“Don’t bullshit me, Tiger.” Jock weakly rolled his head to look at his friend. “I know it’s bad. I can see it in your eyes.”
Amber handed him a field dressing. The first-aid kit was surplus Space Guard issue. Tiger had bought several of them from an online supply house when he’d started smuggling on the side, knowing how dangerous that business could get at times. But he’d never really thought he’d need it. No one ever does. But then again, he never would’ve thought he’d gotten one of his oldest friends shot up running from bounty hunters.
“You’re gonna be fine.” He tried to sound reassuring as he applied the dressing. As he applied pressure, the bandage slowly began to turn from white to blue. This indicated the blood-clotting and painkilling agents impregnated in the material had been activated. Unfortunately, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He nodded for the first-aid kit, and Amber handed it over.
“You need to quit worrying about me.” Jock’s eyes were beginning to glaze over. Probably going into shock. “You need to start thinking about where you gonna put this crippled ol’ nag down.”
“You let me worry about that!” Tiger pulled a Lunarol rapi-dermic from the first-aid kit. Ripping open the package, he pulled the cap off the injection end and slammed it against Jock’s biceps, pressing the “activate” button as soon as skin contact was made. That was about all he could do at this point. The man needed a hospital and a trauma team … desperately.
“You know I quit doing drugs back in college,” Jock joked. “Never went well with my addictive personality.”
Tiger had to admire the man at this moment. With more than a tinge of guilt, he had to admit that he’d expected his friend to have degenerated into a bawling derelict of self-pity. Yet, he’d held up and manned up. He’d made Tiger proud. By God, he had a pair with some hair after all.
He looked to Amber, who gazed at Jock with sad eyes. He wondered what she was feeling now. Was she feeling the way he felt now? Did she feel guilt? Did she feel responsible? It was obvious she understood the gravity of the situation. Still, it wasn’t her fault. He was the one who’d brought the man into this situation. There was none other than one goddamned Tanner “Tiger” Thomas to blame for this clusterfuck! He watched, as with a pitiful whine, she placed a hand on Jock’s forehead and pulled his head back to her. Like a mother, she began stroking his sweat-soaked hair back, while she laid her cheek against his.
An explosion in the engine housing and the resulting jolt interrupted the tender moment. Immediately, the truck began losing altitude. The emergency stabilizers would kick in, operating the vectoring fans, trying to level it out, but it would do no good. The vectoring fans were gone, too. They were going down. They were going down now and there was no recourse anymore. She was done!
Tiger rolled back into his seat and grabbed the control stick as he flipped the autopilot off. He quickly richened the power supply, trying to keep the engine running as long as he could. Still, he knew he could waste little time in finding a place to set the wounded truck down. Once it lost all thrust, it would be nothing more than a two-ton hunk of scrap metal falling out of the sky.
***
Special Inspector Matt Burlington, Huntsville Precinct, Alabama District, Southeastern Economic Zone Police, hated bounty hunters. Hated them with a passion.
Maybe at one time there had been a need for them. At one time, they had worked within the law. Or at least they gave the appearance of it. Back in those days, bounty hunters were employed by bail bondsmen. They hunted down bail jumpers and other dangerous fugitives wanted by the courts. Sometimes, their methods were questioned. Sometimes, they themselves crossed the line and ended up on the wrong side of the law. Still, their purpose was clear.
All that changed with the implementation of the Public Service Reassessments initiated by most of the Zones several decades back. The purpose of it had been to evaluate the feasibility of privatizing large areas of the public safety sector. On the surface, the reason for the PSR’s was to provide low-cost police, fire, paramedic, and other services at affordable rates. It was supposed to lower taxes, reduce bureaucratic waste, do away with overpaid civil servants, and make government-provided services more efficient. All this provided, of course, by the lowest bidder. And while the “small-government” politicians championed this cause, it was obvious who was behind it all: The big, faceless corporations who always profited the most from such endeavors.
It worked in a few locations, but for the most part, it was a massive debacle. But then again, it was only a massive political smokescreen to hide the real agenda behind it all. The big conglomerates and the uber-rich used the PSR’s to justify creating their own private police forces, their own mercenary armies. In a world growing increasingly more dangerous every day, where the criminals could buy army surplus rocket guns and pulse rifles off the ultranet, many sought to put as many layers of security between themselves and the rest of the world as they could. Most who could afford to, like the inhabitants of Monte Sano, had retreated into secure areas where private paramilitary services contracted security out to them.
One of the major manipulations of the Reassessments was the creation of the Asset Reclamation Act and the elevation of status of the bounty hunter. Again, the corporate lobbyists argued that these men, these “Asset Retrieval Agents,” were an integral part of law enforcement. They could free up the overworked and overwhelmed police to concentrate on day-to-day duties. All they needed was more authority to do their job without
