Millie the Gunsinger

Day Two - Morning

I slept pretty well that night considering how excited I was about my new job. Even if it meant I had to go trawl about in the Hole.

About Eight AM I got out of bed and did the usual morning things. Showered, brushed my teeth (gotta keep them choppers strong and shiny so I can bite good and hard when I need to). Those kinds of things.

Same outfit as yesterday, except today I grabbed my backpack. It’s a small black one made out of some fancy tactical mesh or the like. It matches my Armour Vest although it cost way less Pandas. In that I carried my regulation issue steel handcuffs, strip ties for emergency securing of a-holes if my cuffs are already in use, sterilised water in a plastic bottle and my first aid kit. Plus half a roll of duct tape. Never leave home without duct tape.

All the essential tools of a young and carefree Bounty Hunter. I don’t carry a gun of course, because I am a gun! Suitably amped up and equipped I headed out.

Downstairs it was nice to smell good old antiseptic bleach wafting around the foyer. Mr Singh was a pretty decent landlord for this part of the Spit. He kept the floors clean and the graffiti on the walls was always tasteful. Daniel-san had helped me find this place not long after I was first introduced to him by Di.

Up til then I had been couch surfing at her apartment. She had been the one who found me crying and shivering in the alley behind the coffee shop she used to work at. That was just after I fled here from the orphanage. I don’t know why she took me in, but I owed her my life for that kindness.

Out on the street it was warm again. Hardly a surprise in this region, right up at the tip of what was old northern Australia. There was some cloud moving around and the humidity was up. Probably going to rain soon. I contemplated going back for my umbrella or a rain coat, but going back up three flights of stairs was not something I was ready for without some coffee.

What the hell did it matter anyway. I was a lean mean Bounty Hunting machine. I don’t need no protection from the rain! I pushed off down the street towards the Coffee Coffin, clomping my boots along the concrete paving.

I was nearly there when I spotted a Guard officer on the other side of the traffic. It looked like the same Jill as yesterday. It was funny how they were made to look so beautiful, like a living doll. Of course, they all look identical, made in the same factory. But she kind of looked to me somehow as being the same woman. She had no helmet or even a Guard peaked cap on. Her short buzz cut hair gleamed a nice shiny black and she was looking right at me.

I stopped and faced her across the street. Was I under Guard surveillance? It was hardly covert if that was the case. She just stood quite still, arms down at her sides. That did put her right hand close to her holstered pistol but I didn’t feel threatened by her. She actually looked kind of lost and I thought again about the Jill who had helped me.

My right arm lifted of its own volition and waved to her. Nothing really wild, just a polite wave hello. Her right arm lifted half way too, and she slowly waved back. OK, I guess they can be friendly sometimes.

I turned back to the coffee shop direction and headed away. Without being able to stop myself, I looked back. She was still standing there, right arm raised, watching me as I hustled down the paving. That Jill was definitely a strange one.

The Coffee Coffin was busy when I got there. Everyone seemed to be getting coffee and breakfast at the same time. The clientele here was always a slightly better class of person, at least by Spit standards. If anything I tended to bring the class down a bit. Most of them were shop workers and factory hands, mixed with a few office workers. Seems strange to see white collar types down here, but every business needs somebody to cook the books for them.

I finally got to the front of the line and got served by Di herself. She has another girl helping her most mornings during the rush hour. Her name was Kim Lee and we got along OK. I gave Di my order – a big takeaway latte and a peach Danish – and stood back while she fussed about getting it ready. Kim was making the coffees in rapid rotation while Di handled the money.

Back when I first got here, Di had the bright idea of having me work in her boss’s old coffee shop. Got me a nice clean outfit to wear and showed me the basics of being a barista. I was darn good at making the coffee I thought but not everyone agreed. After one desk jockey complained too loudly about the excessive milk foam on his coffee, I leapt the counter and gave him a piece of my mind. That’s what I called it. I suppose an impartial witness might have called it assault.

Anyway it was decided that Customer Service was probably not one of my skill sets. I don’t have Anger Management issues. I manage to let it out just fine thank you.

My coffee and Danish were ready. Di smiled a hello to me as I took them. She was too busy to chat right now so I mouthed a “see you later” and headed off. Mmm, coffee and pastry. Breakfast of champions.

