JUDE

BOUNTY KILLER

Taking in the salty, fried protein scent of the deep-hive dive, a scruffy, over-large man sat in contentment. With a lazy half-grin, the heavily muscled figure took in the bar scene about him. Three off-duty code jockeys spat venom on the name of their overseer, cursing the increase in received data which owed itself to the war being fought in the neighboring Sub. Alone in a corner sat a woman, cloaked in shadow. She was lithe and appeared like a viper, ready to strike. Her braids roped and piled on the wooden table she occupied, lit only by a dying candle. The hair was purple, unnaturally so. With a chuckle, his eyes continued their survey. Two men, not quite muscular, but not slight either, stood at the end of the bar. They were positioned in such a fashion as to allow visibility of the dark den, and proximity to an exit. One of them wore a scruffy goatee, and both were clad in black longcoats.

'Amateurs. Ach, what else is-it these days besides,'

Jude whistled between his teeth poorly, and lifted his pint, satisfied with the head of foam that crowned it. He directed his toast to the two men at the end of the bar, and with surprising delicacy held his beard back as he took a long drought of the drink. Inside his own heavy leather overcoat, he fingered a black leather and ebony-wood box. It housed a large bullet, which had etched upon it the name 'Lupan, L'.

Jude was in his late one-nineties, and looked near it. A craggy and heavily scarred face was hung with a heavy beard, trimmed to hug his jawline, and hang long off the chin. Recently, he had begun to taste something philosophical in his moods. He'd hunted for so many years. He was a long way from tiring of the job, but some part of him had begun to wonder if he followed any other purpose - and if that purpose lay in his trade, or elsewhere. He had decided to pursue the scent inward, and continue killing. After all, it was late in the game to take up a new craft.

'Ach, is of no matter,' The old man shook his head, and grasped at his beard thoughtfully. Both hands were beyond the wear of even a workman - they were covered in scars and callouses, testament to time spent training as well as working. It occured to him that he wanted to finish his pint, and he was suddenly torn between approaching the men at the end of the bar or sitting a while longer. They might steal away another few days if they decided to rabbit. With a sigh, and a slow grin, he rose from his stool, creaking and cracking. As he stood, he slid his right hand between his back and his leather coat to where a Lanmark Thousander was secreted. It was an almost obnoxious weapon. A combination piece, in the shape of a heavy revolver. The cylinder carried ten standard ballistic rounds, and an enormous eleventh chamber was centered in the cylinder's axis. This was discharged through the heavier of the weapon's two barrels. That larger shell would punch through engine blocks or reinforced walls, though Jude had occasionally found reason to employ it against softer targets.

The men acknowledged his approach warily. His toast had thrown them off, and they momentarily presumed him to be an old drunk, seeking company in his cups. That moment was enough, and Jude took advantage of it. He casually drew the heavy handgun and shoved it purposefully under the chin of the goatee'd man. In a flash, the second man produced a long, thin blade, and thrust it towards Jude's face in a practiced, if sloppy strike. The older man side-stepped to avoid the attack and, running the odds in his head, decided to discharge his weapon. Until that point, the rest of the bar had been unaware of the drama, and the thunderous noise was beyond shocking. The red mist that had moments before been goatee man's head hung in the air, and stained the bar. The second man cried out in alarm and horror - his bet hadn't paid off, and the old man had somehow avoided his lunge anyways. Now Aken was dead, and he knew that flight was his best option.

Lupan was a bad man. He was a thief and a swindler, and had unknowingly tried to take advantage of the wife of a very well to do aristocrat type. The woman, perhaps tiring of her husband's foppish and hollow life, had dressed herself up like a Hiver and prowled the slam-clubs like one, seeking the excitement that her man couldn't provide. Lupan was, unsurprisingly, a coward. It wasn't until this moment however - staring into the ugly, scarred face of someone even meaner than he, that he knew this about himself.

Jude stepped into Lupan's next strike, anticipating the man's want to flee. As the blade cut into the folds of leather between his arm and side, he landed a heavy fist on the man's brow, and was rewarded with a sickening crackle-crunch sound. Lupan fell like a dead man, and garbled something crude about Jude's mother and family.

The man tried to rise, but found a foot pinning him to the cold floor. Jude fished out the wooden box from his coat pocket, and revealed the bullet. He held it up to the flickering light, struggling to read the script. 'This your name, laddie?' He growled, presenting the shell to his felled quarry. Lupan nodded like a drunk, and closed his eyes.

'Ach, well. Don't look back, boy. Look forward. At least pretend for me, that I still hunt worthy game'.