Drifter

The station was an exercise in showing off. The hollowed-out space in the middle was home to a city. Time and a long string of economic failures had turned much of the silver and majesty into misery and decay.

Buildings pressed tight against one another. People wandered aimlessly up and down trash covered sidewalks. Crowded trains made their way from one crumbling station to the next. It was the perfect place for someone like his target, a hunting ground waiting for an apex predator.

The station’s night cycle reached dusk. The artificial sky burned, before fading out. The fake sun was replaced by fake stars. Something was lost when the light hadn’t spent thousands of years traveling to reach his eyes.

The night brought with it a sacred daze. This took hold of people, killing inhibitions and permitting the fulfillment of darker needs. Clubs sprang to life. Neon and magic colors joined the false stars and the dull streetlamps.

Eli strolled through the entertainment district. His eyes found potential prey just as they found other hunters. Glazed eyes moved up and down him, some assessing him as a threat, others as a potential thrill.

The bounty hunter made his way through crowds of drunken revelers. He searched seedy bars. He scanned throbbing masses of drug fueled dancers. The night began to work its way into his mind. Memories from when he was stationed in Germany flooded back. The temptation to reject these past joys was overwhelming, to write them off as the experiences of another man. That man wasn’t dead. He had been irrevocably altered, but he remained.

There was Kolache, dressed to the nines in a fine, if somewhat flamboyant suit. The sighting was sudden, knocking Eli out of his bout of introspection. The killer was standing across the street, in front of the darkened windows of a store. His awareness was completely focused on a gaggle of young women. In that moment of sick pleasure, they were the beginning and end of his universe.

Nothing behind the target but an empty store front, clearly closed for the day. Eli brought his arms out from under the cloak, revealing a pair of submachine guns that were strapped to a chest rig. He pointed them at the murderer and held down the triggers.

Stray bullets screamed through the window, blasting the room with glass. They ripped through the items that were displayed there. The girls screamed and ran. Kolache took a hit to the side before he could react, another to the chest as he turned to see what was happening. He stumbled backward, toppling over onto his ass. His back against the building, he went still.

Eli released the pressure on the triggers. The guns were much lighter. Spent brass was piled up around his boots. Keeping his sights locked on the target, he slowly moved forward.

In the blink of an eye Kolache drew a little holdout pistol and discharged it. The slug struck left of center, flattening out against the strike plate in Eli’s vest and knocking the wind out of him. The killer scrambled through the shot-out window.

Eli recovered from the impact. He darted into the store. Movement, Kolache was making a break for it, running down an aisle. Eli emptied his guns at the fleeing man. Boxes exploded, items were torn to pieces.

Kolache took a round in his left thigh. He let out a cry of pain. His run turned into a hurried walk.

The guns ran dry. Kolache reached the end of the aisle. He turned, raised his left arm, a red light shot out of his wrist. Eli dove, the pulse of light narrowly missing him.

Kolache adjusted his aim, fired the weapon on his wrist again, before ducking into the back of the store. The pulse of light struck a box that sat near the edge of one of the shelves. It began to glow with that same strange light. Eli paused, looking at the glow. It was unearthly, not quite like anything he had seen under the Sad’Daki or during his travels. The only thing that he could match it to was from the witness reports he had spent the last few days studying.

Without warning, the box exploded. The force of the blast threw things off of the shelves, shredded containers and sent shrapnel flying. Eli found himself without cover. He instinctively raised his artificial hand to shield his face.

Eli gave himself a quick once over. Bits of jagged metal were imbedded in his prosthetic, but these didn’t go far below the surface. He reached into the cloak, which was now covered in tears. A decent sized chunk of metal was stuck in his armored vest. He ripped this out and tossed it aside. Surveying the wreckage, he determined that he been very lucky. If he hadn’t stopped, he would have been caught by the full force of the blast.

Eli could have sworn that there was another blast, which went off at exactly the same time. It was difficult to tell, but it sounded like it came from the direction that his target had fled to. Perhaps he had laid a trap and accidentally set it off.

The bastard must have had a protective vest on under his dress shirt. And what was that mysterious ray that he had fired at Eli? It certainly didn’t function the same way as the other directed energy weapons he had encountered.

Weapons reloaded and at the ready, Eli moved into the back of the store. There was a single exit. He went through it.

The corridor was only lit by a few overhead lights, which were spaced far apart. There was a hole in the wall. Fragments of some piece of equipment were scattered on the floor. The damage looked like it had been caused by a small explosive device, perhaps a hand grenade.

Tracks in the dust, shoe prints with a certain symbol on them. Eli followed them around a corner and down another hallway. The discarded suit jacket lay on the floor. Eli put a burst into it, hoping to disable any traps that it might have concealed. There was nothing.

Eli passed through a door at the end of the hall, found himself inside of a colossal dome. He was standing atop a low wall that ran around the outside of a park. Pathways weaved through high foliage. Trees which looked like they could have been from Earth stood beside alien abominations.

And there was Kolache, limping through a clearing, nearing the edge of a tree line. Now that the back of his belt was exposed a row of small explosives could be seen. And there was a very expensive looking shield projector. Despite its reduced size Eli had no doubt that it held many charges.

“Hold it right there!” a confident voice called out.

A group of six individuals wearing the uniforms of the local police entered the area via the same way that the two foes had. They moved with a purpose, quickly reaching Eli. They came to a halt there, hands hovering near their sidearms.

The lead cop spoke again, “Mr. Cisneros, thanks for the tip! You thought that you could get us to do your job for you. Well, you just screwed yourself out of a paycheck. This is our collar. You got it?”

Eli gestured toward his target, “Be my guest.”