Grit and Grace: A Metal and Men Novella (Metal and Men Series Book 1) Read online

  Grit and Grace

  A Metal and Men Novella

  Anthony W. Eichenlaub

  Copyright © 2015 by Anthony W. Eichenlaub

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.eichenblog.org

  Cover art by: http://www.rockingbookcovers.com/

  This story is dedicated to everyone who was ever afraid of the world, but went there, anyway.

  "Winston Brand, you get your ass up and catch that girl." The voice rang clear in my skullset, and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Either Hetty, my handler, was confused or—

  Yep, I was the one with head problems.

  I sat up and looked around, not knowing where in the hell I was. An empty warehouse stretched out around me, the kind that stored food on its way south to Austin. The heavy odors of gunsmoke and rotten vegetables mixed into a somewhat pleasant bouquet. Dusty light filtered through rows of windows high above on the side walls; one window had been smashed inward, leaving a scattering of glass and metal strewn across the floor. The door in the back of the building had been wrenched from its hinges while the hangar doors in the front stood imposing and strong. Still-smoking bullet holes and scorch marks covered the walls, doors, pillars, and floors.

  Welcome to the Republic of Texas, a country mined from the rubble of a fallen America and forged into steel by civil war and unending corporate conflict. Technology and neglect made this country what it is. It's near as wild as it was after America wrestled it from the native civilizations. Maybe more so. It's a tough place to make a living, but it's home and on a good day it’s a bounty hunter's gold mine.

  Well, I was the fastest, smoothest, toughest bounty hunter there was, but I was not exactly having a good day. Some serious fight had happened in this warehouse, and I didn't remember a damn bit of it. My head felt like a bucket of bolts was rattling around in it—I don't believe I was the winner of that fight.

  I tried to cover my amnesia when I responded to Hetty. "Uh," I said. "What?" I didn't do a very good job.

  "I said, get back up and track her down. That's my vacation what's getting away!"

  My joints cracked in protest as I forced myself to stand. "Care to upload that memory again?" My red beard, the pride of my life, felt odd, so I ran my fingers through it. They came back sooty and with a distinct impression I was lopsided. How much memory had I lost? A day? Two? I shook my head to clear the nonsense.

  There wasn't time to reminisce because a second later, Hetty started an upload. My neural implant popped to life and flooded my brain with memories. The target’s name was Lena Goodwin, daughter of the esteemed Chester Goodwin. She was eleven and wanted, dead or alive. Chester was the head of a company called Goodwin Dairy, which dealt with anything from dairy to cybernetic implants to sidearms. Getting in good with the Goodwins was enough motivation for any intelligent bounty hunter, but the reward was nothing to scoff at either. I picked up my still-smoking cowboy hat from the floor while I processed the details of the arrangement.

  I blinked. "Dead or alive?" I asked, surprised that Mr. Goodwin might want his daughter back dead.

  "Keep her alive, if you know what's good for you." Hetty might have been referring to getting in good with the Goodwins, but she might also have been referring to the significant bonus associated with a live retrieval.

  "Ten thousand stars?"

  "It ain't the night sky, but it's enough for that vacation you promised me, so get your ass in gear."

  Hetty was always such a great motivator. That's why I hired her back when… Well, that memory was a bit fuzzy. A while ago. She handled the flow of information for our operation, and I handled the rough and tumble. Hetty was the perfect mix of stubborn and sweet. She just wanted a little vacation. How could I deny that?

  That many stars could buy a decent trip south to the ocean—or a pile of new tech. The thought of upgraded nanomachines and some shiny eye mods put a smile on my face. I'm a modern man—a modded man. Nothing God ever gave man couldn't be upgraded and improved. Of course, I'd split the haul with Hetty if we bagged the bounty. She was one of the best-paid handlers in the business, but I often felt like I was getting a steal. Her intel was top notch and had saved my hide dozens of times. I tried to remember the last time she saved my ass, but my brain got all scrambled. All I knew for sure was she deserved a vacation.

