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The basic information came easily and without coercion.
The big bounty hunter’s name was Steven Reinhardt. He had made his bones as a high-end corporate bodyguard for a mining concern out of Ariadne. The frontier station was still a very rough place, and the division VP stationed there needed a heavy hitter to keep opportunistic types from getting too comfortable. Shikomi Heavy Industries had paid for the full Corpus Mundi Executive Protection Package for him, which included some of the best soft body-mods on the market. Before long, the allure of adventure and the big money of bounty hunting had pulled him away from the cushy world of private security and sent him wandering the gate stations looking for bounties to collect. He had not been at this long, but he had picked up a few decent-paying gigs already. Mostly deadbeats fleeing creditors, and one mass-murderer from Galapagos who put up a hell of a fight when cornered. Studying and training to prevent kidnappings and ambushes had the unintended consequence of making him superb at abducting people himself. He had found that over a decade of running high-end corporate security teams had given him a very real edge when it came to hunting down runners. His experience enabled him to see the flaws in their defenses and read their moves with ease. He was still a rookie, but his star was on the rise and he was feeling great about his career right up until today.
He was on Thorgrimm Station dropping off his latest bounty when he saw the Tankowicz contract hit the boards. Sixty-five thousand was as big a bounty as Reinhardt had ever gone after, and since he had been itching to get back Earthside anyway, he took it. It was the first real tactical blunder he had made in his fledgling career, and Reinhardt was trying very hard to learn from it without dying. His swollen eyes first went to Mindy. She was standing in front of his chair with a coy smirk on her face and looking like two tons of sex appeal stuffed into a five-pound bag. Reinhardt had just had his ass kicked by a giant and a little girl with electric gloves, and even so he could not take his eyes off of Mindy’s figure. To the man’s credit, it wasn’t all frat-boy leering, either. As a card-carrying member of the Lodge, Reinhardt knew exactly who Mindy was, and seeing her here made him feel stupid and small. He was a no-name lime-green rookie, and she was the queen of the bounty boards. His ignorance of her involvement spoke very clearly of his poor preparation on this job, and thus he sat humiliated in front of the one person he’d have liked to impress. Even a small amount of research would have informed him that she might be associated with Tankowicz. Certainly some recon would have.
He lamented his carelessness with a biting internal rebuke. Mindy would have reconned the target. That’s why Mindy is a legend and you are a jackass who just fucked up a sixty-five-K job.
He tore his gaze from Mindy’s artfully arrayed cleavage and looked over to the other woman. His eyes rested on the black armored gauntlets she wore and he made a note to look into those. He’d rather bash it out with Tankowicz for another round than get whacked with those things again. He still had a headache, and it was only through sheer stupid luck that he had not emptied his bladder after the second hit. His situation was undignified enough without having to face down an interrogation soaked in his own piss.
Then he took in his quarry. It was not that Reinhardt had failed to do any research at all for this gig. He had known Roland was a local fixer of some renown and that he was probably aggressively augmented as well. He had tried to bring the man down with a gun because of this. The Executive Protection Package was a very high-end suite of augmentations, and Reinhardt did not often find himself outmatched. But the rumors about Tankowicz had made it clear that caution was the way to go. The bounty was ‘dead or alive’ after all, and the hunter was not a squeamish sort. He had severely underestimated both the speed and the strength of the big man though. Steven Reinhardt thought in terms of commercially available augmentations, and in their all-too-brief fight, Tankowicz had demonstrated abilities far in excess of that paradigm. The man was at a complete loss to understand what had gone wrong.
The kick should have at least hurt him, he wondered, and those punches felt like a car crashed into my guts.
Reinhardt had been punched by many people, some as tough or tougher than he was. None of them had hit like Tankowicz.
Mindy derailed his train of thought with a question, “Who’s the client?”
Reinhardt jumped a little at the bluntness of the inquiry, then composed himself, “Oh, come on, Mindy. What the hell kind of pro would I be if I told you that?” He wondered if Mindy was testing him, just to see what kind of hunter he really was. He resolved himself to showing no fear. “And before you all start threatening to kill me, why don’t you explain to your big boyfriend there what happens to hunters who snitch on clients? It’ll save us all a little time.”
Mindy shrugged, the rise and fall of her shoulders made her jiggle in a very distracting manner. “I doubt you actually know who it is, anyway. How about you just tell me which account posted the job at Thorgrimm? I already know who posted it here.”
Reinhardt was not surprised Mindy knew he was in from Thorgrimm. Mindy had as much or more access to the boards as he did. “Why would that matter? You know it’s all spoofed in layers of bullshit.”
