by Rachel Aukes
She chortled. “You mean a meal bar? No, you’re eating here with us, and that’s final.”
“But—”
“Final.”
He blew out a breath. “All right. You win.”
Nick came running into the kitchen, followed by a soaking-wet dog that proceeded to shake soapy water everywhere. “Hey, guess what?”
“Get that dog back into the shower,” Sara said.
Nick ignored her. “He’s a she. Champ doesn’t have boy bits and pieces down there where boys do.” He pointed to his crotch. “You know, like I do.”
Sara covered her face. “Yes, I’m quite aware of what you have.” She shooed him away. “Now go. You’re both making a mess. Get that dog washed and dried off. I’ll have dinner ready in an hour.”
“An hour?” Joe echoed. “If you don’t mind, I could use a nap.”
“Go right ahead.” She turned to face him. “Thanks for everything, Joe. You made Nicky the happiest boy in all the world today. I know that Nick is up there, watching over us, and I know he’s thankful that you look after us.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Joe said.
She shot him a wry look. “I’m sure when Nick asked you to look after us if something happened to him, he didn’t mean you to check in on us for the rest of our lives. Knowing Nick, he meant a year or two, not ten. He never would’ve wanted to burden you like that.”
He scowled. “You and Little Nick have never been, and never will be, a burden, so you’d better get that straight. Nick was my closest friend. When I made a promise to him—to you—I considered it an honor, not a burden.” He could’ve gone on to say that he stopped by the Swinton’s home for more selfish reasons, that their normalcy brought him a sense of comfort that he couldn’t find anywhere else. But he didn’t say those words. Instead, he turned and headed to the sofa. He didn’t bother removing his armor before lying down.
He was asleep two seconds after closing his eyes.
Joe bolted awake at the sound of thunder—also known as Sara.
“Dinner time,” Sara called out from the kitchen for what he realized was the second time.
He rubbed his eyes and groaned as he sat up and plopped his feet on the floor. He leaned forward, resting his head on his hands.
Nick came running by, followed by a blur of fur. Already, the boy and his dog seemed inseparable. Joe wondered if Champ had belonged to a kid before ending up at Joe’s cutter. No stray, however tame, would warm up to a new owner so fast. Champ stuck to Nick like a magnet to metal. There was no way that dog would’ve run away from a good owner, which meant that something had likely happened to her previous owner. It wouldn’t be an unusual story for the Midlands.
“Rise and shine. Up and at ’em,” Sara called.
Joe pushed to his feet, even though every muscle in his body wanted more sleep, and trudged over to the table. In the center sat a platter full of chicken and rice. He inhaled the savory aroma and his stomach growled. He took a seat, his armor clanging on the chair, and dropped a napkin on his lap.
Sara filled a bowl and handed it to Joe. “Carpe diem.”
He accepted the bowl. “I’m more of a night type of guy,” he said, then added, “thanks.”
“Oh, and Reuben called. He needs you to come in,” she said as he was raising a spoonful to his mouth.
He paused. “He knew I was here?”
She shot him a wry look. “Plenty of folks know you stop by here.”
He frowned. While he knew Sara’s neighbors had seen him come and go, he didn’t realize his routines were common knowledge. It didn’t sit well in his stomach. He placed the heaping spoon back into the bowl. “I’d better go.”
“Not until after you eat,” she scolded.
He contemplated who would be worse to have upset with him: Sara or Reuben. He grabbed the spoon and shoved the food in his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Ten
Joe returned to Harry Haft’s to find Reuben on his hands and knees, scrubbing his floor.
“I thought Rex was supposed to do cleanup,” Joe said as he hopped over a wet spot.
Reuben snorted. “Rex’s idea of cleanup is smudging stuff around and making a bigger mess.”
Joe tilted his head. He could see that. He came to stand above Reuben. “You called Sara Swinton looking for me. How’d you know I was there?”
“I didn’t, but Rex told me that you go there a lot.”
