Chapter 3: Wanted Posters and Dirty Money

Ryo woke to the sound of grinding metal and the acrid smell of welding torches.
For a moment, he forgot where he was. Then it all came back—the bridge, the ambush, Sera Quinn and her mechanical arm. He sat up on the grimy mattress, every muscle in his body protesting yesterday's violence.
Across the room, Sera was already awake, talking quietly with their cyborg host near a workbench cluttered with spare parts.
"—don't care what it costs," she was saying. "We need transport that can handle the Burning Glass. Something fast, armored, and off the Vultures' radar."
"That's a tall order, Quinn." The cyborg—Ryo still didn't know his name—gestured at a holographic display showing various vehicles. "Best I can do is a sand-skiff. Old military model. Needs work, but the core systems are solid. Four thousand chips."
"Four thousand? That's robbery."
"That's business. Especially when you're wanted dead by half the gangs in Redwater Ridge." The cyborg's mechanical eye swiveled toward Ryo. "Your boyfriend's famous now. Check the newsfeed."
Sera glanced at Ryo, saw he was awake, and waved him over. "Come see this. You're gonna love it."
Ryo stood, joints popping, and crossed to the workbench. The holographic display shifted, showing what looked like a digital wanted poster.
**WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE**
**RYO KAZEHARA**
**Age: 19 | Height: 5'11" | Armed and Dangerous**
**Crime: Murder of Brass Vultures personnel, destruction of property, suspected terrorism**
**REWARD: 25,000 CHIPS**
**Contact: Sheriff Blackthorn or Brass Vultures Command**
Below his poster was another one.
**WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE**
**SERA QUINN**
**Age: 24 | Height: 5'9" | Cybernetically Enhanced | Armed and Dangerous**
**Crime: Breach of contract, murder, conspiracy with known criminal**
**REWARD: 30,000 CHIPS**
Ryo stared at the numbers. "They tripled my bounty overnight."
"Quintupled mine," Sera muttered. "Guess the Vultures are really pissed." She looked at the cyborg. "How long have these been up?"
"Posted at dawn. Every bounty hunter, gang enforcer, and desperate idiot in town has seen them by now." He crossed his mechanical arms. "You two are officially the hottest targets in Redwater Ridge. Congratulations."
"Can you scrub them? Hack the system?"
"I'm a parts dealer, not a miracle worker. The Vultures have military-grade encryption. Even if I could crack it, they'd just repost within an hour." He shook his head. "Your best bet is to get out of town. Today. Before someone decides fifty-five thousand chips is worth the risk of fighting you both."
Sera turned to Ryo. "He's right. We need to move. Now."
"We still need supplies," Ryo said. "Food, water, ammunition. Medical supplies for the desert."
"And money to pay for it all." Sera pulled out a small pouch, counted the chips inside. "I've got maybe eight hundred chips. You?"
Ryo checked his pockets. "Three hundred."
"Eleven hundred total. Not nearly enough." Sera drummed her mechanical fingers on the workbench, thinking. "Okay. New plan. We hit the black market, get what we need on credit—"
"Nobody's giving credit to two wanted criminals," the cyborg interrupted.
"Then we find another bounty," Ryo said quietly.
Both Sera and the cyborg turned to stare at him.
"What?" Sera asked.
"We're bounty hunters, right? There are other contracts in Redwater Ridge. Other targets." Ryo gestured at the holographic display. "Show me the active bounties."
The cyborg hesitated, then pulled up a new list. Dozens of faces appeared—criminals, fugitives, gang members. Each with a price attached.
Sera studied the list, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You're insane. But I like it." She pointed at one entry. "This one. Vincent 'Wrench' Keller. Arms dealer for the Iron Riders. Five thousand chips, dead or alive. Last seen at a chop-shop in the industrial district."
"Too public," Ryo said. "What about her?" He indicated a woman with facial tattoos and chrome teeth. "Lucia 'Razorgrin' Santos. Data smuggler. Eight thousand chips. Frequents the underground gambling dens."
"Better. But there's an easier target." Sera tapped another entry—a thin man with nervous eyes and a mechanical jaw. "Tommy 'Glitch' Mercer. Low-level hacker for the Vultures. Three thousand chips. Not much, but he's a coward. Probably hiding in the server farms on the east side. Quick grab, minimal risk."
"We need more than three thousand," Ryo said.
"So we take two targets. Glitch first—quick and easy. Then Razorgrin if we have time." Sera looked at the cyborg. "Can you hold that sand-skiff for us? We'll have your money by nightfall."
