The Bounty Hunter: Resurrection

The Bounty Hunter – Resurrection

All
Rights Reserved

Copyright
©
2013 by Joseph Anderson

Also by Joseph Anderson:

The Wizard and the
Dragon

Bounty Hunter Series

The Bounty Hunter
Series One, Complete

Revenge

Redemption

Vampire

Into The Swarm

Reckoning

Author’s Note:

The
Bounty Hunter stories are a series of novellas. Each story is intended to be
self-contained, like an episode of a television series. Although some names and
references are made to prior events, each story can be enjoyed on its own.

If, however, you prefer
to read things in order, the series begins with
The Bounty Hunter’s
Revenge
.

Thank
you for your time and I hope you enjoy the story.

• Copyright
  
• Other books by the author
  
• Author’s Note
  
• The Bounty Hunter: Resurrection
  
• Excerpt from Soldier’s Wrath.
  

Resurrection

Lumen couldn’t remember her last name. On good days,
she could remember her first name. On bad days, she only remembered that it
started with an ‘L’. She’d introduce herself like that.

“Hello,” she’d say. “My name is L.”
And then she would stab the stranger in the throat.

Her partner and husband, Shaw, had
more than a similar problem with his memory. It was the exact same problem,
since their minds had been linked. They shared the good days and the bad, from
Lumen to L and Shaw to S. They usually forgot the faces of those they killed
within a few hours. They didn’t like killing them, of course, it was simply
much easier to remove the augmented arms and legs from the rest of a person if
that person remained perfectly still. Draining the fluid—blood—from the neck
was merely the easiest way to achieve that.

They hadn’t always killed people
for spare parts. Nor had their minds always been linked. They had always gotten
along with each other, however, and that was precisely why they had been chosen
for an exciting experiment. They lived together, ate together, and worked
together. They both volunteered for the experiment together. Together they were
linked. And together they went insane.

 The company they worked for,
Spectrum Industries, was the leading developer of prosthetic limbs and
robotics. Lumen and Shaw were offered an exciting amount of money for participating
in the exciting experiment. The researchers never meant for things to go so
horribly wrong, but there had been dozens of legal waivers for a reason. There
is no research without risk.

The memory of that first day was
corrupted for the two of them. When they thought of it, they were both already
one person merged as they sat in the small, sealed room. Lumen had thought it
was too cold. Shaw had thought the room was too clean and too white. They now
both remembered the room as cold, bright, and suspiciously immaculate. The lead
researcher, Florence, entered the room. Lumen thought she was attractive—sleek augmented
legs and all. Weeks later, Shaw remembered thinking the same thing. They
listened to the woman’s questions.

“How are you today?” she asked.

“Good,” they both answered.

“This is the final stage of the
preparation before you will be restricted to this facility,” Florence
explained. “This is the last chance to speak up if you’ve changed your mind
about participating in the study.”

Shaw had been worried and had been
tempted to leave. Lumen had not. Weeks later, Shaw’s memory overpowered Lumen’s
and they both remembered being uncertain and insecure. It helped and provided more
fuel to blame Spectrum for what they had done.

“I want to stay,” they answered,
after a moment of hesitation.

“Excellent,” Florence replied, with
a large genuine smile. “Now, you’ve been chosen for multiple reasons. Chief
among them are your extensive augmentations already present. Your arms were
lost in an accident and you chose to work for the company after receiving the
prosthetics we created. Is that correct?”

The question had been directed at
Lumen. She had nodded on the day. She had felt gratitude. She had lost her arms
in an accident. It had been a painful experience. The replacements had been a
wonderful thing for her life. Shaw had lost his legs. It was how they met: they
had been in the same accident and recovered in the same hospital. It was
Lumen’s memory that overpowered Shaw’s and he was confused. He hadn’t lost his
arms. The memory became unsynchronized between the two of them and felt like
pain. The memory stuttered in place. Florence repeated the same words:

“Is that correct? Is that correct?
Is that correct? Is that correct? Is that correct? Is that correct? Correct?
Correct? Correct? Ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect.”

The memory skipped ahead. They had
not yet been linked but they were closer together. They were sharing a room in
the facility. It was still too cold and too clean. The white walls made the room
feel too large. Shaw hadn’t liked it. Lumen hadn’t minded. They both remembered
hating it. It was more fuel.

Spectrum Industries had removed
Lumen’s legs. Spectrum Industries had removed Shaw’s arms. They were given the
same augmentations. They were closer together. They hadn’t been bothered much
by the change. After over a decade of living with mechanical limbs, the new
ones didn’t feel so different. Florence came to visit them a week after the
surgery.

“How are you today?”

“Good,” they both answered.