“Of course he did,” Joe said dryly. “You should’ve called me.”
“I tried. You didn’t answer.”
“Oh.” Joe realized he hadn’t transferred calls from his helmet to his armlet. “What do you need?”
Reuben paused in his scrubbing and leaned back. “I have a knockout job for you if you want it. Pays three times the usual.”
Knockout, slang for K.O., was short for Kill Order. That meant that the only way Joe would get paid would be with proof of death. He needed the money to pay for Monster’s repairs, let alone have enough left over to feed Sara and Nick. He inhaled and held out his hand. “Give me the ticket.”
“No ticket. This one’s off the books. Still want it?”
Ah, so it was a hit job. “I’ll take it.”
Reuben wiped his hands on his pants, pushed to his feet, walked over to his desk, and sat. He tapped several things on his screen before looking up. “I sent the details to your armlet. Everything you’ll need is in the file. Come back with proof of death, and I’ll make the payment. I will have you know, I wouldn’t have taken this ticket except that I owed this particular client a favor.”
“No problem.” Joe gave a small nod and turned to leave.
“Oh, another Haft hunter has disappeared. It was Jester this time,” Reuben warned. “I want to put trackers on every hunter and on every cutter.”
Joe turned around. “No.”
“But what if someone runs you off the road again?”
“No.” Joe remembered the state of things right before the Revolution, during Zenith’s pinnacle of control.
Zenith State was the political epicenter formed by the people in the Zenith silo, during humanity’s seven generations spent underground. In the beginning, they’d unified the tribes formed by each silo. Zenith established inter-bunker communications and trade routes with automated trains, and people became a part of a world bigger than their silo.
But as soon as humanity reentered the surface, Zenith clenched its fist of control around all of the wastelands, suffocating the various tribes. The State tracked everyone and everything. There’d been curfews and restrictions on where people could go and who they could see. Store owners who didn’t report data were marked off-limits to customers. Privacy had been lost to the past. No matter how harmless Reuben’s request was, Joe wouldn’t have any part of it.
“You’re in my employ. I can make you carry one,” Reuben said.
Joe stomped to his boss’s desk and leaned over it. “Do that, and I quit.”
Reuben held up his hands. “Fine. You don’t have to wear a tracker if you don’t want to. Besides, things should be back to normal before long. I’m having T-Rex send Cat a warning so she’ll stop these games.”
The tension already in his muscles tightened further. “Exactly what kind of warning?”
Reuben shrugged. “Rex said he’d figure something out.”
Joe shook his head slowly. “You’re going to regret sending Rex.”
Reuben bristled. “He gets results. Mother trusted him, so I trust him.”
“Cat isn’t exactly the type to cave in to a threat. You’d best be careful, or else you could start a guild war. War is like a relationship: easy to start, and both sides usually end up bloody.”
Reuben frowned. “But she drew first blood,” he said defensively as he scratched his cheek. Suddenly, he seemed to remember his dirty fingernails and grimaced, then wiped his hands on his pants again. “What am I supposed to do? Just sit here and take it?”
“No, but sending Rex is akin to droppin
g a shark into a pond. Something’s going to happen, and you can guarantee it won’t be pretty.”
Reuben brushed him off. “I had to do something, or else Cat would keep trying to kill my people. She could’ve killed you, you know.”
“I didn’t see who ran me off the road. I couldn’t tell if they were Iron Guild or not.”
“They were. This isn’t the first time Cat’s tried to take down the Haft Agency, but it’s going to be the last, even if I have to start a guild war, as you say, to make her stop.”
“If you say so,” Joe said, dubious. He left, wondering how Reuben could be so smart while being so stupid at the same time.
Joe nearly ran into Bolt on his way through the door.
“Watch it,” Joe said.
“Watch yourself,” Bolt countered before taking a step to the left to block Joe’s path. “What were you doing seeing Reuben twice in one day?”
“I was helping him write out his valentines,” Joe said.
Bolt didn’t move. “Did he give you another ticket?”
