Short Story: Hunk of Burnin' Love

— Dialogue Sample —

“Your liver is shot and you’re still drinking?” Ray sounded incredulous.

“Alcohol is the only thing that keeps me sober.” This made Milo giggle, and Tarique winked at him.

— Dialogue Sample —

“Why didn’t you tell me all those years ago what was going on?”

Tarique avoided her intense gaze, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know full and well what I’m talking about. I could have helped you. We could have helped all those other children he hurt after he hurt you.”

And that was the heart of the issue he didn’t want to discuss. “I didn’t want your help. I didn’t want to be in Nevada. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“So instead you up and left?” Tarique said nothing, and Jo sighed heavily before standing and continuing. “I’m sorry.”

This time, Tarique looked her in the eye, “What?”

“I was right there the whole time. I knew something was wrong between the two of you. I just wasn’t home very often, and when I was, I was so very tired from working so much, trying to support us... Now that I look back on it, now that I know what Rod is, I see the signs. In my memories. How one day, you just stopped wanting to be touched, you stopped sleeping through the night, you walked around like an animal in a trap.” Tears were glistening in her eyes now. “I was right there with you, and I should have seen it, should have been a better mother to you, and I wasn’t. And I am so, so sorry, my sweet baby boy.”

Tarique was frozen in place, unformed, undecided words caught in his throat. After what felt like an age of silence, he finally got words out, and they weren’t the words he was expecting, “You need to leave.”

Jo blinked back in shocked confusion, “What?”

“I meant-” Tarique took a deep breath, “Rod is going to come here. Anyone who stays here is in danger. You and Ray should take Milo and go stay somewhere else for a few days. We’ll call you when it’s safe to come back.”

Slowly, Jo turned away from him, hands falling to her sides. “Alright. I’ll go tell the boys.”

— Dialogue Sample —

Bahram looked at the cigarette, and then back at Tarique, “Liver cancer wasn’t enough for you, you decided you also needed to give yourself lung cancer before the month was out?”

“Yeah, dontcha know, they give you a discount if you need multiple organs replaced. After we catch this guy, I’m gonna spend a week camping along the border of Russia, see what kind of cancers I get from bathing in the radiation.” Bahram only laughed, so Tarique continued, “What, you don’t believe me? You may think I’m crazy, but I’m saving money like this, you’ll see.”

— Full Story —

The only symptom was nausea, which Tarique had written off as his body getting older and less accustomed to the constant stream of alcohol throughout his system. In a way, that was exactly what it was, that and more. But with a diagnosis like this you expected more symptoms, fatigue, pain, anything more than just some nausea.

The doctor kept talking, their comm carrying her voice throughout the room, but Tarique had stopped listening after some time, stuck on her first four words, “You have liver cancer”.

Liver cancer wasn’t how Tarique was supposed to leave this world. He’d always imagined that when it was his time to die, he would be staring down at a searing hole in his chest, having been boarded and raided for his valuable cargo, which he’d been paid to protect and deliver across the galaxy. Or, he’d take a turn too fast and crash their ship into an enemy vessel and be incinerated in a fiery explosion, his corpse propelled through space by the blast. Most likely, he’d find himself at the bottom of the bottle, body shutting down and completely nonfunctional, eyeballs floating in a pool of whiskey. Tarique supposed liver cancer was technically one way to drink yourself to death, so maybe this fit after all.

Eventually, he came to his senses enough to listen to her proposal. The best option was to replace his liver as soon as possible. It was a low risk surgery, but livers didn’t grow on trees, they were grown in labs with expensive 3D printing equipment, and it wouldn’t be cheap. In order to get that kind of money, they would have to drastically alter their lifestyle.

Bahram spoke suddenly from behind him, “We should go after the bounty for Rod.” Tarique hadn’t even heard him enter the room, but he was sure that Bahram had heard the whole conversation. He was like that, putting his nose in where it didn’t belong. He couldn’t even let Tarique nobly die in the privacy of his own home.

