Vessels Adrift: Magenta Mayhem

Special thanks to Totally Rubot for providing the art featured on the cover of this story; to Saya, who helped provide feedback, edits and words of encouragement; and to the many friends who listened and offered ideas for this long-running setting of mine!

Wake Up...

Cress1997LE was the first asteroid humans ever laid boots on. Roughly 997 kilometres in diameter, it was the reigning heavyweight of the Coelescis main belt, and worth its own weight in gold too. Early voyages to the humble rock came as multinational scientific expeditions, mapping out topography, subsurface tunnels and valuable resources for in-situ development. However, once the first shipments of rare-Merasian elements left for ports back home, the fate of Cress1997LE was sealed.

The dwarf planet had become virtually unrecognisable by 2100.

Scores of geometric artificial lightings buzzed along its stony surface like a leviathan insect colony suspended in the void. Proud buildings, monolithic refineries and the occasional nomadic prospecting village dotted the surface. Various interplanetary vessels of all shapes, sizes and shady intent circled the small world as if it were the only place in the system that actually mattered. To some people living in the void, it most definitely was. Cress was now a lynchpin in the off-world economy; the unofficial capital of the belt and the largest trading hub in the entire solar system, save for Meras itself. Early scientific installations gave way to mining consortiums. The treaties that once regulated off-world resource extraction were quietly shredded once space became far too profitable to ignore. What had once been a defining chapter of human space exploration quickly devolved into yet another beacon of human greed and expansion, and no place in colonised space better epitomised that than Cress.

Evelyn had only been here for the better part of a year. She’d steadily realised that, like all places, Cress had its own strict hierarchy that everyone silently obeyed whether they knew it or not. Sure, the colonial government was vigilant and contracted law enforcement, but those weren’t really who was in charge. The crime families and ice barons set the law here; generations of accumulated wealth and status were a bigger stick than any decree from the inner planets.

It all felt tragically routine to the former thief, or at least it would have if she felt the universe worked any other way. It was just a fleeting thought to think about as she rode the Okator City Metro across Midtown. Every asteroid in the belt had a version of Midtown; a domed layer just below the barren rocky surface that developed into a fully-fledged metropolis. The holographic sky was a sapphire blue on most days, virtually indistinguishable from the skies of Meras down to the temperature never being ‘just right’.

It rained sometimes, but it was always on a schedule to clean the level periodically. Nothing truly felt natural here despite the best attempts. There were high-rise buildings just like on the inner planets too, with small shops, parks, schools and grocery stores, and the occasional third space in the form of a rowdy pub; somehow, civilisation as Evelyn knew it managed to establish itself even on an infertile rock like this. Evelyn stared lazily at these sights moving below her as the metro brought her across town. She hadn’t gotten that much sleep the night before, so she’d spent most of the tram ride slumbering with half-lidded eyes. When she opened them, it was like starting another dream all over again, not quite remembering how she even got on the tram in the first place. For an asteroid settlement, this city was deceptively large, and she could have been lost within any one of its various districts by now.

Rubbing her eyes, Evelyn sat up and flicked her right wrist. The Brace on her arm, a blue bracelet-like mobile device, flashed thrice before a rectangular holographic screen appeared in the palm of her hands. The device was a hard light interface much like the smartphones of years past, but with the convenience of never making someone’s hands go numb if they held it too long. Yet for all the infinite applications Evelyn could perform with a device more powerful than any supercomputer in the early 21st century, all she needed was to check the time.

It was just shy of 11:30 pm Standard Belt Time, right on schedule.

She dipped her head to the side, giving her neck a soft crack before letting out a long yawn. At the same time, she stood up and arched her back like a feline’s, casually stretching her arms over her head as if she’d just awoken from a thousand-year nap. The tram had also begun screeching to a halt, slowing down just as it neared Evelyn’s stop. The high-rise buildings Evelyn had passed earlier had now given way to a cacophony of grimy apartment complexes, and as she made her way off the tram along with the dozen or so passengers that silently accompanied her, the air hit her with the stench of an open sewer and fresh noodles.

She clenched her face for a moment, silently gagging, then held her breath as she walked down the stairs of the tram station platform and descended into New Mitsuko district, otherwise known as ‘Little Kokoro’. Self-evidently, many of the denizens here had come from Naipon and the surrounding South East Yusian area, creating a myriad of pidgin cultures found nowhere else in the solar system, the descendants of labourers that built this very city decades ago. The sky was a tangled web of overhead cables, many of which were illegitimate connections to off-grid station generators and individual power supplies. Not technically illegal, but an act of defiance that no doubt flipped the proverbial finger at the colonial government.

Evelyn found herself lost among a much larger, densely packed crowd than what she was used to back in the Downtown district. Food stalls spilt out into the main street, serving a myriad of familiar and exotic cuisine; some of them were clearly illegally obtained produce from protected alien wildlife. Some of that wildlife also roamed the streets as the occasional stray animal, stealing from vendors or chirping aggressively at a rival. Neon and holographic signage filled the skyline ahead, advertising all manner of products that couldn’t quite be talked about in polite company, and the air was filled with thumping basslines from unseen sound systems. The sky, while a deep azure now as simulated noon approached, was obscured by the overhead cables into a surreal overcast experience all too common to the slums here.

Evelyn had always remembered wanting to visit Naipon in her youth; It was where the foster agency claimed her biological father came from, not that she particularly cared for that fact. That was many lifetimes ago, however, and an impossibility now that she worked exclusively off-world. This was likely the closest she would ever get to the experience. Yet, she wasn’t exactly here for sightseeing; she had a job to do.

There was a bar among the densely packed labyrinth that Evelyn was in search of, one bar among many, but this one supported a very specific type of clientele. The name of it slowly came into view as her search neared its end, the ‘First and Last Bar’ written in stylised kanji and stacked between two unremarkable buildings at the end of an intersection. This was surprisingly a common enough name for bars and pubs all over the city, some even getting into heated disputes over who actually came up with it first. This bar, however, was content with staying hidden among the others.

Evelyn pushed the doors to the place open, undeterred by the fact that someone like her stood out like a vacuum burn on virgin skin. Under the neon lighting, her dark brown skin gleamed as if part of the display. So too did her jet-black ponytail and the visor over the top of her head that appeared like a high-tech headband, and a white streak down the length of her swept hair. Her black and white crop top jacket gave way to a blue undershirt that covered her midsection, adorned with the faded logo of a drum and bass band that had long since faded from pop culture. Below her belt she wore washed-out dark blue jeans, capped under white knee-high runner’s tech shoes that were popular among street runners and parkour enthusiasts back planet-side.

To the half dozen or so denizens of the bar, Evelyn appeared somewhere between an outlaw of old and a common street kid. Nothing about her screamed either impression loud enough, and that was mostly how she liked it. A jukebox in the far corner of the bar echoed the faint and static-filled melody of a catchy pop song no one was actually listening to. Tones hushed as they all silently glared at her, with eyes that wordlessly sized the outsider up and down until they were satisfied that Evelyn wasn’t going to be a problem this afternoon.

Soon enough, hardened attentions faded into nothingness, and the bar returned to its previous idle state. A cue ball loudly clacked the other end of a pool table, and hushed tones whispered among the plush chairs that filled the open empty space of the establishment. This First and Last bar functioned more like a speakeasy than an actual pub, with drinks and other pleasantries only there to complement a business transaction or a dappled negotiation. Cigarette vapour filled the air with a sensual haze.

Undeterred, Evelyn gave the room a gaze of her own, noting the entrances, exits and the number of people she’d have to share this evening with. Seven people, including herself, was as fine a number to her as any; not nearly enough to cause her problems should things go wrong. With a soft smirk, she moved herself to the barkeep at the far end of the establishment and gave her aching feet a rest on the legs of a plush stool. “Hey, you got any coconut water?” Evelyn ordered, her pitched-up voice as polite as it was layered in fatigue. She knew the four hours of sleep was catching up to her, and anything that could be used as engine degreaser was not going to help things.

The barkeep, an older tall gentleman with grey slicked-back hair and a caterpillar of a moustache, side-eyed her briefly before letting out a soft chuckle. “Must be one hell of a hangover you’re nursing there. Are you sure you’re in the right place, young lady?” he spoke in a peculiar Boer tongue. “Something like that…” Evelyn returned with a smirk. “Let’s just say sleep, and I haven’t been good friends lately.”

The drink appeared on the table almost instantaneously, slid towards Evelyn with a gentle firmness. She lazily caught it with her free right hand and brought it to her lips; she could taste the blast of cold tropical energy coursing through her head and down her neck as she took the first sip. It reminded her of a faraway place, somewhere she used to feel safe once. It was enough to finally bring her out of her dream and into the real world again.

“I put a little Tharsis Ginseng in there. Should give you the kick in the arse you need.” The barkeep added. “You young inners can’t keep pulling all-nighters like that, you know? You’re not built for it. Sleep’s worth a lot more than special rates any day, you can take my word for that.”

