Mega Man X: From The Sidelines

by Erico

A Collaborative Collection of Short Stories. By the Fans. For the Fans. This is the world of Mega Man X, and these are the people who live in it...on the Sidelines.

4. The Choice

MEGA MAN X: FROM THE SIDELINES

A Collaborative Project for the Mega Man Fan Community

The Choice

By Eric "Erico" Lawson

---

Mavericks deserve no mercy.

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

Mavericks deserve no rehabilitation.

Mavericks deserve no sympathy.

Mavericks deserve only one thing…death.

Those were the rules I fought by. I was a Maverick Hunter. Not one of the big ones. I didn't have the luck to be one of "Cain's boys" at the MHHQ in Japan. Hell, I've never been to Japan. Couldn't afford it if I wanted to. Not on my salary.

I was with a regional division. Our official title was "First Responders," but we had a different name for ourselves: Fodder. That was how it worked, most of the time. The Maverick Hunters were always pretty stretched out. It got worse after the First Uprising, when Sigma went rogue and decided he'd off almost everybody in the MHHQ before he left. Sure, the golden boy Mega Man X stopped him, but the damage was done. A world full of reploids stood up and realized that they could rebel, because Sigma had shown them how. A Maverick Hunter from Japan…the best of the best…had crossed the line.

It was open season after that, and with the big guns in Japan tied up most of the time, regional branches had to shoulder more responsibility, and usually with less funding. That's how they ended up with a crackpot like me.

The name's Glacier, and I'm a wolfoid; a wolf reploid. I was designed for work in Arctic climates, with a blue and white paint job to match, and I had the best and latest in condensers, self-replenishing nitrogen reserves and ice manipulators in me when I came off the line. I ended up getting assigned to Regional Maverick Hunter Base 36 two months into my life…Stationed smack dab in Colorado. Way off the beaten track, and in a dead end job.

It wasn't the worst thing in the world; you got more satisfaction out of being a Hunter than doing almost anything else. Savin' the world and all, that's something most people can get behind. It was almost enough some days to hold off all the memories of your friends who died. Somehow, I always managed to come back. Ended up rising through the ranks. I think they rated me as a Rank A…whatever the Hell that means. It made for a lonely life, and eventually I stopped caring about trying to make friends at the Hunter Base. The joke around the office was that my heart had frozen over, but that wasn't it.

I just didn't see the point in giving a damn about anything except doing the job. Mavericks were Mavericks, and I stopped them cold. Literally.

The ice was bound to crack, though. It was just a matter of when. And when, like it's supposed to, hit me without any warning.

---

May 24th, 2120 C.E.

New Denver, Colorado

The Chief called me into his office that morning, looking the same as he ever did; a big old stogie jammed in his teeth, sweat stains under his arms, and some doughnut crumbs stuck in his mustache. Needed trimming, too. Of course, Captain Phil Sakfey never gave a damn what he looked like. For a human pushing into his late 50's, he sure didn't give a damn about how long he lived, either. Can't say I blame him, considering how much shit he takes in a day.

"Hate this fuckin' weather." He snapped, already sweating at 8:45. "Glacier, my AC's on the fritz again. Can't you do something about it?"

I got used to hearing requests like this, but it didn't make it any less ludicrous. Sure, it didn't bother me none, but Christ almighty, I wasn't built for climate control. Still, the chief definitely looked like he could catch a break, so I plastered the ceiling with ice for him. He looked up at it and snorted.

"Is that gonna drip all over?"

"Can't see how, chief." I shrugged. "It's carbon dioxide. Dry ice."

"Well, ain't that a fuckin' miracle." He grumbled, but managed a smile. The temperature in the room was already starting to drop as the cool air fell. He relaxed back in his chair and mopped up his brow with a handkerchief. "We just got a call in this morning." He told me matter-of-factly. "Little podunk town in Arizona. Rattler's Ridge."

"Population?" I asked, already starting to run the calculations for damage control.

"About 1400." The chief pulled his stogie out and exhaled a thick cloud of ash and smoke. "It's only one Maverick, this time."

I frowned. The Chief usually sent me in on missions where there was at least three. "Just one?" I asked him suspiciously. "What is he, some kind of really dangerous freak?"

Captain Sakfey shook his head at me. "No, no. When they called this one in, it didn't make much sense. The reploid they're describing is a worker model, a light one. You know, the kind that never picked up a weapon in their life."

Then it clicked home for me. "You want me to check it out, see what exactly's going on?"

The Chief jammed his stogie back between his rubbery lips and nodded. "I figure you can handle it, Glacier. Besides, you've been lookin' pretty ragged these last coupla days. This is a nice and easy mission."

I rolled my eyes. "Chief, I don't need a vacation."

He threw his hands up in the air. "Who said anything about a vacation? Did you hear me say vacation? I thought I was giving you a mission here." He narrowed his eyes. "If you want a vacation, why don't you just toss in your badge and gun and get the Hell out? I don't got time for quitters."

"Jesus, cool off." I muttered, adding an extra layer of dry ice to the ceiling with a wave of my hand. The chief really was worried about me, if he was keeping this up. "All right, I'll do it. But I'm telling ya, chief, I feel fine."

The wrinkles in his face softened, and he let out a big old sigh. "Yeah, I know you're fine, kid." He told me. "But the others around here, they say you haven't been playin' nice, that you've been keeping to yourself. Hell, some of the people here have been sayin' you need Psych-eye-actric help, even. So just take this mission for me. It's out there in Arizona. You can finish it up, take your time with it, spend a coupla days dicking around afterwards."

"Yeah, and maybe I'll swing up into Las Vegas and go gambling." I muttered. Not like I meant it; Las Vegas has been a ghost town of wires and electricity, ever since some human lunkhead bombed it with biological agents a century ago. The only things that go moving in that mess is leftover robots, and plenty of Maverick reploids, if the stories are true.

"Damnit, Glacier, I'm trying to be fuckin' serious here." Sakfey bellowed. He had a habit of doing that when he got angry; puffed himself up like a bear and yelled until he got his way. Funny thing was, it worked. "Now, can you do this?"

I sighed. So much for discussion…Chief had his mind made up, and my day was set. "Yeah, yeah. I can handle it, chief."

"All right, good." He looked down to his desk and started sifting through his paperwork. "Now get the Hell outta here, I got reports to work on."

---

Rattler's Ridge, Arizona

Teleporting was part and partial of my job, but it never sat right with me. I know some can manage jumps without a problem, and that some can even control the process enough to de-phase and "Faintwarp" without moving, but that isn't my kick. Knowing all the atoms in my body are getting scrambled and flung across the world…Well, I'll walk, given my chance. But speed was the order of the day, so ten minutes after leaving Captain Sakfey's office and picking up my magpistol and badge, I disappeared from Base 36 and re-formed in the middle of Arizona.

I keyed my transceiver earpiece to report in. "Glacier here. I'm at the coordinates."

"Base 36; that's confirmed, Glacier. Good hunting."

I keyed off the comm and sighed, then had a look around. The warp had dropped me in the middle of the town, and the bystanders were watching me. One of them, a local county mountie with a badge that hadn't seen a shine in a year or so, walked up to me with a wary expression on his face. I tended to get that reaction from people, since animal reploids were sometimes unusual to stare at, and were usually the ones who went Maverick the easiest. Me looking like an arctic wolf out in the desert didn't help matters much.

"You the local law enforcement?" I asked casually.

He nodded. "Sheriff Barnesfield. And you?"

"Glacier, Regional Maverick Hunters." I came back. He visibly relaxed, more after I flashed him my badge. "We got a call, saying you had a Maverick problem out here?"

The Sheriff spat in the ground, and he looked plenty angry in a hurry. "Yeah, we do." He muttered. "A worker out in the old quarry mines turned rogue on us…killed a young girl called Marie." Sheriff took his hat off, made a show of shaking his head. "Poor girl was just going to turn 19 in a couple of weeks."

The rest of the townsfolk closed in around us, now that my identity as somebody who wasn't going to wipe them off the face of the earth was confirmed. Barnesfield wasn't overweight like Sakfey was. The sheriff was a man who kept himself in shape, but he had a hard look in his eye, which meant he was a real hardnose when it came to his job. Well, I could deal with that. People accuse me of being an unfeeling jerk, just because I stay focused on the business at hand.

I started walking, and Barnesfield kept close by. Looking for some info on the town's situation, I made some small talk. "So, the quarries, huh? What do you dig out, silver?"

"Energen crystals." The sheriff put his hat back on and spat on the ground again. I finally took notice of the color of his saliva. Brown, which meant he was a tobacco chewer. Scratch one against his intelligence. "They found a vein of the stuff back in 2088. This town did pretty well for itself for a while, but most of it's dried out since then. Nowadays, it's mostly the reploids who mine it, digging out the leftovers."

That was always good news. This was a ghost town, or fast on its way to becoming one, and they'd been fighting it off by hiring cheap labor to take on the riskiest job. It wasn't the best conditions to stave off Maverickism. Nobody's really sure why reploids go Maverick, but I've got a hunch, after all the missions I've gone through, that some part of it's gotta be wrapped up in a choice. When you've got nothing in the world but misery, some people just snap.

Maybe that was the case here, too.

I secured my badge in my chest compartment and pulled out my magpistol. "And this Maverick of yours worked in 'em, huh?"

The Sheriff nodded. "Shore 'nough. He used to be one of the supervisors down there. Came into town a lot."

"So people knew him then?" I asked, taking mental notes as we went along.

"Hell, the whole town knew him." The Sheriff admitted. "But I always had a hunch about him. And now he's gone and done this…"

I paused, and turned to look at the sheriff. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could make out the rest of the townsfolk just watching us. Something in their stares seemed off, though. Sure, they were afraid, because Mavericks make people afraid. But they weren't watching me, I finally figured out. They were watching the sheriff…Waiting.

I cleared my throat and stared into his eyes. "So this Maverick killed off that girl Marie, huh? Any provocation? Reason?"

The sheriff's face scrunched tight for a second, as he thought about what to say. It was the way he did it that made me wonder. The feeling didn't last long, and it vanished when he finally spoke. "No. He just showed up into town like usual, and then killed her. Shot her."

I narrowed my eyes. "This Maverick…you reported him as a worker model?"

"Yep. More administration than heavy labor."

"And he shot her?" I asked, plenty dubious about it.

The Sheriff's steely eyes bored a hole into the back of my head. I'd hit a nerve, all right. "Tell you what, Hunter. You can have a look at Marie's corpse down at the hospital later on, if you don't believe me. He shot her. Any fool can pop off a gun, after all…and even if he was a human model reploid, he still went Maverick."

Plenty of things about this whole scene didn't add up. The sheriff was cool as a cucumber, the rest of Rattler's Ridge seemed content to just shut up and watch…It almost seemed kind of rehearsed.

I nodded, and looked to the sheriff. "All right, I'll have to take you up on that offer. For now, though, where can I find this Maverick?"

The sheriff harrumphed, and pointed off down to the south end of town. One building stood out among the squat houses and businesses…an old warehouse. "He's holed himself up in the old Energen depository. I've got my boys ready to move in, but I thought it might be better if we let a professional handle this."

I nodded, and scratched at my snout. "Yeah. I'll take care of it." I looked at the sheriff one last time, and started my walk. I didn't know what I'd find, but I'd be damned if some punk Maverick took me out in the middle of nowhere.

---

Barnesfield was right about having his boys ready to move in. He had three squad cars positioned around the old warehouse, and the deputies all had their weapons trained at doors and windows. None of them seemed to be taking chances. They weren't using magweaponry, but if their Maverick was just an administrative worker drone, the added velocity a magnetic accelerator offered wasn't needed to make their deer slugs hit. If they'd shot that against me, though, it would have just bounced off.

I wasn't about to let them take their chances on the assumption that the Maverick wasn't properly defended. When the Sheriff and I walked into the perimeter, the deputies looked up for guidance.

I hefted my magpistol and nodded to Barnesfield. The old fighter cleared his throat, and then motioned to his men to back off. "Ease off, boys. We're gonna let a gen-yoo-ine Maverick Hunter take care o' our little problem."

Not seeing a reason to say much else to that, I sighed and headed for the door of the warehouse. A jiggle of the handle told me what I'd figured; locked up tight. The Maverick had sealed himself in.

I looked back to the sheriff, a thought causing me some concern. "Say, Sheriff, are there any Energen stores being kept in there right now?"

The sheriff blinked. "Why do you ask?"

I winced. Could he really not know? I didn't think stupid extended that far down. "Listen, if your Maverick has any brains in his head, working with Energen as long as he probably has, he's figured out how to convert it to work like a bomb. I don't need an explosion ruining my day here. So tell me. Do you have any Energen in there or not?"

Barnesfield finally shook his head. "Nope, all clean. We just sent out the last shipment yesterday."

I pulled the slide back on my magpistol to prime the launch capacitor and held my hand down next to the warehouse door's lock. I just hoped the sheriff was right.

"All of you, stay back." I ordered. "If you don't hear from me in five minutes, you call Base 36, got it?"

The Sheriff nodded, and I set to work. A quick blast of liquid nitrogen froze the lock solid; a decent kick shattered it and set the door swinging wide open.

I marched in, my gun trained in the shooter's double grip position. The interior was quiet, but I expected that. His best chance to get a drop on me would be when I let my guard down, and I hadn't lived this long playing a sucker's game. My eyes scanned over all the likely positions: The corners, behind empty shipping crates, up on the second floor in case he still had a weapon and meant to snipe me. None of 'em panned out, though…Because he wasn't in any of those places.

