1 SECOND MOVEMENT
The Swordfish II speed craft was a MONO (Machine Operation Navigation of Outer space) racer in its beginning days. A man named Doohan built and raced it, and it became famous. When Spike first met Doohan, he was still in the syndicate. It was seven years ago, the first time he needed to get it overhauled. He had only had it for three years, and hadn't needed repairing until he was in a battle with a rival group, the Blue Snake. The Swordfish had a nuclear engine, and the booster nozzle a short-range impulse drive. Machine guns were mounted on the wings and there was a large beam cannon in front. Its color was pink. Spike had once tried to paint it on the advice of his old comrade Vicious (who teased him about its color), but Doohan threw a fit and refused to work on the speedster until Spike returned it to pink. Spike really didn't mind the color, just as long as the machine worked.
Spike sat on the cockpit seat, leaning forward and clutching it's control handles. The hanger door was opening, and Spike would be the first out. Jet would follow in the Hammerhead.
Hammerhead was a MONO boat, remodeled to make it more powerful. Jet purchased it shortly after the Bebop, which itself was an old fishing transport. Spike hoped Faye was getting prepared to launch in the Redtail, her own speed craft. Spike turned on the communication link, so that he could talk to Jet. According to reports he picked up on his scanner, Gill Whitman was last seen in Torrent City. It was conveniently near Aruba City, which is where the Bebop was docked.
"Jet, we're in luck," Spike announced. "Torrent City."
"Torrent City, huh? So, at least we don't have far to travel. It will really cut down on expenses," Jet said.
"Yeah," Spike agreed. "Hey, is Faye getting ready?"
Faye Valentine slowly entered the hanger, walking over to the Redtail and climbing in. The Redtail was a monument in Faye's gambling career. The only thing she ever won that she didn't immediately lose. It was technically a MONO carrier, a small multi-purpose craft. In its basic configuration it's armed with machine guns and rocket launchers. She sat down and activated the two triple-geared engines. Then she flipped a switch that activated its navigation and radio functions. She turned on the communication link and waited for Spike to take off. When he did, she realized that she needed to know where they were headed.
"Hey, where is this guy going to be?" Faye asked.
"If you got ready a little faster, you would have already known," Jet said.
"Well it's not like we're not going to the same place," Faye remarked.
"He was last seen in Torrent," Spike said, already well on his way.
"We should split up," Jet suggested, preparing to launch, "cover different areas."
"Well, I guess I'll go ask around," Faye said.
"I'll go to the crime scene," Jet said. "I'm sure there's something around there that could be of some use. If not, I'll try to find some family or friends to question. Spike, where will you be? Gonna go ask Bull if he can sense him?"
"Not this time, Bull's on T.J. for a month or so," Spike replied. "I do have a contact in Torrent that might be useful. This guy's another bounty hunter that worked with me in another life. I guess I could get some help, I've got a few hundred woolongs on me I can spend to know what he knows."
"Okay, but try to distance yourself from him," Jet said, "this is our bounty head."
"Don't worry," Spike assured his partner. "Nothing's going to take those eighteen million woolongs away from me."
"Ahem, from us," Faye reminded him. "Six million woolongs each, that's pretty fair."
"What about Edward?" Ed commented from the control room of the ship.
Spike smiled. "We'll bring you back a souvenir."
"Alright," Edward said, "make it something good!"
---^^^---
Spike Spiegel was twenty-seven years old, a native of Mars, and once a member of the crime syndicate the Red Dragon. His father was in it once, and was killed in a shootout over a territory dispute. A year later, Spike's mother disappeared. That same year, Mao Yenrei inducted Spike into the group. His first full year in the organization, Spike was paired up with a young man named Morrison Tinwheel. They worked in Torrent, which was pretty far from Red Dragon headquarters in Tharsis. The syndicate had them make sure that its drug inventory was protected. They were armed to the teeth for this, and soon Spike became attached to his Jericho 941. He always preferred hand-to-hand combat, though. His style of fighting was Jeet Kune Do. Morrison preferred the uzi to the fist, though. They were on assignment breaking up a dispute between the street thugs selling the drugs they were protecting and the sellers, a business deal turned into a gunfight, when Morrison was shot several times. He lost his leg and had to get a replacement limb. The syndicate let him leave, and he became a bounty hunter, but he never once took a bounty if it were a member of the Red Dragon. He wasn't stupid. Spike was jealous of him for one reason; he left the syndicate easily. Morrison didn't have to fake his death.
