Chương 48: KK2 - #10 THE LEGEND OF PURPLE HEART (2/3)

Ganyville was the last remaining town on Ganymede. The Technocratic Government had tried to terraform the greatest moon in the system to turn it into their ultimate home before the new colonies of the Rings. Unfortunately, the results obtained on Mars weren't renewed, and the Jovian satellite tragically split in two. The sheriff's office of this desolate and dangerous world worked with the means at hand to maintain the fragile law.

But peace didn't exist on Ganymede as evidenced by the precinct freshly riddled with bullets.

"We take a day off, and it's O. K. Corral in this underground ghetto!" exclaimed Ali, as she walked through the crowd of onlookers in front of the saggy steps." It detects an organic survivor," MarKus said.

"First floor, in the largest office. Behind what's left of an IBM 3800 printer."

"Let's check this out," I suggested. The lobby was upside down. The Formica furniture had been slammed over, all the computers at the counter had been pulverized and cathode-ray tubes' glass was squeaking under our feet. Last minor detail, the decapitated bodies of the four assistants had been impaled on the telephone booths' knocked-over stools. Unfazed, Ali rushed to the first floor and violently broke through the door of the sheriff's office. As I tailed her, she was greeted by a loud gunshot.

But fortunately, the bullet embedded itself a few inches from her face, right on the portrait of the ex-Techno President—and local hero—Ronald Reagan.

"Didn't you learn to knock, pumpkin?" a middle-aged woman with short straight black hair and almond-shaped brown eyes asked ironically. Standing up from her chair, she glanced at Ali's palladium badge before dusting off her bloodstained denim jacket.

"Damn hunters… even dumber than the feds." MarKus joined us, folding the plastic laths under his weight. At the sight of the sheriff, his purple orb and heart lit up.

"How are you doing, Sheriff Dolly Park? It counted no less than 259 hits from a M55 Remington rifle as well as 18 impacts from a Belter-made Glock, model P220." Park snorted while holstering her colt.

"In other words, my guys didn't stand a chance." The sheriff quickly got a grip on herself as another survivor of the carnage, her Soju brick, cleaned her wounds and quenched her thirst.

"Any injured, Purple Heart? How my kids doin'?" she asked while turning off the thermocouple beneath her heated drink.

"All dead. And displayed in a rather gloomy manner." After having allowed the woman to down in one go the rest of her alcohol brick, the MK-III—apparently known in town as 'Purple Heart'—carried on his report: "The modus operandi is similar to a cyborg registered as 'Plague Cassidy'. This varmint's head is tagged at C$75, 500 after the massacre of moonshiners near Paradise. Could you confirm, Sheriff Park?" Park agreed with a grunt before noticing the body MarKus still held over his shoulders.

"Who's that flatfoot?"

"This one's been snooping around the old cryonics center for two days," I explained as I jumped on the desk between the sheriff's white hat and a set of magnetic keys.

"C$20, 000, is that right?" Searching into a creaking drawer, Park snorted again.

"It would have been a pleasure. But as killing my deputies wasn't enough, Plague took the money terminal and all my dineros —got a quirley, pumpkin?"

"Alright. Looks like we are on the hunt now," said MarKus, rolling a cigarette for the sheriff with some paper and dusty tobacco he gathered on the cluttered ground." We?" I exclaimed.

"Guess we're a team now," Ali commented. Leaning on the doorframe, she was browsing her wrist implant; probably searching for Plague Cassidy's contract in the database.

"Do we, though?" I grunted as pairing up with this MarKus would be less money at the end of the contract." It can set with that, kitty-cat," replied Purple Heart after handing the perfectly rolled cigarette to the lumping Jovian official.

"Our chances of success could only be increased. And you are pleasant to It."

"You have a twisted definition of 'pleasant' talking about this grumpy mop," Ali joked before I looked daggers at her. Park let out a sardonic laugh after taking a puff on her cigarette.

"Gotta be careful on this job, Purple!" she warned, tipping her Stenson.

"Plague's a multiple-time recidivist and a cyberpsychosis school case. Y'all know what it is—with too many implants, your mind's up the spout. Plague's been gone for a while now." Tailing MarKus to the cells, she continued in a tired voice: "This hard case is brutal and fearless. You've seen the fuss he can make for a few bills…" I scoffed.

"My dear Sheriff Park, you do not know what we are capable of for those same 'few bills'." Chasing Cassidy with MarKus's CanaryBike or even the Kitty was pure madness as Ganymede's destruction had completely disrupted its magnetic and gravitational activity. The instruments were of no help in the wide-open spaces not to mention the risk of collision with lost ice bodies—sometimes as broad as comets—was deadly high. The hunt had to be done in the old way: by horse riding.