To get over to the Hole was too far to walk, so I headed to the Metro transit station.This was not the main station of course, just one of the subsidiary ones that serviced the outer burbs of the Spit. The main station was the only one that had a line leading to Pan City so it had pretty good security. Plenty of Guards normally loitering about there too.

My nearest station was a much more modest affair. Two levels above ground, the upper one being some offices and medical suites. Ground floor was the ticket office, Guard post, some snack shops and the like. All the actual train lines were underground.

I wandered up to the entry gates and snuck a quick look over at the Guard post. It looked like it was currently unmanned, which was often the case. It was more of a start and end point for their patrols. During this time of the day they should be on their morning patrol so I was all clear.

The empty coffee cup and wrapper from my breakfast went into the recycling bins near a Trasher. This one was an old guy with a long white ponytail and a heavy yellow poncho protecting him from the rain and probably stray garbage too. We recycle just about everything in the Zone, even here in the Spit. This guy would bundle it up every day and take it to the recycling centre for a few hard earned Pandas. Tough way to make a living. I gave him a smile as I put my contributions in.

Heading over to the electronic ticket machine I checked my bank balance. The Pandas were getting pretty low in there, even with the discount food and coffee I got at Di’s place.

I suppose some of you may be unfamiliar with finances here in the Pan Oceanic Special Zone. What the hell are these Pandas you keep wanting so badly it hurts? Well they are not big multi-hued bears from China. It’s just an abbreviation us locals use for Pan Ocean Dollars. They are the official currency for the Zone and are widely accepted even in places like the US or Europe. Most of the time it is all electronic transfer of funds, but there are plastic notes and ceramic coins as well. I always carry a little cash, mainly as bribes to get some snitch to tell me stuff about a bounty.

Anyway, the Panda population in my bank account was getting kinda sparse. I needed a serious injection of new money to keep this little Panda lover living the high life she always dreamed of. I hoped this bounty actually came in.

Rail fare to the Hole was three Pandas fifty. Hmm. That was a coffee and grilled sandwich at Di;s. I wondered if it was too far to walk after all? Then the rain started to come down. I went and stood at the main gate and watched the rain gust in over the rushing pedestrians. At least most of them remembered a coat or umbrella.

“Do you need money for a train ticket?” said a woman’s voice beside me. I jumped about a meter sideways in shock and looked back at the speaker. It was the Jill from before, standing there calmly and holding out a wad of actual Panda notes in her right palm.

“Are you stalking me or something!” I shouted back. Guard member or not this wasn’t cool.

I swear her face registered surprise and she moved back a step. I could not help but look into her eyes. They weren’t the same closed off emotionless void I expected. She looked …hurt? Was she actually a Guard clone or just some human woman dressed like one?

“Please let me help you” she said. “I am authorised to assist members of the public in financial distress when protocols are met”. She reached into one of the pouches on her utility belt and pulled out more Pandas. I reckon she must have been carrying close to five hundred Pandas in there. Some were spilling out of her hand and swirling about in the rain and wind from outside.

I reached down and picked up the stray notes. Lucky they are all plastic so the rain did not bother them at all.

“Look, I appreciate the offer but I am an employed citizen and can pay my own way” I replied to her. She looked kind of bummed at that and tried to stuff the notes back into her belt pouch. They were all over the place and getting creased. Mis-treatment of money is a big no-no for me. Gotta keep them Pandas nice and safe.

“Here, put the notes in this money purse” I said to the Jill and pulled my old one out of my shorts pocket. It was all kinds of girly flowery colours and I didn’t use it anyway.

I helped fold the notes neatly into the purse (all of them too – I didn’t palm any of them in the process!) and handed it back.

“You can keep it” I explained as she held it in both hands. She watched me for a good minute with a strange look on her face so just I stood there and smiled back. Then she tucked the purse into her pouch and sealed it up.

“Thank you, Citizen” she said to me.

“Well, since you seem to like hanging around this area, you may as well call me Millie” I offered to her. That seemed to percolate around a bit before she replied. If she was a clone she seemed to be a defective one.

“I am Guard Unit FV-Twenty Two B - Zero Twenty” she gave me back in reply. What the hell I thought? I can’t call her all of that when I see her next time.

“Is there anything a bit shorter that I can call you instead? I said back.

This got a quicker response. I suppose she was warming up to this human conversation thing.

“My Squad designation is B-Twenty” she answered. “Would that be adequate for conversation purposes?”