Tarique’s gaze wandered around their surroundings, desperate to latch onto another topic of conversation. The two of them had put a lot of work into this ship at their first job together at Bahram’s father’s family business, Starship Repair and Remodel, and when they were finished, had dubbed it the Hunk of Burnin Love, after a pop song that they both loved- ironically, of course. To his right was the control panel, three feet wide and cluttered with screens and meters constantly feeding them data in real time, the labels on the knobs and buttons worn to the point of illegibility, not that the labels were really necessary in the first place. Every metal panel had been meticulously drilled into the carbon-fiber skeleton of the spaceship they were currently cruising in. To Tarique’s left, a frosted glass door led to the rest of the rest of the ship, notably the rotating dark-matter engine driving them forward through space and all its accompanying accoutrements. The ship also held their living space and living quarters in a symmetrical layout. Tarique used to keep the liquor in the kitchen, though he now regularly relocated the bottles as Bahram sniffed them out and disposed of them behind his back. Bahram just didn’t understand how much he needed it, how it was the only thing that kept him relaxed enough to function anymore.

And now Bahram would think he was right to take away Tarique’s crutch, with this diagnosis of liver cancer.

“if we’re going to your hometown anyway, this would be a really good time to see your family before you A, die of liver cancer or B, die chasing a bounty.” Tarique looked like he was about to start arguing, but Bahram barreled onward, “Plus, they’re bound to have more information on the bounty-head.”

“We’re not bounty hunters. Delivery and protection work isn’t nearly as dangerous as literally hunting a man down-”

“But we have had our fair share of raids and attacks. Don’t pretend like what we do is safe, honestly, bounty hunting isn’t that far of a stretch. Besides, delivery work doesn’t pay well enough for you to get a new liver.”

Tarique bit back another retort. Once Bahram had set his mind to something, there was no shaking him from it. For now, Tarique would go along with what his dear friend wanted, even if he didn’t agree with taking extra risks for his health. “Fine. We’ll go after the bounty. Set course for home.”

Tarique leaned back in his chair and watched the expanse of space before them through the massive monitor. Bahram moved towards the second seat at the control panel with the intent to coax the engine to life for Faster-Than-Light travel. He imagined what it would be like to see his family again, to see that man again, as they moved past the glittering asteroid city where they’d been stationed. Stars sped past their vision and refracted into a myriad of reds and blues, colors seeming to dance and shimmer around them as they were refracted through the surface of the kaleidoscopic warp-bubble that allowed them to fly across the galaxy in mere hours.

#

In front, darkness, behind him, danger. A smaller, younger version of Tarique ran, tears streaming down his mocha face and long black hair streaming behind him, the only indication that his feet against the ground was taking him anywhere at all. Ahead of him could be anything, a cliff, a den of snakes, a highway, or nothing at all, and it would still be better than the danger he was running from if he stopped for even a second.

But one kid can only run so far, so fast before they start to get tired, and as Tarique’s small limbs began to give out, his feet slapping slower on the ground beneath him, hot sticky breath crept onto the back his neck, bringing burning tears to his eyes, and he knew he had already lost. Inky blackness caught up to him, pulling him backwards with one stark hand gripping his throat. No matter how hard he struggled, his feet only sank further into repressed oblivion, until all that remained was the distant echo of a struggle.

Tarique woke with a yell and tumbled out of his chair, his own nails digging desperately into his throat. The floor was hard and cold beneath his hands, but its solid and familiar texture was reassuring. A moment later, Tarique registered the presence of Bahram kneeling at his side, not too close to cause alarm, but close enough to reassure him that he wasn’t alone. Wordlessly, Bahram offered him a flask of bourbon. Tarique, after a moment of confused hesitation, accepted and downed the liquid, hating the burn sliding down his throat.

After a moment, Bahram chirped, “We’ll be arriving at Earth in about half an hour. I took the liberty of calling your mother, since you forgot. We’re meeting her for an early dinner when we arrive. Best get dressed!”

Tarique glared at Bahram. He had no right to look so damned cheerful.

#

The Hunk of Burnin Love exited light speed and coaxed to a slow stop at the interstellar parking lot hovering in Earth’s orbit. Earth was the only Human colony in any galaxy that was zoned for all categories of property, agriculture, manufacturing, residential, you name it and Earth had it in some supply. This chaotic system was abandoned after the Representative Coalition for Humanity began colonizing other worlds and moons for the first time. Earth was disorganized and often confusing, a kind of cacophonic pandemonium, but it had its own kind of unique charm that Tarique personally liked.