"And if you don't?"
"Then you can collect the bounty on our corpses." Sera's smile was all teeth. "Deal?"
The cyborg sighed—a strange sound from a mostly mechanical throat. "You've got until midnight. After that, I'm selling the skiff to someone who can actually pay."
"We'll be back." Sera grabbed her coat and checked her revolver. "Come on, partner. Time to go hunting."
---
The server farms occupied a cluster of buildings on the east side of Redwater Ridge, where the town bled into scrapyards and abandoned industrial complexes. Massive cooling towers rose against the morning sky, humming with the sound of thousands of processors crunching data for the Vultures' criminal empire.
Ryo and Sera moved through the shadows between buildings, avoiding security cameras and patrol drones. This deep into Vulture territory, every corner could hide an ambush.
"Glitch uses Server Block Seven," Sera whispered, consulting a data pad. "Small operation. Maybe three or four guards. He'll be in the mainframe room, probably hooked into the system."
"How do we get in?"
Sera held up her mechanical arm, flexing the fingers. "I've got an old Vulture access code built into my hardware. Should get us through the outer doors. After that..." She patted her revolver. "We improvise."
They reached Server Block Seven—a squat concrete building surrounded by chain-link fence and warning signs. The entrance was guarded by a single automated turret, its sensors sweeping back and forth.
Sera approached cautiously, her mechanical arm extended. A panel opened in her wrist, projecting a holographic code sequence. The turret's red light flickered, then turned green.
"Still works," she muttered. "Come on."
They slipped inside.
The interior was a maze of server racks and cable runs, lit by the dim glow of status LEDs. The air was cold, recycled, sterile. Somewhere deeper in the building, Ryo could hear voices.
They moved silently through the server racks until they spotted the mainframe room—a glass-walled enclosure at the center of the facility. Inside, a thin man sat in a chair surrounded by holographic displays, his fingers dancing through data streams. Tommy "Glitch" Mercer.
Two guards flanked the entrance. Both armed. Both augmented.
Sera held up two fingers, then pointed—she'd take the left guard, Ryo would take the right.
Ryo nodded.
They moved as one.
Sera's mechanical hand clamped over the left guard's mouth before he could shout. Her other hand drove a blade into his spinal port, severing his neural connection. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Ryo's approach was even quieter. He slipped behind the right guard, wrapped an arm around his throat, and applied pressure to the carotid artery. The guard struggled for three seconds, then went limp.
Inside the mainframe room, Glitch remained oblivious, lost in his data.
Sera pushed open the door. "Hey, Tommy. Miss me?"
Glitch spun around, eyes wide behind digital overlay glasses. "Sera? What the—you're supposed to be dead!"
"Funny how that keeps not happening." Sera's revolver appeared in her mechanical hand, aimed casually at Glitch's head. "We need to talk."
"I-I don't know anything! I'm just a tech! I run servers! I don't know about your bounty or—"
"Relax. We're not here to kill you." Sera glanced at Ryo. "Unless we have to. We're here to collect you."
"Collect?" Glitch's face went pale. "No. No no no. You can't turn me in. The Vultures will kill me for getting caught!"
"Should've thought of that before you started hacking military systems," Ryo said quietly.
"That was one time! It was a mistake! I was drunk and—" Glitch's eyes darted between them, calculating. "Wait. You're both wanted too. Why would you turn me in?"
"Because we need the money," Sera said simply. "Nothing personal, Tommy. Just business."
"I can pay you!" Glitch said desperately. "I've got access to Vulture accounts. I can transfer chips right now. Five thousand! No, six! Just let me go!"
Sera's eyes narrowed. "You can access Vulture accounts?"
"It's my job! I manage their financial servers! I can get you money—clean money that can't be traced!"
Ryo and Sera exchanged glances.
"How much?" Ryo asked.
"How much do you need?"
"Fifteen thousand chips."
Glitch laughed—a high, nervous sound. "Fifteen? Are you crazy? They'll notice that! They'll kill me!"
Sera pressed the revolver against his forehead. "Then I guess you better make it look like a system glitch."
Sweat ran down Glitch's face. His fingers twitched toward his keyboards. "Okay. Okay! Just... give me five minutes. I can make it look like a routing error. Spread the loss across multiple accounts. But after this, you let me go. Deal?"
"Deal," Sera lied smoothly.
Glitch turned back to his displays, fingers flying across holographic keyboards. Lines of code scrolled past, financial transactions rerouting, firewalls being bypassed with surgical precision.
"He's actually doing it," Ryo murmured.
