less human than human (narrative)
after this. before this.

"Did you hire anyone yet?"

"I just got back from a big job."

"I read about it. That's why I'm calling."

"You people don't know how to mind your fucking business, do you?"

"Your business is our business, Mr. Skandra."

"Oh. Right."

This. This was the kind of bullshit that he hated wasting his time on. In a right world, he would be going after big game. Some two-bit piece of shit like the AIA getting implants wasn't even really on his radar. After the incident at the tower Skandra had turned into a commodity very much in demand. Luckily, he knew how to sell himself. Which illustrated the lack of a need for employees to his way of thinking. In another life he'd be getting his dick sucked on the moon by a three-breasted hooker, just the way Total Recall had promised him. It was Mars, wasn't it? Yeah. Mars.

Mars, or the moon.

"How much do you want to make?" Skandra asked lazily.

"Twenty an hour."

"Ten."

"Ten?!"

"Well, how the fuck should I know? Fifteen?"

"Sixteen."

"Done. Keep wearing skirts and you might make it here, kid."

The name of the place was Outer Haven, as the neon sign proclaimed. Skandra stared through the dark doorway for a long moment as the driving rain pelted his coat. Gun in one hand, phone in the other. This was the right joint, but it didn't look like anybody was home. Could just be a trick. No, the informant didn't have any reason to lie, did she? It wasn't like a bunch of two-bit skin jocks were gonna pay more money than an FBI-financed bounty hunter. Phone in his pocket, Skandra took another look down the hall. Nothing at all. Gripping the pistol with both hands, barrel pointed at the ceiling, Skandra plunged into the blackness. Greatest thing about being a bounty hunter - no need for a warrant. Especially not if the mother fucking door was open. These guys really had no idea who they were screwing with did they? Blue light, white light, flickered at the end of the smooth-walled corridor. Somebody had just turned on the light. Apocalyptic in its random, rapid-fire blinking the light called him like a moth to a flame.

"They're gonna be here in five minutes, man," the first voice - in his head, it became Squeaky - said.

"I'll fucking deal them if they do," the second voice - in his head, it became Barry - said.

Skandra inched closer to the corner with his gun pointed at the sky beyond the ceiling, ears straining. Clacking keys. A shuffling of feet. And there. Someone pulled back the hammer on their gun. Sudden wind stirred the coat around his ankles, howling as it brought chilled air and moisture into the hall. No doubt Barry and Squeaky were doing their best fucking job to get out of here before 'they' showed up, but Skandra had a bounty laying on one of this motherfucker's table. Squeaky was a plastic surgeon and wetware guy, the sort of bastard who installed shit on AIA. A new eyeball. New program hacks. A better arm or leg. A new heart. And some even said, feelings. Skandra had scoffed at the notion on his couch, when Suzy Koontz - the delightfully sultry, hour-glass blonde who read him the news every night - had told him about it. Robots couldn't feel, that's why they were robots. If it ever got to the point that they could feel, they'd be human beings too, and then Skandra and the rest would be in fucking trouble.

Thunderclap.

"So what's your experience with law enforcement?" Skandra asked lazily.

"Is this law enforcement?"

"Sorta. We get badges."

"Wouldn't mind a tin star."

"Did you really say you were going to beat him into a real boy?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"You're hired."

"Somebody's out there," Barry said grimly, and Skandra heard a slide being worked.

Semi-auto. Probably a Glock. Slowly, very slowly, Skandra eased the hammer on his pistol back. Too much to keep track of for most people. For him this was old hat. Come out on his side, put two in Barry, and if Squeaky reaches for that piece of shit Uzi put two in him. If you replaced Barry and Squeaky with 'raghead' and 'camel jockey', it was exactly how he'd spent the glory years of his youth. Hitting one building after another like a Kansas tornado and killing a couple of people he never even spoke to, could never speak to. Picking up Farsi was a bullshit waste of time, and so was learning Arabic. The only reason he still remembered any Russian at all was the fact that he spent three years working with the cocksuckers on the ISS-3. After a while you didn't really notice that they were speaking Russian, they just sounded like the retards who never ever missed a family reunion. Come to think of it, the gunslinger - Barry - sounded like he had a Russian accent. He sounded like every god damn bad Russian accent Skandra had ever heard rolled into one.

"Yeah, I'm here," Skandra finally called as another bout of wind and rain lashed him from the main entrance.

