man he was staring at right then was Cecil Hallett.

  Suddenly everything went fast, and for a moment Keelan was afraid he’d lose sight of the man. He had to get down to street level, or he would definitely lose his target.

  My target? Keelan scoffed and glanced around to see if anyone else might be following Cecil. No one, so he tried to calculate how far Cecil could get before Keelan made it to the street.

  Chapter Seven

  Three days went by following Cecil around town, and no bounty hunters had come for the guy. Keelan continued, fearing that he’d soon have to let him go, as Cecil was making arrangements for a planet hop, and Keelan wasn’t sure he’d be able to follow. Soon he’d be back to square one and have to find a new way to find Mike.

  A face on the crowded street stood out to Keelan as he waited for Cecil on the opposite side of the street. It took a few seconds to place the man, but then it hit him. It was Dave Ratkins himself. No mistaking those eyes.

  Oh, shit! Is he here for me or Cecil?

  Keelan stood still and tried to look like he was supposed to be there and not like an escaped convict.

  Ratkins passed by mere feet from him, and as Cecil exited the kiosk on the opposite side of the street, he got all of Ratkins’ attention. Keelan exhaled slowly and calmed himself with the fact that the bounty hunter with the highest rate of capture wasn’t there for him.

  He could then continue to brood over the fact that Ratkins was there for Cecil. Every convict who had spent time in a medium or maximum-security prison knew who Ratkins was and that he always worked alone. Rumors said that he’d sometimes hire a backup, but Keelan hadn’t seen anyone else on Cecil’s tail, and Cecil hadn’t seemed to pick any up, either. Cecil wasn’t exactly an amateur.

  Keelan put some distance between himself and Cecil and thus between himself and Ratkins.

  Something unforeseen happened on the other side of the
street, and Ratkins crossed it while Cecil argued with some drunkard he’d almost tipped over as he exited the kiosk.

  The drunkard bawled and gesticulated, almost tipping himself off balance. Cecil lost his temper and punched the drunkard before he moved in to lay into him. So did the drunk... who suddenly didn’t seem so drunk anymore.

  Keelan stared intensely at the drunkard, who removed something from his cheek. The cheek of a younger face was revealed beneath it, and Keelan gaped.

  Holy fuck, that’s Mike!

  A turmoil of feelings coursed through Keelan, who almost forgot his theoretic training as Ratkins and Mike dragged Cecil off. Keelan pulled himself together and followed the three men all the way back to the spaceport.

  Keelan found a fire escape and ran to the roof. From there he could see a big part of the port and the ship that Mike and Ratkins dragged Cecil into. They didn’t come out again, and a few hours later the ship took off and left Silliton.

  Great. Here I sit in a fantastic disguise, manage to find Mike, and then he leaves. I don’t even know where. Didn’t find a bounty on Cecil, so they’re probably not taking him to jail.

  Keelan sat there for an additional three hours and contemplated how he was supposed to find Mike again. And whether his thirst for revenge was blinding him.

  According to the news, Keelan was now wanted in the three Systems bordering Delta Zeich, which was the same as saying no one had any idea where he was. It was too risky to stay there, though, and too risky to keep tracking Mike. His freedom was on the line, after all.

  He left the roof with a plan—he was going back to Verion four and revenge was put on hold. On Verion four he at least knew where to hide.

  His stomach hurt from hunger, so he entered a diner on the freight dock to eat and listen in on conversations. Just as he didn’t think he could linger any longer over his third cup of coffee, he overheard a promising snippet of a conversation. The two talking left the diner and Keelan followed.

  One was a woman with a vocabulary packed with technical jargon. The other guy knew some of it but still needed the woman to translate some of it into not-tech-savvy language. Keelan liked that as it meant he’d be able to understand some of it, too. And it turned out to be useful.

  A storage tank on their very large freighter had been damaged as something had ripped loose during an evasive maneuver in route. Twelve percent of their cargo had been lost, and they couldn’t repair the damages to the ship on Silliton. They needed a whole new storage tank, and the only one they could get for the old model was on Verion four. They had been cleared by the tower to take off with a too high room temperature. Two inspectors had already verified the damages.

  “It’s ridiculous! Now we have to be accused of lying just because this is the only fucking planet who counts crew members by scanning ships for body temperature,” the guy complained. The woman agreed.

  Or to ensure you’re not smuggling escaped convicts. Keelan’s smile broadened.

  Two hours later, Keelan reconsidered the genius of his plan. Right then, he was lying on a retractable ladder, tied up under the ceiling in a room which was about a human’s body temperature. He’d taken off his disguise, and his clothes were clinging to his body. According to the captain’s announcement over the speakers, there was still an hour left before they would take off. Keelan had water in his bag, but it was lukewarm.

  He’d removed the straps from his backpack and mounted them on the ladder to function as a safety harness. The sheet he’d used to tie his waist to the ladder. Now he could only bang his knees against the pipes running right over him, so the socks, sweater, and baby jumpsuit were wrapped around his knees. The coat was under his head and curled up in a way that he could pull it down to protect his forehead once they took off and gravity let go.

