The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.
The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to esn1g@earthlink.net. Thank you.
"It's just one of those days, when you don't wanna wake up,
Everything is fucked, everybody sucks!"
-Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit
One of Those Days
by Roland Lowery
- 3222 AD -
As soon as Nack sat up from his bed, he knew that he had made a horrible mistake.
With all the agility and grace of a pregnant terrapod, he stumbled his way from the bedroom, into the garage, into several of the tool chests and work tables that were absolutely determined to get into his way, and finally into the bathroom where he promptly vomited into the chemical toilet. Even after he was sure that everything he could possibly void from his digestive tract was safely deposited in the toilet, he remained on the bathroom floor, back against the closed door of the sonic shower and head spinning in the clouds.
It's my own damn fault, he thought dizzily, and I damn well know it.
As the clang and rattle of fallen tools still echoed off the concrete floor of the garage outside, Nack thought back briefly to the previous day. He had accepted a bottle of fine elderberry wine in lieu of part of his regular payment for a bounty he had just recently collected. That bottle, he was fairly certain, was still sitting somewhere around his hideout . . . but he had no clue where, and he was pretty sure that it was only half-full.
It didn't really matter, in any case, because merely thinking about trying to dig the thing up to do anything with it, even to just put it somewhere safe, made Nack's stomach heave in rebellion. He didn't even want to look at the stuff until Mobius had stopped bucking like a bronco beneath him.
Nack rubbed his eyes with one hand and was surprised to find that he was still wearing his gloves. Still dressed, he thought glumly. Hell, I guess I'm lucky I made it into bed at all. Why on Mobius did I drink so . . . so . . . ah, crap. Cindi.
Nack, as a rule, hardly ever drank alcohol. He occasionally took down a beer or two while sitting around one of his many hideouts, or a shot of whiskey or vodka while hanging around in bars, but he generally tried to stick to his one and only true vice, smoking. If it had been any other time, he probably would have told his last employer to keep the wine and he'd pick up the rest of his payment the next day, one way or the other, but he had just come off of a horribly failed relationship and wanted to finish it off with something special.
Cindi had been a fine woman. A strong woman. A smart woman.
But, she'd also been a needy woman.
In the end, Nack wanted very few things in life. A good smoke, a pocket full of Mobiums, and the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. What he didn't want was some crazy lady trying to make him her husband. So as lovely as Cindi was, she had to go. Nack had therefore taken the wine to celebrate his liberation from yet another clingy female, and now all he wanted out of life was for everything to just settle down and let him stand up.
After nearly an hour of watching the doorframe do absolutely nothing, Nack finally felt well enough to do the standing up thing. He slowly heaved himself off the ground and began to strip off his gloves, boots, and jacket. A small amount of nausea sifted around in the bottom of his gut like the last dregs of filthy water in the bottom of an old bucket, but he managed to keep it firmly contained below the esophagus.
Fully undressed, he stepped into the shower and turned the sonics on at their lowest setting. Warm waves of sound and air washed over him, ruffling his fur and slowly working all the grime, dirt, and sweat of the past few days off of his body. He stretched languidly as his muscles were gently massaged by the vibrations. Finally starting to feel like his old self again, he reached down and turned the sonics up to a more reasonable level so he could finish up and get started on a brand new day.
Fifteen minutes later, Nack stepped out of the shower and ran his fingers vigorously through his fur, shaking out any last lingering bits of filth that might still be stuck on him. Satisfied with the job, he moved over to the mirror and grabbed his brush.
The first few passes with the brush didn't change his extremely ruffled appearance any, but it hardly ever did anyway. He continued, enjoying the feel of it running through his fur, but then stopped suddenly as he noticed something amiss. He leaned over the sink to stare hard into the mirror, then leaned back and glared unhappily down at the spot he had just been brushing.
While it was obvious that he had been doing something to his fur, it certainly didn't look like he was straightening it. Nearly a dozen cowlicks had sprung up in the square foot he had been working on; and, as he came to find out after a few more passes, they refused to budge. He growled to himself lightly and decided to simply finish the job and figure something out afterwards.
Afterwards, of course, he found that nearly his entire body was covered with little sprigs of hair sticking at perpendicular angles from his skin slightly curling back towards him. One of them had the audacity to be pointing straight back into one of his nostrils, causing his nose to itch every few seconds.
"Oh, for . . . fucking hell . . . " Nack mumbled. Normally he didn't care very much about his appearance, since the rough-and-tumble look often seemed to work to his advantage . . . but something about the current situation struck him as a bit odd. A small pit of anger welled up inside of him, but he decided he would wait before he declared the day totally lost to this odd phenomenon. He began to search through the small cans and other containers on the sink for some gel or hairspray to use on the errant cowlicks.
