Chapter 11: Maverick Hunters Off Duty

July 2184

There had been a celebration for the official unveiling of Polaris' mural at the university. As it was in an area many students and professors walked through to get around campus, there wasn't much of a surprise for how it looked. Still, they covered it up with a giant canvas to reveal in a dramatic fashion for people who had come to see it for the first time. It had been quite an event, a cloud of happiness touched often by some embarrassment over all the compliments he got on it. He was proud of it, although he saw some flaws that were easier to tell on the wall than in his sketchbook. But if he had another chance, mural work would be good to do again.

Since they suggested use of the classical muses as a theme, Polaris had gone for that as the subject. However, he worked in modern technologies to adapt and enhance their roles. It was sometimes a hard choice, such as trying to work in the muse of tragedies Melpomene without insulting some group. Others were pretty easy, like giving Urania the badge of a space exploration group and having Clio and Calliope share communications with computers. Delta had tried to convince him to depict one of them as a reploid, which would have been interesting. But still too controversial. Instead, Polaris had made some of the other figures in the mural obvious reploids, like audience members and some of those inspired by them.

That event had been last week. This week, he was back to hunting for a job. It wasn't going as well this time. The few employers he had met took a look at his personality grades and seemed to decide against hiring him right then. And since he didn't have citizenship yet, he couldn't argue that it was prejudiced hiring practices. Even if it probably was, what with the laws meant to combat unemployment for humans (but not reploids).

Polaris sat back in the yellow couch, looking over a pencil sketch he had made of Whisker. The cat was sitting on the window seat, looking outside. "I suppose this does give me more time to draw," he said. "But Vilpent thinks I can be more than I was, so I should be trying to do other things too. I wonder if I could get hired for a job with cooking."

Turning around, Whisker looked at him, then hopped off the window seat to come over to him.

He chuckled. "It's easier to draw you asleep, when you're not moving." He rubbed the cat's chin for a moment, making her purr loudly. At least she was happy to have him around.

"Hey, you in today?" Abe said, standing by the doorway. "We're thinking of dropping in on Naomi at the craft fair."

"That would be good," Polaris said, shutting his sketchbook and getting up off the couch. He had talked with her about it a little while ago, but had decided against trying to sell his art himself there. Beatrice had a few paintings that she was going to have at her gallery's booth.

"You could even bring Whisker if you keep her on a leash," the old man said. "She has Louie over there already."

He smiled; hopefully she wouldn't mind being around lots of people. "Why not? You ready to go on a long walk today?"

"Merrow," the cat said, curling her tail around. Once she saw him bring out her harness, her ears perked up and she was happy to wear it now to go out with him.

A short ride on the subway later, he, Whisker, Abe, and Hue arrived at a convention center. The entrance fee wasn't much; he didn't even have to pay for Whisker, although the women selling tickets warned him that he would be responsible for anything she did. There were some others in the crowd who had also brought pets. He saw a few dogs who were well-trained enough to not bark at or chase after Whisker. Mostly, the pets were robotic replicas of small animals, some normal dogs, cats, and birds, but other oddities such as a long-tailed lemur, a yellow snake, and raccoon. He had been mostly training Whisker in walking on a leash and behaving herself indoors, but she would walk by his side by her own wishes.

The first booth they looked for was the large one that was for the quilting club their neighbor belonged to. Naomi and a few other ladies were showing off completed quilts as well as using a quilting machine to work on a large one that the group had made. While they were giving their own part to the convention's effort to inform people of the importance of preserving old trades, they didn't mind just chatting with them about the usual gossip and news going around the city. Or trying to talk Polaris into buying a small quilt for his 'darling little feline friend'. Whisker had sniffed around the hanging quilts and pushed through them, but at least she hadn't tried scratching them.

The four of them just wandered around the show after that. Hue particularly liked a display of sculptures that took advantage of fountains of water and multi-colored lasers for bright and unexpected effects. "It is an interesting art form," Polaris said. "These seem rather basic in form, though, simple patterns. You could probably make something more intricate out of it, although it'd require more calculations than the art I make."