Against all logic, the Maverick was sitting in the middle of the empty Energen depository on an old metal crate with his head in his hands.

I stared at him long and hard, sort of surprised. He had the usual reploid boots, which came part and partial to the assembly line, but he didn't have on any armor. Outside of his endoskeletal chassis, he just had on miner's coveralls and synthskin. Bright green hair, too. A personal touch, maybe, but the report had been right. This was a worker reploid…and a highly humanized humanoid model. Hell, most humanoid reploids at least had minimal body armor. This kid didn't have any. He almost fooled my sensors into thinking he was human for a bit, before a quick thermal scan turned up distinctly non-human temperature readings.

I walked up on him slow, and kept my gun trained. Sure, he looked harmless, but so does a bomb before it goes off. He could snap at any moment and come at me. Even though I kept my guard up, he didn't seem to notice me at all. He just sat there, head in his hands…

Crying, I finally realized when I got close enough to hear the sobs. Well, somehow it didn't seem right to put one in his control chip without staring him in the eyes. I'm funny that way; The others at Base 36 say it's got something to do with a code of honor, but I just never was able to pop a Maverick without letting him know I was there to end his life. This one, especially, was so pathetic, I figured I'd best read him the riot act first to soothe my conscience.

"Freeze, Maverick." I snapped. The nearly silent sobs cut out, and he looked up to me through tear-stained blue eyes. Oh, great. He had a baby face. When it rains, it pours.

He sniffled for a bit, and I got nothing from his eyes besides despair. There was no rage, no anger, no fear. That disturbed me. I'm used to seeing rage out of Mavericks, and fear once they realize they're going to die.

He took one look at the gun in my hand, a closer one at me, and then shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere." He said, accepting his fate. Now that really egged at me. Mavericks didn't curl up and die. They fought like animals, to the bitter end. He let out a strange garbled laugh mixed with a sob. "She's dead."

"Because you killed her." I replied, figuring he meant that girl Marie I'd be reading about in the obits tomorrow.

A flash of anger finally came to his face, and he let out a snarl. "Never!" I blinked in surprise, but kept my gun steady and level. He calmed down after that, looking hollower than before. "I could…never…Not Marie. I didn't. They did."

This whole situation just wasn't sitting right with me now. A town not acting the way one usually does after a Maverick attack, and a Maverick who would probably kill himself if he had a razor sharp enough to slash his wrists with?

The Maverick looked back down to the floor, and for a brief moment, I thought I felt something for him. Sympathy, maybe…but for what reason, I didn't know.

"It...doesn't matter anymore. Nobody would believe me. Nobody...would believe a reploid's word. So kill me. I'm a Maverick, after all...and that's why you're here. To hunt a Maverick."

I lifted a hand up away from my magpistol, and the tiny micro-generators in my fingers began to create a supercooled blast of condensed nitrogen frost that would turn him into a frozen corpse on contact. "Kill me." He begged. "There's nothing for me here...but maybe I'll find her in the next world."

Mavericks deserve no explanation. Far be it from me to not perform my duties. The action was clear. He had admitted he was Maverick, and a girl was dead because of him. It didn't take long at all. A second, maybe a second and a half of a full blast exposure coated him from head to toe in ice. His overloaded systems began to power down, and I raised my gun up and pointed it at his temple. The last step of taking out a Maverick…destroying his control chip, so he can never come back.

One single bullet shattered his mind and body into a collapsing array of frozen metal flakes. Another Maverick dead. Just another unnamed Maverick.

I left the building, and Barnesfield and his men swarmed me, slapping my shoulders, hooting like I'd run a touchdown, praising me. I'm not above a little praise here and there, but somehow this time it didn't sit right. Hearing that you've saved a town from a dangerous Maverick just doesn't carry the same weight when the Maverick was blubbering like a basket case and didn't put up a fight. His words stuck with me the most, afterwards, and I ignored the droning voices of the rest.

Something about this town didn't add up, and after I'd been escorted to the middle of town to suffer more meaningless praise, I came to a decision.

"Hang on a second." I announced to those around me. They fell silent as I hit my communicator. "Base 36, this is Glacier, you copy?"

"Glacier, Base 36. State your condition, over."

"The Maverick's been neutralized. I'm going to spend some time around here, though."

The operator laughed. "Yeah, we heard Sakfey told you it was an extended mission or the door. You take care of yourself, Glay. We'll be here when you get back."

I clicked the comm off, and noticed that the sheriff was giving me an odd look. "You're staying?" He asked. "But…why? You took care of the Maverick for us."

I shrugged. "Standard procedure, sir. It goes with the paperwork. I have to try and figure out why he went rogue." It was what I planned on doing, but it definitely wasn't standard procedure. I was glad that my communicator could only be heard by me, since the last thing I needed was the sheriff second-guessing me. "So I'll be around for a while, collecting eyewitness accounts, that sort of thing." I ran my eyes over the crowd. "Can I assume that you'll all be willing to help me compile the data for my mission report?"

The townspeople all blinked and stared at each other unsurely, and the sheriff finally cleared his throat, sweeping off his hat to rub at his short-trimmed hair. A military cut, I noticed.

"Of course, Hunter. Whatever you need, you'll get from us." The sheriff reassured me. I watched him look around with a stern gaze at the others. "Isn't that right, folks?"

Hesitant mumbles of agreement echoed out, and the sheriff looked back to me with a smile. "Shouldn't take you too long." He added.

"What's the hurry?" I asked jokingly…even though I meant it seriously. "Trying to get rid of me?"

The sheriff blinked, and offered an uneasy return smile. "Naw, that's not it." He fumbled. "I just…Well, I…I figure you got better things to be doing than hanging around old Rattler's Ridge."

I recall smirking then, and staring around at this tiny little outpost in the desert. "Well, I don't know." I drawled. "This place is starting to grow on me. Hey, mind if I head down to the hospital to examine that girl's corpse?"

The sheriff blinked, then nodded when he remembered his earlier promise. "Yep, I think we can do that."

---

The hospital had a good hospital stink; that mix of baby powder and industrial grade bleach cleaner that just soaks into everything. Coming out of the heat of the day, the air conditioning hit me like a wave of new life. I may be a reploid, but even reploids can pick up on temperature…and I'm still more used to a colder climate.

Sheriff Barnesfield walked me through the corridors toward a part of the building that hung off to the side. "We keep the morgue mostly out of view. People get enough morbidity in the news."

I grunted noncommittally and kept walking. My response obviously wasn't the one he wanted, because he kept talking. "Marie was a good girl. Damn shame what happened."

"Death happens." I replied, having heard the same sob story from better and more straightforward people than this cop plenty of times before. "It's how you deal with it that matters."

We walked through a set of swinging double doors and found ourselves in a dimly lit room with a few gurneys and two examining tables. There wasn't much of a cooler, by the looks of it; enough to store two, maybe three corpses, but that was it. Only one body was in the morgue, and the mortician on call seemed surprised to see anybody visiting. He was at his desk, playing solitaire on his computer. That program's more than a century old, and people still dick around at the office with it.

The fellow came up to his feet quick, shutting his screen down and looking nervously between the two of us. He started fiddling with his glasses. "Uhh, Sheriff? What are you doing down here? And who's this other fellow?"

The sheriff nodded. "This is Glacier, from the Maverick Hunters. He took out Marie's killer just now. Glacier, this here's Doc Severensen. Doc, Glacier came down to once-over Marie."

"Miss Portland?" Dr. Severensen glanced over to the body momentarily, and then up at me. "Why?"

"Standard procedure, sir." I came back, doing my best to sound as monotone as possible. "You know how bureaucracies are. The Hunter organization is under the control of the GDC, and they are awful Goddamn picky about having things in triplicate. I just need to confirm the cause of death."

The mortician adjusted his glasses, and then shrugged. "Well, all right. You're welcome to take a peek, but there's not much to see." He looked over to the sheriff. "Need anything else, Walt?"

Sheriff Barnesfield let out a snort and shook his head. "Well, I figured I'd stick around for a while. I got nothing better going on."

I didn't look back to the sheriff, but underneath that even tone of his, I caught the shift. He meant to keep an eye on me for some reason…did he not trust me instinctively, or was there something going on he didn't want me to find out?

The radio on his shoulder crackled to life. "Sheriff, we've got a report of a car wreck five miles outside of town. Looks like those damn Flaherty boys got into the hooch and went for a joyride."

The Sheriff let out an exhausted groan. "Goddamn kids." He muttered. "I'd be too lucky if they finally died this time." He hit his radio. "Damnit, Johnson, didn't you confiscate their driver's licenses after that last OWI?"

"We did, sir."

"Well, then that's another charge you can tack on to their list! Operating without a valid license!"

"Sir, we could really use you down here!"

The Sheriff, looking plenty irritated, shot a glance at me, Marie's body, and the mortician, in that order. He hit his radio. "Damnit, can't you manage without me? What do I pay you for?"

"Sir, I'd really feel better if you were here!"

The Sheriff groaned. "Fine. FINE. I'm on my way. Keep your damn shirt on." He glanced over at me, and rolled his eyes. "Don't stick around in here too long. I figure Doc's gone crazy, sniffing all the Formaldehyde."

I thought about reminding him that reploids couldn't be poisoned by smelling formaldehyde, but thought better of it. I'd gotten the message loud and clear, and didn't want to press him into becoming more paranoid than he was. He didn't want me here, and he really didn't like the idea of leaving me here unsupervised.

Right then and there, I decided that the sheriff was hiding the truth from me, and if I wanted real answers, I was going to have to do my investigating off his radar. I didn't think of myself as the sneaky type, but there was always a time to learn.

I nodded to Sheriff Barnesfield and watched him leave, then looked back to Doc Severensen. "All right, let's see the body."

He nodded, unfazed by the Sheriff's antics, and looking a bit flighty to begin with. I got the impression he didn't get out of the office much. "Right this way." He answered, and walked me to the body.

"You called her Miss Portland earlier?" I asked, to start off the grisly conversation. He threw the sheet covering her body back and grunted.

"Yeah. Miss Marie Portland. Her father owns the mining operation outside of town."

That hit a lightbulb for me. That Maverick had worked in the Energen mines. I gave her body the once-over. A couple of bullet holes through her chest. Decent rack, long brown hair, pretty little thing for a human. Too bad she was dead. I didn't want to meet the guy who'd still go for her now.

"A terrible shame." The mortician sighed. "Took two rounds. One through the heart, the other through a lung. Died quick, thankfully."

I nodded, and examined the bullet wounds. Zoomed in on it. Entry wounds indicated…

".45 caliber?" I asked. The mortician blinked, then nodded with a soft laugh.

"Why, that's right! I haven't even pulled them out yet. Did you figure that out just by looking at her?"

"Looking at the holes in her." I clarified. Measuring mentally was one of those little skills I'd gotten pretty decent at in my job. Knowing the range between me and the Maverick with a beam saber in his hand was sometimes the difference between living and dying.

Then something else hit me as I was poking my finger into the wound above her heart. The blood on her had dried. Gone cold and dull, dull red. I blinked, checked my internal chronometer. It was still only 9:52 A.M. Mountain Time.

I'm not one of those criminal biologists who can tell you what size condom a perp wore in real life, but after as many months on the force as I've spent hunting Mavericks and sizing up their carnage, I've learned a trick here or there. One trick I'd learned for sure was estimating time of death on corpses.

Captain Sakfey had called me into his office barely an hour ago. Since then, I'd warped here, done in the Maverick, and walked with the Sheriff to the hospital. Sakfey had told me that the call had been made in the morning, but even if they'd called in at four or five A.M, that still didn't add up.

I set my hand over the bullet hole between her breasts, and used my hand's sensors to get a reading. A dead body loses heat gradually before going to room temperature. Process takes a while.

Marie Portland wasn't as warm as she should have been, if she'd just died a couple of hours before.

Dr. Severensen coughed loudly, and I looked over to him and pulled my hand back. "Something wrong?" I asked, grateful I could mask my inner turmoil with an icy mask.

The mortician just frowned at me. "Is it apropos for a Hunter to go molesting a dead body?"

"Not molesting her, Doc. Just taking a reading." I replied. I made it a point to stare over at the clock on the wall. "What was the official time of death?"

He blinked a few times, then moved down to her legs and checked the toe tag he'd tied around her foot. "Time of death was 7:58 A.M. this morning. Why do you ask?"

The man seemed clueless as to the nature of his own profession. That was another notch in my general meter of unease. There was something going on here, and I wasn't getting the whole picture. And that pissed me off.

I cracked my knuckles and nodded to him. "Just getting the facts for my report." A thought clicked in my head, and I acted on it. "Do you happen to have her clothes, personal effects?"

"Well, yes, but why would you need to see those?" The mortician asked. "We usually only release those to family members."

"Motive, Doc." My voice was ice cold. "I've got to figure out why your Maverick wanted to kill her. Maybe there's something she had on her that can help me figure it out."

He hesitated. "Well, I don't know…I'm not sure if that's entirely legal…"

I shrugged. "Tell you what. How about I call up the GDC, and they can send down a few of their military investigators. I could use the help, and they're pretty well versed in international government policy when it comes to murders."

It was an idle threat, but he didn't know it. Bastard fell for it like a fish on peanut butter. Doc Severensen went as white as a sheet, and nodded. "N…No, no, that's not necessary. Here, let me just go get her things for you." It was a good thing he turned and scurried off into a side room. It gave me time to grin and then hide it before he came back.

He dumped a plastic bin on the other operating table and waved his hand over it. "You're welcome to look, but don't take anything. Her folks will be coming by later today to get her things."