He opened one jar after the other, only to find them empty. The only spray cans that had any fizz left to them were products that wouldn't help him at all, unless he wanted to kill roaches or play with silly string. He also found that his underarm deodorant was perilously close to running out and that he might - might - be able to use it under only one of his arms before it was gone.
He stood over the ransacked sink, staring incredulously. "You have got to be kidding me!" he breathed.
"Alright," Nack finally said to himself after a few moments. "Alright, here's the plan . . . fuck it. It's not like I was doing anything important today, anyway. Who the hell have I got to look good for, right? Right."
Taking one long last baleful look in the mirror at his scruffy, fluffy countenance, he stepped back out into the garage and glanced around at the damage he had caused earlier in his drunken stumbling. With a long-suffering sigh, he stooped down and began to pick up all the tools and other devices he had knocked over and sorted them back out where they belonged. It was slow-going work, unfortunately, as every time he leaned over he felt a small bit of that elderberry wine slosh around in the pit of his stomach.
Most of his equipment was still in good working condition, but here and there he found a few pieces that would need repairs before he could go back to working on or with them. None of this helped his gradually going sour disposition any, especially when he ran across a broken scaddriver under one of the work tables. Giving it a quick look-over, he saw that one of the sides had busted open, and he knew that the only way to fix it was with another scaddriver. Naturally, that was the only scaddriver he had in that hideout at the time.
Nack felt all the muscles in his left arm and under his right eye start to twitch violently as he looked at the broken tool in his hand. This, he thought, has got to be some kind of nightmare!
Suddenly sick to death of picking things up, he just tossed the driver back onto the floor, not caring if he broke it any further, and sat down hard on the concrete.
With a yelp of pain, he shot straight back up and caught the left side of his head on the edge of one of the work tables. He let out a snarl of rage and shoved the table away from him before succumbing again to the pain shooting through his head and right butt cheek. Since he already knew what had caused the problem up top, he twisted around and starting searching through his fur for the problem down under.
Sitting right smack dab in the middle of the cheek was a large, glaringly red-
"Pimple!" Nack cried out. "A . . . a fucking pimple! How the blazing fuck does someone get a walk'damned pimple on their ass?! ARGH! RARGH!"
On the list of brilliant things Nack could have done at that moment, punching the wall was at the very bottom. Naturally, in a sudden fit of anger, that was exactly what he did, forgetting that he didn't have his shock-absorbing gloves on anymore. The crack he heard from his fist slamming into the sheet metal wasn't his bones cracking, but from the sudden tripping of every pain receptor in his hand and forearm and up into his elbow and upper arm, it might as well have been.
A full litany of howls and curses that would have made the Ancient Walkers themselves blush underneath their masks poured forth from Nack's mouth, smiting every convenient target his pain-addled brain could possibly imagine. It was an onslaught that mere words could not describe, as his epithets eventually began to slip out of the realm of words entirely and into areas of pure, inmobian screeching and yowling.
"AAaaaAAAaaaRRReeeAAAARGH, FUUUUCK!!!"
With that final exhausted outcry, Nack stomped on the ground one last time and stood, breathing in and out explosively, and worked his hardest to try and calm down. Ever so slowly, the red faded from his vision and was able to think clearly.
"I . . . am . . . out of here," he growled. Without taking another second to think about it or let something else horrible happen to him, he grabbed his clothes out of the bathroom, threw them on as quickly as possible, jumped on his hoverbike, and sped out the garage door before it had even managed to open fully.
As he glanced back and remote activated the door's close function and security measures, he felt a wave of relief at getting out of the hideout before he'd ended up killing himself accidentally with the food dispenser or something else equally embarrassing.
Nack The Weasel, bounty hunter extraordinaire, breathed the fresh Mobotropolis air in deeply, then expelled it in a relaxed sigh.
The sun was shining bright overhead. A fresh spring breeze was blowing all around him. He could hear the sounds of hard dance music drifting lazily by from an open apartment window. Except for having to sit slightly askance on his hoverbike to accommodate his zit, Nack was starting to feel almost Mobian again.
As he merged into one of the many skylanes amongst the silvery Mobotropolis skyscrapers, he used this new, refreshed feeling to begin planning his day. Now that his stomach had settled down, he was starting to get a bit hungry, and he knew just the place to go to fix that problem. Now fully into the traffic flow, he took a few moments to glance around and orient himself so he could choose the best route to take.
"Ah, there we are," he mumbled softly to himself.