Morrison was a tall, blonde man with an arrogant look to him. He had a tattoo of a red dragon on one arm, and a tattoo of a black dragon on the other. On this particular day, he wore a green muscle shirt and brown shorts, and was smoking a cigarette as he sat down and listened to Spike. His apartment was on the top floor of a relatively old building. His kitchen reminded Spike of the Bebop. Spike explained that he was after the bounty on Gil Whitman's head. Predictably, Morrison smirked and said that he too was on the trail of Whitney. Information that didn't come cheap (eight thousand woolongs), and it probably wasn't going to be specific. After all, they were rivals for this bounty.
"The only reason why I'm sharing any information with you is because we're old buddies," Tinwheel reminded Spike. "This is information that not many people know. It's lucky that I'm living in the perfect place for bounty hunting. This part of Torrent is filled with fugitives, some stay here when the ISSP stops looking. I doubt they're gonna let this wife killer go, though. Good thing, I can really use eighteen million woolongs."
"Couldn't we all?" Spike asked rhetorically.
"Anyway," Morrison continued, "the man and his daughter have been spotted around Bird Park. This means that they're probably on the east side, near Luxingburg Street."
"So that's it, huh?" Spike asked, already knowing the answer.
"Anything more would cost you eighteen million woolongs. Not like you'll be collecting on that anyway," Morrison remarked confidently. "Anyway, how's life treating you, Mr. Hotshot Bounty Hunter? You're not exactly keeping a low profile for a guy the syndicate is after."
"The syndicate isn't after me," Spike corrected Morrison. "Vicious is."
"That's much worse," Morrison commented.
"Oh?"
"Definitely. Remind me, what do you to make him go psychotic?"
"Heh, he was already psychotic. I just fell in love with his girlfriend."
"Julia?"
Julia. That name was so cruel to Spike Spiegel. The feelings flooded back into his conscious. It always confused him, because he never believed those events really happened, not until it was brought up again. Seeing Julia at the bar during a game of pool, meeting with her when Vicious had gone to fight in the Titan War. Holding her, kissing her, changing his prospective. He was afraid to die, a weakness Vicious despised. The man realized the betrayal, and tried to have Spike killed. Spike "died" the day at the graveyard, when Julia never showed up. They were going to leave Mars together, leave Vicious and memories of the syndicate behind them. Instead Spike had to leave his life in that place, and drift into the dream he was now living. He would always remember her, though. Julia.
"Yeah," Spike confirmed, "Julia."
"I left a bit easier than you did, Spiegel. I kinda feel bad about it, but then you didn't lose your leg."
"I lost my eye," Spike said, pointing to his slightly off red eye. "I see the past in this one."
"And the present in the other?" Morrison guessed.
"Yep."
"Where's the future?"
"I have none," Spike said with an awful, sad sort of smile, and letting some kind of laugh exit his mouth.
"You scare me sometimes, Spike."
"I scare myself sometimes, Tinwheel," Spike said, rising from his seat. "Anyway, I guess I should hurry before it's too late. Or is it already?"
"I'll be out there in an hour or so, Spike. Don't count on finding those two before me, but good luck nonetheless," Tinwheel said.
"Thanks," Spike said, as he headed out the door. "Don't forget that I'm only the owner of 6 million woolongs. I have a team on this."
