Archivist Dana’s memories held a treasure trove of data, but her Ivan tracking thus far had proven to be limited. Her source of information led her almost immediately to the Cassander and the cataclysm of Atropos Garden. Rather than a methodical gathering, she leapt right to the foundation of his fame as though the event could tell her everything about him, including current location.
However, it seemed she held in her mind other leads. Her intent was to follow his progress from the pinnacle moment onward, not bothering to discover his prior actions and persona. I thought it a glib approach, as I sought to develop a rudimentary profile for his behavior and motivation, bringing forth an understanding that would all but guarantee success in finding him.
She wanted to hunt him down as quickly as possible, but she had been yet young in her career. I already slipped by the feelings of regret for her recent demise, too fascinated by her mind’s data and the sophistication of her processors.
Dana discovered what confirmed Voux Hanatar’s theory; Ivan became a well-sought man after the destruction of Atropos Garden. Corporations, with hopes of brilliant new technology, began a bidding war for Ivan’s living hide. A few contracts even did not quite care if the quarry was breathing. The pay-out amount drove into the billions and far beyond. So much money lay in the simple job of finding and apprehending Ivan.
The methods were non-specific, and payment would be rendered when the dragged in husk was proven to be the real thing, or at least able to provide the information the corporations so desperately wanted.
Thousands of bounty hunters pitted against each other in a frantic attempt to find the man. Not a single one succeeded, and all but a few died by the hands of their competitors, the elements, or for the few who found him, Ivan himself.
It was during these years of chaos and pursuit that Ivan’s personal description blurred and multiplied into an absurd smattering of diversity. People were paid exorbitant sums for the most paltry details, and more than a few charlatans took advantage and thus obscured the pool of useful information. As the truth behind the myth became more and more murky, only those who had met the real thing became likely candidates to find him.
As Dana discovered, the last big push before Ivan details faded into conjecture and became dismissed as myth was eleven years ago. A coalition of bounty hunters banded together to cooperate in finding Ivan. The cooling trail was tricky to follow, but it seemed they caught up to him. Twenty-five of the most battle-hardened, ruthless individuals under the leadership of a brilliant strategist fought with Ivan.
One survived.
The incompetent and cowardly Richner Platt somehow managed to escape when all of his comrades perished. Dana had no details as to how he accomplished this, but she did, as fortune would have it, discover his whereabouts. It seemed she even managed to schedule a meeting, one I decided to attend in her place.
Platt gave up on bounty collection, seeming to lose his taste for the hunt after watching his group of comrades slaughtered without mercy.
As with each of my inquiries with the lesser intelligent of the species, Platt resided near the rim. He lived as yet another of the bumbling dregs of the working class, on a Soma Corp Class 4 orbital shipyard, its unnamed status reflecting the general importance of its function.
This particular locale was above T35B, a failed terraforming project also not named for its value. Class 4’s were manufacturing platforms which built the most economical in small cargo and personal transport ships, as well as the occasional ground vehicle.
Platt worked as a grunt and nothing more, but he was promised a small sum of money from Archivist Dana for his information, which went unspecified. I didn’t know whether or not Dana intended to actually pay him, but I certainly didn’t unless I really had to.
Wary though they were, port authorities allowed my access. Visitors outside of a regular sort were uncommon, but due to varied amenities and housing for all of the workers, they had no reason to deny new arrivals. I expressed a vague interest in obtaining a work contract and mentioned that a friend of a friend was employed.
The platform was dingy, even more so than my recent experience upon the Marxis refueling station. Condensation dripped down the walls and froze on the thinner parts of the hull where the cold of vacuum bled through. Marred and filthy bulkheads surrounded dim, empty corridors. It felt as much a derelict as anything else, but most foot traffic was limited to shift changes and common areas, most of which were bars.
Puckler’s, a title whose purpose was as bizarre and ineffable as the stench it carried within, held the site of my meeting. In the worst possible scenario, the place was crowded, packed with workers. Perspiring bodies filled the uncomfortably warm area, making my full covering including facial obscurement obvious and out of place. Dozens of pairs of eyes swept towards me and the stick I pretended to hunch upon.
I hoped an infirm manner of appearance would keep the denizens at bay, and only a few looked on with more than light curiosity, as though they could sense my lack of humanity. I expected a strong distaste for mechanical prosthetics, and I wanted to avoid a time-wasting confrontation with so many people.
Corner table, Dana’s memory informed me, unbidden by my request and almost utilizing its own voice. A bald, scarred individual. I paused for a moment, surprised by what seemed to be Dana’s hidden vestige whispering in my mind. I gave a quick perusal, but nothing internally seemed amiss. I shook it off, concerned but occupied by more pressing matters.
Shuffling through the crowd, I remained careful to conceal my mechanical parts and avoid any scrutiny. I saw Dana’s contact.