Roland answered, “Well, dumbass, it’s because we are doing stuff like research, recon, and data collection. You know, all the shit you didn’t bother to do before coming after me with nothing but your dick in your hand.”
That stung Reinhardt’s pride a little. Mostly because it was a fair assessment of his failure. “Oh, fuck you, man. You surprised me is all,” Reinhardt knew better than to get into a pissing match, especially after already getting his clock cleaned in embarrassing fashion, but he just couldn’t help himself. The dark-haired woman in the gauntlets laughed at his outburst. It was a derisive and scornful laugh, and it pained Reinhardt even more than Roland’s insults because it conveyed very clearly that no one was buying his bullshit.
“You are just lucky he’s trying to turn over a new leaf. If you had tried it six months ago, you’d be nothing but a smear on the sidewalk for pulling that stunt,” she chuckled at the bounty hunter.
“I’m growing as a person,” the giant added with no hint of irony or humor.
“Yeah, Roland,” the dark-haired woman condescended, “you’re a real teddy bear these days.”
Roland decided to stick to business and turned back to Reinhardt, “The account number, dipshit. What was it?”
Reinhardt thought very hard about the question. He was not enthusiastic about getting tortured or killed over an account number leading to an anonymous dummy ID. Mindy sensed his hesitation. “Relax, Steve. It’s not like the number is going to give us a name, and everybody is just going to assume we tortured the shit out of you to get it, anyway.”
“Because we absolutely will torture the shit out of you to get it,” the big man added in an effort to be helpful.
Mindy beamed and jiggled, “Right! So just tell us the number and we can skip the torture part. Lucy is real protective of the carpets, anyway.”
“Damn right I am!” Lucia said, “You want to pay the cleaning bills, Mindy?”
Reinhardt tried to reassert himself, “Come on! If I talk, I’ll never work again, you know that, Mindy. I’m not saying I want to get tortured and killed, here, but anything I know has got to stay confidential.”
Mindy’s response was dismissive, “Based on how badly you’ve fucked up this job, it’s pretty obvious that you won’t know what the hell is going on either way.”
Reinhardt’s professional pride died a little at this, and the blond assassin continued to twist the knife, “Nobody who has spent more than ten minutes in this town would be stupid enough to take on Roland with just a pistol and some bodywork. Ask yourself a question, Steve: Why would a sixty-five K bounty for a mark on Earth be posted on Thorgrimm?”
Realization set in and Reinhardt’s face fell as he answered the question for her, “Because no one on Earth would take it for so little?”
“Exactly,” she shook her head. “I just went to the New Boston Lodge and checked the boards there. The contract was listed at two-hundred-fifty-K here, and nobody took it.”
Reinhardt winced. He would have preferred not to believe her words because they had very specific ramifications. Ramifications that Mindy was not above drawing out in very explicit terms for all to hear, “It’s not up there anymore. And I think you are realizing why, Steve-O. Nobody on Earth was willing to take a crack at the big monkey here, even for four times what you were ready to die over.” Her head swung in a sad shake, and her cute face pouted adorably, “You’ve been set up, buddy. Whoever posted the bounty is suckering rookies and noobs like you into taking swipes at a real hitter for chump change. You are the second one to try it this week. Still feel like covering for that type of client?”
Reinhardt did not know what to make of this interaction. It was the single strangest interrogation he had ever witnessed. But the trio had a point, and he conceded it. “Fine. I can give you the account number that was posted to the Thorgrimm boards. Would you endorse a grievance on the client so I don’t get my card pulled? Your word would put a lot of weight behind the claim.”
“You want me to put my name on a grievance about your client? That’s a tall order, buddy...”
Roland suddenly realized what was happening. He didn’t understand the rules of the Hunter’s Lodge very well, but it appeared the client may have erred by failing to act in good faith with the bounty. If it was a loophole that allowed Reinhardt to talk, then it was in everyone’s best interest for him to do so.
“Wait,” he asked, “so because this client is basically trying to get hunters killed with this bullshit bounty, Steve here can talk without getting in trouble?” He turned back to the bounty hunter, “Fucking talk, man.”
Mindy nodded, “Sort of, yeah. This guy is obviously misleading hunters with a shitty contract. Stevie here probably shouldn’t blab either way, but everybody will be inclined to look the other way if word gets out that the piece of shit is trying to get good hunters killed.”
Lucia picked up the thread, “So, if the most famous assassin in the galaxy was to file a complaint on this guy, that would almost certainly ensure Mr. Reinhardt here would not suffer the repercussions of talking?”