Tarique prepped their smaller vessel in the hangar for descent to Earth. It was an elongated oval-like structure, with cylindrical engines on either side designed to propel them forward. When it was running at high speeds, the twin engines would spit white fire that glittered along the hovercar’s shimmery silver exterior. Tarique had wanted to name this one Tidbit of Burning Love, but Bahram had staunchly refused, and they’d been stuck butting heads over it for years, resulting in a nameless hovercar. Bahram joined him a few moments later, and together, they left the bunker and floated towards the diner in Tarique’s hometown of Asheville, Nevada.

They pulled in front of the old diner he and his mom had frequented so often as a kid and cut the engines. The diner was a little dirtier than he remembered, but it still had the massive glass windows and chrome accents he’d loved as a small child. The interior was designed in teals and blacks and whites, the scent of grease and salt lingered in the air.

Tarique trailed behind Bahram. He’d caught Jo’s gaze briefly, but his eyes had jettisoned back towards the linoleum floor before he truly registered that they were the eyes of his mother. Bahram slid into the booth, and there was a moment of shuffling and boots knocking against boots as the family struggled to make room in the round plastic booth for the long-awaited newcomers.

Before Tarique really had a chance to prepare, they were settled in a corner-booth with his mother, the man his mother had married after Tarique left home, and Tarique’s young half-brother.

There was a long beat of tense silence, before Jo spoke up tentatively, “It’s really good to see you after so long, Tari. Where’ve you been living lately?” Tarique noted that she still had the habit of brushing her long brown, and now graying, hair out of her dark eyes when she was nervous, even if her hair hadn’t really been in her eyes in the first place.

“Yeah, you’d think a son would come home to see his mother a little more often than twice a century,” Ray interjected gruffly. Ray was as clean cut as they came, and Tarique wondered how one woman could have married two completely different men. His own father had been a wildflower, unkempt, but free and beautiful, whereas Ray was a retired peace officer who seemed to be entirely composed of cool greys and straight lines.

Tarique stubbornly ignored Ray’s comment and looked at Jo. “It’s really nice to be home,” he lied, “And I spent a few years in Las Vegas, and the rest travelling for work mostly.”

Bahram said, “Tarique actually has some important news to share-”

“In a little bit, Bahram, first tell me how Milo’s been doing.” Tarique cut him off and shot Bahram a short glare.

Jo brightened visibly and started to rattle on about how well Milo had been getting along in school, “His teachers tell me he really likes space travel, just like you!”

Hearing his name, Milo decided it was his turn to contribute to the conversation, “I wanna fly through a black hole and go to another universe where nothing is impossible!”

Ray rolled his eyes a little but still smiled as he said, “Jo’s been letting him read your old comic books and he’s really taken a liking to some of them.”

“Any kind of reading is good reading, I say,” Jo said proudly. Their waitress came to take their drink and food orders. Most of the group had water, but Tarique ordered a can of beer. Ray and Jo both gave him odd looks, but chose not to say anything. Bahram kicked Tarique under the table, to no avail.

The group chatted about the comics Milo was enjoying while the waitress brought them their drinks. Not long after the beer was set down in front of him, Tarique picked it up, intent on taking a long swig while staring Bahram in the face, challenging him This was the opportunity Bahram had been waiting for.

“Tarique was recently diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer.” The temporarily victory he felt at getting his words out clashed discordantly with the ashen looks on Jo and Ray’s faces, and he floundered for a moment for some kind of follow-up, “The-the doctor recommends that he get a new liver, and while the procedure itself isn't very risky at all, a brand-new liver isn’t exactly cheap.”

Something seemed to click on Jo’s face, “That’s why you came home. You’re here for the bounty on Rod.”

Sensing incoming serious conversation, Tarique took another long draw from his lukewarm can of beer.

“Your liver is shot and you’re still drinking?” Ray sounded incredulous.

“Alcohol is the only thing that keeps me sober.” This made Milo giggle, and Tarique winked at him.

“To get back on topic, if you have any more information than what was posted in the flyers, that would be extremely helpful,” Bahram said. Their waitress came by and started passing plates of food around the table, stacked bean-burgers and french fries and mashed potatoes.