---^^^---
Many words or phrases could describe Jet Black. He was a thirty-five year old ex-ISSP agent, the man once referred to as "The Black Dog" because whenever he bit, he'd never let go. His beat was Ganymede, and that's where he worked for many years, until he lost his arm in a syndicate set-up. His own partner betrayed him, something he would just come to discover a week before this day. Between losing his arm and the disappearance of his live- in girlfriend Alisa, he was tired of it all. He quit the ISSP and became a bounty hunter, buying the Bebop for about the price of on Gil Whitman's head. Luckily for Jet, a word you could use to describe him is connected. Everybody seemed to owe him one.
Today found him waiting outside the Berkely Café, across the street from the crime scene, Aruba City's biggest recreational park. He contacted a detective he met a while back that worked the beat, and probably knew something about Gil Whitman. It would be interesting to get another person's input as he was scanning the area of the murder. Perhaps then he could talk to any friends or relatives of the victim. Jun Yumizaki was running a bit late, but Jet seemed comfortable. It was damp and chilly, but Jet enjoyed the morning air. Soon the detective could be seen from afar, and Jet waved. The man picked up the pace, reaching Jet in a matter of seconds.
"Sorry I'm late," Yumizaki apologized. "I am working this case, you know. I need to be in Torrent in a couple of hours."
"Really? Well, then I guess you're not going to give me any tips on catching this guy," Jet lamented in a joking manner.
"I never said I was that into my work," Yumizaki said with a smile. "Come on, let's get something to eat."
"Good idea," Jet said.
The café was considerably clean. Jet and Jun sat down at the booth nearest to the doors, both one either side of the table. Jet picked up a small menu and scanned it. There wasn't much on there that he fancied. French toast was all right, but restaurants never made it right. He couldn't have eggs for medical reasons, and pancakes just didn't suit his mood that day. He could just have a cinnamon roll or a muffin. Jun ordered a couple of doughnuts. Jet said he just wanted a cup of coffee.
"Doughnuts? Don't you think you're just enforcing the stereotype?" Jet asked.
"What? I just like doughnuts, that's all," Yumizaki defended. "Aren't you going to eat something?"
"I'm not that hungry," Jet admitted. "There something you can tell me about Whitman?"
"Yeah," Yumizaki confirmed. "Gill is an executive for Pippu Cola. His wife Kate was an assistant for a powerful medical company, the kind that makes all kinds of medicines, Halion. We've heard from family and friends that their marriage was on the rocks, and sometimes Gill would have violent fits, a condition only calmed by his medication. He stopped taking the stuff when he thought he had no more need for it. Everything was looking up after a few months of couple counseling. The day in question, Whitney took his wife and kid to the park. As far as we could tell there was some kind of argument and he shot her after a struggle. His fingerprints are on the weapon, and it was fired three or four times, though Kate was shot twice. We think the daughter tried to stop him. When we initially questioned Gill, he claimed that a man came into the park and attacked his wife when he was getting food for them. He heard the screams and came to help, but she was already wounded. He claimed to have wrestled the gun out of the man's hand and shot him before he ran off. Nobody in the area saw the man he described."
"It's pretty clear-cut then, huh?" Jet asked.
"Seems so," Yumizaki responded.
"So, it'd be fine for me to look around the crime scene, wouldn't it?" Jet asked.
"Why?"
"I just have a strange feeling about this."
"Sure, I guess you could. Hey, don't you have some kind of team? Where are the others?"
"Torrent."
"Ah," Yumizaki said with nod, "actively pursuing the bounty?"
"Something like that, yeah," Jet replied.
The waitress appeared and set down a plate in front of Jun, with his doughnuts. She placed a cup of coffee in front of both him and Jet. Jun thanked the waitress and winked, noticing her shapely form. Jet rolled his eyes, but smiled at the waitress as well. He was only human, after all. Jun picked up a baked good from his plate and presented it to Jet.
"Doughnut, Jet?" he offered.
Jet laughed. "Sure."
