The Bounty Hunter: Resurrection

by Joseph Anderson

  “This isn’t a convict volunteering,” Rylan said.

  “No,” Burke agreed. “It isn’t.”

  Cass changed the recording, switching it to a similar conversation between Shaw and the same woman.

  “How are you?” the woman asked.

  “I’m okay,” Shaw answered.

  Burke watched the recording closely. The woman gave the same warning about being restricted to the facility.

  “I think I still want to participate,” Shaw said, seemingly reluctant.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” the woman answered. “We asked you to take part in this study for many reasons. The most important being the augmentations you already have. Your legs were lost in an accident, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I met my wife in the hospital. We shared a room while we were in recovery. We helped each other get through it. Then we helped each other get used to our new limbs. We did so well together that we decided to share our lives from then on. To see what else we could help each other get through.”

  The woman smiled warmly at him. Burke gritted his teeth together.

  “I’m not happy about this,” he muttered.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be,” Cass said. “Neither am I.”

  “You care that they lied?” Rylan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” Burke and Cass spoke together.

  The pilot looked at them like he was seeing them for the first time. Cass cycled further into the video records before either of them could speak.

  The screen showed a larger room than before. The walls were white but the room looked warmer than the previous ones: there was a large closet, a chest of drawers, and two single beds. Each of the beds were pressed into opposite corners. Despite the size of each bed, Lumen and Shaw were both laying together on just one of them. They wore barely any clothing, covering only the main part of their torso’s. Their legs and arms were exposed, including the newly grafted augments on their shoulders and hips.

  “That’s what they did to them?” Burke asked.

  “I wish that was all,” Cass answered.

  She increased the speed of the video. Burke watched as the two of them got up and raced around the room in fast forward. Cass stopped when the woman from the earlier videos entered the room. The video was slowed then, showing each of the limbs being removed and then replaced with new ones. Lumen and Shaw would take turns walking around the room and then jumping in place. When they were fitted with new arms, they were asked to handle different objects, including fragile things like glass or an egg without them breaking under the pressure of their metal fingers.

  Cass skipped ahead to the next day.

  “How are you today?” the woman said.

  “Good,” Lumen answered.

  “I’m okay,” Shaw answered.

  “I’ve come to speak to you today about a new development. The two of you present a unique opportunity for the company. If you are both willing, in addition to the advanced dermal replacement procedure, we’d like to create a temporary neural link between the two of you.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Shaw said.

  “What does that mean?” Lumen asked.

  “It’s perfectly safe,” the woman explained with a smile. “Let me get that part out of the way first. We’ve done it before, but never with two people that are so close.”

  Burke narrowed his eyes as he watched Lumen and Shaw look at each other. Their eyes locked together. He watched each of them hold out a newly attached hand toward each other and weave their fingers together to hold hands.

  “We planned to install several cranial implants already,” the woman continued. “We will only be adding one more. There will be increased compensation, of course.”

  “What does that mean?” Burke asked as Cass paused the recording.

  “It’s a feature that’s used for AIs like me,” Cass began. “I’ve never heard of it used on people before. AIs can leave temporary copies of themselves to operate independently of each other. They then merge back together, like the link she’s describing, and mesh their memories together back as one. I don’t like doing it, though. It feels strange.”

  “How could that work with people?” Rylan asked.

  “It doesn’t,” Cass said grimly.

  The recording skipped ahead. Lumen and Shaw were wheeled back into the room on a mobile bed each. Two men lifted each of them back into the separate beds in the room. They were left alone. Cass increased the speed on the video and displayed a time stamp on the bottom of the display. The hours raced by in seconds, accumulating into days without either of the two moving from their beds. People entered for a few moments each day and then left. Four days passed on the timer before they were carted out of the room once again.

  “Things get worse from here,” Cass said softly.

  Burke forced himself to watch as Shaw and Lumen’s skin was peeled back. The mystery of how bullets had bounced from their bodies was solved as the surgery progressed on the screen. The reinforced plates were small and fit snugly together. They weren’t as thick as his armor but then that had been why Cass’s plan had worked: multiple shots in the same area would eventually cause some damage.

  He continued to stare at the screen as they tested the new augmentations. Even the surgeons took part in loading weapons and firing them at the human targets. He watched as Lumen finally woke up, walked into the room, and then turned their weapons against them. She released Shaw and then raided the different prosthetic limbs. He saw her choose one that opened up into the blade that she had used against him down in the city.

  “That gets us to the present day then,” Burke said.

  “What do you want to do?” Cass asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re innocent,” Rylan said neutrally.

  “Maybe. Everything I found in the network stated that they thought Lumen and Shaw were brain dead. They didn’t know they were experimenting on people who were still alive,” Cass said.

  “How can you say maybe after what we just watched?” Rylan asked, his voice still level.