Evelyn nodded, not really needing the old man’s advice, but she could at least appreciate his wisdom. The ageing barkeep clocked that she had been working off-station for the better part of the week, and for someone who spent their entire life living planet side, she could never get used to interplanetary jet-lag. She must have been wearing it on her face all day.

“You ran the Void too, huh, old timer?” Evelyn diverted with a soft hum to her voice, resting her half-full glass down. The barkeep gave her a hearty, knowing laugh. “In another lifetime, yes. Can’t say I particularly miss those days. I’d take hiding behind this bar than riding ice hauliers from here to the rings of Aedir any time.”

Evelyn closed her eyes, smiling with her drink to her lips, endeared by the brief camaraderie between her and this man she’d met only seconds prior. It was easy to make friends with other people in the game, especially when both parties knew the real cost of life on the frontier.

Suddenly, the front door swung open once more, and the dozen or so eyes that had pressed at Evelyn now appraised their newest visitor with the same stern inquisition. The light outside seemed blinding white from within the dimly lit tavern, leaving whoever had just entered in the ghostly form of a dark silhouette. An awkward beat would pass, but icy gazes were averted once more, and the bar went back to normal like it always did. The figure in the light then took a few steps forward after performing their own suspicious judgement of the bar, revealing that they were holding a briefcase in their right hand as they entered the building proper.

They were dressed in an oversized dark-grey cloak, obscuring their identity and much of their face from their distance across the bar. Evelyn didn’t pay any mind to them as they neared and sat next to her on the plush stool next to hers. From the corner of her eyes, Evelyn could now make out that they were wearing very large, rounded glasses through the opening of their hood, and had the palest face she’d ever seen thus far in this district.

“I’ll have whatever she’s having.” Spoke the figure to the barkeep, clearly a woman in her mid-20s. There was a nasally, almost stereotypically nerdy quality to the way she talked, as if she had just walked out of a university lecture hall and into this shady world with nothing but a garish poncho on her back. Her rounded glasses didn’t help and as she pushed more of the hood behind her head, Evelyn could now make out the thick black bangs that obscured half of her vision and the tips of her braided hair that fell over her shoulders. She was even wearing a bright red bow on the top of her head.

“Didn’t think I’d make coconut water that popular.” Evelyn playfully mused, just having now finished her drink. The barkeep slid two glasses their way and wordlessly nodded at them both, sensing there was business between the two young women that he didn’t need to be privy to. He’d excused himself, walking some distance away and had begun to clean some glasses, leaving Evelyn and the mysterious woman to their own devices. Evelyn, just starting her next glass of coconut water, silently wished all men in the Coelescis system could be like this man.

“You arrived much earlier than I was expecting, Miss E.” The lady with the briefcase spoke with a stern eloquence, placing the item between her and the wall of the countertop near the floor and cradled between her obscured feet. She’d barely even touched her drink; rather, she idly traced the rim of the glass with her fingers, which appeared to be made of porcelain. “Good. I can’t trust tardy fucks, and half of this rock may as well not work with me on that basis alone. Some of them wouldn’t even be early to their own funeral.”

Evelyn turned her head slightly, not fully making eye contact, but it was enough to finally acknowledge there was someone sitting next to her. “You must really get set up a lot, huh?” she quizzed with a faint smirk tracing her lips. There was a tongue-in-cheek flavour to her otherwise deadpan voice, but also genuine curiosity for this character she found herself in orbit around. She clearly wasn’t who she tried to present herself as.

“It’s an occupational hazard in this business, I’m afraid.” She replied with a soft, knowing sigh, oblivious to Evelyn’s tease. “I wouldn’t have made it this far in my career if I’d placed my trust in people. Too many nosy assholes who think I’m just some college dropout they can push around. Well, let me tell you, no one’s fucking with me now that I’m the only broker on Okator they can do business with!” Her voice had gotten heavier than before, the nasally quality suddenly replaced with scorn she wore proudly on her sleeves.

“You got the goods, right?” Evelyn asked, politely ignoring the young woman’s wordy lament.

The woman’s pale face blushed with the pink shades of embarrassment before hardening with a stern look. “Ah… right. Down to business, yes.” She replied with a voice that shrank somewhat compared to before. She reached down to her legs and pulled the briefcase up and onto the counter. It was plain black, made of synthetic leather, and beneath the handle housed a series of complex latches that Evelyn presumed were supposed to be locks. “Y-y-you’ll have to excuse me, Miss E. I tend to… ramble.”

Evelyn didn’t reply, instead watching patiently as the woman’s fingers rapidly undid each of the locks on the case, which clicked intricately before what sounded like a hermetic seal cracked open. She suddenly moved the case and herself closer to Evelyn, trying her best to obscure much of themselves with her heavily cloaked body. Evelyn didn’t move a muscle, but didn’t explicitly dissuade her from shortening their boundaries for this even though she would rather keep the space.

The cloaked woman opened the case ever so slightly. Inside, held solidly within hard waffle-textured padding, was a lone prosthetic eyeball. It was plain white with a faint serial number etched on the sclera. The iris was a dull grey, and inside the apparatus, Evelyn could make out the edges of a complex camera assembly. At the back of the eyeball was a bundle of metal actuators, with small cables snaking out from the centre of the optic before terminating in resistor caps. It was all like staring directly at something no average person was ever supposed to see.

Just when Evelyn thought she’d gotten a good enough view, the case slammed shut, startling her slightly but not enough to get a reaction out of her. “Now, what you just saw…” the cloaked woman started with a distinctly hushed, peppy voice, like a storyteller about to spin a wonderful tale “… was a Gareth-Becker GBO-6 Combat Optical Assembly, reserved only for special forces usage within the inner planets. We’re talking fucking Strike Team Aurelia operatives, deep cover agents and state assassins who utilise the advanced neural refresh rates, peripheral combat awareness and passive datalink capacities to their fullest potential, making them gods among men! Not something you’re gonna see a normie getting their hands on without help.”

Evelyn let out a wistful sigh. “Hanako, I thought we talked this over this morning. You want me to deliver this thing, right? You don’t have to sell it to me, you know.”

“Shh, hey! I distinctly remember asking to refer to each other by codenames!” Hanako barked under her breath, clutching the case possessively. “Stick with the program, or else we’re gonna get made! What kind of courier are you gonna be for me if you can’t be discreet?”

“Okay, okay… Miss H.” Evelyn reluctantly corrected herself, “Anyway, what’s the price on this thing? That you didn’t tell me.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked!” Hanko resumed with a beam, her eyes lighting up again. “So, normally I have to scavenge combat optics from contacts who work at morgues or military hospitals. Unethical, I know, but this time I managed to get this sourced directly from a scalper in the interior, fresh off the assembly line! You’ll never find these guys equipped on the average grunt, so these are as rare and as valuable as they get. All of that’s gonna bring us up to… hmm… 5.25 million Oonies! And that’s just for the product; installation is gonna be tricky so…”

“Okay, forget I asked. You’re definitely who I’m here for.” Evelyn interrupted, cracking the other side of her neck. “Now that I’m certain I have you, let’s just cut to the fun part…”

Evelyn stood up from her stool, causing Hanako to suddenly cut her story of a response short. Evelyn’s hands found their way to the revolver on her right thigh, housed within a brown leather holster that looked as if it had bounced out of an old spaghetti western. She unsheathed it with an intimidating coil and aimed the DR-4 Tachi Heavy Duty Service Revolver in Hanako’s direction, with one finger placed deliberately around the trigger guard.

Hanako’s jaw dropped, her pupils narrowed, and her voice that had since trailed off could now only fumble at a response to what was happening now. She raised the briefcase over her face instinctively and sputtered some attempt at a plea for mercy before her words hardened into something comprehensible.

“W-wait! What the fuck are you doing?! I thought you ran a salvage company! You’re supposed to help me transport this product to the client, dumbass!!” Hanako shrieked. The bar, for as nosy as it was before, kept firmly within their own business this time and let the scene play out. Another cue ball struck a hole, a pop song on the juke box had reached its crescendo, and the barkeep hummed along as he cleaned another glass.

Evelyn chuckled. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Hanako Yamaoka aka ‘Eyeball Jane’. I’m also a bounty hunter, and you’re my meal ticket today!” “W-wha...?” Hanako stammered bewilderedly, still clutching the case. “Y-you set me up??”

“Well, let’s just say you made it pretty easy for me.” Evelyn replied with an indifferent smile. “For someone that’s so discreet about trust, you sure do love talking about yourself. I’m surprised no one else pieced together how to get you with the things you divulge unprompted. You’re a real people pleaser, you know?” “B-b-but…” Hanako stammered as the reality that she’d finally been caught flooded her nervous system.

“I gotta give you credit though, starting a black-market prosthetic ring at sixteen is quite impressive. Shame you’re only worth 100,000 Oonies.” Evelyn snickered. “Drop the case, put your hands over your head and follow me out… please, Miss H?”

Hanako was about to say something, probably something laden with obscenities, before she decided to bite her tongue. “God, my dad is gonna kill me…” Hanako muttered under her breath as she complied. Evelyn picked up the briefcase, still aiming the weapon at Hanako before holstering it with the twirl of her fingers.