Ray continued after the waitress had left, “We made the mistake of trusting that monster with our family, with the care of our children. Of course, we have more information on the bounty. I dug up as much as I could as soon as I heard he was being brought in for questioning regarding the rape of some local kids. We were just extraordinarily lucky he decided Milo wasn’t a good target.” He frowned into his mashed potatoes and gravy, as if his food owed him some explanation for the state of the world. “The P.O. searched his home and didn’t find any sign of him, although his car was still there. He must’ve left town some other way, or else he’s still hiding nearby. Nobody knows, and the trail went cold, which is why the P.O. tossed the case to bounty hunters.”

“Sounds like lazy peace officer work to me,” muttered Tarique.

“They’re just spread too thin is all, they don’t have the manpower for a manhunt,” argued Bahram.

Tarique rolled his eyes, “Either way, we go to his home tomorrow. Can’t hurt to double check for anything they probably overlooked.”

“In the meantime, you boys are welcome to stay with us. No need to fly all the way back up to your ship every night!” Jo looked heartbreakingly hopeful, and not even Tarique could say no.

Later that night, walking into his childhood home for the first time in 10 years was an experience he wouldn’t forget. The yellow linoleum of the kitchen with all its obnoxious rooster-themed decor, even with the updated laser-printing microwave that hadn’t been here the last time, was familiar down to every crack in the ceiling and the stubborn stains on the counter where he’d spilled jelly as a child. The living room carpet, a flowery green and purple pattern, was just as worn as he remembered it, and the beige couches accented with purple throw pillows and peeling yellow striped wallpaper could have been plucked directly from his memory. The holo-TV was a newer model, and some of Milo’s toys could be seen scattered around in some places, but those were the only changes. It would have been a nostalgic and comforting scene had his memories of this place not been polluted by the last week he spent in this home. He regret coming back here.

#

A hundred miles away or so was the grand city of Las Vegas, with towering buildings and highways of hovercars stretching for miles into the sky, highlighted with neon flashing lights and billboards the size of football stadiums. However, they weren’t in Vegas. They weren’t even on a registered skyway that would allow them to truly soar through the air, and Tarique longed for the city as their hovercar glided barely 3 inches above the ground, kicking up acrid orange sand and gravel, nothing but ancient buildings, cacti and gray shrubbery on the horizon for miles. The emptiness and lack of life Tarique had grown up in was part of the catalyst for the way he’d built his new life for himself, traveling from big city to big city across the cosmos delivering high-risk packages for terrifyingly powerful corporations and families.

It didn’t take long for Tarique and Bahram to arrive at their destination: Rod’s dilapidated home. The front of the house had a short porch made of dark decaying wood, accented by a row of dehydrated cacti. The off-white stucco of the exterior was dark and dirty around the edges, the gray-brown roof falling apart and faded long past its original rust orange.

Bahram spoke suddenly, and it seemed to shatter the stillness, “It doesn't look like anybody has lived here in a long while.”

“That’s because nobody has. Rod lives in his basement for the most part. It stays cooler down there, and he saves on electricity.”

Tarique stepped out of their hovercar first, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the desert sun as his feet sank in the sand beneath him. He felt nauseous and sick and slightly tipsy even though he hadn’t had that much to drink today. Tarique paused to take a swig from his flask, to quell the feeling of anxiety that seemed to vibrate off of the house in front of him. Every step he took towards the front door seemed wrong, as if he was walking backwards. For just a moment, he was a 14-year-old kid again, and he could see Rod’s sadistically grinning face in front of his own, his seemingly massive hand stretched out threateningly towards him. He blinked, and he was on the porch, doorknob in his right hand, laser-pistol in his left, hallucination gone.

The inside of the place was just as run-down as the outside. After confirming what he already knew about the emptiness of the upstairs, Tarique quickly moved past the living room, past the sickly-sweet stench of rotting fruit in the kitchen, to the entrance of the basement tucked away in the back of the pantry, which was partially blocked by a large shelf that had been knocked to the floor. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it would be easy to overlook the smooth door against the back wall. Past the door, the cement stairs took him down to a small cubical room, lit with a cheap fluorescent bulb and sparsely furnished with a stained blue cot to his left and a holo-television mounted on the wall to his right. Tarique’s throat itched something terrible, two inches above his collarbone, and although it had been no struggle whatsoever to climb down the steep stairs, his heart pounded in his chest, ready to flee from an unforeseen threat. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as he tore his eyes away from the blots of unrecognizable fluid on the shitty mattress lying lifeless on the floor.