"Tommy's a weasel, but he's a talented weasel." Sera watched the hacker work. "Just make sure he doesn't try anything stupid."
Ryo stepped closer, one hand on his revolver. On the screens, numbers shifted—accounts draining by small increments, consolidating into a single untraceable wallet.
Then alarms began to wail.
"What did you do?" Sera shouted over the noise.
"It wasn't me!" Glitch's hands moved frantically across the keyboards. "Someone's tracking the transaction! They're locking down the building!"
Red emergency lights flooded the server room. On the displays, security protocols activated one by one. Steel shutters began descending over the exits.
"We need to go," Ryo said. "Now."
"The money's not finished transferring!" Glitch protested.
Sera grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the chair. "Then you're coming with us. Move!"
They ran through the server racks as armed guards poured into the building. Bullets sparked off metal and shattered screens. Sera fired back with her revolver, her mechanical arm's targeting system giving her impossible accuracy even while running.
Ryo dropped two guards with precise shots, his reflexes operating on pure instinct.
They reached the main entrance just as the final security shutter began to close. Sera shoved Glitch through the gap, then dove after him. Ryo slid under the descending steel with inches to spare.
Outside, patrol drones were already converging on their position.
"The fence!" Sera shouted, sprinting toward the perimeter.
A drone swooped low, machine guns spinning up. Ryo fired three times—impossibly fast—and the drone exploded in a ball of flame.
They cleared the fence and disappeared into the industrial maze beyond, Glitch stumbling between them, gasping for breath.
Five blocks away, they finally stopped in an abandoned warehouse, lungs burning.
"Check the transfer," Sera ordered, shoving Glitch against a wall.
With trembling hands, Glitch pulled out a data pad and checked his work. "It... it went through. Fifteen thousand chips, routed through six proxy accounts. Untraceable."
Sera snatched the data pad, verified the numbers, then smiled. "Tommy, you beautiful little criminal. You actually did it."
"So we're good?" Glitch asked hopefully. "You'll let me go?"
Sera looked at Ryo. Ryo shrugged.
"Yeah," Sera said. "We're good. Run, Tommy. Run fast and don't stop until you're out of Redwater Ridge."
Glitch didn't need to be told twice. He bolted from the warehouse and disappeared into the maze of alleys.
When he was gone, Ryo turned to Sera. "You're not going to collect the bounty on him?"
"We just made fifteen thousand chips in ten minutes. Why settle for three?" Sera checked her ammunition. "Besides, Tommy's a survivor. He'll be useful if we ever need another hacker."
"Or he'll tell the Vultures exactly what we did."
"Maybe. But by then, we'll be in the Burning Glass Desert, hunting Zero." Sera holstered her revolver. "Come on. We've got money now. Time to hit the black market and get our supplies."
---
The black market existed in the spaces between Redwater Ridge's official economy—back rooms, basement shops, and hidden warehouses where anything could be bought if you had the chips and didn't ask questions.
Sera led Ryo to a place called The Rust Vault, accessible only through a series of coded doors and armed checkpoints. Inside, it looked like a twisted mall—vendors hawking weapons, cybernetics, drugs, stolen goods, and information.
"Stay close," Sera said. "And don't make eye contact with anyone. Half the people here would gut you for your boots."
They moved through the crowd, Sera navigating with practiced ease. First stop: weapons dealer. A grizzled woman with more scars than skin showed them racks of firearms, explosives, and ammunition.
"Desert run?" she asked, eyeing their gear.
"Something like that," Sera replied.
"You'll want incendiary rounds for the Glass Wurms. Standard bullets just piss 'em off." The dealer pulled out boxes of specialized ammunition. "And take some EMP grenades. Lots of automated defenses out there in the old military sites."
They spent two thousand chips on ammunition and explosives.
Next: survival gear. Another vendor provided desert cloaks, solar-powered water purifiers, emergency rations, and navigation equipment. Another thousand chips.
Medical supplies: synth-skin bandages, combat stims, anti-venom, and a portable trauma kit. Eight hundred chips.
By the time they finished, they'd spent nearly four thousand chips. But their packs were heavy with everything they'd need to survive the desert.
"One more stop," Sera said, leading Ryo deeper into the market.
They reached a stall run by an impossibly old woman whose eyes glowed with internal circuitry. Behind her, walls were covered with data chips, hard drives, and holographic maps.
"Information broker," Sera explained. "Best in Redwater Ridge. If anyone knows where Zero actually is, it's her."
