by Andrew Linke
The bounty office was a small half dome projecting off the side of the larger detention processing center like a wart on the flank of a toad. Moira thumbed the call button beside the scarred blast door and looked up into a camera that, despite its shielding, looked to have been replaced recently. If there was one place in all of Covington where one was likely to get caught in a firefight, it was the street outside an urban detention processing center. With every criminal in that district being processed through the same building, it was not uncommon for gangs or even corporate operatives to attack during prisoner transfers.
A scarred face fuzzed into view on the scratched screen above the call button. “State your business.”
“We’ve got a bounty to drop off.”
“Who is we?”
“Moira. Bounty license DA2117. Accompanied by a drone from my ship and the bounty.”
“Opening the door. Escort your bounty to the scanning booth before you come to the desk.”
The screen faded to black and a sharp tone sounded, cutting through the background chatter and grind that pervaded the streets of district seventeen. The scarred blast door slid upwards, opening on a spartan waiting room with curved sheet metal walls, filthy metal grate floors, and a flickering, partially burned out glow panel ceiling. A couple rows of metal benches were bolted to the floor in the center of the room. The single flat wall was occupied by a glass and metal booth three meters tall and one square and a recessed clerk’s desk protected by a sheet of thick glass, which was spidered with cracks from several obvious slug impacts.
Zau/Heraxo’s avatar dragged Bosami to the booth and, using its manipulator fields, opened the door and shoved the gang leader in. Blue light poured from the booth as a variety of penetrating scanners warmed up and examined the man in painstaking detail.
“What’s that all over him?” the desk clerk asked, squinting at the bank of monitors arrayed beneath the window. “I’m reading a high concentration of fecal bacteria and…” he looked up and scowled at Moira through the cracked shield glass.
“You got it.”
“Why are you bringing me a bounty covered in drek?”
“He did it to himself. Some sort of protest.”
“I’ll have to take off for that.”
“Bulldrek.”
“Hey, lady, you brought him in scuffed up and covered in feces. Look at those marks on him. He’s got abrasions over half his face and torso.”
“He went limp on us. Not my fault the bastard chose to get dragged across pavement rather than use his legs.”
“Let me see here,” the clerk said, looking down and tapping on a touchscreen below the counter. “Decontamination fee, medical treatment, contractor abuse lawsuit insurance…” he continued muttering under his breath and tapping at the screen.
Moira walked up the glass, pulled down her scarf, and leaned against the counter. “I don’t know what sort of game you’re trying to play here. We grabbed a rich bounty. It’s a bounty, not a contract Security job. I’ve read the governing council laws and Detention Corp procedures. Bounty jobs are clearly classified and only have three categories of payment: Alive, Stored and Retrievable, and Dead.”
The clerk scratched at his grizzled chin with a stubby finger and squinted at Moira though the filthy, cracked glass. “I’m just running the numbers, lady. Doing my job. Way I see it, you are a Security enforcement contractor who arrested this man for running unregistered hypnotics.”
“Like hells we…”
“That means you need to be properly insured and standard public safety enforcement incentives and penalties apply.”
“This is fraking bulldrek,” Moira snapped, slamming her palm against the glass.
“Ah, let me add in the penalties for unprofessional language and conduct.”
“We just brought in Bosami Haupt. That’s one of the biggest pizda biying bounties on the books! Let me speak to your superior or I’ll have your contract. You’ll spend the duration cleaning toilets on my ship you little kuro.”
The clerk flipped his screen up on an articulated arm, swinging it around so Moira could see the tabulated payment amount at the bottom. It was a quarter of the advertised bounty for the job. “As you see, the fees for Security contractors are rather paltry. All that regulation really cuts into the profit margin.”
“Frak that. I am a registered bounty hunter, not a Security contractor. Let me talk to your supervisor.”
“She isn’t here at the moment. Besides,” he tapped at a screen and the payment amount dropped even lower, “in that case we’d need to add an administrative fee to the calculation.”
Moira turned to the drone and said, “Zau, get our bounty out of that box. We’ll go to another office.”
Zau/Heraxo’s drone drifted back over to the scanning booth and extended a manipulator field.
“I’ll have to order a lockdown if you touch that,” the clerk said, standing up and leaning towards glass so he could see the booth. “Regulations prohibit the removal of bounties from Security facilities.”
