Chapter 2: Bounty Hunter With a Metal Arm

The Hanging Bridge got its name from what happened there thirty years ago.
Ryo learned this from the bartender at the Rusty Circuit that morning—twelve outlaws strung up by vigilantes, left to swing in the desert wind until their bodies turned to leather. Now it was just a rusted metal bridge spanning a dried-up canyon on the eastern edge of Redwater Ridge, a place where only fools and dead men met.
Perfect for a trap.
Ryo checked his revolvers one last time before stepping onto the bridge. Noon sun hammered down like a judge's gavel. His boots rang against metal grating, each step echoing into the canyon below. Fifty feet down, sun-bleached bones jutted from cracked earth—animal or human, he couldn't tell.
He reached the center of the bridge and stopped.
Waited.
The wind picked up, carrying the smell of rust and gunpowder. Somewhere in the distance, a mechanical vulture circled, its cameras glinting in the light.
"Right on time," a voice called out. "I like that in a man who's about to die."
Ryo's hand drifted to his revolver.
A figure stepped out from behind one of the bridge's support beams. Woman. Mid-twenties. Tall and lean, dressed in a long brown coat that had seen better days, worn jeans, and boots that looked like they'd kicked in a hundred doors. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed her face, and a red bandana hung loose around her neck.
But what caught Ryo's attention was her left arm.
From shoulder to fingertips, it was pure chrome and steel—intricate machinery visible beneath transparent panels, pistons hissing softly with each movement. The fingers ended in retractable claws that gleamed like surgical instruments. Wires ran beneath artificial skin, glowing faintly blue.
She stopped ten feet away, hand resting casually on the revolver at her hip. Her eyes—one green, one cybernetic gold—fixed on Ryo with predatory focus.
"S.Q.," Ryo said. "Sera Quinn."
She smiled, but it was all edges. "Did your homework. Good. Saves me the introduction." She tilted her head. "You're Ryo Kazehara. Nineteen years old. No known family. Fast draw specialist. And apparently stupid enough to come to Redwater Ridge looking for Zero Vance."
"You've done your homework too."
"I'm a bounty hunter, sweetheart. It's my job to know who's worth killing." Her mechanical hand flexed, claws extending slightly. "And you? You've got a price on your head already. Five thousand chips. Not bad for one day in town."
Ryo's eyes narrowed. "The Brass Vultures."
"Bingo. You embarrassed them yesterday. Made them look weak. They can't have that." Sera took a step closer. "So they put out a bounty. Open contract. Every hunter in Redwater Ridge is looking for you right now."
"Including you?"
"Including me." Another step. "But here's the thing, Kazehara. I don't like the Brass Vultures. And I *really* don't like people who work for them." Her good eye studied him. "So I'm gonna make you an offer. One time only."
"I'm listening."
"You want Zero Vance. I want Zero Vance. He's worth fifty thousand chips dead, two hundred thousand alive." She gestured at the canyon. "But he's untouchable. Ghost. Phantom. Nobody's gotten within a mile of him and lived to collect." Her smile sharpened. "Except I've got information. A lead. Something solid."
"Why would you share it with me?"
"Because Zero's too dangerous for one hunter. Even me." Sera's mechanical arm whirred softly. "But two skilled guns? That's a different story. We work together, find Zero, split the bounty. You get your revenge or answers or whatever you're looking for. I get rich enough to leave this shithole forever. Everybody wins."
Ryo considered this. "And if I say no?"
"Then I collect the five thousand chips on your head right now, and you die on this bridge like those twelve idiots thirty years ago." Her hand moved to her revolver. "Your choice, drifter. Partner up or draw down."
The wind howled through the canyon.
Ryo could feel his heartbeat—slow, steady, controlled. His fingers hovered near his revolvers. Sera was fast. He could see it in the way she stood, balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to move. That mechanical arm gave her an edge—faster reflexes, stronger grip, probably a targeting system built into that cyber-eye.
But he'd faced worse.
"One question," Ryo said quietly. "Why do you want Zero?"
Something flickered across Sera's face. Pain. Rage. Memories she'd rather forget.
"That's personal."
"So is my reason." Ryo's eyes didn't leave hers. "If we're partners, I need to know I can trust you."
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then her jaw tightened.
"Fine. You want the truth?" She held up her mechanical arm. "Zero Vance gave me this. Three years ago, I tried to collect the bounty on him. Tracked him to an old weapons facility in the Scorched Wastes. I was good. Fast. Confident." Her voice went cold. "He was better. Ripped my arm off with the Crimson Core before I could even pull the trigger. Left me bleeding in the sand."
"But you survived."
"Barely. Some scavengers found me, sold me to a chop-shop doc who owed the Vultures money. They gave me this arm in exchange for five years of wetwork." She flexed the mechanical fingers. "I've got six months left on that contract. But if I bring in Zero? The Vultures will wipe my debt clean. I'll be free."
