by Alex Nast
The Body Hunters
(Book One of the 9.96 Series)
by Alex Nast
Copyright © 2016 Alex Nast
All rights reserved.
About This Book
A new dystopian/post-apocalyptic series from an exciting breakout author
My name is Juno, and I have a death sentence I can't escape... a beautiful face.
Body Hunters search for beautiful faces like mine, and when they catch us they sell us to the highest bidder. Anyone with enough money can buy a body and pay to have their mind transplanted in to that body, cheating death. I'm not a human being to them, just a thing to be caught, sold and worn. It's murder, but there are no governments left, just the rich and the poor, and any sin can be erased for the right price.
My whole short life I thought I was just another beautiful face, but now I know I'm different. I have the highest Beauty Score ever recorded. And when word of what I am reaches the wealthiest elite they will bend every resource to their will trying to find me, because to wear my body would be the ultimate status symbol.
The hope that I cling to is a fairy tale, of a place where green things still grow and a government still exists. It's a lie, has to be, but the Body Hunters are closing in and I can't trust anyone. I'm running out of options...
~~~
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About Alex Nast
1
I've killed sixteen people. Almost one for every year that I've been alive. I think. I'm sure about the number of people I've killed, less sure about my age.
I cried after the first one and almost turned myself in to a patrol the guilt got so bad. It was years ago, back when I was still just learning to survive. He was younger than me, thinner, hungrier. Just desperate, same as me. I cried after, but I didn't hesitate in the moment. I knew enough to know that hesitation was death.
The third was my first woman. She stalked me for two days that I saw, maybe more before that. Watching me, learning, never getting close enough for me to do anything about it. Drove me crazy. She knew somehow, what I am. She was sure. No other reason to hunt an anonymous person for days on end, unless you think there's a big paycheck waiting. I'd never heard of female Body Hunter then. Haven't heard of any since. It gave me a kind of strange respect for her. A fellow woman, surviving in this world.
I didn't sleep the entire two days she was after me. But neither did she. She got sloppy and I finally gave her the slip long enough to double back on her. She heard me creeping up behind her. Too late to get away but she tried anyway, instead of fighting. Stupid. I had two days to build her up in my mind as a deadly female Body Hunter, but I don't know what she was. Maybe she was just desperate too. Maybe she spent those two days trying to work her courage up.
She looked in to my eyes as I slid the knife in to her throat, begging for her life with her last breath. That look haunted me so bad I couldn't sleep for a whole third day.
After her I thought about turning my knife on myself. Knew I would have to keep killing to survive, figured one dead me was a whole lot better than the people I knew I would have to kill to keep surviving. The math makes sense, but try slitting your own wrists for the math...
The killing got easier after that.
The sixteenth was just a week ago. A big man with a knife, jacked up on whatever shitty basement drug is making the rounds. I might have lost him, but killing him was simpler. I played easy to get, let him see a defenseless little girl and he stopped thinking about catching me to sell me to the Towers like a Body Hunter and got ideas about what might be under all my ragged layers of dusty clothing. He told me him and I were going to have some fun. When he put his knife away I jumped in to him, rode him to the ground as he fell back, stabbed him in the chest and kept stabbing until he stopped trying to push me off.
My sixteenth, and all I felt was contempt.
Now I'm worried I enjoy the killing in some sick way. Do I put myself in dangerous situations, just so that I have a reason to pull my knife? Maybe. Maybe I'm just waiting for someone to come along that's quicker on the blade draw than I am.
Maybe.
These are the thoughts circling round and round in my mind when the kid comes running round a corner in front of me and we both fall to the ground in a heap. Somehow in the tangling of limbs the scarf that is very securely across my face, hiding what I am, comes loose.
My hand is on my knife before I hit the ground. He tries to get up but I roll on top of him and end up straddling his chest, the point of my knife jammed in his throat. Most people, slicing the throat is instinctual, but if you're in front of the throat when it gets cut you get covered in blood. Even if you're above, like I am. And then you're walking away from a dead body covered in blood. Not exactly subtle. I learned the hard way that even the laziest military patrol will chase down someone covered in blood.
Stab in from the side instead and the job gets done with a whole lot less mess.
Adrenaline and instinct takes hold but I take a quick look around, searching for witnesses. It's the middle of the day but we're in a grungy back alley, full of trash and little dust dunes blown in from the outside the city. No people. I can hear a hundred voices in the market just a block over, but they might as well be on the moon for all the good they're going to do this kid.
I hesitate though. Part of my mind is screaming to just do it, that hesitation means death. But he's not fighting back. When the knife comes out they all fight or try to get away or scream or beg. Something. But he just lays there. It knocks me out of the flight or fight response.
"Sorry," he blurts out, his hands going up and back, trying to show me that he means me no harm.
"What?" Such a stupid thing to say, with a knife jammed in his throat.
"Sorry for bumping in to you."
Is he serious?
