Image by Alexander Antropov from Pixabay
Davi shouldered his weapon, so heavy that it weighed down on him like the overweight 50-credit whore he'd just left in the saloon basement of Barom's stinking drinking establishment.
The scorching desert wind whipped at his seven-day stubble, reminding him of the importance of making this score.
His mark - The Worm, leader of the seven-day killers.
The worst band of marauders this side of the Selineum 6 encampment.
It was hard being a bounty hunter in this off-world hellhole.
The sun beat a shimmering mirage, reflecting the scum of the un-breathable air of this godforsaken shithole. Since god had been confined into an AI substrate what was the point of bitching. There was no escape, these days all prayers were answered by an intergalactic messaging service.
All that was worth anything was strength, balanced by the ability to think, to put two and two together and come up with four.
The contract was for 4 hundred million credits, that’s maths you can get behind.
Almost worth the damage to his lungs every time he miscalculated the time left to return to camp to secure the oxygen that every goddam human-basic needed to travel this forsaken desert.
Breathing half air will give you a headache.
The Worm burrowed beneath the sand, dyed golden leather armour reflecting the sun as he drank in the sand's cool embrace.
He gripped the ancient heirloom between one disfigured hand and his chin. The telescope painted a picture of a lone wanderer meandering his way through the dunes, crisscrossing his way to the base of the scarp, seeking the sheltered shade of the Alterin ruins.
He guessed this was where the ambush would take place, and he'd take that mercenary alive to spill the info on who’d hired him. This weasel would be eaten by the worm.
The Worm grinned as he shook the sand from his armour and slinked away from the cliff edge.
"Gather your weapons scum" he growled at his band of cutthroats.
"We're about some torture and murder this night."
One man, lower lip missing from the blight, slurred his approval "Shirtenly Sir, I will fetchshh my tools."
The maggot ridden lurid grin was enough to put even The Worm off his dinner.
The stage was set!
Davi had learned chess from his mentor a hundred years ago back in the Overcity. A castle in the sky so full of intrigue that it made the ancient blockchain records of Roman politicking seem like a child’s sim-game.
Memories flashed of green growth and terraforming experimentation at the end of the earth's fourth ice age.
Davi set a pulse snare at each intersection of the obelisks protruding from the sand like a half mast hard-on.
Genius is over-rated, only cunning matters with these feral desert dwellers.
He'd watched The Worm's movements for months now. The band’s leader was a creature of habit. He returned to the ruins for the failing spring to sustain his tribe of outlaws, murdering anyone who happened along the oasis; other raiders, families, children, androids, no one was safe.
The Worm always ambushed from the west where the obelisks were thickest for cover.
Davi had seen the flash of a spyglass on the ridge above earlier, and he’d spent hours working his way beneath the sand, choking back coughs as he rationed his oxygen. Finally, wriggling himself into position beneath the sand in the shadow of the nearest of the three western obelisks.
Four feet beneath the sand he shivered uncontrollably as night crept over the horizon. He heard the soft footfall of practised warriors padding across the sand above him.
"I don't like this" The Worm eyed his men as he glanced from right to left. "Who had eyes on him last?"
"Cester last saw him at the outskirts of the ruins lord Worm."
The Worm stared sharply at the speaker and then at a barrel chested man with a beard nearly to his waist.
"Is this true Cester?"
"Yes, but you watched him at the same time from the bluff."
The Worm strode up to the bearded man nodding his head in supplication.
"You're right Cester, but that doesn’t excuse you your blindness after I left to gather the band."
A long serrated blade flashed in the moonlight splashing a Rorschach image of blood onto the side of a sandstone obelisk
Davi rose up from the sand a stone’s throw from The Worm with his pulse cannon gripped on his shoulder like Hercules holding up the pillars of the world.
"You stupid fuck" he grinned at The Worm before firing the plasma missile into the blood-anointed obelisk. The mighty stone structure crashed to the ground ripping The Worm in half. The outlaw grinned as his guts flowed out to sink into the soft sand.
"Well played off-worlder" The Worm gurgled from a mouth rapidly filing with blood.
"It was just a matter of deduction. You are a creature of habit."
He stared at the rest of the band of outlaws as they fingered weapons.
"Just like the rest of you, but you aren't as clever as your leader. Now fuck off before I bring the whole of the Alterin ruins down on your heads.”
He twitched the plasma missile launcher at the nearest obelisk as they walked away, unaware that only one charge was left.
Sometimes you can bluff on the winds of change.
The End
My Hive Bookstore - 81 Short Stories Published on the Blockchain
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