"I don't know much about art," the Demon reploid said, putting his hand on the chest of his liquid blue body. "But I do appreciate good waterworks."

"Because that's your job, right?" Abe asked.

"That's it," Hue said, making a hand motion that was his form of nodding. After all, his head and body were fused into one whole.

"That doesn't mean that you couldn't make an art of it, if you wanted," Polaris said, turning to watch Whisker. She was trying to bat at a stream of water in one fountain, but had to shake the water off her paw when she realized it was wet.

Hue's eyes widened at that. "You think, I could do art too?"

He nodded. "I don't see why not, especially if you're working with a medium you know about. I mean, water and pipes, and whatever else would go into fountains and such. You'd just be looking to make something beautiful, unusual, or something to make a statement."

Delta had remained quiet for much of the day, possibly observing what was going on. But it did speak up when Polaris noticed a reploid nearby that looked like the Maverick Hunter he had run into the other day. She had the same dark pink hair, but was wearing what appeared to be a long dress that doubled as body armor. While it had features that softened it, like a translucent fabric covering in a brown and yellow floral pattern trimmed with cream lace, it also had a thickness and sturdy base that seemed like it could absorb hits from most modern weapons. The boots even had a low heel so that she could pass for a regular citizen.

You ought to go speak with her.

'Why?' he thought. He and Whisker were on their own at the moment, as Hue had gotten called back in to work after lunchtime and Abe was busily talking with a friend.

She's the enemy; it would help to know more about the local Maverick Hunters, maybe even get the trust of a few of them so we don't get suspected. You could always say that you think she's cute and want to get to know her that way.

"I don't know about that," he whispered, turning a little pink.

"Meow?" Whisker asked, looking up at him.

He knelt down and petted her. "I'm just talking to myself, sort of," he said.

Not sort of. It's more like talking to your conscience.

"You're no conscience."

"What an adorable kitty!" a woman said, or more precisely, another reploid. She was wearing a sleek black bodysuit with lines of neon blue in various patterns all over her arms and legs, like tattoos. She wore a dark blue and yellow minidress over that, tastefully ripped at the shoulders. Before long, she was crouching by them. "She's an animal, isn't she?"

He looked over at her and noticed that Mimosa was also approaching. Were these two friends? "Yes, she is," he said. "Her name is Whisker."

She smiled at them. "That's sweet. Is it because of her white whisker with all the black ones? Can I pet her?"

"Sure, she shouldn't mind," Polaris said.

"Don't zap the kitten," Mimosa said, stopping by them and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'll be careful," the other reploid said, moving her hand closer to see how Whisker reacted. But the cat didn't mind being pet by a stranger, once she'd gotten a smell of her hand. "Oh yeah, I'm Joules, and this is my friend Mimosa. I hope you don't think I'm weird or anything. I just think cats are so cute."

"I thought we were here to help with security, not to admire other people's pets," Mimosa said. "This isn't even a pet show."

Joules laughed. "Oh, relax. We're off duty, so we can have some fun. I just used that as an excuse to get you out here." Mimosa muttered, but that just made her friend laugh again.

Polaris smiled, then stood back up. "I see. Well I'm Polaris. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she said, although she was still paying attention to Whisker.

"I thought I recognized you," Mimosa said, looking at him. "I had to interview you and that young lady the other day."

He nodded slowly. "Right, about Alyssa and Tully."

She sniffed. "Yes, them... I know we don't have as many Mavericks around these days, but you think we'd end up with some more interesting ones."

"Aw, now you're being insensitive again," Joules said, standing up. Then she looked at him. "We haven't tracked them down yet, but we're pretty sure they're still in the city. Don't worry though; Commander Silver Wolf is on the case and they won't be able to hide long with him looking."

Maybe she thought that would be reassuring, but hearing that made him feel conflicted. Scratching his head and looking down, he said. "I suppose that is for the best. Alyssa had been a friend of mine before she got infected, but even meeting her briefly like that, she's changed a lot."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Joules said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "I mean, we can check over Mavericks now and recover some of them. But the best way is catching them early on before the virus gets into some vital systems. If her personality has already changed, then she's likely no longer the person you knew."

