Now, I liked to think of myself as a smart man, not a wise one. I understood all the risks involved with what I was doing, but that doesn’t mean I avoided them.

A beautiful woman was walking in front of me, obviously intent to cause me harm in some way, and I was still following along with a mile-wide smile.

I did have some insurance at least. Logan had all my money, so I couldn’t get robbed. With the fit of the dress she wore, I could confidently say she didn’t have any weapons on her. And if she was trying to sell me something, again, I had no money.

Yep, I had it all figured out. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe I was just all that.

The girl turned to me, walking down the long hallway filled with hotel rooms. “Just a little bit longer. My name’s Sophia, by the way.”

“My name is… Well, you already know my name.” With that, my ego skyrocketed to heights unseen by man. I was famous and good with women.

Without another word, we diverged further from the music and games to a quiet little room at the end of the hall. She took out a key and opened the door, letting me go in first. I was still prepared for things to go wrong, as they always did for me, but to my surprise nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was a single bed, a big window showing a view of the stars outside, and champagne stowed in a bucket of ice. Whoever this lady was, she had more money than I did. Getting robbed was off the table, at least.

Sophia went from the door directly to the champagne and produced two glasses from the little tray. She began to unravel the metal film around the top agonizingly slowly. She tried to make it seem seductive, but I was beginning to think it was more a way to show me it hadn’t been opened before. At that point I was as curious as to why this woman intended to do me harm as I was interested in flirting. I decided to prod a little, asking a question as she uncorked the bottle with a slick metal opener “Two glasses? Were you expecting company?”

“Oh…” She said, beginning to pour. She was obviously not expecting that question, and it took her a second to form her explanation. “They always serve champagne with two glasses. Guess they never expect you to drink alone in a place like this.”

Seemed mighty suspect to me, but I made sure to follow my golden rule of never looking a gift horse in the mouth. “Ah, makes sense…” was all I said, my curiosity growing all the more.

She brought the glasses over and let me take one from her hand instead of just giving me one. Again, she was trying to make me relax without knowing it. All the mind-numbing training from special divisions paid off when it came to noticing things like that. Another tidbit they made sure of was that you memorize the smell and taste of all the most common poisons. With that, I took a long whiff. Almonds like cyanide? No. Rusty metal like arsenic? Nope. Bitter like ricin? Nada.

Sophia watched me smell the champagne like some sort of misled wine snob, and slowly raised her glass. “Cheers?” she said, mildly confused.

Taken back to reality, I raised my glass up and touched hers. “Right. Cheers.” I said, taking the glass to my lips and taking a sip. Logan was going to be on my ass, but if things worked out it was absolutely worth it. Besides, as cliché as I knew it to be, I was attracted to dangerous situations like a moth to a flame. He had to count on it at some point.

Sophia sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for me to sit in the rocking chair at the corner of the room. As I eased down, she made conversation. “You never did answer me before, you know. What brings you to Las Platillo?”

“Oh, you know…” I said, taking a long sip and stalling for time. I couldn’t tell her why I was actually there, so I had to make up the most reasonable alternative. “I bagged that big bounty. Thought I’d celebrate, simple as that. Just here to have a good time.”

“I see…” She said, looking somewhat disappointed. “Is that all that you’re drinking with me for? A good time?”

“Well, uh, I, um…” Shit. I dug myself into a hole with that one. To be completely honest, my skills of wooing women had deteriorated in recent months. Floating around the outer ring is not the best exercise to keep your social skills intact. “I don’t mean it like that. I meant just taking a break from work is all.”

I could see Sophia was more tense now. Her body language had become less open. “I understand what you mean. Just all business one day and all play the next, hm?”

Damn it, the charm was slipping out of my fingers like sand. “Well no, of course I don’t mean that. I always have work lined up; this was just an especially big bounty.”

“Oh?” She perked up. Immediately she seemed interested in me again. “What kind of work do you have lined up then, if you really aren’t just the kind of guy to make money one day and waste it all the next?”

Again, the one thing I wasn’t stupid enough to do was actually tell this girl I was working for a magic man to pay off me and my brother’s debt to the devil. “It’s confidential, unfortunately. Bounty hunting is a competitive business, so you got to keep your advantages close to the chest.”

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Sophia seemed satisfied with that answer, but curious. She sat her glass on the bedside table and slowly stood up. “Mmmm. I do like hard working men, almost as much as I like secrets.” She took the bottle and bottle opener from the cart and got closer to me. She opened it once more and began filling my glass, which had already run low from idle sipping. She was so close I could feel the heat of her breath, and she stayed there as she finished pouring.

The bottle was put back on the cart blindly as she leaned in closer. Alright Jesse, it was painful as hell but you got there. Time to reap the rewards. Her lips got close to mine as her body leaned in. I closed my eyes and leaned in as well. I knew something had to be up, but as I mentioned previously, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Hopefully I was in one of the rare situations where the consequences of my actions happened after I had some fun rather than before. We were dangerously near each other, simply hovering close enough our noses could touch. The suspense was killing me, then, a sound broke my anticipation.

Click.