After checking traffic to either side of him, Nack pulled out of the lane and onto an exit that would lead down to the lower sections of the city. It would, he hoped, put him out somewhere near the casino district, from which he could easily make his way over to the land ports via the Low Mobo skylane then the 1213 Trans-City highway. Just inside the port district was a small, out-of-the-way place called the Bottom of the Barrel Bar and Grill that the local dockworkers liked to gather at during their off time.
Nack licked his lips in anticipation of the medium rare steak, pan fried potato wedges, and cold beer waiting for him at the BBB&G.
Or, well, he thought as his belly suddenly lurched, maybe I'll settle with a cup of coffee instead of the beer.
The exit lane markers dipped and bobbed slightly in the air when Nack's hoverbike cut by them. The lane itself dipped deeper and deeper into the city, and natural light was gradually replaced by hyper-luminescent lamps as the buildings became more tightly packed together. The traffic had thinned out a good bit, for which Nack was grateful. Fortunately it was midday, which meant a brief lull while most of the gamblers took some time to sleep in between long nights of winning and losing money.
Money . . .
A small tickle started in the back of Nack's mind. He looked around at the beginning of garish neon lights and vidshow themed landing strips, trying to figure out what it was that was suddenly bothering him. Halfway through the casino district, the tickle had turned into a full blown alarm, but he still couldn't place what was causing it. In frustration, he pulled his bike off the skylane, hooked it to the side of a building, and started sifting through his jacket pockets.
Tear gas pellets, flashbangs, lockpicks, datapads . . . everything seemed to be where it was supposed to be. His lip curled up off of his oversized fang and he was about to give up in disgust when he finally realized what was missing.
"Oh, no . . . oh, no," he said. "Argh!"
This time when Nack punched the wall beside him, the microweave in his glove took the brunt of the blow and dispersed it harmlessly, leaving him feeling vaguely unsatisfied and grimly unhappy with this new turn. In the front left pocket of his jacket, right where his wallet should have been, there was nothing but an empty space. He could imagine it, sitting back at the hideout on the bathroom floor where it had doubtlessly fallen out while he had been saying his big howdy to the toilet.
Nack sighed and rubbed his eyes, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before doing anything else. He automatically knew, of course, that he had several options, but none of them were exactly what he thought of as a fun time. The first, of course, was to simply turn back around and pick up his wallet, but he felt his heart drop into his knees just thinking about returning to the place that had caused him well more than it's daily allotted allowance of agitation.
His next choice was to just find the nearest auto-bank and either pull some money out legitimately or hack some out of it. He didn't want to do the former, however, because it required thumbprint ID if he didn't have his credstick - which was in the wallet, of course - and he didn't like leaving such definite trails. The latter was briefly considered, but he hated working with computers in any fashion, no matter how skilled at it he had become over the years. It bored him to tears just working on the unsophisticated little number that regulated most of the systems in his bike.
With uncharacteristic slowness caused by the last vestiges of the previous night and the current irritations from earlier in the day, Nack sorted through all the rest of his options, turning them down one by one. He was just about to unhook his bike from the wall and turn back for home when something in the landing strip across the lane caught his eye.
His lethargy faded into the background as he quickly zeroed in on a single figure weaving along the pad amidst a few small groups of people walking to and from their parked vehicles and the closest casino. Whoever this figure was, he looked almost as drunk as Nack had felt shortly after he'd woken up earlier, and it was causing him to stumble - sometimes repeatedly - into the other people as they passed by him. The weasel's instincts kicked in automatically as he watched, and he skillfully picked out and recognized the stumbler's pattern.
"You little thief," Nack said under his breath as he watched the man, a chipmunk from the looks of it, dip one hand into another man's pocket while he used the other hand to steady himself. The chipmunk apologized for the accident and quickly moved on to his next victim.
Thinking that the thief looked vaguely familiar, Nack fished out one of his datapads and quickly snapped a picture of the man's face through the pad's video feed. He then patched it into the Bounty Hunter Guild's main database and set up a quick search through the archives. Sure enough, within milliseconds the pad spat back out an exact match.
"Anthony Terwilliger Munk," Nack said, reading the attached profile aloud. "Blah blah blah, centered in Mobotropolis, blah blah blah, small time thief and pickpocket, blah blah bl- ah, here we go, the good stuff. Wanted by three separate entities for questioning, incarceration, or other . . . highest current bounty, 500 credits in any form, put forth by the Acorn Royal Peacekeeper Department. Nice."
Under normal circumstances, the only reason Nack would have tried to collect such a small bounty was for, at best, a larf. And even then he had probably only been bored enough for something like that two or three times at most in his entire life. However, sitting halfway between his money and where he wanted to be, his stomach growling at him, and the pimple on his butt starting to flare up again, no other option seemed anywhere near as inviting. He'd just go and collect the "drunken" thief with a minimum of fuss, drop him off at a PD station and collect the bounty on the way to the BBB&G, and be stuffing his face all within fifteen minutes or so.
