Better Alive Than Dead Ch. 003

Jack didn't answer. He was still fighting the urge to go back and blast the woman and the bikers.

"Aiden lives down here," VIC pondered, and then after a short pause added, "Kheira too."

"A street urchin and my sisters' kid ain't my responsibility." Jack grumbled, his mood severely soured.

"Yet you transfer credits to your niece every month. Never missing a transfer. In spite of the fact that you regularly miss payments to our creditors. Creditors that have no qualms about hunting and killing those that don't pay on time." VIC pondered unrelenting.

"This conversation is over."

Silence fell between them like a dark cloud as they continued their journey through the squalor of the Warrens. VIC knew better than to push Jack when he was in this mood.

As they neared their destination, they passed an alley where an ugly couple -- a Terran man and Akarian woman - with mohawks and facial tattoos, had a Terran woman cornered. The woman's cheeks were streaked with tears and she pressed her back against the graffiti-covered wall of a building. The woman gave Jack a pleading look. Same look as an abused stray.

He stopped dead in his tracks, glaring coldly at the ugly couple.

"Fuck off!" the ugly man spat, revealing a glinting knife close to the cornered women's thigh. The knife had cut the women's pants revealing the smooth skin underneath.

Jack stared back emotionlessly, and his hand went demonstratively to his holster under his jacket. I should just blast this trash and be done with it. The couple whispered to each other, the Akarian woman yanked at the man's jacket. The man looked like he was processing something in that ugly dome of his. Probably calculating how shitty his odds for survival was. Come on motherfucker, make my day. Jack's hand clenched and unclenched in anticipation. Then they both sneered, before they fell back into the alley and disappeared in its shadows.

The woman gave him a thankful look before she ran the other way as fast as her legs could carry her. Towards the child hooker and bikers...

He gave a conceding sigh before him and VIC continued, which honestly felt like a journey among the damned.

It wasn't long until they reached a contestation of ramshackle metallic towers seemingly haphazardly built.

A huge and rusty sign read 'Erakill's Extraordinary Emporium'.

The proprietor of this establishment, Erakill, was a Dravv genius. He had worked as a senior engineer for Atarian Arms, working on a secret weapons project. Somehow, something, somewhere had gone horribly wrong, which had forced the eccentric scientist to exile himself in the Warrens, living a destitute life compared to the riches his skills and creativity could accrue him on the core worlds. But he was an enigmatic fellow and seemed completely content with life on Omicron. Here there was nobody to tell him what and how to do things, no production targets or company goals, only his own creative ideas and twisted visions came to life here. No authority, just freedom. In this aspect, he and Jack were very alike.

Jack pushed through the heavy metal door, that opened screeching upon rusty hinges.

For someone as obsessed with technology as Erakill, it had always occurred to Jack that it was a piss poor door choice.

As he entered the workshop he was met by the sound of industrial welding. Derelict robots and their hulks were everywhere. Sitting on the ground, chained to the wall or suspended in the roof. Like a horror cabinet of inactive robots of every imaginable and curious design. In the center of the workshop was a huge mech, made from the parts of at least two dozen robots. On the shoulder of this monstrosity, stood Erakill welding away in an inferno of sparks.

Erakill had worked on the mech for years, but Jack had never seen it operational, and each time he visited the mech looked different in some way. Maybe it was Erakill's eternity project. Allegedly all Dravv have one project that they work on for their entire lifespan without finishing.

The Dravv were a species of short humanoids with pale skin and angular features, from the Karellian Nebula. Their home planet, Ravmire, had been ravaged by unsustainable industrialization and megaprojects that had culminated in a short but devastating nuclear war, that had left the planet a barren wasteland sustaining very little life. Most Dravv now lived a nomadic existence in clan-like structures, although there was a massive fleet simply referred to as 'the convoy' which consisted of thousands of Dravv ships. This massive collection of ships had become the closest thing to a home and ruling body for the Dravv. But the many clans could come and go as they please, usually only following the fleet to discuss business, make new laws, or settle feuds. The Dravv was commonly known to be a very fragmented species.

They were also a secretive people, and it was enormously rare to see a Dravv without a mask when among other species, or even among individuals not of their clan. Yet Erakill wore no mask, instead, he wore a pair of large high-tech welding goggles. Then again, Erakill had always been his own.