Richner Platt, a thick-muscled individual wearing an extremely filthy tank top, swigged a mug of dark liquid. Battered ears poked out of his egg-shaped head, and his one good eye lay next to a tangled mass of scarring which covered the left half of his face and threaded down his shoulder and bicep. The rest of his arm and the injury was concealed under the table.
I hobbled over and sat across from him.
“Beat it, old timer,” he took a drink, “I ain’t givin’ ya money, so take a hike.”
In my best croaking tone, I asked, “Waiting for someone, Mr. Platt?”
His expression darkened. “Get lost.”
“Dana’s not coming,” I rasped. “She sent me.”
“Shit.” He brought his left arm up onto the table, revealing that he was missing a portion of it from mid-forearm down. The stump was capped by a metallic receiver for a detachable prosthetic, a variety less effective than a fully integrated model. Absentmindedly scratching at his elbow, he noticed my stare and put his partial arm back in his lap, under the table.
“What happened?” I asked.
Glaring with his one good eye, he said, “None a’ yer damn business.”
“Sir, please,” I replied, “I’m only here to fulfill the agreement between you and Miss Dana.”
“I don’t know you,” his mouth curled in a sneer, “so unless you got the coin to double my fee, I’m not sayin’ shit.”
I gave my head a slight shake. “There was no set fee.” The memories of Dana told me they each agreed his pay would be based upon the usefulness of the information.
He appraised me, expression wary. Finally, he sighed, leaning forward. “Okay, I just needed to make sure you were the real thing. Can’t be too careful, ya know?”
Though his method of testing me seemed rudimentary at best, I gave a nod and motioned towards the table which hid his missing arm. “Forget it at home?”
“Assholes won’t let me wear it in here. Say it’s unnatural or some shit. I can only wear it when I’m working, and it hurts like hell to take it off and put it on.”
Understandable, as the nerve attachments had to painfully sever and fuse at each change. Still, the bitterness in his expression regarding the difficulty he faced with prosthetics provided an opportunity. I pulled off the glove which hid my own inhuman limb, placing my metallic fingertips on the edge of the table. His eye flitted down and unconcealed shock spread across his features.
Replacing the glove, I spoke with a clearer tone, dropping the false infirmity approach. “I understand very well what it’s like.”
Surprised, either by the obvious quality he saw in the craftsmanship of my hand or the gall I possessed to enter Puckler’s wearing it, he said, “So you’re…?”
“Quietly,” I murmured. “I don’t care for the extra attention.”
Platt made a comically inept show of nonchalance, lowering his head like a conspirator and passing a paranoid gaze around the bar. If any of the drunken buffoons present had paid the slightest attention, there might have been trouble.
Even so, he hissed, “So whaddya wanna know?”
“Relax,” I said, leaning back to demonstrate and speaking in a normal tone. “It’s a simple conversation of no great secrecy or importance. We have nothing to hide, and anyone listening will gain nothing of consequence.” Folding my hands, I continued, “I received information- excuse me, Dana received information -that you were involved in the unfortunate group who had the last encounter with Ivan.”
Platt drew in a sharp breath and stiffened, appearing ready to bolt. His flesh and blood hand gripped the mug tightly, and fear seeped into his expression.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I ain’t gonna talk about that. No way.”
Stifling a laugh, deciding that doing so at the expense of the brave, former bounty hunter would make him difficult to converse with, I put out a reassuring hand. “It’s all right, Mr. Platt. I understand it must have been quite the difficult ordeal.”
“Difficult?” He clenched his teeth. “Watching all my buddies get cooked? Burning light taking away most of my arm? The liquefied remains of that arm spilling onto my skin and boiling it?” He shook his head. “Naw… nothin’ difficult about it at all.”
“You survived,” I offered.
Bitterness subsumed his expression, and he pounded his stump on the table. “Look at me. Look at where I am.” He passed a gesture with his arm at the surroundings, the dingy bar and sweating, drunken men. “I know I ain’t the brightest star in the night sky. Hell, you known me for three minutes, and you prolly figured that much out. My surviving wasn’t any a’ my doin’, so it don’t count for shit.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell you. He said he’d kill me.”
“Ivan?” I asked.
Platt appeared puzzled for a second. “No, not Ivan,” he said, glancing back and forth. His face developed that same fear, and he leaned forward and dropped his voice to a low murmur, “Grey.”
It was my turn to be shocked.
“Traverian Grey was there,” I whispered.
He nodded.
I felt a bubble of adrenaline as possibilities whirled in my thoughts. Some of it began to make sense, but I didn’t have enough yet to see the whole picture. “You have to tell me more.”
Platt shook his head, and I felt a flare of irritation. “I can’t. It don’t matter that it was so many years ago; I still have nightmares about what he did, about what he threatened to do to me if I told anyone. I don’t care if he was missin’ his—” he stopped short, clapping one hand over his mouth.
Closing my eyes, images of beatings and threats washed through my thoughts. I disregarded them, doubtful that I could manage such a thing without drawing considerable attention. Still, I had to at least try to coax him. “We can start it slowly, and I promise you’ll be well paid.”
