Cultwick: The Sweeper Bot Plague (9 page)

Rowland watched as Erynn tried to convince this man to aid her cause, and thought of all the changes she had been through. He realized how strong she was. He realized what she could accomplish. He realized this was the right path
for her to take.

“Please
, sir,” the professor said, “We are giving you a chance to change this world for the better. You need only give us a little to go on.”

Abraham paused and thought for a moment before responding, “There’s a lot of bad blood between me and my brother. I’ll tell you how to find him, but don’t go thinking that he’ll trust you on my say so.”

The man stood from his chair and walked over to a bureau. He grabbed a piece of paper and a quill and began writing a note. He then picked up an envelope, placing the piece of paper inside. He also pulled a drawer out from the desk, retrieving an object from inside and dropping it inside the envelope. Abraham finally closed and sealed the envelope with a wax drip and handed the note to Erynn.

“Go to Chrome City,” he finally said. “Place called the Arcadia Saloon. Ask for Hirim. Tell ‘em I sent you. I wish you good luck, but you certainly shouldn’t expect it.” He then took his leave and walked back to his daughter’s bedroom.

Rowland approached the window to check on the weather. Erynn stood up and followed him, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Max,” she simply said.

He nodded and simply said, “Touching.”

She removed her hand from his shoulder, and said, “Right, sorry.”

He turned his head back to the window. “Looks like it is dying down. We can probably head back soon.”

Their group waited for another hour before deciding the winds had slowed enough to walk back to town. They bid their farewells to the family, at which point Penney had already regained enough strength to stand up and walk them outside.

In the yard, Rowland could see the bodies of the two plague doctors that the dust and winds had previously hidden. They did their best to ignore them, but the professor could tell Erynn was still shaken by what she had done.

They made it back into town, where the people had resumed their usual activities following the storm. Rowland began to say something, but he suddenly felt a sharp prick at the side of his neck.

“I feel funny...” he said, collapsing to the ground.

Chapter 9. Vincent the Bounty Hunter

The bounty hunter, Vincent Rourke, arrived in Dust Grove riding on his horse, Polly, late in the evening. His brown leather duster trailed off behind him as he naturally recoiled from each trot of his steed. He scanned the area, aided with the tech of a telescopic eye patch, but saw no obvious signs of his targets.

He was cold, hungry, and irritated. For days prior, he had been traveling, trying to put as much distance between him and the town of
Gulch Hollow after a job that had gone bad. Vincent made the mistake of stopping off to get a drink at the First Chance Saloon in Stonebrook, where he had accidentally fallen asleep.

A couple of bar patrons got into a bit of a disagreement and the resulting gunshots had woken Vincent up from a whiskey-induced dream. Instinctively he pulled out his revolver and stood up from the chair
he had been sitting in. By the time the sheriff had busted in both men were on the ground and bloodied, leaving Vincent as the only man standing with a weapon.

Naturally,
the sheriff had assumed Vincent was responsible for the shooting and arrested him. While he sat in the jailhouse, waiting for the bartender and other patrons to explain what exactly had happened, Vincent saw a flyer on the wall. It said, ‘WANTED ALIVE: Erynn Clover,’ with the picture of a young, redheaded woman. It went on, ‘ACCOMPLICES WANTED ALIVE: Dr. Maxwell Rowland, Germ (Rat Man).’

He had found himself looking closely at the pictures, as the bartender explained what happened in the First Chance Saloon.
He had described an older man with a strange respirator, extensively modified spectacles, and wearing a large chrome gauntlet on his left hand. The man on the poster, Dr. Maxwell Rowland, matched the description of the bartender exactly.

By the time the sheriff agreed to let Vincent go however, his newly acquired targets were gone. Poking around
town, he discovered their intention to travel to Dust Grove and that they had secured a transport to take them.

He had hurried out of town on Polly attempting to catch up to the group, but he made an error in judgment, leaving too late in the afternoon. The ride quickly became very cold as the sun fell behind the horizon, and he had failed to get anything to eat while in
Stonebrook. The only thing he had on him were two strips of month-old jerky and that didn’t sound very appealing to him.

The ride had left him with a fever and his cough seemed to be getting worse.
He had acquired the cough a few days earlier during his time in Gulch Hollow. So far, he had been unable to kick the mild irritation, and the trip in the cold had certainly been no help.

Vincent’s first stop in town was at the Gem Saloon to try to get a bit of food and a drink. Stepping inside he was met with a series of tables, with games of dice and cards, dance hall girls performing for customers, and a long wooden bar. He took a seat at the bar, setting his hat down on the stool beside him and raised a hand to get the bartender’s attention.