"Who are you?" the young one - Squeaky - demanded.

"My name's Robert Skandra. I'm-"

"We saw you on news," the Russian - now his name was Boris, no matter what happened - exclaimed. "You kill robot, yes?"

"Yes."

"H-h-hey, there aren't any robots here man," Squeaky informed him.

"Well, I guess that depends on what you classify as a robot, doesn't it?" Skandra called back. "I think the cock-eyed motherfucker sitting in room number 612 qualifies."

"How you know?!" Boris raged at him, and Skandra could hear heavy footfalls as the Russian drew closer.

"You know your lab assistant?"

"We've got five."

"The brunette."

"Yeah...?"

"I've been fucking her for the last two weeks."

"Motherfucker, that's my sister!" Squeaky snapped.

Skandra's riotous laughter wasn't encouraging them to bring this to a peaceful resolution.

"So you hired them both?" the smoky-voiced woman asked.

"Didn't give me much of a choice, did you?" Skandra asked quietly.

"But you did do it?"

"Yeah."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"I've got a pretty good idea."

The phone made a lovely click as it landed in the cradle.

"Well his fucking friends are coming up here," Squeaky said. "Maybe you oughta clear out, old man."

They're coming. Boris would fucking deal with them, would he? Skandra grimaced sourly. Making a deal with a shit-bag like this infuriated him to no end, but there were no guarantees that he'd be able to kill 'em both, and anyway Skandra didn't really want to try. They were human beings, even if they were scum, and he was tired of shooting human beings for no fucking reason. That had been his job back then, but now it was different. Would've felt the same about shooting a toaster, but a basket of kittens wasn't the same thing. Rough analogy. He needed a new one. At last decided under the dancing blue and white lights, Skandra called out an answer to his.

"What happened? You fuck up his mod?"

"They ain't gonna pay, man. They're gonna kill me. Their buddy ended up on a bounty list!"

"Well how about this," Skandra suggested. "I'll help you deal with them, and you give me that poor bastard in 612 in return."

"You know what's gonna happen to me if I give you the poor bastard in 612? My business is shot!"

"No chance," Boris added.

"Would you rather be dead?"

That was the million dollar question, the one that got everybody thinking. About life and the things that could go wrong in it. It was possible to be brave and still think yourself into whatever position you wanted, if you had enough time to do it. Men in the heat of battle didn't concern themselves with thinking about how to get away from the consequences of their own actions. They just went out guns blazing and finished the fight one way or the other. These two didn't want to fight - that much was obvious. Skandra figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of them not trying to fucking kill him as soon as the coast was clear, but sure as Skandra'd pinch one off tomorrow, they knew they weren't going to make it out of this situation on their own. That was the deciding factor more than anything Skandra said. It was the reason they were so fucking eager to get the hell out of here, wasn't it? They wanted to live, and they knew they wouldn't unless they killed these AIA that were coming for them or ran now.

Running was out of the question.

"Robert Skandra?"

"Why'd you use my full name?" Skandra asked drunkenly. "Makes me feel like a high school principal."

"I just wanted to make sure you were alone."

"Yeah, I'm alone."

"So-"

"In the envelope."

They charged down the hall like banshees. Shrieking and swinging chains above their heads like wild men, straight out of a myth, raging toward final destiny with all weapons bare in the old-style charge of doomed men. Squeaky - his name was Tom Faith, and Boris was actually Ivan Dragunis - nearly shit himself, and dove around the corner for cover. Boris was made of sterner stuff, but even he wasn't quite ready to square off against them. Skandra guessed there had to be at least ten of them. Raising the Raging Bull and gripping it in both hands he wanted, chains lashing out impotently, swords and clubs waving in the air. They were protecting the fucking Frankenstein monster, weren't they? Closer. A little closer. A mob. Come to burn the creature out of the hills or die trying. Only these were here to put the monster back into the hills, weren't they? Rain assaulted his senses, and flickering blue-white light gave the hall an odd ethereal glow. Too soon, too late. Skandra pulled the trigger, and the Raging Bull let smoke stream forth from its nostril. A challenge.

