Bounty Hunter

Chapter 10

Joe returned to Harry Haft's to find Reuben on his hands and knees, scrubbing his floor.

"I thought Rex was supposed to do cleanup," Joe said as he hopped over a wet spot.

Reuben snorted. "Rex's idea of cleanup is smudging stuff around and making a bigger mess."

Joe tilted his head. He could see that. He came to stand above Reuben. "You called Sara Swinton looking for me. How'd you know I was there?"

"I didn't, but Rex told me that you go there a lot."

"Of course he did," Joe said dryly. "You should've called me."

"I tried. You didn't answer."

"Oh." Joe realized he hadn't transferred calls from his helmet to his armlet. "What do you need?"

Reuben paused in his scrubbing and leaned back. "I have a knockout job for you if you want it. Pays three times the usual."

Knockout, slang for K.O., was short for Kill Order. That meant that the only way Joe would get paid would be with proof of death. He needed the money to pay for Monster's repairs, let alone have enough left over to feed Sara and Nick. He inhaled and held out his hand. "Give me the ticket."

"No ticket. This one's off the books. Still want it?"

Ah, so it was a hit job. "I'll take it."

Reuben wiped his hands on his pants, pushed to his feet, walked over to his desk, and sat. He tapped several things on his screen before looking up. "I sent the details to your armlet. Everything you'll need is in the file. Come back with proof of death, and I'll make the payment. I will have you know, I wouldn't have taken this ticket except that I owed this particular client a favor."

"No problem." Joe gave a small nod and turned to leave.

"Oh, another Haft hunter has disappeared. It was Jester this time," Reuben warned. "I want to put trackers on every hunter and on every cutter."

Joe turned around. "No."

"But what if someone runs you off the road again?"

"No." Joe remembered the state of things right before the Revolution, during Zenith's pinnacle of control.

Zenith State was the political epicenter formed by the people in the Zenith silo, during humanity's seven generations spent underground. In the beginning, they'd unified the tribes formed by each silo. Zenith established inter-bunker communications and trade routes with automated trains, and people became a part of a world bigger than their silo.

But as soon as humanity reentered the surface, Zenith clenched its fist of control around all of the wastelands, suffocating the various tribes. The State tracked everyone and everything. There'd been curfews and restrictions on where people could go and who they could see. Store owners who didn't report data were marked off-limits to customers. Privacy had been lost to the past. No matter how harmless Reuben's request was, Joe wouldn't have any part of it.

"You're in my employ. I can make you carry one," Reuben said.

Joe stomped to his boss's desk and leaned over it. "Do that, and I quit."

Reuben held up his hands. "Fine. You don't have to wear a tracker if you don't want to. Besides, things should be back to normal before long. I'm having T-Rex send Cat a warning so she'll stop these games."

The tension already in his muscles tightened further. "Exactly what kind of warning?"

Reuben shrugged. "Rex said he'd figure something out."