  I put on my hat and started walking toward the door. My boots rang against the hard concrete as I quickly took in the scene. My eye implants hummed in my skull, feeding me wave after wave of input, but it was up to me to interpret it all. Scuff marks around the high window revealed it as the probable main entry point for two combatants. One was heavy, the other quite light, if my assessment was correct. One left hardly a mark from the fifteen-meter drop from the window, while the other damn near left a crater. Residual heat on a column showed that the small figure had jumped and scaled it quickly, avoiding several bullets in the process. Mine, probably, but I didn't remember any of it. Gouges in the concrete showed a scuffle near the center of the sprawling warehouse, then a long skid mark led to where I'd woken up.

  So, I was the big guy. Lena Goodwin might have been the small one. Why didn't I remember any of it?

  I got to the door. It was heavy, steel, and bent like someone had been practicing origami. I pulled my Remington Blue Action revolver and made to step through.

  Carried by a hot wind, voices reached my ears. The noise was too low for me to pick up words, but the urgency was clear. They were approaching.

  "Hetty, I reckon I have company."

  "Well, no shit. You know damn well it's the Roth brothers. A sweet contract like this has all the hunters out today. How hard did that little girl knock you 'bout anyway?"

  "Now listen here," I said. "Ain't no little girl knocking me around. I just got a little scrambled, is all." As far as I knew, this was the truth.

  "Uh-huh." There was a pause. The voices outside got a little louder. "Just be glad your employer’s boys aren't coming. They would not have been impressed by this display of competence."

  "Why would they be coming?"

  "Because I called them as soon as you started to engage the target."

  My jaw tensed. "I'd appreciate it if you waited a bit longer next time."

  "It's in the contract, hon."

  "I bet."

  "Just you worry about those Roth boys. I'll figure out why the boys from Goodwin didn't show."

  I didn't want to face them, not in the condition I was in. The heft of my numerous sidearms felt reassuring, but my head didn't feel quite right. I tried to access the neural links to my weapons to see if they were loaded, but the signals came back all mixed. Based on the number of fresh scorch marks and jagged bullet holes, my guess was I was somewhat low on ammo. My knives were all in place, but that wasn't going to be enough against three seasoned hunters. Slung across my back were my Blue Angel shotgun and Nellie. I loved Nellie. She was the best damn needler on the market and way too good to be wasted on those Roth boys. Good black metal needles were expensive, after all. I holstered my pistol.

  The far end of the warehouse was a single ten-meter-tall door, not the sort a person can sneak out of. The window was my best option, presumably the same one I'd used as an impromptu entrance. It was fifteen meters up, but between the enhanced strength of my modified endoskeleton and the
pockmarked steel of the wall, I figured I could get up there pretty quickly.

  I hurried to the wall, careful not to make any extra noise. The wall looked taller up close, but I didn't hesitate. I stuck a finger in one hole and started pulling myself up. Hand over hand I climbed the wall. My uncallused fingers protested at the jagged metal edges cutting into my flesh. Then my shoulders began to ache, and my whole body screamed with the pain of the climb, but I moved fast as I could, hoping it was fast enough.

  The voices were close. The empty echoes of the warehouse amplified murmurs of anger and frustration. I could see the shadows move near the door.

  I was almost there. My cut fingers worked their way along the torn metal, edging my heavy body closer to the window. If I could just move a little closer I'd be able to swing a leg up and pull myself outside.

  My bloodied hand slipped. I hung for several achingly long seconds, cursing the pain. I knew how to make the climb, but my body refused to obey. I couldn't tell if my tech had seized up or if it was my muscles. I wasn't going to make it.

  "Well, if it ain't Doctor Winston Brand, the Doc Twang himself." The voice was high-pitched and nasal. I recognized it as that of Connor Roth of the infamous Roth brothers.

  I twisted around and dropped to the floor. My impact echoed through the warehouse and sent dust flying.

  Lots of things weren't working quite right in that brain of mine, but one thing I knew for sure was I did not like being called Doc Twang. That put me in a dangerous mood.