END OF SECOND MOVEMENT
The Swordfish II speed craft was a MONO (Machine Operation Navigation of Outer space) racer in its beginning days. A man named Doohan built and raced it, and it became famous. When Spike first met Doohan, he was still in the syndicate. It was seven years ago, the first time he needed to get it overhauled. He had only had it for three years, and hadn't needed repairing until he was in a battle with a rival group, the Blue Snake. The Swordfish had a nuclear engine, and the booster nozzle a short-range impulse drive. Machine guns were mounted on the wings and there was a large beam cannon in front. Its color was pink. Spike had once tried to paint it on the advice of his old comrade Vicious (who teased him about its color), but Doohan threw a fit and refused to work on the speedster until Spike returned it to pink. Spike really didn't mind the color, just as long as the machine worked.
Spike sat on the cockpit seat, leaning forward and clutching it's control handles. The hanger door was opening, and Spike would be the first out. Jet would follow in the Hammerhead.
Hammerhead was a MONO boat, remodeled to make it more powerful. Jet purchased it shortly after the Bebop, which itself was an old fishing transport. Spike hoped Faye was getting prepared to launch in the Redtail, her own speed craft. Spike turned on the communication link, so that he could talk to Jet. According to reports he picked up on his scanner, Gill Whitman was last seen in Torrent City. It was conveniently near Aruba City, which is where the Bebop was docked.
"Jet, we're in luck," Spike announced. "Torrent City."
"Torrent City, huh? So, at least we don't have far to travel. It will really cut down on expenses," Jet said.
"Yeah," Spike agreed. "Hey, is Faye getting ready?"
Faye Valentine slowly entered the hanger, walking over to the Redtail and climbing in. The Redtail was a monument in Faye's gambling career. The only thing she ever won that she didn't immediately lose. It was technically a MONO carrier, a small multi-purpose craft. In its basic configuration it's armed with machine guns and rocket launchers. She sat down and activated the two triple-geared engines. Then she flipped a switch that activated its navigation and radio functions. She turned on the communication link and waited for Spike to take off. When he did, she realized that she needed to know where they were headed.
"Hey, where is this guy going to be?" Faye asked.
"If you got ready a little faster, you would have already known," Jet said.
"Well it's not like we're not going to the same place," Faye remarked.
"He was last seen in Torrent," Spike said, already well on his way.
"We should split up," Jet suggested, preparing to launch, "cover different areas."
"Well, I guess I'll go ask around," Faye said.
"I'll go to the crime scene," Jet said. "I'm sure there's something around there that could be of some use. If not, I'll try to find some family or friends to question. Spike, where will you be? Gonna go ask Bull if he can sense him?"
"Not this time, Bull's on T.J. for a month or so," Spike replied. "I do have a contact in Torrent that might be useful. This guy's another bounty hunter that worked with me in another life. I guess I could get some help, I've got a few hundred woolongs on me I can spend to know what he knows."
"Okay, but try to distance yourself from him," Jet said, "this is our bounty head."
"Don't worry," Spike assured his partner. "Nothing's going to take those eighteen million woolongs away from me."
"Ahem, from us," Faye reminded him. "Six million woolongs each, that's pretty fair."
"What about Edward?" Ed commented from the control room of the ship.
Spike smiled. "We'll bring you back a souvenir."
"Alright," Edward said, "make it something good!"
---^^^---
Spike Spiegel was twenty-seven years old, a native of Mars, and once a member of the crime syndicate the Red Dragon. His father was in it once, and was killed in a shootout over a territory dispute. A year later, Spike's mother disappeared. That same year, Mao Yenrei inducted Spike into the group. His first full year in the organization, Spike was paired up with a young man named Morrison Tinwheel. They worked in Torrent, which was pretty far from Red Dragon headquarters in Tharsis. The syndicate had them make sure that its drug inventory was protected. They were armed to the teeth for this, and soon Spike became attached to his Jericho 941. He always preferred hand-to-hand combat, though. His style of fighting was Jeet Kune Do. Morrison preferred the uzi to the fist, though. They were on assignment breaking up a dispute between the street thugs selling the drugs they were protecting and the sellers, a business deal turned into a gunfight, when Morrison was shot several times. He lost his leg and had to get a replacement limb. The syndicate let him leave, and he became a bounty hunter, but he never once took a bounty if it were a member of the Red Dragon. He wasn't stupid. Spike was jealous of him for one reason; he left the syndicate easily. Morrison didn't have to fake his death.
