Living in the Fray

Chapter Seven

'Aw come on! We got shit to do for this dumb show later and we wanna go to the pub, fuck sake!'

Ronson was losing the plot slightly in the rush hour New Edo traffic. He had gone out with Krieger doing some small deliveries in the company car; the company car being an obnoxious 1970 Plymouth Barracuda painted up in an eye catching black-to-purple metallic sheen that changed colour depending on the light hitting it. It was known as the Pimp Mobile but known as the Gimp Mobile by those who knew the masochistic idiots who drove it. The rest of the crew were either busy doing maintenance on the ship, restocking or doing other delivery jobs that didn't warrant using the car.

Zach however had kept himself busy for quite a while by doing the company books again and getting the crew some smaller jobs to tide them over till the Convict Chase which at the time wasn't far off. All because he was left behind on New Edo during the Conner job and nobody had realised they had forgot about him. It happened a lot.

'Yeah thanks for leaving me boss. Again.' He said to Krieger with disdain.

'Dude I'm pretty sure you said you didn't want in on this job, you had an important date?'

Zach racked his brains trying to remember if he did say he wanted out but he couldn't really recall. He did have a date though that he did remember.

'Oh yeah I did sorry I forgot I even told you!'

Krieger nearly let out a sigh of relief but kept it to herself knowing she just dodged a bullet by convincing the universes biggest idiot he had said no. At least Zach hadn't spent the entire weekend trying to get in to the pants of some dolly bird and had done something productive. The company was still in the black again this month.

That was ages ago or so it seemed. The crew had been keeping themselves busy right up until the Convict Chase was about to start. Krieger was doing her best in order to prepare, which basically meant she worked when she had to and spent the rest of her time down the pub. Ronson as always was her handler for the Chase. Every competitor was allowed a team-mate who could help them track down their targets using a combination of information they were given and terminal where they could access CCTV footage, then relay this to their hunter. They weren't allowed out on to the playing field as such but were confined to the Convict Chase HQ. The hunters were permitted to carry their own weapons out on to the field and nothing more; everything else was down to on-site procurement meaning anything they could find could be used. Hunters were also given an allowance of five thousand credits for any sundries or sustenance they required but they couldn't spend any more. The amount of convicts varied every year as well as their danger level and there was a time limit in which every single one had to be dispatched. But it was a special Convict Chase this year as they teased they had some pretty serious criminals competing, so everybody was wondering if the game's producers would be doing anything radical.

Krieger and Ronson were nearly at the Chase HQ where they had to go through the formalities of final registration which involved appearing on some dumb pre-Chase TV show that was broadcast throughout the galaxy; showing off the years competitors as well as the cons who were fundamentally sentenced to death by the hands of a pack of bloodthirsty mercenaries. It was like The Hunger Games and The Running Man had a baby but was nearly all in favour of the hunters, the cons got nothing out of it except an interesting death or if they were incredibly lucky and managed to survive past the time limit; they got to live but got thrown back in prison to carry out the rest of their sentence. If one of the cons however happened to kill a hunter, depending on their crime and severity then their sentence could be reduced or they received certain privileges; and this made for a very interesting format. It did show just exactly if the cons wanted to live or not.

The entire planet had been preparing for the event which was to start in just a few days. This also meant that travel to and from New Edo was stopped for a little while. It didn't bother the locals though; the Chase brought plenty of tourists beforehand in which meant money and lots of it. It was a novel idea for the people of the more exclusive and fancy planets to come and have a weekend on the shithole that was New Edo which had become a destination of Bucket List proportions. The rich people of Pacifica and Galleria would come and slum it out for a weekend or so on New Edo then take news and stories of the subpar hotels and facilities that the hell hole had to offer back to their family and friends, but gush about how it was a once in a lifetime experience; similar to a billionaire deciding to take the family on a camping holiday on a one star site on the wettest weekend of the year in Bognor Regis. The family hated it at the time, but oh how they laugh about it now.