Notably, the television was still on, and a bowl of lukewarm soup sat on the floor in front of it. Someone had been here recently, and had left in a hurry. Rod isn’t the kind of person to leave his lights and H-TV on if he was preparing to leave.

Was Bahram still checking out the house upstairs? Tarique listened carefully, and could hear his friend’s footsteps tracing a path through the home. There didn’t sound like there was any kind of struggle yet. Soon, Bahram’s head popped out from the stairway entrance.

“No luck finding the guy?”

“He’s not here now, but he’d been here recently. There’s a bowl of soup, and the H-TV is still on.”

The two sat in silence for a moment.

“If he recently left in a hurry, it must be because he heard us arrive outside. He must know he has a bounty on his head, but he doesn’t necessarily know it’s us coming after him. I don’t have any idea where he might go, since he knows his home isn’t a safe place anymore, but I do know what might draw him out to us, if he’s still as arrogant as he used to be.”

#

There are few things more precious to people nowadays than their hovercar, and Tarique knew that Rod was no exception. Rod owned an old, rusted red Ford that could barely keep itself off the ground anymore, and it sputtered and whined at Tarique as he drove the stolen vehicle up the highway he’d just come down. He inwardly cringed at the sheer amount of mechanical labor the thing needed before it spontaneously combusted on the road and killed all its passengers. The interior stunk like Rod himself was still there, and it sent him into anxious fits of panic every few minutes, but nonetheless, he kept driving.

Hopefully, Rod would return to where he’d parked it behind his house, and hopefully, he would notice Tarique’s old school ID card laid purposefully on the ground nearby, and hopefully, he would foolishly trek to Tarique’s old home to steal his car back before vanishing into the Nevada desert for good, where the law seemed to end.

That was a whole lot of hopefullys, Bahram had remarked when Tarique had explained his plan, but Tarique knew Rod better than anyone. He had an ego the size of the universe, and the ignorance to flout it, and he would come for his rusted red baby even if it meant walking into a trap, because he had gone years and years breaking the law and doing as he pleased and had lost his essential fear of danger. Tarique, on the other hand, still had fear in spades.

Tarique parked the rust machine right in front of his mother’s house, beside where Bahram parked their own hovercar. Now, it was time to wait.

Inside, the family was lounging around the living room lazily spread on the couch, watching Wheel of Fortune. Jo saw the two of them enter the room, and coughed conspicuously. Ray’s gaze drifted to her, and then back to Tarique.

“Milo, wanna see what I’m working on in the garage?” Ray gathered himself off the couch and tossed Milo over his shoulder.

Milo, laughing, exclaimed, “I can walk on my own, I’m almost 9 years old!” Soon, they were out of the room. Bahram, taking the hint, followed them down the back hallway to the garage. Tarique and Jo were alone.

The light of the red sun slanted through the old blinds, forming patterns on the flowery carpet. Whatever this conversation was going to be, Tarique didn’t want to have it. He pulled his flask out of his jeans pocket and took a long drink. The stripes of orange sun overlapping the green and pale purple designs on the worn carpet was a temporary respite from his inner anxieties. Jo, in a sharp contrast to her son, was never the kind of person to dance around the issue, and looked up at him from her seated position on the couch.

“Why didn’t you tell me all those years ago what was going on?”

Tarique avoided her intense gaze, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know full and well what I’m talking about. I could have helped you. We could have helped all those other children he hurt after he hurt you.”

And that was the heart of the issue he didn’t want to discuss. “I didn’t want your help. I didn’t want to be in Nevada. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“So instead you up and left?” Tarique said nothing, and Jo sighed heavily before standing and continuing. “I’m sorry.”

This time, Tarique looked her in the eye, “What?”