“Ehhh…” the thought of currency seemed to chip at his resolve.
“He must be getting old by now. Crippled as well, as I heard it.” I watched his troubled expression flinch, his mind perhaps recalling Grey’s injuries.
Something else was there, a sudden cold calculation. I thought for a tiny instant that there might have been more to this man than I could see, but the expression vanished, leaving me to wonder what it could have been.
Platt balled a fist, wincing. “That don’t matter. I can’t…”
“Whatever his grievance with you, he’s long departed,” I made a sweeping gesture. “It’s a big galaxy, Mr. Platt. He’s in hiding, and he won’t come out just to find you.”
The former bounty hunter swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead. “I, ah… I don’t…”
Dropping my voice to a low whisper, I said, “I’m an Archivist, you know. When I find him, and I will, he won’t question how. He knows of my kind. We tend to be very persistent.”
Platt chewed on an already mangled thumbnail. “He said he’d find me if I left.”
“How would he know?”
“I, ah…” His brow furrowed, twisting the scarred half of his face.
I sensed he was ready to relent. “Tell me everything, Mr. Platt. From start to finish.”
He propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in one hand and a stump. Wiping away the perspiration, he looked up at me and said, “Okay.”
“So I’m not very bright. I know that, but I always thoughta myself as a guy people could count on. And people did say to me, all the time, ‘Ricky, you’re not too bright but a helluva guy.’
I did jobs here and there. You know, some of ’em simple like the one I got now, and some of ’em more, uh… complicated and maybe even illegal. I just do the job people ask me to, and no one ever expects me to figure anything out or think too much, ya know?
I got no real clue as to why Lorric Bren, the fella who put the bounty group together, asked for me to come along. I’d met him once before, working as a bodyguard for a small-time crook. The boss I had back then hired Lorric to chase down some guy who stole money from him. I helped Lorric out a little on the coordination and brought him the records and research he asked for. He got the job done quick, and I was damn sure impressed.
Beats me how he managed to remember me a few years later when I went to be considered for the Ivan hunt. Lorric greeted me by name, and it took hardly a second for him to size me up and say he wanted me to come with. He said he knew he could count on me.
I still don’t really know if he was right.”
Richner Platt, self-admitted, was not the brightest. He was a thug, an enforcer, a reliable fellow, and a pretty good shot. Not a thinker by any means or even a doer unless prompted, Platt could handle most anything that came his way, provided it didn’t require a great deal of consideration.
Which was why Lorric Bren, organizer of the grand hunt for Ivan, decided to give him a place on the crew.
“Uh, okay,” Platt mumbled, scratching his uninjured face with a hand that would not be present in ten month’s time. “Sure.”
Lorric smiled. “Good to have you, Platt. You’ll be with me on team four. You have your own gear, a ship?”
Platt shook his head. “I got my stuff in a crate outside, but I don’t do no flyin’.”
“All right, no problem. Make sure your gear gets loaded onto,” he checked a datapad, making a disgusted face, “’Eternal Loss,’ jeez…” Lorric rolled his eyes. “Grib Denko’s the pilot. He’s a bit odd, but then…”
Who among us isn’t? the silent question rang.
A motley assortment was gathered, ship and person names reflecting the strange quirks of personality of those individuals in the field of bounty hunting. Regardless of these oddities, the selection was all on purpose.
And it was Lorric’s purpose.
Lorric Bren was said to be a more successful strategist than anything else. He had no great notoriety for piloting, shooting, driving, detonating, or any other task the job often required. Though he didn’t bring in his target every single time- who among them ever did -he always emerged alive and unscathed from each encounter. This was accomplished through careful planning and allowing others to shoulder some of the burden when necessary
Even cooperation, though, was not entirely useful on every occasion. The desire for high caliber financing with a general lack of compassion formed the basic disposition for bounty hunters.
Three out of five of the most honorable and loyal people in the noble profession would sell their own mother for half of an increased share. A cohort meant little in the face of more money, and the usual extended courtesy was to limit the amount of suffering, or if killing wasn’t on the menu, to leave limbs and teeth relatively intact.
But Lorric was different. For certain, over the years he had to put down a number of colleagues whose eyes outmatched their appetite and wit, but he never did so unprovoked. Intelligent, careful, shrewd, and completely honorable, Lorric always kept his agreements and came up with the plan most likely to succeed.
He was perfect for the job, his magnum opus, of putting together a team to take on Ivan. The biggest challenge, save for the task itself, was to make as sure as possible that no individual would jeopardize the mission by becoming too hungry.
This even extended out to they who would collect the prize and pay out. No more highest bidding was allowed: only cooperation. Due to three years of failed hunting, he managed to convince all contributing corporate parties to agree to an equal share of whatever they wanted out of Ivan.
The thought of what he might hold, including the threat of getting nothing, outweighed the advantage of having a leg up on the competition. Through careful negotiation, Lorric managed to get them, as a group, to endorse his efforts and even provide advances to the members he chose.