Morrison was a tall, blonde man with an arrogant look to him. He had a tattoo of a red dragon on one arm, and a tattoo of a black dragon on the other. On this particular day, he wore a green muscle shirt and brown shorts, and was smoking a cigarette as he sat down and listened to Spike. His apartment was on the top floor of a relatively old building. His kitchen reminded Spike of the Bebop. Spike explained that he was after the bounty on Gil Whitman's head. Predictably, Morrison smirked and said that he too was on the trail of Whitney. Information that didn't come cheap (eight thousand woolongs), and it probably wasn't going to be specific. After all, they were rivals for this bounty.
"The only reason why I'm sharing any information with you is because we're old buddies," Tinwheel reminded Spike. "This is information that not many people know. It's lucky that I'm living in the perfect place for bounty hunting. This part of Torrent is filled with fugitives, some stay here when the ISSP stops looking. I doubt they're gonna let this wife killer go, though. Good thing, I can really use eighteen million woolongs."
"Couldn't we all?" Spike asked rhetorically.
"Anyway," Morrison continued, "the man and his daughter have been spotted around Bird Park. This means that they're probably on the east side, near Luxingburg Street."
"So that's it, huh?" Spike asked, already knowing the answer.
"Anything more would cost you eighteen million woolongs. Not like you'll be collecting on that anyway," Morrison remarked confidently. "Anyway, how's life treating you, Mr. Hotshot Bounty Hunter? You're not exactly keeping a low profile for a guy the syndicate is after."
"The syndicate isn't after me," Spike corrected Morrison. "Vicious is."
"That's much worse," Morrison commented.
"Oh?"
"Definitely. Remind me, what do you to make him go psychotic?"
"Heh, he was already psychotic. I just fell in love with his girlfriend."
"Julia?"
Julia. That name was so cruel to Spike Spiegel. The feelings flooded back into his conscious. It always confused him, because he never believed those events really happened, not until it was brought up again. Seeing Julia at the bar during a game of pool, meeting with her when Vicious had gone to fight in the Titan War. Holding her, kissing her, changing his prospective. He was afraid to die, a weakness Vicious despised. The man realized the betrayal, and tried to have Spike killed. Spike "died" the day at the graveyard, when Julia never showed up. They were going to leave Mars together, leave Vicious and memories of the syndicate behind them. Instead Spike had to leave his life in that place, and drift into the dream he was now living. He would always remember her, though. Julia.
"Yeah," Spike confirmed, "Julia."
"I left a bit easier than you did, Spiegel. I kinda feel bad about it, but then you didn't lose your leg."
"I lost my eye," Spike said, pointing to his slightly off red eye. "I see the past in this one."
"And the present in the other?" Morrison guessed.
"Yep."
"Where's the future?"
"I have none," Spike said with an awful, sad sort of smile, and letting some kind of laugh exit his mouth.
"You scare me sometimes, Spike."
"I scare myself sometimes, Tinwheel," Spike said, rising from his seat. "Anyway, I guess I should hurry before it's too late. Or is it already?"
"I'll be out there in an hour or so, Spike. Don't count on finding those two before me, but good luck nonetheless," Tinwheel said.
"Thanks," Spike said, as he headed out the door. "Don't forget that I'm only the owner of 6 million woolongs. I have a team on this."