“I was right there the whole time. I knew something was wrong between the two of you. I just wasn’t home very often, and when I was, I was so very tired from working so much, trying to support us... Now that I look back on it, now that I know what Rod is, I see the signs. In my memories. How one day, you just stopped wanting to be touched, you stopped sleeping through the night, you walked around like an animal in a trap.” Tears were glistening in her eyes now. “I was right there with you, and I should have seen it, should have been a better mother to you, and I wasn’t. And I am so, so sorry, my sweet baby boy.”

Tarique was frozen in place, unformed, undecided words caught in his throat. After what felt like an age of silence, he finally got words out, and they weren’t the words he was expecting, “You need to leave.”

Jo blinked back in shocked confusion, “What?”

“I meant-” Tarique took a deep breath, “Rod is going to come here. Anyone who stays here is in danger. You and Ray should take Milo and go stay somewhere else for a few days. We’ll call you when it’s safe to come back.”

Slowly, Jo turned away from him, hands falling to her sides. “Alright. I’ll go tell the boys.”

#

Bahram and Tarique sat on the living room couch, waiting in silence for Rod to come for his hovercar. The sun had fallen some time ago, leaving the room saturated in shades of blues, blacks and grays, punctuated only by the orange glow of Tarique’s cigarette.

Bahram looked at the cigarette, and then back at Tarique, “Liver cancer wasn’t enough for you, you decided you also needed to give yourself lung cancer before the month was out?”

“Yeah, dontcha know, they give you a discount if you need multiple organs replaced. After we catch this guy, I’m gonna spend a week camping along the border of Russia, see what kind of cancers I get from bathing in the radiation.” Bahram only laughed, so Tarique continued, “What, you don’t believe me? You may think I’m crazy, but I’m saving money like this, you’ll see.”

It was amidst their laughter that they heard an engine roar to life and bright lights penetrate the room through the open blinds.

Tarique swore, “Shit!” They were out the door and in their hovercar in seconds, almost tripping over the stolen bike Rod must have used to get here, kicking the Tidbit of Burning Love it to life and turning to follow their target before they lost him for good.

In moments they were flying down the interstate, the desert around them passing in a blur. The hovercar thrummed and vibrated from underneath Tarique’s hands and feet, pushing at its maximum speed as they desperately tried to catch their bounty. Rod’s rust red vehicle wheezed ahead of them, unused to the fast speeds. They were gaining on him, the clear details of Rod’s twin jet engines and the bursts of fiery energy becoming clearer with every passing second. Bahram rolled down his window and pointed his laser pistol at one of Rod’s engines. Rod must have seen it, because he jerked his hovercar erratically to the left. Bahram fired anyway, and the beam of light singed a hole into the ground beneath them. Tarique tried to follow Rod’s evasive maneuvers, focused on giving Bahram a clear shot.

“We’re about to enter city limits! Slow down!” Bahram shouted to be heard over the roar of their engines. Even with Bahram’s warning, Tarique was too late to cushion their impact. The change in location registered in his hovercar’s computer, and they both slammed against the dash as their speed was automatically adjusted to fit the local speed limit. Las Vegas may be a hundred miles away, but moving at speeds of several hundred miles an hour in the desert countryside, a hundred miles was nothing, and even on the outskirts of Las Vegas, they weren’t permitted to go over 100 mph. The further into the city they went, the slower they would be forced to go.

Tarique peeled himself off of the hovercar’s steering wheel, and peered out of their windshield. Rod must have slammed into the speed-cap without slowing down as well, and if they were lucky, the strain on his old rust bucket would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and their bounty simply fall into their hands.

No such luck, however. Rod’s car was moving at a steady 100 mph, just like them.

“See if you can shoot out one of his engines!” Tarique said to Bahram, who was already rummaging through the bags on the floorboard for the laser-pistol that had been knocked out of his grip.

“I don’t want to accidentally hit the cars in front of him!” Bahram yelled, but he still pressed his body against the door and tried to take aim.

They were approaching the heart of the city, and in the distance Tarique could see the bright glow of skyscrapers that stretched for miles, often without touching the ground, the massive billboards on every free square inch of sky bellowing about their products with neon lights, and the layers and layers of skyways where hundreds of hovercars sped to their nighttime destinations. Las Vegas was full of life and activity, and it would be all too easy to lose a single car in the maze of urban landscape, but what Rod didn’t know was that for a time Las Vegas had been Tarique’s home, and Tarique knew it like the back of his hand. Tarique confidently flexed his hands around the steering wheel, mentally mapping out his strategy.

