Lone Gunfighter of the Wastelands Read online

Sikes shrugged. “Fine. I can tell you don’t want to talk about it. No problem. But you can call me Eddy. That’s what my friends call me. Well, I don’t really have any friends right now, but I’ve had them before. A couple of them.”

  “Sikes, shut up,” Joe said.

  There were only two rules for being a bounty hunter. One, get paid, and two, never make it personal. Joe had broken the second rule once during his first month on the job, right before he bought his suit. He’d taken off the restraints on his bounty—an exceptionally attractive bounty—and she stabbed him in the back (literally). He still had the scar just below his right shoulder blade. If the knife hadn’t hit a rib, he wouldn’t be sweating under his cutter today.

  With the final bolt in the bottom plating back in place, Joe pushed himself out from under Monster. He walked over to his prisoner, uncuffed him, and pointed to a nearby rock. “Sit over there. You try to run, I’ll shoot you.”

  Sikes nodded and rubbed his wrist while he limped over to the rock and sat. “You don’t have to worry about me none. Where would I run off to, anyway?”

  Joe watched him for a long second before he walked around the vehicle.

  The three-wheeled cutter hadn’t been pretty before rolling down a ravine, and it looked to be in worse shape now. The bullet-proof exterior had once been smooth but had become pock-marked from blaster fire, rocks, and an unsavory run-in with a rocking chair (don’t ask). The passenger side and roof were now dented and wrinkled from its latest run-in with trouble. The back fenders that hung out like droopy fins on each side of the third wheel remained undamaged. The fenders were designed to reduce drag while preventing the vehicle from rolling over on tight turns, but even they couldn’t have prevented Monster from tumbling down the ravine.

  In short, he’d gotten lucky.

  He’d given the cutter its name not as a joke, but as an homage to Frankenstein’s Monster: an ugly, scarred collection of mismatched parts that was perfect in the eyes of its creator. Joe had spent more days than he could count working on this rig, maybe even more days than he’d spent behind the wheel.

  Joe analyzed the cutter’s current position. It lay on its right side in a shallow stream. He jumped up and leaned into the driver’s side window, flipped a switch, and the fins retracted. The vehicle moved, nearly throwing Joe off.

  He dropped, walked around, paced parallel to its roof a couple of times searching for the best leverage, then stopped near the center. He pressed his hands against the somewhat flexible exterior and pushed. His wrist complained, but he ignored it and pushed harder. He started to regret shooting Sikes in the leg because he could’ve used the extra strength, not that Sikes looked like he had much to offer. Joe grunted and pushed harder. At least vehicles had gotten lighter when the manufacturers switched to composite materials rather than metals. Still, moving the cutter required every ounce of Joe’s strength. The vehicle rocked before finally rolling onto its wheels.

  The right side was surprisingly intact, and the dents popped out as soon as the pressure was off them. A couple of solar arrays built into the composite shell looked to be broken. Replacing those would suck up a hefty chunk of his bounty for Sikes.

  Speaking of, he glanced over at his prisoner to find him splitting blades of grass. Joe turned back and bent over to catch his breath. His arms trembled from exertion. He waited until his arms smoothed out, then opened the passenger door and pulled out a couple of waters and meal bars.

  He strode over to his prisoner and handed him his share. “Here you go, Sikes.”

  “I told you earlier, you can call me Eddy,” he said, before taking a long drink of water.

  Joe ignored the comment and walked around the cutter to where his prisoner couldn’t see him and scanned the area. Hunters wore exoshields for protection, but Joe preferred people—especially bounties—not knowing what he looked like. There were too many folks out there who would use the knowledge against him and anyone he cared about.

  Confident they were alone, he pulled off his helmet and set it on the hood. Bright heat beat against his skin, and he shaded his eyes. Sikes was right. It was a cooker today.

  He wasted no time eating the bar and downing the bottle of water. Even so, sweat formed on his face by the time he finished, and he slid his helmet back on. The gel-like coolness inside felt like a second skin, only this skin always seemed to be the right temperature. If Joe was hot, the suit cooled; if he was cold, the suit warmed him.