I nodded and waved him off, and the mortician headed back to his machine. I just sifted through things lightly for a while, watching him out of the corner of my eye. The waiting gave me a chance to make out what Marie had kept on her; pink colored wallet, keys, mobile communications device. All pretty basic. Eventually, Doc Severensen got tired of fiddling with reports, and opened up his solitaire program again. Jackpot for me. Gotta love the human mind for that. As soon as he was thirty mouse clicks in, I had a closer look.

A quick run-through of her mobile device turned up numbers for her family members, her house, and a few people…Diane, Tim, Gregory, Laura…I figured were schoolmates. I logged the numbers into my comm for future reference anyhow, and downloaded her text logs for good measure. I put it back in the bin, just before Doc Severensen looked over to check on me. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary, outside of me peeking at her phone very casually and then putting it aside. I decided not to risk a second glance at it.

There was nothing special about her keys. Car key, house key, a few smaller ones for other devices, probably. I didn't expect to find much in her wallet, outside of the obvious stuff. A money transfer card with a few credits on it, license, old school ID, and some business cards.

I was just about to put the wallet back and treat her stuff as a dead end when my finger ran over a crease in the synthetic leather. I thought it had been a crease…turned out to be a small pocket that had been cut in the inside of it. Carefully, using the thin ends of my claws, I removed a folded slip of paper that had been kept inside. Looked glossy. I unfolded it slowly, making sure to keep my massive paw held up along with the wallet to hide it.

It was a dinky little photo, the same size as her fund transfer card. The kind they sold you in carnival booths. Marie Portland was in that shot, smiling wide, and her hands formed a pair of rabbit ears over the other occupant of that fated photo booth. Her being in the photo didn't surprise me.

Seeing the face of the green-haired Maverick I'd dusted not twenty minutes before, though, smiling broadly beside her and looking all the world like her dearest friend…

That hit me like a Landchaser in dash mode. I looked up again, saw the mortician looking over at me. He wasn't too pleased, and I figured I'd worn out my welcome.

"Find what you need?" He asked.

I shook my head and brought my other hand up, making exaggerated motions of closing her wallet, holding it up between thumb and forefinger, and then putting it back into the bin. "No. I didn't find anything linking the Maverick to her." I replied, lying outright for the first time since I'd shown up. They say robots can't lie. I thank Christ reploids are the exception to that rule. My sleight of hand worked. He watched me drop her wallet back with her other stuff. He didn't see me palm the hidden photo, or fold it up before freezing it between my pinky and ring finger.

I pushed the bin away from myself and nodded respectfully to the doctor. "Thanks, anyhow." He grunted and waved me off, then went back to his game. Nice to know he was one of those motivated people.

I left the hospital with more questions than answers. I knew one thing, though…I had to keep my investigation quiet for the moment. As far as Rattler's Ridge was concerned, I was just tying up loose ends before heading out. Once outside, I slipped the picture of Marie Portland and the Maverick into my chest compartment, faking a look at my badge to hide my action. Shit. I'd taken this job on the Chief's orders, to try and get some relaxation in me. Instead, I was ending up more on edge and paranoid than when I came in.

---

A quick look around guided me towards one of the village's local dives. A real hole in the wall diner, the place that has character and where you don't ask if they washed their hands before cooking your burger. Stepping inside, I heard all the conversation and chatter cut out. Naturally. I was the center of attention in Rattler's Ridge today. Of course they'd be watching. Even though I wasn't the sort who needed clothing, all of those stares left me feeling kind of naked. Maybe when I got back to Colorado, I'd spend some of my cash on a coat or something.

My time in the morgue had rattled me enough I was still shaking inside my head. Outside, I was the icy hound everybody expected. I needed something to calm me down, so I headed to the counter and leaned in between two older gents who were working their way through waffles and eggs.

The waitress came over to me with a pad and pencil. "What'll it be, hon?"

"Coffee. Black as sin, if you've got it." I answered smoothly. She went to the back counter for a second, then came back with a ceramic mug and a pot still plenty fresh. It poured out, slow and thick, and if I had an actual stomach at the bottom of my throat instead of a port to my microfusion generator, it probably would have screamed at the sight. This wasn't coffee, it was caffeinated sludge.

"Here you are, sweetheart." She finished pouring and pushed the mug towards me.

"Thanks, mom." I replied, picking it up and draining half the glass without blinking. It was a psychological thing, drinking coffee, but the little things help out here and there.

She was a ripe old gal in her mid-forties. Her red hair was more frizz than form, and the crow's feet were pretty deep, but she had a lot of spunk. Something I've found since 2118 was that most waitresses that old have spirit to burn. According to her nametag, which I read by glancing over the rim of my coffee mug, she went by Rosa.

Rosa set a hand to her waist and stared at me. "You're that Maverick Hunter, aincha? The one that took out that Maverick earlier?"

I set the mug down and wiped a dribble from my snout. "So they tell me." I replied, flashing her my metallic canines. Something about my teeth helps to measure people. The ones who aren't scared are the ones I like. Rosa just smirked at my show of bravado. I liked her. "It's not bad java, Rosa. Make it yourself?"

"Most people can't drink it that strong. I guess it's wasted on you."

I shook my head. "Oh, I can taste it. It just doesn't make me fat."

The café broke into some light chortles from the joke, and Rosa beamed from ear to ear. "Ain't that a trick? I tell you, some days I wish I could do that."

"What, you?" I countered, buttering her up some more. "You're looking pretty good, I think. How old are you? Thirty? Thirty-two?"

One of the men farther down the lunch counter laughed, nearly spitting up his pancakes. "Ain't that a laugh!"

Rosa gave him a sharp stare that would have incinerated a chunk of TitaniTefloAlloy. "I don't think you've got much room to talk, Herb." She walked over to him and flicked a finger at the top of his head, and his hair went flying to the ground. "At least I don't need to go wearin' a toupee."

The room busted out laughing again, and I drank some more coffee to hide my smile. Rosa took her sweet time coming back to me, but had another question. Her directness might be hiding her true feelings, but it was still refreshing in Rattler's Ridge. "So, they say you're sticking in town for a while…working on a report?"

I set the coffee mug down and motioned for a refill. While she was busy pouring, I gave her her answer. "That's right. I'm trying to figure out the motive this Maverick had for killing Miss Marie Portland."

"Motive?" One of the patrons down in a booth at the far end of the diner exhorted. "He was a stinkin' Maverick, he didn't need no motive! She was there, and he shot her!"

I turned and looked at the man. "You were there when it happened, then?"

My abrupt shift of focus caught him off his guard and silenced the hecklers in the diner. I was putting off a very cold vibe, and it had shut 'em down. The man turned a few shades paler, stammered a bit, then finally shook his head to clear it. "No, I wasn't…but that's what I heard, anyway."

"Well, when we start writing reports based on hearsay instead of eyewitness accounts, I'll know who to come to." I replied smoothly. The fellow looked away, chastened, and fell silent.

I sat down on the empty barstool between the two men I was squeezed between and faced outwards. Spread my arms out on the counter behind me and made a slow, lazy turn around the inside. "There's one piece of information that the sheriff hasn't provided me with yet that I'll need before I get any deeper." I started, readying myself to spread another little white lie. Investigative work sometimes takes a little creative questioning. "The Hunters still don't know what causes some reploids to go Maverick. We've been collecting names and registration numbers of our targets whenever possible, to see if there's some kind of an origin source to them. Any of you happen to know what this Maverick's call sign was?"

The diners blinked. A few looked away. A few more looked ready to speak, but thought better of it and shut themselves up.

The guy on my left cleared his throat to get my attention, and I looked over at him. The man seemed plenty beat up by life, but he obviously wasn't afraid of whatever else everyone else was. "Well, I don't know his registration number…but back before he turned Mav, he called himself Gregory."

Gregory. That name drove another nail into my head. Gregory had been one of the names on Marie Portland's mobile device. Add that to the picture of them I found in her belongings…This was looking really strange. Gregory had been insistent he hadn't killed her, that 'they' had…And this town seemed all too desperate to leave the whole incident behind them. Hell, maybe Gregory really had snapped. Emotions were sometimes difficult for reploids to handle, after all. Could he have had a mind split?

Mavericks deserve no sympathy. I could feel myself breaking that rule, but somehow…somehow, this one time, I figured I could let it slide.

A mind split could happen. She was the boss's daughter. He was a reploid employee who worked for her father. Maybe they had been friends, and he just split. Part of him liked her, but another part struck out at her. To get back at her father?

That would mean I'd have to get out to the mines. Make an impromptu visit with the other worker reploids there. They'd be able to give me an honest interpretation of conditions. If things were bad, it wouldn't be the first time that a Maverick went postal at his job. Matter of fact, I recalled an old story that Sigma'd picked up Boomer Kuwanger at the New Tokyo Mail Distributing Center…Old Cutterhead had almost singlehandedly stopped a Maverick riot.

A hand touched my shoulder, and I snapped out of my reverie. Rosa was staring at me, confused. "Something wrong, hon? You blanked out there for a second."

"Oh." I mumbled, realizing too late that I might have betrayed my thoughts by dwelling on them. I shook it off and turned back around to the counter, taking another sip of coffee. Used the time to think of an excuse. Had to be a good one…

I put the mug back down and shrugged. "I was just thinking, Gregory's sure an odd name for a reploid. It's a human name."

"That punk sure as Hell thought he was human." The fellow on my right muttered, something like wrath burning in his words. "Got his in the end."

I stored that nugget away for later too, and drank my black sludge. At this point, I didn't know what to think about the Maverick named Gregory. What I needed was a few hundred second opinions.

---

It took a lot of finagling and talking Captain Sakfey's ear off before the old bastard finally caved in and warped me a Landchaser. I'm not a fan of teleporting, but riding around on a crotch rocket repulsorbike like the Landchaser might almost be compared to a religious experience. Out here in the Arizona desert, especially, there was nothing but open land between me and wherever I wanted to go. I figured the best place to start a search on this Gregory would be with the place where he used to work. The drive out, which didn't take long at all, still gave me the time to do some serious thinking without having to worry about what the town thought of me.

Gregory'd just been another Maverick. Sure, there were a lot of details about the case that were fuzzy, and sure, I was getting a pretty offbeat vibe from Rattler's Ridge, but it wasn't my business. I was just a regional Maverick Hunter. I came here, I took out the Maverick. That should have been it. The Chief had wanted me to relax, and the more I thought about it, the more appealing the notion sounded. It would have been easy to just turn the bike southwest and head for Baja, where the sand was warm and the parties were smoking.

That pleasant dream got blasted to Hell the moment I recalled Gregory's face before I killed him.

The kid had wanted to die. He'd had nothing left. Nothing to live for. Nothing to even fight for.

That was the trick. Mavericks always had something to fight for; themselves. I'd never met a Maverick who laid their own head on the chopping block. Maybe he really had been a Maverick, and my gut instinct, which was twisting my insides into knots, was all wrong. But even if that was the case, something nagged at me, with a none too subtle scream that I owed Gregory somehow…And the least I could do was get the whole story.

Hell. I gunned the engine harder and leaned into the wind. Maybe I wasn't doing this for Greg's sake at all. Maybe my conscience had finally been rattled hard enough that I really was in danger of a nervous breakdown. It might be, I thought, that I was doing this for my own sake all along.

---

In my youth, I'd been made to work for a company up in the northern stretches of Canada that mined Energen crystals. Energen was one of those miracle substances; it carried a natural charge of its own, but with the right processing, the lattices could store additional power from other sources. Earth had a pretty strong craving for the stuff, and I'd been in this boat once myself. If it hadn't had been for the GDC establishing more regional Maverick Hunter bases to ease the strain, I would have probably still been flogging my circuits out dragging the power mineral out of the ground up there in the frozen tundra.

I parked my Landchaser next to the entrance to the mines, and made it a point to avoid the administrative building. The Sheriff had told the town to cooperate with me. He probably hadn't meant it in those exact words, but I figured I could claim an innocent carte blanche if the suits got huffy about me poking around. I made a mental note to come back out and check their records later on, but for right now, I was looking more specifically for intel on Gregory's mindset and personality. Those aren't the kinds of things you can get by reading someone's permanent records.

Inside the tunnels, I felt an old and nearly forgotten life start to come back to me. The mining operation here was smaller than the one I'd been a part of, but too much of it was still the same. Chunks of ore still got torn out of the walls, dumped in carts and rolled off to a conveyer, where it then got tracked off to machines that sorted through the rubble and knocked debris away from the precious Energen. The darkness of it, and the hollow ringing sounds…

I had to shake myself to break free of it. I found that my hands were shaking. Guess I'd hated the miner's life more than I remembered. Baja was seriously tickling my fancy. I held it off, though. I still had a job to do, even if it was just for a ghost.

I made my way to the back of the mines, in the newest tunnels. Here, the other reploids were keeping an even pace, and chatting with each other freely. Given their vocabulary, they'd been shortchanged on the basic communications and etiquette programming.

"So I says to Vern, I says," A portly gorilla reploid in orange armor remarked to the rest of his team, "Ya might as well go home and rent that new Dick Drake flick, because that's the most action you're gonna see tonight, buddy!"

The crude remark won guffaws from his fellows, and I took the moment to walk in and make my appearance. I guess I'd sneaked in more quietly than I realized, because the ones on the outside edge let out a startled noise and jumped away from me.

The massive simian reploid blinked and turned to look at me. He hefted his pickaxe over his shoulder and snorted. "Well, looky what we got here, boys. A little wolf, who got lost in the wrong tunnel." His posse laughed again, but with slightly less gusto. I could turn on the charm when I wanted, and I could take it away just as easily.