In short, he managed to convince everyone that he and only he had the greatest chance of bringing Ivan in alive, intact, and ready to spill the secrets behind the destruction at Atropos Garden. The deal was beyond excellent, and Lorric was perfect for the job.
Hoping to get a piece of the action, hundreds flocked to the interviews. Individuals from across the galaxy came to display their impressive skills. Fighting for favorable position outside of the evaluation site ran rampant, and many were killed in the chaos. Fortunately, due to corporate sponsorship and security, nothing within light years of the interview complex itself went amiss.
Lorric did not choose the best of the best, as evidenced by the presence of Richner Platt. Employing a stringent battery of physical and mental testing, he crafted his group by two main criteria: the ability to co-exist in the crew as a whole and the ability to fit a niche.
Well-rounded skills with certain strong points filled the ranks. Pilots, marksmen, demolitions, scouts, electronics experts, ground vehicle drivers, hand-to-hand combatants: the group as a whole, and each of the five individual teams of five, could handle about any task. Psych evaluations ensured no large amount of personality clash between individual members.
Every possibility was thought of, laid out, and carefully considered. Every conceivable scenario was mapped, every individual loss was survivable, and every detail was accounted for. Even so, Lorric’s brilliance in strategic planning could always be counted upon in the heat of a losing battle, including the cooler head necessary to figure out how to turn the tide.
Which became the primary reason why, when Lorric was among the first of his finely crafted team of expert bounty hunters to die, everything went to hell quite rapidly.
The planning and hiring phase took months, delicate persuasion and a healthy living stipend keeping the impatient members satisfied. During this time, aside from planning each possible encounter and scenario, Lorric developed the sources, leads, snippits, and conjecture required to actually find the man they sought.
Locating Ivan was a formidable challenge by itself, considering the man had all but disappeared from the galaxy. Even so, details were gathered in an effort not simply to locate Ivan but to understand him, to learn how he fought, how he ran, and how he managed to defeat and destroy anything he came across.
Lorric understood this. The way his mind worked, even without any impressive alterations or upgrades, he would have made a most impressive Archivist.
Of course, much of the useful data was gathered by an actual Archivist by the name of Quinn. Repeated and somewhat desperate attempts were made by Lorric to convince Quinn to join up, to be a part of the crew, but the Archivist in unsurprising fashion refused. Regardless, Quinn’s work became instrumental, and Lorric’s hunt would have extended into years without his assistance.
Finally, after many long months of planning and recruiting his twenty-four doomed souls, they were ready to depart, full-well knowing the risks and time the task might take. Having put together the most formidable hunting party ever seen in galactic history, Lorric deemed a speech quite necessary.
“I hope you all understand,” Lorric spoke as the motley assortment looked on, “that this is not all tea parties and social clubs. This isn’t a weekend getaway, and there’s no fast grab for easy cash. Two hundred and fifty billion credits are promised to us upon successful delivery. Ten billion each, in addition to the healthy stipends you’ve all enjoyed thus far. Two hundred and fifty billion for Ivan,” he repeated, “alive.”
“The prize is excellent, and hundreds have died from incompetence or ridiculous in-fighting. No one has even come close to bringing Ivan in, and very few have survived the attempt. We put this group together, I… put this group together because no one else in the galaxy, individually or as a team, has a prayer of doing what we can. You’re all professionals, you’re all bound by contracts that say ten billion is enough, and you’re all well-aware of the costs of betrayal or disobedience. Though I have no doubt that dozens of other offers have come through, let me assure you of one thing: the only way we succeed is by cooperation. If we work together, our names will go down in history as the men and women who took down the most infamous bounty ever to walk the galaxy.”
Lorric grinned, seeing his words sink into the many faces hungry and ready to begin. “Oh yes,” he continued with a laugh, “and we’ll also become exceedingly rich.”
Properly motivated, they set off. Ivan, knowing full well of the efforts against him, led them upon a merry chase for the better part of a year.
Close calls numbering in double digits filled the lives of the pursuers and pursued. Stations, moons, planets, cold vacuum: Ivan was hounded with every step he took, not even able during this time to thin the numbers. Lorric was too careful to allow such a thing.
“Divide and conquer,” he told them, “is the biggest strategy and planning cliché that has ever existed, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. We all stay alive and in the hunt because of a few simple rules, and which one’s most important?”
A few individuals sounded off, others already weary of the repetitive mantra. “No solo missions.”
It wasn’t the only rule Lorric had either, not that he was pretentious enough to emblazon them anywhere. He knew how he liked to have things run, and those who wanted to stay didn’t question.
Everyone wanted to stay.
But the long months of fruitless chase took their toll upon group morale. Cohesion began to slip. With too many narrow escapes by their prey, frustrations rose, tensions mounted, and a few voiced concern about the leadership.