  The gear was a military-grade leftover from the Revolution, where it’d been used by the oppressive Zenith State’s kill squads. Joe’s exoshield had served him through three wars, and he’d spent a year’s worth of wages on upgrades. He would’ve paid three times that because the armor had saved his life more times than he could count. Without a suit, a hunter’s life expectancy tended to run about the same as that of a frog in a dinner pot. That was why every bounty hunter was fitted with an exoshield upon signing with a guild—at the cost of ten years of service. Hunters who chose to forego exoshields were lucky to survive a year.

  The sound of a goose being strangled drew Joe’s attention. Oh, wait, no—it was just Sikes singing again. Joe had to hand it to the man for being an optimist: the guy’s life was a wreck, yet he still sang. Joe put his hand on his blaster as he considered shooting his prisoner before he managed to develop a liking for him and letting him go free. Let a couple of tickets go, and Joe would get a reputation for not completing a job. Then he’d be in the same boat as Sikes—forced to steal to get by.

  Joe shook his head, ignored the noise, and returned to work. He took a seat in the cab and ran diagnostics. There were plenty of yellow warning lights, but the final red light had disappeared. He sighed. Finally, he could get back on the road. He walked to the back of the cutter and ran his gloved fingers along the bent cage door. There was no way he could get the door locked as it was, which meant the bounty would have to ride up front with him. His frown deepened. Could his day get any worse?

  He turned back to Sikes to find him petting a mangy dog with short multi-colored fur, though some of its color looked like it came from mud and other unsavory things rather than from natural pigment.

  His prisoner grinned. “He came right up to me,” he announced, scratching the dog’s ear. “Who’s a good boy?”

  Joe inclined his head as he eyed the animal. “It’s a girl, not a boy.” Then he scowled. “We’re heading out.”

  Sikes looked at the dog’s undercarriage and then lumbered over. “You’re right. We should bring her with us. She’s hungry. Look at her. She’s skin and bones.”

  Joe shook his head as he opened the passenger door. “She’s wild. She’s not going to—”

  The dog jumped into the cutter.

  “Oh no you don’t, you mangy mutt. Out.” Joe pointed to the rocky ground.

  The dog sat there and grinned back at him, panting.

  Joe reached behind him and tossed a meal bar. The dog tensed but then stayed where she was, watching him expectantly.

  Sikes pulled himself into the cab, also grinning. “She doesn’t seem so wild after all.”

  Joe stared at his prisoner in the passenger seat and the mutt in the center. After a length, he exhaled and motioned at Sikes. “Your hands.”

  The other man pouted as he held up his hands, the cuffs still hanging from one wrist. “You don’t have to cuff me again, really.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Joe grumbled. Grabbing his prisoner’s wrists, he ran the cuff through a bar above the door and secured the restraints.

  He closed the passenger door and walked slowly around the front, scanning the landscape for potential attackers. Seeing nothing but crows and vultures, he climbed into the driver’s seat, pausing only to look at his two companions. Both seemed quite pleased with themselves.

  Joe closed the door and powered up Monster’s systems.

  “So, how are you going to get us out of this ravine?” Sikes asked.

  “I’ll drive through it,” Joe answered. He ra
n through a menu on Monster’s system and changed the mode to off-road. The cutter moved as the composite wheels morphed into tracks, and the vehicle lifted to provide more clearance from the rocky terrain.

  He had the navigational grid pulled up on the screen, and figured he only had to drive alongside the stream for a few miles before the embankment became shallow enough to climb. He was still on the first mile when he considered using the shocker on Sikes to shut him up.

  The dog, however, was much more pleasant and lay with her head on Joe’s lap despite the bumpy ride. Without thinking, he had started idly scratching her neck.

  However, the atmosphere in the cabin had become rather…thick. He wrinkled his nose and looked down at the dog. “You need a bath.” He took another breath and eyed Sikes. “So do you.”

