One Last Bounty
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There's one thing offbeat in this work. And maybe that's the reason we're talking, shooting, catching and killing in this, for some, unusual and for some even catchy kind of way. Weeks and months without any decent job can made one thinking about it. And thinking can lift up or advance people. However, it can totally chop them up too. Especially if you're working in this kind of a job, where nothing is black or white, and every shadow or wind blow has its own bad feeling. Many similar to me, end locked up with a dirty secret in a drawer. Secret of at least forty percent forgetting behind thick glass. Only lighter moments are those, when they're after some bounty. Only then they're hunting dogs. But if the gripe is too long... they sometimes forget how to hunt...
Few minutes before ten in the night, the ceiling fan cut cigarette smoke and not even dog barked outside. Obviously dogs aren't barking in this town. Windows were soaked from the rain which blew over an hour ago, and shined as Faye's thighs without stockings. My eyes were dim and vacant the same way as her last bounty. Even the hot shots and 'big shots', I drew on the box and moved with strings as targets were sleepy, they stopped constantly as my fingers broke the line I used. Shooting still targets was boring. They were like figurines from show-window. I threw my legs on the table and buried my back deep into the couch. Back then, I had my own dirty secret in a drawer. But something told me, it wasn't the right time to look down on it's bottom. Let's call it intuition or vision aura, it doesn't matter.
I smelled a new job in the air.
I threw away the half-finished cigarette. Cigarettes are like bounties these days - there's plenty, but only few are worth smoking. Some old fellows of mine would say, that we reached a damned dry season, but they won't, cuz they're dried as soldiers on Titan. They're still toiling along somewhere, but in their screwed bosom, they already burned out. Yeah iz sounds funny I know, not exactly good with words. It's like when you turn bad on a wrong crossroad. Sometimes it seems, that the new highway is smoother, asphalt seems not that hot and you don't have to think so much. So they chose nanomachines, clones, genetic arms and hi-tec weapons. But that old road, which is sometimes zigzag and you will lose your way not only once, has its own goods, and mainly, you will get much further. This detour means to handle the things by your own will. Not with some high-flown guns, and technology. But with your own head. Important is that these fellas of mine, were right, well partly. Booming conventions which activates slobbering, new promotional tv-shows feeding a whole mass of people and films loaded with sex-appeal and silicone. But like I said, no interesting job at all.
If you're considering guarding daughter of some busy minister interesting, then I'm not. Maybe if she was older... So behind the facade is only the common skeleton, and the cemetery of bounties is full of them. The last decent job I had - and it wasn't search for a lost cat - was that girl thing. Maybe Faye should did it... Then again maybe she shouldn't because I don't want to deal with child corpses. But it's all too far and slowly falling into slush of my mixed memories.
I'm sitting in the room and the remains of the smoke are vanishing under the ceiling. Today, I found a rotten cheese in the fridge. When I threw it away into the bin, I realized that this whole world is rotten. We'll see it all, someday the webs between syndicates and police will start to rot away and the public will finally smell it. Besides even now they are full of crap and shit. For example the catchers of human souls - so called 'crimp cells' or 'cc's. Recruiting offices in syndicates, I got through it too. Something what smells nice as hell, and when you sniff a little, you're glued and there's no way out. Death maybe, but that's naive.
I tried that opinion, no luck...
I heard his footsteps from the corridor, he didn't even knock or something. But hell - manners are not popular like old .38's - it's not in style anymore, like facebook. That guy looked as if someone trashed with him in the mud, then washed him on third speed in washing machine and placed him before some romance film import. There was an uncomfortable tick in his left eye, rumpled hat on his head, and small package in his hands. From the shake in his hands I deducted that he never got to know that machine-gun can fire with one press and pull, or he played action scenes on that new console with an old Atari controller too much. But that didn't matter, important was, that he was scared as hell. And I smelled a decent job.
"You are Spiegel? Spike Spiegel the bounty hunter?" He strained shortly.
Yeah, with my pride the whole Mars could be fed or our ship repaired. But I suspected the advertisement I placed on our ship for this.
"Maybe I am, but you look like you're looking for soft arms of a woman and some alcohol instead of a bounty hunter." I answered.
Maybe he didn't notice the sarcasm in my voice, or he was too shocked, because he continued instantly.
"I've got a problem, Spiegel." I offered him a seat.
The chair squeaked under him like a granny on her diamond marriage. And spited out her age. That wasn't good eye appeal - but on the other hand, that guy knew that I've been through a lot.
"Speak up, problems with Mafia? Did someone beat you in mud wrestling? Or you got lost in a subway with homeless tracking you?" He certainly got it this time, because he grinned and spoke up.
"Don't be funny Spiegel, maybe you're good, but I can always ask elsewhere. I've got something I can't deal with. And I'm too scared to do it alone..."
I looked in those ticking eyes of his and started to take him seriously. The fact that they were red from looking on monitor or tv is not rare these days. But that look...
"What happened?" I asked without any trace of irony.
Shaking, he handed me the package. I offered him a cigarette, he refused it. It was brown-yellow package. Too light for a money or DVD, but the size fitted. It seemed unopened.
"What's inside?" I asked him and feared that it contains some virus or illegal beta version or romance import. I'm not moral, but beta versions can't really be played...
"I don't know, Spiegel, one guy gave it to me... it was strange, I met him in park... under... under the tree. He walked from the shadow and stopped me. In these situations I usually run like hell, but then, something in his voice made me listen to him. He said: 'Take this and go. Open it at home. No manual. No art. No animation. No collection items. But I can swear my life that you never seen something better than this.' I couldn't see his face, but that voice... it was scary."
This got my attention. I heard similar stories - people met some guy, face hidden with cape, who gave them package, and then few days later they went missing - they simply disappeared. As I torn the package, I didn't know how much it'll change my life. In black packet without any sing was only one CD. It blew a flash around whole room. Without hesitating I threw it into the player and played it. My visitor wanted to protest, but my look broke him down.
The monitor turned on...
...and then turned off...
I flew from the ship the same day, for Vicious to end my life. Placing a sing 'Closed' on my room, I threw away the key into the sewer and bought a new traveling trench-coat. And nobody ever saw me again...
Long after I left, that guy still sat there on the chair and watched the black monitor. Maybe I stole his big present, but according to me, he couldn't accept it anyway. He was as a chick waiting for someone from KFC to kill him and feed fat men with him. That short moment when the monitor shined, was mine. And only I read those words.
There was written:
'Pull yourself together! And Live! You are in some animated show anyway, so death doesn't matter. Life goes on... DEAL WITH IT.'
Animated show, death didn't matter. I decided to kill Vicious and everyone in the Red Dragons. Maybe it was a stupid suicide, but I thought no one could pull off shit like this. Then again, I felt someone controlling me. Thousands of people watching my actions with popcorn in their hands and shock in their eyes - I needed to play it cool.
"Bang..."
I'm dead now.
But I realized that, the guy in the park was right.
No manual.
No art.
No animation.
And no collection items...
My own life is the best anime I ever saw.
So that was my last bounty, and if you ran into a guy with cape, who gives you a package without any label, then you are watching anime too much...