An opportunity arose. A contact whose identity Lorric could not confirm, and thus did not retain an ounce of trust for, provided a sighting. Normally, Lorric would have disregarded it without question, but aside from coming from an anonymous source, nothing rang false about the message. Not enough time for the usual levels of preparation, he took a risk in simply going against his meticulous nature.
Perhaps it was fatigue, perhaps it was concern over his contract falling apart, or perhaps it was a simple misjudgment.
He announced the pursuit without hesitation, a rash and impulsive act.
Twelve ships they had of various shapes, sizes, and bizarre nomenclature including that of Eternal Loss, Red Tide, Broken Spit, and so on. Lorric piloted his own, called Sapient Grace. They swept into the system without scouting first, blazing with weapons hot toward TF-235, a desolate ball mined hollow centuries earlier.
As the stream of vessels dipped into orbit, Lorric dispersed exactly one order through his comm. “Gambler and Fredricksburg,” referring to two of his company’s ships, “begin surface scans immediately. Life signs, traces of fusion exhaust, I want to know about whatever you can find in three minutes. The rest of you—”
Lorric’s statement went unfulfilled as a rail projectile, launched from a hair’s breadth out of the shadow of the first moon, shattered his engines. A fireball engulfed Sapient Grace as the ship careened down into the atmosphere and dissolved into a million smoldering bits.
The offending vessel swung around the moon into full view, a squat and hulking single-man gunship toting enough weaponry to bring down a frigate-sized craft. Ballistic rocket, energy, and rail gun fire spewed towards the group.
“It’s not Ivan!” someone screamed through the comm. “Who the f—”
Two more of the hunters’ ships detonated in high orbit, snuffing six of the party in half an instant, and three more vessels sustained heavy damage under the onslaught. Eternal Loss, containing Platt and Denko, dove under a volley of missiles, unlucky blasts damaging orbital thrusters and sending the vessel, trailing purple-tinged smoke, to the roughest of landings.
Screeching through the radio, the team desperately tried to rally with evasive maneuvers, threading through the assault. As the vessels came about, ready to exact retribution, the gunship veered, breaking towards the planet.
In hot pursuit and spewing vulgarities, Fleur Benoit, piloting the speedy, one-manned fighter she called Blitz, slammed nose-first into tracking mines dropped by the gunship. The fireball of her ship trailed in the atmosphere, gliding through the sky for near to fifteen seconds before the reactor blew and took one more of the hunters out of the fight.
Before any of the chaos and confusion could be sorted, the gunship disappeared from scopes, and a flurry of noise jammed sensor readings everywhere. Short wave transmissions became garbled and incoherent. As the various hunter vessels dipped towards the planet in search, surface to air missiles boiled up out of the brittle crust of the rocky, volcanic landmass.
All of the ships that remained of Lorric’s team were grounded by the pilots to avoid being shot down or blasted to fragments. Three ships and seven more died in the never-ending ambush. Scattered across hundreds of miles, desperate attempts at coordination failed as a hover-vehicle blazed overhead and scoured the earth at the sites of each landing.
Denko and Platt extracted themselves and a tiny amount of their gear before the silhouette of their assailant loomed in the sky. They ran, diving into the cragged cover of a ravine as Eternal Loss was blasted into an even deeper crater.
“Holy shit…” Denko breathed, tears in his eyes at either the stinging dust in the air or the demise of his beloved ship.
Four more were killed, careless enough to remain too close to their vessels as they were hunted down by the relentless and still unidentified foe.
After hours of hiding, the distant explosions that marked the deaths of their former comrades faded into an eerie quiet. Hours later yet, Denko and Platt extracted their terrified selves, bruised and bleeding from the rough, volcanic stone, and set out in search of any survivors.
Night had settled, and the two crawled over ridges and tripped over tangles of thorned shrubbery. They heard soft scurrying of tiny, resilient animals, the evolutionary fortunate of the desolate world. The eclipsed moon hung in the sky, a bloody red bathing them in the memories of the recent slaughter.
They started arguing.
“We can’t use the radio,” Denko clutched it in his hand, threatening to dash it upon the stones. “Whoever that crazy shit is’ll find us if we do.”
Platt shook his head. “We’re gonna starve to death if we don’t find a way offa here.” He threw a gesture towards the barren landscape. “If one of our ships made it, if there’s enough parts to fix another one, we gotta find out. Or maybe we can band together and find the sumbitch who did this and take his. Either way, we gotta see if anyone else made it.”
Denko had all but cracked. Terrified but obedient, he allowed Platt to quietly make the calls. He kept his gaze flitting about the horizon, paranoid of the hovercraft returning at any moment to finish them off.
Not that prior knowledge of a gruesome death would have done any good; they didn’t have much with which to defend themselves. Platt carried his energy pistol, but Denko’s came loose during the struggle to exit the ship, and it’s absence went unnoticed until after Eternal Loss detonated into tiny fragments.
Considering the damage and what little remained of the vessel, it seemed unlikely, even hopeless, that any other ships could be salvaged, but still Platt tried.