Six of the AIA were in a rough line. Bullet traveled through all of them, just one shot, and shrieks rang out as this arm or that side of the face was torn away. Those as could make a sound were making them, hideous wicked cries as Skandra controlled the recoil of his pistol and prepared for another shot. Blood had spattered the hallway, streaking along the walls like some sort of cave painting to proclaim their courage. Here the banshees of the hill had faced the smoking bull of the heavens and here they were put to rest for good, never again to rise. The rest came on like men who had discovered anew the frailty of their flesh. No stopping what was next. Boris squeezed off a couple of shots, but it didn't help. Chains slapped into Skandra's face and he staggered, down the entry and toward the reception area where Ivan and Tom had been waiting before. Five of them left. Boris was giving it his all, but he was getting savaged. Another chain, folded into itself three times, crashed into his elbow. The Raging Bull went to the ground.

"Bounty hunter, I fucking knew it!" one of them shrieked.

Skandra took that opportunity to yank the KA-BAR knife out of his coat. Face painted like a clown the AIA was laughing, maniacally almost. Chains jingling in his hands. The poor bastard never saw a blade that was spray painted in black matte, a blade that barely caught light. A black hole. A weapon of suffering. He screamed as the knife went into his chest. Blood sprayed as it came out. Never to scream again as Skandra flipped the knife around in mid-swing, reversing his grip and slashing the motherfucker's throat. Skandra kicked the body savagely, knife clutched in his hand as he turned. Coat flaring out behind him, again proclaiming his invincibility to the world for only that split second. The Raging Bull was close, close enough to feel the weight of each solitary bullet chambered in the weapon. One of the AIA was even closer. Skandra felt a chain lash against his back as he fell on the revolver, shoulder rolling underneath him. It was the barest fucking gripo he had on the gun as his back collided with the wall. Fuck, it hurt.

Fuck.

"I'm just not used to it, that's all."

"You figure everybody ought to be embarrassed?" Skandra asked with a smile.

"It's always nice to deal with a professional."

"Couldn't agree more," he replied as he unzipped his pants.

It wasn't a fucking AIA. It was Dragunis, and with the chain dangling limply from his hand the Russian was pointing a gun at him. A good-old fashioned Mexican standoff. In moments like this, face to face with a hard motherfucker that would pull the trigger as soon as he knew he could do it and survive, you didn't have a lot of time to think about what the fuck you were going to do. Ivan smiled those messed up crooked Russian teeth. No doubt the bruiser thought he got the fucking drop on Skandra. Blood soaked from the AIA, breathing hard, Skandra's aim never wavered. Ivan was not a tough nut to crack. Guys like this only cared about one thing, and it wasn't loyalty. It was money. If he got offered more than the kid was paying him, he'd take it, wouldn't he?

"Hey, Ivan, how about we make a deal?" Skandra asked in harsh tones. "I'd rather not blow your head off."

"You think you have Ivan? It is Ivan has you," the Russian replied.

"Why do I always get caught in standoffs," Skandra muttered darkly. "Next time I'm just going to pull the trigger."

"Wh-"

A hollow, smoking wound in Ivan's chest settled the issue kind of quick. Next time, just shoot. Just shoot. This was aggravating.

"You do this often?" she asked coyly; she already knew the answer.

"Might do it more often," Skandra said dreamily as her fingers spread across his chest. "You're good at this."

"Well, I've had a lot of practice," and that with a giggle that managed to be both sly and innocent.

"Trust me, it shows," and the sigh was one hundred percent heartfelt.

612. It was like staring at the door to heaven. Cops were on their way, and if he didn't have the collar on this robot by the time they got there he was going to be in a world of hurt. Tom had been more than willing to show him the way once Skandra stuck the still-smoking barrel of a .500 caliber Magnum handgun in his face and told him that Ivan fucked up his shot at freedom. Some people only needed a little encouragement. One look at Ivan's ruined body gave Tom a despairing look in his eyes, and those grasping hands clutched at Skandra's coat until he realized it was soaked in blood. Only the KA-BAR was clean. He used Ivan's silk coat to wipe it clean. Fuck that guy, anyway. Pointing a gun at somebody wasn't a 'just kidding' kind of offense in Skandra's world, especially not if the gun was loaded. Now Tom was just clutching at his arm frantically, staring back at the lobby with wide eyes.

"Do you know who the fuck that was?"

"Only if Ivan was his real name."

"The fucking Dragunis man, do you know who the fuck-"

"What, some gangsters?"

"Not just gangsters," Tom cried out. "They'll fucking kill me, and you!"