“I guess it will have to do. How about I just call you Twenty?” I said. That seemed to be acceptable as Twenty nodded in agreement. So my friend in the Guard was a wandering clone named Twenty. My life seems very strange some days.

“Thanks for trying to look out for me, Twenty, but I gotta get out to the Hole for a job”. I pointed back behind us to the station. “Have a good day and stay out of trouble” I called over my shoulder as I moved to the ticket machine once more.

I stopped myself looking behind me as I bought my ticket (oh how devastated were my poor Pandas) and hurried down the steps to the train platform.

=====

The train journey was uneventful out to the station closest to the Hole. My fellow passengers were the usual mixed bag of Spit dwellers. Just about every nation on Earth was represented, all colours and creeds, sitting side by side on the scuffed plastic chairs of the Metro. All equal in our poverty. I tried not to let depression settle over me, but it was hard not to some days.

Back in my old orphanage, the rather inappropriately named Pan City Little Angels, life was not too bad compared to life here. Three meals a day, a warm bed at night, and all the prayers you could stomach. At least it was multi-denominational, so we got different prayers each time. None of the religion stuck to me though.

I never would have left there if Sister Venerae had remained. She would come and go, at the beck and call of her religious masters, but she always came back. Until that last time she left.

She had sat me down, my scrawny twelve year old self, and honestly told me she was leaving the orphanage for good. She had other important things to do and she was very sorry to have to leave me behind. I cried and cried, then got angry and started screaming. And a screaming Gunsinger who has lost all her control is not a good thing.

I blew some fair sized holes in the dorm walls, took out a couple of reinforced plexi-glass windows and managed to wing Sister Venerae on her right arm. It was seeing the blood well up through her habit that stopped my psychic rampage.

And she just pulled me in close and hugged me til it all subsided. Yeah, you guessed it. Sister Venerae is the only other person in the whole world who I will let hug me.

The train came out of the subway system and into the morning light. The last run to the Hole was above ground. It felt good to be out in the light again. I sniffed and wiped away a tear from my eyes. Goddam stink on this train was making my eyes water. Not because I was sad or anything.

The station for the Hole was a simple platform, not even a rest room. The rain had stopped sometime while I was on the train. There was a cover over the standing area, slowly letting water drip though the holes in it onto the few commuters waiting beneath. An old concession stand that once sold drinks and snacks stood boarded up in the centre. Gang graffiti swirled over it, any available wall space, even parts of the platform roof.

The Hole is local slang for A-Hole, which sums up this entire part of the Spit as accurately as any other description could. This is where the truly lost and broken souls of the Zone end up. The dregs of Pan City mixing with the scum of the Spit. I sighed, avoided breathing in too deeply, and walked along the cracked paving that lead to the muddy street.

Most of the buildings in the Spit are two and three levels. In the flashier part we even have some ten and twenty level buildings. The Hole is all shanties, old trailers and the occasional solid concrete structure. They have a central market that is four levels of concrete rising up like a beacon in this human wasteland. When you navigate in the Hole that is your best reference point.

The market was where I was headed. My contacts here operated from the top level out of an electronics store. I was weaving my way through the narrow streets formed by the hand built homes and shacks when it started to rain again. There were few proper roads here. Most of these streets were just dirt. Baked rock hard and dusty in the dry season and muddy goop in the wet. My boots sent little splatters of mud in every direction, including up my own legs. Rain sucks!

It was still raining when I got to the market. There was a lot of people milling about near the entrance, splashing to and fro with purpose. I pushed my way through the throng and got into the cover of the building. Now I was out of the rain I could look around me a lot more easily.

The market was still much like I remembered it from my last visit. The ground floor was a vast open space supported by many concrete pillars. Lined up in rows were hundreds of little stalls and booths. Most of them sold fresh food like vegetables or meat (although “fresh” is probably too generous a description). Others sold fried dough, curries, candied insects and the like.The smells from these stands was pretty good and I was sorely tempted to free the Pandas in exchange for a hot snack. But caution overrode hunger and I headed to the stairwell.

I huffed my way up too many flights of stairs to the uppermost level. My boots finally stopped leaving wet muddy prints in my wake. Unlike Hansel & Gretel I did not need a trail to find my back home again.

The top level was the haven of the most exclusive shopping to be had in the Hole. It may not sound like it but there was some decent gear to be had here at very acceptable prices. My Amour Vest and Backpack both got purchased here. Under the watchful gaze of Daniel-san of course.