Whispering into the radio, Platt managed to find four other survivors from two ships: one alone and three in a group. Through painstaking description of star and moon positioning, they managed to get a rough interpretation of how best to cover the many miles separating them.
Days passed as the bounty hunters hiked across the near-barren landscape. Though most were in excellent physical condition, the thin and abrasive air left each gasping with only moderate exertion. The miles crawled beneath them, and their pitiful amounts of emergency rations and water dwindled.
They passed crevices containing small surface to air missile launchers, silent now and empty of payload since grounding all of the hunting party. Denko, having dropped into dismal acceptance, checked over and scavenged a few useful, non-heavy parts.
Denko and Platt came across the loner first, whose ship came into a soft landing before being detonated much like Eternal Loss.
Misfortune fell upon the other group, still dozens of miles away, as one member sustained a serious fracture stepping into an unseen crevice. The whole group sported injuries from a rough landing, but the man with his broken leg slowed them down for several hours before infection took hold. With no medical supplies, it became quicker for the hikers and more merciful for the man to put him down.
On the evening of the eighth night, bright flashes resonated from the eastern horizon. “Are you all right?” Platt whispered into the radio to the other party, whose position roughly lay to the east.
There came no response.
Hopeless, the remaining three of twenty five traveled in the direction of their former companions, finding nothing but charred bone fragments when they arrived at the smoldering site a few days later.
That night, they made camp, and no discussion of what happened to the other group or what would happen to them occurred. There was no discussion at all, as each man assumed their time was short.
Brilliant lights and muffled explosions from miles distant filled the air on their final night. It punctuated with a deafening boom, and everything then went quiet. There was no talk, no speculation of what it might had been. The hunters had given up.
Tears formed in Platt’s remaining eye as he lapsed into a grim silence. His remaining hand, whether he was conscious of it or not, ran along the tangled scarring pattern of his shoulder and neck.
During his story, I cultivated more than a couple of theories. A thought struck early on, and I continued listening under different assumptions. Some of the fear Platt displayed and this sorrow he moved into: it appeared for the most part genuine. I certainly would admit a gradual starvation of the physical body and hope of survival would be terrible indeed.
The story itself held no particular lies, but I could tell in each moment that elements were arranged carefully, most likely to make me avoid reaching a particular assumption. Even so, the deliberate orchestration of detail expressed more than outright lies would have.
That, and a bit of the ignorant character he was playing slipped during the parts more immersive to him. I could see an air of sophistication hidden behind the sweaty, disfigured grunt persona. The calculation I saw on his face before he started the story was a tiny hint, a visual cue which allowed me to observe him closely. Everything was very subtle, but much lay beyond his words.
How I developed the conclusion so rapidly was odd to me. I again wondered if whatever remained of Dana was exerting influence upon me, whispering in my subconscious and putting forth ideas.
“Anyway,” Platt raised his head, “the next morning, the hovercraft we saw before plowed into a ridge nearby. It gave the tiniest bits of hope as we sprinted towards it, until energy rifle fire spewed out. The other two were burned down, and, as I dove towards cover…” he held up the stump of his arm and gestured at the burns.
“Grey?”
The former bounty hunter shook his head back and forth, not in denial but disbelief. “You shoulda seen him. When I woke up, the wreck of what he called a body was a few feet away. But he was a scary-looking sumbitch, I tell ya. His right arm up to the elbow was missing. Both legs, one at the shin and the other mid-thigh: gone. He had burns and cuts everywhere, dirty bandages slapped half-cocked over everything. Grey looked like a corpse, and the injuries… he shoulda been in a coma for God’s sake. There was no fear or pain in his eyes, not even a little dizziness or that glazed look you get from drugs.” The man shuddered. “He calmly told me that I was gonna get him to his ship and fly him someplace safe, or he’d burn me down inch by inch.”
“Obviously you agreed.”
Platt nodded. “I thought about killin’ him. Probably had about a fifty-fifty of doin’ it too, but I was scared. Scared of him still beatin’ me and more even of if I’d be able to get offa the planet without him. After all of his slaughter, me wandering half-starved and hopeless, even then with me missing a hand and an eye because of him, Grey was still the best shot of me makin’ it out alive.”
“He kept tellin’ me the ambush was nothin’ personal; he needed the Lorric Crew out of the way to reopen negotiations in his favor. Hell, he said he even made a few extra credits on small side offers for some of the fellas in the group. He promised to let me live.” Platt shrugged. “No profit to killin’ me now, he said.”
I motioned for him to continue.
“Not much after that. He had me drop him off on some planet. Some friend or hired guy came and picked him up, and I guess he probably got treatment.” Platt sighed. “As for me, he told me he wanted to keep tabs. He said to come here, work, and never leave. He said if I told anyone what happened, if I left, if I did anything at all, he’d make good on that promise to melt the rest of me.”