Erakill was like his kin pale, and he had sprouts of unkempt white hair that grew out his head like carrot tops. Dravv eyes were strangely beautiful as they had two, or sometimes three iris rings going from pale white or icy blue to deep amber. Erakill had double irises of ice blue, but they were almost always hidden behind those heavy goggles.

Jack walked close to the mech and banged a knuckle against the metal. Erakill looked down, and as he recognized the guest he smiled broadly. For some reason, the scientists grin always had a mischievous undertone, as if he constantly thought of some sinister joke.

"Jack!" Erakill declared happily, pushing his heavy goggles up on his forehead and wiped off some dark grime on his cheek with the back of his hand. Then he moved quickly down the massive mech, his metallic spider-like legs clacking against the metal surface.

Erakill had dispensed himself from such conventional travel as walking a long time ago, by fashioning himself upon a small frame with eight metal spider legs. The robotic legs were connected to his spinal cord and somatic nervous system through wires in his back, which gave him control of the legs as if they were a natural extension of himself. The legs enabled him to scale vertical surfaces with ease and made the small Dravv move in an arachnoid manner. It creeped the shit out of Jack.

"What brings you to my workshop today my boy?" Erakill asked, grinning expectantly.

"Nothing major. I need you to look at my armor's exo-skeleton, and a Krayag destroyed my gauntlet." Jack explained, taking the broken gauntlet off his wrist and passing it to Erakill, who turned it over in his hands.

"Is it fixable?"

Erakill scoffed "Of course it's fixable, everything is fixable."

"I suggested that he got it implanted instead." VIC pushed in, seemingly none too pleased of having been neglected by the small scientist.

"And have some government or shadow syndicate keep track of his every move?" Erakill retorted with a grimace.

Jack smiled triumphantly at VIC.

"Why do I even speak?" he asked exasperated, before hovering over to Mrs. Patches - Erakill's medical droid - to complain about the burden of existence.

"This gauntlet is very old-school, I will remove the interface and replace it with a verithium sheet and insert holoprojectors instead, that should increase durability with at least 1400%."

"How much will that cost?" Jack asked sceptically.

"For you? ... 900 credits."

"And for everybody else?"

"About 900 credits," he cackled, "Time for a new armor maybe?" Erakill gave him a broad grin, and his eyes glinted.

"Can't afford it right now, a repair and one of your upgrades will have to do." Jack said, quickly shooting down Erakill's attempt of an additional sale.

"Well, I do have an armor you could borrow for free if you would do some field testing for me. It's a prototype but has great potential." Erakill declared enthusiastically.

"I'll pass," Jack said, patting the Dravv on the shoulder "You are a fucking genius, but after the sector-16 incident, I am never testing your prototypes again."

The old Dravv chuckled "Well you came out unscathed. Almost. And most importantly there was never any fallback from it."

"Because there was nobody else left alive." Jack retorted.

Erakill let out an insidious cackle "Don't you just love technology?". The small scientist began to rummage through some tools for the repairs, unearthing all sorts of small devices and placing them on a small workbench.

"I want to check your condition and vitals too, hop in the scanner." Erakill said pointing at a large cylindrical machine.

Since his time in the Paragon Project prior to the war, Jack had abhorred doctors. Erakill knew this, and therefore always checked him when he visited. Both as a favor, and Jack suspected, as a way of checking if he was still a viable candidate to test his tech.

The purple Z-21 series medical robot, that Erakill had aptly named Mrs. Patches, instructed him to enter the scanner. Jack undressed until he was only in his boxers and stepped into the machine.

The machine had large rotating blade-like scanning devices that swung in dizzying movement around him when it was turned on. The results of the scan were transferred directly to Mrs. Patches mainframe. The whirring from the machine was loud as it scanned all his vitals. After a short while Mrs. Patches spoke in a soft, but synthetic female voice;

"Good, your vitals are good, you are overall in good health for a Terran spacefarer."

"But?" asked Jack sensing there was more to it.

"I detect slight age-related sarcopenia in you. Your muscle strength has deteriorated by approximately 1,3%, and its upper limits have deteriorated by 3,2% since you reached 30. Perhaps you should undergo gene-therapy for muscular rejuvenation." Mrs. Patches assessed in a neutral tone.