Stalls here were larger than the floors below and were lined with steel mesh and solid plastic sheeting. The arms dealers even had bona fide ceramite plating around their shops. I stopped and paused in front of their weapons display.

The guns did not interest me but they had some ultra cool combat knives, swords and even mono-edged shuriken. My fave from last time was the ceramic bonded tanto knife they had in the window. Only one thousand Pandas but guaranteed to cut through even Guard armour like it was butter. When I got paid for this bounty, I knew exactly where some of my dear little Pandas were headed.

Once I wiped the drool from my chin (actually I think it was just rain water that had seeped down from my wet hair) I clomped across to the electronics store.

Rackman and Tao, finest purveyors of stolen tech in all of the Spit. It did not actually say that on the sign above the door but it would have been the truth. It was run by an old guy named J Rackman (only first name I ever heard for him) and Zeke Tao, a much younger guy. They were a mismatched couple and they fought all the time, but I think they really did love each other. Having never experienced true love I am not a good witness to say it was truly there, but it felt genuine.

I stepped into their shop and opened my arms wide and called out a happy hello to them both. They looked up from their counter and said in perfect unison “Dirty boots outside”. I could really feel the love in the air.

Boots removed and placed carefully in sight on a piece of packing card, I wandered about the shop. There was some cutting edge stuff in here that even my uneducated eye could spot. I had to stop dead in front of what was clearly a human skull with implanted cybernetics. There was a shiny metal plate over part of the skull with input ports and the right eye socket was a full on cyber eye, probably a smart gun targeting array.

Zeke-san came over to me and saw what I was looking at.

“Standard Guard implants” he explained.”The quantum processor and receiver array is fused into the skull. The eye implant is standard for all Guards. The snipers get an even better model but this is just the one used by the street Jacks”.

“Holy crapamoley” I exclaimed.”How do they fit all this into their skulls? And why have you got one?”

“You know better than to ask where our products are sourced” said J-san from his counter. He was working on the insides of some piece of inexplicable hardware.”Besides it is just a display piece. You could never implant it into any one outside of the Guard because the processor won’t link to the quantum network”

J-san stopped his work and gave me the full benefit of his gaze. I squirmed a little under his eyes. Rumour had it that J-san had been Daniel-san’s commanding officer in the wars around the time of the V-Bomb. He certainly gave off the air of someone who could lead men into battle.”Why exactly are you here Millicent?” he asked me outright.

I did not mind it that he called me Millicent but he always made me feel like I was being scolded by the Sisters again. Zeke-san was twice my age but we got along more like friends.

“I have a bounty and I think he might be hiding here in the Hole” I answered. I scuffed over in my damp socks to show him the file from Daniel-san. “I was hoping you could use your local network to see if he is around”. J-san looked over my shoulder at the wet sock prints I had left across their floor. “I can wipe that up too if you have some paper towels” I added contritely.

J-san pulled out his portable data pad from under the counter. It looked like an old military style unit with a protective outer casing, but I knew from Zeke-san it was a state of the art data console on the inside. He pulled a cable from the console and jacked it into a port on the side of his skull. I always felt a bit queasy seeing that.

All the young net divers use wireless data links because they don’t want to be held by a cable to the console. J-san was really old school and he claimed the wireless links were not secure enough to stop a pro-diver like himself. Gotta keep your head safe I guess. It’s where most of us live.

The duo had a very pervasive network of tiny scanners, cameras and light weight drones across the Hole. Probably all across the Spit and even into Pan City knowing them. They used the data they collected to help the gangs and traders they allied with to keep control of their territory. At a price of course. I hoped in my case they would give me mates rates.

After a good ten minutes he surfaced from his dive. He had a worrying look on his face that triggered a knot of tension in my stomach.

“Recognition software spotted him a couple of times around the west end, then he dropped out of sight. He either masked his image or is really laying low somewhere” said J-san. He triggered a holo display in the middle of the shop, showing Otaki moving along a typical street in the Hole. “This is part of what concerns me though” he added.

The image rotated and zoomed in on a case Otaki was carrying. It was a silver metallic cylinder about forty centimeters wide and fifty long. I had not seen anything like it before.

“To me that looks like a state of the art cryogenic support module. Too new a model for even my search engines to identify” said J-san. “It probably runs off a battery pack in the base to maintain the material inside”. My insides knotted up some more.