Yeah, we knew that before we left ARC.

"We can't tell you much more about them while they're still being looked for," Mimosa added. "You'd best just put them out of your mind."

Joules playfully poked her friend. "Yeah, well I know you'd still worry if one of your friends got infected."

She narrowed her eyes. "It's a risk of being in our organization. You had better remember that from training."

"It's still sad to think about, even though I've lost other friends to the virus," Polaris said. "I've been around for a long while, so I've known many."

Joules nodded. "Yeah, but I try not to get overwhelmed by it all. We still have our duty to attend to."

Raising an eyebrow, Mimosa asked, "You're being concerned by duty?"

She laughed. "Of course! Doesn't mean I have to act all rigid and such. Although it's kind of odd, Polaris, since I've been around Evergrande a long while and I don't think I've seen you about before."

"He was out of your usual patrol area," Mimosa said.

"I mean I've lived a long time," Polaris said. "I only moved to Evergrande this year, actually." He felt Whisker rub her head against his leg, so he picked her up for a little while. "Okay, I still know you're here."

Joules smiled at how the cat settled right into his arms. "Already settling in with new friends, huh? Well this is a great place to be, so I don't think you'll be disappointed. We keep this city really safe too, peaceful compared to other cities."

Go on, ask her to explain some more.

While he felt a little leery going along with what Delta wanted, Polaris felt like knowing more about the Maverick Hunters here was a good idea. It might give him an idea of if he was in trouble before they really acted against him. "It certainly feels that way," he said. "I haven't heard much about the Maverick Hunters in this region yet. It certainly has to be better that where I came from in ARC; nobody would come out that way."

Joules frowned. "I don't really remember any orders to go check out the trash center until the big raid a while back. Half of us went in with support from the main organization. We've got good reploids with our group, eight of us active Hunters including the commander."

"Eight doesn't sound like a lot for a city this size," Polaris said.

"It's plenty," Joules said. "We're actually one of the large branches to handle all of Evergrande, but not all of the staff are actual Hunters. The percentage of reploids living here, especially free reploids, is fairly high, and we handle a lot of other duties now."

Mimosa nodded. "Right, and we've got Silver with us. Our commander is one of the top-ranked Hunters currently working, even if he's not as well known. For a long while, it was just the two of us and him, and he was pretty much responsible for how peaceful Evergrande remains."

"Oh, we all did a lot," Joules said, snapping a finger and getting a spark from it. "But it was Silver's tactics and forethought that made this place tough for Mavericks to establish themselves in. I'm still grateful for the new guys, since it made it possible for the two of us to get a day off together. Speaking of which, we still need to find that booth I wanted you to see."

"You were the one who got distracted by his cat," she pointed out.

"You'll love it, I'm sure," Joules replied while not really replying. "Sorry to cut such a nice talk short, but we can be called on duty whenever, so... anyhow, nice meeting you Polaris."

He nodded. "Nice meeting you both as well."

So they've got eight active Hunters and this Silver Wolf should be investigated more if we want to do anything.

'We aren't going to do anything to get them involved,' he thought, watching as Joules dragged Mimosa through the crowd. Then he looked down, noticing that Whisker's purring had slowed down. Her eyes were half-closed. "Are you getting sleepy?" he asked. "I'm not going to carry you around like this if you're going to fall asleep on me."

She did go to sleep on the subway train back home, so Polaris ended up carrying her on his shoulder back to the apartment.


After the break to see the craft show, he had spent much of the next day trying out for another job. As it was getting late and he had to get together a quick dinner tonight, Polaris was cooking linguine for linguine ala carbonara and pulled out a noodle to taste test. Not quite done. He was about to set it aside when he spotted Whisker watching the noodle sway with wide eyes. Polaris smiled and dangled it in front of her. "You want to try the pasta?"

