Leaning against my bike, I lit a cigarette and took a drag, exhaling the smoke upwards in a column.  The sign for the Widow’s Den glowed a fluorescent green, illuminating my surroundings in the otherwise dark alleyway.  The occasional hunter passed me by as I smoked, heading to the same place I was.  Hunter’s Row held many of the most popular meeting spots for hunters and liaisons, and the Widow’s Den was no exception.  Being known for giving out good hunts for fair pay, it was a well-liked spot by the locals.

When the cigarette burned down to the butt, I flicked it across the street into the brick wall adjacent to me.  The embers flew upon impact with the wall, scattering to the ground and going out.  I turned on my heel and went into the bar.

As usual, the place was incredibly busy.  Most of the seats were taken, but one of the booths in the back was free, so I sat down in it and tapped the screen embedded into the table.  On the menu that appeared when I interacted with it was a list of drinks and a list of jobs.  Not wanting to be even remotely inebriated for my next job, I settled on a glass of ice water.  While looking through the jobs, a few caught my eye.  Most were kill jobs, but there were a few high-paying search and rescue jobs as well.  The issue with search and rescue jobs was that they were most often involved with gangs, which meant that shooting my way out would be a lot more difficult.  

I tapped the button on the menu that sent a liaison out to me and waited for my ice water and the person.  When the drink arrived, I picked it up and took a sip, the ice clinking around the glass as I moved it. After a few minutes of sitting at the table, drinking my ice water and fidgeting with the glass, a tall woman with long pink hair in a pantsuit approached my table and sat down.  I greeted her with a smile, and she did the same.

“My name is Jess, and I’ll be your liaison today. So, what are we thinking today? Something simple or a little more complicated,” she opened.

“Something simple and well paying, anything I could go for in one day.”

“Well, we have a couple, and you got here early enough that there's still a few on the table.  What kind of hunt are you looking for?”

“Either kill or snatch and grab, but I’d rather do a kill mission.”

She brandished a small tablet and began scrolling, highlighting a few names and bounties.  Most of them seemed easy enough, something I could complete and still meet with Cipher if he found anything. She swiped on her tablet, causing three bounties to appear on the table screen in front of me.

“Looks like we have three simple kill missions, which of them looks the most interesting to you?”

I looked at the three faces on the table.  There were two burly white guys, one with long hair and a beard, and the other entirely bald, and a skinny Asian man with a circuit coming out of his right eye.  Circuitry also lined the sides of his face. The long-haired man was worth 400 credits, the bald one was 600, and the skinny Asian man was 1000.  I immediately ruled out the third one, as a 1000-credit bounty with his looks meant he was likely some kind of cybercriminal. Considering my new arm, I didn't want to deal with someone with technological know-how.  I don’t need some jackass hacking my arm and causing it to malfunction until I knew exactly the level of security it had.

I tapped on the bald white guy, and his information came up on the table. Trent Freeman, age 27, is wanted for the triple murder of his wife and two kids.  Bounty: 600 credits. BodyTech: none, fully natural. Last seen: The Haven on the west side of Santa Luz three hours ago.  Left in a silver car and drove towards the western sector of The Wastes.  

“Familicide huh? I’ll take this one, it seems easy enough,” I said.

“Good choice.  Pretty heinous crime too, makes it easier to not hesitate.”

I tapped on the menu and flicked upwards, sending it to my own rig.  The information appeared in my eyes, including the direction he drove.  It was essentially in a straight line from the Haven until the Santa Luz camera system lost sight of him. I didn’t have much time to lose before he became impossible to find, so I thanked the liaison and stood up from my seat, downing the last of the water in the process. 

The wind blew into my face as the automatic door to the Den opened.  I rushed outside and mounted my bike, which was parked in a corner near the building.  The route to Trent’s last known sighting was still being projected onto my eyes by the BodyTech, so I began driving west.  The buildings and streets went by in a blur as I flew down the street and up towards the skybridge.  I wanted to catch him as fast as possible, so breaking a few traffic laws in pursuit of my goal didn’t seem so egregious. As I drove further and further through the city, the buildings began to separate, no longer forming the urban sprawl that I was used to.  When the skybridge came to an end, it lowered back down to the regular road and sent off for miles into The Wastes.  

I continued along the path that my mapping system was sending me down, eventually leaving the city limits where the last known sighting of Trent had been.  There was very little to find where the directions ended, so I needed to find some trace of him.  Thankfully for me, the land was flat and easy to see, as it was still midday, so lighting wasn’t an issue. I slowed my bike down to a crawl and used my eyes to scan the ground around me.  Many sets of tire tracks continued down the path, but one set of tracks caught my eye, as they went off the path and continued through the arid flatland.  Deciding this was as good a clue as any, I followed the tire tracks through the desert. 

The tracks were faint due to the desert wind, but they were still visible.  As I followed them, I made sure my gun was locked and loaded, and I prepared myself.  I wasn’t going to have another job go awry like last time.  In the distance, I could see a vehicle shining in the hot desert sunlight.  As I approached, the car’s color became easier to spot.

Silver.

I got off my bike and gripped my Mk. VII.  Crouched and moving at a snail’s pace, I got to the driver’s side door and wrapped my metal fingers around the handle.  On an internal count of trees, I wrenched the door from its hinges. Looking inside the vehicle, I dropped the car’s door on the ground in shock. 

“Oh… shit.”