  “The experiment obviously made them unstable,” Cass began. “However, that doesn’t mean they didn’t go on to kill dozens of people in the city. Spectrum Industries is at fault, of course, but there are still two killers out there that we need to stop.”

  “We’ll try to talk to them first,” Burke said. “Although I don’t know how much it will do. They barely acted human when we saw them.”

  “And if you can’t talk to them?” Rylan stood up as he asked the question. He turned to face Cass on the podium.

  “Then we stop them. If we’re forced to kill them, then we’ll have to,” Cass said, frowning.

  “You agree with her?” Rylan turned to Burke.

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “She’s a computer!” Rylan’s eyes widened, and his voice finally raised. “She can’t possibly understand—”

  Burke’s look was all it took to stop the pilot mid-sentence. His eyes flashed with anger and, armor or not, he tensed his arm to prepare to slam his fist into Rylan’s face. Cass stayed quiet above the podium but her voice came through the interior of his helmet.

  “It’s okay,” she said, barely loud enough for him to hear her.

  He gradually relaxed his arm but maintained his glare. The pilot backed away and, Burke realized later, looked more than just afraid. At the time, however, Burke could see nothing through the flare of anger that rushed through him.

  “Do you still have their location?”

  “Yes,” Cass answered simply.

  “Get us as close as you can and then wait,” Burke growled. “We won’t be gone long.”

  In the cargo hold, he sealed the faceplate into the helmet of his aegis and closed his eyes. He felt the ship move beneath his feet as it was lowered through the city.

  “That’s him gone then,” he said. “We’ll need a new pilot after this.”

  “No,”
Cass responded softly. “I know it’s hard for you to trust again but we can’t get rid of someone after their first mistake.”

  “This isn’t about me. He insulted you. He doesn’t even think you’re a person. This has nothing to do with my issues.”

  “Are you sure?” Cass answered gently. “It seems like you’re more insulted than I am. I expected people to react this way to me, Burke. There are scant few AIs that are unrestricted like I am, and even fewer that are operational after a year. I’m sure others exist and ACU simply hasn’t found them, but look how much they wanted me back.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what he said.”

  “No, but it explains it. Right now, he doesn’t understand how I even exist. He’ll get used to me, just like you did.”

  “It didn’t take me long,” he said.

  “No, it didn’t,” she said and he could hear her smile. “You’re just as special as I am like that.”

  Burke opened his eyes. The visor’s display showed a faint overview of the ship’s movement. They were as close to the planet’s surface as possible when the lower doors opened and air of the city rushed into the ship. He looked down at the street below them—a higher drop than the first but still something the suit could withstand. He hopped forward and fell down into the city, landing in a crouch and standing quickly. The ship remained hovering above them and he stared up at it.

  “I’m telling him to find a rooftop nearby to land,” Cass explained.

  “Keep a tether to the ship in case he doesn’t listen.”

  “He’ll listen,” she said. “But I will.”

  The ship moved away from them. Burke looked around at the lower city instead of watching the vessel leave. He saw how wrong he had been in his prior assessment about the other part of the city being like a sewer. As low as he was now, the upper parts looked warm and welcoming.

  The buildings around him looked ancient. They resembled more of the old architecture on Earth than the newer city above him. The new buildings had been constructed through many of the old structures. Some looked to have been skewered through the middle of the old walls, having not even bothered to demolish them. The concrete walls had an artful care in how they were crafted that made the cold, clinical functionality of the newer buildings pale in comparison. Above them, he knew that the towering city could be beautiful. Down in the bowels of the city, no such considerations had been made.

  He looked over the side of the street and saw the liquid foundation below them. He had no idea how high the water was from the actual ground of the planet. He saw the stewing mess of trash and the occasional dead body, bloated and bobbing on the surface of the water. A fleeting thought came to him, and he wondered what the native population of alien wildlife had been like on Liveria before the humans and vruans colonized it. There was nothing left of it, as far as he could see. The planet resembled Earth more than Earth itself.

  The rifle was magnetized to the back of his armor, well within reach if they were attacked. Cass displayed the location of Lumen and Shaw. Burke looked away from the water and began walking in their direction.

  * * *

  Lumen was huddled in a corner of the large room. Shaw was next to her. Their collection of parts was strewn over the floor. The rest of the room was empty. There was a single window and a steady stream of water poured down the outside of it.

  She felt like her body was a series of compartments, separate from the rest of her. Her arms and legs were independent entities, only staying with her out of some sort of bargain she couldn’t remember making with them. It was an insane thought, birthed by how her stomach felt like it was dying, writhing in death throes as it prepared to leave the rest of her behind.

  When they first retreated into the room, Shaw had laid her on her back and looked at her stomach. The mesh of subdermal plates were vibrating beneath what was left of Lumen’s tattered skin. The blackened smear from the bullets shifted as the plates attempted to realign themselves and fix the damage. When they moved too much, Shaw would feel his own stomach wrench as he shared her pain. He would fall back onto the floor and lay there, whimpering and quivering along with her.