“What’ll you have, mister?” he asked.

“You got anything to eat here, guy?” Vincent responded.

The bartender nodded and said, “We can put you together a stew if you’d like.”

“That’d be fine,” he responded. “Also, bring me a shot
of whiskey and a beer.”

The man went behind a swinging door for a few seconds before returning to get Vincent’s drinks. He went over to the tap and held a glass under the nozzle.

The thick brown liquid drizzled into the glass and the foam built up over the lip, overflowing the side of the glass, before the man stopped the flow. The bartender walked the glass back to Vincent and then went to the wall behind him, grabbing a bottle of whiskey. He grabbed a shot glass from below the counter and placed it on the glossy bar top. He pulled the cork from the top of the whiskey bottle and poured Vincent his shot.

Vincent quickly grabbed up the whiskey and drank it down. He tapped his finger at the glass after sitting it back on the bar, and the bartender poured him another shot before continuing on to other customers.

Vincent grabbed his beer and started to sip at it. He turned back to face the rest of the saloon and took in the sight of the various dancers making their rounds to the drunk men throughout the room. The dice and card games were in full swing, as the barmaids served pitchers of beer and refilled shot glasses.

He heard some stirring behind him and saw the bartender setting down a bowl of stew. Vincent stuck a finger into a pocket, pulled out a shiny coin and flipped it to the man.

“That should cover it,” he added.

Vincent picked up the second shot of whiskey and gulped it down before starting in on his stew. Floating above a tan brown liquid were bits of blackened meat with occasional chunks of rock-hard carrot and potatoes. It would have to do, he thought to himself.

He worked his way through the bowl, taking sips of the beer to cleanse the taste from his mouth every few spoonful’s of stew. When he had finished the meal he heard a voice behind him, “How ‘bout a dance, mister?”

He took a sideways glance to see a dumpy woman in a much too skimpy outfit standing with one of her feet raised and balancing on the lower rung of a barstool. “I think I’ll pass,” he said simply.

“Oh come on, now,” she continued. “You know you want it.”

“Honey,” he said. “I ain’t had nearly enough to drink for that.”

At this, the woman raised her hand and slapped him hard across his face before storming off to the other side of the bar. He turned back to his beer and set his mind to the task at hand. He figured he would ask around town in the morning to see if anyone had seen the chromesmith girl, the professor, or the much easier to spot rat.

Before he could make any further plans, however, someone tapped him on his left shoulder.

“I said, I ain’t interested, sweetheart,” he said turning around.

A swift punch to his cheek knocked him off his stool, and he fell
to the floor, knocking over a couple other chairs on his way down.

“That was my sister you made cry, you jackass!” a large and stupid-looking man above him yelled. Behind him was the girl in question, crying with her head in her hands.

“Is that right?” he asked coughing a bit and standing up and balancing against the bar.

“Damn right, and you’re going to apologize to her
, before I smash your face!” he yelled again.

“So, to clarify” Vincent began, “are you
smashing my face if I don’t apologize or is that just going to happen regardless?”

Vincent waited for an answer for a moment, but the man
didn’t seem to grasp the question. “Never mind,” he continued. “I sincerely apologize for saying I hadn’t had enough to drink in order to watch your, uh, sister there,” he pointed, “dance for me.”

Vincent took another swig of his beer
and slammed it down on the counter. “I think I’ve now drank exactly enough to see your fat, ugly sister dance.”

The large man’s eyes crossed and he charged Vincent.
The bounty hunter saw something shiny flash on the approaching man, but he didn’t have enough time to examine it. Instead, he was pushed through a nearby window and out into the streets. Vincent kicked off the man with the momentum of their landing and struggled to stand back up, coughing into his sleeve.

His attacker had also got back on his feet and was again charging toward Vincent. The bounty hunter prepared for the impending collision wondering if perhaps he
wouldn’t have been better off keeping his mouth shut. The large man took a swing at Vincent when he was close enough, but the bounty hunter dodged below the blow.

Vincent then placed one hard shot in the man’s gut, causing him to
grab and hold his stomach with both hands. The large oaf fell to his knees as onlookers from the bar gasped. The sister came rushing out past Vincent to check on her brother. Vincent meanwhile made his way back into the bar and picked his hat up which had fallen to the floor.

It was at this point
, that the bounty hunter thought back on the flash of light on his attacker. He looked back at the big man in the streets to see a deputy’s badge glaring at him in the moonlight.