Skandra inspected the door with a jaundiced eye. Jaundiced. Cirrhosis humor. Nice. There was something about it that told him he wasn't going to find a convalescing patient in there. If Tom was the brains behind this operation, then obviously they were in need of an upgrade at the position. Only why was a two-bit gangster hanging out in a joint like this? Did the family own the place? No, fuck it. He didn't want to know why. One dead gangster was one dead gangster. Fuck him. Skandra shoved Tom toward the door, and the gearhead stumbled frantically. It was clear he didn't want to open a door cast half in shadows and half in light, bristling with hate even to a layman's eyes. Skandra pulled the hammer back with his thumb and leveled the gun. Tom was going to get cooperative or he was going to get dead.

"Man, you don't know what kinda shit you just brought down on us. Both of us!"

"You want less shit to deal with?" Skandra asked quietly, short steps carrying him toward Tom, with that gun pointed right at the kid's forehead. "You want me to start subtracting your fucking problems, kid?"

"N...no..."

"Then open the god damn door!"

Her hips were writhing against him, both of them covered in sweat. Skandra didn't know how long they'd been there. Either he had miscounted the bills in that envelope or every minute was taking five to pass. Either way it felt like a huge victory to him. Strawberry nails tangled in his hair. Lips against his neck, against his jaw, against his ear. Wrapped up in heaven, surrounded by it. Constricting until he finally gave up and let the feeling win, until he gave up and let that feeling sweep him away into nothingness, a totally new state of being that wasn't troubled by physical or mental concerns.

"You're in great shape for a forty year old," she whispered in his ear quietly. "Most of the guys I do this with..."

"That mean you'll have dinner with me?"

"Not a chance," and she underscored that with a throaty laugh. "This is business, Mr. Skandra."

"Business is good."

Silent. Still. That was how he would have described the room if he'd been given a thousand and one adjectives. Just two. A cloth draped over a blood-stained body. Cloth and body both blood-stained. Tom was looking on with something akin to horror. Instruments of surgery, instruments of change. Of destiny. Glittering silver in the ambient light, shadows castling long against the wall. There was a breath. A second, then a third. Skandra stared for a long moment, gun hanging by his side. Tom was huddled up in a corner of the room as though terrified to come any closer. Had he seen this already? If he had, what the fuck was he afraid of letting Skandra find the guy for? For a second, Skandra wondered if Ivan had known this motherfucker was all cut up.

Probably not.

"What the hell happened?" Skandra asked quietly.

"There were problems. Uh..."

"Uh?"

"I..."

Skandra approached the bed at a slow walk, stared into the pits on the cloth where eyes would be. His shadow loomed over him on the wall, gun in hand. Wisps of smoke coming from the cigarette hanging at one corner of his mouth. Too bad. Quiet, too quiet. There was something odd and serene about the horror laid out before him. A certain quiet that he'd seen before, in triage and in hospitals, when the dying were laid out to rest. Shielded from the cruelty of the world. Only this wasn't a man, it was a robot. Odd how you could almost never tell the difference. Keeping Tom very close out of the corner of his eye, Skandra reached for the cloth that was covering its face.

"Don't do that, man," Tom cautioned him.

"Why not? I've got to make sure this is my robot."

"Because-"

With a dramatic whip of sound, the cloth was pulled back.

"You're my new number one customer," she whispered in his ear.

"Stop. I'm getting hot," dry as the fucking Sahara while he lit a cigarette.

"Baby, I hope so. What a man."

The line between reality and fantasy that only legal tender could buy was starting to get blurry, even for him. Where did one stop and the other begin again? She was acting like he could have her any time, but he knew she was going to count the money right in front of him beforehand, every time.

"I don't want to keep you."

"Throwing me out already?" she pouted. "I was sure a rich guy like you..."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Had to take out a loan for that hour."

"I hope it was worth it."

"Every penny. Even the interest."

There were microchips exposed on the face. One eyeball had turned red, completely red. And still the poor mother fucker's lips were gasping, pursed as though trying to suck down air. More air. It was hopeless. This robot was fucked, no matter what he did. Blood dripping from the ear, pooling beneath his head. On the ground. Not his. Its head. Skandra stared expressionless for as long as he could. In the end it wasn't the horror of it that made him turn away. No horror at all. In the end it was just a simple desire to deal with the living instead of the dead. Pulling the sheet over its massacred face, bounty hunter locked eyes with lab rat. Fear. Paranoia. And most of all horror. Horror at what he'd done? Even if the robot knew it was dying on anything more than an intellectual level, it was still a machine. No matter how much of a voice it had, or how many feelings it could pretend to feel.

