Bounty FIRST DRAFT

BOUNTY

prologue

later

The wounding laughter of the police chief was enough to distract me from my injuries. I gritted my teeth, hands clasped to my stomach. My suit was wet with my own insides. She had me on my knees, powerless and broken and defeated.

She walked right up to me and put her hands on either side of my helmet, and she yanked up. The seal popped and my helmet lifted off of my head. She scoffed, almost laughed again. "Blaine Koran," she said contemptuously.

I stared up at her, my face blank and ready for death.

She stared back at me for a long while, our eyes locked without my helmet in between. And I waited for death.

Someone came up behind me and I heard the cocking of a shotgun. It would be loud and it would be quick. I didn't let my head drop, and I kept staring at the police chief, whose victorious expression was faltering because I must have looked like I wanted to kill her more than I was afraid to die.

Her eyes went wide with terror, the shotgun boomed, and suddenly, the police chief wasn't there anymore.

chapter one: impact

earlier

It was two in the morning when I flung myself off the roof of a storefront and onto the sidewalk. The heads-up display of my helmet flashed in red letters "BRACE FOR IMPACT" as gravity dropped me unceremoniously on the ground. Half in a crouch and half on my face, I scrambled to my feet. I took off running, immediately having to fight the burning pain in my quadriceps. My target was a lumbering man, a burglar and murder suspect who was twice my size and half as smart. I followed him around the corner of the derelict store and stopped dead in my tracks.

He had something that I didn't: friends. Suddenly, he wasn't the one who was cornered. It was me.

In the pause that ensued after both parties realized that this was a stand off, I dove out of their sight and used the wall of the store as cover. Somewhere between deciding to jump and actually jumping, the burglar and his friends opened fire.

My fingers fumbled with my belt compartments. I found a round, metal ball the size of a peach and I tossed it over my shoulder into the alley before they got the idea of coming out. I heard a couple of curse words moments before the detonation, then there was silence.

To me, silence is the absence of violence and the presence of physical pain that isn't mine.

I peered around the corner and found that three men were on the ground. My target was face-down, one of his accomplices was rolling and holding an injury, and the other was bloody and trying to get up.

"I win," I muttered inside of my helmet. I took out my flare and set it down on the sidewalk in front of me. NOPD would be here to clean up the mess, and my bank account would be a little fatter.

It took about two minutes for them to show up. As always, I was only a few blocks' perimeter away from the coordinates I sent them when I started the chase. On foot, they never get very far. Sergeant Anca Patrescu was the first out of the patrol car. She was in her early twenties--just a kid like me. Old veterans climbed the hierarchy like spider monkeys in this town, so it's up to the fresh faces to do this sort of grunt work.

"Sloppy," Sergeant Patrescu muttered to me.

"Done," I corrected her.

"Get it together, Koran. We're going to have to negotiate your price if you keep this up."

While my helmet remained emotionless, I was gritting my teeth, and the internal temperature rose one degree. We were equals in my eyes--except I did all of the dirty work. "Yes'm," I said begrudgingly.

Sergeant Patrescu folded her arms and watched as her men got to work stabilizing and arresting the three men I took out. After a couple of minutes, she looked over at me questioningly as if I didn't belong on the scene any longer. "Get some sleep," she advised gruffly.

"Say hi to your wife for me," I said with a grin. Sergeant Patrescu didn't think it was funny that I thought her having a wife was funny, so I scurried away from the scene. My bike was stowed about ten blocks away in a dumpster, hefty security measures in place. Such a walk would have been suicide for any lone traveler, but most people wouldn't mess with a dude in full armor.

Before long, I was back at home. I collapsed onto my bed in my underwear and fell into a deep sleep.

~

After a long night working, I need breakfast of the butter and toast variety.

"Mogale axed Roe last night."

I didn't look up from the table where my napkin was sitting. I was holding a piece of toast in front of my mouth, but I was frozen.

"Great conversation-starter, Dad," I muttered sardonically. "Please tell me the Roe I'm thinking of is--"

"It's not the one-legged homeless man on 8th Street," my father clarified darkly.

I set the piece of toast down. I had lost my appetite. "So our law man is dead. This isn't good. He was Mum's liaison for decades."

"Yep. And now he's at the city morgue with lungs full of tar."

I winced. "There's a way to go. So, some jokers drowned him in tar? How?"

Dad shrugged, tapping his index finger on the surface of the kitchen table. The news article he had been reading was displayed on the table's inset screen. "No one's sure. Or, at least, the media isn't reporting on it."

"What's the plan? The business is busted if we can't get the authorization to operate. And nobody at the police station is going to let us work--Roe was the only guy who even tolerated us."

"Go talk to Majeti," Dad suggested. His stony glare that told me he was at a loss. "I'll see what information I can scrounge up in the mean time."

I nodded gravely, rapidly pushing thoughts of dread out of my mind. Things weren't going to be the same after today.

~

Majeti's apartment complex wasn't too far; it was just outside the Barricade. I still wouldn't go anywhere outside of the Barricade without a couple of firearms on me, but it was pretty early in the morning for thugs. I took my knife, my pistol, and a pack of spearmint gum.

Majeti waved me into his apartment, which was as messy as a one-room apartment could be. It still amazed me how much crap he managed to acquire in such a small space. Unable to enter any farther, I stood in the tiny hall with a pile of shoes, coats, trash, and cigarette smoke in between Majeti and me.

"'Ey," said Majeti.

"Did you hear?" I asked.