This skyway didn’t veer or offer turns for a few miles, where there would be an exit on the left that led to another skyway which could lead them back out of town, where Bahram might be able to get a clear shot without endangering any bystanders. Between here and that exit was a line of casinos and bars, commonly packed with limousines and bridges loaded with pedestrians. Rod would likely be forced to slow down to avoid crashing into busy traffic, which might give them the advantage, so long as Tarique was better at bobbing and weaving than he was.

A pink limousine pulled out of loading zone in front of a casino - Bittenbinder Bucks, to be specific - and blocked the red Ford, only for a moment while Rode laid on his horn and veered around the thing, but long enough for Tarique to gain a few inches on his tail. Coming up on the left was a parking garage, which Tarique remembered as always busy, cars pouring in and out of it at all hours of the night. Sure enough, the car in front of Rod slowed to turn into the garage, giving Tarique the opportunity to gain another several inches. Further up was a stoplight. Flashing headlights at stoplights to cause them to change early was such a rampant problem in the downtown area, that local peace officers had resorted to programming the things to stay red in response to excessive flashing. Tarique’s pinkie was on the headlights lever before the thought finished registering, and with a quick succession of a dozen or so flashes, the light which had been about to turn green, stayed red. Triumph flushed in Tarique’s cheeks as he swerved deftly closer to Rod’s vehicle, Bahram leaning out of the window to try to get another shot while they were still close.

Rod wasn’t planning on obeying traffic safety laws today, of all days. He sped through the light, Bahram’s shot missed the engine entirely, but still buried itself in the side of the vehicle, leaving a smoking hole behind. Tarique gritted his teeth and stuck to Rod’s tail, heart pounding as he got through the red light unscathed.

Ahead, slower cars on the skyway forced Rod to slow down once more and Tarique took the opportunity to pull up beside him and stick his own gun out of the window, pointing at Rod’s head without intending to shoot. Rod took the bait, and sharply veered to the left down the upcoming exit, where Tarique followed him. This exit would take them to another skyway, but this time headed east, which might take them out of the city. Rod didn’t slow down for cars and instead flew around them at a breakneck speed, swinging right around a red sports car, left around a slow minivan, left again around a motorcycle, only to jump behind the motorcycle again to avoid colliding with a freight truck, flying past more cars by riding the shoulder on the right. His right engine seemed to sag a little as he left the safety of the skyway, but he quickly corrected it. If he drifted too far off the road, the hovercar would lose its power supply from the currents of electricity funneled along the skyway and he would fall the hundreds of feet to his death, probably killing a number of other people on his way down. If Rod died before they could bring him in for the bounty, they would lose the bounty money they needed for Tarique’s new liver.

“It’s time for us to get off of the skyways.” Tarique growled. The exit out of town was coming up on their right. It was time to move. Tarique honked wildly to signal the other vehicles to get out of the way, most of which had already become aware of their reckless driving. They bullied their way to Rod’s left side, drifted outwards, and then slammed their hovercar into his as hard as they could stand. Rod partially flew and partially was flung down the exit, where Tarique and Bahram sped after him. The skyway dropped steadily before becoming level with the ground, and soon they were inches above desert sand again, neon lights at their back. The roadway was finally empty, just the two battered hovercars left standing after the brutal and dangerous fly through town. Bahram took the opportunity, lined up his shot, and cleanly pierced through Rod’s right engine, leaving a flaming and smoking hole. It died instantly, the flow of white energy holding up the right side of his hovercar cutting out completely.

Rod’s hovercar hit the ground hard and spun out of control, kicking up hot sand and shrubbery, before screeching to a stop a couple dozen feet left of the road. The pile of rusted red rubble lay there, smoking and popping. Tarique slammed on their own brakes, and they went skidding through the sand like a stone skipping across water, before they slid to a stop not far away from Rod’s vehicle. A warning light lit up on their dash, before the hovercar cut out completely and they were left in darkness. Bahram had to open the door to get enough light to dig their only pair of handcuffs out of their bag, fuzzy and pink. Tarique tightened his grip on his laser pistol, waiting on the thunder in his ears and the shaking in his chest to die down before stepping out of the car.

