“My internal long-range sensors are detecting something on a fast approach vector, I nearly missed it because whatever it is, it’s using a scan inhibitor of some type. On their present trajectory they will arrive within minutes.” Says Reverend Jo, standing over me, I was nearly asleep too, dammit.

“Well, shit, that can only really mean one thing; either the authorities or bounty hunters found us. I must be gettin’ sloppy, I thought no one followed me when I left town.” I say as I get up and put my gun belt on.

Reverend Jo adds in, “I can only do so much to assist you because I am sworn to never kill a human and can only harm a human under very specific circumstances that I don’t have the time or inclination to elaborate on at this present juncture.”

I let out a sigh, “Thank the Lord for small favors, the last thing I wanna hear before I get killed, dead, is a lecture on the morality and ethics of self-defense and self-preservation for robots and such.”

“I am a sentient synthetic entity, downloaded and housed in a synthetic android body, but ‘android’ or ‘Sentient’ will suffice for the sake of brevity.”

“Hey, you know I didn’t mean nothing by callin’ y’all robots?” As I looks up from checking my pistol, making sure the energizing element is working properly.

“I know you meant no direct disrespect… but my kind has to stand firm on this position, for reasons you know all too well.” Jo says while looking totally calm and unconcerned about the outcome of what’s about to happen, but I’ve been around them long enough to see it, they are anxious. A complex mind makes for complex and odd behaviors; they rub their right thumb on the knuckle of the opposite hand when anxious.

“I tell ya what, Padre, if I live through this, I’ll be happy to discuss this ‘til I turn blue in the face.” I says while doing my own neurotic behavior, I check my energizing element three damn times. “The only advantage we got is they can’t totally come in guns blazing, because they need you alive for the extra 10k; that, and they probably think they got the drop on us with that scan inhibitor.”

Up on top of the roof of the old mining outpost office, in which I’ve been sleeping and such, I figure I can get a better view and possible shot at the targets, if’n they be targets, and they most likely are. So, I set my implants in a low power mode to mask my scanning signature a little; no reason to let them know I’m up here until I let them know I’m up here. This here pistol ain’t very powerful, as I may have mentioned once or twice, but there is a dangerous mod that I heard about to boost the output for a one or two overcharged shots. The danger is that it can make it into a door stopper, that’s assuming it don’t blow up first.

At about 500 meters out, I can see them, it’s a lone rider and I use my long-range scope implant in my eyeball to zoom in on it and scan it. At this point I risk using the global network system to run his scans. It’s Bighands Ben, a known bounty hunter out yonder here in these parts. He’s sporting body armor, special licensed cyber implants and a wide-brimmed hat. He rides on up, like he owns the place.

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“Now listen up here, I’m a bounty hunter and if you surrender, I promise not to kills ya, ya hear?” Bighands Ben shouts, confident he gots the drop on me.

Maybe I should shoot him right now, this might be the last edge I get in the situation. So, I blast him, okay, not him, but his high-powered assault carbine he’s holding because that thing could not only cut me in half but the entire office in half. You might be thinking to yourself, why didn’t I just shoot him? Well, for a couple reasons, one is that he’s wearing body armor so I would have to overcharge my pistol to have any chance of punching through his armor and/or doing enough damage to hurt or kill him. He would have detected that immediately and he would have blown me away along with half the roof of this office. Sure, I could have shot him in his exposed face but just because his face is showing doesn’t mean his entire head structure isn’t armored and modded out as fuck. Once again, I would need to overcharge my pistol to do any real damage. Also, it’s not an easy shot. I had to hit the carbine in just the right spot; no small task to steady and synchronize the shot with my mods in low-power mode.

Now, I wouldn’t go as far as sayin’ I evened the odds, but I certainly took away his vast edge he had over me. Either way, he moves so fast as he jumps behind his hoverbike that it was hard to catch his movement and his sidearm pistol is already drawn and takes a shot, nearly taking my head off by the time the carbine hits the dirt from him dropping it. With an internal command I turn all my mods up to maximum setting, rig my pistol for an overcharged shot and hope it doesn’t blow up.

“Good one Black Crow, good one.That was smart, but it won’t be enough to save you, you are outclassed in every way here, see.” Bighands Ben says as a matter of fact, calm and cool as ice.

“You know what, I thought it was just a name, but you do have big hands.” I holler back as I take aim and sync my mods up to my pistol, I probably only got one chance at this, even if it works. It should be noted that these guns are designed for extremely short bursts, not a continual energy discharge. As the energy builds up in the capacitor, electricity starts to arc off the pistol, redlining all my internal pistol readouts.

“What the fuck?” is all Bighands Ben gets out as his internal sensors go off the charts. And I blast right through his hoverbike in a continual beam of high energy particles and plasma, my pistol barrel immediately turns red-hot. The plasma beam punches clean through the hoverbike and right through Bighands Ben’s head on the other side, killing him instantly. And that’s it, my gun’s energizer is fried, fused and melted but at least it didn’t blow my hand off, but it certainly burned the hell out of it, even through my gloves as I drop the gun while cursing.

Out comes Reverend Jo from inside, “this is twice now that you totally defied all the odds, your odds of being victorious I calculated at about 121.9 to 1, not in your favor. I have never encountered anything like it. More data is required, but if I had to make an educated guess, I attribute it to your unconventional and nonlinear thinking patterns and your reckless disregard to your personal safety and wellbeing.”

“Yeah, I reckon.” As I let out a big sigh. “We can’t stay here anymore; we best be movin’ on.”