I take a better look at my attacker. I took him for a kid but he seems older, maybe my age. Just innocent looking. Too innocent looking to be in a deserted alleyway with me, that's for sure. Not very good looking. A five or a six. No one's ever mistaken him for a nine. Clean shaven though, and nice enough clothes. Calloused hands. Shit, he's just some poor bastard that punches a clock every day. Probably goes home to girl that loves him too. But the part of New Seattle that he's in... well a person is liable to get their throat cut for bumping in to the wrong person in an alleyway. So what's he doing here?
But I see the recognition in his eyes. With the scarf that hides my face pulled down he sees what I am. Beautiful. Worth more to the Towers than he'll make in a lifetime punching his clock if he can take me alive and unblemished. Better than him. And cursed. His ticket to that Tower apartment everyone that punches a clock and plays by the rules is dreaming of.
Maybe it was just an innocent mistake. I risk taking my eyes off him to look around for half a second. But we're alone. He has no friends hiding in the shadows, ready to jump me when my back is turned. None that I can see at least. Just him and me.
Still, I should kill him. He'll be number seventeen. But a person who sees my face is a dead person. That's my rule. That's how I stay alive. So I suck it up and try to end him, I really do, but I can't. It would be so much easier if he fought back, if he snarled, told me how he was going to sell me to the Towers and eat like a king for a year off the bounty he'd get.
Instead he just lays there stupidly, staring up at me with his innocent eyes, expecting me to do the right thing and let him go. Like saying sorry in this part of the city makes it all okay.
Shit. I stand up and sheath my knife. He at least has the good sense to stay down on the ground. I quickly replace my scarf over my face. "I ever see you again I will kill you."
"Sure, ya," he says, nodding his head.
I stand there a moment longer. Am I really doing this? I'm really not going to kill him? "Unbelievable," I mutter to myself. Maybe my conscience is growing back. I thought I'd killed it off years ago.
I give him one last long look, memorizing his face, then turn to disappear behind the corner the kid emerged from. Which is when I hear it, the crack, feel two prongs stabbing in to the skin of my lower back through the layers of clothing, the electricity filling me like nothing I've ever felt, making every muscle squeeze in to a hard knot. I drop to the ground and the kid actually catches me. Doesn't want me to hurt myself. I might be worth less if that happens.
Shit shit shit. I try to keep calm but my heart is racing. I can feel the cold sweat already. It's happening. I'm caught. They're going to sell me to the Towers, my mind will be vacuumed out and my body will have the mind of some Tower asshole uploaded in to it. Just a pretty meat suit to be worn around for a few years until whoever's going to buy it gets bored of it and moves on to the next younger and prettier meat suit that catches their eye.
"Sorry," the kid says again, and if my jaw wasn't clenched shut I'd laugh. Should have killed him. I'm a weak idiot. I strain my neck to look back and see a piece of a pile of trash disengage from the rest of the trash and come to join the kid. He's no clean cut, fresh faced innocent. He's tall and thick and rough looking. Definitely not someone from a nice, respectable part of the city. He's wearing a military jacket with a couple of what look like bullet holes, cracked leather boots and one of the checkered black and white scarves that all the cloak and dagger military guys are so fond of.
As much animal as man.
No way he's military though, he's got Body Hunter written all over him. A professional. Not some desperate asshole with a blade and a lot of dreams of living in a swanky Tower apartment. He must have picked up the kid somewhere as a decoy. It's smart, not a routine I've seen or heard of before. Maybe it works too well for anyone to live and tell the tale.
The panic is drowning me, but I have to keep my head. I can feel some small control of my body coming back and I go for my knife, hands so clumsy that I can't even grasp my the hilt so I just try to get my feet under me but the electricity comes shivering back in to my muscles and I collapse back to the ground, my whole body seizing.
"Keep fighting," the Hunter says, "see what happens." He gives me another half second jolt of the electricity to make his point.
"Fuck you," I manage to grunt out.
He chuckles like it's all in good fun. "Fair enough. What's your name girl?"
"Fuck y-"
He hits me with electricity again and I don't get the rest out.
I watch him as he comes around my body to get a better look at me. I'm trying to remain calm but locking eyes with the person I know is going to end my life makes me want to curl up in to a ball and cry. My breathes starts coming quicker, my mind racing, looking for some way out. There's always a way out. Never give up. Think. Find the out. I try to shove the panic back down deep.
He grunts, "you're a good looking one aren't you? Going to fetch a nice price I bet." He sets his backpack down on the ground and kneels down, then looks at the kid, "Felix, get her scarf off. Let's see what we're dealing with here."
Felix approaches me like I bite.
"She's not going to hurt you Felix," he holds up the trigger for the stun gun and looks at me, "are you?"
I don't say anything, just look away. That gun... it doesn't shoot projectiles so maybe it doesn't count as a gun, but I bet the military wouldn't be happy he had it. Something tells me this guy gets a pass though. He's connected to the inner city. The Towers. To have a stun gun like that, he's definitely connected.