There it was, the final statement I knew by simple instinct was an outright falsehood. I felt a strong urge to confront him on it right away to prove I could read him and find the truth, but I decided to give him one chance to provide the information I needed. I said, “You don’t know where Grey ended up?”
Platt shook his head.
“Very well,” I nodded. “Before I depart, I first have to thank you. I understand this was a difficult time.”
The man said nothing, the regret on his scarred face genuine.
I folded my hands on the table. “I do have one final question.”
The good eye swiveled towards me.
“Did Richner Platt really exist?”
A moment of shock registered on my companion’s face before vanishing into a sullen expression.
“Don’t worry,” I said with a reassuring gesture. “I certainly won’t tell anyone that Lorric Bren is still alive, and indeed I doubt many these days would even remember the name.”
Scowling, he asked, “How did you figure it out?”
“My dear Lorric…” I chuckled. “I’m not some drunken backwater peasant. Surely you know better.”
With a heavy sigh, the man calling himself Richner Platt said, “What gave me away?”
“Nothing concrete, but each detail of your story seemed particular and rehearsed.” I gestured at him. “The mediocre grunt persona clashed with the careful recitation. Most often, pieces get muddled, changed, and confused. You never paused during the story, and you never missed a beat.”
“What if I was just used to telling it?”
Smiling, I shrugged. “A possible outcome, but if I couldn’t tell the difference, I’d need to seek a new line of work.”
Lorric’s irritation faded into a mild smirk. “Anything else?”
“Oh sure,” I said, a layer of smugness in my tone. “Platt himself seemed so misplaced in the group to begin with, and his faux-leadership role once grounded on the planet seemed even more odd. What actually happened?”
He sighed. “Not much different. If you swap Eternal Loss with Sapient Grace, that about covers it. It was Grib Denko who detonated in orbit and myself who crash landed. The short battle still evaporated once my communications were down, and I could do nothing to help them as they died.”
“Who was with you then, if not Denko?”
Lorric smiled. “The real Richner Platt. Not so different in attitude and intellect than my portrayal, so I’m at least comforted that you, good Archivist, were incorrect about his presence being out of place.”
I bowed my head, conceding the point.
“Besides that, nothing else was different. Platt and the others were killed by Grey.” He scratched his head. “He let me live, perhaps out of professional courtesy but more likely because he needed someone to fly him out. I was not lying about his condition. Even with what must have been the most impressive organic augmentations to his body, some very impressive skills, and good hardware, Grey was in pieces.”
Nodding, I said, “So Ivan must really have been there.”
He raised his remaining eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“Severe disfigurement to Traverian Grey?” I turned my palms upward. “Who else?”
With a sly smile, Lorric replied, “Yes, Ivan was there, but Grey never told me exactly what happened. I certainly understand why.”
Shaking my head, I asked, “He didn’t actually threaten you either, did he?” Lorric said nothing. “You were content with disappearing, both of you. Grey must have spent as much time as you convincing wealthy, interested parties that he alone could bring in Ivan. You both failed, and by your preference no one has seen either of you since.”
Lorric looked away, frowning.
“Where is Grey?” I asked.
He didn’t turn back towards me. “What would make you think I’d know something like that?”
Chuckling, I shrugged. “A man like you, even in exile, has a certain level of, what… paranoia? Curiosity? Something else, perhaps.” I waved that aside. “Regardless of any other factors, I’d be quite surprised if you didn’t keep track of the one remaining man who knows who and probably where you are.”
“You seem to be awfully smug, Archivist,” Lorric swiveled an irritated glare back to me, “but yes, I know exactly where he is and what he’s doing. Maybe you don’t find that surprising, but I guarantee you’ll never guess what he’s been up to.”
I leaned forward, and as simple as that, he whispered a location and current occupation. “Belgriad. He’s a deacon.” He leaned back. “If you can’t find him from that, it’s time to hang up your hat, Sid.”
My quick conclusion of where Grey was hiding was swept away in mild shock. I hadn’t told him my name. “How did you…?”
It became Lorric’s turn to be smug. “I didn’t, until now. From your appearance, I guessed you could be Klaus, Sid, or…” he trailed off, eyes widening.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cain,” he whispered.
Cocking my head, I replied, “Cain doesn’t look anything like me, how could you think I was—”
He interrupted. “Don’t turn around.”
“Sid!” a familiar voice shouted. An eerie quiet settled over the bar, and I froze in my position. “Where are you m’boy? We have a spot of unfinished business, Sid.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I stole a glance towards the entrance to the bar. Cain, the metallic beast, was near the entrance. A grin stood out on his face. “Don’t make me tear this place apart just to find you, Siddy-boy.”
Individuals in the bar, the strong and stupid variety, approached the other Archivist. “What in the hell… do you think you’re doing here, you metal freak?”
“Oh, I’m just here to talk to my good friend, Sid. If you don’t mind…” Cain stepped forward.
