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lost-girl-2021 · 1 year

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VIT

If you guys like my writing style, please check out the first chapter of my upcoming book, VIT. It's a sci-fi story I've been working on and off for the past few years and I'm hoping to have it published at the end of summer. My cousin published her first book at 21, so my goal is to do mine at 20. Anyways, I'll post the summary in italics and then the first chapter below. Thanks for reading!

Vit has a purpose, a mission. She’s devoted her life to The Collective, an intergalactic agency working to bring criminals to justice. She’s given up her old life, no longer able to remember anything from her past or even her original name. She had made peace with the gap in her mind, but when a mission goes south, she’s confronted with the reality that the agency she gave everything to might not be what she thought it was. With Fin, a fellow bounty hunter, chasing after her, she has to figure out who she is and who she wants to be before it’s too late.

Chapter One

Vit knows she should be asleep. She's been up for over twenty hours straight and her eyes are so dry that they sting with each blink. Yet, she can't manage to stop working. She knows what the alternative is; a dark haze, stretching on for what feels like forever. A cold that sticks with you for weeks after. She’d rather deal with the shakiness of not eating and the blurry vision that came with it.

Her robotic handler had given her the case the night before, when they entered the Lower Ring again. The three solar systems, High, Middle, and Low took between one and two weeks to travel between. Vit wished it took longer. It had been a long month in the Middle Ring, chasing down a band of pirates. The days of traveling were the only times Vit had any sort of break. Her feet ached and her back was all bruised from the week before, when she got knocked into a metal table during a fight. It made it hard to sleep at night, unable to focus on anything but how much everything hurt.

She had only gotten a few hours of sleep when the living machine woke her, a grin on her face as she let her know they were an hour away from their next planet. It never looked right when Ciro smiled. Vit knew it was supposed to be disarming, but all it ever did was put her further on edge. Androids were creepy like that, always finding some way to remind you they weren’t human. Stronger, smarter, with less emotion. If they weren’t so easy to hack, they’d be the ones in charge of bounty-hunting, instead of just the authority in every operation. And Ciro was definitely Vit’s keeper, the one who would take her back if she messed up, who reported every failure and flaw to the higher-ups. The non-living woman made it clear she had no trouble taking her back to the Collective base on the planet Cil, where she’d be grounded for an unknowable amount of time.

So, what was a little bit of lost sleep? When it meant she could be warm in a bed instead of frozen in a cryogenic chamber? It’s all worth it. At least, that’s what she told herself on nights like this.

The girl looked at the clock, groaning under her breath. Ciro would fully recharge within a few hours; it would be easier to just stay up, and keep working on the case. Once she brought the bounty to the planet Cil, she could catch up on her sleep. Maybe she’d even get a chance to rest before her next case. When they had a prisoner on board the ship, Vit was supposed watch them while Ciro recharged or worked on navigation. She wasn’t sure if it was a programming error or if she somehow was acting of her own volition, but the being of Artificial Intelligence seemed to order her into guard duty when she was on the verge of falling asleep.

Rubbing her forehead, Vit returned her gaze to the file before her; the map of Toi was complex and without any real patterns. Tents and rickety old homes were all crammed next to each other in makeshift towns, the gaps between them barren except for the dirt roads that blended together with the rest of the wasteland. She had covered an entire town on foot earlier that day, hoping her target was stupid enough to return to one of her old haunts during her time on the planet. Unfortunately, it seemed like the crook had a heads-up about her arrival. She hadn't gotten anything all day besides blisters and sunburn. There was a chance she had gone to Cri instead, but she seemed to have more connections on Toi. Her ship, the Ghost, had been seen a few days prior, flagging one of the Collective’s systems. The whole crew was wanted for various crimes and the ship itself was stolen, but Regan Witz was the biggest threat and needed to be taken first.

Sometimes, it was easy. She could stroll down the street and spot her mark within minutes. Drag them back to the ship and start heading towards the nearest Collective Outpost before lunch. Other times, it went like this. Days with no leads, pressure on all sides from the higher-ups and her handler.

Glancing at the messy and possibly out-of-date digital map, Vit forced herself to focus. Scrolling, she read over the notes she’d scribbled next to each of the locations she’d checked. Everyone had insisted she was in various spots around the galaxy. Some said she was in the High Ring, of all places, engaged to some Lord who was cousin to the Monarch. Or that she’d joined the Wildlings on the edge of the galaxy, living in chaotic bliss. Something was there; Vit was close, she could feel it. She wasn’t going to disappoint the Collective and she sure as stars wasn’t about to give up.

Changing tabs, she searched her security feed for the dozenth time to see if any of her bugs had picked up anything. She could put Ciro back on monitor duty as soon as she recharged, but until then it was all Vit. And the monitoring software she had picked up on planet Lio was far from high-tech. It wasn’t anywhere near as fast as the system she was used to, but there weren't many options. Her last bounty had put up quite a fight, destroying the Nav and her surveillance hard drive before Vit could stop him. She was lucky to get anything semi-compatible with the rest of her ship, given how old it was. And the mechanics on Cil said they’d have to special order new pieces, so she was stuck with tech that was probably came out during the Old Wars, twenty years prior.