With practiced ease, Nack unhooked his hoverbike from its mooring and pulled it into a sidewinding maneuver until he'd crossed the skylane and entered the landing strip. He parked it in between two large family-sized gravs, powered it down, locked the controls, and set the anti-theft system. With an air of finality and a thud of absolute stubbornness, the bike's anti-gravity system reversed and turned it from an airborne vehicle into a ten ton paperweight.
The bounty hunter slid off of the seat, snugged his hat down around his head, and ambled his way around towards the casino, making sure that he'd be right in the chipmunk's path. The thief, oblivious to the danger he was staggering into, continued on his way, slipping his hands into purses, pockets, pouches, and any other containers he could find. Nack sneered in disgust. Greedy punk, he thought. No wonder he's small-time. He shoulda gone home with his take about five handbags ago.
But I'll give him this, he amended grudgingly. The boy must know what he's doing if he's gotten this many people without getting caught by anyone else. Alright, Munkey Boy . . . let's get this over with.
As the thief approached, Nack purposefully stayed his coursed so that the two of them would collide. He felt the chipmunk's hand slide almost imperceptibly into his front jacket pocket, then back out again. Good thing for you I don't keep anything more dangerous than my wallet in there, he thought, then snaked his arm around the other man's elbow and gave it a tight twist.
"Ar-aragh!" Munk croaked as Nack stepped down on his foot and leaned him over backwards. "I . . . I'm sorry, man!" he slurred. "I . . . I dinn't mean ta . . . run inta youse and your loverly . . . wifes!"
"Can the act, Munkey Boy," Nack hissed in Munk's face. "There's a bounty on your head, and I aim to collect it. You can either sober up and come with me down to the station, or you can bleed the fake booze out while I drag you there. Savvy?"
Quicker than Nack would have ever given him credit for, Munk suddenly had a short blade in his free hand. He shoved the point towards Nack's side, but as the amateur that he was, he tried to stab directly through the bounty hunter's jacket rather than under it. The knifeproof weave held perfectly, but the blade was still enough of a threat that the weasel had to take a step to the left, which put him off balance. Munk followed the stabbing by pulling up on his trapped foot, pushing up Nack's leg with it and sending both men tumbling to the ground.
Nack still had a lock on Munk's arm, but had to quickly relinquish it as the thief tried to stab him again, this time in the face. He knew nearly a hundred ways to disarm a knife fighter, but none of them would work in the position they had been in.
That's something I'll have to rectify later, he thought as he rolled away and leapt quickly to his feet. Munk, in the meantime, had already regained his and was lighting off for the far end of the landing strip. Cursing to himself, Nack immediately gave chase. Already this was becoming far more work than what it was worth, but the visions of thick, juicy steak were still bouncing around in his head.
"'Scuse me, pardon me, get the hell out of my way," he said breathlessly as he bowled through a small group that had just been recovering from Munk blowing through them a few moments before. Looking ahead, he could already see Munk's target . . . besides Nack's own, there was only one other hoverbike on the entire pad. If I could just reach him before he- dammit!
Most sneak and run thieves ran a bad gamble when they left their vehicles running and ready for a fast getaway, since while they were hitting marks someone else on the wrong side of the law could snatch their hasty exit right out from under their noses. For Munk the gamble had paid off, however. He executed an almost perfect flying leap onto his bike's seat, hit the lifter controls, and performed an also almost perfect 180 before speeding out of the lot.
It was during the full turnaround that Nack was at his own bike, desperately pounding out the unlock codes on the control pad. A constant string of "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" poured out of him with the press of every button until after what seemed like an eternity, he was on the bike and in the air.
Completely eschewing the regular lot exit and nearly every single traffic law in the city, Nack jumped the bike directly over the landing strip's buffer and waded directly into skylane traffic.
"Outta my Walker-damned way, assholes!" he shouted as he shook his fist at the honking vehicles behind, above, below, in front, and to either side of him. He recklessly weaved through the surrounding gravcars, trying to catch a glimpse of the chipmunk's bike ahead of him. If he knew wannabe thieves - and he did - the punk would be following a regular escape plan, straight back to his apartment or whatever. In his panic, he wouldn't think to take the by-lanes, go deeper into the city, or any of the other tricks that came second nature to people like Nack.
Sure enough, less than a minute later Nack spied the runaway bounty one lane below him. The bastard is heading me back the way I was coming from, he thought as a horribly malicious grin spread across his face. Oh, he is going to pay for that . . .