Whisker leaned forward on the tall chair, caught her balance, then smacked the swinging linguine noodle. Polaris pulled it back a moment, then put it closer to her head. Sitting up quickly, she caught it between both paws and sniffed it, but then it got pulled away again. Polaris obliged her for a few seconds more before deciding he ought to pay attention to chopping the bacon. Whisker took the noodle, sniffed it, licked it, and then decided she ought to pay attention to the bacon too.

"Are you spoiling that cat?" Kyoto asked from the couch. "She's purring like mad."

Polaris chuckled. "She's my cat; I can spoil her all I want."

"All right, but you have to deal with her."

Nearby, Kyoto's girlfriend Lucia giggled. "You ought to see her play. Come here." She picked the cat up, although Whisker didn't want to take her eyes off the prize.

Polaris smiled. "I just gave her a noodle to play with. She wants the bacon though."

With that, Kyoto got up from the couch in the TV area. "I want that bacon first."

Both of them laughed and Whisker meowed, looking up at Lucia. "You'll have to battle her for it," she said jokingly.

Kyoto nodded and held his hand out in a challenge. "All right, en guarde, pussycat."

Confused at the action, the black cat looked at Kyoto quizzically. "Meow?"

He rubbed her head quickly. "Aw, you're no fun."

Shaking his head at the scene, Polaris said, "About ten minutes to supper, I guess. Could you tell the others?"

"All right." Kyoto and Lucia then went upstairs to find the other residents of the apartment, taking Whisker with them briefly. Meanwhile, Polaris set the chopped bacon aside and checked on the sauce.

Part of that night's conversation was his latest attempt to get a job. "It was a training course for a psychic tarot reading group, which I thought would be interesting to learn about," he said.

"Yeah, so you could see into the future," Tom said, interested in that concept.

Polaris nodded. "Right, but then the whole thing turned out to be a scam. It was a phone based company, so they used a computer program to draw the cards and encouraged the so-called psychics to keep callers on as long as possible for high charges. Then, the instructor gave the demonstrations fast; it was hard for even me to follow. Further training courses would even charge students, but not in an obvious manner as they were all listed in fine print. I'd rather not bother with that to learn how to cheat others."

"I've heard that some tarot readers are authentic, but certainly not ones like that," Abe said.

Lucia, who was visiting for the evening, then said, "Hey, if you're looking for work, the ECPT is looking for a couple more station attendants. And they want reploids for those jobs, since we need to be able to connect to the rail network to know about delays and changes quickly. You just need to have some good socializing aptitude as we deal with lots of people. I can tell you how to get to the employment office tonight."

He shook his head. "I have class in an hour. But I could go early tomorrow." It sounded like something easy again, but it could also be interesting.


The next morning, he took the subway to the Downtown Ashleigh Street Station. It was an impressively large station, with a few small stores, a city tourist information center, and an entrance to the main ECPT offices. On the walls by the entrance, they even had a number of maps of Evergrande City itself, including street maps (marked with ECPT's bus stations and car rentals), topography maps, and rail maps. His interest was finding the manager who dealt with hiring reploids.

He got directed to the fifteenth floor of the office building, so took the elevator up there. But while they were quickly traveling upwards, he felt a strong sensation from all the electronics in the building. It wasn't the Maverick virus, or any virus that he had encountered. In fact, the system felt clean. It was simply so powerful, organizing all of the transportation moving within the city. ECPT must have kept up not only the trains and buses, but also all of the traffic lights and air lanes. Maybe other city schedules too.

Feeling this made Polaris feel uneasy. "How do I know all this?" he asked quietly.

We can manipulate programming, so being able to read what a system does is natural. Since this system is so huge and communicates between its various parts constantly, we can read it loud and clear. Stuff like reading another reploid without actually reaching into them is harder to do. That made some sense to Polaris, but then Delta had to add on, This place would be an important place to hold in order to control the city, but of course that means the security here must be tight. Notice how the button panel there is laid out? It locks out most of the floors from visitors like us.

He shook his head. He didn't want to control the city; there was no good reason for him to do that. On looking at the panel, he could tell that Delta was right about the elevator locks. It had a number pad to put in the destination floor, along with some information on how to reach the subway level again. There was also a card scanner which would be used by employees to get to their work.