I opened my chest compartment, reached inside, and dragged out my badge. "The name's Glacier. Maverick Hunter, Base 36."

"Fuckin' Hell, a Maverick Hunter?" The simian shouted, all bravado lost. He looked fearfully at me. "Listen, mac, I don't want no trouble. I does what they tell me, all right? I don't know what they've been tellin yas, but anything I say around here, it's just harmless banter, right fellas?" He won himself a few halfhearted nods of agreement, but little else. Something else I was used to. Bring a Maverick Hunter into a situation with a bunch of uneducated reploids, their first reaction is that one of them's under suspicion of being Maverick. I hate that idea. We're not secret police. We're law enforcement, trying to keep the world from going to Hell.

"Relax, Tarzan." I answered him, putting the badge back away. I touched the picture briefly, just long enough to make sure it was still there. "I'm not here on account of you. I just came in to ask you boys some questions. What's your name, for starters?"

The gorilla reploid looked immensely relieved, and smiled. "Well, they call me Digger."

I couldn't help the smile that time. They called me Glacier, and they called him Digger. Humans sure aren't too imaginative some days. "All right, Digger, it's good to meet you. You been in town yet today?"

"Has I been in town today, he asks me." Digger snorted, turning back to the wall and readying his pickaxe again. "Hey boys, any of youses been into Rattler's Ridge lately?"

"Hell, no!" Came the near unanimous response.

Digger rubbed a hand on his chest. "Naw, they keep us pretty busy up here. Round the clock and all that. There ain't that much Energen to be had, but the owner, he keeps sayin there's a vein hasn't been discovered yet, soes he keeps us diggin. Sixteen hour shifts most days, with eight to crash. And a day off? Last one I had was…Hell, a month ago? Walked into town, had myself a ham sammitch just to see what all the hubbub was about. Didn't taste too bad, but didn't see the point in goin' back again."

"Why not?" I asked, tapping my claws on my elbow.

Digger looked at me solemnly. "The people in Rattler's Ridge…I get the feeling they don't like our kind all that much, ya know? It's the way they look at ya, kind of like a mix between you're not even there, and they don't want ya there."

"That's not all that uncommon." I pointed out. "I've seen a lot of places, towns, cities bigger than Rattler's Ridge where the sentiment's the same. Mavericks make life Hell for our kind. That's why I'm here, actually. A Maverick killed a girl in town."

Digger blinked. "Ya shittin' me? A Maverick? Here in Rattler's Ridge? Aw, that's bullshit."

"He worked here." I added calmly, looking over the assembled mining team for any unusual reaction. "His name was Gregory."

What I got was a bunch of blank stares, and then uneasy laughter. Digger shook his head. "Gregory? Friggin Greenie Greg? That doesn't seem right. Who did he kill, supposedly?"

"A young woman. Marie Portland, the owner's daughter?"

Now they frowned at me. I'd hit a nerve. Digger pursed his lips together, looking like he was trying to decide whether to hit me or just walk away. "Nah. Nah, there's no way. No fuckin' way, ya hear? He wouldn't kill her."

"Why not?" I asked, reading a lot out of his tone.

"Four months ago, we hads a cave in while she and her dad were lookin' around the new digs. If it hadn't been for Greenie Greg, that dumb kid woulda gone belly up for sure. He damn near got himself killed keeping the rubble offa her, held up their little pocket in the rubble until we was able to digs 'em out." The simian snorted at me. "And thens, as if that wasn't frigging sank-ti-moan-yus enough, after they patch him up, he stays in the hospital with hers until she's finally well enough to walk out on her own power. We didn't see him as much after that, since Mr. Portland promoted him after that so he'd be in the office more, but Greenie Greg made it a point to come visit us laborin' schmucks every so often and fill us in. Those two were tight, I tell ya. Bestest buddies n' everything. There's no FREAKIN' WAY that he'd go Maverick and kill her."

The story was news to me. Nobody in the town had breathed a word of it. Of course, who was I willing to believe more? Hundreds of people, or a few mentally regressed reploids slogging their guts out in an Energen mine?

It was a start, though. Doors were opening. I just had to keep following the trail.

I gave Digger a respectful nod. "I didn't know all that. Thanks for telling me."

Digger's eyes softened. "You really mean to tell me that Marie's dead?"

"I examined her body in the morgue earlier this morning."

"Shit." Digger muttered, rubbing the top of his head with a dusty hand. "And Greg?"

"…Deactivated." I finally said, and somehow it hurt to say it like that. Unwilling to look at any of them any longer, and wondering if I had cause to feel guilty, I turned and walked out.

"And you killed him, then?" Digger called out after me, rage coming back into his voice. "You came in here from God knows where, and youse blowed his head off like he was some stinking Sigma flunkie?! Yeah, you'd better run, you sorry sonofa…"

I turned the corner and deactivated my auditory sensors.

Didn't feel like hearing the rest.

---

There was a jeep from the administrative building pulled up beside my Landchaser when I came out. A couple of people were poking it over suspiciously. There's only a few things I absolutely can't stand, and somebody messing with my wheels is one of them.

Keeping to a casual pace, I marched over to them. They noticed me when I was twenty-five feet out and turned to watch me. They had that hint of suspicion in their eyes.

"Something I can do for you two?" I asked, walking through them and to my bike. A once-over told me that hadn't messed with anything. That was good for them.

One of them had on a shirt and tie; the other one was gussied up all the way in a suit. The suit looked familiar somehow, but I couldn't place it.

The other fella frowned at me. "Who are you? You don't have permission to go sneaking into our mining operation."

"Actually, I do." I replied, climbing onto my Landchaser. "Glacier, Maverick Hunters. I'm running my investigation on the Maverick I deactivated earlier this morning." I stared back at them. "And you two are?"

The mention of my profession caught them off guard, but didn't cow them into complacency. Oh well. It had just been a matter of time before I would've stumbled across some tough cookies in this town. Sooner than later didn't bother me.

The suit cleared his throat, and spoke in a gravelly voice like he was dropping the hammer of God. "I am Phillip Portland, the owner of this operation. The fellow to my right is Dustin West, our site manager."

"A pleasure." I replied, giving a brief nod to Mr. Portland. "My condolences on your loss."

"Knowing that the Maverick responsible for her fall is dead gives me some measure of solace." He answered back.

I instantly decided that I didn't like Phil Portland one damn bit.

"So what kind of an investigation would bring you out here to the Energen mines?" Mr. Portland asked me, arching his eyebrow.

"I'm tracking down the Maverick's identity…who he was, where he went, where he came from. It goes with the paperwork."

Mr. Portland snorted. "Paperwork? Hell, I just thought you killed 'em and had done with it."

"That would make things easier." I nodded, not really agreeing with him. "Unfortunately, us regional boys get to do our own bookwork. We're a little more short-staffed than the MHHQ. I was hoping you'd let me take a look at your employment records for a while."

He hesitated, and I threw in the punchline I'd been saving. "The sheriff did ask the townsfolk to cooperate."

"I'll bet he did." Mr. Portland replied, gritting his teeth. "All right, you can follow us back to the offices. But in the future, if you want to come out, be sure to check in with us first. Those mines aren't entirely safe, and we have to make sure there aren't any accidents."

The story that Digger had passed along flashed up in my memory. All in all, it made for a rather poor joke. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind." I answered, and started the engine. They headed back to their jeep, and I bided my time. They didn't like me snooping around, but so far, they just saw me as a nosy government agent. I could deal with that.

The truth, that I was a Maverick Hunter trying to justify killing a Maverick…that would have been a harder pill to swallow.

---

Mr. Portland had excused himself shortly after we pulled up to the mining offices, and retreated into his own cave. His right hand man stuck with me, though; watched me like a hawk. He'd inundated me in information and files, and was absolutely no help in sorting through them. He offered me a cup of coffee, but given that I'd gone through some of Rosa's earlier that morning, I wasn't in the mood for more. I think he offered out of feigned politeness. Most reploids don't even bother with food or drink, see it as a waste of time. I only mess with it to put people at ease.

It was closing in on 5:00 by the time I finally made it down to the bottom of the fourth and last file cabinet…and hiding away in the back uncovered Gregory's file.

I picked it up and tapped it with my fingers. "Here we are."

"Are you about done?" Mr. West asked me blithely. "It's getting on closing time."

"Oh, shutting down mining operations for the day, are you?" I asked, opening the cover of the file and peering inside. Here was what I was after. "Well, I'll just get out of your hair then."

"Yeah." West replied, eyeing the folder in my hands. "I'll go ahead and sort everything back into place, and you can try looking tomorrow."

I smiled at him. He must have thought I was some new schmuck off the assembly line. I wasn't, though. I was one of the first generation reploids…The "Eighteens", the unofficial name was, since we were activated in 2118. I'd seen plenty of bait and switches in my time, and this was a poor attempt. I tucked the folder in the crook of my arm and shook my head. "No, I got what I came for. I'll just take this with me and get out of your hair."

That finally set the man off. "But…But that's private company files! You can't just walk off with it!"

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm not stealing it. I just have to borrow it long enough to flesh out my report. You understand, of course. I'll bring it back when I'm done."

I didn't wait long enough to interpret his sputtering, stammering reply. I figured he didn't like it one bit, though. I headed out the door, got on my Landchaser, and set a course for Rattler's Ridge. For the moment, I'd go and secure some lodgings, and then get to work looking over Gregory's employee file.

---

The town's motel had seen better days, but that was true for all of Rattler's Ridge. I didn't need much…just a quiet place to put my head down and get a few recharge cycles in. I made sure to warp my Landchaser back to base when I checked in, since Sakfey got kind of particular when equipment stayed checked out for too long. I walked into my room, locked the door behind me and drew the curtains. I could stand to miss a sunset tonight.

Gregory's file read like an open book. Reploid Registration number was there. He'd come from a factory out on the west coast, in Sacramento. Standard humanoid build, only they'd foregone the usual armor and gone with the more expensive synthskin alone. That was interesting, but not unheard of. Most reploids, they're just built with armor, and that's all they'll ever get from the day they're activated until they die. A smaller number are built without the sturdier chassis…Those are the more interpersonal models. Rarer, but there's a calling for them, especially for rich men who like to flaunt their wealth and get attractive eye candy without the headaches. A very few reploids are built with both synthskin and armor capabilities, but you almost never see them. Too expensive for most factories and companies to justify building, which means almost all of them are custom models.

Gregory, like me, was an off the rack reploid. Activation Date was December 17th, 2119. He'd been less than a year old. To a human, that seems ludicrous…but for us reploids, if you're older than a year, you're considered venerable. If any of us live long enough to make it into the 2130's, and pass a decade, I'll bring the confetti.

He'd been a mistake, apparently; His factory fouled up in the construction process, ended up making him less durable than the contract specs called for. Still, the factory shipped him out to the company he'd been placed into indentured servitude with…the mining operation outside Rattler's Ridge.

According to the file, he'd been "Hired" as a mine worker at the usual pay grade, which was dick. I was used to hearing the story, but it still burned me. Reploids got built, then got shipped off to places to work for obscenely low amounts of money. 150 years ago, humans called that sort of thing sweatshop labor, or slave labor. The only difference between then and now was, since it was reploids and not humans, they didn't bother passing laws making it illegal. We didn't have much of a budget at Base 36, but being a Maverick Hunter, you at least got an honest day's wages. Must have been the hazard pay.

He'd been given a bad performance review on the 12th of January…Wasn't hauling enough ore quick enough, and was getting too banged up doing it. Well, gee, surprise, guess what happens when a reploid isn't designed for that kind of heavy labor? The performance review had an odd tag, though. Even though he was lousy as a worker bee, Gregory'd been a people person. The others listened to him, and he coordinated tasks well.

Out of that lousy performance review, another note next to his job title had appeared on the 13th…

Team Coordinator.

"So, you ended up moving in the ranks?" I mused, as if Gregory could say anything back to me.

And there, in the end of January, I found something else. It corroborated the story Digger had told me.

On January 28th, 2120, Gregory had been promoted to Deputy Director of Employee Operations…a fancy title which probably meant they put him in charge of overseeing the other reploids. There was a note attached to it, tucked under a paperclip. I pulled it out and gave it the once-over. For heroism during the shaft collapse, and loyalty to my family above and beyond the call of duty.

"He was telling the truth." I muttered, and closed the file.

I put the folder aside and went to splash some water in my face. It was a human habit that actually worked pretty well with reploids. I reviewed the facts again.

I'd rubbed out Gregory for being a Maverick. A reploid he'd worked with had told me that the kid had actually saved the life of the girl he was accused of killing. Now, I had evidence that that was true. He had saved her, and he'd been promoted for it. So why would he kill her?

Times like this I really wish I'd taken up smoking. I didn't have a vice, and everybody needed one, supposedly. At least it'd give me something else to do besides staring at myself in the mirror, wondering what rabbit hole I'd just fallen through.

That pondering ended quick when the window to my room shattered. I dove to the ground on instinct, had my gauntlets bared to freeze anything that moved. Outside of a few shards of glass that came slicing through the air, though, nothing was doing. The curtain was flopping around, but seemed weighed down at the bottom.

I made a dash for my door and threw it open, poking my head out just in time to see an old fashioned electric car squeal out of the motel parking lot. I didn't catch a license plate, but it looked like an old beat up sedan…a kid's car. I could have chased after it, but I didn't feel like wasting the dash thruster fuel, and I definitely wasn't willing to risk my life on a hunch. At best, they were hoodlums out raising Hell. At worst…

Well, I didn't want to deal with the worst.