Evelyn reached into her pocket just before she turned to the door, flicking a large plastic UNI chip in the direction of the barkeep, who instinctively caught it without much effort. “Sorry for the trouble, old timer. You can keep the change.” Evelyn spoke. The barkeep nodded with a knowing smile, still cleaning his glass without much fuss as if this were the least unusual thing to have taken place at his bar. “It’s all good business, cowgirl.” The barkeep chimed.

Hanako sheepishly stood up, prompted to walk towards the door by Evelyn, who playfully put an arm around her to guide her forward as if she were an old friend. Hanako desperately wished her cloak that she thought would keep her identity hidden could make her actually vanish right about now, with the looming consequences and proximity to such a dangerous woman making her head spin.

“Oi, hold it there!” A woman’s resonant cockney voice shot from somewhere in the bar.

Evelyn and Hanako had hardly made it halfway across the bar when the voice got their attention. They both stopped dead in their tracks, keeping an inch away from each other. An awkward beat passed, filled with nothing but the sound of the jukebox and the soft clack of hard footsteps coming her way.

“Hmm, you sound familiar…” Evelyn mused smugly. She remained in place, turning her head slightly to the left and meeting the cold steel of a much larger revolver than hers pressing against her cheek.

“Oh, you think so? On the tip of your tongue, ey? Or did you forget me so easily… Miss E? ~” taunted her playfully unseen assailant. Evelyn could now get a better look at who the voice belonged to through her peripheral vision.

She could make out a mass of short magenta hair, terminated by a side buzzcut on her left which revealed a hard polycarbonate android’s skull. The eyes glowed in a similar magenta hue with darkened sclera, and her face was awash with dark mascara and toxic black lipstick that flashed her a toothy grin. She wore a black leather crop top jacket over a magenta tank top. Below her waist were blue skin-tight pants and a pair of knee-high combat boots adorned in magenta highlights. Across her visible body were deep-cut seamlines, with the arm aiming the gun at Evelyn adorned in light purple, heavily tattooed skin plating. “Well, if I had to guess…” Evelyn mused, pressing her lips into a thin line. “You must be… Margarita Maggie?”

“It’s Magenta Maggie, you cheeky cunt! You must be colour-blind too, huh?” She gruffly exclaimed, her voice shaky with an unstable girlish giggle. The gun’s barrel pressed firmer against Evelyn’s flesh, but she still remained mildly amused at the whole ordeal. “Buuut, Margarita has a nice ring to it! Maybe that’s what I’ll call myself when I finally retire, ahaha! ~”

“This…can’t be happening right now.” Hanako blurted beneath her breath. Her voice was as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her, solemn like a prayer she read to whatever deity resided in the holographic skies of Okator to come and save her from this tense showdown.

“Ah, but it is, sweet pea!” Maggie resumed. “Evy’ here is gonna be a good little bean and let me walk outta here with you and the case. And if I’m feeling generous, I’ll give a wee crumb to a charity for the gainfully unemployed with the bounty I collect from you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Evy’? ~” Evelyn let out a soft chuckle. “And here I was thinking bounty hunting was the last job we’d lose to automation.”

“You’re not being very funny right now… Evy’…” Maggie spoke, her voice an octave dangerously lower than usual. She stepped closer now to Evelyn, the android’s artificial breath brushing past her skin. “I can be people too… when I feel like it…”

“And since when do people steal other people’s bounties… specifically mine?” Evelyn retorted.

“Oh, Iunno’… since they made me lose a lot of money back on Rajanpur and ripped me arm off? This pasty sexbot’s arm aimed at yer head always reminds me of that day, y’know?”

Evelyn squinted her eyes, as if genuinely lost in memory. “Ah right, that transport job Amis and I took back in ‘03. Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s unhealthy to hold a grudge?”

“Awe, now where’s the fun in that? I’m going to be around for a very, very long time and I intend on agonising you until I’m satisfied you’ve learned your lesson, Evy’… that’s all. ~” Maggie retorted, her voice losing all its playfulness with each word until she was obnoxiously sinister. “Then again, you’re right. I could just put a hole in ya right now…” she continued in a lighter pitch, cocking the hammer of her revolver.

“Not… really what I meant.” Evelyn countered.

Evelyn took a deep breath, then, with the arm holding the briefcase, she swung it with as much force as she could against Maggie’s knee. She knew the android’s solid steel joint wouldn’t buckle the way a human would if struck in the same spot, but the sudden momentary jolt was as good a distraction as any to take advantage of.

The case came swinging back around with the momentum Evelyn had now gathered from the angle she was in, bringing it up to make contact squarely against Maggie’s face plate. The action, slow as it was to Maggie’s advanced combat perception, still took her off guard for just a fraction of a second as her stunned systems recalibrated from the impact.

This gave Evelyn enough time to twist around and reach for the android’s pastel arm. She dropped the case and raised Maggie’s gun above both of their heads. Maggie fired three shots in rapid fire before the prosthetics of Evelyn’s hands squeezed tight enough to trigger the pastel arm’s noisy servos to drop the weapon. Hanako let out an errant scream, and ducked beneath her oversized cloak to tremble within it.

The gun tumbled to the ground with a metallic clack, and Evelyn pushed Maggie back with a swift drive of her right palm. She followed up with a fast roundhouse kick to Maggie’s face once more, which pushed her at the perfect distance for Evelyn to gather a better stance. The same applied to Maggie, who properly recovered from her stumble and rubbed her pastel arm against her lips, the synthetic skin slightly scuffed from the successive hits and leaking a faint amount of motor oil.

She smirked with an unhinged toothy smile on her face at the sight of the viscous orange fluid stained against her lavender fingers, followed by a hoarse laugh. “Oh my… guess you want slow and painful...”

Maggie cracked her head to the side, her robotic spine echoing with discomforting metallic clicks as she realigned her neck. She’d lunge again at Evelyn with a fearsome speed, fast enough that Evelyn had barely enough time to get her footing stable again before Maggie’s barrage started landing. It was far too fast for her to even grip into her holster to end the fist fight, so she opted to play Maggie’s game if for no other reason than for the thrill of it.

Evelyn dodged the first punch to her head by mere millimetres, then the other, knowing full well that a hit from Maggie’s reinforced endoskeleton was enough to shatter a man’s bone. She’d even seen it happen before. All the while, her grin hadn’t left her face despite Maggie’s best attempts to smack it off her skull; this was far more amusing than listening to Hanako’s rambling moments prior. Soon enough, Evelyn felt her back against the wall of the pub and with nowhere to go but directly into Maggie’s knuckles.

In the split second between herself and a fractured jaw, Evelyn spied an errant steel broom leaning up next to her on the wall. She quickly grabbed hold of it and placed it between her and Maggie’s next clout, blocking it with a solid twang.

The force multiplier now served as a nimble sword in place of Evelyn’s meagre fists, levelling the playing field for her to push back. Evelyn twirled the broom around and used the long end as a blade to jab into Maggie’s torso. Each time she pushed, Maggie effortlessly dodged but narrowly missed having a fresh dent planted into her chest. Maggie attempted to retaliate by landing a brute force punch to her ribs, but Evelyn didn’t let up. She’d cleverly managed to sidestep, using the broom handle to trip her behind her legs, causing her to fall backwards.

Maggie’s knee plating was nothing to scoff at, likely designed to withstand nothing short of a high-powered rifle round from piercing her components within. But at close range, the broom handle made short work of tossing her around like a ragdoll, pushing her back with enough force that she could feel it through her tactile sensors and let out a stern grunt of annoyance.

Maggie cunningly used the momentum pushing her off kilter to roll herself backwards with inhuman flexibility and gain some distance again, finding herself right back where she’d started moments prior. All the while, Evelyn used that same momentum she built up to playfully twirl the broom around over her head and around her shoulders as if she had just completed a victory lap. She was out of breath, smiling ear to ear and letting out a wet laugh through her panting exhales. “Gosh, you really haven’t learned a thing since Rajanpur City, huh?” Evelyn sniped. “It’s like playing chess with a toaster.”

“FUCK YOU!” Maggie angrily wailed, ready to repeat the exact same smackdown all over again.

Evelyn breathed a sigh and swung the broom to Maggie’s face, who caught it with her pastel hand, which Evelyn swore was bulging with wired veins beneath. Maggie yanked the utensil out of Evelyn’s grip and, with one firm motion, crunched the metal shaft between her clenched fists. Both ends snapped within her grasp and fell to the floor unceremoniously.

“Let’s see what tricks you got now, Evy’!” Maggie growled.

Evelyn defiantly grinned despite her disadvantage, resuming her prior stance. “Oh, I’m just getting started. ~”

Before Maggie could lunge her fists into Evelyn’s face, the sound of a weapon racking caught both of their attentions at once and froze them in place. “Ladies… that’s enough!” cried the barkeep. A rather powerful-looking, matte black directed energy shotgun adorned his otherwise frail hands, but the man held it as if this was far from the first time he’d ever had to use it. It was the kind of shotgun riot police used, emitting an acoustic blast that disoriented as much as it inflicted grievous bodily pain.