The unfortunate man moved to block him. “Oh, I do mind. I don’t care if yer here to see the Galactic President hisself. We don’t like grayskin and metal freaks in our bar, and you need to step outta here before something bad happens.”
Cain’s grin never faltered. Focused, watching the situation unfold while trying to pick the best possible escape route, I heard a metallic sliding I realized was Lorric’s escape.
“Good luck,” the man whispered, but when I turned to look, the seat was empty with no hint of where he disappeared to. A secret compartment of some kind perhaps. Definitely it seemed like something Lorric Bren would have, even in a place of leisure.
I searched, scanning the area for some kind of mechanism as Cain continued to speak with the thugs. “Now, my smelly monkey friends… our galaxy doesn’t actually have a president anymore. Aside from the fact that we’re primarily governed by enormous corporations who put many of their finger puppets into the varied positions, the office-holding officials form a Senate of sorts. A larger body representing individual worlds and whatnot. Even so, meeting any former Galactic President would be difficult as…”
I could almost sense the rising anger among the bar patrons as I spotted the mechanism. “Oh hell…” I muttered, noting that the device retained functions for a remote control, a device which my good friend Lorric most likely took with him.
Abandoning the thought of escape out the back, I turned my attention to the inevitable confrontation. A quick scan revealed that Cain received no additions since our last encounter, and the same doubts about bashing at his reinforced vital areas in the instants before my vaporization crossed my mind.
No nearby terminals, not even for the bar’s financials, but I didn’t think my trap would work on him quite as well a second time. Desperate and running out of planning time, I noted a few impromptu weapons being taken into hand by the patrons: stools, bottles, even a dislodged pipe. At least a dozen individuals took interest, and I thought maybe they would be distraction enough for me to slip out.
I didn’t have a better plan.
Cain was gleefully highlighting the historical change which abolished the practice of a central leadership figure about seventy or so years prior. The rage in the room at this intruder and his condescension became near palpable. It didn’t help that he insulted the patrons at every opportunity. “So, my slovenly brethren, the last Galactic President passed away quite some time ago, so me meeting him here would be of particular difficulty. Unless, of course, you fine specimens of astonishing intellect happen to care for some very peculiar varieties of recreation. That in itself would be a challenge: a pile of barely evolved simian reprobates violating the grave of one of the galaxy’s most recognized figures.”
Someone threw a punch. I didn’t see which one of the unfortunate idiots did it because the individual went rocketing half a moment later into the display behind the bar, smashing bottles and a large mirror. The man fell to the ground in a heap of glass and lacerated flesh.
A heartbeat of silence rang as each man took stock of what happened. Though feeble-brained, some fraction of the patrons must have known the intruder could take apart each and every one of them with minimal effort. It didn’t matter, as an instant later all hell broke loose.
Two things saved me. The first was the enthusiastic stupidity of the bar patrons. Stools, bottles, and bodies flying, they piled upon the other Archivist with intense, unyielding fervor. The moment the fracas began, I made a beeline for the exit.
Ducking projectiles and dodging past tables and people, I caught a glimpse of the second thing which saved me: my opponent’s sadistic nature. Cain became a whirlwind of carefully placed, damaging strikes. I heard him laughing wildly along with the sounds of snapping bones and falling bodies.
Distracted by his mayhem, I don’t know if he even noticed me slipping by as the pathetic peasants shattered their fists against his resilient hide. I wanted to laugh at the spectacle, the pebbles hurling themselves at the impervious wall. However, something about passing what would have been my own injury and death upon others did not ring with humor. I suppose I was glad, at least, that he didn’t fire the energy weapon, as the bulkheads appeared up to somewhat less than current standards.
I didn’t stop and didn’t even pause. I could still hear the fighting and Cain’s laughter as I sprinted along. I wondered if my absence when the dust cleared would create some kind of strong anger in my Archivist foe, but I didn’t care enough to turn around.
There was something else, I felt, an alien presence in my normal calm and collected nature. As I considered the narrow escape, the bodies of workers paving my way to safety, I experienced something I was not accustomed to.
Guilt.
I’d escaped at the expense of others, and in spite of my rational mind knowing full well that there was no way I could have assisted them, a sense of wrongness permeated the edges of my thoughts. It clung, stubborn and unwilling to disperse in the face of logic. It was a sensation beyond strange for me.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Another escape, a narrow, lucky miss. I really needed something to even the odds, as it seemed certain I’d meet Cain again.
It was somehow doubtful I’d be able to escape so easily a third time.
Assignment: Seeking information regarding the truth and whereabouts of Ivan.
Location: Soma Corp Class 4 Orbital Shipyard
Report: Met with sole survivor of last known Ivan pursuers. Discovered whereabouts of Traverian Grey.
Probability: 90%
Summary: Richner Platt [false identity] provided details of the failed bounty group, defeated by the competitive efforts of Traverian Grey. Grey sustained grievous, crippling injury and is now in hiding. Location discovered [Belgriad].
*Addendum: Cain continues pursuit. Need to prepare for future encounters.