"That isn't the thing I came here looking for."

"He is. He got his face changed."

"By you?" Skandra demanded.

"No, no. I don't do that shit. Somebody else. Man, his whole fucking face... he was infected under the skin. As soon as I cut in..."

"What was it?"

"Not it. He. Name was Bela Popov."

Skandra looked back at the cloth. The bloody sockets. More blood dripping onto the floor.

"This was a man?"

"I... well fuck man, he was half robot anyway. Who the fuck knows if he was a man or a machine anymore?"

"And those goons out there? They were his?"

"Y... yeah."

"There wasn't any accident, was there?" Skandra demanded - and now the gun was pointed at Tom again. "Ivan told you to do this, didn't he?"

"I..."

Easy to see the changes in his face. From fear to loathing to a sudden challenge, eyes flashing, as though lashing out in anger was going to save him from this. Robots were one thing. Torturing this man, no matter what, sick as hell. Tom's eyes looked ready to pop out of his head. Here it came. The justification for everything. Tom was going to explain why it was all right to cut a man like this, even one who was blurring the line between man and machine. Fucking hell, they all thought they were gods. Whatever they did could bear no ill fruit, could it? Just like the fucking Nazis or a thousand other dictators that he'd seen all throughout his fucking life.

"You aren't gonna tell my brother, are you?"

"What?" Skandra took the cigarette out of his mouth, stared at her naked form while it still was.

"I'm not stupid," she told him quietly. "I know why you started buying me."

"You think," he blew a smoke ring at that beautiful ass with a smile on his face. "It's because of Timmy?"

"Tommy. And yeah."

"Tommy. Won't forget again."

"You gonna tell him?"

"Matter of fact, I was at his office earlier today. I think we sorted things out nicely."

"You kill for a fucking living and you're pissed at me for cutting up on some Russian motherfucker?!"

"I kill robots, not humans."

"Fuck you, you think anybody can tell the difference anymore?!"

"I can."

"You never killed a human on accident?"

"Not on accident."

"And it doesn't bother you, shooting people for money?"

It was an interesting question. Not the first time he'd been asked. When Skandra thought about it he realized he'd been taking money from the government to kill people for over twenty years. In that time you started to get a few things straight in your mind. One, laws only existed because people in suits said they did. The reality of any law was different from the theory of it. Anything could be bent, anything could be broken, as long as you had a good story for it. Two, killing people in practice was a lot easier than killing them in theory. Didn't take a robot. Didn't even take a special kind of man. Morality was so fluid anyway. You could make your paradigm into whatever you wanted to make it into to justify the lives you took. They could just stop being lives in your mind. First shot blew Tom's arm off, and he screamed as blood streamed out of his skin. Second shot sprayed his head against the wall.

Not even a blink.

Skandra looked down, at that cloth covering the sad remnants of a human being. Criminal? Only insofar as those arbitrary fucking rules made him. Still a human being. It finally registered, what those pursed lips had been trying to do. Not suck in air. Trying to talk, to breath out one word to the first face he'd seen in probably days didn't intend on torturing him until the end of time. It was a plea, one last request. Not for a cigarette or a drink. Just the last plea of any man in the kind of shape that Bela Popov was in.

He wanted to die.

Nestled comfortably against the skin, Skandra's revolver barrel was still hot as hell. Bela didn't endure the torture long. Pointed just right, to spray as little as possible in his direction. Orange glow of the cigarette gave the room an eerie light as Skandra pulled the trigger. Not even a drop of blood on the barrel, so clean was the stream of blood. The river of red. Bela was dead as a doornail. Okay, a little blood on the barrel. He wiped it on that white cloth, and looked back to Tom's body. Almost a tradition after a job like this to press the barrel against his cheek, and squeeze the trigger.

Click.

"Not anymore."

In his mind he'd only fired four shots. In reality he'd fired five. It was getting harder and harder to tell the difference between what he wanted and what was actually happening. When you blurred one line the rest of them felt it. Trickle down effect. Sooner or later reality was going to catch up with him. He almost felt sorry for whoever reality sent, though. Guaranteed to have reloaded his gun between now and then. Another drag of the cigarette.

"I need a new line."