Once he was satisfied that his point was made, the man continued in a calmer voice. “Look, I know I make it a point not to get in between business at this humble establishment of mine, but I’m going to have to ask you two to kindly settle this outside.”

Evelyn and Maggie looked at each other awkwardly, mutually contemplating whether to keep at it, then glanced back to the barkeep who seemed as if he had more to say. Turning his head to the front doors, he continued. “Oh, and your bounty seems to be getting away.”

The two bounty hunters faced their eyes and optics at the front of the bar, only to see Hanako and her briefcase missing from where they last mentally placed her. The sound of frantic footsteps and heavy breathing rebounded sporadically outside before fading into the busy street’s chaotic ambience. “HEY, GET BACK HERE!” they both cried in unison at the entrance.

Maggie used her body weight to simply push Evelyn out of her way as she made her pursuit. Evelyn crumbled onto the floor, unable to really deflect the solid mass of android that had dropped Evelyn’s importance in a heartbeat. Grumbling, Evelyn stubbornly latched onto Maggie’s leg, who dragged her like a piece of gum stuck to the underside of her boots, with Maggie mumbling obscenities at her on the way out as she holstered her dropped weapon.

The doors to the First and Last Bar flung open, and both women came tumbling through, literally falling over the other as they gave chase to the infamous ‘Eyeball Jane.’ The barkeep, releasing his grip on the acoustic shotgun, sighed before bellowing. “…and you owe me a new broom!” He knew full well that he wasn’t seeing the end of that promise met, but resigned to pouring a drink for himself, thankful his bar wasn’t destroyed this time around.

Meanwhile in the crowded streets of Little Kokoro, Hanako struggled awkwardly to sprint as fast as she could away from her captors who could spring upon her at a moment’s notice now that they were aware she was gone. The cloak was uncooperative with her escape, more than it was actually useful in keeping her identity hidden, so she threw it and caution to the wind in a single gesture.

The grey, washed-out tarp of fabric flew into the air, revealing that Hanako wore a red cardigan, a floral-patterned blouse, and a quaint blue skirt beneath the useless disguise. Her black loafers clacked loudly against the hard regolith concrete beneath her feet, looking as if she had just stepped out of an old mystery adventure novel. It was obvious to anyone other than Hanako that she was a sheep in wolf’s clothing selling contraband dressed like that. “Doite kudasai! Out of the fucking way!” Hanako bellowed as she dashed blindly ahead.

She pushed and shoved pedestrians in her way to the side, using her briefcase like a shield to literally bulldoze her way through the packed streets without much thought about anyone’s life other than her own. Salarymen, window shoppers and errant teenagers weren’t spared from her B-line away from the bar. She didn’t exactly have a direction in mind other than where her panic took her; any direction other than where she started. Upon the first corner she saw down the end of the road, she turned on a dime, nearly losing grip and sliding face down as she ran.

Behind her, Maggie charged ahead without nearly as much caution. Her body alone was like a wall, with people unfortunate enough to get in her way involuntarily compelled to meet the stony floor as they were violently tossed aside with full force. Soon enough, there was enough of a clearing ahead that people instinctively knew to move aside in the space they had to manoeuvre, and Maggie only accelerated further as her strides turned into a full sprint.

Soon enough, the perseverant android woman was moving as fast as a metro car as she tailed Hanako like an electronic bloodhound, with dampened servos buzzing noisily as they approached maximum structural exertion.

From the corner of her peripheral vision, Maggie could see an unknown object that her heads-up display tagged as following her directly above her. The blurry object then flew above her at high speed, and it became unsurprisingly clear to her that this was Evelyn. The salvage operator’s boots clung to the side of the buildings that lined the streets, flinging herself effortlessly between them like an urban ballerina. She tracked rapidly along the walls of a shop, her feet clinging using an unseen magnetic mechanism that defied gravity, even in an off-world city like this. Her tech shoes were more than just stylish; the precision-engineered magnetic locks and occasional bursts of pressurised air allowed her to practically glide between buildings high above like she was a superhero.

Years of surviving an urban jungle in another life made the streets of Okator a playground for someone like Evelyn. Parkour came as easy to her as breathing. With a peculiar elegance to her jumps, she leapt off the building as a gap neared, gliding through the air and performing a forward flip to squeeze just enough momentum to fling her body to the other side of the street and onto the adjacent building. She practically hit the wall running again, gaining far more leverage than sprinting alone could muster, and soon enough she and Maggie were keeping pace with each other through the narrow streets.

Evelyn turned her gaze to Maggie as their pace matched, smiling as both of their eyes locked. “Yo…” she musingly teased. “You ever heard of the concept of ‘finders’ keepers’?”

Maggie simply glared with the most hateful look in her magenta eyes she could muster, gritting her plastic teeth visibly as Evelyn started gaining more ground. “Last chance, Evy’…” she growled in her eerily sing-song voice. “Keep your grubby hands off this bounty before you lose both of em’!” “Yeah, that’s exactly how it works! Don’t be a sore loser, now!” Evelyn jested, letting out a lively snicker before her next jump took her out into the lead of their pursuit.

Both of them were now along a much narrower route, a much more sparsely populated section of the district that led into an industrial zone. Up ahead, Hanako was in plain view, huffing breathlessly as her legs struggled to push herself away from her pursuers. She didn’t even dare to look back, knowing the tapping of feet behind her was not a sight she wanted to picture any clearer than she already did, especially now that they were getting louder. She knew she’d run out of street along this route, so she turned a corner that would take her to an overhead metro station. In the distance she could hear the rumbling of an incoming tram and let out a relieved laugh. Perfect.

Evelyn lost sight of Hanako’s next move as she began to lose sight of her. As Hanako turned the first corner into a narrow alley, she cut her pursuit and darted to the other side of the street on her right and onto the roof of a building. She landed into a roll before shooting herself back up to her feet, running in the direction of where she also heard the approaching train. Maggie, losing sight of both of them, realised where Hanako was most likely off to as well. Her HUD had been passively scanning through various schematics and maps of the city, and calculated that the most efficient way out of this area was through the metro station.

She grinned proudly, turning the same corner to her right that Hanako had streaked into and barrelled at full speed. This part of New Kokoro was dimly lit owing to monolithic buildings, and largely populated by automated drones that didn’t exactly need much footing or lighting compared to the suburban part of town. Drones hummed in the air, and the occasional wheeled contraption buzzed by to complete some odd errand in the dark. The organic buildings had largely morphed into brutalist structures; a treatment plant for the city’s water supply at the very edge of the district.

The streets now narrowed into a maze of catwalks, and the buildings were now structures meant to house various industrial machines used to process the raw sewage and dirty water into drinkable sustenance once more. Not only did it treat the water for drinking, but it also kept the simulated ecosystem of Okator alive for its various imported animal species from across the inner planets. Most average people had no business here.

The metro station up ahead was the only usable ‘human’ structure among the otherwise sterile surroundings. Hanako was out of breath as she climbed from the ground floor and onto the monorail platform that waited just three stories above her. It was mostly used for inspection workers or the occasional maintenance crew to get from this part of the district and back up to their corporate headquarters on the levels of Okator far above the domed city. Here it was eerily quiet, and a testament to just how far Hanako had been running from where she and the bounty hunters on her tail stormed off.

After what felt like eternity, she finally made it to the top platform where she’d found it deserted, with some loose trash and heavy graffiti covering every surface. A bell in the platform chimed with an ageing buzz, and the tracks started bustling some distance away, signalling that a tram was mercifully close and would take her far away from the looming bounty hunters behind her. She’d considered hopping on the deserted mag lev tracks had she been forced to wait any longer, but even someone as impulsive as Hanako knew that was an exceptionally stupid idea.

“Come on… come ooon! Hurry Up!!” she pleaded to the incoming tram, still some distance away from her and only visible by its fog lights in the dark tunnel up ahead. She played nervously with one of her braids, teasing every individual strand of hair as she worried endlessly about being caught right here in such a vulnerable state. She couldn’t hear anyone else coming up the platform, no heavy metallic thuds to indicate she was being closed in on like prey trapped in a cage.

She tried to focus her mind instead on what was in front of her, taking deep breaths while she did so; an empty track, a tunnel to her right, the azure holographic sky above and the Okator city skyline some distance away and obscured partially by the monolithic industrial structures this far on the outskirts of the district. If she could make it there in time, she was sure to lose them in the busy streets.

Then, she heard the first thud on the stairs below, which grew rapid in their ascent. She gulped hard and closed her eyes, too nervous to even look down and paralysed to move forward. In her mind she’d tried to figure out which one of them it was; Evelyn, who always seemed annoyingly one step ahead or that scary android lady that looked like she broke bones for fun. She passed the time clutching her briefcase tightly, working out in her head which one of them she’d rather be caught by if it came to that.