I headed back inside, closed and locked the door behind me, and moved to the window. Down on the floor, keeping the hem of the curtain pinned, a brick with a piece of paper tied around it sat waiting. I tore the paper off the rock and unfolded it.

Reploids go home!

"That's an intelligent threat." I muttered, freezing the paper to dust in my hand with a quick blast of LOX. I'd gotten the message, though.

I was starting to make some people in this town nervous. I could live with that. It would make things harder, though…I still needed answers.

There was some connection between Marie Portland and Gregory that I wasn't picking up on. Friends, after all, didn't go killing friends.

I stuffed Greg's file in my chest compartment for safekeeping and headed out. If I was going to find answers this time of night, there was only one woman who could give them to me.

Hopefully, she still had some sludge warmed up. After getting a rock thrown through your window, you don't exactly feel like sacking out.

---

Evening hit fast, even for May. A ridge of clouds that wouldn't release a drop of rain had overcast in the west and ended out the sun's influence earlier than expected. I passed a few people in the street, and they all shied clear of me. Things had come full circle in Rattler's Ridge. It was nice to know that this was the kind of cooperation I could look forward to.

The diner was dark when I sauntered up to it, and I saw Rosa fiddling with the door's lock outside. She'd tossed on a light jacket to stave off the chill night air of the desert, but I recognized her by her hair.

"Hey, Rosa. Any chance I can get some of that coffee?" I called out, walking up to her. She looked back at me, surprised for a moment, but slipping into an easygoing smile.

"Not tonight, I'm afraid. I just closed the place up. Come by tomorrow morning bright and early, and I'll brew you some." She came back, as chipper as a chipmunk. I've got to hand it to women like Rosa. An all day shift and she still talks tough as nails and soft as velvet.

I shook my head, and stopped a few feet short of her. "Ah, well. There'll be other days. I actually came by to ask you a few things."

"Well, if you're looking for my cobbler recipe, you're out of luck." Rosa replied, lifting an eyebrow. A real piece of work, she was.

"Cobbler can wait. I was actually hoping you could talk to me about Marie…and Gregory."

She seemed surprised. "Why? Didn't you finish your report yet?"

"No. I learned a lot more, but there are some things that don't add up." Rosa looked at me, and then made a slow arc with her eyes. I followed.

Some people across the street had stopped their conversation and were watching us.

Rosa shook her head. "Come on. I need to get back home. My favorite holodrama's going to be on soon. If you can walk and talk, you can come with me for a bit."

I nodded. Rosa came off casual, but I'd been on enough cases to read the strain. She didn't want to talk about it here.

We were a block down, moseying at an easy pace before she signaled the all clear. "All right, Glacier. Shoot."

"I've dug up evidence that Gregory actually saved Marie's life four months ago."

"Yeah, durin' the shaft collapse." Rosa confirmed.

"He got promoted for it, didn't he?"

"It wasn't much of a promotion, but it got him out of the mines a lot more than he'd been before."

"And he and Marie were close?"

Rosa chuckled. "Two peas in a pod, those kids." I laughed at the term, and she looked up at me. "I say something funny?"

"Sorry." I apologized quickly. "It's just…well, I realize that for a reploid, he was a kid, but it's weird hearing it like that."

She arched an eyebrow. "Probably weirder calling a Maverick by his given name too, I'd think." It was, actually, but I didn't want to admit it. "But yeah. They were close after that. They'd go places, do stuff together. She showed him how to play catch once."

"Like baseball, play catch?"

"Yeah, exactly." Rosa shook her head. "For a while, the townsfolk didn't know what to make of it. They laughed at first, figured she was just being polite to the reploid who saved her life. Of course, when they kept hanging out, the laughing stopped."

"I can see that happening." I answered, recalling the brick through my motel window. "What all did they do that made people unhappy?"

"Oh, she started coming to visit him over her dad's lunch break, they'd go and catch a movie together, or go walking around town cracking jokes."

"Shucks, next you're going to tell me that they painted her house together." I drawled, trying to inject some humor. Rosa just gave me a funny look and shook her head, all disapproving.

"Most people around here are pretty old fashioned, Glacier. Humans can work with reploids, but spending leisure time with them? Pretty unheard of."

"I get the feeling there aren't a lot of people around here who like reploids." I ventured slowly.

Rosa nodded. "Time used to be that the folks around here had plenty of work in the Energen mine. Then it dried up, got to be too dangerous for human workers. Now that we've got a reploid workforce digging new tunnels, the people that got laid off don't exactly find much to celebrate, when the company's getting money still, and the town's still dying out."

The old plight of migrant workers and local workers all over again. The more things change, I told myself…

She cleared her throat. "Did that help, or was there anything else?"

"Just one thing." I asked finally. "If they were such good friends, what would cause him to kill her?"

"He went Maverick." Rosa answered.

"Bullshit. Reploids go Maverick for a reason."

"Oh, really? It doesn't just happen out of the blue?" Rosa replied questioningly. I didn't have a good answer, and she stopped outside an apartment building. "Well, whatever. That's one question I don't have an answer, or gossip to, even. And this is my stop. You take care of yourself, you hear?"

"Right." I nodded. "I'll catch you in the morning, all right?"

She gave me a wave and a wink, and disappeared inside the apartment door. I turned and started to walk down the street…barely made it half a block before a police cruiser turned the corner and pulled up beside me.

I waited as Sheriff Barnesfield leaned out of his car and looked up at me. He tipped his hat, and I nodded in return.

"Still stickin' around in town, I see." He observed.

"Yup. Still working on my report." I shot back. "How was that car wreck earlier today?"

He grimaced at the subject change, but recovered fast. "Aah, just some kids being stupid. One of 'em's got a busted arm, now."

I smiled. "Maybe he'll learn not to do it again next time." I felt like saying something about Darwinian theory and stupid people getting themselves killed to remove inferior genetic stock from the breeding pool…but that kind of talk coming out of a reploid swings awfully close to Maverick dogma, and I was on pins and needles already with the sheriff. I didn't need more trouble.

"I doubt it." The sheriff grumbled. He looked me square in the eye. "Mr. Portland tells me you made a little visit out to his mine this afternoon."

"Since it was where Gregory worked before, I figured it would be the best place to pick up some information."

"Yeah." He lingered, and I wondered if he was going to get on my case for walking in the mine and talking to the other workers. He didn't broach that subject, though. "I also heard that you walked off with the Maverick's permanent record…now, you realize that's company property, don't you?"

I shrugged. "It was necessary for my investigation…tracing information as to his origins, you understand."

"Oh, sure, sure." He leaned out a bit farther, gave me a crocodile smile. "Thing is, Mr. Portland says you left quite a mess in the office, and he'd kind of like to have the file back so he can put things back in order." He held out his hand. "Asked me to get it back from you personally. You are done with it, right?"

I chewed the inside of my jaw, but nodded. "Yeah. I got what I needed from it." I turned around and pulled it out of my chest compartment, then closed the door before he could lean around and catch sight of the photograph I'd taken from Marie's belongings. I slapped the folder in his hand and looked at him grimly. "There."

The sheriff put the folder on the passenger seat and nodded. "It sure was nice and all for you to take care of that Maverick for us, son, but now you're just starting to make people nervous around here. I've got some people asking me if there aren't more Mavericks around here yet."

I shook my head. "Just the one, I'm pretty sure."

"Good." He nodded again. "Good, good. Well, if you could just shuffle off back to…whatever base you came from, as soon as you can, you'd save me a load of headaches from concerned phone calls."

"I'll take it under advisement." I answered, as calm as ever. "I won't stay any longer than I need to."

"Good to hear, son." He yawned and started to lean back inside his car. "Well, I guess I'd best leave you to it, then."

"Oh. Sheriff, before you go, there is one other thing I'd like to ask you…"

He paused and looked back at me. "What'd that be?"

"Earlier tonight, somebody in a beat up old sedan threw a brick through my motel window. Think you could look into that?"

He smiled waspishly. "Aah. Probably just boys being boys, trying to make a name for themselves by scaring the Maverick Hunter. Nothing you need to worry about, I'm sure."

"I'm sure." I replied dryly, and watched him drive off into the night. I didn't expect him to be much help on that last part, but the question gave me an entirely different answer. The sheriff dropped another notch lower on my respect stick.

No, the trail was running cold, and the only way to dig up the missing links would be to talk to the dead. Of course, that was impossible, unless…

Inspiration hit me, and I started walking down the street again. I keyed up my communicator and opened the line. "Base, this is Glacier. Copy?"

"Glacier, Base 36 here. Something wrong?"

"Negative. But I need you to look up an address for me…"

---

863 Applewood Lane

The Portland Residence

9:24 P.M.

It was quiet for the most part inside the house when I showed up unannounced. A look through the window told me all I needed to know. Mr. Portland, the mine owner was sitting at his computer, typing away with a grim expression on his face, and oblivious to anything else. I could hear a stereo playing country music.

I hate country music.

With nothing to see there, I skated around the side of the house and kept myself low, putting the bushes between me and their home. When I'd finally convinced myself that there wasn't anyone on the first floor, I put my claws and boots to work and clambered up the side of the house. It was tough going, since I had to keep quiet, but I managed to make it work.

Of all the places I could have been, the Portland household was probably a dumb spot to be in. I needed answers, though, and that overruled common sense…for the moment.

The second floor seemed like it belonged. This was a family home, the kind that some humans still loved to reminisce fondly about between rounds at the bar and talks about how the world's going to pot. I saw a woman Portland's age…the mother, most likely…crying her eyes out in her bedroom with the lights out. Times like this I was glad for my infrared sensitive optics. A walk around on the roof finally got me to a window of a smaller room with decorations a lot more frilly than the rest of the house.

If it looks like a girl's room and feels like a girl's room…

I dropped myself down from the roof and hung on by one hand, staring at the window. They'd locked it. That would make getting inside hard, especially since I'd set a goal not to be found out. If I had come up to the front door and asked to come in, I would have gotten the cold shoulder. Subterfuge being my only route, I found myself wondering whether or not it was worth the trouble to try and cut through the glass. My claws were sharp enough, I was sure…but that'd mean leaving a hole I didn't want there. Sure, I could have iced it over perfectly, but this was Arizona. Ice melts after a while, and the hole would still be there.

I felt a lump in my throat drop down to the pit of my microfusion reactor when the answer hit me. There are days that I learn to hate my intuition.

The easiest way in, of course, was to warp. As much as I hated it. I shut my eyes, and concentrated on it. It would be a short hop. I'd barely feel it. I'd barely move at all. Just about two feet would be all.

I felt it. Came out shaking like a leaf on the other side, glad as Hell when my feet touched solid floorboard. A couple of seconds to steady my breathing and even out the power fluctuations, and I started to feel like myself again.

It wasn't spotless. Marie Portland's place had a lived in feeling. Nothing around it, though, screamed of any connection that might cause Gregory to off her. She had a few pictures around the wall. Most of them were of her family out on trips, visiting places. There were a few more of some other youngsters; classmates, probably. There wasn't a picture anywhere of Gregory, though. I dug into my chest compartment and brought out the snapshot I'd lifted from her wallet, and took another look at it.

There they were, smiling and getting along like partners in crime. I stood there, feeling sorry for myself before a notion hit me.

Depending on where this was taken…she might have talked about it.

I sifted through her desk drawers…nothing there. But when I got to her computer, I found the thing hibernating. A quick powerup brought me to her desktop, and a glance around showed a few folders of music, a photo gallery, a few game programs…

And what I was looking for. An electronic diary. I tapped the screen to open it up, and it asked for a password.

I smiled to myself and reached into my chest compartment. Little girls may have secrets from their parents, but they can't keep them from me. Even though it wasn't exactly standard issue, I kept a password crack module with me, courtesy of a Maverick I'd deactivated a few months back. Once it was plugged into Marie's computer, her password protection gave up the ghost in a few blinks.

The diary program had a nice little interface. It displayed a calendar, and the days that had entries flashed a green star. For the Hell of it, I opened the first entry she'd written after the mining accident in January.

I'm finally home again after the cave-in. I don't know what I would have done without Gregory. He kept me alive, holding up the rubble all by himself. While I was in the hospital, he kept me company, helped me when I had nightmares about the mine again. He may be a reploid…but I think Gregory may be my very best friend.

I sat back and nodded at that. It was the truth there. All the evidence and testimonials pointed to that friendship. But where did things start to go wrong? I skimmed through her entries after that, watching for other mentions of my Maverick's name. I found another one, dated in late April that had more than a sentence about him.

Gregory and I went to the carnival in Phoenix today. It was so wonderful! I gave him a set of holographic emitters for his boots, and he looked perfectly human. Nobody looked at him funny or anything. We tried all the rides. I loved the Roller Coaster, but I think Greg liked the train around the park a little bit better. He even tried his first funnel cake…He loved it, even if I did sneeze powdered sugar all over his face. We took a few snapshots of ourselves. I gave him the set, but he cut one off for me. He said something after that, though…something that made me start to wonder. He asked me why, after all these months, I still spent time with him. I didn't have an answer, and we moved on after that, but it does make me think…Maybe he's become somebody special to me. If that's the case…Is it right? Can I actually be in love with Gregory?

Of all the things she could have written, that last sentence was the one I'd never expected to see.

"Love?" I muttered softly. It could happen, sure. Her experiences lent themselves towards Florence Nightengale Syndrome, falling in love with your caretaker…But with a reploid?

