Sparks scattered across the dusty metal room. Flickers of light glanced against the red-tinted glasses of the burly old man hunched over my robotic arm, making small welds on the inner workings. He grumbled out “You really did a number on it, kid.”

“Aww. It’s not that bad." I assured myself out loud. My good arm reached for the half-burnt vest I had hung over the small metal chair beside us. I pulled a cigarette from the pack, then held it up to Doc Ingram’s welder. Once lit, I placed it between my lips and leaned back, watching us lazily orbit the planet below.

Doc sighed as his bushy grey mustache twisted to a frown. “That was pretty damn bad, Jesse. You look like half of you stood too long on the sunny side of Dualis.”

“Come on now. Not like it’s often some guy is shooting up city square with a goddamn laser gun. I think I look good, all things considered.” I took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably. Nearly my entire right side was covered in chilling ointment. I didn’t quite like it, but Doc said it was either that or a not-so-small percentage of my body becoming a blister.

“I’ll give you that…” The old man replied as he stopped his welding. “Out of all the places on The Coin, Sunset City was the last place I expected this would happen. Anywhere else… Well, Dualis has a reputation.”

Doc was right. There was more than one reason Dualis was called The Coin by so many. On one hand, it was because the planet itself was tidally locked. One side got all the sun and the heat while the other got all the dark and cold. Between those two opposites was Long Soir City, or the Sunset City. Locked in eternal dusk, just the same as all the swamps, bayous, and littler cities that took up the vast majority of Dualis’ middle. The other reason it was called The Coin was because how it attracted bounty hunters like Logan and me. We were in the farthest reach of the universe, and The Coin was so devoid of civilization it attracted outlaws looking to lay low like moths to a flame. “Well, that reputation works out on the business side of things at least.”

Doc sighed as he stood and brushed the soot off his smock. “Business won’t matter if you keep getting hurt like this. I’m begging you, work on that self-preservation instinct.”

I clenched my prosthetic hand into a fist a squeezed. My control had finally come back, and the haptic feedback returned as well. “Luck’s on my side, Doc. That’s enough for me.”

He shook his head and nearly scoffed. “Same kind of luck that gets you kicked off every gambling table you’ve ever sat at? You can’t make something real by pretending it is.”

An exaggerated gasp escaped me. “You think I cheat? That is a preposterous, unfounded, ridiculous, and downright offending claim. Can you see how offended I am?” I pointed at my dumbfounded expression, to which Doc seemed completely unbelieving.

“You’ve got a knack at narrowly escaping the repercussions of your actions, I’ll give you that.”

“Hey, I don’t cheat on anybody who doesn’t deserve it. I’m like Robin Hood in a sense, only I’m also the poor orphan.”

Doc leaned over to the small sink at the edge of the room and rinsed the oil off his hands. “You boys have it rough, I know. I’ve known that since the war, but that doesn’t mean you got to act like your life is worth nothing. You want to be bounty hunters? Fine by me. Just try to remember that preventative medicine is the best medicine.”

“Really? I thought it was laughter.” I started to let out a chuckle, but my side began to hurt.

Doc Ingram stared me down, stone cold. “Can’t laugh when you’re dead.” He wiped his hands against a dusty rag. “That hit you took to your side is going to leave on ugly scar, but if it had gone just a few inches further you’d be gone for good. Try to think on that.”

I sat up in the rickety chair and contemplated for a moment. “Right... But it didn’t.”

“One day it will.” Doc said, throwing the rag on the counter. “And I don’t own any black suits to wear to the funeral.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The guilt trip began to affect me enough to get a nod. “Fine… Fine. I’ll work on it.”

“That’s good” Doc replied, reaching for the cigarette in my mouth and tossing it in a metal bin at the corner. “How about you start by quitting smoking?”

I began to button my shirt back, but with that laser hit it was basically garbage. Instead, I just scoffed. “Nah… Quitting smoking is too easy. I’ve done it dozens of times.” Another little chuckle escaped me, and the outcome of that was the same as last time. Besides, smoking didn’t take nearly as many years off my life as what came next would. “Alright, Doc. What’s the fee?”

The old man sighed and cleared his throat. “Six hundred dollars.”