Something snapped, like someone had cut a wire fence. She eased out as my eyes opened again, watching her look blankly at me as she stood straight. All the fire in her eyes had fizzled out and left me with nothing but an apathetic glare. She almost looked bored.

In a split second, I looked down at my body. There was no hurt, and I wasn’t bleeding. Mortal injury was off the line, but something was certainly up. Looking back at Sophia, I could see she was still holding the metal bottle opener, the perfect size to jam between some metal plates. I tried to raise my mechanical arm, but it sat limply on the arm of the chair.

God fucking damn it.

Sophia took in a deep sigh as she sat the bottle opener on the cart again. I was still processing everything that had just happened as she walked to the bedside table, opened a drawer, and brought out a small metal device. It looked like a radio pager of some sort. Anything hand-held like that had to be expensive inner system tech, so I was right earlier about her not being after my money. She pressed a button on it and turned back to me as I stood up.

I sat my glass on the tray and looked around. As far as I knew, she still didn’t have a weapon, and my guns were still on me. Even if I didn’t want to make a scene by firing in here, I easily had sixty pounds on her, and I ain’t afraid to hit a woman if it means I don’t end up in a ditch. All the same, I was completely puzzled.

She had an expensive room, inner system tech, and a bag full of chips. There was no way she did all this to rob me, and I made sure not to let anything slip about Meadows. Why was she going through all this?

“Hey…” I said cautiously. “I don’t know what you want, but I don’t have any money. If you think you can steal the arm, it’ll be worth scrap if you don’t unwire the nerve connectors first.”

“I’m not going to rob you.” She said, in a normal speaking voice for once. “Just calm down and don’t get too jumpy with the pistols.” I realized that my left hand was already hovering over my revolver.

“Then why?” I said, “You just get your kicks by leading guys to random rooms and costing them a trip to the mechanic?”

Sophia didn’t reply as she began to walk towards the door. She opened it and there was a man waiting in the hall. He walked and looked me straight in the eyes as he did. He couldn’t be any older than forty, and despite how familiar he seemed, his face was entirely plain. He had short brown hair, blue eyes, and wore basic inner system clothing. Far too casual attire for Las Platillo, but he seemed like someone who didn’t care what he looked like. The one thing that caught my eye was what was on his wrist. His arm was still there, unlike my prosthetic, but he had a sleek metal gauntlet around one wrist. It looked like military titanium, and there was a little emblem on it. It looked like an old Greek illustration of an archer pointing skyward, with the moon behind him.

Oh. That’s why he looked so goddamn familiar. It was the Archer Moon, the owner of the agency that wanted to poach Logan and I as soon as we made a name for ourselves. Once he got within speaking distance, the man just stood awkwardly and spoke like nothing was going on. “Hi. I’m Archer Moon from the Archer Moon agency.”

I could see why he kept pretty girls around to do the talking at first. If anybody was all work, it was him. And speaking of pretty girls, it looked like Sophia had already ducked out of the room. “Hi. I’m Jesse Burrows from Titan, the guy you royally fucked.”

“Yeah. Sorry about the arm.” I had a feeling he wasn’t actually. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do anything risky while I got what I wanted to know.” My right arm struggled to move, and could only barely squeeze my fingers half way. With some amount of connection, hopefully the damages weren’t too expensive… Archer Moon clicked his thumb, and his gauntlet lit up with red lights. He was obviously intimidating me, but he still spoke like he was in a conference of some sort “Look, I know you aren’t here because you just wanted to get boozed up and lose all your money. You go straight from collecting a high-priority bounty out of the blue to some hideout in the middle of a swamp, then here. What were you doing there? Do you have somebody leaking you bounty info before it hits the board?”

“Well, I was, uh, punching a lobster with dynamite…” I said, to which the grizzled bounty hunter just furrowed his brow. “But look, if you were watching us so closely you’d know we went there with an old man. You really think that geezer is breaking federation law by leaking government collections?” Archer Moon continued to stare me down, it was obvious the answer to that question was that he didn’t rule out the possibility. “Besides, what do you get out of all this? So what if we know about a bounty a day before it goes public? We still have to catch the bastard fair and square.”

“Fugitive recovery agents are government contractors. By breaking the law, you’re an eligible bounty, and the feds pay double for government defectors.” The little red dots on his gauntlet were far more intimidating than anything about the way he spoke. “I want to know why you’re here. Is there a bounty I don’t know about yet?”

I would’ve raised my hands, but the bastard broke one. “I’m telling you, I’m not after a bounty here. If you know so much about me, you’d know I’ve got gambling problems, buddy. I also know that you’ve got no evidence to back any of this up nor is there a bounty out for me, and if you arrested me now you’d be guilty of doing the exact same thing you think I’m doing. How about that?”

He sighed. It didn’t seem like he was defeated, just disappointed. “Alright, enjoy the games then. Just remember that government fraud bounties pay the same dead or alive, and I’ll have an eye out for your name on the registry.”

He began to walk away, and as he did I took a deep breath. A little bit of confidence returned as he disappeared down the hall “So, does that mean the job offer is no longer on the table?”