Nack deactivated the lifters on his bike and entered a deadman's dive. His sudden plummet sent a gravbike and a hovercar suddenly careening to the sides before he reactivated the lifters and began to creep up behind Munk. As he slowly approached his target, he reached back and pulled out some slack in his mooring line. He would just sneak up and hook the two bikes to each other, easy.
If Munk was smart, then he'd stop and let Nack take him in. If he was stupid - and previous experience proved that he was - then he'd try to take off irregardless, his piddling little bike would snap in half while Nack's wouldn't even break a sweat, and Nack would take him in anyway, letting him dangle from whatever was left of the broken vehicle the whole way there.
If he didn't just fall to his death, of course. The weasel was fine with any of the outcomes.
As he closed in on the chipmunk, Nack sidled the controls so that he was turned diagonally to the traffic flow, but the anti-grav units were still pushing him straight forward. He reached out with the hand holding the mooring clamp, leaned forward . . . and let out a startled cry as Munk turned an exact right angle to the left and shot away down a side alley.
"You idiotic fuck!" Nack screamed as he slammed on the brakes and turned around to follow. He wasn't sure exactly whether he was yelling at Munk or himself, but he hardly cared at the moment. With a snarling yell of outrage, he sped down the alley in hot pursuit.
The alleyways of outer Mobotropolis were, for the most part, open places that were mostly free of garbage, easily patrolled by PeaceBots, and well lit by the sun. The walls around them weren't very high, as most of the buildings never got over three or four stories tall. Strangely, it was among one such alleyway that a gang of illicit computer users known as the Hacker-Dackers had set up their base of operations. As one of their former members, Nack knew those alleys better than anyone else outside the gang.
His time with the dackers, however, had been cut short when he had joined up fully with the Bounty Hunter Guild. Now the alleys of inner Mobotropolis were his home. Full of dark spaces, strange creatures that snuck into the city and couldn't find their way back out, long forgotten garbage sorted through by long forgotten people . . . alleys just like the one Nack was currently following his quarry down. He flipped on his bike's lights to penetrate the dull twilight that surrounded him and leaned in his seat so he could peer ahead more easily.
"You cocky little bastard . . . " Nack mumbled as he sped along. "Just where in the hell . . . do you think you're goin'? Hmm? Surely you didn't just . . . up and pick up some smarts on the way, neh? Nah . . . you gotta know someone down here . . . think they'll protect ya. But you just listen ta me, Munkey Boy . . . ain't nobody, and I mean nobody gonna be able to save you when I get my hands on ya . . . "
The entire time Nack had been talking to himself, he had been gradually pulling back on the bike's controls, slowing down bit by bit. Just a few moments after he'd pulled into the alley, he'd thought he'd heard something unusual behind him, and now he was absolutely certain.
"Ain't that right, boy?" he hissed as he suddenly came to a full stop, reached behind him, and grabbed a hold of Munk's bike controls. Munk, suddenly eye to eye with the bounty hunter, went ghost white underneath his fur. "Think you're pretty damn smart, huh, pullin' to the side in the dark and then sneakin' up on me?"
Nack pushed down on the front of Munk's bike, causing it to angle downward while he pulled himself closer to the thief.
"You haven't just underestimated how smart I am, Munkey Boy," Nack said with a growl. "I think you also underestimated just how much you've pissed me off."
Sweat ran through Munk's brown fur as he stared wide-eyed at Nack. Resignation, surprise, and stark-raving terror all jockeyed for position on his face as he stammered at Nack's snarling face.
"I-I-I-I-"
"'I-I-I-I-'" Nack mocked. He growled again and shook the bike's handlebars, rattling Munk even further. "When I'm done with you, Munkey Boy, you ain't gonna be dead . . . but you sure as hell are gonna wish you were . . . "
It was then that Munk's fight-or-flight instincts suddenly kicked in, driven purely on adrenaline that screamed FLIGHT! Almost of their own accord, his hands pushed forward on his bike's controls as he cancelled the lifters.
Nack managed to release his grip just in time to steady his own bike as the weight redistributed itself. Without even taking the time to curse out his sudden reversal of fortunes again, he quickly turned the bike's nose down and followed after Munk, who was dropping like a stone. Several seconds passed as the weasel plummeted after his target, several seconds in which the thief had had plenty of time to level off and force Nack to resume a horizontal chase.
It wasn't until a dark, crumbling rooftop appeared directly below them that Nack realized that Munk's bike must have stalled out in the dive. Bastard must've gotten his hands on a faulty energy cell, he thought with a grin. Finally, some luck on my side! Yes!
"No!" Nack yelled with a snarl as the other man began to level out. He redoubled his efforts, pushing his bike at speeds he knew weren't safe in the position he was in. The air streaking by pulled back his features as he fought to catch up with the other bike so he could try to knock Munk out of his seat before he could get away.