Ryo understood. "Revenge and survival."
"The two best motivators." Sera's hand moved away from her revolver. "So what'll it be, Kazehara? Partners or corpses?"
Ryo extended his hand. "Partners. Until we find Zero."
Sera grasped it—her mechanical hand surprisingly warm against his skin. Her grip was iron.
"Deal. Now let's get off this bridge before—"
The bullet screamed past Ryo's ear.
He moved on instinct, diving left as more gunfire erupted from both ends of the bridge. Sera rolled right, her mechanical arm sparking as a round ricocheted off it.
"Ambush!" she shouted. "Brass Vultures!"
Ryo hit the metal grating hard, his revolvers already in his hands. He counted eight—no, ten—figures emerging from cover. Half-human, half-machine thugs with glowing eyes and weapons grafted to their bodies. More than yesterday. They'd brought friends.
"You set me up," Ryo growled.
"Are you kidding? They're shooting at me too!" Sera fired twice from behind a support beam, dropping one attacker. "This is what I was trying to warn you about! The bounty's gone up—fifteen thousand now! Every scumbag in Redwater wants us dead!"
A grenade arced through the air.
"Move!" Ryo sprinted toward Sera as the explosion ripped through the bridge behind them. Metal shrieked, and one section of grating collapsed into the canyon.
They pressed back-to-back against the beam, bullets whining around them.
"Great first day of partnership," Sera muttered, reloading with her mechanical hand in a blur of motion. "Any brilliant plans?"
Ryo's eyes scanned the bridge. Ten attackers. Limited cover. Canyon below. The bridge itself was old, unstable—
"Yeah," he said. "Don't fall."
"What?"
Ryo holstered his left revolver and drew a knife from his boot. Before Sera could protest, he slashed the support cables anchoring their section of the bridge.
The world tilted.
Metal screamed as their platform broke free, swinging down toward the canyon wall like a pendulum. Sera grabbed onto Ryo, her mechanical arm clamping around his waist as they plummeted.
The Brass Vultures on the bridge above opened fire, but their shots went wide as the makeshift platform slammed into the canyon wall forty feet down.
"You're insane!" Sera shouted over the groaning metal.
"Worked, didn't it?"
They scrambled onto a narrow ledge as the bridge section finally tore free completely, crashing into the canyon floor below with a sound like thunder.
Above them, the Vultures cursed and shouted. Some started climbing down. Others ran back toward town, probably to circle around.
"We've got maybe five minutes," Sera said, assessing the canyon wall. "There's a cave system about a hundred yards east. If we can reach it before they get down here—"
More gunfire. Closer now.
Ryo and Sera ran along the ledge, boots slipping on loose stone. The canyon wall rose on their left, a deadly drop on their right. Behind them, the Vultures descended like mechanical spiders, their augmented limbs giving them impossible speed.
A laser sight painted Ryo's back red.
He spun and fired without aiming—pure reflex. The bullet found its target. A Vulture screamed and fell, tumbling into the canyon below.
"Nice shot!" Sera called.
"Save the compliments! Just run!"
The cave entrance appeared ahead—a dark slash in the canyon wall. They dove through it just as bullets sparked off the rock behind them.
Inside, the world went dark and cool. The cave stretched deep into the earth, natural tunnels branching in multiple directions. The sound of their pursuers echoed from the entrance.
"This way," Sera whispered, her cyber-eye glowing softly, providing light. "I know these tunnels. Used to hide here when the Vultures' contracts got too hot."
They moved quickly through the darkness, Sera's cybernetic vision guiding them. Behind them, shouts and flashlight beams cut through the black.
After ten minutes of twisting corridors and narrow passages, they emerged on the other side of the canyon—a hidden exit that opened onto the desert itself, miles from Redwater Ridge.
They collapsed against the rocks, breathing hard.
"Well," Sera said after a moment, "that could've gone worse."
Ryo actually laughed—a short, sharp bark of sound. "You have low standards for success."
"In this line of work? You have to." She checked her mechanical arm, wiping away dust and blood. "So. Still partners?"
Ryo looked at her—this sharp-edged woman with her mechanical arm and haunted eyes, this bounty hunter who could've let him die but didn't.
"Still partners," he confirmed.
Sera nodded. "Good. Because I wasn't kidding about that lead on Zero." She pulled a data chip from her coat pocket. "Got this off a dead Vulture last week. Contains coordinates for an old weapons cache in the Burning Glass Desert. Word is Zero's been hitting those caches, gathering tech for something big."
"Think he'll be there?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But it's a start." She stood, offering her hand—the mechanical one. "Come on, partner. We've got a long walk back to town. And this time, try not to get us killed for at least twenty-four hours."