It just keeps getting worse.
Felix kneels down beside me and gently unwraps the scarf from around my neck and head. My hair spills out. There's another knife hidden in my boot that they don't know about, and I test my fingers out a little, seeing if I could go for it and maybe use Felix as a hostage, but all my fingers are good for is forming a misshapen claw. Shit.
The Hunter pulls something out of the backpack and stands back up, taking another, longer look at me. Appraising his catch. I want to jam my knife in his throat and bath in his blood. I settle for trying to tell him that with my stare.
"I've been doing this job twenty years and I don't think I've ever caught one this good looking," the Hunter says to Felix, shaking his head and fiddling with his gadget. He glances at Felix, "and you get her on your first time out. You're my good luck charm kid."
Felix smiles weakly. He's looking at me like I'm an actual human being. Like he still has a conscience. Maybe I can use that.
"Okay," the Hunter says, "moment of truth, let's see if you're a keeper or if we're going to throw you back." He holds the little device up, steady, pointed at me, and it makes a clicking sound.
Shit, it's an SBS camera. Standardized Beauty Scale. Most Body Hunters just eyeball their catches, and if they think they've got someone with a score higher than a nine they drag them in to the Tower reps at the border to the inner city, and the Tower reps tell me what the score is.
He looks at whatever the readout is and grunts, smacks the side of the camera. "Damn thing must be broken," he mutters. He points it at Felix, "Felix hold still."
Felix flinches and takes an involuntary step back, covering himself with his hands.
"Shit Felix it's not going to hurt you, I just need to test it out."
Felix hesitates and then lowers his arms. I try my fingers again, knowing that this is about the best distraction I'm ever going to get to make an escape. But my fingers are still useless.
The Hunter takes a picture of Felix and then looks at the readout, frowning. "6.62. Congratulations Felix you're still ugly."
"What was her score?" Felix asks.
"We're about to find out," he points the camera at me again, clicks, and then looks at the readout. He looks from the readout to me, then back to the readout. "It's not possible," he says under his breath.
"What's her score?" Felix asks again a little more forcefully.
But the Hunter is only looking at me.
"Victor what's her score?"
Victor the Body Hunter quickly jams the SBS camera back in his backpack and throws my scarf in Felix's direction. "Get her covered up, before someone sees." He pulls zip ties from his backpack and looks again at Felix.
But Felix just stands there mutely, looking like he doesn't know what the hell he's gotten himself in to.
"Felix," Victor hisses at him, "you want to be rich or you want to be dead? Get that fucking scarf back on her. Now!"
Suddenly he's in a rush. And as much as I'm losing my mind and wanting to be anywhere but here, I'm curious too. What's my number? I've always wanted to know. Just the way people react to me when they see my face, I know my score is comfortably above nine. But beyond that...
I know it's going to be my last chance. I bring my feet up and reach down. My fingers are clumsy on the smooth, familiar leather of the knife in my boot but I manage to grip it in an awkward fist and roll to my knees, reaching for the wires connected to the two prongs that are still embedded in my back.
Victor doesn't bother shocking me again though, he just uses his
massive bulk to force me down to the ground, isolates my knife hand and peels my fingers back from the hilt as I grunt and scream and thrash at him with everything I have. I know it's pointless, he must weigh twice as much as me, but I do it anyway.
When he finally has the knife free he locks my hands behind my back and zip ties my wrists firmly together, then shoves one beefy hand under my armpit and hauls me to my feet. I try to knee him in the groin but he twists me around so that my back is to him. He's not even angry, it's just all another average day for him, and I hate him that much more for it. He grabs some tape from his backpack, unrolls a strip of it with his one free hand and rips it off with his teeth, then sticks it on over my mouth.
He curses at Felix and grabs the scarf from Felix's mute hands, and clumsily wraps it around my head with one hand, covering my entire face. "Good enough."
"Victor," Felix says again, sounding like a lost child, "what's her score?"
2
We start walking to wherever it is that Victor uses to store his victims. At first I can't see anything, my scarf covering my eyes, and I stumble along, partly because I can't see, partly just to be a nuisance. Victor doesn't even bother cursing at me when I stumble and try to fall to the ground though. Just keeps walking, his hand shoved up in to my armpit so that I can't make it to the ground.
Felix asks him a couple more times what my score is, but Victor tells him to shut his mouth. I know he doesn't want to say it out here, where anyone could hear. It must be high, if he's that paranoid.
Eventually the scarf slips down enough that I can see. Not much, but enough of a sliver of light that I can see where we are. Where we're going.
Victor is taking us down back alleys and abandoned streets, avoiding busy areas where the wrong person might see a girl with her hands zip tied behind her back, being dragged along by a brute twice her size. Not that anyone would step in to help me. No, Victor's problem is that everyone can tell what's happening. A Body Hunter with a catch. He's worried that someone might try to steal me from him.