The steps grew louder, but before Hanako could open her eyes, the tram mercifully arrived and came to a gentle stop. She wasted zero time bolting forward, not even waiting for the doors to fully open first and snaked herself in like a cornered feline. She knew from having ridden these trams almost her whole life that there was a thirty-second window before the doors closed and the tram finally took off. She peered around skittishly at the ceiling for the ‘short drop’ button, a feature built into these largely automated trams to cater to lone passengers that needed to haul ass quickly, rather than wait for passengers that would never come.

She found one of the orange buttons near the top of a window and mashed it with all her strength, praying it would swiftly take her anywhere but here. The doors closed, and the tram started to move, but as her eyes glanced down, she saw Maggie standing on the platform. She was smiling menacingly, but even if the android wasn’t, it wouldn’t have made Hanako feel any better. Hanako stepped back instinctively; the bounty hunter she decided she definitely didn’t want to be caught by found her first. She turned heel immediately and ran to the back of the tram; she was so panicked that she didn’t see or hear the doors forcibly pulled open and audibly strain as Maggie made her entrance. “Heeeeey! Hana~” Hanako heard Maggie singing in the distance. “Why’d you run away, love? Don’t you wanna get to know me too? ~” Hanako chose to ignore that for the sake of her sanity, instead trusting the animalistic part of her brain that told her anywhere was better than near that deranged android bounty hunter. She knew it was hopeless now that she’d boarded, but by any miracle she’d be stopping at the next available terminal in no time. She’d just have to be patient and hope she could slip away in time, as unlikely as it seemed. Hanako, if anything, was no stranger to gambling on luck.

Maggie chose not to run; rather, she took her sweet time, light-heartedly striding her way to her bounty, who, for the most part, was trapped in a cage of her own making. Her servo motors in her hips buzzed audibly as she casually strolled past the garish seating of the metro; the heated servo dampeners trying to recover now that she’d stopped exerting all of her energy into the pursuit.

“You really want to get caught all sweaty and tired, ey? ~” Maggie gloated. “You know the contract didn’t say anything about bringing you in bruised? I feel I should teach you a lesson for making this so hard on my old servos, y’know? Evelyn isn’t here so I gotta take it out on someone. ~”

Maggie, built from various android parts, was a surprisingly sturdy and competent machine; the only thing human about her was her faceplate, which she’d chosen to look conventionally attractive, while everything else was unconventionally hostile to human life. She could easily rip flesh and break bone, and this chase was nothing but child’s play to her. There seemed to be nothing else to do than to toy with her bounty, something she was known to do with notoriously slippery prey.

Hanako soon encountered the finite nature of the tram, running into the back end where she encountered the locked emergency exit door that would open to the outside and reveal the rapidly moving mag lev track behind. The tram moved under another series of tunnels, growing dark with intermittent flashes of simulated daylight. Hanako frantically turned around to find another exit, only to spot a pair of glowing magenta eyes peering out of the dark. Soon, a stocky silhouette came into focus, and as the cart passed out from under the tunnel, Hanako could now spot that Maggie was only mere feet away. It was far too close for any hopes to outmanoeuvre her.

The air became stagnant; there really was no way out now, and Hanako could do nothing but hope whatever punishment Maggie had in mind would leave her recognisable afterwards.

“H-hey… l-look…” Hanako stammered out, a last-ditch bargain on her tongue. “Take this prosthetic. It’s worth way more than the bounty on me anyway!” “Hmm, pass.” Maggie instantly scoffed at her gamble; her electronically resonant voice was in that odd boundary between playful and threatening. “Why don’t I just turn you in and take that thing off your clammy hands, hmm? You’d probably need it by the time I’m done with you anyway! ~” Hanako shuddered, not knowing what else she could possibly do to get out of this now.

Suddenly, one of the windows shattered violently into a million shards, catching both women off guard. A beat passed, and Evelyn appeared in the mess of glass, uncoiling herself from a hunch and dusting herself off as she got up, standing between her bounty and her unexpected rival with an undeterred aura. “You!” Maggie angrily snarled in infuriated disbelief.

“Yeah, me!” greeted Evelyn cheerfully. “Thanks for the workout. Catching up to this tram was fun and all, but I think we ought to wrap this up now. I’m getting hungry.”

“I have a fist or two you could snack on. Come close, will you?”

“Oh, you make more than toast, huh? ~. ”

The train grew eerily quiet again. There was nothing but the bustling of the cars over the mag lev tracks. The tram had found its way far from New Kokoro, now moving over tracks that led out into the massive man-made lake that dominated the outer boundary of the city. Birds and other strange alien avians patrolled the bright blue holographic skies outside, giving the confrontation more of a western edge than it already had.

Hanako leaned back against the locked door, strangely relieved that Evelyn had appeared when she did. However, tempers were far from cool and there was nowhere left for her to run. She could only hope the smug lips on Evelyn meant she had things under control, even if it did feel like she was making this plan up as she went along. Hanako hated that she could never really tell.

Maggie’s and Evelyn’s fingers lingered over their respective weapon holsters, fingers itchier than they’ve been all day. In her HUD, Maggie could literally see her tactical advantage; the distance, the movement of the tram, Evelyn’s possible moves. It was like shooting one insufferable fish in a barrel. Maggie drew first, faster than even someone like Evelyn could react to.

The first shot had hit the walls of the tram above her head, a purposeful miss. It drove Evelyn to duck right where she wanted and away from any possible cover. However, Evelyn’s perpetual motion machine of a mind improvised on the spot.

“Hanako, the case, now!” she ordered. The young prosthetic smuggler and prized bounty gladly accepted her new role of sidekick, especially if it meant getting off of this tram in one piece. She wordlessly tossed it to Evelyn, who caught it with her free hand. She put the case up as if it were a shield and charged headfirst into Maggie. In her free hand she drew her revolver and returned fire of her own.

Maggie’s face crumbled into an angry scowl as she realised this was the one scenario she didn’t account for. She fired rapidly into Evelyn’s case but found they were of no consequence. Evelyn’s shots loudly returned in the cramped space between her and the rival android. One shot grazed Maggie’s cheek, and the other her pastel shoulder; neither was particularly effective, but it gave Evelyn enough of a window to smack Maggie in the face with the bulletproof case.

She dropped her revolver and tumbled back, but her stocky frame kept her stubbornly upright. Evelyn was about to smack again, hoping to get enough of an opening to finally stun her into compliance with a well-placed shot from her revolver, but found herself flying back into the back of the tram as Maggie struck back hard. Evelyn felt herself, the case, and her revolver slide until they both hit the back of the tram. Hanako rolled out of the way and cowered behind one of the seats, too afraid to help or even to reach her valuable case, even though every fibre of her being preferred to do the latter.

Maggie lurched forward at full speed before Evelyn could even recover properly. Evelyn had finally gotten to her feet and narrowly missed having her cranium pierced by the skin of her teeth, watching as Maggie’s fist punched a deep dent into the escape door of the tram; a loud servo motor buzz filling the air. Evelyn followed up without missing a beat, sending three strikes into Maggie’s reinforced sternum with as much force as she could muster.

Even though her forearms and legs below the knee were prosthetic, they weren’t nearly as reinforced as Maggie’s. Regardless, what she lacked in armour-plated titanium she made up for with peculiarly disciplined strikes that diverted momentum away from herself and back at her attacker. She made Maggie pay dearly for the opening she left for her, and with enough persistence, the killer android was dislodged from her proximity and stumbled back with enough space for Evelyn to follow up.

They sparred back and forth; Maggie expertly avoiding and striking back with brute force, bone-crushing attacks, while Evelyn effortlessly directed that force right back at her. It looked as if Evelyn was more of a dance partner than a combatant, something that made the android’s non-existent blood boil as her patience grew thinner with each assault. Maggie punched; Evelyn spun around her; rinse and repeat, and Evelyn’s ear-to-ear grin wasn’t about to fade.

Maggie, finally deciding to stop holding back, made one final move to strike. However, rather than pound Evelyn into a fine paste, she opted to grab onto her jacket and swing her against the wall of the tram. Using her free right pastel hand, she shattered the glass entirely with a single strike and dragged Evelyn up until half her body was protruding out.

Evelyn could feel the rush of cool air fling her ponytail around and the blinding holographic sky assault her eyes. When her vision adjusted, all she could make out now was Maggie’s devious glare taking up much of her vision, and a wicked, toothy smile to boot. Her left hand held Evelyn in place, and the right pastel one gripped her neck.

“Say, Evy’… how about I toss ya’ into Lake Okator and make a wish, hmm?” taunted the android woman.

Evelyn struggled to mount a reply, gurgling slightly as Maggie’s iron grip only tightened around her soft, supple neck. She could even feel the endoskeleton of her fingers poke through the looseness of her synthetic pastel flesh; such was the exertion. She couldn’t find a way to move, and time seemed to slow as she realised that this could be it for her.

“Uhk… I’m flattered… ugh… you think I’m worth that much…” Evelyn retorted, not missing the opportunity to crack a grin despite her circumstances. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that… but a fall from this height should make you worth a lot to whatever shit’s swimming down there. Hear they can pick a man clean in under a day, wanna see if that’s true? ~”

Evelyn could feel her body lift off the ground, and the half of her that struggled to remain balanced slowly dip below the body of the tram. This was it, one long drop down into the lake where if the surface tension doesn’t kill her, whatever swimming below will make certain it will.