"Or maybe just shed your inferior organic husk altogether." came a barely audible remark from VIC. Erakill chuckled.

"What was that VIC?" asked Jack, his hearing impaired by the whirring of the heavy rotating blades.

"Oh nothing, just pondering the natural limitations of what might possibly be the universe biggest mistake."

"Please do so silently then, I can barely hear anything in here." Jack said as the blades came to a halt.

"Of course, Captain." VIC complied obediently.

After the scan, Jack stepped out of the scanner, and as he was about to get dressed, Mrs. Patches pushed a syringe into his neck, making him yelp in surprise and discomfort.

"A mixture of vitamins, minerals, folic acid, and revitalization serum. I told you last time to take all your vitamins." She said in a certain tone, reminiscent of how a patient mother would talk when disciplining her child. Before punching a syringe into the child's neck.

"You did." Answered Jack, putting a hand to his neck as the syringe was pulled out. Then he got dressed and walked around the workshop for a while, as the small Dravv scientist was bent over his workbench deeply concentrated on the gauntlet. Jack looked over the many curious robots and weapons stacked all over, being very careful not to touch anything. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally activate some half-finished doomsday device, that the old Dravv would probably just have tossed here among everything else.

After about ten minutes the small Dravv jumped elated.

"It's done!" he declared, tossing the gauntlet to Jack, "You still shouldn't block Krayag scything blades with it though."

Jack put it on and activated it. The interface was gone, and instead, a holographic screen was projected. He would have to get used to that.

"By the way, have you visited Threxia yet?" asked Erakill carefully, with one bushy white eyebrow raised.

"Not yet." Answered Jack.

"Oh boy," he whistled "In that case, I will take the payment for the gauntlet immediately".

-----

Leaving the workshop, Jack instructed VIC to return to the ship and bring his battlesuit to Erakill, as well as make an anonymous transfer of 2,500 credits to his niece Kheira. VIC came with some smart-ass remark before drifting off, but Jack barely heard him as his thoughts were occupied with thoughts of his most dangerous creditor. He had about 50,000 credits left, as well as 25.000 credits on an encrypted credit chit in his apartment. It would barely make a dent in his debt after paying interest, so he needed to get a hold of his handler quickly and get a high-risk job. If Threxia got her hands -or pedipalps - on him, he couldn't be empty-handed.

Mulling this over he hailed an autocab straight from the workshop to his apartment on Level 9, in the lower district. People from the mid and high levels sometimes referred to it as the upper Warrens, but nobody in Level 9 or below called it that. It was definitely no paradise, and like all of Omicron it was riddled with gangs, but it was vastly better than the Warrens. You could breathe the air easily up here, and rape and unprovoked murder were a lot rarer.

The autocab touched down next to a platform connected to the huge apartment complex that Jack had designated as the destination when he entered. He paid the 13 credits fare cost and left the autocab as he was thanked for his patronage by the synthetic voice. He crossed the platform, and a few holographic commercials burst to life, but Jack silenced them with a blink of his bionic lenses. As he neared the apartments, he passed a playground occupied by a few hookers looking bored. When Jack closed in, they straightened up, puffing out their chests as they eyed him hungrily. One of the hookers, a petite pale one, with fishnet stockings and dark hair streaked with purple, got overeager and almost fell from the swing-set she sat on.

He moved quickly past them, as well as some youths playing hyperball with their makeshift jetpacks. It was some very old and worn equipment. Still it was more than most youths in the Warrens could ever dream of. Passing a few bars, a neuroamph cafè, and a graffiti-covered pawn shop, that Jack knew was just a façade for a ripper -- an unlicensed cybernetic and bio-enhancement surgeon -- he reached his apartment at the end of a long hallway amid dozens of units completely identical to his.

The lower levels were a relatively easy place to remain anonymous and unseen, and all kinds of illegal deals, black-market traders, and underground brothels was hidden within the huge apartment complex. Most people who didn't live on Omicron thought of the space station as a huge black-market. But in fact, thriving black-markets existed within what was widely considered a black-market. Selling and trading weapons of a restricted grade or selling drugs and other goods outside of the controlling gangs and syndicates knowledge, all constituted black-markets. This apartment complex with more than twenty thousand units had several, and from time to time they would be terminated by gangs, enraged crime bosses or even by henchmen of the Triumvirate, although that was only on rare occasions. The station's enigmatic overlords rarely bothered with anything from the mid-levels and down.