Ryo took her hand and let her pull him up.
As they started the long trek back toward Redwater Ridge, the sun beginning its descent toward the horizon, Ryo felt something he hadn't felt in five years.
Hope.
And beside him, Sera Quinn walked with the easy confidence of someone who'd survived hell and come out sharper for it.
Maybe, just maybe, they'd both get what they were looking for.
---
They reached the outskirts of Redwater Ridge as twilight painted the sky purple. The town's neon signs flickered to life like predatory eyes.
"We need a place to lay low," Sera said. "My safehouse is compromised—Vultures know about it. Your boarding house?"
"Probably the first place they'll look."
"Great." Sera thought for a moment. "I know a guy. Owes me a favor. Runs a chop-shop on the south side. We can crash there tonight, plan our next move."
As they walked through the back alleys, avoiding main streets, Ryo asked the question that had been nagging at him.
"How much of what you told me on the bridge was true?"
Sera glanced at him. "The story about my arm? Every word. The partnership offer?" She shrugged. "Mostly true. I do want Zero. I do need that bounty. And I do think we've got a better shot working together."
"But?"
She smiled. "But I might've left out the part where the Brass Vultures aren't the only ones looking for you." 
"Who else?"
"Sheriff Blackthorn. He put out feelers about you this morning. Wants to know why you're here. What you're after." Sera's expression went serious. "Blackthorn's not like normal lawmen. He's connected to something bigger. Something that involves Zero, the Crimson Core, and probably your dead parents too."
Ryo stopped walking. "How do you know about my parents?"
"I'm a bounty hunter, remember? I know things." Sera met his gaze. "Your father—Takeshi Kazehara—he was a weapons engineer. Worked for something called the Frontier Defense Initiative. They were the ones who created the Crimson Core."
The world tilted slightly.
"You're saying my father built the weapon that killed him?"
"I'm saying your father tried to destroy it. And someone—probably Zero—killed him to stop that from happening." Sera's voice softened. "I'm sorry, Kazehara. But if you want the truth about what happened five years ago, Blackthorn's the one who has answers. He was there. The night your parents died."
Ryo's hand drifted to his revolver. "Then maybe we need to have a conversation with the sheriff."
"Not yet. He's too powerful, too protected. We go after him now, we're dead." Sera started walking again. "But Zero? He's a ghost. Alone. Vulnerable. We find him, we get leverage. Then we can go after the real monsters."
They walked in silence for a while.
Finally, Ryo asked, "Why are you helping me? The bounty on my head is worth something. Why not just turn me in?"
Sera was quiet for a long moment.
"Because I used to have a partner," she said finally. "Before I lost my arm. Before I got tangled up with the Vultures. His name was Marcus. He was..." She swallowed. "He was everything good about this shitty world. And Zero killed him. Shot him in the back while he was trying to help me escape."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too." Sera's mechanical fist clenched. "So yeah, I want the bounty. But more than that? I want Zero Vance to suffer. And if helping you gets me that, then we're helping each other."
Ryo understood. Revenge was a language they both spoke fluently.
They reached the chop-shop as full darkness fell—a squat building with reinforced doors and no windows, hidden between a junkyard and a defunct power station.
Sera knocked three times, paused, then twice more.
The door opened a crack. A mechanical eye peered out.
"Sera Quinn," came a synthesized voice. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Sorry to disappoint. We need a place to stay. One night."
"We?"
"Me and my new partner." Sera gestured at Ryo. "Don't worry. He's house-trained."
The door opened fully, revealing a man who was more machine than human—cybernetic limbs, artificial organs visible through transparent panels in his chest, a face half-replaced with chrome and LED lights.
"One night," he said. "But if the Vultures come looking, I'm throwing you both out."
"Deal."
They stepped inside. The shop was cramped, filled with spare parts, tools, and half-assembled bodies. The smell of oil and ozone hung thick in the air.
"Make yourselves comfortable," the cyborg said. "Or as comfortable as you can be in a place like this."
Sera found a corner with some old mattresses and sat down heavily. Ryo joined her, his body finally acknowledging the day's exhaustion.
"So," Sera said, pulling out the data chip again. "Tomorrow we head for the Burning Glass Desert. It's a three-day ride from here. Deadly terrain, worse company. If Zero's there, he won't be alone."
"Good," Ryo said quietly. "I'm tired of chasing ghosts."
Sera looked at him—really looked at him—and for the first time, he saw something besides calculation in her eyes.
Understanding.
"Get some sleep, partner," she said. "Tomorrow, the real hunt begins."
Ryo closed his eyes, his hand resting on his revolver even in rest.
Somewhere in the desert, Zero Vance waited.
And Ryo was coming for him.
No matter what it cost.
---
**END OF CHAPTER 2**