  "That was another time, Roth," I said. "Got nothin' to do with why we're here."

  Connor stepped closer into the room, followed by his brothers Daryl and Charlie. Daryl was an idiot—slack-jawed and slow. He was strong, though, and I knew from experience that he followed orders. Charlie was a little harder to pin down. Like the others, he had sandy-brown hair, but looking straight at him gave a guy a headache. He wore a scrambler, which made his features difficult to see properly by distorting light around him. It was probably the one piece of tech that kept him out of prison.

  I rested my hand gently on my Colt. "No reason for us to be talking," I said. "Just let me pass right on out and you have yourself a look around."

  Connor smiled. "No reason, Doc? Seems we got plenty of reason." He snickered at this, and his brothers joined in as if they got the same joke. "Seems to me we just about had our bounty, and you done scared her away."

  "That so?"

  "Indeed." Connor was close now, five meters away. I could already smell the gunsmoke and tobacco on him. "So the way I see it, you owe me some compensation or some information. We're gonna kill us that damn bounty this time. Finish this whole mess."

  Neural enhancements are a funny thing; they can give you access to more information, but they don't always help you sort out the best choice of paths. For instance, between my neural network and my eye enhancements, I knew that Daryl was tensing up. He was ready for a fight. I also could tell that Charlie wasn't where he seemed to be. The blur surrounding him shimmered and popped, indicating an active holographic projection. I didn't need fancy brain enhancements to calculate that they had me outnumbered and outgunned.

  My enhanced brain had no algorithm that could help with the tactical navigation of stressful conversations, so I used my instincts.

  "Fuck you." My instincts were bad.

  A pulse of pain and electric shock burst from my kidney and spread through my chest. I turned my head to see Charlie's mischievous grin.

  Then Daryl was close. His gigantic fist slammed into my head, sending icy-sharp lines of pain down my neck. The idea of up became a mystery, and I crumpled to the floor.

  Daryl closed one hand around my head and lifted me up to face Connor.

  Connor looked at me, cool and calculating with emotionless eyes. "It seems to me you ought—"

  I shot him.

  At least, I thought I shot him. My head was spinning so hard I didn’t know if I hit him or not. Muscle reflexes kicked in, and I drew my weapon and fired before he could do a damn thing about it.

  I fired again. Daryl heaved me up by my head, then slammed me hard into the ground.

  A vision of a girl—a slim, beautiful girl—swam in front of my eyes. She was young, maybe eleven, and she smiled a huge grin with shining white teeth. "Dead oak," she said. Her voice was a soft whisper. She produced a card with those words and some coordinates written on it and slipped it into the front pocket of my duster. The Roth boys acted like they didn't see her. Was she really there? Was this a lost memory?

  A pit of blackness swallowed the world.

  I woke, sprawled in a pool of my own regurgitated bourbon and beef brisket. Blood mixed with the mess—probably my own. My head hurt, which just about fit with what the rest of my body was doing. Every beat of my heart sent little pulses of pain through my body. My back was sore, so I stretched it and tried to sit up.

  Standing unsteadily, I patted myself down. The Roth boys had taken my guns, my glow cube, and my cash. There wasn't a lot of it. The guns were the currency with which I bought most of my way through life. Also, they stole my damn boots. As I limped across the warehouse, I brushed the reeking vomit off my hat.

  "Hetty," I said.

  "Yessir."

  "Got into some trouble, there."

  "You don't say,” said Hetty. “I was kinda thinking you were dead so I was just about to shut this operation down for good."

  Pain pulsed in the back of my skull, the network of connections searing their imprint upon the inside of my skull. The skullset that let me talk to Hetty was connected to state-of-the-art tech. "Hetty, did I ever tell you about that time my little brother Evan wandered off?"

  "Well, no, I believe—"

  "He was little, maybe three, but got himself into one of those cargo shuttles down in Low Austin. One second he was with me and our mama. Next second, he was halfway across town. My mama had the biggest fit you ever seen a mama have."