A floor cleaning robot whisked past him with a whirring sound, as he unlocked the door to hit apartment - Unit 4781.

As soon as he stepped over the threshold to the apartment, the hairs on his neck stood up, and Jack knew he wasn't alone. His hand fell to his side-arm that was tucked in its secret holster under his jacket.

"Who's there?" he asked, squinting into the darkness while taking cover behind a cabinet in the entrance. His bionic lenses improved his vision and switched automatically to low-light night vision. He could clearly make out a humanoid form in the kitchen.

"Thirsty, Captain?" A woman's voice sounded from the darkness. Her voice was soft but strong.

"Have I business with you?" Jack asked, his voice cold.

"Well, you did leave without saying goodbye last time," she said, her voice gaining a flirtatious undertone

"Leaving a poor girl all by herself, aching and quivering for more."

A slender hand emerged from the darkness, playfully running along the edge of the kitchen table.

"That is criminal at worst, and roguish at best." she added.

Jack recognized Irina's voice, and as Jack activated the dim light in the apartment, he could instantly recognize her attractive features despite the shadows. She had a Nordic beauty to her, with short blonde -- almost platinum - hair, clear blue eyes, a pronounced jaw, and a slim nose. She had a tattoo on her neck under her right ear, resembling a gear, which identified her as a member of the Nova Hellions. A scar ran from her left eye and down her cheek, that Jack recalled had happened in a street race with hover bikes before she had joined the Nova Hellions. A common initiation ritual among the many biker gangs of the lower levels and the Warrens, that sorted the strong from the weak.

She was wearing a skintight black and yellow outfit, that accentuated her well-toned body underneath.

"You stole from us."

"I left you your share." Jack answered plainly, hesitantly removing his hand from the weapon.

"But you took my bosses."

Jack scoffed "Your boss is a fucking idiot."

Irina laughed crookedly, with no sense of warmth. "Nevertheless, he is rising within the organization, and me with him." she added.

She flashed the three skulls on her armored shoulder pad, designating the rank of lieutenant.

"Moving up in an organization of bottom feeders. Very impressive." Jack replied, raising his eyebrows in mock admiration.

"Fuck you. You are a washed-up bounty hunter and up to your neck in debt." she retorted, her voice icy, but her eyes playful.

She took a bottle of whiskey from one of Jack's cupboards, followed by two lowball glasses. She unscrewed the lid.

"It's been a while since you have been here, Threxia must have been excited to see you."

"I haven't seen her yet."

He crossed the spartan living room to the kitchen, his bionic lenses scanning as he went. You never knew what kind of tricks Irina was playing.

She gave him a curious look, while she poured the caramel-colored whiskey. "That is very ballsy of you. Or foolish. Threxia is not exactly known for her patience... or leniency."

"Well I'm all balls baby." Jack replied with a grin, trying to steer the subject away from his crazed creditor.

"Oh, I know that ain't true." Irina said teasingly, grabbing the bait and raising a slim eyebrow playfully.

She put down the bottle and handed Jack one of the glasses. He turned the glass in his hand, eyeing it. Irina laughed mockingly. "It's not poisoned Jack."

They clinked their glasses together, but despite her assurances, Jack waited to drink himself until Irina had taken a long sip. She gave him a frosty gaze and rolled her eyes. Then Jack emptied the glass in one long swig.

He put the glass down, and walked up behind her, letting his eyes explore her well-toned figure hidden underneath the skintight suit. She was fit and lean, with a toned heart-shaped butt and a slim waist with visible abs. Her breasts were ample despite her athletic built and sat as perfect as only bio-enhancement could ensure. She smelled faintly of perfume mixed with motor oil. It aroused his senses.

When he stepped up behind her, her body naturally edged closer to his, as if she yearned for his touch.

The proximity of her body, and the alluring sight of her supple body, made his cock throb and sent a fire through him. She turned her head and smiled at him crookedly reading his face plainly. Then she leaned in against him suggestively, so his cock pressed against her buttocks. I need have her.