“Well, that’s probably not good,” he said to himself
aloud.

Vincent soon found himself in the sheriff’s jailhouse, his weapons stripped from his waist and a
broken nose adorning his face. Two different lockups in two different towns all in one day, he thought to himself.

The sheriff sighed, locking the cage behind Vincent, “I
apologize for my deputy, mister. Floyd tends to be a little overprotective of his sister. I know you were just defending yourself, but I figure it’d be best if we kept you in here tonight.”

“And why’s that exactly, lawman?” he asked.

“Floyd has a bit of a temper, so I figure I’d best keep an eye on you for the time being,” the sheriff replied. “I’ll let you go tomorrow morning. Think of it as a free room for the night.”

“Not the worse accommodations I’ve ever had,” he said.

The sheriff went to a desk, picking up a newspaper and propping his feet up on the desk. Vincent, meanwhile, turned to investigate his surroundings. Riveted to the wall of the cell was a hard metal bench with a grumpy looking man sitting on it.

Vincent sat down on the bench and immediately the other man asked, “Why’re you in here?”

“A woman,” Vincent answered succinctly.

“You too, eh?” the man continued. “There I was in the saloon minding my own business, o’course, and some crazy broad smacks me with her pistol.”

“You don’t say?” Vincent responded, clearly not interested in the man’s story. He slid his hat down over his eyes and prepared to sleep.

“Some kinda chromesmith type of pistol
,” the man continued. “Like something you’d see back east.”

Discovering a
sudden interest, Vincent asked “Her hair, what color was her hair?”

“Hair?” the man pondered to himself. “I s’pose it was red.”

“You said you saw this woman in the saloon?” the bounty hunter inquired.

“That’s right, the foul woman. I wasn’t doing nothing either. Just paying for a dance,” the man
explained.

“A dance with who?” he inquired.

“Just the most beautiful dancer in town, o’course,” he said. “Her name’s Pearl. Called the Pearl of the Desert, she is.”

“You’re not talking about Floyd’s sister by any chance?” Vincent asked hesitantly.

“That woman is a she-devil. Pearl is an angel. She would’ve been my angel if that redhead didn’t step in,” he said holding his hands to his chest and looking up at the cage ceiling.

Knowing he could do nothing until
morning, Vincent attempted to get some sleep for the night. He found it difficult to get any real rest on that hard bench, but he eventually fell into a slumber. He tossed and turned throughout the night, shivering, and occasionally waking himself up with the worsening cough. The night seemed to go on forever, but when daylight ultimately slipped through the barred windows of the cell, Vincent found himself eager to take his leave.

“Hey, boss man,” he called out to the sheriff who had fallen asleep at the desk. When the man startled himself awake, Vincent continued, “It about time to let me out of this pen?”

The sheriff took out a pocket watch, clicking open its cover. “Well, I reckon it’s good enough time as any.”

The man stood up, grabbing the ring of keys and walking to Vincent’s cage. He fiddled with a few of the keys before finding the correct one and opening the door.

The other man stood as the sheriff opened the door, prompting him to say, “You’re staying put till we can figure out what to do with you.”

Vincent exited the cell, and the sheriff closed it shut again behind him. He then walked to a metal cabinet fiddling with the keys again and unlocked the doors. The sheriff handed over Vincent’s weapons
and supplies, giving him a final piece of advice, “Word of warning - get outta town before Floyd finds you again.”

“I just need to grab one thing, and then I intend to do exactly that,” Vincent said.

The bounty hunter equipped his gear back to its rightful place and went to the saloon. Carefully ensuring the brother and sister weren’t in sight, he made his way inside. The man behind the bar wasn’t the same as the one he had seen earlier, which he expected was probably for the best.

“Hey, barkeep,” he said to the man. “I’m trying to find a woman by the name of Pearl.”

“Pearl works nights. ‘Sides she ain’t here right now,” he replied.

Leaning against the bar, Vincent asked,
“Don’t expect you know where she went, do ya?”

“Her b
usiness is her business, mister,” the bartender unhelpfully responded.

“Yeah, thanks...” Vincent said before making his way back out to town. He found Polly still tied to the post he had left her
at and mounted her. If he had to look through town, he may as well avoid doing so on foot, he thought.

Almost immediately, however, he zoomed in with his eye patch and spotted
his targets walking towards him in the distance. He took this opportunity to load up his rifle, sheathed in Polly’s saddle, with four special darts.