“I’ve come to speak to you today
about a new development. The two of you present a unique opportunity for the
company. If you are both willing, in addition to the advanced dermal
replacement procedure, we’d like to create a temporary neural link between the
two of you.”

“What does that mean?” they both
asked.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Florence
said with a smile. “Let me get that part out of the way first. We’ve done it
before, but never with two people that are so close.”

On that day, Lumen and Shaw had
exchanged a loving look. Remembering the conversation as a merged person, the
memory threatened to derail and froze for a moment. It started again and
skipped over the look like it never happened.

“We planned to install several
cranial implants already,” Florence continued. “We will only be adding one
more. There will be increased compensation, of course.”

Shaw had been tempted by the money.
Lumen had been interested in helping the company that gave her arms back to
her. Together, they remembered the conversation as coercion, and that they had
been guilted into accepting the procedure that drove them insane. Neither of
them remembered signing the additional consent forms.

More parts of their bodies were
removed. Several sections of bone were replaced to support the reinforced
structures that were inserted under the skin around the base of each of their
augmented limbs. The procedure was the original experiment, to monitor the long
term effects of additional support around standard implants. The main function
of the new implants were to allow the prosthetic limbs to be replaceable
without the help of a mechanical surgeon. A new product line of prosthetics
were planned for both function and fashion. A different set of arms and legs
for whatever each day required. Seamless improvement, they planned to call it.

Lumen and Shaw’s skulls were opened
and implanted with sufficient devices to accommodate the new hardware. The researchers
considered the neural link an added bonus—something harmless but ultimately
important for future products. They expected the two of them to wake up and
have a few amused days as they could wirelessly send each other thoughts and
feelings. They expected to record smiles as they took turns seeing through each
other’s eyes. They didn’t expect for both of them to go into a coma after the
surgery was complete.

The past experiments with neural
links had been performed first on animals and then on strangers. The minds of
the test subjects barely merged and they could send whispered thoughts and the
ghosts of sensation to each other. Lumen and Shaw had already shared so much of
their lives that their merge was more thorough than those that came before
them. As their thoughts and experiences fully mingled and integrated, their
bodies shut down. They were scanned and every test result came back abnormal.
The researchers considered them a lost cause and all of their advanced hardware
with them. They did what every responsible researcher in Spectrum Industries
would have done: they took advantage of the waivers the test subjects signed to
further butcher their bodies.

Human testing was so rare and the
researchers relished the opportunity. To be fair, they considered the two of
them to be mostly brain dead. Mostly. More bones were removed and replaced.
More experimental hardware was installed. Subdermal plates replaced what was
left of their skin: flesh colored shards of metal that could withstand far more
punishment than skin. As Shaw was operated on, Lumen would lay in her bed and
feel every slice of the scalpel that cut into him. When Lumen’s skin was
replaced, Shaw felt the burn as each piece of metal was seared into together.

Shaw, in particular, was tested on.
He was stripped naked and fastened against a wall. Only his eyes were protected
by heavy goggles—they had not yet found the time to replace those parts. They
used him as a shooting target and congratulated themselves on a job
spectacularly done when the bullets crushed into themselves and bounced
harmlessly off his skin. They burned him alive with flamethrowers and watched
as what was left of his skin was roasted away. The dermal implants smoked as
they cooled down and then returned to their flesh color, giving him the appearance
as if he had never been burned at all. All the while, Lumen lay in the room
next to him and felt every impact of every bullet and every lick of the flames.

Their eyes opened then. Shaw’s
shielded by the dark goggles and the researchers couldn’t see that he had woken
up. Lumen began to move: she got out of bed and started walking toward him.
Shaw shifted against the confines he had been strapped into against the wall.
The researchers noticed that and wondered if the implants were shifting to
repair some unseen damage that they had endured. They were making notes as
Lumen walked through the doors and began to kill them. There were eight in all,
Florence included, and Lumen managed to kill three of them before they started
to shoot at her. It was Shaw’s turn to feel each bullet that bounced painfully
off Lumen’s flesh. She walked through the barrage of gunfire and struck each of
them down.

Florence was the last one to die.
They remembered thinking how attractive she was as Lumen cut through her
throat. After freeing Shaw, they removed Florence’s legs. They remembered
thinking they were the best part. They took more parts then. They left the guns
and rifles and took the weaponized arms and legs, those specifically designed
to be attached to the replaceable slots they had been received in the
experiment. They helped each other try them on. They were a great help in
slaughtering the guards that were called to the room. They carried as many of
the limbs as they could as they calmly blasted their way out of the facility.
They made sure to carry Florence’s legs with them.

Weeks later, they looked for more
arms and legs. Most days they felt broken and thought more parts could help. On
the bad days, when they felt the most broken, they would look for people in the
city streets that had prosthetic arms and legs. Lumen would walk up to them and
introduce herself.