  Blood leaked between the gaps of the scaly sections of armor. Beneath the augmented flesh, she was bleeding internally. If the implanted metal had been removed, the murky beginnings of a colossal bruise would have been visible, snaking out over Lumen’s stomach before filling out a space larger than the span of her hand. The pain was worse than the damage deserved, amplified as it oscillated between Lumen and Shaw, L and S. When she passed out, Shaw was able to look over her closely. When she woke up, he was be back on the floor and curled up next to her.

  She often tried to move and couldn’t. The interlocking plates made it impossible for her to move anything but her arms, which made it impossible for her to stand up. She stared down at the constant movement of the implants as they futilely tried to fix themselves, cycling over and over through the same automatic response and getting nowhere. The fact that she was finally as broken as she had previously thought was lost on her.

  When the man walked in, she felt something change in Shaw. The intensity of their link lessened at the threat of danger, in the same way that had happened when they last saw the man. They could share thoughts and feelings, but operate more freely to attack their target in different ways.

  She had a brief moment of peace as Shaw stood and stepped away from her. She raised her head and looked at the man closely. It was the same fully prosthetic person they had seen hours earlier: augmented arms, legs, chest, and head. He was fully metal and had been a prized find for them in the lower city. How many parts could they take from him? He obviously wasn’t broken: all of his parts worked and moved, and if that was true, if he was a fully augmented person that worked, then there had to be parts they could use to fix themselves!

  The pain came back to her suddenly, as a reminder of what the man had done to her. Another thick trickle of blood ran down her stomach and dripped onto the floor. She rested her head down and looked up at them from the floor.

  Be careful, she thought to Shaw.

  “Be careful,” she whispered, less than a second later.

  She closed her eyes and could see faintly through Shaw’s. He could see the man walking slowly toward them. They had seen each other already. There was a rifle on his back but he wasn’t holding it. Shaw thought about his own weapon and his right hand began to change. The barrel of his firearm extended and he held it loosely at his side.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” the man’s voice came through the room.

  Shaw cocked his head to the side. He watched as the man’s augmented head began to open. The moment of wonder and panic swam through both Lumen and Shaw, and was then replaced with curiosity when a normal man’s face appeared in the opening in the head.

  A helmet? The question bounced between them.

  “Why?” Shaw asked the man simply.

  “I know what was done to you,” the man said, stepping forward slowly. Light from the window cut through the room between them, slicing through the darkness and illuminating a portion of the floor between them. The man stood at the edge of the light, his face in shadow, and Shaw stared through the dust and into his eyes.

  “What?”

  “You were experimented on,” the man continued. “What you’ve done isn’t your fault. Spectrum Industries did this to you.”

  Shaw’s eyes widened at the name.

  He knows? Help? Lumen thought.

  “He knows? Help?” she croaked from the floor, her eyes still closed.

  “You are help?” Shaw asked.

  “Yes,” the man said. “I can take you somewhere that you will be safe. We’ll find somewhere that can help you.”

  “Broken,” Shaw said.

  “Yes, you are broken. You’ve hurt people.”

  “They’re broken,” Shaw said, frowning.

  “Will you let me help you?” the man asked.

  Please, Lumen thought.
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  She said nothing.

  “Please,” Shaw said.

  The man stepped forward into the light. He didn’t reach for his rifle. Shaw looked over him as he caught the light: his face in the helmet of his metal body, his arms and chest in the same armor, and then his legs. One leg looked different than the others. It grabbed Shaw’s attention and he stepped forward into the light. He turned his head as he looked, unblinking, at the insignia, serial number, and name on the leg.

  Spectrum Industries.

  Trap, Shaw thought.

  “Trap,” Lumen murmured.

  Burke stood on the edge of the light. He watched Shaw’s arm intently, ready to cover his own face if the weapon moved. Burke felt exposed with his faceplate released, but thought the risk was worth it. He wanted to appeal to the fugitives as much as possible. He didn’t want to kill them.

  “Yes, you are broken. You’ve hurt people,” he said.

  “They’re broken,” Shaw said.

  “Will you let me help you?”

  “Please.”

  Burke stepped forward into the light and felt the tension is his shoulders ease a little.

  “I think you got through to them,” Cass whispered.

  He stood in the light as Shaw moved forward to meet him. Burke didn’t know what to do next. He wondered if they would understand enough to agree to being temporarily confined in the ship. Would they understand that they’re still a danger, even to themselves? He was still in thought as Shaw looked down at his leg and then directly into his eyes. Burke saw the man’s expression change just in time to raise his hand to guard his face. The spray of bullets slammed into his armored fist as Cass scrambled to lower the face plate. He lunged forward when his face was protected, forcing Shaw to leap back away from him.

  “What the fuck happened!” Burke growled.

  “I don’t know!” Cass retorted.