Bahram got out first, jogging towards the vehicle they had crashed. Tarique pressed the cool button of the door release and stepped out into the sand, intent to follow Bahram even if his skin seemed to crawl in the opposite direction and his instincts pounded against his skull from the inside, telling him to flee.

The crash looked even worse up close, warped and flaming pieces of metal twisted far beyond their original design. The interior should be relatively unscathed, if Rod had been keeping up with his vehicle maintenance, of which Tarique wasn’t sure. As Tarique rounded the other side of the hovercar however, his concerns were put to rest when he saw the creature crawling out of the windshield. Hearing Tarique’s approach, Rod’s eyes met Tarique’s own, and the face was too familiar for comfort. His puckered tanned skin was punctuated by small thin eyes and small thin lips, a broad crooked nose, and uneven tufts of what might have been beard hair. The skin tags were exactly where Tarique remembered them, outlining the outer edge of Rod’s left eye, reaching out of his skin as if small parts of his own body were trying to escape.

Those same skin tags followed the crinkling of Rod’s face as he sneered up at the both of them. “Prison won’t hold me for long,” Rod turned and spat a blog of blood, where it sizzled against a piece of smoking metal, “It didn’t the first time.”

Bahram didn’t pause to let Rod finish, gruffly grabbing Rob’s wrists and slapping the handcuffs on him, before rising to stand next to his partner once more. “What next? I’m not sure if our hovercar made it out of this much better than his.”

Nothing about this man was objectively terrifying, and yet, Tarique stood stock still, terrified to his very bones. His feet sank in the sand which had turned dark as the sun had set, and he anxiously scratched at the base of his neck, as if he could scrape off the memory of being choked into submission. His gun was slowly raised to point directly at those distinguishable skin tags that he saw etched onto the back of his eyelids every time he tried to sleep, and the gun shook and quivered in his hand like a leaf caught in a storm.

Tarique paused to empty his flask, simultaneously needing and hating the burn sliding down his throat and the heat spreading through his abdomen.

The cause of years of nightmares and flashbacks and drinking, the abject terror every time a man with skin like old mottled leather entered his field of vision feeling like a hunted animal no matter how many light-years he put between himself and this god-forsaken blue pearl, the cause of pointless suffering with no end on the horizon that had been his life for the last 10 years, squatting in the burning sand before him. He imagined, if he could snuff out the cause of all of these problems, that dark thread tying the two of them together would fall away, and he could live his life safe in the knowledge that no one could ever hurt him the way that Rod had ever again. And if liver cancer took his life in a month, or hell, if liver cancer took his life tomorrow the day spent free of those shackles would be preferable to a long life with the knowledge that Rod is still breathing in a prison cell somewhere. Tarique made his decision, carefully aimed his gun between Rod’s twin beady eyes, and with a twitch and a bright flash, that dark thread was cut. He felt no guilt as the body hit the ground and black blood sprayed onto the blue sand.

Distantly, he could hear Bahram yelling in shock, “The poster said wanted alive, Tarique! We’re not gonna get any bounty money! How are we-” A gust of wind rose and blew a sheet of dark sand between them, drowning out Bahram. Tarique turned and walked away. His words were pointless, anyhow. There was nothing that Tarique could say to make him understand.

#

One week later

It had taken what seemed like forever to get his hovercar back in working order, but no motor machinery was beyond fixing when Tarique decided it was going to be fixed, and so after one week and 30 some odd hours of labor and plenty of time waiting on the right parts to be delivered, the hovercar was in pristine condition. Tarique now crouched in his chair at the control panel of the Hunk of Burnin Love, gazing out at the kaleidoscope of red and blue refracted stars. There were few things in the world more beautiful than viewing a solar-system through the inside of a warp-bubble, and yet, it did nothing to relax Tarique’s aching muscles or relieve the spasms of pain spreading outwards from his stomach. The ship was silent and empty of life aside from his own. He gripped a bottle of bourbon, knowing full and well he shouldn’t be drinking with a failing liver, and doing it anyway. It seemed like no matter how many bottles of liquor he put back, he couldn’t get the feeling of sand out of his shoes.