“No, he didn’t,” Joe said, which was technically the truth since he didn’t actually have a ticket in his possession. He’d learned, in his long career, that outright honesty was rarely the best policy.
“I don’t believe you. I bet he gave you one. That makes two this week and I haven’t even gotten one. What’s so special about you that you get the special treatment?”
Joe sighed. “Jealousy is a lot like a fart; you can’t see it, but you can smell it.” He leaned closer to Bolt and sniffed. “And you stink.”
Bolt held up his hands. “That’s stupid. That doesn’t even make any sense.”
Joe used the distraction to knock the other man to the floor. He strode through the bar as he heard Bolt scramble to his feet behind him. “You better watch your back, Havoc. One of these days, you’ll get yours.”
Joe ignored the other hunter as he exited the bar. He didn’t relax his hand from where it rested just above his holster until he reached Monster and climbed inside. He didn’t trust Bolt, not that he trusted any bounty hunter. His gut was the only thing in the world he trusted because it could see what his eyes couldn’t. So when he got vibes that Bolt was a conniving mongrel, he believed it.
Joe drove to a nondescript parking ramp in a nondescript part of town. He parked Monster in a private tube that closed behind him. He stepped out, initiated the cutter’s lock-down program, and entered a passcode to unlock the door in the tube near the grill. Lights came on when the door opened, and he walked down the steps to his small apartment below ground. The parking tube and apartment had been built to withstand any storm that hit the Midlands, including dead winds. He’d also chosen the place for its privacy and security. There were only two ways in or out: through the tube and through an underground emergency walkway that ran alongside a dozen other apartments in the block. Joe kept alarms and video feeds live on both doors at all times.
His apartment was a single room with only a privacy wall for the bathroom—not that he needed one. He’d never once invited anyone in. This was his private abode. He glanced at the main wall, where weapons of every shape and size hung across a powered surface so that they remained fully charged. A sign above his photon rocket launcher read: Home is where the blaster is.
Seeing nothing out of place, he pulled off his helmet and set it on the small table that sat in the center of the floor. Beyond it, the only other piece of furniture in the place—a bed—hung from the wall. He deactivated his suit and peeled off his armor, then set it next to the helmet on the table. He always felt naked without his exoshield, even though still fully clothed. Wearing armor through the Revolution, two bloody conflicts, and going on ten years as a bounty hunter, he’d spent well over half of his life in his exoshield.
He grabbed his cleaning kit and set it by the suit. He pulled out the only chair in the place, paused, then pushed it back. Stumbling to his bed, he kicked off his boots and collapsed on top of the blanket.
The knockout ticket could wait until tomorrow.
Chapter Eleven
Rex Orlov remained on his stomach as he watched the Iron Guild from the camouflage of a shrub with surprisingly sharp thorns. It’d been five minutes since anyone had entered or exited the building, and ten minutes since the sun had set behind the horizon. He pulled the dark cloak over his head, grabbed the bag at his side, and strolled toward the domed building that sat isolated in the white Salt Flats desert.
He knew Cat would have video cameras posted, if not drones monitoring the area, but his cloak reflected electronic signals, helping him appear nearly invisible on any feed. If someone was monitoring the feeds and knew what to look for, they’d spot him, but he assumed Cat paid her staff as poorly as Reuben paid his, which meant they weren’t paid enough to care.
Since he made it to the dirt parking lot and Cat’s cutter without being shot, Rex knew his assumption was a fact. He knelt by the front fender, careful not to touch anything while he ran a scan over the body. A tight grid of invisible red lasers flashed across his visor. Sure enough, the vehicle’s security system was active, and it was top of the line.
Not a problem.
Sleek and black, with a blaster cannon for a hood ornament, even her cutter was sexy. It was almost a shame what he was about to do to it.
Almost.