Her body felt slow and heavy, and no matter how much she gripped at Maggie’s arm she couldn’t possibly hope to get it off her neck. She could only think of one possible way to escape, but that was a gamble at best, and free fall at worst. It was enough to keep that knowing smile plastered on her face, one that could mean any number of things. A joke only she got, or a plan she made up on the spot. Either way, she was out of options.

She closed her eyes and let go of Maggie’s arms, who at this point had resigned to the thought that this fight was already over. It most certainly was. Evelyn’s neural cortex reader sent a signal to her tech shoes, another piece of external cyberware that she controlled with her thoughts. She reversed the polarity of the magnet that resided in the sole of the boot, causing the sensitive apparatus to violently repel the magnetic flooring of the tram and push her up. Maggie lost her footing, and Evelyn took advantage of the situation to pull the rival bounty hunter into herself as they began to fall.

With a gust of compressed air now, Evelyn propelled them both out and out of the tram, suspended tens of meters high above the large body of water. Maggie let out a screech of confusion as they both tumbled, her processors electronically screaming for the data of what just happened to make any sense at all.

There was only a seconds-long window for Evelyn to grip onto the ledge of the tram’s window, and, with as much reach as her arms could muster, she managed to earn a grip. Her fingers curled onto the ledge tightly and she used as much upper body strength as she could to keep herself attached to the tram. She could feel the lashing winds surround her entire body, and the world around her was loud with whipping air, but not before a hard tug at her leg pulled her slightly downwards.

Maggie obstinately held onto her leg and her grip refused to subside.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKIN’ MIND, YOU FUCKIN’ NONCE??” Maggie bellowed, her hand curled tightly against Evelyn’s left ankle.

Had Evelyn’s leg been real and not prosthetic, she would have most likely not have been able to walk for days, but the sturdy joints of her hard polymer endoskeleton would be slightly misaligned if anything. Still, Evelyn’s predicament now was anything but stable.

Evelyn’s arms were beginning to falter, hoisting the collective weight of an augmented human and an android’s chassis just shy of a ton. It would have been impossible for her to shake her off with the weight coiled around her ankle, and Maggie could gladly shatter her leg if it meant inflicting any meaningful wrath against her adversary. Instead, Maggie did the complete opposite; She began tugging even harder on Evelyn rather than try to pull herself up.

“IF I’M TAKING A TUMBLE, YOU’RE SURE AS FUCK COMING WITH ME!!” Maggie cried, her eyes filled with equal parts vengeance and devilish glee.

There was another hard tug. Evelyn’s fingers were starting to wear. Her prosthetic hands couldn’t sweat or fatigue, but her human muscles, as fit as they were, could only bear so much until cramps started to set in. Evelyn didn’t panic or cry obscenities; strangely enough, she was actually more at peace here than she had been anywhere else this past week.

Hanging precariously from a tram travelling at high speeds at the side of a high-speed train, suspended high over a lake with a killer android attached, gripping the legs was a place no sane person would ever hope to be. Yet the sheer adrenaline and the threat of slipping away into the ether were of no concern to Evelyn. She was right where she felt she needed to be, in the moment, and truly alive.

Another tug caused one of Evelyn’s hands to slip, and now there was only one meagre prosthetic limb separating her from sheer death. Evelyn wasn’t suicidal; she never actively sought out her own demise, but she was often sure one day it would find her and she wouldn’t resist. Perhaps someday would be the day she’d never have to think about the past, or the future. It was a peculiar mindset she’d developed, a way to cope with that feeling of drifting from one spot to the next, unsure if she really existed after everything that had led up to this moment. Even in imminent danger, it all felt like a dream.

Another hard pull, and her fingers slipped a bit more. Maggie cackled below, certain that if she couldn’t get the bounty, neither could Evelyn when she inevitably followed her down to a watery grave. Evelyn closed her eyes, ready to see if this was the end of another long dream. She wouldn’t give Maggie the satisfaction of fear on her face, but she’d also never get the closure she’d wanted out of this life, not that it mattered now. “Guess whatever happens, happens now…” she voiced, perhaps for the last time.

“Shut up!” she heard above her, snapping her out of her serene acceptance. “Use this!”

It was Hanako, apparently mustering the bravery now to lean over the side of the open window and reach one of her feeble arms down to hand her the sidearm she dropped. Evelyn blinked twice, unsure if what she was seeing was even true. After a second, she realised and quickly accepted that her bounty really was tossing her the proverbial lifeline when she could have just let both of them fall.

Without a second thought, she used her remaining strength to reach up with her free hand and grip the textured handle. With her fingers instinctively locking into a familiar posture, she pointed the gun down at Maggie and took aim. Maggie, looking upwards with her fierce magenta eyes could only stare daggers at Evelyn and the gun pointed directly at her. She gritted her plastic teeth and was about to finally drag both of them down for good with a final heave of both hands around her ankle.

Evelyn fired and struck Maggie’s pastel shoulder, sending bits of synthetic skin flying outwards to disperse in the wind. Sparks flew wildly, and the bare endoskeleton peered out along with a multitude of frayed wires.

She fired again, hitting the same spot and this time severing many more of the connectors and actuators within the joint. Her torso slid down, as the limb slowly began to lose structural integrity. Another shot severed even more of the joint, and now only a few wires held her torso up with fleeting strength; sparks and errant coolant fluid poured out of the mechanical wound opening up where her shoulder used to be.

“No…not the arm…” Maggie mouthed more sombrely than before at the sight of her arm and the sealing of her fate, seemingly more concerned about the former. Suddenly, the arm clutching Evelyn’s ankle seized; the current from Maggie’s power cell no longer able to reach the servos and synthetic ligaments of the pastel robotic limb. Evelyn didn’t waste any more ammo now, instead opting to finally thrust her leg violently up and down. The wires snapped, and Maggie’s arm finally came free. Maggie could only look in tenacious disbelief as her CPU no longer registered the limb’s connection, as if the sight of it rapidly falling away from her wasn’t confirmation enough.

“NOT AGAAIIINNN!!!” she screamed into the ether, falling like a rock with a sparking shoulder down into Lake Okator, impacting the water with a visible splash and disappearing as the train zipped far away from where she had plummeted. Soon enough, her echoing digital screams faded into the ambient gusts of wind.

Evelyn looked on as she fell, not really getting any kind of victory or triumph over Maggie, just an odd feeling of pity that the bounty hunter that almost bested her had such an unceremonious ending. Or at least that’s what it looked like.

She glanced up again and tossed the gun in her hand into the tram, following up with her newly freed hand that now clung to the side of the tram. Hanako reached and nervously offered to grab hold, pulling with what meagre force she could with her frail frame. Evelyn used her remaining upper body strength and hauled one last time, now easily able to get enough of herself up to finally place one leg over the edge and then the other. Soon enough, the lashing winds eased and she could finally breathe without feeling the air being sucked out of her lungs.

As she recovered, her attention was then brought again to her legs, which still felt oddly sore, and soon enough she realised Maggie’s pastel arm was still firmly gripping her ankle even as the rest of her was possibly swimming below. The fingers twitched slightly, even as the rest of her hand was locked into a fist, and a mass of frayed wires and disconnected coolant lines spilt out of the shoulder, leaking hydraulic fluid and motor oil onto the floor. Evelyn nonchalantly gripped the wrist and squeezed tightly. Servo motors buzzed and strained audibly beneath the synthetic skin before the demented arm finally released its grip. She sighed before tossing the limp remainder of Maggie’s presence out the still open window where it flew backwards into the air and vanished from sight.

Hanako was sitting on one of the tram’s benches, hyperventilating as if she herself were hanging on for dear life at the side of the tram moments ago. She clutched the briefcase tightly, now riddled with multiple gunshots and the imprint of a fist at the side of its leather exterior.

“You could’ve just let us fall, you know,” Evelyn interjected, breaking the heavy silence between them after everything that just happened.

Hanako looked away, adjusting her glasses awkwardly at the sound of Evelyn’s voice as if too embarrassed to respond. “I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I did that. I-I’m a criminal, but I’m not evil.” She bluntly replied. “Can’t really say the same for the other one...”

Evelyn sat up, still on the floor. From her coat pocket she pulled out a pack of green, Tharsis menthol blend cigarettes, sliding one out of the pack and placing it between her dry lips. She reached for a lighter in the same pocket, flicking the lid open and cranking the spark wheel until it produced a smooth flame and calmly lit the tip.

“Eh, something tells me she’ll be turning up again soon.” Evelyn retorted, blowing a voluminous cloud out of her breath as she spoke. She looked to Hanako again, still visibly shaking as if she were holding back an onslaught of emotions brewing within. “You good?”