Of course, the mounts provided by Dolly Park were improved clones. Unlike their human counterparts, their trade was allowed. These had been modified to survive without breathing on the surface of moons. Tanks were placed between their salient ribs, under the leather saddle, and their hooves were weighted with osmium—the heaviest metal in the system. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"These mules won't end up cooked because of solar radiation?" Ali asked through our space suits' short-range radio as she brushed the neck of his orange-colored steed she called Swift Wind. Behind us, in the open airlock of Ganyville's vault, MarKus was saddling his lilac mount.

"Negative. Jupiter's magnetosphere greatly protects all its Galilean satellites," he replied while steering the beast out of the city.

"That's why humans wanted Ganymede to be their new home world beyond the main asteroid belt." I sighed.

"They screwed up a bit…"

"Affirmative. A constant from the Children of the Genome," the robot went on, trying to be humorous. The second half of the moon floated above our heads, spreading its shadow over the distant subterranean town as I jumped on the croup of my sapien's horse. This way I could watch our back during the crossing of the ominous gray plains surrounding Ganyville. Because of humankind, Jupiter III was incredibly bleak.

Ganymede was just a vast dusty desert of dry seas surrounded by titanic canyons dividing into squares the old solidified mantle. Trying to create an atmosphere, water had been lost in space. A few mountains of ice remained where the crust had not fractured. Each rotation, the whole moon spread out a little more across its orbit. For several hours, our group silently followed the tracks of Cassidy's horse to a shady gorge.

The AI bounty hunter hoped to catch up with the bandit before reaching the Caverns of Laplace; a vast complex of grottoes where it would be impossible to pursue him. Thus, the MK did not hesitate to whip our mounts in the middle of the steepest shortcuts.

"How well do you know the area, MarKus?" Ali asked as we passed under a cracked ice arch." It was born and raised on Ganymede," the robot replied." It works exclusively on this satellite." Our guide was not to be idle. After the belt, half of Jupiter's, Uranus and Neptune's moons remained lawless territories full of bandits and highwaymen. After a short detour, we followed a craggy path down to abandoned goldmines. Signs, both in Solarian and Korean, warned us about the risks of crumbling.

"Is Park a friend of yours?" I asked before a ghost town could be seen underneath, half submerged by a rock slide.

"Affirmative. Sheriff Dolly Park is a long-time companion. She's from down there," MarKus replied before taking a turn on a bridge overhanging the abandoned settlement.

"However, it did not know her deputies. No time. They always die too quickly. It makes the sheriff really sad."

"You seem to have a conflicting relationship with death," Ali noticed.

"It is rather curious for an auxiliary. Or a robot." The android stopped, looking down at the creek. In the distance, behind the saggy bunkers lined up on the barely visible main road, an endless graveyard testified of the catastrophic earthquake which wiped out the boomtown." It doesn't like death," he replied.

"So, It doesn't kill."

"You mean you have never ghosted any of your contracts?" my copilot asked as we overtook the MK's horse.

"Negative." MarKus came up with the strangest explanation an AI could think of: " It loves life and blesses it. Otherwise, It couldn't look at the stars every day. It would love to see them closer. That is its one and only dream." With his one mauve melancholic eye, the robot contemplated the stars beyond the shattered remains of Ganymede. With his iron hand, he pressed his metal heart. It was a spectacle that, for some reason, gave me the creeps.

As we left soon after the canyon, we came upon a present from Plague Cassidy. The serial killer had planted one of the deputies' heads on a rock pick. Weightlessness had freed it, and the face of the unfortunate was floating at the withers of our horse.

"Does Plague think he's Hop-o'-My-Thumb?" Ali joked despite the doleful discovery.

"This is a warning," I corrected her.

"Cassidy knows we're after him," the android said before descending from his saddle to bury the head under a block of iron ore. Ali cursed.

"Can't wait to stick some lead in his fucking face."

"Negative," MarKus intervened." It does not kill. It —""Yeah—whatever..." my human sighed.

"What do we do? My pegasus is exhausted."

"The temperature is quickly falling. And I presume you also need to clean your suits' filters," the robot said.

"We are going to bivouac here."

"Good idea," I concluded. While brushing his mount behind the ears, the alloy golem took out a small music boxlike cube from its ventral drawer. After pulling a crank, the case anchored in the ground and its cover opened. A yellow ribbon escaped from the inside and began to take on volume. In less than ten seconds, an atmospheric yurt had taken shape before my amazed eyes.

"Make yourself at home," the owner said while checking the rubber door for leaks.

"Is there a VCR?" I asked before doffing my suit.

"Negative. But It has a radio and some Glen Campbell cassettes."

"Oh, dear God! No!" I meowed.

"Or a Simon. Wanna play?"

"Sure," Ali candidly reacted. A stupid idea. Have you ever played with this electronic entertainment where you have to recreate long sequences of bright notes? Certainly. But against an AI? May God Darwin preserves you from it.