He suddenly pulled back, however, when he realized that the thief wasn't going to make it after all. As he pulled up to level out himself, Munk's bike hit the rooftop at a diagonal skid, sparking all along the roof's length until it finally came to a clunking stop and threw the chipmunk off over the handlebars. Nack couldn't suppress a maniacal cackle as Munk's body rolled end over end on the roof's gravelly surface.
The thief finally came to a stop just as Nack was getting close enough to plot a landing. The weasel kept one eye carefully on his flight controls and the other on Munk.
I don't suppose I'd be lucky enough that he's broken something vital . . . oh, dammit!
As Nack came in for a landing, Munk slowly rose to his knees and then his feet. He looked around with tired eyes, saw the weasel stepping off his bike, and broke into as much of a run as he could muster towards a nearby fire escape. Nack took the time to lock down his hoverbike since he figured that it would be a footrace from there on in, then quickly joined the chipmunk on the rusty stairs down.
The whole way down, Nack could hear Munk softly chanting to himself, "Just a little bit farther, just a little bit farther . . . "
Now what the hell does that mean? he briefly wondered. Lookin' for your friends, Munkey Boy? He then shook off the questions and continued his descent.
Whatever it was, he'd find out soon enough.
The old goat ran a clean store. At least, that was, as far as the Peacekeepers were concerned.
Out front, he sold survival supplies, mostly. Dried food, protection against the elements, firestarting equipment . . . all the sorts of things denizens of the inner Mobotropolis alleyways would need to survive. By doing this, he provided a good, decent service to the community, and this held him in good standing with just about everybody who knew only of that side of his business.
In the back, however, it was a completely different story. For some number of years, the old goat had been running any number of illegal operations, from weapons smuggling to drug trafficking to providing small-time criminals with everything they needed to become big-time criminals who owed the goat favors.
Most days, he could be found sitting behind the counter of his store, whittling away at and old stick of bio-plastic with a laser penknife. It was mostly part of a front for him . . . part of his image as the kindly old gentleman running his completely legitimate business in the underside of the city. And so it was like this that Tony Munk found him when the young thief burst through the front door, completely panic stricken, and deadbolted the door behind him.
The old goat, used to such entrances from his less-than-legal crowd, barely looked up from his whittling as he said, "Ay, Tony. What's got you in such a bother, now?"
"Aw, man," Munk started babbling as he ran up to the counter. "Aw, shit, man, aw, shit, you gotta hide me!"
Lifting a single eyebrow, the goat blew some dust off of his whittling stick before saying, "And why do I hafta hide you, son? Problem with the law?"
"Naw, man, not 'xactly," Munk said. "Naw, it's this . . . I think he's a bounty hunter or somethin', man. I think I pissed him off big-time or somethin'! Fuckin' purple furred weasel, man-"
The goat's head snapped up as his attention suddenly and fully locked onto the thief. "Now hold up just a minute, there, Tony," he said. "Are you trying to tell me that you pissed off Nack The Weasel?!"
"What the who?!" Munk asked, genuinely confused. "Hell, I guess, I dunno, man! All I know is that I'm really scared, man!"
The goat leaned back on his stool and shook his head. "Trust me, boy . . . if you really ticked off Nack The Weasel, then you ain't near scared enough."
Just then, as if on cue, the front door busted wide open, sending splinters flying everywhere from the deadbolt making a forced exit from the doorframe. The door hit the widest part of its arc and slammed back closed, nearly drowning out the thief's startled scream, but was opened yet again by a gloved hand. Nack stepped fully into the room, pure fire in his eyes.
As the bounty hunter took a moment to fully appraise the room for any previously unseen threats, the goat turned to Munk, both eyebrows raised now, and said, "Shit, boy . . . you better run."
Without another word, Munk turned and ran as fast as he could through an open door into the back room. Nack, having decided that no hidden traps or thugs lay in wait for him, stomped up to the counter and glared dangerously across it. The goat simply pointed through the open door and said, "There's another door to the alley behind the buildin'."
Nack nodded curtly, turned to follow Munk, then stopped short. He turned back to the goat for a moment and leaned across the counter as he looked the old man up and down. Finally, he leaned back and nodded again in recognition.
"There's a 2,000 cred bounty on you," he finally said.
"Yessir," the goat responded, not bothering to hide the fact.
Nack pointed a finger down at the countertop and leaned back in for emphasis. "You're here when I get back," he said.
"Yessir," the goat said with a nod.
Satisfied, the weasel stood up straight, turned, and stormed out the back door. The goat, meanwhile, went back to whittling his stick and waited calmly for the bounty hunter to come back for him.