  Finally, the ship began shaking, telling Keelan it was time, so he braced against the pipes and pushed himself back against the uneven metal.

  A hinge broke, and he felt the ladder sink under him.

  “This isn’t gonna hold,” he whispered and remembered that he was currently strapped to the ladder that would at any moment disappear under him.

  He was jerked to a side and then back with a powerful force, but the straps held him in place. All blood in his body seemed to move toward his head, and he feared that he’d soon pass out from the force on his body. Then gravity let go, and the force on his body ebbed away. Keelan fumbled feverishly to get himself out of the straps, as the artificial gravity would most definitely take the ladder and thus Keelan with it to the floor once it kicked in.

  He managed to loosen one strap before the gravity took hold, but as feared the ladder didn’t budge. Still, Keelan hurried down with all his things and ran to hide between pipes and boilers. There he assembled his backpack again, stuffed it with the clothes and drank some of the water.

  A headache announced itself, so he tried to get as comfortable as possible in heat like that.

  As he’d snuck on board the ship, he hadn’t had the time to see much of it. He just knew where the boiler room was located compared to the cargo hold. The risk of being found in the boiler room was next to nil, but it was too hot, and he would soon have to run the risk of being caught, or he’d dehydrate.

  He took his bag and water bottle and left his hiding place behind the pipes. Pressing his ear to the door, he listened to find the opportune moment. There had been a lot of noise earlier—the ruckus of cargo being moved around and people shouting at each other. But it was silent now. He took the chance, opened the door, and tiptoed down the hallway.

  There was not a person in sight in the cargo hold. Keelan sought out all nooks and crannies for a hiding place. Squeezing himself between two huge crates, he managed to get to the space under the stairs. It was dark enough that no one would see him, and since no light source was low enough to shine all the way into the corner, his presence could only be given away if he made too much noise.

  But first he needed food and water, and what better place than in a ship’s stock, which was in the cargo hold.

  The days were quiet while Keelan stayed under the stairs and counted crew members and got used to their rhythms. On the third night, he was sure enough to sneak out and grab a much-needed shower. Other than that, he managed to skimp some of the crew’s possessions, but he stayed away from anything with a scent, as it would be inconsistent with the scents in the cargo hold. He managed a lot with unscented wet wipes.

  The weeks continued like that, and Keelan managed to tire of the same food every day, the tight fit of his hideout, and the accent of one of the crew members.

  One night, Keelan tiptoed from a bathroom back to the cargo hold after having washed up and washed a pair of briefs and socks in the sink. A door opened as he passed it and a middle-aged man stared at him in confusion. Keelan moved quickly to cover the man’s mouth before he could yell. He pushed the guy back into his room and shut the door before he tackled him onto the bed and turned him to face the pillow. Pushing the man’s face into the pillow, he smothered him by only putting weight on his head. Knowing that bruises sustained during the murder would turn up on the body after a while was useful knowledge, especially since a body was usually kept on board until they reached a planet. Keelan had never thought he’d need knowledge like that, as it seemed like premeditated murder then.

  “You should have stayed in bed,” Keelan whispered. The man finally stopped fighting, but Keelan kept the pressure a few more minutes to make sure he hadn’t just passed out from lack of oxygen. He then checked for vitals and arranged the body so it looked like he’d passed during a seizure or something.

  Keelan sighed, shaking his head. Then he picked up his laundry and hurried back. The adrenaline was rushing through his body, and he had a difficult time staying still in the tight fit under the stairs. As with the murder of Black-eyed Burton, Keelan was far from happy with the circumstances regarding this one. But the man had been a threat to his freedom. He had to be more careful moving about the s
hip in the future. One death could happen, but two in such a short time? Those kinds of questions should be avoided at all costs.

  There was only a week left of the trip, and luckily, he’d found a better place to strap himself in during the landing, so he didn’t have to stay in the boiler room again. He also needed to stay in a place where he could see people’s whereabouts and the ramp, so he knew when to make a run for it after they landed.

  From his place over the pipes in the cargo hold, Keelan kept an eye on the crew’s work. They had landed in the repair dock, and three transporters stood at the end of the ramp. All cargo had to be unloaded before they could get to the boiler.

  Keelan tried to remain calm, but the fresh air hit his face, and he breathed it in greedily. It was easy to recognize the scent of Verion four, but the faint tinge of sulfur in the air didn’t bother him. He wanted to walk. He wanted to move freely after eleven weeks under a staircase. He wanted exercise.

  The cargo hold finally quieted down, and Keelan came down from his hiding place. He was about to put his jacket on when someone spoke.

  “I was certain we had a stowaway when I saw the disturbances in the dust under the stairs.”

  Keelan turned to face the man, whose expression turned skeptical.

  “Only question now is how the hell a guy your size managed to squeeze himself in there with all those boxes in the way.”

  Keelan sauntered toward the man. “I’m flexible.”

  “Do you know what the punishment for this is?”

  “Not as big as it is for murder.” To Keelan’s irritation, the guy didn’t look the least bit worried. Instead, he smiled and with the size he had, Keelan kind of understood him.