“Scanning for anomalies. Scanning. Scanning. Weapons detected, checking clearance…”
“Shit…!” McKenna hissed inside the small room as he grasped his gun in shock. “I should have guessed.”
“Council priority request: McKenna, Alan M: Authorized. Welcome to Earth, Alan McKenna. Enjoy your stay.”
He pondered that a bit until the doors in front of him opened and he walked out of the airlock. His request by the Council must have given him clearance to enter with weapons, and possibly even other clearances.
McKenna found himself standing in a hallway with a Welcome to Earth advertisement banner in front of him on the wall. He then saw a sign appear, reading: Indoors! You’re Breather Free! followed by an image of a smiley face taking off its breather. He took the cue, as he remembered that all indoor areas were clean rooms, keeping the virus outside. McKenna took off his breather, took a deep breath and waited. After a good ten seconds, he realized he wasn’t dead yet. It would take him time to get used to this normality. He placed the breather in his pocket and carried on.
McKenna went down the hall and took in more advertisements decorating the walls: Earth Systems Armament, Wally’s Holy Burgers, Believe the Cure, Valiant OPIaA God Tool, with some even transitioning to more ads. He thought about exploring, but checking in and unpacking sounded very appealing to him, as he felt he needed a good rest.
The ceiling lights went out. McKenna looked above him, but saw only the holographic advertisements lighting the empty hallway. His senses automatically kicked into a heightened state as he heard shuffling behind him. The sound of footsteps came to his ears, then breathing. McKenna stopped, and in turn the steps behind him ceased. Like clockwork he heard a rubbing noise, like steel against leather: an unsheathing noise.
The Martian heard a man’s voice, but he wasn’t interested in this setting. He reacted.
***
Bucard moved. He walked briskly through the crowd of people, making his way towards the man. Firearms were an intermediate class weapon for a man of his reputation and acceptable for him to carry. The airlock doors closed, leaving Bucard to wait outside. He quickly attached his hacking tool to his OPIaA, bypassing the security airlock. The doors opened for him and in he went.
“Scanning for anomalies. Scanning…” He hit a button on the hacking attachment on his OPIaA and sent out a pulse scrambling the computer. “Scanning… No anomalies detected. Welcome to Earth, USER ERROR. Enjoy your stay.” He went through to see the man in the brown trench coat walking casually. A few passersby walked past, none the wiser. Bucard aimed his OPIaA at the lights above, then drew his pistol right behind the man and began to raise it.
He let his words come out just like any other mugger. “Credits and ID now, and drop the bag,” Bucard demanded, his accent distinct. Just as Bucard had the gun lined up with the target’s head, the man vanished.
“IOUs?” The man muttered from behind.
“What—?” Suddenly Bucard felt a hand hit his wrist, knocking the pistol out of his hand. He then felt a hard bash to his right calf and found himself falling on his back, stunned from the impact to the ground. He saw the man standing over him, holding Bucard’s own pistol in front of him.
“Do muggers on this planet normally need IDs when robbing a man?” the man said.
“Va au diable!” Bucard growled.
“Get lost buddy,” the man said as he disassembled the pistol in a swift move, scattering the pieces and keeping the barrel in his coat pocket.
Bucard lay helpless and stunned, surprised how quickly it all ended. Seeing the man walk off, Bucard sat up and rubbed his head, which was throbbing from the impact.
“Mon Dieu… What the hell was that?”
***
The elevator was moving quickly, with the floor counter showing dozens of floors a second.
“Not off to a good start…” McKenna muttered. Held up at gunpoint within an hour of his landing on Earth, not to mention the incident before the actual landing. He began to think it was all an omen of worse things to come. Then the counter chimed and the elevator came to a stop. An older man walked in, wearing a construction suit with a bright orange safety vest, toting work lights, torches and various other tools.