"I don't even get a 'good morning'?" Majeti asked incredulously.

"I've only got fifteen minutes, so I've gotta be quick. Roe got whacked last night."

"Huh," Majeti acknowledged without much inflection.

"Roe was the only reason I can work. See the problem?"

"Are you going to hack my fifteen percent commission down to ten?"

"Shut up about that. I'm not going to get any income to share if we can't figure out who's going to hire me now."

Majeti was folding pairs of pants and putting them in a dresser, piles of junk almost up to his knees around him in his small bedroom. The junk was old rags of t-shirts and magazines and posters that hadn't seen a wall in months. His mouthed at his cigarette and plucked it from his lips, exhaling smoke.

"Well?" I prompted.

"Mogale is probably hiring."

I scrunched up my nose in disgust. "'Hitman' isn't part of my job description."

"You actually have a resume?"

"Sort of. At least, if I had one down on paper, 'hitman' wouldn't be on it."

"Fair enough. You know, Mogale pays well."

"I'm not working for him, Azar," I said, raising my voice.

There was a pause as Majeti took a long drag from his cigarette, bemused as if a child had just made a promise he couldn't keep. "Fine. Why don't you talk to the new police chief?"

I hadn't thought of that. I felt sort of stupid. "I guess."

"It's either that or Mogale or we quit."

"What if he doesn't like me?"

"Find someone who he likes, and sleep with her. Or him, if you have to." Majeti shrugged.

"If I have to sleep with a him, I'll call you to take care of it," I grumbled.

Majeti flashed a grin. He had perfect-looking teeth and, it might have just been the light, but he almost had a sinister glare about him.

"I'll go talk to the new police chief," I offered.

"Do that. I'll be here."

"Get a job, Azar."

"I will if you will."

"I have two."

~

Regardless of the happenings regarding dead police chiefs, I had to go to practice.

"You're late, Koran," Coach Manfred growled.

"Won't happen again, Coach!" I called over my shoulder. I was already sprinting onto the pitch.

"You say that every time, you worthless punk!" Coach Manfred called after me.

I hurried to join the rest of the team who were doing stretches with Coach Manfred. The other Coach Manfred. They were brothers. "Who pissed in Reginhard's cereal?" I asked Lahm Jonker.

"Beats me," Lahm replied, his face practically touching the turf as he sat with his legs spread and his torso bowed. The guy was a freak when it came to flexibility. "Maybe he wouldn't be mean if you showed up to practice on time."

I repeated what he said with a whiny voice. "Whatever. It's just conditioning."

Lahm and I stood up and bent forward, stretching our hamstrings. His palms were flat on the turf and my fingertips were barely touching the fake grass. "'Just conditioning.' Ban, you're an idiot. Veter's been itching to get off the bench, and I don't care how many goals you save--if you piss Coach Manfred off, he'll take you off first string. It's the off-season, so it's the perfect time to bring in a new keeper."

"Yeah? Then we'll lose, and Coach'll put me back on."

"Don't be so full of yourself," Lahm muttered.

"Hey!" Coach Manfred barked. "Is this Coffee Talk or football practice? Shut up!"

Evenhard was about as perky as his brother.

We finished stretching and did some laps around the pitch. My quadriceps felt like a painful, gelatinous mess from the chase last night, and I fell to the back of the pack with Lahm, who had the shortest legs.

"Hello," he said with a grin.

"Shut up," I told him.

"I think someone pissed in your cereal."

"Sorry," I said between breaths.

"Just observing." Lahm was fast when he wanted to be, but for runs like this, he tended to take it easy and lag behind. Me, I had the torso of a 12-year-old, the legs of a giraffe, and the arms of a gorilla. I could sprint past most of the guys, but the goalkeeper hardly ever had to run. Not part of the job description. Once we were finished running laps, Coach Manfred called us over to him.

"Penalty kicks!" he shouted.

I wilted.

Lahm jabbed me in the chest with his elbow. "I think they have a vendetta
against you. No idea why."

"Shut up," I grumbled again.

"Get in the net, Koran!" Coach Manfred yelled.

~

It's a thankless job, being a keeper. When you save a goal, the crowd doesn't go wild, the music doesn't play, and your teammates don't make a homoerotic pile on top of you while confetti falls from the ceiling of the dome. You get a few cheers, maybe a couple of replays. But God forbid if you let a goal--then you're despised like a nation's worst dictator. Strikers have it easy, and if they miss their mark, it's a small jab at their pride. Nothing like letting a goal. Yes, goalkeeping is a truly thankless job. But so is my other one.

I guess the penalty kicks could have gone better. Saving seven out of twelve shots is a D+ in the grade book, but I still beat Veter, and that's what matters. I felt a small weight lifted off of my chest as I gathered my belongings from my locker and shoved them into my bag.

"I scored on you," Lahm gloated as he sat his bag on the bench beside me.

"First one you've scored in weeks. Big-frickin'-whoop," I teased. "Doesn't it suck being on defense?"

"You tell me," Lahm retorted. He leaned his shoulder against the locker. "Slad and the guys are going out tonight. Are you coming this time?"

"I have a date." I looked up from my bag and stared at the darkness inside my locker that was similar to the growing void of dread in my brain. I had completely forgotten about my date.

"A date," repeated Lahm approvingly. "Why not bring her?"

"Because you jokers would try to steal her. Listen, I'll go out with you guys this weekend."

"Fair enough," said Lahm. Then he grinned. "Have fun, Ban."

I smiled a thin smile that lacked any joy. "I'll try."