Too dazed to figure it out any further, I flipped the program over to her last entry. It didn't add up before, and this mess wasn't making much more sense now. Why would a reploid like Gregory, who seemingly had everything going for him in life, go Maverick and kill a girl who was falling in love with him? A month would have passed between that last explosive entry and the one I was about to read. Maybe she'd told him. Maybe it had caused him to snap. Maybe things had gone wrong.

But…When I'd accused Gregory, he snapped at me with more fire than he'd had anywhere else. He'd said he could never hurt her.

Hell, he didn't even have a gun on him, and Marie died by a few .45 caliber slugs.

I opened up the last entry and read it.

I'm going to Gregory's house tonight. He told me he loved me! He says that he has something special to give to me. I don't care what my parents or everybody else thinks anymore. I love him, and he loves me. It doesn't matter that he's a reploid. It shouldn't matter, when it's love. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to follow my heart.

"CHRIST." The dumbstruck words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself, and the sobbing in the next room over came to a sudden stop.

I'd broken cover, and worn out my welcome. I yanked the password cracker out from Marie's computer and forced myself to make the short warp jump up to the roof of the house. The move, as disturbing and traumatic as it was, came none too soon.

As soon as I could see again and was back in one piece, I saw the light in Marie Portland's room click on. A woman, her mother, if my guess was right, started wailing again. She'd probably read her daughter's last journal entry. I couldn't worry about it any longer. I jumped off a different side of the house and took off running.

A warning came up in the corner of my eye…Power irregularities. It made sense, considering I'd been going now for nearly a full day. Right about now I'd be settling in for a stasis cycle, the closest thing to sleep any of us reploids get. But I couldn't sleep yet. Not now. I pushed the warnings aside and chugged on. Wasn't the smartest thing in the world…eventually, all those irregularities add up, and there's been studies done that show there can be some pretty severe psychological damage if a reploid runs without rest for too long. Stasis helps to clear the head, keep the short-term memory buffers clean.

But for the moment, I had a Maverick who had claimed to be in love with his sole victim, a victim who was in love with the Maverick, a town short on answers, and a situation that made my circuits flinch.

She'd been killed during the night, or early in the morning right after she went to his place. In all of this, they'd never shown me the crime scene, or told me where to find it. It wasn't important to them. Just killing him was.

I keyed up my comm and hailed into my home base. They came back surprised. "Base 36 here. Glacier, what the devil are you still doing up? You should have turned in for the night an hour ago." It was one of our operators, a human called Dan Sellus. I'd worked with him before, since he usually covered the night shift. Like tonight.

"No time to sleep." I answered grimly, perhaps a bit more standoffish than I'd meant to be. "I need you to do something for me."

"…Glacier, if this has to do with that last case you took, Sakfey told us not to help you. You need to get some rest. Relax. Take that vacation you're supposed to."

That raised my hackles. "I don't have time for a vacation, Dan. Something screwy's going on around here. I need to figure it out, and I need your help."

"We've got strict orders…"

"SCREW Sakfey's orders!" I snarled, and I could feel the reverberation on the other side of the line. "I'm not so sure that this was your standard Maverick call. The evidence I've collected isn't adding up. I…Look, I've got doubts, okay? There's no way I could relax or kick back with the way I am right now. So if you want me to follow Sakfey's directive, you gotta help me with mine."

Dan sighed. "You're not going to ask me to do anything illegal, are you?"

I relaxed. If he was willing to joke about that, he'd given in. I wish there were more like Dan. He doesn't mind working with reploids. Goes drinking with us, even, sometimes. "No, nothing that bad. I just need you to look up an address."

"All right, sure. What do you need?"

"I'm looking for the residence of a reploid named Gregory. He worked here in Rattler's Ridge."

"…Uh huh. Searching." A few seconds of quiet, and then he harrumphed. "Heh, you won't believe this. I've got a hit, but it's not in Rattler's Ridge. It's outside of it a little ways, just shy of the town line. West of your position, about two klicks. 423, Route 27. Licensed to one Gregory…no last name. That must be your guy."

"Thanks, Dan." I exhaled.

"…Hey, Glacier?"

"Yeah, Dan?"

"This…Gregory. Is he the…"

"He was." I answered, not wanting him to say the rest of the sentence. He's the Maverick I killed.

"You sure that…"

"Trust me, Dan. I know what I'm doing."

"Just…promise me you'll explain all of this when you come back, all right?"

"Only if you're buying." I chuckled. "Take care, Dan."

"Good hunting." He shut off the connection, and I found myself alone again. Never bothered me much, the solitude of my job, until tonight. Maybe it was just my suspicions, but I felt a lot colder than usual. Maybe it was a leak in my liquid oxygen or nitrogen stores, too.

I turned myself west, got my bearings, and started running out. For a change…

I ran on all fours. It kind of felt good.

---

It wasn't a house. It had been one once, but given the state of the smoldering remains, it hadn't stayed one. The place had been burned to the ground, and a sparse bit of embers here and there still crackled on the Treeborg wood.

A lot of dusty footprints were around the burned out structure. This place had had a lot of company recently. The question was, was this place torched down after Marie Portland was killed, or before, or during? And what would Gregory have wanted to give her?

I hadn't even found the murder weapon yet. With Marie dead by .45 caliber slugs, there was a missing handgun. Maybe…Maybe the town didn't want to accept the screwed up relationship between Marie and Gregory. Maybe that's why they'd been so quiet.

I took another look at the footprints, narrowed my eyes. No, these were about a day old. The same time as the fire, which would put them late last evening, early morning. I headed inside the burned up shell and sifted through the ash. My guess was I'd find the murder weapon in the rubble.

Five minutes later, I found something. It wasn't a gun, though. It was mostly buried under ash, badly tarnished and slightly warped from the heat, but it wasn't a gun. My hand hit a small piece of gold jewelry.

I hoisted it up and stared at it. It was a momento piece, a drop locket. I wiped off some of the grime with my thumb, and felt tiny grooves underneath. Writing.

I'll love you forever. G and M.P.

"Frigging…Hells." My voice came out rough and unsteady. Another warning in the corner of my eye. My constant activity was starting to catch up with me. I ignored it, since the pounding repercussions of my discovery hurt a lot worse.

Gregory hadn't called her to his place to kill her. He'd given her this locket…Or he'd tried to. And as many footprints outside the wreckage as there were, it sure looked like the town didn't approve. They'd come to try and stop it. They'd burned Greg's house down.

After everything, all my doubts finally caught up to me. His words burned into me, and for the first time, I finally heard him.

I could…never…Not Marie. I didn't. They did.

"He didn't kill her." I said it out loud, and damned myself all in one stroke. I had deactivated a…no.

No. I didn't deactivate him.

I'd put a bullet through his head. I'd killed him.

Gregory hadn't been a Maverick. He'd just been a screwed up kid who fell in love with the boss's daughter, and got caught…

I'd murdered him. I'd taken a life that hadn't been Maverick. If he'd just been a Maverick, I could've written it off. It's easy to reassure your conscience when you're killing killers. This…

I could feel a stain on me now. It had always been there. How many Mavericks had I retired? How many reploids…

Mavericks deserve no mercy. He hadn't been Maverick. I'd shown an innocent reploid a Maverick's justice. So what did that make me now?

I knew the answer without even thinking about it. But I didn't want to say it. Because if I said it, then the rules I lived by applied to me.

I didn't hear the company coming until the car door slammed shut. Lost in my own world, I'd given up the element of surprise.

A flashlight caught me in the face, blinded me until I shut off the night vision. Even then, my optics were screaming at me. It'd take some time for the shock to wear off.

"Who's there?" I demanded.

The flashlight clicked off, and the fellow holding it let out a long sigh. "I didn't 'spect to see you all the way out here, Maverick Hunter."

Sheriff Barnesfield.

"I'm surprised I was able to find this place at all." I came back, growling slightly. "This place got torched to the ground, and a lot of people helped."

My ears picked up the sound of the man scratching at his chest through his shirt. "Yeh, I reckon so." He drawled casually. "We caught wind of it in the morning not long after they started. I figure it was some of the townsfolk, gettin' back at the Maverick for killin' Marie Portland. Course, by the time we coulda done somethin' about it, the place was pretty much gone already, so I didn't see the point in botherin' the county fire department. And then you showed up, and dealin' with the Maverick was more important than saving his house."

The bastard was flat out lying to me. I'd finally had enough of him, but I had other things to deal with first.

"You know, I don't think I've seen the murder weapon."

"Huh?"

"Marie Portland was killed by three slugs. Gregory didn't have a gun on him, and I didn't find one here in the rubble."

The Sheriff set a hand to his hip…by his own sidearm, I noticed. "You don't say." He replied, the drawl gone in a heartbeat. "Maverick must've tossed it off somewhere in town. It'll turn up eventually."

"I'm sure." I replied, a bit more acerbically than I'd meant to let on. "Meanwhile, you mind explaining why you and everybody else in this town lied to me?"

The Sheriff narrowed his eyes. He had the same look he wore when he had first told me about Gregory in the morning. "What the Hell are you driving at?"

I should have shut up. I shouldn't have even said that much. But…It felt like something had changed in me. Maybe if I'd gotten more sleep. Maybe if my guilt over Gregory wasn't screwing with my circuits…

Instead, I pointed at the man. "The townsfolk didn't come out here to burn Greg's place down after he killed Marie Portland. And he didn't kill Marie Portland. She was in love with him, for God's sakes."

Barnesfield's face twisted into a scowl. "The HELL he was! Ain't no way that a good honest girl like Marie would have ever loved Gregory. He was using her, by gum!"

I couldn't help but crack a fang-filled smile. "So you knew, then."

He scowled. "So what?"

"Well, if you left that out of your report on information about Gregory…and his place of employment…and where he lived…I gotta say, Sheriff, you're not exactly winning my confidence here. I'm wondering what else you might be hiding."

He set a hand on his gun, started to circle around me. Heh, I'd put him on edge.

"You got a lot of nerve, reploid, comin' into my town and trying to stir up trouble here."

I watched him, moved around only slightly. A closer look at his firearm didn't worry me. It wasn't a magpistol like mine was. It was just a standard issue .45 semiautoma…

A .45 caliber…

I narrowed my eyes. "Tell me, Sheriff, if I went back to the morgue in town and got a court order to take those slugs from Marie Portland's body as evidence, would they match up with that gun of yours?"

The Sheriff laughed, low and throaty. "You got balls for a machine, you know that? One thing you left out, though. You won't be making your way back into town."

"Is that right?" I mused. "One warp and I'm not only out of here, but I'm back at base with all the evidence I need to put you and half of this Goddamn town into a hole for ten years of your life or more."

He didn't seem fazed by that. "Go ahead. Give it a try, then." He grinned at me. "You won't get far. Trick is, son, we got ourselves one of those transport dampeners a while back. We figured it'd be good to help keep the mine reploids in check. And right now, it's running in my car. Nothing can warp in or out of here for half a mile around."

I frowned, and brought up my warp menu. Nothing but static. Shit, the sonofabitch was on the level.

I held my arms down at my sides. "So that's it then, huh? You're gonna try and kill me?"

The Sheriff shrugged, letting out a sigh. "See, that's the problem, son. It's like what happened with Marie. You got in the way, she got in the way."

He'd killed her. What I wouldn't have given for a mike and a recorder right then. He pulled out his gun, held it loosely at his side. "You think I meant to hit Marie? Hell no. As soon as Mr. Portland got the word out that his daughter'd run off out here to meet with Gregory, me and some of the other boys in town rounded ourselves up a posse. We came out here, figured we'd smoke Greg out, have a 'talk' with him to get him to stay away from Mr. Portland's kid. We didn't expect to find her still out here with 'im." His face scrunched up into a scowl. "We didn't expect the two of 'em to be…sleeping together, either…"

His distaste at the concept made my blood curdle. Not that I approved of reploids and humans being lovers myself, but this man stank of bigotry.

"So what? They came out in a bedsheet, and you shot her?"

"She came out as honest as the day she was born, except for a blanket around her!" Barnesfield hollered angrily. "God, if her father'd been there, he would have died on the spot out of shame! And there was no way I was going to let her throw her life away on a stinkin' robot like Greg! So yeah, I pulled the Goddamn trigger…And she stepped in the way. Stupid kid."

My blood boiled at that. And yeah, reploids have blood. It's purple.

"There were three slugs in Marie's body, you sack of shit." I growled. My claws ended up popping out at that.

Barnesfield chuckled a little, and leveled his gun at my chest. "Hm. I guess I pulled the Goddamn trigger three times then. She just got in the way. Kind of like you, reploid."

"You think I'm gonna let you kill me?" I asked, bending over a little bit into a crouch.

"Naw, I don't think you're gonna let me." He yawned. "Of course, that ain't gonna stop me either." He pulled the trigger, and the slugs bounced off of my armor.

He blinked. I smiled and shook my head. "Boy, you really are just a hick mountie out in the middle of nowhere." I said aloud. "Those bullets might've killed Gregory, but they won't do dick to me. Give up, and I'll try not to break all your ribs when I take you in."

He chuckled and reached into his vest, pulled out another piece.

This one put the fear of God into me.

He had a magpistol. One look at the magnetic accelerators and the coolant vents along the ventral lines said it all, even in the dark.

He looked over at me. Didn't have it pointed yet, but he was itching to. "Huh. You know, reploid, you ain't smiling now. See something you're scared of?"

At this range, he'd be able to squeeze off two shots before I got next to him. I only had one choice.

Freeze and run.

He raised the gun up. I raised my hand up. He fired. I froze the air in front of me into a huge block of ice. The bullet punched through, blunted only enough to cut through my side instead of my chest.