“Yeah… that plastic bitch didn’t lay a finger on me thanks to you.” Hanako sternly vocalised, her voice notably softer. She took another deep shaky breath before she continued. “I-I spent the last four years trying to break into the prosthetic black market. My dad runs the logistics for Ayane Optical. He wanted me to push pencils under his thumb in the company, but I had it being tossed around. At least not physically this time. I left the family and sold products on my own, never looked back. I thought this was where I belonged but… now I don’t actually think I’m cut out for this.”

Evelyn really paid attention this time, letting Hanako ramble as much as she wanted now that things were quiet again. She took another hit from her cigarette as she listened, intrigued at what Hanako felt willing to share with her despite the circumstances.

“Sorry for rambling again...” Hanako finished, her thick round glasses obscuring her eyes in the light.

“I figured that since I met you in the bar.” Evelyn coolly agreed, disregarding her apology. “You’re clearly brilliant with specs and numbers kid… but the streets aren’t something you can half-ass your way through. If you get sloppy, you get caught, and there are bounty hunters a lot worse than Maggie out there gunning to take their sadism out on a little girl like you.”

Evelyn took the cigarette out of her mouth, blowing another cloud as the synthetic nicotine blend started to numb her nerves. “Hey, look on the bright side. At least it didn’t cost you an arm and a leg.”

Hanako’s face blushed as she let out a nervous chuckle, mostly out of embarrassment, but part of her felt relief knowing Evelyn didn’t use the opportunity to disparage her. Her pride was wounded enough as it was.

“Are you still gonna take me in?” she asked timidly.

Evelyn didn’t respond for a few seconds. She took the cigarette out from between her lips and tossed it out the window, occasionally lapping with gusts of air, then got up off the floor. She sat herself down next to Hanako, her posture wide and relaxed.

“Dunno, I lost Eyeball Jane on the train to Downtown. Couldn’t get to her in time. Occupational hazards came up.” She replied, giving Hanako a knowing grin. “I’m sure she learned her lesson though.”

Hanako wasn’t sure if she wanted to snort a laugh out or cry in front of the seasoned bounty hunter. She almost did both. “Y-you’re fucking serious? You’re letting me go?” Hanako inquired with bated breath.

“Don’t act so surprised. Wouldn’t be here if not for your quick thinking.” Evelyn quipped. “You got plenty of time to figure out what you really wanna do now, kid.”

“I-I…” Hanako stammered, not believing her luck. “I feel like I should repay you…or something.” Evelyn raised a brow, staring intently at Hanko and her battered briefcase with her full attention. “Now that you mention it… would it be too much to ask for one more favour?”

Hanako’s eyes lit up, sitting up straight and with ears perked to whatever Evelyn could possibly want. “As long as it isn’t any weird shit… I’ll do anything you ask!”

Evelyn scoffed. “It’s actually pretty simple…”

As they continued to talk, the train neared the shoreline of the bustling downtown district up ahead. The near-endless artificial sea gave way to densely packed pedestrian streets and ornate skyscrapers that blocked out the fiercely glowing skies above. Soon enough, the tram had begun to slow as it pulled into the nearby metro station; Evelyn accompanied Hanako closely as they hurriedly departed down into the station and disappeared into the surrounding crowds.

Epilogue

The surface of Cress was just as bustling as Okator City below. Vast complexes dotted the barren surface and cast artificial lights across its umbral expanse. Colonial government installations dotted the world as far as the horizon, along with manufacturing facilities, metro lines and dozens upon dozens of individual hangar bays for a myriad of spacecraft.

Most of them sunk deep below the surface, built to be part of the regolith and reinforced with various layers of dura-steel and other metal alloy shielding that protected them from the harsh conditions of the surface. Evelyn stepped out of a tram that took her to a hangar bay some distance away from Okator’s Government Sector, a mammoth domed complex visible anywhere from the city on the surface, and gateway to the Midtown layer below.

This particular hangar bay housed three light spacecraft, one of which was hers. It was a multilayered complex, with a mesh of catwalks surrounding the parked spacecraft and guided spacers to the airlocks of their respective vehicles. Evelyn couldn’t mistake her ship even if she tried; a large red and black rectangular mass, with a generous bell-shaped thruster at the aft, and a leviathan fork-shaped apparatus at the bow that took up half the ship’s length.

The Medina, a Dechrome Drive Yards Exeldia-36 Light Salvage Tug, wasn’t pretty and neither was it meant to be. It must have seen decades without much love, studiously hauling and pushing vessels larger than itself adrift into the void until one day it too needed to be salvaged. It was now painted a bright racing red and decked with attachments new and old, with much of it’s old knicks and dents obscured somewhat behind the livery. It was clear to anyone that this ship was modified far beyond what it was intended to be.

To Evelyn, this was her home now.

The airlock hissed open as she stepped into the crew compartment level. She let out a long yawn and stretched her arms over her head as the decontamination sprinklers hosed her up and down with a gaseous antiseptic mix. Once the gas cleared and the air pressurised within the airlock, the secondary bulkhead swished open with a peculiar pneumatic hiss that Evelyn was now intimately familiar with; to her it was the ship’s way of saying “So you made it back, huh?”.

She was immediately hit with the smell of a deep, pungent aroma coming from the kitchen; Voidal Style Chicken Alfredo with a side of fresh broccoli. She didn’t have to think to know where to go next.

The Medina’s crew cabin, built like a circular hallway structured around a cockpit area, was meant to be a temporary home for ship crews working weeks at a time out in the belt. Crews of up to four could have been hauling rocks or rescuing hapless tourists stranded somewhere out in deep space in a lifeless, corporate metal tube. Now there were 7 colourfully distinct rooms in total: bedding, bath, living quarters, a cockpit and of course the kitchen. They all blended in naturally into each other, and one could live here indefinitely without ever going stir crazy.

Evelyn met her crewmate, Amis, behind a jet engine retrofitted into a stove. Amis’ sheer size alone took up almost the whole room, with the tall muscular woman’s cybernetic body having as much presence as a freighter’s engine block. She was adorned in her usual blue tank top, olive drab work pants and boots, as well as a pair of sunglasses that seemed to protect her aura more than her eyes from the powerful flame. Her head was a short bob of platinum, and her body as a temple covered in various tattoos, each telling some obscure story from a deeply checkered past.

As she heard the familiar tapping of Evelyn’s boots march her way, Amis turned the stove off. She pivoted her body over to Evelyn’s direction and raised her shades, revealing a surprisingly cheerful expression from the otherwise brooding hulk of a woman. In her right hand she held a wok, still sizzling with juicy, seasoned meat.

“Aye, Skipper…you finally made it! Was starting to think you ate out,” she enthusiastically greeted. Her husky voice was drenched in the thickest Scottish accent this side of the solar system. “Just in time fer’ another round of the ol’ Aberdeen stir fry.”

Evelyn cracked a genuine smile, launching herself back onto a large sofa on the other side of the room adjacent to the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t buffet-sized, but it was large enough to act as a hybrid living quarters, and made of various furniture and equipment the two salvage operators found on Okator at a bargain, or floating unattended somewhere out in the belt.

“I don’t care if I have to eat that stuff for another three weeks. I’ll take real chicken over lab-grown slop any day.” Evelyn returned, kicking her feet up on the adjacent crate retrofitted into an ottoman.

Amis came her way, humming an odd tune, holding two steaming hot plates of real alfredo chicken and broccoli and placed them both on another cargo container now converted into a makeshift dining table. On both plates were a pair of chopsticks placed to the side like an open invitation to massacre whatever was on it. Evelyn briefly sat up to reach for the plate, before returning to her slouched demeanour, while Amis took position on an adjacent pilot’s chair that was now a single-seated plush couch.

They both wordlessly dug in to their dinner, same as they always have for the better part of a year. “So…” Amis spoke between bites. “How was the hunt?”

“Huh…?” Evelyn replied, halfway between being hypnotised by the real chicken flavour dancing on her tongue and being aware of the question. “Oh, right. That. Was a total bust, perp got away.”

“Really, now? That seems to happen a lot…”

“Are you calling me sloppy?”

“Well, I’m not saying bounty hunting’s a breeze either. It’s like gambling… just with people instead of poker chips.”

“This time was different… I met Maggie again.” Evelyn mused with a more hushed voice.

Amis raised a platinum brow and stopped chewing, swallowing the last bit of juicy chicken in her mouth as she processed the new information. “Ah, she finally found you. No wonder it went south… bet was still pissed about the arm…”

Evelyn scoffed. “That’s putting it lightly. Was definitely the highlight of the day.”

“Aye, she’s the same old demented corporate toy we know and love… shame she got in the way again. I always found for an android she can be a wee bit irrational…” Evelyn set her plate down, already finished before the conversation. “Well, she lost it again, so I know for sure she’s coming back to skin me now.”

“You know…” Amis mused, half finished with her own plate. “For someone who only looks out for themselves, you sure do have a habit of making friends.”

“With friends like mine, who needs enemies, right?” Evelyn jested.

Amis let out a hearty laugh. “Some rich friends wouldn’t hurt either, you know? I mean, we’ve been grounded for weeks…”

Evelyn gleamed upon hearing that, then reached into her pocket and pulled something out. Tossing it directly at Amis. The cyborg caught it effortlessly, with reflexes faster than her lumbering frame would suggest. She put her plate down and inspected the object, realising that it was a Bonafide Gareth-Becker GBO-6 prosthetic combat optic. Her own crimson eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.