Out in the alleyway, Munk was making a mad dash for freedom. At the end of the alley, he could see a small landing strip filled with several gravcars. They were all clunkers, but all he had to do was bust into one, hotwire it, and he could get his aching and bruised body away from the demon that was chasing him.
Despite his better judgment, he decided to take just a moment to look behind him and see if Nack was still following. He slowed down for a split second and threw a glance over his shoulder to see a completely empty alleyway behind him. As he resumed his limping, gasping run, he tried his best to laugh. He was going to make it! Thank the Walkers, he was going to get away!
Another glance back took every bit of hope and cheer he'd just built up and dashed them into infinitesimal pieces. Nack was just stepping out from the back door and turning towards Munk. Time seemed to slow down for the thief, every step taking forever to make.
This is it! Munk thought. He's tired of this! He's just going to shoot me, man! I'm dead! I'm a goner!
But Nack had other plans. While Munk pitifully made his way towards his last ditch hope for escape, the bounty hunter reached into one of the secret pockets inside his jacket and pulled out a small metal disc from his bag of tricks. The disc was about three centimeters across and had three long strands attached to its edge equidistant from each other. He hadn't been able to use this little baby back at the casino because the thief had been too far away, but now . . . now it was time to do some damage. With one brisk motion, he pressed down and rubbed the disc in between his thumb and forefinger, then flipped the entire array ahead of him with a flick of his wrist.
Within nanoseconds of leaving his grasp, the ends of each strand on the device expanded, then grav-control devices kicked in, giving the ends the weight of stones the same size. The fully activated high-tech bolas flew through the air and directly hit their target . . . Munk's neck.
Before the chipmunk could tell what was happening to him, his air supply had been wrenchingly cut off and two large objects carrying the weight and momentum of two very large rocks smacked him in the eye and on the forehead. His head snapped back from the force of the impact, but he valiantly struggled to keep running. Finally, though, the air restriction got to him and he fell to one knee, grasping at the wires wrapped around his throat.
Halfway to Munk's gasping form, Nack reached back into his pockets and drew out a decimeter long metal throwing dart. With careful precision, he flicked the dart into Munk's back. It slid easily through the chipmunk's jacket and into the skin underneath. Within seconds, Munk had fallen over on his side, twitching and making strangling, choking noises.
"Nice little toy, neh?" Nack said as he stepped up to Munk's writhing body. "The dart, I mean. See, it's got these little nano-fibers that stretch out, latch on to the nearest blood vessel, and start pumpin' a fast-acting nerve toxin into your system. Not enough to kill ya, 'course. It just takes ya down without knocking ya out, but the best part is . . . " Nack crouched down and grinned toothily at Munk. " . . . it hurts.
"Now, the thing is," the weasel continued conversationally, "I'm gonna be nice and loosen the straps on your neck so you can actually scream 'stead of makin' this silly little gruntin' noise you're doin' now. I want ya to enjoy this here pain while ya can, 'cause when it's over . . . "
Nack's grin stretched even wider, his fang gleaming in the twilight as he cracked his knuckles.
" . . . oh, when it's over, Munkey Boy . . . that's when it's my turn to make you scream."
Nearly forty-five minutes later, Nack dragged the mangled, broken, bloody mess that used to be recognizable as Tony Munk into the nearest Peacekeeper Department station. The desk sergeant, whom the bounty hunter recognized as Sgt. Reginald Schnauzer from past drop-offs in the area, stared at him and his cargo with horrified surprise. Most of the rest of the room was doing the same. Nack could almost feel their eyes boring into him as things started to slowly grow quiet. He held Munk's crushed face up to the sergeant for a moment, then let the thief drop limply to the ground.
"One Anthony Terwilliger Munk," the weasel said simply. "Small-time thief, wanted for questioning and whatnot. I am here to collect on the standing 500 credit bounty. I'll take them in Mobiums, so after taxes I should recie-"
"What on the Walkers' green Mobius have you done to that man?!" Sgt. Schnauzer yelled out as he leaned over the front desk. "His nose is broken! He's barely breathing!"
Nack sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Broken nose," he stated matter-of-factly, "busted lip, five missing teeth, torn ear cartilage, torn scalp, a couple of small burn on the back of his neck, one shoulder dislocated, the other shoulder probably sprained, torn ligament on the left upper bicep, fractured radius, three broken fingers on his right, two broken fingers and a broken thumb on his left, seven cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder blade, fractured tailbone, several cuts and bruises of all shapes and sizes - especially about the shin, gut, and ass areas - and at least one foot that I'm pretty sure is pulverized completely.
"I would have taken him by the hospital first, but his well-being is not my concern. The money I'm owed for him is, so, Sarge Shnozz, I'd 'ppreciate it if ya got a walk'damned move on. Savvy?"