I took off running, and dove for cover into the wreckage of the house. I threw up walls of ice every direction I could think of. My systems were screaming at me from the damage, and eventually, screaming at me for dipping in so hard to my reserves of Liquid Nitrogen and Oxygen. Even though Greg's house was long gone, in a few offhanded throws, I made a mazelike mess of jagged shards and crystals.

I grit my teeth against the pain, and pressed a hand against the wound. The shot had punched through the right side of my chest and come out under my armpit. It was bleeding pretty good, but a shot of LOX set the injury solid. Didn't help my internal operations energy any, though.

I.O.E. now at 84 percent. Caution recommended.

"Shit." I muttered, and took a look back through the maze. My infrared could pick out the sheriff's heat signature, even through the piles of ice I'd set up to protect me. He was coming in slow and easy, taking his time. He didn't need a bunch of quick shots. One decent one would do the trick. That's the bitch about a magweapon. You hit a guy in the microfusion tank or the head with one, long as they're not in the heaviest armor imaginable, you're gonna punch through. And magrounds hit messy.

He kept the gun in a shooter's posture…One hand with a flashlight to guide him, and his gun arm resting on top of it to steady his aim. "Nice trick with the ice there. I see why they call you Glacier." He called out. That flashlight beam could be trouble, but my ice, for as many layers as he had to peer through, was doing a good job about scattering the light. It wouldn't stop him forever, though. "It's not gonna save you none. You got nowhere to run, reploid!"

I threw up some more ice and called back at him. "Maybe I'm tired of running from you, you backwoods bastard!" A shot blazed through my ice barriers and whizzed a meter off my head. Damn, his hearing was fine. That ruled out calling back to Base 36 for backup. I'd be dead before I finished the first sentence.

"Just keep talking, reploid. I'll get to you." He called back lazily. Smug bastard thought he had me in a pinch…trick was, he probably did if I kept this up.

But I had one advantage I hadn't used.

Down, attached to the side of my leg by a weak electromagnetic seal was my magpistol. I hadn't used it since I…since I murdered Gregory…And it would definitely do a lot to even the odds. Using it, though, was out of the question. I didn't want to kill him.

But what if it's a choice between him dying or you dying? A voice in the back of my head spoke up. I cringed at it. No. No, I wasn't like that. I wasn't going to kill a human, even a fella like Barnesfield, who probably had it coming. Humans were great at killing each other, they didn't need me to take the fall…

Mavericks deserve no mercy.

Barnesfield wasn't a "Maverick"…But he definitely didn't deserve mercy.

Why are you pulling your punches?

I felt Barnesfield closing in, and I put some distance and some more ice between us. He chuckled again and fired off a few rounds for effect, shattering some of my barriers for the Hell of it. "I can keep this up all night, reploid. How about you?"

No. No, no, no. This wasn't right. Where in the Hell was I getting these ideas from?

You gotta live, Glacier. Life's about fighting to keep it. You gonna curl up and let this prick plug you just because you're feeling guilty?

"Not my fault." I whispered, no longer caring how weird it was I was arguing with myself. "I didn't know."

Yeah, but you killed him. An innocent reploid, persecuted by this Godforsaken town called Rattler's Ridge, and you finished the job for all the self-serving human overlords. You took him out, hid their dirty little secret. But you knew better, didn't you? You just had to keep digging. No stone unturned, right? And you figured it out.

"Shut up. Shut up already." Another bullet zoomed through, crashed through my thigh. I threw my head back and hissed in pain. Jesus, that didn't feel good.

You've got rules for Mavericks, right? Well, guess what. You're supposed to be serving the law. Not just the part connected to reploids. You took an oath to protect the world. Start living up to it, and protect it from this Goddamned town, starting by offing this hypocritical prig from the boondocks!

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

I heard the Sheriff's footsteps closing in. He was rounding about my last sheet of ice. He'd have an open shot real soon. I could see him raising his gun, the flashlight beam was tracking in.

I saw him clear as day in my infrared.

Him or you. Make the choice.

My hand went to my side. My gun came up. So did his. The shot rang out.

And funny thing…reploids are quicker to the draw.

He dropped, a small wound in his front, a big pool of blood seeping out behind him. I stepped over, and kicked his gun away.

Sheriff Barnesfield looked like he'd seen a ghost. He looked up at me, eyes wide and fearful. His breathing was shallow. I hadn't gone through his lung, but I'd probably clipped his diaphragm. That makes breathing hard, when you lose the muscle that helps out.

"You…shot me." He stammered.

I narrowed my eyes, and set my magpistol back on my leg. "Yeah. You shot me first."

"You know…what this makes you now." He came back, rasping bitterly. "Just another…stinking Maverick."

Mavericks deserve only one thing…Death.

I knelt down and set my hand over his chest. "Yeah?" I mused. "That makes two of us. I'll give you the honor of dying first."

That's the nice thing about ice, I thought after. It does such a great job of preserving a person's last expression. He died screaming and squealing like the pig he was. I kept pouring it on until I couldn't see him under all the layers anymore, then gave it a swift kick to shatter the icicle into dust.

It was quiet after that up at Gregory's place.

"You wanted the truth, Glacier?" I asked myself aloud, hitting my thigh with another freezing burst to stabilize the second point of injury. "You got it."

Barnesfield was right, though. I'd killed a human.

Even if he'd had it coming…

Even if he'd been a murderer himself…

I was still a Maverick now. All my rules applied to me. Even for a good cause…Was it worth it?

I took another look back at the ruins of Gregory's house, now plastered and coated in sheets and sheets of fake ice. My heart hardened.

Gregory was dead. Marie was dead. And this stinking, rotten town was still standing. I turned back and stared, then shook my head with a grim expression.

"If I'm Maverick…then there's no sense bothering with any of the rules except my own."

Tonight, things were gonna change.

---

I'd warped the Landchaser back to base before the night's bizarre events had started, and I wasn't about to call in and ask for it back. No, not with what I'd just done. Silence was the way to go. Since the Sheriff had been thoughtful enough to drive his car out to the ruins of Gregory's home, I took him up on the offer. He'd even left the keys in the ignition, thoughtful prick that he had been.

The only part of his cruiser I didn't like was that warp jammer…that got blasted frozen and thrown out the window at 90 miles an hour. It made a nice crunch when it broke apart. I should have made tracks for Rattler's Ridge. God knows the town deserved the fate I had planned for it, but…

Somehow, Barnesfield's police cruiser seemed to drive itself towards Mr. Portland's Energen mine instead. When I pulled into the lot and stepped out, I realized that my subconscious had the right idea.

Rattler's Ridge had a lot to answer for in the wrongful persecution and destruction of Gregory. It made a lot of sense to start at the place that had thrown him into slave labor…

Thrown all of them into slave labor.

I wasn't any different on the outside. My reflection looked the same when I stared at the car's windshield. But my feelings were different…so were my thoughts.

Mavericks deserve no sympathy. They still didn't, and I was a Maverick now. Since only my rules mattered, I would have to come to terms with that soon enough…

But before then, Greg would get his justice.

The office lights were all off, except for the one right by the door. A security guard, maybe the night shift manager.

I walked up to it and saw a security guard in his office, scanning the security cameras lazily before turning back to a separate TV…some late night comedy tripe. It was good to know that they took security seriously. It would cost them tonight.

I couldn't have anyone alerting the authorities yet. Not until I was done. Not until I paid back Greg.

A knock on the door jarred the rent-a-cop from his stupor, and he jerked his head towards me. His face lit up in recognition, and he scowled for a moment before getting up and shambling to unlock the door. He held it open only a little ways and stared at me. "Yeah? What do you want, Hunter?"

"There's another Maverick that's made it to these premises." I told him.

The guard's eyes widened. "Christ, another one?"

"Don't panic. Just listen to me." I advised him, not wanting him to get hysterical, or worse, run for the alarms. "Is there any other humans on call tonight? I get the feeling they're his targets."

"Just the night shift manager, Mr. Worthman. He's down in the quarry supervising the workers." The guard opened the door and looked at me in worry. "So who's the Maverick?"

"He's right in front of you." I told him. He didn't have time to react before I froze him in a solid block of ice. One magpistol round through the misshapen brick shattered the guard to frozen splinters, and just like that, another human was dead.

It was getting easier, I thought as I pushed his remains under the security camera monitor bank to hide the evidence. The question was, was that a good sign…Or was I really farther gone than I'd thought?

Or did it even matter anymore?

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

The walk out from the trailer park offices to the quarry was a short one. The walk inside the quarry was shorter still, right up until I heard the voices of the mine workers inside. There was Digger, his gruff Jersey accent thick enough to knock over a cow, and the others that worked with him.

And then there was another voice. A human voice. Humans can't tell the difference between a human voice and a synthesized reploid voice, but my ears weren't for show. A good reploid can hear it.

The last forty feet around the curving tunnel and into a hollowed out subsection where the team all was was the longest walk I'd yet had.

I had killed two humans so far. The third one, I dreaded. A lot of humans put faith in numbers. Three is a very big number…for jokes, for dates, and for opportunities.

The third time I killed a human, there would be witnesses. Reploids.

Time moved at a crawl as I glided into the quarry's subsection. The human manager, Mr. Worthman was tossing some orders out. The other reploids, Digger included, kept working. They didn't look happy.

Would they be happy after this?

Worthman noticed me when I was fifteen feet out. "Hey, you can't be down here." He snapped at me.

The frozen time broke apart, and I saw red. It only took two seconds to kill him.

Two seconds to prove I was a Maverick for the third time.

Or maybe this was the first real time that I had let myself become a Maverick. I didn't kill to defend myself or preserve secrecy. This time, I killed him…

I hadn't used my regenerating cold stores. I'd used my claws to gut him and spill his stomach on the ground, letting blood and undigested food coat the razor sharp nails.

This time, when I killed a human…

I liked it.

Mavericks deserve only one thing. Death.

I blinked, and the red haze over my vision faded out. Digger, and everyone else was looking at me. Digger gaped and sputtered out the obvious. "You…You killed him."

My head nodded, moving independent of my own swimming and muddled mind.

Terror was in their eyes now. "What the Hell, man. What the Hell! You're a…"

"A Maverick." I finished. My voice was calm, flat…at peace. It felt right, suddenly, to say what I was. "You're free now."

"Free?" Digger shot back testily. "Buddy, what the Hell do you mean free? You've gone Maverick. They're gonna kill us all!"

"They being who?"

"The town, you maniac!" Digger lurched up and screamed at my face. If he'd been human, spit would have flown. "They'll kill us all now!"

Digger was afraid for himself and the others.

"You were right, you know." I told him.

"About what?" He demanded, getting more upset with me. "And how can you stand there and be so friggin' calm when you've turned into what you were supposed to kill!"

"I killed Gregory." I told Digger. "And Gregory was innocent. You were right. He wasn't a Maverick."

Digger stared at me. He didn't believe what I was saying. He'd hated me to begin with, as Gregory had been his friend…been all their friends.

"Then why did you say he was a Maverick?" Digger asked.

Because you believed what those Godforsaken humans told you.

"I didn't trust my instincts. I followed orders." I told him. "No more. Greg wasn't guilty of anything except trying to be something more than the people of Rattler's Ridge wanted him to be. Greg was innocent." My eyes hazed red again, and the way Digger reacted, it wasn't just in my mind. "It's Rattler's Ridge that is guilty."

"What are you going to do?" Digger asked, horrified.

I took a look at Digger, and the rest of his energen mining crew. They were right to be afraid. One Maverick in a town, they'd send a Hunter in to take care of them.

Two Mavericks…Protocol turned a little more ugly, and loads more invasive. If they stuck around, they'd be caught in the whirlwind. Interrogated, fired, transferred…they might even be reformatted, all their experience and personality wiped clean.

"First." I pointed to them, and then back out towards the exit. "You leave. You don't look back. You run towards the nearest town, and you don't stop until you reach it."

"But the nearest town to Rattler's Ridge is…"

"One day's walk." I finished for him. "Time enough for me to finish up here."

Digger looked back to the others, and then back to me. He was still on edge. Mavericks had that effect on normal reploids. Hunters hunted Mavericks, Mavericks attacked everything, and normal reploids always got caught in the crossfire. "To do what? Kill the rest of the people in Rattler's Ridge?"

"That's the plan."

"And…you're just going to let us walk out of here." Digger went on dubiously, eyeing me over. "You're not going to try and change us, make us Maverick?"

"Being Maverick isn't a disease, Digger." I said. "It's a choice. Do you want to be a Maverick?"

"No!" Digger sputtered, terrified again.

"Of course not." I muttered back, turning away from them. "You just want to be a normal reploid. You want to live, and work, and not be hassled by anybody. A good life. A simple one. A long life, if you're lucky. So keep it, then. Get out of here. You and the rest…get running. Don't look back. Don't come back. And don't try to stop me, or I'll do to you what I'm going to do to the rest of this Hellhole."

Digger and the others hadn't moved. The disemboweled body of Mr. Worthman was rotting on the floor, keeping them frozen to the spot. Digger called out after me. "And just tell me something, Mistuh High n' mighty ex-Maverick Hunter, when we's get to the next town, just what exactly do we tell 'em, huh?"

He made me stop walking. I thought about it for a moment.

That moment hurt me. I was torn three ways.

I was outraged. Rattler's Ridge had made me kill an innocent reploid, whose only crime had been falling in love with the boss's daughter. I wanted all the rotten people in that rotten gulch to suffer, and I was looking forward to doing it. That made me a Maverick.