“Thirty-two, please,” the old man said, his voice scratchy and breaking. A lifetime smoker. McKenna hit the button on the panel. The elevator was quiet for a moment until the worker brightened the mood with Earth drama. “Wargame’s conscripts made an attack on Orange’s west barrier last night, did you hear?” The old man said. “Killed thirteen cops. What a goddamn mess. They keep nibbling at us and we can’t do squat without starting a war. Hell, maybe it’s part of some plan.”
McKenna was slowly starting to come around to current affairs on the planet, with the gangs far below being a growing problem. He still didn’t fully understand their intentions, if there even were any. “You in for repairs?” McKenna responded.
“We’ve been running jobs in Orange all week. Routine inspections got me from Blue to Orange, six grids each. Good money makes fools of men, right?” He chuckled.
“Venture into Red much?”
If there were two things a newcomer could do to make himself look fresh off the boat, it was looking down, and asking if someone goes to Red Sector.
“Red Sector?” the old man asked with surprise. “We don’t go to Red Sector, that’s Ground Level. You won’t see a sane man get within a thousand feet of the lower levels, not for any amount of credits.”
The elevator stopped. McKenna proceeded out, making his farewell to the worker. “Good luck down there.”
“If you ever want a death sentence, come work near the barricades.”
McKenna checked his OPIaA for anything he could scrounge up on Earth’s layered architecture. He activated an opaque filter on the screen so no one could see what he was looking at, already embarrassed that he asked a remedial question.
City sectors were color classified according to their general safety level. Cool colors like blue and green were generally low in crime, while warmer colors like yellow and orange were generally far more dangerous, requiring regular police patrols through the streets to keep order and peace. Cost of living in warm areas was cheap but crime spread amongst the poor like wildfire. By what McKenna could make of it, Red Sector was by far the most hostile region, so much so that it was an ungoverned area of the city.
His map informed him he was now in a recreational hub, filled with theatres, bars, arcades and hotels. McKenna saw a glowing sign that said Rec Hub with an arrow underneath it pointing to the right. His bag and wits about him, McKenna made his way through and found himself at a familiar place: a bar. He did what he thought he should do, and took a seat.
McKenna was closed in by patrons on either side of him. The man to his left looked like a businessman, or used to be, with his loose tie and reek of beer. To his right sat a man in a dark blue leather jacket with a blue and black striped tie, his black hair combed properly to the side. He looked presentable, as he should, as McKenna saw a revolver tucked away on his belt with an Interpol badge close to it. He was drinking some sort of cocktail, looking a little pale and possibly drunk.
The bar was packed, no doubt a local favorite. With it being lunch time, it would probably stay jammed for another hour or so. While the building was pleasant and its furnishings fancy, the type of people in the bar quickly made him disregard the lavish décor. The bar was loud, and a rowdy bunch was filling the place with loud rock music and cigarette smoke. Crushed peanuts littered the floor here and there, and almost every round table on the floor was occupied by a handful of people.
McKenna noticed a couple different street gangs hanging out, each sporting their own mismatched but distinctive uniforms. There were sure to embroider their gang names on their jackets and shirts. One gang, the Blue City Ice Fists, clearly separated themselves from the other gang, the Rafter Rangers. They didn’t resemble or even compare to the dangerous gangs of the lower sectors, i
nstead acting more like glorified cliques with money to blow from their parents.
A bartender walked out of a back room toting a case labeled Baralia Spirit, an Auroran drink of choice. As McKenna looked up from the crate – and having to look up quite a ways – he realized that the bartender was in fact a male Auroran.
The alien was tall, passing seven feet. McKenna had never seen an Auroran up close before, so he didn’t know if the alien was of average height or above average. His skin tone was a pale green, but he knew from Arena matches and vidcasts that they varied widely in skin pigment from grey, green, blue, red, sometimes even violet. The bartender had a very distinctive face, very different from humans. His eyes were a bright, radiant green with catlike irises. He had slightly pointed ears, bony cheeks, a pronounced jaw line and a pointed chin. His nose was similar to humans but slightly pointed, and he had three blue lines of pigmentation crossing over the bridge of his nose from cheek to cheek. His thick grey hair was slicked back into two braids. Other than his facial appearance and having only four fingers, the Auroran had the same build of humans, both walking upright and having the same physical mannerisms.