---^^^---
Many words or phrases could describe Jet Black. He was a thirty-five year old ex-ISSP agent, the man once referred to as "The Black Dog" because whenever he bit, he'd never let go. His beat was Ganymede, and that's where he worked for many years, until he lost his arm in a syndicate set-up. His own partner betrayed him, something he would just come to discover a week before this day. Between losing his arm and the disappearance of his live- in girlfriend Alisa, he was tired of it all. He quit the ISSP and became a bounty hunter, buying the Bebop for about the price of on Gil Whitman's head. Luckily for Jet, a word you could use to describe him is connected. Everybody seemed to owe him one.
Today found him waiting outside the Berkely Café, across the street from the crime scene, Aruba City's biggest recreational park. He contacted a detective he met a while back that worked the beat, and probably knew something about Gil Whitman. It would be interesting to get another person's input as he was scanning the area of the murder. Perhaps then he could talk to any friends or relatives of the victim. Jun Yumizaki was running a bit late, but Jet seemed comfortable. It was damp and chilly, but Jet enjoyed the morning air. Soon the detective could be seen from afar, and Jet waved. The man picked up the pace, reaching Jet in a matter of seconds.
"Sorry I'm late," Yumizaki apologized. "I am working this case, you know. I need to be in Torrent in a couple of hours."
"Really? Well, then I guess you're not going to give me any tips on catching this guy," Jet lamented in a joking manner.
"I never said I was that into my work," Yumizaki said with a smile. "Come on, let's get something to eat."
"Good idea," Jet said.
The café was considerably clean. Jet and Jun sat down at the booth nearest to the doors, both one either side of the table. Jet picked up a small menu and scanned it. There wasn't much on there that he fancied. French toast was all right, but restaurants never made it right. He couldn't have eggs for medical reasons, and pancakes just didn't suit his mood that day. He could just have a cinnamon roll or a muffin. Jun ordered a couple of doughnuts. Jet said he just wanted a cup of coffee.
"Doughnuts? Don't you think you're just enforcing the stereotype?" Jet asked.
"What? I just like doughnuts, that's all," Yumizaki defended. "Aren't you going to eat something?"
"I'm not that hungry," Jet admitted. "There something you can tell me about Whitman?"
"Yeah," Yumizaki confirmed. "Gill is an executive for Pippu Cola. His wife Kate was an assistant for a powerful medical company, the kind that makes all kinds of medicines, Halion. We've heard from family and friends that their marriage was on the rocks, and sometimes Gill would have violent fits, a condition only calmed by his medication. He stopped taking the stuff when he thought he had no more need for it. Everything was looking up after a few months of couple counseling. The day in question, Whitney took his wife and kid to the park. As far as we could tell there was some kind of argument and he shot her after a struggle. His fingerprints are on the weapon, and it was fired three or four times, though Kate was shot twice. We think the daughter tried to stop him. When we initially questioned Gill, he claimed that a man came into the park and attacked his wife when he was getting food for them. He heard the screams and came to help, but she was already wounded. He claimed to have wrestled the gun out of the man's hand and shot him before he ran off. Nobody in the area saw the man he described."
"It's pretty clear-cut then, huh?" Jet asked.
"Seems so," Yumizaki responded.
"So, it'd be fine for me to look around the crime scene, wouldn't it?" Jet asked.
"Why?"
"I just have a strange feeling about this."
"Sure, I guess you could. Hey, don't you have some kind of team? Where are the others?"
"Torrent."
"Ah," Yumizaki said with nod, "actively pursuing the bounty?"
"Something like that, yeah," Jet replied.
The waitress appeared and set down a plate in front of Jun, with his doughnuts. She placed a cup of coffee in front of both him and Jet. Jun thanked the waitress and winked, noticing her shapely form. Jet rolled his eyes, but smiled at the waitress as well. He was only human, after all. Jun picked up a baked good from his plate and presented it to Jet.
"Doughnut, Jet?" he offered.
Jet laughed. "Sure."
END OF SECOND MOVEMENT