Mindy struck a heroic pose, hands on hips and expansive chest thrust forward, “I guarantee it! There is no way anyone is going to have a problem with it if I call this guy out. All we need is for Steve-O here to tell us what he knows...” she paused, “But my endorsement is not cheap. He’s going to have to do a lot better than an account number if he wants to hitch his cart to this sexy-ass pony, that is.”
Reinhardt sagged in the chair, defeated. His thoughts were wry. Damn, she’s good. The only way out of this mess is to spill and spill hard.
“Okay. I’m going to reach into my pocket and pull out my comm. It has the contract info still on it. Don’t shoot me or zap me or whatever while I do it, all right?”
“Just move slowly. Lucia can get real jumpy around overly muscled aggressive types,” even now Mindy could not help but take potshots at Roland.
Reinhardt did not understand the joke, and he did not care to. With overtly retarded movements, he peeled back the lapel of his jacket and reached into a pocket. His hand re-emerged in a calculated and cautious manner holding his small black handheld. With one hand, he thumbed through the screens until he found the contract for Roland and then handed the device over to Mindy. She took it from his hand with a smile and then looked at the data. Then Mindy pulled out her own comm and thumbed through it, comparing the screens. She frowned at them both for a moment and then looked up to her companions.
“So, Roland. There have been five contracts taken out on you in the last six days. One at Thorgrimm for sixty-five, one here for two-forty, one on Ariadne for seventy, one on Enterprise Station for one-seventy, and one on Galapagos for forty thousand. None of them have stayed up for more than twenty-four hours.” She laughed, “The ones on Earth and Enterprise were up for less than three hours apiece.”
“What does that mean?” Roland did not know why the duration was relevant.
Reinhardt, apparently in a rush to be helpful, answered, “It means that whoever put them up did not want word to get out about them.” He suddenly looked crestfallen, “It means they were just trying to bring in the most eager hunters willing to work for smaller amounts.” His head shook, dejection twisting his features, “They wanted desperate, low-cost chumps and as soon as one guy accepted they took it down so others wouldn’t know it had ever been up.”
Mindy elaborated, “If a job stays up too long, word starts to get around. Especially when the target is well-known.”
Lucia nodded, “This guy didn’t want a bunch of people wondering why a bounty for Tank Tankowicz was so small.”
Roland agreed, “Because it would scare off whatever poor mark had taken the suicide mission in the first place.”
Reinhardt was just about done with the confidence-crushing turn the interrogation had taken. “Are you done with me now? I’d like to go ahead and file the grievance,” his face darkened, “and then I’m going to go hunt this piece of garbage down and kill him.”
“You want to hunt him down?” Lucia asked, knowing the answer before asking.
“Obviously,” Reinhardt sneered, “He tried to get me killed, right?”
“Maybe, Maybe not,” Mindy shrugged, “He probably would have been happy if you succeeded, but I doubt he expected you to. The question is why he is tricking low-rent hunters into taking on Roland.”
Reinhardt growled, “I’m not ‘low-rent,’ you tanker-titted bimbo! I’m just a little inexperienced is all...”
Mindy’s eyes flashed with reptilian malice, “Careful, boy. You mouth off to mama and you’re like to get a spanking.”
Reinhardt gulped. For a moment he had forgotten that the tiny woman was the top-ranked hunter in the galaxy, boasting a three-digit kill count including several high-ranking politicians and the Pirate King of frontier space. His gaffe was ill-timed and in bad taste, but he refused to show weakness. “All the same, Mindy, I intend to go after this piece of shit and get my sixty-five thousand creds on top of my pound of flesh. If you all are done with me, I’d like to get started. Now.”
Roland grumbled, “Asshole, you came here to kill me. Don’t act like you are the aggrieved party in this. I am still confused as to why Mindy and Lucia here haven’t let me tear you apart as a message to the rest of your ilk.”
“Taking orders from the ladies these days, Tank?” it was a cheap shot and Reinhardt knew it. But he couldn’t resist.
“I’m growing as person. You can thank the ladies for that.”
“Shit,” Lucia hissed, “Now I want to kill him, too.”
Reinhardt made a mental note to work on keeping his stupid mouth shut. It was Mindy who saved him, which surprised all of them. Rare indeed was the problem for which Mindy did not think wholesale murder was a viable solution.
“Awwwwwwww, Mom? Dad? Can I keep him? I promise to take care of him!” She let the joke die and her gaze turned feral, “I think we can put him to very good use...”
Steven Reinhardt did not like the sound of that at all.