The Auroran bartender really made McKenna feel like he was on another planet, ironic since he was on the homeplanet of humans. There were rarely any Aurorans on Mars, and when there were, McKenna would only hear about their visits. The bartender walked up to McKenna and spoke in a medium tone but with elevated volume to be heard in the loud environment.
“You, human,” the Auroran said. “I didn’t see you come in, what is your drink?” The Revente species spoke a few human languages, including English. Most could speak it, with only a few choosing not to, either from verbal difficulties or a flat-out refusal to speak a foreign tongue. Because of their hundreds of years spent on Earth, human languages had grown on the aliens, with many preferring to use them given their location. Their voices sounded like humans, but there was a very small undertone on each word, almost as if there was another voice below the primary one.
“Kentucky Bourbon, if you’ve got it,” McKenna asked politely, not wanting to irritate the towering alien.
“I do. Uncut?”
“Actually, that Baria Spirit, is that safe for humans?” He was curious about the foreign tonic.
“Baralia Spirit,” the Aurora corrected. “And yes, it is safe. It is a bit strong for your species. It takes longer for us to become shit housed, as the patron to your left puts it.”
McKenna looked at the patron in question to see the businessman, severely intoxicated, smiling at him with a rosy face.
“The stuff they put in this shit is good shit,” the intoxicated man said, barely spitting out the words. “Gets you fucked up though, this shit, but still good shit and shit…” The man’s eyes rolled back a bit before closing, falling asleep at his stool.
“Get me a glass, cancel the bourbon.” McKenna smiled.
The bartender took a clear tumbler from a rack above him and opened a bottle from the new case of ale. As he poured, the bright glowing orange liquid flowed smoothly into the glass. After it was filled halfway, the bartender put a maraschino cherry in the drink and gave the glass to McKenna. He put his eyes right up to the glass to see the liquid’s unique viscosity, slightly higher than a normal drink and not resembling any type of spirit McKenna had ever seen.
“Bottoms up, human,” the bartender said.
“I understand that there’s lodging here as well?” McKenna asked while he tipped the bartender with his OPIaA. “Or am I in the wrong place?”
The Auroran didn’t acknowledge the tip. “It is, actually, back in the hub where you came from. The InfiNET refers people here because I own both establishments. I have three rooms available. It is just you, I presume? Or are you working on that?”
“Just myself, thanks,” McKenna said as he held up his glass to inspect the bright orange liquid.
“One-fifty credits for one night” the bartender said. The price was good. McKenna sent the fee over to him. Now most of his complimentary credits from Brooks were gone. “Name for the file?” the Auroran asked as he input the info into his OPIaA.
“McKenna.”
“Alright, your OPIaA should get you into the room. You need anything else, let me know.”
His first encounter with an Auroran had turned out quite pleasant. McKenna took a sip of the drink, feeling a surge of refreshing fizz and a sharp intense burn go down his throat. “Thanks.”
As McKenna responded, however, a man behind him overheard. He felt a hand come down on his shoulder and heard a low voice speak into his ear, spoiling his savor.
“You got lucky at the port, got me off guard. Let’s take a walk,” the man said. McKenna felt a sharp blade press into his oblique, and he turned to see the same mugger hovering over him. McKenna had known he’d been too lenient before, and now he couldn’t think of a better place get rough. As he got up from the stool, he downed the rest of his drink and felt an even stronger burn as it went down.
“Good stuff,” McKenna said, as the cop next to him looked at him with a puzzled face. McKenna turned fast, sweeping his fists at the knife, glass still in hand, and knocked it away. He took the glass and smashed it on the mugger’s face, then kicked him into a Rafter Ranger who was passing by. Both the Ranger and the mugger plowed into a table filled with Blue City Ice Fists, igniting a bar fight. An Ice Fist punched the Ranger while another Fist hit the mugger. The rest of the Rangers came over with purpose and escalated the brawl.