  Sikes nodded to the water. “A bath does sound nice right about now. What do you say, Havoc?”

  Joe rolled down the window and kept driving. Sikes continued talking, and the dog fell asleep with her head on Joe’s lap. Of the pair, she was far better company.

  Chapter Six

  Roderick Sloan leaned back in his chair in the quaintly decorated office. He sat across from the town’s MRC administrator, Lee Ridel. Ridel currently sat stiffly in her office chair while Roderick’s bodyguards, MRC soldiers in full exoshields, stood on either side of her with their blasters pointed at her head. Across the room to Roderick’s left, an injured MRC lieutenant knelt—the leader of Ridel’s tiny team of three murcs. The lieutenant cradled his broken arm while two more of Sloan’s murcs, wearing the same navy uniform and armor as their prisoner, held their blasters at his head. Where Ridel was red-faced with anger, the lieutenant was terrified.

  Roderick watched Ridel’s sweat bead as he called his older brother on his armlet.

  Gabriel Sloan’s visage appeared on-screen seconds later. “How did the meeting go?”

  “Not well, I’m afraid,” Roderick explained. “I’m in the office with our counterpart, Administrator Ridel, and she doesn’t seem willing to consider our generous offer.”

  “Generous offer?” the woman scoffed. “You want me to become your puppet while you take my troops. That will never happen. I’ll never bow down to you! When MRC Central hears of this, you’ll—”

  The administrator didn’t finish her tirade, because Roderick shot her squarely in the chest.

  “You see what I mean?” Roderick asked.

  Gabriel glowered. “You weren’t supposed to kill her, you dolt. You were supposed to make her understand. We need the support of the administrators in all the surrounding towns; their deaths will only raise red flags.”

  Roderick’s jaw tightened. “I had no choice. She was too hardheaded to understand, brother.”

  Gabriel rubbed his face. “MRC Central is going to investigate, and we can’t have them looking our way. Do you understand that, brother?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry yourself about that none.”

  Gabriel started saying something else, but Roderick disconnected the call and sighed. His brother was always too uptight, too rigid in his plans. Gabriel had always treated him like he was somehow lesser—less smart, less capable, less important. Roderick had grown tired of his brother’s treatment, especially since he did all the work while Gabriel sat safely ensconced in his office, getting fat. But Roderick knew there was a time and place for everything. And right now, he had to deal with the small town of Athenia.

  He looked over at his bodyguards. “How about this: Lee Ridel and her family came home to intercept a road gang that was in the process of robbing them. The entire Ridel family was tragically killed in the event, and the gang escaped with the valuables. What do you think about that?”

  “Her murcs would’ve been with her, as their job is to protect the administrator while maintaining order,” Boris replied.

  Roderick grinned. “How right you are.” He turned to the kneeling lieutenant and raised his blaster.

  “No!” the young man cried, just before Roderick shot him.

  Roderick pushed off the chair, strolled over to the desk, and lifted a crystal globe. After twirling it in his hand, he pocketed it, and turned to the four soldiers standing with him in the office. “No one in this house leaves alive. Make it look like a robbery.”

  They nodded and left him in the office with the two bodies.

  Roderick walked around the desk and knocked Ridel’s body off the chair. Then, he took a seat and began rummaging through the drawers out of curiosity while his murcs killed and looted outside the door.

  Chapter Seven

  In the case of getting out of the ravine, the shortest distance between two points turned out to be a tedious, meandering drive down a streambed, getting stuck three times in said streambed even with running off-road tracks, and a slow haul up a rocky slope. Joe had to extend the cutter’s fins farther to keep steady as he climbed the embankment, and Sikes’s incessant monologue made the drive even slower. Joe absentmindedly stroked the dog’s fur while she snored on the seat between the two men, grateful for the distraction lest he strangle Sikes himself.

  They say that slow and steady wins the race, but if the drive took any longer, that old tortoise down at Mac’s General Store could’ve beaten him. Fortunately, after Joe navigated Monster back onto the road, he reached Cavil without any additional stops and without anyone else trying to kill him.

