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

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.

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Cover art by:
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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.