Annoyed that the system hadn’t caught anything, she cracked her neck and pulled open one of her desk drawers. Popping out the fake bottom, she found the boost she needed. She tossed the small metal case onto her desktop, fingers fumbling with the small adhesive. Peeling off the clear covering, she pressed an Artificial Energy patch right above her heart, hiding the thin stimulant under her shirt. It was a mostly-translucent sticky rectangle, with AE stamped in all black.

The Collective (and therefore Ciro) disapproved of any enhancing tech or drugs on their people, so she tried to keep them hidden for the most part. It wasn’t like she was snorting crystals; she just needed a little help sometimes. And the best way for her to job her job fast and efficiently was for her to help herself. A rush of adrenaline hit her within a couple of seconds, making her hands twitch and eyes go wide. It had been a while since she’d had any sort of booster, let alone what were essentially shots of adrenaline to the heart. Her last mission left her without any privacy, so she'd suffered without any A.E. patches. It was part of the reason why she preferred to work alone. Everyone had to have their own backs; the Collective was a force of good and everyone was held to the highest standards. Failure, weakness— none of that would be tolerated. It was part of the reason why they were cycled out so frequently. Sometimes, a person just wasn’t necessary; maybe just unneeded for a specific uptic in crime, maybe just not useful in anything short of an all-out war.

Pushing back from the desk, she stared at the ceiling, slouching in the uncomfortable chair as she waited for it to kick in. Knicks and scratches formed a pattern along the metal roof, a reminder that someone had this ship before her. Probably another bounty hunter for the Collective. Someone who had been promoted, demoted, or put back in Cryo. Every mission was life or death for someone working for the Collective, but it was what she had signed up for. Everyone in the agency had sacrificed their lives and memories for a chance to bring justice to the galaxy— they were heroes to the universe.

The thought brought a small smile to Vit’s face, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. She had been conscious for nearly a year— one of the longest times for someone to be out of Cryo. She was good, and if the worst thing that happened to her was getting caught with some caffeine patches, she’d stay conscious for a long time. As long as she didn’t mess up, she’d stay Awake.

Going back to the map, she tried to look for something new. Ciro and her had spent the whole day and part of the night searching for the bounty, but it looked like he wasn't even on-planet. It had happened before; bad intel and a lack of communication had left her in similar situations more times than she cared to remember. It just meant that Vit wouldn't be resting any time soon.

Still, she couldn’t give up just yet. There was something about this planet that was messing with her head. She didn’t know where she had come from or anything about her life before, but part of her wondered if she had been to the shanty town before. The growing migraine suggested it. Or maybe it was just a side effect of the caffeine patch. Either way, she—

Suddenly, the security feed sounded, a small beep alerting her to something new. Whipping forward, she tapped on the screen, her mouth split into a grin. Her bounty— though a bit blurry —was caught barely ten minutes from her, on one of the bugs she’d planted. The audio was too shaky to make anything out besides “dangerous” and a few curses, but the message seemed clear. Her bounty was about to leave and she had to act quickly.

She grabbed her jacket off the floor, tucking her badge into her pocket and pulling her hood over her head as she hurried towards the bay doors. Hitting her palm against the release, she charged down the ramp and jumped off before it even hit the ground, pulling her duff over her mouth and nose. She didn’t know what was from the patch and what was the thrill of the chase, but Vit really didn't care. The mission was all that mattered.

The city was unfamiliar as she raced through it, despite her earlier search. Everything was a bit off-kilter, nothing quite right as she sped through the streets. For as long as she could remember, she’d always had backup. Either Ciro or another device of Collective Intelligence— someone to tell her what to do, where to go. A pang of unease crept up her spine, nearly overwhelming with the artificial adrenaline pumping through her system. She was running out of time. She needed to focus, needed to be better.

The sun was starting to rise over her side of the planet, covering all the grime in a deceiving copper glow. It almost looked nice. Vit thought it was misleading. Like most things that looked good, it was just a front. Vit had arrested enough innocent-looking people in her time that any notion of trust in her own perception was eradicated. At the end of the day, all she could do was follow orders and hope for the best. Just like the Magnate always told them; Trust in the Collective. (The only was implied.)

Nearly crashing into one of the drunks wandering through the streets after a night of waste, Vit snapped to attention. She was starting to drift now and then, exhaustion mixing badly with the fast-beating of her heart. Shaking her head, she adjusted her hood before entering the tavern before her. It was covered in the filth that all Ports held, the metal walls barely recognizable under all the filth and the half-ripped posters covering Stars know what.

Vit pulled at the buff attached to the lower part of her undercoat, covering her mouth and nose. Her face was sweaty now and it was starting to itch. While there wasn’t any set uniform for Collective members, anonymity was best when out in public, especially since she was in a bar full of Monarch loyalists. The blue patches of the jackets gave it away, along with the weapons strapped to everyone. On the planet Cil, only Collective agents are allowed weapons. It makes it easier when they need to maintain order. The entrylevel agents usually stayed planetside since it was so easy to get the upper hand. Vit was uncomfortable around the bar of criminals, knowing she didn’t have enough manpower or gunpower to take them all on if it came to it. Despite the heavy beating of her heart and the voice in her head telling her to make a move, she stayed calm. Ignored the eyes on her.