“Why does a low-level accountant on the run have a container like that with him?” I asked both men. I kind of knew the answer already but I wanted confirmation from them. They were the tech experts after all.

“It has to be stolen organics from the research lab he was employed at” said Zeke-san. He was peering closer at the image, trying to see more details of the mysterious cylinder. “Definitely running off a battery pack. That means he will need to get it recharged at least once every twelve hours , maybe more often depending on the power demands of what’s inside”. He looked over at me. “Wherever he is holed up will need a power supply. Otherwise he will need to break cover to recharge the battery, and that would take at least thirty minutes”.

“Thanks guys” I said to them both. “Can you send me the locations of the image hits and I’ll start looking for him around there”. I had a snitch I spoke to occasionally in the west end of the Hole that may know something. Not a straight up guy like these two. A genuine low life but reliable enough if you fed him Pandas.

Before he sent me the data, J-san pointed with his eyes to the counter where their cash register sat. An actual, old world cash register. Big, heavy and dependable, unlike me.

“Umm, can I put this one on my tab?” I wheedled, and tried to look weak and poor and girly. It was pushing my luck with two gay guys but I gotta use whatever tools in my arsenal the good lord gave me.

“Do the thing” said Zeke-san. Oh god, not that I screamed inside. I saw the eager look on Zeke-san’s face and I knew there was no avoiding it. I slumped in my socks and nodded agreement.

Back in the orphanage, before the kids got really scared of me, I used to try and win some friends by doing tricks with my Aeromancy. Started out as simple stuff like making mini-tornadoes in the playground and juggling balls in the air without touching them. The key was keeping a constant sound source at the right frequency and volume.

I started a long high pitched whistle, controlling my breathing to maintain a steady note. Reaching deep down I called forth my Aeromancy. The experience inside your head is different for every Awakened I guess. For me it was like opening a door inside of me to let the scary monster out.

It came rushing out, filling me with its strength and anger. A lot of anger. I tried to use my power as little as I could, because I feared what would happen if it took control of me.I always remembered the looks on the girls faces at the orphanage when I lost it and hurt them so badly. If I was properly trained at one of the Awakening Centres I am sure it would not be so dangerous.

I focused and grabbed hold of my power, refusing to let it have free rein. There were friends here with me and they just wanted to be entertained. It was a small price to pay for their help. The air began to move and solidify as my power took control of the sound waves.

Zeke-san caught my eye and I nodded. Air currents were moving around the room, shifting the smaller objects, ruffling the mens hair and clothes. Zeke-san picked up a bowl of peanuts in shells they both like to snack on. He started flinging them one at a time towards me.

I caught each one and held it in the air as they came within about a meter range, then started them spinning around me like little moons in orbit. All hail the great planet Millie.

Zeke-san kept throwing more and more peanuts into range until I was surrounded by a cylindrical wall of rotating nuts. I was keeping about thirty of them spinning around me and he ran out of nuts. He looked about and found some paper clips and other bits and bobs.

By this stage I was keeping about fifty individual objects rotating in the air. I had been whistling non-stop for about three minutes and my throat was starting to get really dry. Worst of all my inner little monster wanted to do something much bigger and I was having to rein it back.

I think the strain was showing on my face as J-san said that was enough. Zeke-san pouted but I gratefully let the objects fall. I snagged my little horror and dragged it back into its prison deep inside. I swear I could hear the door slam as I shut it in.

“You are a real marvel!” gushed Zeke-san. He came over to me with his arms held wide and a big happy grin on his face.

“Hey, no hugging!” I said and ducked under his arms. He relented and went and plonked back on his stool near the counter. Some people are way too touchy-feely for their own good.

“So, that data will be on my tab, right” I asked J-san. He nodded agreement and sent the data file to my phone. I checked it was there and gave them both a happy smile.

“Be careful, Millicent” J-san said to me. “If anything happens to you Daniel will not be happy. And none of us wants an unhappy Daniel”. I knew what he meant.

Once I put my boots back on (out in front of the shop, not inside of course) I headed back down the stairs. I needed to get on the job and earn this bounty.

=====

I went down two floors and decided to stop at the cheap clothing level. It was still raining outside I could tell and I was getting tired of being so wet. I rummaged in the cheapest stall I could find for a rain poncho.

There was a really cool one that was solid black with silver pirate skulls printed around the edge. It was five Pandas though so I just bought the clear plastic one for two. Sheathed in cheap plastic I descended to the ground level.

