The gun twitched in his hands. "Don't move, jackass."

Great, just fucking great. The first living Human I'd come across after spending hours in this shithole had to be a Year 7, one who was holding a gun up to my face no less. Like, sure, our species weren't exactly known to be looking out for each other and that. But I at least expected some decent first impressions.

This was definitely going to be a mugging, I was sure of it. It might as well have been with a kid instead any of the armed thugs who were literally chasing me across town like ten seconds ago. It wasn't even like I had anything of value on me, anyway. Except the American Express card. Yeah, I could do without that, couldn't I?

"Hey, listen. I've got a-"

The boy interrupted me. "Shut up." he gestured his gun to the open back door. "Move."

Worth a try. I complied, and entered the junk-filled yard, with the barrel of the gun gently pushing my back from behind. I stepped over the broken fence and into the labyrinth of alleyways ahead of us.

"What's this about, mate?" I asked, sighing as we moved through the alleyways. Surprisingly, the boy didn't tell me to shut up immediately. Maybe he could bring up the credit card again. "Look, I've got an old credit card on me. Worth a few thousand DCs. Quite a hefty sum, don't you think?" That was if digital-credits had any value out here.

"You are the hefty sum," the kid said. That sounded better in his head, didn't it?

"You what?"

He stuttered for a second. "I mean you've got a bounty on your head."

Oh great, another nutter out to hunt me. Hey, at least they spoke English this time. I had to find a way out of this situation. Should I have played clueless? Yeah, I could have played clueless. "I don't know what you're on about. You've probably got the wrong guy, mate." I maybe could've gone without the 'probably', but that was decently convincing, right?

"Don't try weaselling your way out of this."

Keep up the act!

"I'm serious!"

"The description said 'Human male, brown-skin, massive beard, British accent, early thirties."

No name then, huh?

"Oh come on, this is racial profiling! And I'm twenty-eight!"

"Well, I don't see anybody else matching it in this town. Besides, those guys back there can't've been chasing you for nothing."

"Those lot just had one too many," I said, cringing at my lies. "It was just a bar scrap. You know how the Liquorice can be!"

"Liquorice?" The boy repressed a smirk.

Fuck! "Laci- Loqer- no wait... what are they called again?"

"Loreqi. They didn't seem drunk to me."

"Well, you'd be very surprised what people can get up to when they're pissed on moonshine. Look, I'm just a... contractor from Blackliver."

A bit of offence sprung into his voice, "I'm from Blackliver."

"No the other one."

"The massive strip club?"

"No, the other other one. Point is, you got the wrong guy." Jesus Christ, my argument was in shambles. I had to find something else. Hold on, the name! "Um... I- oh, did the description say anything about my name?"

The boy paused for a second. "Just called you the 'Feral'."

The Feral? Eh, I'm pretty sure the 'Zodiac Pisser' would've made more sense. No, that was terrible. It didn't matter, I was now out of ideas.

We made our way to some sort of combat modified jeep, again Human made. Imprinted with the hundred-starred flag of the United States on the back door. I wanted to say it was former military, but the whole vehicle clearly had a massive revamp so it could've just been a decoration. The boy opened the door, gesturing me to get inside.

I complied again, and the second I stepped inside I basked in the glory of the air conditioner. The barrel of the gun pressed on me again, and I sat at the far end of the cramped vehicle.

"Ryan, who the hell is this?!" I looked to the driver's seat, witnessing a massive humanoid avian, with her large, feathered head pressed into the headliner. It wasn't exactly anything I hadn't seen before, I knew this race quite well, everyone in Human space did - this was an Arvan, a Pyerin ethnicity I guessed. I don't know their ethnicities that well. "Where's the shopping?!"

"I've got ourselves a bounty," the boy, now known as Ryan, stated proudly.

"I haven't got a bounty on me," Nolan argued.

"I already know you're speaking bullcrap, you're not gonna gain anything from continuing."

The Arvan looked at the weirdo sitting in the backseat, noticed the subtle 'I'm so fucked' expression on my face, and facepalmed. "Why do you keep doing this? You can't keep pulling stunts like this!"

A stunt? Yeah, right.

"Eyha, he's worth-"

"I really don't care, Ryan. You could've gotten yourself killed!"

Gotten himself killed? The boy was tasked with shopping in a town dubbed the 'biggest backwater' by a Comfort-Bot on his own. And she was worried about him taking the muppet in their backseat hostage?

I wasn't the only one thinking this, it was already clear it got into Ryan's mind too. "But-"

"But nothing. You don't get to call the shots around here." The Arvan, Eyha, turned to me. "I'm really sorry about him."

"Um... it's fine, I guess?" I said. This was a joke right? Was I, some bloke who wrote magazine articles for a living, with a massive bounty on his head, going to get off the hook because of the incoherent logic and weird drama of the kid's bird mum? Christ, talk about a deus ex machina. "Does this mean I can leave now?"

"Yeah, sure," she said.

"What the hell, Eyha?! You're throwing away five-hundred grand here!" Ryan cried, just as I opened the car door, already scot-free.

Before the Arvan could answer, the sound of a dent impacted the car's window. Eyha looked to the window on her left, it was a gunshot. No doubt, it was the guys from the bar. Son of a bitch, they really had firearms on them? Thankfully, the glass was bulletproof, otherwise she'd have probably been dead by now. Okay, maybe Eyha had a point about that whole 'getting yourself killed' thing.

"Ryan, what the hell did you do?" The Arvan asked calmly, right on the brink of throwing a fit.

He immediately pointed at me. "All him."

"Oh, you wiry cu-" I refrained from the insult as a couple more bullets dented the windows. "Hi, Eyha was it? You mind getting us the hell out of here?!"

"First of all, you're grounded, Ryan."

"Oh come on!"

Eyha looked at me again, clearly convinced by the bounty on my head. "You? We'll get Bryce to sort you out." Right after that, she stomped right onto the gas, hauling the jeep right through the ribcage and out of the town.