It didn’t take long for the scuffle to become everyone’s problem, with a few patrons storming out and many more joining the fight. McKenna stared out at the spectacle, then turned to see the bartender staring straight at him from behind the bar, giving him a sore glare.
“Sorry about this,” McKenna said as he tipped the Auroran another hundred credits. McKenna was about to make his leave when he saw the cop beside him still drinking as if nothing was going on. “You going to make an arrest?” McKenna asked him. “I was violated.”
“Keep it down, yeah?” the cop said. “That Auroran doesn’t know I’m a cop. He can handle it.”
McKenna shrugged and took his leave back to the hub, then to his newly rented hotel room not far away. The door control scanned his OPIaA and chimed, opening the door. McKenna threw his bag on the ground with his coat and fell on the bed. His eyes fluttered and he soon drifted off into slumber.
***
Bucard leaned against the distressed concrete wall, waiting for his client to show. No doubt they’d be unsettled by his recent blunder, but he figured he should have been briefed that his target was no ordinary man. He’d use that to account for his mishap.
“Military training would have been nice to point out…” Bucard said as he reviewed the vague target file on his OPIaA. He closed the file as he heard a large metal door open in front of him. He was in an abandoned warehouse area in Orange Sector. Not safe and homey like Blue Sector; not that he minded, as these jobs normally took him to less than ideal areas.
A man stepped forward from behind the metal door wearing a grey, ragged, hooded cloak that covered most of his upper body, cutting off at his thighs. Bucard couldn’t make much of his features, but he could tell by the leg armor and combat breather that the man was well equipped.
“There was an agreement to have no physical interactions in the contract,” the man said with a cold, distinguishable Far Eastern accent.
“I know that. But something has changed. Besides, this helps build healthy relations,” Bucard said as he moved towards the man.
“What is it that you want? Have you claimed the bounty?”
“You see, about that job,” Bucard said, pacing around the cloaked man and trying to gauge more about him. “Your chosen target was, well, he was good, to say the least. No ordinary fish off the boat.”
“You were given his exact location, where he would be and when. You are saying this man is still alive?”
“Currently, yes. He still breathes because
you failed to give proper intelligence on the target. He had training. Some of the best I’ve seen. Because of this, my tactics need to change, and given this man’s experience this puts my life in more danger. For that I’ll need more than our agreed rate.”
The man’s mask and hood covered his facial expression, but Bucard imagined it would be minimal even had he been able to see. “Intelligence is your responsibility, is it not?” the man said.
“In this line of work, it is a courtesy to reveal important information about the targets. You don’t simply put May be armed on the bullet points, copain. I don’t know how you and your boss do things elsewhere, but here in Freedom you give a proper brief to a professional. You want him dead, it’ll be more.”
The hooded man remained eerily silent, worrying him. Bucard slowly moved his hand to his pistol.
The man muttered something in his native tongue under his breath, talking to someone through an earpiece. “If you cannot kill this man, someone else would surely be pleased to do so,” the man said aloud. “The bounty is already considerable, so perhaps we should make it an open contract?”
Bucard clenched his fist tightly and ground his teeth. “You make this contract open, and you’ll have every bounty hunter in the city after this guy, then you get conflict! Not a good thing if you’re trying to keep to the shadows, Monsieur Hood.”
“Our business is of a timely manner and we need this done quickly.”
“You came to me, you know my work. I was caught off guard. I didn’t know he was ex-Martian military, but there are ways to kill those loups too. I can do it, but I need to prep.” The hooded man muttered something in another language again, further irritating Bucard. “Is that your boss or something? Hello?”
He looked at Bucard. For the first time Bucard was able to get a glimpse of the man’s eyes. They were almost a deep gray, his right eye milky white from a scar. “Tell you what, Mister Bucard, if you can bring him in yourself, we’ll gladly pay you double the bounty.”
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