I was a Maverick Hunter. I killed and hunted down Mavericks, "Retired" them to keep the peace and ensure that the folly of a few didn't impact the whole of our species. I should have killed myself.

And through it all, my own guidelines, my Code, left no room for doubt or error, or budge.

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

I looked back over my shoulder. "You tell them the truth." I heard myself say. The words sounded like rocks falling through a shaky pond. "You tell them a Maverick has destroyed Rattler's Ridge, because that's exactly what is going to happen."

Not waiting to hear their answer, I walked out of the Energen quarry and made my way towards the departed Sheriff's car. I was a Maverick, and I would die as a Maverick. It was the only way I could be honest with myself.

I had made my choice.

---

That red haze…

I fell into it as I returned to Rattler's Ridge early in the morning. It took me the hours until sunrise to finish setting up the killzone.

I didn't want a single survivor. Nobody would leave. Nobody. The only ones who would be spared were Digger and his fellow reploids, and they were miles outside of town.

First, the telephones went down. Next, courtesy of the Sheriff's personal armory, an electronic scrambler made every wireless and satellite communication device within the small radius of the town absolutely useless. Barnesfield must have been an exceptionally paranoid man in life, because he had everything else I needed back in his headquarters. An explosive detonator was attached to the power substation that kept Rattler's Ridge glowing, the trigger signal tied to a switch I took with me. I froze windows and doors shut. A proximity sensor system placed around the area would help me track down any source of movement once the shooting started. Nobody was going to make it.

It took me until the faint light blue wisps of sunrise in the east to get all that done.

Sunrise.

And I was seeing red.

I don't remember specifics about much that followed. The bomb went off. The town's lights went dark. There was silence for a moment, and then people started making noise. The motion sensors lit up with activity, and the map of the city on my internal HUD put a dot next to every person.

Some I shot. Some I ripped to shreds. Most, though…I froze. I coated the town in ice, thick, translucent layers that swallowed buildings as easily as people. The screams, I remember. Some shrill. Some throaty. Some begging, some crying as they went. Some swore at me. Some tried to attack, others hid under furniture. It didn't help. They would break out of their barred houses, and I would be waiting there for them. They couldn't run. Not from my eyes. Anything that moved in Rattler's Ridge…I knew about it.

The lights went out, one by one. Rattler's Ridge started to go quiet, and even in the oppressive heat, a definite chill hung over everything. I'd taxed my cryonics to their limits, and it would take them a while to recharge.

The blips had been nonexistent for several minutes, but suddenly one more appeared.

It had been hiding, hunkered downtown without moving. That's why I hadn't noticed the person it belonged to. It was running now, though…Running for the town outskirts.

I chased after the person, determined to end it. But when I got close, the blip became a person…

The red haze vanished…

And I was myself again. Only a monster.

One look at the tears in Rosa's eyes told me that.

---

"You bastard."

The first words out of her mouth, and she swore at me. She was crying. She had a right to be crying. Everyone she knew was dead, dead by my hands.

"Why?" She asked, her bitter voice hollow. "Damn it, Glacier, why?"

"Penance." I told the waitress. The bloodlust was gone. Looking at her now, I felt only regret. "It…I…They deserved it."

"They deserved to die?!" She shrieked, waving an arm at the ruined, frozen town behind us. "All of them? Not just the men, but the women? The children?!"

"And Gregory deserved to die?" I shot back. "He wasn't a Maverick, and I killed him! I killed an innocent reploid!"

"So you think that killing everyone in Rattler's Ridge somehow makes things even, is that it?" She sobbed. "God, Glacier. Look at yourself. You're a Maverick. You're a Maverick, and you don't even know it!"

"I know it."

She looked at me, dumbstruck. I nodded.

"I know I'm a Maverick. And no, destroying this town doesn't make up for what I did to Gregory. But this town was a wicked place. Now, it's just a graveyard. The hatred in this place…It's all on ice."

"Is that how you justify murder?" She demanded.

I felt my temper rise at her challenge. "And what about all the reploids I've retired as a Maverick Hunter, huh? Isn't that murder? Or are you one of those people who believes that murder is a crime that only happens when humans are killed?" I held up a bloody clawed hand for her to see. "You look at me, and you tell me, what's the difference between killing fanatical reploids and killing fanatical humans? The color of their blood? Disposing of the body?" I lunged up next to her, and her scream was cut off when her throat tightened. "Rosa, I was a murderer long before I showed up here. This place just opened my eyes."

"So you're a Maverick now." She insinuated, looking away and sniffling. "You're going to kill all the humans here."

She meant that I was going to kill her, too.

The guilt was getting the better of me. I wanted to kill her. She was just another filthy human. Another person who either did nothing or helped when the mob attacked Gregory and Marie.

I put my bloody hand under her chin, cupped it, and raised it so she had to turn and look at me.

"Tell me something, Rosa." I began calmly. "And answer honestly. Did you know that Gregory and Marie were in love?"

Her eyes widened and filled with tears again. Even with her face hostage, she diverted her eyes in shame. "I…I suspected, but…I never knew…"

My hand tightened, cutting her off. A faint chill from the ends of my claws made her shiver. "And if you had known…Would you have tried to stop them?"

"Love…" She began, taking a moment to stifle a sudden fearful sob. "Love is love. Isn't it the most important thing we have?"

And there was my answer. Her salvation.

I pulled my hand away and closed my eyes. "Get the Hell out of here."

She didn't move. I snapped my eyes open and growled at her. "Go on. Get. I'm sparing your life because of two reasons. One…you were nice to me. You made a decent cup of joe. And two, Rosa, you are the only person I've met in this town who ever treated reploids decently. For that, you get to live. So move. There's nothing left for you here but painful memories."

She stumbled backwards, shaking her head. "Why?" She asked. "Even with all that…why don't you kill me?"

"Because you're human." I heard myself say crassly. "You find some dumb schmuck, and you spread your legs and get knocked up, and suddenly you have a chance to make new humans that aren't racist. The next generation, Rosa…Is in you. Reploids are built. Only humans are raised."

Rosa didn't quite know how to take that. Smart woman that she was, she didn't press her luck. She turned and ran out to the sheriff's car. I'd left it just outside the city limits. I watched her get in and drive off, kicking dust behind her.

Just as well. I didn't need the wheels anymore.

By 7:40 in the morning, the number was in. 1 survivor. The rest of the town's former 1400…Dead.

---

Rattler's Ridge, Arizona

May 25th, 2120 C.E.

7:47 A.M.

The streets of Rattler's Ridge were coated in ice, both true and dry. Frozen bodies and frozen rivers of blood stained the land a miserable red. Motion sensors, basketball sized black boxes attached to the sides of buildings and cars left abandoned kept blinking their LED lights, letting everyone know they still functioned.

It was a small settlement, one that could be anywhere on earth. The story would probably have been the same everywhere. Hard times, a changing economy, and the coming of a workforce with human intelligence and superhuman capabilities had led to a power struggle between a race of machines and a race of mammalian bipeds that had made them. The only thing that was different about Rattler's Ridge…

Was that here, something had changed.

Here, the boiling point had tipped over, irreparably, irrevocably. There would be Hell to pay.

Rattler's Ridge was silent. A thick fog of melting ice and sublimating vapor shrouded the town, trying desperately to hide the horrific event from the world. There would be no hiding from it. No escaping it.

The town's only living presence was a visitor who had been there for only a day. A day had been enough.

He could have run away. He should have run away, and never looked back.

He just couldn't.

---

So, you let it come to this.

"Shut up." I growled. It was my own voice, my own inner conscience that was yelling at me now, berating me to fight, to live.

I was tired. I was a Maverick. I was a Maverick Hunter.

Mavericks deserve no mercy.

Run. Run, and live.

My communicator went off. I looked down at it, tapped the line.

Base 36. Home.

They were calling.

"Glacier." I heard myself say. The voice was empty. As tired as I was.

"Hey Glacier, this is Dan. I'm just about to sign off, but I thought I'd give you a call. Did you find what you were looking for?"

Dan Sellus. Another human. One that didn't deserve to die. One that deserved better than a freak like me for a friend. "I guess."

"You…You don't sound too good, Glacier. Are you hurt?"

"No. But you need to alert the base. There's another Maverick out here."

"My God. You're kidding!" Dan exclaimed. I said nothing, and he sobered up. "You're not. How bad's the damage?"

"They're all dead, Dan." I told him, feeling the words roll off my tongue as natural as anything I'd ever said. "This town's nothing but an open graveyard now."

"How?" Dan was incredulous now. Sickened, by the sound of it. "Damn it…how could…there were over a thousand people living there!"

"Dan…Stop talking to me and sound the alert." I was signing my own death warrant now. My voice stayed perfectly calm through it all. "Do it."

"I'm…okay, Glacier. I just hit the alarm. But how did you survive? If this Maverick was powerful enough to wipe the town out, how come he didn't kill you?"

I stared up through the icy fog and hammered the last nail in my coffin. "Dan…I'm the Maverick."

"…What?"

"I killed them. I killed everyone. You know what you have to do, Dan. Everybody at Base 36 knows what they have to do."

"Glacier, why…"

I severed the connection before he could finish his question. I already knew the answer.

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

But if I was to give one…

I stumbled through the mists and headed for the old warehouse where this whole mess had begun. There, I would wait.

---

Glacier's Personal Log.

May 25th, 2120. Sometime around noon.

They're coming for me. I've been listening in on the radio chatter. It's been nonstop. They know what I've done. I told them, but they know now. They have satellite pictures. They know what I did. It's got them all worried. They're saying that it's Sigma all over again. Maybe they're right.

Why did Sigma go Maverick two years ago? Why did he do it, when he had everything going for him? Was he crazy, a nutjob the entire time? Did he see something as dark, as awful as I saw about humanity? Did something make him go Maverick?

No. No, I might be wrong, but I think it had to be a choice. Somewhere before he nearly killed everyone in the MHHQ, Sigma must have made a choice to go Maverick, to declare war on humanity.

Maybe he had the right idea all along, and we've been fighting on the wrong side of this war.

Mavericks deserve no mercy.

No. No, I would have fought him then. Killing all the humans won't solve the problem. There are good humans, too. Like Rosa. Like Dan Sellus. Doctor Cain, out in Japan.

Like Marie Portland.

I wouldn't be able to kill them. Sigma would, but I can't.

I'm a piss-poor Maverick.

Mavericks deserve no explanation.

I can't go back, though. I can't change back. I was a Maverick Hunter. One of the better ones. I had honor.

Honor's gotten me here. A fugitive, a kill on sight. I could tell them why I did it. Nobody would listen.

Nobody ever wants to hear why a Maverick went Maverick. You hear the word, you have one response. Fear.

You kill Mavericks. You don't psychoanalyze them.

Mavericks deserve no rehabilitation.

The radio…they're saying that they've only sent out two Hunters. I expected a squadron, but I didn't expect them.

Mega Man X. Zero Omega. The two great ones. The greatest of the great. The Hunters that took down Sigma twice in a row. Against one, I would probably lose. Against the both of them, I don't stand a chance. Zero's Rank S, and even though Mega Man X is ranked B, that's meaningless. There's no measuring him, if the stories are right. I'm only a…I was only a Rank A.

Another Maverick Hunter gone off the reservation. They're right to send those two. I'm a danger. An absolute danger. The repercussions of what I've done are probably going to last for years. How are they going to explain me?

No…I know how they're going to explain me. Sakfey's got enough ammo in his brisket to send me down the river. I was overworked. I was stressed out. I was bound to flip. They'll probably try and pass some new Hunter procedures to give Hunters more time off to decompress…Like it'll change anything. It won't. It won't change the heart of the problem, because they can't. And what I've done…it'll happen again. I didn't want this. I had a good life. And it's all shot to Hell now. I don't even have a life. I'm on borrowed time.

Mavericks deserve no sympathy.

I still think about it. I'm sitting here in this warehouse where I killed Gregory. His remains are lying right where I froze him, shot him…killed him.

I didn't retire him. I never retired anyone. It's a stupid word. Say it for what it is.

Murder.

What's the difference between killing an innocent and killing a Maverick? What makes the first so awful and the second so noble? I used to know. I don't anymore.

I've found myself trying to apologize to what's left of Gregory since I've been in here. I iced over the entire inside of the warehouse. It's my own little "Fortress." Isn't that what Mavericks do? They hole themselves up in some room, and wait for the Hunters to show up and kill them?

I've been trying to apologize. I can't.

Maybe that's why I killed them all. It wasn't to silence the world of a great evil. There's still more dumb, insensitive schmucks in the world than I could ever kill. Maybe I killed them because they made me kill Gregory. It doesn't absolve my own guilt. Nothing ever will. I killed an innocent reploid.

But maybe Gregory can rest. He's been avenged. It doesn't matter what happens to me.

I'm just a Maverick.

Mavericks deserve only one thing…Death.

In a different world. In a different world, Greg would still be alive. He and Marie would be in love, and maybe have a life with each other. Nothing bad would happen.

I wouldn't be here.

But we're not in that world. We're in this one. And in this world, innocents die while the guilty live.

Today, I changed that. I made the choice, and I changed that.

…The motion sensors are going crazy. Two people are moving towards me. The sensors are being destroyed.

It's them. They're finally here. I can hear the sound of Buster fire.

It doesn't matter. Nothing does now. Nobody will ever hear this, or read this. Nobody will know why I went Maverick, and nobody will care. They'll kill me, and the world will say the problem's fixed, and they'll move back to their miserable lives.

And the world won't change.

Until it makes the choice.