An uneasy silence had settled over everyone near the front desk. Everyone seemed to be watching now, peacekeepers and perps alike, waiting to see what the sergeant was going to do.
For a moment, it seemed that he wasn't going to do anything at all. Then finally he leaned down even further and stared the weasel straight in the eye. "Now you look here, Nack," he said gruffly. "Normally when you come in with a punk that's been roughed up a little, I don't bat an eye 'cause I know they sometimes put up a fight when it's a hunter on their tail. But this boy . . . he's hardly alive! How the hell did this happen?"
Nack looked down at Munk, who was starting to show a few feeble signs of life. He looked back up at the sergeant and said, "He fell up a flight of stairs. Now give me my money."
Schnauzer stood back up and puffed out his chest. "Your little intimidation tactics might work on the idiots out on the streets, boy," the large man said, "but they ain't gonna work on me. Now you tell me why you've done this, or I'm throwin' you both in the lock up. Got it?"
Nack looked up at the tall dog for a moment and arced an eyebrow. After a few seconds of thought, he finally said, "Tell me, Shnozz . . . have you ever had one of those days?"
Sgt. Schnauzer let out a brief bark of laughter. "Are you tellin' me that you did this because you're havin' a bad day?" he asked incredulously. "Damn, boy, of course I've had one of those days! Everyone has!"
"Well the difference between me and everyone else, Shnozz, is very simple," Nack said, his voice low. "You and everyone else, even the criminals like this scuzzbag here, have some kinda fake civility ya carry around with ya everywhere ya go. Even when you're feeling down in the dumps 'cause nothing's goin' your way, you still act all nicey-nice to each other. If ya yell at someone who don't deserve it? Hell, you up and apologize afterwards, don'tcha? No matter how bad someone's gettin' on your nerves, you keep yourself from reachin' out and bitchslapping 'em just because you don't wanna hurt someone while you're in a bad mood.
"Me? I do not give a damn. The only - and I mean only - reason you're not gettin' this guy in separate pieces wrapped up in tiny little sandwich bags is because I've got a very simple dream I want to fulfill before the day is out, and the only way to make that dream come true at this point without me goin' completely nuts is to collect the bounty on his head. So I would highly suggest that you give me that fuckin' bounty right now, because I do not care whether you're intimidated or not . . .
"I will kill you."
The two Mobians stared at each other for a long, hard moment, fire and brimstone jumping back and forth between them. Just when the tension seemed ready to explode, the sergeant nodded briskly and started tapping away at the desk terminal. After a few moments, he reached down into one of the desk's compartments and pulled out a small credstick.
"By the power vested in me by the Acorn Kingdom and the Acorn Royal Peacekeeper Department, I hereby bequeath to you the sum of four hundred and thirty-two credits - after taxes - in Mobiums for the capture of Anthony Terwilliger Munk." He handed the stick over to Nack and then waved his hand in disgust. "Now get the hell outta here. And if you ever bring another bounty into this station again, you're gonna be sharing the same cell no matter what condition they're in. Got it, boy?"
Nack slid the credstick into one of his datapads to verify it, tipped his hat curtly as he turned, and marched out the door.
Down at the Bottom of the Barrel Bar and Grill, the bell on the door jingled merrily as a weary-eyed, slump shouldered lone figure walked in and sidled up to the counter. He looked up blearily as Barry the bartender stepped up and laid out a coaster.
"Hey, Weasel, right?" Barry asked as he caught a good look at the customer's face. "The bounty hunter?"
"Yah," Nack said huskily as he nodded.
"Thought so," said Barry. "You been in here a coupla times before. What can I getcha?"
Nack leaned back on the stool and slightly stretched his spine before letting out a contented sigh. "I will have," he said, "a twelve pound sirloin steak cooked medium rare with sauteed mushrooms and onions, a side of your pan-fried potato wedges, and a good strong cup of co-"
Barry looked surprised when Nack stopped mid-sentence. "Somethin' wrong?" he asked.
"No," Nack said as a grin spread across his face. "No, not a'tall . . . I just decided, I want a beer with my order. A nice, cold, longneck bottle of beer. I don't care how much it costs, I don't give a damn what brand it is, and I don't even give a damn if it makes me so sick I puke again. I think, after today, I deserve one."
The bartender looked at Nack a bit oddly while he took the weasel's credstick and hit the "send" button on his digital order pad, but all he said in return was, "No problem, m'man. Just havin' a bad day, are we?"
Nack's grin turned into a sad smile.
"Buddy," he said, "you have no idea . . . "
END.
Roland Lowery
esn1g@earthlink.net
August 6, 2004
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