He opened the bag, pulled out a black cylinder, crawled under the body, and found the battery packs for the solar arrays. He ran a surface scan again. The vehicle’s security system covered the belly as well. Ever so carefully, he slid the cylinder through a square in the sensory grid. If he touched any of the invisible lasers, the cutter’s defense system would activate, and Cat would be notified. Neither outcome would be good for Rex’s health or his all-around outlook for living beyond more than a few minutes.
The magnetic cylinder clicked onto a battery, and Rex carefully brought his hand down. He started to crawl, but froze when he heard the hum of a cutter approaching. He waited and watched. A single vehicle, armored like a bounty hunter’s rig, entered the Iron Guild’s parking lot.
Rex frowned.
He recognized the vehicle. It’d been sitting in the Haft Agency’s lot earlier that day. Had Reuben sent a second team? He scowled. He would have to have a chat with that whelp about having some trust in his hunters—or at least in Rex—to get a job done.
Two pairs of boots hopped down from the cutter and strolled toward the building. Rex didn’t move, relying on the cover of the rig to conceal him. The two newcomers strolled straight through the front door. When no sounds of gunfire came from the building, Rex’s brow rose. “Now that’s interesting,” he whispered.
He shimmied out from under Cat’s cutter and headed back to the knoll of scattered shrubs. He went down on a knee, tapped a command on his armlet, and said, “Boom.”
He looked up in time to see a vibrant explosion. Cat’s cutter shot vertically in the air a hundred feet before falling, landing on a nearby cutter.
Rex grinned. “What goes up must come down.”
His grin quickly faded when he noticed a bounty hunter peering through a night vision scope…directly at him.
Chapter Twelve
Roderick Sloan sat in a plush chair in the heavily decorated office of the local MRC administrator, across from the man behind the desk, Meho Micovech. As with the other towns Roderick had visited, Roderick’s bodyguards stood with their blasters held at Meho’s head, while in the corner, Meho’s lieutenant lay dead on the floor—a wholly unintentional death, in Roderick’s defense.
Roderick held a blaster on his lap so that the man could see it. “So, do we have a deal?”
Meho gulped. “I take orders from you, and I reassign my soldiers to you. In return, you let me and my family live.”
“More than let you live, you’ll thrive,” Roderick said. “It’s a win-win for everyone involved. We pay all soldiers time and a half for work done on our behalf, and we’ll send you monthly payments for your cooperation. Y
our soldiers are happy as long as someone is feeding them orders, and MRC Central is none the wiser as long as you continue to make your regular updates to them as though no circumstances have changed.”
“You mean, I continue to tell them that my soldiers are still based here in Thorne,” Meho said.
“Yes. And if you give them even the slightest suspicion, then I will pay a visit to you and your family. I’ll start with your pretty daughter. She just turned sweet sixteen, right?”
Meho shivered. He glanced at the blasters leveled at his head and then shakily held out his hand.
Roderick grinned and then shook Meho’s hand. “Excellent. It’s been great doing business with you.”
Roderick stood and strolled from Meho’s office with a lightness in his step. He’d just added another eight murcs to his growing army—his farm boys—making his number now over one hundred. Even more than his brother had. With those numbers, he’d certainly become the wealthiest man in the Midlands, and no one would be able to stand against them.
Chapter Thirteen
Joe left for Clearwater after a late breakfast. He’d spent an hour cleaning his exoshield and another two hours repairing and restocking Monster, though he needed replacement parts and another forty hours before the cutter would be back in optimal condition.
The sun was bright and hot—it always was after dust storms passed through, though it always was before dust storms, too. It was cool in the vehicle and even cooler in Joe’s exoshield. He let himself settle into the comfort of the seat. He put Monster in auto-drive so he could review the details on his target.
Val Vane, Sheriff of Clearwater. Veteran of the Revolution. Considered armed and dangerous. Do not approach.
Sheriffs were an interesting concept. Some towns had them, some didn’t. That Clearwater had one meant that the townsfolk liked to take care of their own business, which also meant they wouldn’t exactly be welcoming to a bounty hunter on their streets. Joe would have to be doubly careful in a town like that.