  I paused and gave a good hard listen at the door. There weren't any voices this time.

  "Well, there were eight of us boys. Seven's a whole lot easier to feed than eight, so when she told my pa about it at supper, he just grunted and asked me to pass the potatoes. Pa always was a bastard that way. Mama wasn't too keen on that. Next day, she went out and spent up our whole savings on neural chips for her seven boys. From then on, she never had trouble tracking us, no matter where we wandered off to."

  A long pause made me wonder if Hetty was even still listening. Then, "Winston, you got a point in all that?"

  "Mama got us all our first neural chips back in the day so she could trace us all the time anywhere we went. Nowadays, people trace just about anything that's worth something to them."

  "We been over this, Winston. The girl's not traced. She's got somethin' that's not letting them do it. She's dark. She's important, but we can't just trace her. That's why they riled up half the bounty hunters in Austin, remember?"

  "Not talking about the girl. You got a trace on Nellie?"

  There was a pause. "Well, yes I did," she said.

  I smiled. "Much appreciated. Those Roth boys took her, and I intend to get her back. A needler like that's something special."

  "Hon, that's no business of mine."

  "I'll be damned if they aren't headed straight for Lena Goodwin."

  "Well, that's more like it."

  "They want to kill her. I suppose she humiliated them." As I said it, the thought occurred to me that any quarry able to humiliate the Roth brothers was most likely out of my league.

  "Well," said Hetty, "you'd best get your ass in gear."

  "Found him the next day," I said.

  "What?"

  "They found Evan the next day. Everyone always asks that. Company that ran the cargo shuttles found him and tracked down our family through a DNA match. He was waiting for us when we got home from getting implants. He was a little hungry but otherwise perfectly fine."

  A hot wind greeted me in the doorway. I stepped out int
o an unforgiving world, squinting at the red sun setting on the horizon. Waves of heat danced along the concrete landscape before me. In the distance, the harsh, black Austin skyline scraped at the swirling clouds in the sky. A windwall wrapped the city, protecting it from storms; the wall’s jagged fingers swarming with flying vehicles out in the distance. Thousands of city folk made their way through the dark towers trying to get to their safe little caves in the sides of man-made mountains.

  I winced as the hot ground burned my feet through the holes in my socks. I needed that payday. I needed bullets, guns, a place to stay, and some food to eat. A whiff of vomit hung like a halo about my head. A new hat would be nice.

  There wasn't much around the warehouse. A few short buildings hadn't fared so well in the latest megastorm. I headed for the closest, hoping that Connor Roth was either not as crafty or not as much of an asshole as I suspected. If he trashed or stole my car like he took my guns, I'd be in a hell of a spot.

  I hopped over the short remains of a broken wall and landed solidly on a cracked section of concrete. The far walls of the building still stood tall, casting deep shadows in the red glow of the setting sun. I squinted, straining to see into the darkness.

  She was still there.

  "Suzy," I said. "What would I do without you?"

  Air shimmered in front of me. The jet-black curves of my sleek, convertible 5700 Series Mustang brought a smile to my face. Fully integrated camouflage and a low power idle must have kept it off of Connor's scope. I ran a finger along her side. She was beautiful. She was the love of my life.

  I hopped inside and pulled open the glove box. Connor might have taken most of my guns, but there was one I always left in the car. It was ancient. My neural implants wouldn't connect with it, and the son-of-a-bitch kicked like a mule. It was a Colt .45, modified a hundred years ago by my great-great-grandfather. It was ugly and heavy, but I kept it around anyway. I checked the ammunition. Ten plain old lead bullets.

  A lead bullet would have a hell of a time punching through an average person's skin. Blame the nanomachines for that. Nannies could slowly replace a person's skin with a stronger, tougher hide. They could assemble tech inside a person's eyes to interface with the sub-neural network. A reasonably advanced batch of nannies could even help heal tissue and fix damage done by implanted tech.