“I’m sure the same regulations also prohibit slimy desk clerk kuros from fraking up paperwork on purpose.”
“Hey, no need for this to get nasty. How about we just handle this all simple?”
“It was simple, then you decided to come along and frak things up.”
“Lady, you can keep causing a fuss and I’ll press this nice big lockdown button. Then we all get gassed. Then you wake up and have to explain everything to the Prefect. After all that maybe they believe you and I get put on paid leave for a week and have to attend a course on administrative professionalism. Maybe you get paid, or maybe they decide this whole situation is just too confusing and send you on your way without a credit.”
Moira held up a hand in the avatar’s direction and whispered, “Hold on a second.” She peered intently at the clerk through the smeared glass. “What are offering?”
“I file the bounty form as you’d expect, but you toss ten percent of it to me. Everyone is happy enough and nobody wastes a whole wake being interviewed by the Prefects.”
“That’s bulldrek,” Moira growled.
“Did I say ten? I meant fifteen. So, we have a deal?”
Moira grimaced and shook her head. This would not be the first time that she paid a bribe to conduct business in Covington. She slammed her fist on the counter and said, “Fine.”
The clerk flipped the display screen back down and tapped at his screen for a moment, then flipped it back up to show Moira the advertised bounty for Bosami Haupt, known criminal and fugitive. “I believe this is the number you were expecting?”
Moira nodded. “How you want to handle this?”
“Simple. I prepare to send the payment to your account and give you a payment code for my cut on my handy. You send me my cut, then I authorize the bounty.”
“What if I don’t have that sort of liquid credit? Maybe I need this bounty to be solvent.”
The clerk shrugged and gave Moira a bored look. “I can always fill out that paperwork again, with additional processing fees for having to complete it a second time.”
“Fine. Get ready to transfer the bounty to my registered account.”
Moira activated her vision overlay, selected a her banking application, and arranged for the payment. She scrubbed an undamaged portion of the glass clean with her cuff, then pressed her left palm against it. The clerk did the same, then flipped the screen up with his right hand to show Moira the payment authorization icon, just waiting for him to tap it.
“Frak you,” Moira said as she made the gesture that would authorize her banking app to transfer funds through her handy.
“You’re not my type, but thanks anyway,” the clerk replied.
A faint glow suffused the glass between their palms, then faded away. A notification drifted into the upper right corner of Moira’s vision, indicating that a significant sum had been deducted from her account.
“Thank you for that,” the clerk said
. “It now appears that all of your bounty paperwork is in order and the scan has verified that the individual you placed in the booth is indeed Bosami Haupt. Thank you for your service to Covington Security and please accept this payment as a token of our gratitude.” He tapped the payment icon on his screen and in instant later Moira’s overlay informed her that her account had been credited.
“Always a pleasure,” she sneered, turning away from the window. “Zau/Heraxo, let’s get out of here.”
NEXT TIME in Dyson’s Angel…
_
“The drink is good,” Moira said. “I’m just lamenting my fate.”
_
“You captured a major gang boss. They might want Haupt dead, but they don’t want any outsiders turning their people in to Security. You’d have been better off just killing him, Moira.”
_
“You dislike our poetry?”
“That isn’t poetry.”
_
Read Episode 2 of Dyson’s Angel on Kindle, available starting February 18, 2017.
THANKS FOR reading this first episode of Dyson’s Angel. I hope you enjoyed it. This first “season” of Dyson’s Angel will consist of eight episodes, each released two weeks apart. I’m conducting a bit of an experiment by releasing the book in this manner, but if the internet it for anything (besides enabling unpresidential global communication and sharing of scientific data) it is for experimental forms of literature.
I’m interested to hear what you have to say about this book, both as a work of fiction and as a serialized novel. Please feel free to leave reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, tweet at me (@darkillumine), or send me a message through my website (andrewlinke.com). Dyson’s Angel has served as the platform for several experiments in my writing style, so if you found any particular aspect of the novel catchy (or annoying), don’t hesitate to let me know.
Well, unless you loved it. In that case, share it with everyone you know first, then let me know.
Or if you hated it. Then I ask you to please forgive my sins against science fiction and go read some Alastair Reynolds.
See you in the afterward to episode 2!
-Andrew Linke
January 2017