  Cavil, the largest town in the Midlands, sat in the center of the land zone. From a distance, it didn’t look like much, since there were very few stone buildings taller than one-story, due to it being much more comfortable, and safer, to live below ground. The Midlands, like the other seven land zones across the wastelands, experienced severe weather patterns: scorching summers, frigid winters, and violent storms year-round. Every now and then, when the winds were out of the wrong direction, the air would become toxic with radioactive particles brought in from the northeastern area of the Tidewaters, which had been uninhabitable for centuries. Anyone caught outside when the “dead winds” were in the area wouldn’t live out the week. Fortunately, the air was carefully monitored by weather specialists who would activate the storm sirens, giving people time to get safely underground, where the air was processed. Out of all the jobs across the wastelands, the weather specialists were the most respected. Only the worst heathens would deign to rob or assault one out of the bad luck it’d bring to them and theirs.

  The dead winds came through more often in the summer and fall, but they’d been known to blow through anytime of the year, often bringing deadly acid rains. In addition to Monster’s protection against the dead winds, Joe kept a breather mask in the cab, and his suit provided protection against radioactivity in case he was caught out on the road when they came through. Indeed, it’d come in handy a few times. But the worst part about being caught in the dead winds was watching those who were unprotected as they blistered, weakened, and died. It was a bad way to go.

  It was spring, the best season for being outdoors and the lowest chance of dead winds, though it was already ninety degrees Fahrenheit outside. In another month, the temperatures would rise to over one hundred degrees by noon every day, with some days climbing over one-twenty. That made for short growing seasons, with most crops grown within greenhouses.

  “So, this is Cavil? I’ve never been here before,” Sikes announced.

  “You haven’t been missing much,” Joe said as he drove past the town’s slums.

  “I thought it’d be nicer,” Sikes mused.

  Joe nodded to the shantytown surrounding them. “This is Far Town.”

  “Fart Town?”

  “It’s Far Town, and it’s the slums. Not a place you want to be if you can help it,” Joe corrected. The area known as Far Town took up three square blocks, and it was an area everyone knew to avoid after dark. Keep far away, hence the name. Violence and an early death were the only guarantees in a place like this. A quarantine sign was currently posted, though it seemed like it was up
more frequently than it was down.

  Far Town was no doubt going through another round of dysentery. Outdated plumbing and not enough access to potable water led to unfortunate bathroom habits that brought bacteria too close to their food and water supply.

  The only time Joe stopped in Far Town was when he was hunting. Otherwise, he knew to steer clear, just like anyone else with anywhere else to go. The funny thing about the “civilized” side of Cavil, on the other side of the city from here, was that there, a single murder was tragic, while the hundreds of murders that took place in Far Town were seen as nothing more than a statistic.

  Something pinged off Monster’s hood, followed by another ping.

  Sikes frowned. “What’s that?”

  There was a third ping. “That’s just someone shooting at us with an old-fashioned pellet gun.”

  Sikes ducked. “What?” He watched Joe with wide eyes. “Well, aren’t you going to do something?”

  “Like what? Stop, step outside the safety of this vehicle, walk over to wherever they’re shooting from, and scold them?” Joe shook his head. “Those little potshots can’t hurt us. Besides, they’re probably just kids letting off a little steam.”

  Even so, Joe felt better after they were through Far Town and driving down the main thoroughfare. In Cavil, the streets were lined with stone, making them easier to travel, and his first stop was at the first two-story stone building in town. Its sign was displayed prominently over the entrance: MRC Midland Zone Labor Camp. In smaller letters below read: A Positive-focused Correctional Environment provided by the Monuments Republic Command.

  Joe had always found a hint of dry humor in the description, as there was nothing “positive” about the work camp. The MRC promoted labor over incarceration as the better form of punishment, but Joe thought their rationale was more about the revenue they got renting out their free workforce for the worst jobs, such as building roads and digging holes for houses.