The old woman studied them with those glowing eyes. "Sera Quinn. Still alive. Surprising."
"I'm hard to kill, Mama Circuits."
"So I see." Her gaze shifted to Ryo. "And this must be the boy everyone's trying to murder. Kazehara. You have your father's eyes."
Ryo tensed. "You knew my father?"
"I know everyone, boy. Your father was a good man. Tried to stop bad things from happening. Failed, obviously, or you wouldn't be here seeking revenge." She gestured at her displays. "What do you want to know?"
"Zero Vance," Sera said. "Location, movements, patterns. Everything you've got."
Mama Circuits was silent for a moment, then laughed—a sound like breaking glass. "Zero Vance. Everyone wants Zero. Nobody finds Zero. He's a ghost, children."
"We have a lead," Ryo said. "Weapons cache in the Burning Glass Desert."
"Ah. The old Frontier Defense Initiative facility. Yes, Zero has been there. Twice in the last month." The old woman pulled up a holographic map. "But he's not alone anymore. He's recruited. Building something. An army, perhaps. Or worse."
"Recruited who?" Sera asked.
"Outlaws. Killers. Anyone desperate enough to work for a ghost." Mama Circuits zoomed the map in on a location deep in the desert. "This is where your weapons cache is. But be warned—it's guarded. Automated defenses, hunter-killer drones, and something else. Something new."
"What?" Ryo pressed.
The old woman's smile was unsettling. "That information costs extra. Five thousand chips."
Sera cursed. "That's extortion."
"That's survival." Mama Circuits crossed her arms. "Pay or walk away. But if you go into that desert blind, you'll die. And your deaths won't even be interesting."
Ryo pulled out the data pad with their stolen chips. "Take it."
"Wait—" Sera started.
"We need to know."
Mama Circuits accepted the payment, then leaned forward. "Zero's building a weapon. Not the Crimson Core—something bigger. He's been gathering parts from old FDI facilities. Power cores. Targeting systems. Neural interfaces." Her expression went grave. "I don't know what he's planning. But whatever it is, it's going to change everything."
Silence fell over the stall.
Finally, Sera asked, "When will he be at the weapons cache next?"
"Unknown. Zero doesn't keep a schedule. But..." Mama Circuits pulled up another data point. "There's a supply convoy heading to that facility in three days. If Zero needs more parts, he'll hit it. That's your window. Get there first, set a trap."
Ryo studied the map, memorizing every detail. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet, boy. You're walking into a nightmare." The old woman's glowing eyes fixed on him. "Your father died trying to stop the Crimson Core. You might die trying to stop whatever comes next. Are you prepared for that?"
"Yes," Ryo said without hesitation.
Mama Circuits nodded slowly. "Then may the desert have mercy on you. Because Zero Vance won't."
---
They left The Rust Vault as the sun began to set, painting Redwater Ridge in shades of blood and copper. Their packs were heavy, their weapons loaded, their course set.
"We should rest tonight," Sera said. "Leave at dawn. It's a hard ride to the Burning Glass."
"Agreed." Ryo glanced at her. "You really think we can beat him? Zero?"
Sera was quiet for a moment. "I think we have to. Because if we don't... if Mama Circuits is right about what he's building..." She shook her head. "Then everyone dies. Not just us. Everyone."
They walked in silence through the darkening streets, two wanted criminals preparing to hunt a ghost in a desert that killed almost everyone who entered it.
Above them, Ryo's wanted poster flickered on a dozen screens.
**25,000 CHIPS. DEAD OR ALIVE.**
And somewhere in the desert, Zero Vance waited.
But this time, Ryo was ready.
This time, he wouldn't run.
---
They returned to the chop-shop as night fully descended. The cyborg had the sand-skiff ready—a sleek, angular vehicle with armored plating and military-grade engines.
"Four thousand chips," he said.
Sera transferred the money. "Pleasure doing business with you."
"Don't die in the desert," the cyborg replied. "It would be a waste of a good skiff."
They loaded their gear and prepared to leave at dawn.
That night, sleeping on the grimy mattresses one last time, Ryo dreamed of his parents. His mother's smile. His father's steady hands building something—a weapon? A tool?
And in the dream, Zero Vance stood in shadow, watching.
Waiting.
"Come find me," the ghost whispered. "Let's finish what your father started."
Ryo woke with his hand on his revolver, heart pounding.
Beside him, Sera slept fitfully, her mechanical arm twitching with dreams of her own.
Tomorrow, they would ride into the desert.
And one way or another, the hunt would end.
---
**END OF CHAPTER 3**