As I came down the last steps I scanned up the aisle. There was something happening near the hot food vendors. If I had just ignored it and gone the other direction I wonder how things would have turned out?

Naturally I wandered closer through the crowd to see what was going on. Then I saw it. Standing in a clear space in the middle of the aisle was Twenty. I knew it was her the instant I spotted her Guard uniform and forlorn stance.

She was standing sideways to me, looking at the hot donut stand. Her hands were at her side but her fists were clenching and unclenching. The curious crowd was giving her as wide a berth as they could. She was a Guard after all, and nobody wanted to get too close.

I pushed past a few onlookers and stood beside her. She looked down at me and I swear she might have actually smiled. Only a little lift of the lips but it was definitely there.

“Millie, they smell so good” she said and turned back to the donuts on display. I had to agree. There are few better smells in the world than a hot fresh donut, smothered in sugar and cinnamon. My stomach growled in response to the odour. Maybe my little monster in its dungeon was hungry after the show.

“Well, why don’t you buy yourself some? I asked her. “You have plenty of money in there”. I nodded to the pouch she kept her Pandas in.

“The funds are authorised for use of citizens in distress only” she intoned with a disconsolate air.

“Well, I am a citizen in extreme hunger and it is very distressing to me. How about you buy me the donuts?” I suggested. I could see her thinking this very dodgy logic through to some sort of conclusion.

“How many donuts would you need to alleviate your distress, Millie?” Twenty asked me

I looked at the display of donuts. The vendor looked back at me with desperate eyes. I realised that all this time she had been under the intense gaze of a Guard officer. She was probably really freaked out. Plus no-one would come near her stand while Twenty was parked in front of it.

“Oh, I don’t know for sure. They look very tasty. How many do you think we need” I countered. I could see Twenty counting in her head and then she nodded firmly.

“All of them” she stated. I asked the vendor to bag them all up for us. It must have been a good two dozen big hot donuts ready to go.

Twenty drew out the money purse I had given her and solemnly handed a note to the donut lady. She counted out some change and laid it back in Twenty’s outstretched palm. While she put the coins and small notes away I grabbed the bag of donuts. The steam from the treats was drifting up over my hand and the cinnamon odour was just divine.

“Of course, I can’t eat my donuts without coffee” I explained to Twenty. In short order we had acquired a couple of coffees and made our way through the crowd to the seating area near the outside. Having a Guard officer in tow made it really easy to get there – the locals parted like the Red Sea before Moses.

It was still too early for the lunch crowd so we found a good table facing out towards the shanty town. I plonked myself down with all my usual grace. Twenty, who was carrying the coffees, sat down on the same side of the metal bench as me. Obviously social distancing was not a feature of her training as she sat really close. So close our thighs were touching.

I could feel the heat from her leg next to mine. Even through her uniform pants and my shorts I felt her body warmth. She was a lot hotter than I expected, then I remembered hearing once that the clones all ran about one or two degrees hotter than regular humans. Something to do with their faster metabolisms.

I was going to shift over and get some space but I realised that might hurt her feelings. And then I caught myself thinking “Why am I so worried about her feelings?”. She was a cloned soldier of the paramilitary government of the Zone. Did she actually have feelings? I was beginning to understand that maybe she did. I had certainly been treating her that way so far.

“So, Twenty, have you had many coffee and donut mornings with your Guard mates” I asked as I stuffed the first donut in my mouth. Followed by a swig of coffee to wash the sugar and hot fat down. Sheer bliss!

“I am only permitted to eat my main sustenance in the morning before going on duty. At the end of each patrol day I am allowed a protein bar. We normally eat by squad at the barracks but we were never allowed coffee and donuts” she replied. She picked up a donut, examined it for a moment, then pushed the whole thing into her mouth. A few quick chews and she swallowed. A huge grin appeared on her face and she quickly grabbed two more and ate them in rapid succession.

“Slow down Twenty or you are going to choke on them” I admonished her. On cue donut number four went down too fast and she coughed violently. I slapped her on the back, which was like thumping a brick wall to be honest. Between her solid build and her Armour Vest there was not much give. She managed to clear the blockage so I got her to drink some of her coffee to help wash it down.

“That is really good!” Twenty enthused once she was able to speak properly. “Thank you so much for this Millie!”

“Well, you are a kind of police officer. Coffee and donuts is your natural form of sustenance” I advised her with a smirk on my face. Plus she was the one who had paid for it all.