Moving towards the back of the room, she spotted her target downing the last of her drink. The man next to her seemed to nod towards the grimy-looking bathroom, moving away from the woman. The area was far too public for Vit to move in on her, but she walked calmly towards the bathrooms, reaching for the heavy knife in her vest. She wasn’t a killer, that was . . . the Collective was a force for good, so she was a force for good. While death was necessary at times, it would not bode well if she killed a man on a Monarchy-favored planet. All executions were to be held on the home planet.

Regardless, it was remarkably easy to sneak behind the man and use the blunt end of her blade to knock out the unreasonably tall man. Even if she did have to stand on her toes to reach his head. Locking the bathroom door afterward, she returned to the main room just in time to see her target leaving out the back door. Vit quickly followed, finding herself in a filthy alley between two taverns. The woman was standing across from her, seemingly casual.

“You’ve been looking for me.” She observed, leaning against the grime-covered wall. “Thought I’d make it a bit easier.”

A trap.

Vit tensed slightly upon realization, scolding herself for being so stupid. Ciro would’ve noticed, would’ve already called in back-up by now, or had some genius plan ready for Vit to use. She was the one who made the plans, Vit was just the muscle.

Still, Vit was a good bounty hunter. She had incapacitated the friend and surely she could take some criminal freak twice her age. Still, she went without any of her usual speech (surrender now and no harm will come to you, blah, blah, blah . . . ) and she charged.

The target jumped up, dodging her first punch and throwing one of her own. Vit grabbed her fist and twisted, smirking as the woman cried out. She kneed her in the gut, but the woman didn’t fall. Instead, she brought her free hand down on Vit’s forearm hard, forcing her to let go as a painful tingling spread through her arm. Both charged, tackling each other to the ground in a battle of fists. Kicking the bounty hard in the gut, Vit took the chance to stand and reach for her cuffs. Just as the tool was freed from her belt, the woman landed a punch to the side of her face, the metal restraints flying out of her hands across the alley.

With a start, Vit realized that the mask fell from around her face, causing hesitation on her target’s end. The woman seemed stunned, something not uncommon; the few people who had seen Vit’s face were all shocked by how young she looked. This time, it worked to her advantage; Vit moved quickly, sweeping the woman’s legs and knocking her to the hard ground. She reached for the fallen cuffs a few feet away, suddenly dizzy from the rush of movement. Blinking harshly, she stretched her fingers to grab the cool metal, only to be yanked backward just as she grasped them.

The bounty’s companion, who she had apparently mistaken for unconscious, yanked her up from the ground, knocking her into the side of the tavern. Vit choked on her breath, the air knocked out of her with the force of the shove. She coughed painfully, hands grasping at her chest. Standing up, her bounty pushed her into the wall once more as her friend stepped back.

“Who are you?” The woman demanded, pinning her against the rough stone with her forearm against Vit’s throat.

Still breathless and dizzy, Vit thrashed harshly, glaring up at the older girl. “Re— Reagan Witz, you are wanted by the Collective for— “

“I don’t care about that.” She snapped, pressing harder against Vit’s throat. “Who are you?”

Vit blanched, confused. Surely, it was obvious by now that she belonged to the Collective. Vit didn’t know how to answer or why the bounty hadn’t tried to do anything more than restrain her yet. She couldn’t tell if she was stupid or trying to stall as she and her friend waited for backup. Although, at this point, Vit didn’t think she could control her dizzy double-vision long enough to throw a solid punch. Still, despite her precarious position, Vit ignored her and continued on.

“Surrender now and no harm will come to your companion.” She offered, eyeing the so-far silent man staring at her. He looked to be in shock— silent and wide-eyed as he watched the exchange. His, nearly white, blond hair was spiked up with a ridiculous amount of product, except for the smooshed half from where he must’ve hit the ground. He looked unreasonably spooked for someone so tall.

The dark eyes she locked with went blurry, everything spinning slightly as she refocused on her target. Vit tensed slightly, ready to break free of the woman and arrest her. Or pass out when she tried. Either way, she wasn’t about to just give up.

“— there’s gotta be some explanation.”

Blinking, Vit realized her bounty had been speaking, though her hearing seemed to be suddenly unreliable. The world was spinning, nothing steady. Her heart was beating so loud, she felt the vibrations in her throat. She wheezed as the woman let go of her throat, hands moving to her shoulders. Her mouth was moving, but Vit couldn’t tell what she was saying.

She reared her head back and slammed forward, headbutting her with a loud crack. The world tipped off its axis and suddenly the ground was rushing toward her. She twisted, pulling the woman down with her. From her belt, she pulled out a needle, plunging it into her neck. As the sedative disappeared into her skin, Vit lunged at the man, tackling him into the ground. They both hit hard, his head bouncing off the stone. She punched him, once, twice, three times, before she was sure he was out cold. Behind them, the target was limp on the cold ground.

Vit raised her hand to her ear, breathing heavily. “Ciro? I really hope you’re charged.”

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