“Six hundred!?” I questioned back.

Doc combed through his salt and pepper hair. “Jesse, you needed replacements for a military grade prosthesis. If not for the fact I know a good fence, you wouldn’t have a replacement at all. I’m sorry.”

Seemed like that luck I was so very proud of earlier in the day was actually just fate’s way of being cruel. The only thing that bounty did was put us three hundred dollars in debt. As much as I wanted to say there was no way the parts could be that expensive, I knew Doc was the expert on that. Hell, he was the one that fashioned my shiny blue arm in the first place. “Alright… We’re a little short at the moment, but we’ll be back with your money by the end of the week.”

Doc held out his hand. “That works. Good seeing you again, kid.”

I shook it and grabbed my ashy vest as the shuttle door opened beside us. “Good seeing you too, Doc. Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

We released as I found myself back in the docking bay of our ship, the Fat Tuesday. The hatch to the tiny shuttle Doc called a long-distance craft slowly closed as he called out. “How about next time you bring me in for a drink instead of racing me to the grave!”

With a nod, the hatch to his ship closed, then the one to Fat Tuesday. We unlatched and Doc went drifting through space to wherever he was needed next. Now all that was left was to tell Logan that not only did I nearly see God, but getting that bounty actually put us deeper in debt. I put my hands on my hips and took a deep breath. The cheap artificial gravity of our ship took a minute to get used to, but I eventually regained my sea-legs. Fat Tuesday was a husky riverboat model, but she got us through. People in our line of work needed ships big enough to live in, and unless you were the federation, you weren’t getting enough money for something that big that could also enter and exit atmosphere. The universal solution was simple. It was easy and relatively cheap to leave atmo with short-range cruisers, so you got yourself something for getting on the planet, then something bigger to go system hopping on. With all that, I considered us lucky to have Fat Tuesday instead of a cramped one-room ship like Doc’s.

I began walking to the ladder out of the cargo bay as I passed my beautiful royal blue cruiser, the Tap Dancer. She was fast, lean, and loud. I would’ve made a crude joke at that description, but unfortunately I lacked an audience to displease with locker room humor. Logan’s plane was still on Dualis, but there was no way I could’ve flied alone in my state, and we both knew I was a lot more possessive of my cruiser than he was of his. Besides, nobody was going to try and steal that off-grey stock jet. Like Fat Tuesday, “my ship” as Logan called it, was more for utility than speed or style, but that was what Logan preferred about most things in life.

I climbed the ladder at the far end of the room and spun open the hatch at the top. Exiting Fat Tuesday’s cargo bay, I made my way down the hall. On my way, I saw Logan waiting on me by the kitchen. He joined me as I kept on stumbling forward. I murmured to him. “Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

“What might that be.” Logan said, looking forward.

“Good news is, I’m neither dead nor dying. Bad news is what it cost.” I said, reaching my bunk.

My brother sighed. I knew his focus had been on making sure I was alright, as it always was, but now that he knew I was fine the pain of money troubles weighed on him. “How much are we down?”

The door to my room swung open as I made my way towards the box full of my clothing. “Three hundred dollars… After we turn in the three hundred bounty.”

I pulled off my shirt and tossed my purple, gold, and green vest on the ground as Logan lamented. “Another three hundred in debt?.. That means we’re seven hundred in the hole now.”

Reaching into my clothes, I pulled out an identical purple, gold, and green striped vest along with a white button up shirt. I knew my style, and I kept to it. “You don’t have to remind me... We’ll can make that up.”

Logan turned and began to walk to his room. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s just turn in our bounty before somebody gets smart and tries to claim it as theirs. My ship can wait on Dualis.”

“Alright.” I replied, getting dressed. After walking out of my room and down the hall, it was only a short walk before I came to the flight deck. A small one-seated room full of levers and buttons.

I sat down, strapped in, and turned off auto-orbit. My hand grasped the throttle and began to steadily push forward. Fat Tuesday rumbled as I was pushed back into my seat. Soon, we pulled ourselves from Dualis’ low earth orbit and pushed further into space. In further orbit, there was a satellite drifting slowly.

Off we went, forever climbing up a hill that just kept getting higher.