“Actually my designated role is Civilian Engagement and Surveillance” she said. My face and my insides went cold at the same moment.

“What do you mean Twenty?” I snapped at her. “Have you been tailing me on the orders of the Guard?” I was getting pretty worked up real fast. I could feel my little monster start banging on its door. Let me out it was saying. I can make all your problems just blow away.

Twenty caught the rising tone of my voice and looked down at the table. Her hands were lying to either side of the coffee and I watched them clench.

“I am not currently under any orders from the Guard” she whispered. “I was supposed to return to the barracks last night but I did not go. I walked around the streets instead and that is where you saw me this morning”.

“Doesn’t that Archimedes AI tell you Guards what to do? How can you be left wandering the streets” I shot back. My voice was considerably louder than hers right now.

“My quantum processor failed last night at eighteen hundred and twenty two hours. I have been disconnected from the Archimedes network since that time” Twenty answered me softly. She was still looking fixedly down at her clenched hands. My head swam for a moment and the monster subsided.

“How can you be walking and talking to me then?” I demanded. I leaned over with my right hand and tilted her head to look at me. Her eyes were wells of darkness. Not that windowless stuff from last night but something I could only explain as hunted. Frightened. Alone and scared. Just like me when I first came to the Spit.

“After I spoke to you last night, my processor just went offline. But I have a human brain in here” Twenty said. She tapped the side of her head with her left hand. “The Archimedes AI does not run the Guards like robots. We are trained and given procedures to follow. Tactical data and communications come via the quantum network. The AI can remote control us via the network when it needs to, but it takes a lot of bandwidth to run us that way. Most of the Guard units operate autonomously under the guidelines instilled into us”

“So why are you acting so differently today?” I asked her. My voice had softened a bit now too.

“I am near the end of my scheduled Deployment. It is not known by the public but some Guard begin to exhibit unusual behaviour towards the end of their four year terms. In such cases we are usually sent for early retirement’ she said. Her eyes were looking right into mine and I knew there was something really horrible behind these words.

“How old are you, Twenty?” I said. I had to know it all now.

“I was decanted in V22. I am three years and nine months old” Twenty responded. Bloody hell, I was like fourteen years older than her. Despite her size and abilities she was just a kid.

“And what happens if they send you for early retirement?” I continued. I could already feel a yawning pit growing inside of me. My donut wanted to come rushing back up to see what all the fuss was about.

Twenty just stared at me for a moment. I realised this was stuff nobody outside the Guard was ever meant to know.

“I will be euthanised and any usable cybernetics will be recycled into a replacement Guard unit” she said. Softly but clearly. There was no mistaking what she was saying. If she reported back to the Guard they would kill her and take her body apart.

I felt a sob starting and I tried to stifle it. I let go of her face and covered my own with my hands. This was so damned sick! How could human beings do that to someone like her?

“So is that why you have been following me around today” I asked.

“You were nice to me” Twenty responded. “I thought it would be a chance to do some of the things real people do before they found me and sent me to the retirement centre. I am sorry if I scared you”.

“Twenty, you are talking more like a “real” person with each sentence you make” I said. My hands came down from my face. “Does it feel more real to you?”

“I don’t know. I remember times like this in the past month when I felt a similar way” She paused and looked out over the town. The rain had stopped and sunlight was streaming down through gaps in the clouds. The rusted roofs and awnings gleamed brightly in the light.

“Millie, is it wrong for me to want to live?” she asked, still looking out at the beams of sunshine. I felt my throat tighten and I turned to look out at the same view.

“This is a shitty world that we live in, Twenty. But you are not wrong if you want to stay alive”. It was all I could think of saying. I had been saved from despair by strangers when I first came to the Spit. Maybe it was my turn to save someone else.

“So Twenty, you can’t go back to the Guards. You need to find a new vocation. How does apprentice Bounty Hunter sound?”.I gave her my winning smile at full power. Set cuteness to Stun. She looked back at me with her blankest expression.

“You can say yes thank you Millie-san anytime now” I prompted her, keeping my grin fixed in place.

“Why would you be Millie-san?” Twenty wondered.

“Because I am older and I am the boss” I told her with some exasperation.

“I accept, Millie-san” she said. Cool. We were now officially Millie and Twenty, Bounty Hunters. Except not really officially. And both of us were ourselves on the run from the Pan City administration in one way or another. A perfect match.