When they got off the elevator, there was another layer of security where the system ran a brief scan over him for known viruses before it let him out. It was like an unpleasant tickle going down his spine. It's not noticing me, don't worry. A little late for viral scanning, though. I could've jumped in from the subway level, I'm sure.

Polaris was tense until the elevator door opened, indicating that he'd passed the viral scan. 'No, I wouldn't have let you,' he told Delta mentally, then headed down the hall to look for the office he needed. Maybe Lucia had thought it'd be simple for him to get this job, but she wouldn't have known that he had to worry about viral scanners and keeping a destructive-focused virus in check just to get in the building without causing trouble for anyone.

The manager who met with him was, surprisingly, also a reploid. Able Hub was a tall but slim humanoid model, wearing a blue and silver uniform armor resembling long slacks and a buttoned-up jacket. Because his short hair was also silver and light blue, it was easy to tell that he had been built for the ECPT. Interestingly, he had a pair of long black cords coming from behind his ears, hanging down to his waist level. One had a common connector that let him plug himself into other machines, while the other had a stub that could hold other connectors if needed.

After they exchanged introductions, Polaris offered his work report and personality grades for review. "I was interested in the station attendant job you were offering. I heard about it from Lucia."

"That girl, huh?" Able said, taking the drive from him. Then his left cord moved itself up to connect to the drive. "We normally take female models for that job."

"Why?" Polaris asked. It seemed an odd position to restrict gender to.

"Social expectations. But you are humanoid, which still works. Basically, we want to make passengers feel comfortable around our crews, so the attendants and such who are most out in public view are best if they're humanoid, for our human passengers." Able paused for a moment, looking at the drive. "You worked as a childcare provider briefly?"

He nodded. "Yes. I'm open to trying a lot of different things."

"It's good that you can work with humans. Hmmm." He crossed his arms over his chest, thinking. "You've certainly got the social grades, well more than I ask for. But then... you were originally a fighter model?" He put his arms down at his sides. "I'm not sure about that one. We don't need soldiers."

"I'm not that great of a fighter," he said, rubbing his head. "And that's not what I want to do."

"Then what do you want to do?"

He considered for a second what he should said. "I want to find out what I can really be, after being stuck in the same rut for much of my life. That's why I like trying out different jobs now, to see what I can do in different situations. I'm also an artist, but there's not much steady income I've found for that."

"I see." Then Able smiled. "I can't argue with someone trying to find themselves. But if you do have some fighting ability, would you mind if I put you at one of the more troubled stations? It's in a bad part of town and I want the attendant there to be capable of breaking up a fight if need be. It can be hazardous."

A more dangerous spot. Polaris felt a twisting of nerves at that. But then he recalled Lucia, who didn't seem all that capable in a combat situation. Presumably other station attendants would be like her, not able to keep up. "I've lived in a dangerous place where there were a lot of trigger happy thugs," he said. "So far Evergrande seems tame compared to that. I think I could handle it."

"That'd be great," he said, pleased to hear that. "The current girls I have there are brave, but one of them isn't up to taking out a disruption or working there alone. I could move her to a more suitable spot then. But we have to finish the interview so I know you're right for the job."

Polaris nodded, although this was already more promising than his other prospects.


So his next job wasn't in the original fic, but I think it fits in better. Because of that, Able is new. On the other hand, Mimosa, Joules, and Silver Wolf were all in the original version as three local Maverick Hunters. Each has been changed some, though. I'll talk about the last when he shows up, but the two women were more tweaked then fully changed. Mimosa had been a chainsaw wielder (really!), but it was mostly for a couple of jokes, so that's been removed. Joules was and still is an electricity user, but you'll see her in action this time around . That's why Mimosa warns her not to shock little Whisker by touching her.

The Greek muses don't account for the internet, aw... modern muses would, though!

Update is a few hours late because I managed to hit a site bug that lasted for only five minutes, lol. It added spaces everywhere! I had to re-upload it when they said it was fixed.