“Michrai Almighty Skipper, you ought to handle this with more care! Do you even know what this is?”

“Oh, I know. I also know it’s valuable and you could probably get us some fat Oonies if you sold it.” Evelyn smugly grinned, crossing her arms as she sat back into the sofa with her hands behind her head. “Courtesy of one of my rich friends. ~”

Amis shook her head, then used her blue vest to wipe the faintest film of dust off the pristine optic. “Guess you’re a better bounty hunter than I gave you credit for. This is gonna pay for reactor pellets well into the next year!”

“And they say an eye for an eye leaves the world blind… or in this case an arm.” Evelyn mused, letting out a conceited sigh and smiled. “Anyway, I’m not the only one earning bread around here. How was the cage fight? You said you won, right?”

Amis set the eye down prudently on the crate she ate on, careful that any odd imbalance wouldn’t let it slide off. “Oh, you should have seen it!” she began excitedly “Emerald Emma really upped her game this time around, but your girl knows a thing or two on how to break herself out of a Weimarian Supplex. She needed a brand-new torso by the time I was done with her…”

Evelyn felt her eyes getting heavy. The coconut water tonic seemed to have finally worn off, and the sleep she had put off snuck up on her with a vengeance. The weight of the meal in her stomach certainly didn’t help either, but she didn’t fight it. She used Amis’ vivid story as a lullaby and cast herself adrift into sleep.

Just another dream.

Meanwhile...

Maggie’s systems emergency booted up sometime later, her heads-up display ballooning with a litany of error messages that she could barely parse through without noticing a significant increase in CPU usage.

When she’d eventually free her vision of the clutter, her first instinct was to move, but she found that action far more difficult than she expected. Her right arm was still missing, and she was suspended some distance in the air by an unseen magnetic harness clamped firmly at the small of her back. She could move her limbs freely, but they were of little use when they couldn’t firmly grip anything of value other than the elusive harness barely within reach. Her clothes and nylon hair were still mostly soaked from the lake, indicating that she had only been here for a few hours at least.

She gave her surroundings a cursory glance, first unable to really see much, but it all came into comprehension once she toggled her optic’s passive night vision mode. She was in a small room stocked full of scrapped androids, each of which was suspended just like her on a magnetic clamp that bound them to the ceiling. The room, structured like a long hallway, had them laid out in a row along both walls, separated by a dimly lit corridor.

Directly ahead of her was a scrapped companion unit, worse for wear, with skin removed just below the neck in a trail of torn, rubbery silicone flesh. Her body was apparently burnt to a crisp, with her endoskeletal frame smothered in burnt rubber that clung to her torso in sooty clumps. She lacked any limbs at all or even hair, just a blank face mask that stared back at her with an agape mouth. Her eyes lacked any colour, and Maggie could see that the optics were hollow and warped, with the inner mechanics of the optics visible under the sterile blue lighting of the room she was in. Whoever this used to be most likely met a fiery fate before she became scrap metal.

To her left was a mostly human-passing android, but still uncanny in how she hung on the metal clamp. Her body was a caramel brown, with jet black hair tied in a ponytail and hazel brown eyes. She was toned and athletic, wearing a corporate, formal black blazer over a white suit, with a red tie and a black skirt that dropped just below her knees. Her black and gold heels dangled limply in the air; from head to toe she was more or less perfect. However, upon a second glance at her face under the sterile lighting, Maggie could spot a visible metal jawbone and plastic teeth. The synthetic skin had been ripped open with something blunt and heavy, and behind her neck was an access port that appeared to have been forcibly torn open, leaving scratch marks on the skin and a cold metallic port beneath.

The android to her right was anything but modestly dressed, sporting flowing neon blue hair down to her firm, round curves. She was topless, with two firm masses of breasts made of visibly fake synthetic android skin. Her body didn’t seem to be built with realism in mind, and along her joints and digits there were a myriad of seam lines that crisscrossed around her chassis. Her only articles of clothing were jean shorts that opened up at the zipper, striped pink panties, and thin light pink stockings that inched up to her thighs. Her hot pink heels would have most likely cracked the ankles of any human that wore them, and her rubber skin was a mess of tears, dents and gashes despite her otherwise perfect appearance. Some panels were missing, and the gel-filled padding of her chest and hips were visible below the pale rubber sheath.

It didn’t take long for Maggie to piece together exactly where she was; a black-market android chop shop, most likely in Cress’ Undercity below Midtown. Without a second thought, Maggie instinctively reached behind her neck with the one serviceable hand she had left. She felt the magnetic clamp keeping her stuck to the ceiling; the device was circular and connected to a narrow arm that held bundles of wires within it. She firmly squeezed her fingers down, the force building until the casing of the clamp began to warp and bend. Soon enough, the clamp snapped in a resounding metal tang. She felt a short burst of electricity as her fingers made contact with the live wires, and the magnet's polarity briefly flickered wildly. Her HUD was a mess of garbled pixels and glitchy text readouts, but once the jolt subsided, she could feel herself falling.

She collapsed feet first, and instantly recovered by bending her knee in the nick of time. As she got up, Maggie spied an entrance some distance away, and an android’s endoskeletal frame on a stretcher just before it. She casually strolled along the walkway and past the other limply hanging android bodies, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she had miraculously survived a fall of more than 50 feet in the air, or that she had almost joined the other machines in this serile room. None of that seemed to bother her; it all paled in comparison to the fact she had lost her arm yet again to the woman she hated the most in the solar system.

As she came inches away from the door, she turned to her right to glance at the android’s endoskeletal frame, mostly obscured by a translucent polymer tarp. It was a combat model, lacking a recognisable human head and devoid of any of the usual synthskin and frailties that came with traditionally domestic units found all over Okator. This unit had most likely seen combat somewhere out in the belt, either as part of one of the larger consortiums or private security for some rich asshole. The chassis was riddled with pot marks and dents, but for the most part it seemed serviceable with a little TLC.

Maggie ran a finger along the android’s right arm, tracing the grooves and bulky components sensually before lightly raising the tarp just above its right side. The arm was a rusty red, more to do with the paint scheme rather than any actual rust. Using her left arm, she lifted the arm up, testing its weight and degrees of movement before letting out a satisfied whistle.

“Mmmh… I like you, big boy! ~” she purred in satisfaction.

With a swift motion, she effortlessly yanked the arm out of its socket; a disconcerting metallic crunch resonated in the air. The android leaked viscous orange motor oil from the stump and a fair gush of hydraulic fluids that dripped from the metal stretcher and onto the floor. Maggie then pressed the stump of where the android’s arm ended and where her shoulder began. The frayed wiring of both machines suddenly began to act as if on their own accord, straightening out and binding with one another by some unseen mechanism unique to Maggie’s construction.

“Ah, we’re a match made in heaven. Good boy…~” she mused seductively.

She glanced her glowing magenta optics down, noticing a toolbox beneath the stretcher. Placing the arm down, she reached into it and found just what she needed; a soldering iron.

The room suddenly buzzed and popped as Maggie soldered the arm onto herself. Her CPU began recognising the new hardware and hummed as a multitude of new drivers were installed, and her own system had begun performing its own modifications to the arm in order for her to adapt it onto her body. She took an almost carnal pleasure in feeling the data coursing through her systems, almost like a digital high. Once she finished, she callously tossed the soldering iron back onto the stretcher and marvelled at the new rust red limb like some kind of expensive designer product; loud whirs and clicks echoed across the room.

“Shame, I hate red, but it looks SOOO good on me, don’t it? ~” Maggie mused. Suddenly, her optics widened; her systems had discovered a new folder stored within this limb’s digital infrastructure. “Oh? What could this be? ~”

Suddenly, a mechanism in the arm caused it to immediately straighten up in a firm jerk. The wrist pulled itself down and folded into the underside of her forearm. The forearm itself split in two, widening as it did so, and a large barrel extended from where the wrist used to be. In her HUD, she could now see an ammo counter, stocked with 100 rounds of a plasma-based projectile; the magazine was visibly tucked just before her elbow joint.

“Ohohoho…you are so royally fucked now, Evy’!” Maggie enthusiastically cackled at the sight of her new toy.

She then turned away from the stretcher and towards the door. It was unsurprisingly locked on both sides by an electronic number pad, but that proved to be a complete non-issue to the magenta-haired bounty hunter. She aimed the key and fired. A loud bang resonated through the room, and a blue trail of ambient light leapt from the barrel of the arm-mounted gun that left crisp holes in the door’s keypad lock. It sparked and glitched before the door’s mechanisms failed completely. She kicked it open hard with all of her mechanical strength, almost sending the steel door flying off its hinges.

“Time for a little target practice… ~” Maggie ominously proclaimed as she stepped through her exit. As she walked down the next set of corridors, she fired again with reckless abandon; the errant screams of confused black-market techs and her cackling laughter filled the air.

Until next time, Skipper…