closer. The birds were brown-black with featherless, red heads, white bills and yellow feet. Data scrolled behind his eyes: Earth species: Cathartes aura. Weight: 5.1 lbs. Length: 27.4 in. Wing span: 6 feet. Description: The Turkey Vulture is one of North America’s largest birds of prey. Best known for their practice of feeding on dead animal carcasses, but will occasionally attack young and helpless animals, as well.
Young? He was in his prime! And helpless? Bah. He was a REEF-01A, a Robotically Engineered Enemy Fighter—human-looking to the casual observer, but with enough engineered enhancements to earn him the official classification of “deadly weapon.” He was one of the galaxy’s most-feared super soldiers, raised since boyhood to kill. Not to be killed.
He’d extricate himself from this situation somehow, even with half his systems offline. REEF assassins never gave up. Not even death ended a REEF’s single-minded determination to complete a mission. Legend told of a fellow REEF whose bloodied and broken human body continued to slither behind its target after death, its inner components still whirring as they dragged the mutilated body toward the intended kill.
A shadow whooshed across his vision, interrupting his reverie. Something heavy thumped onto his chest. REEF shifted his gaze downward and made eye contact with one of the ugliest creatures he’d ever seen. To add insult to injury, the vulture tipped its head and looked him over with slight distaste as if disappointed he wasn’t dead yet.
Another scavenger landed nearby with a swishing of feathers and wind. It walked over to REEF and pecked his forearm. A little taste before the feast began? Goddess, they were going to eat him alive.
No! Dying on his own terms was acceptable, but he refused to be picked apart by a repellent, feathered, garbage-consuming Earth creature.
REEF tried to get up, but the impulses wouldn’t travel from his brain to his arms and legs. His body, once always at his command, refused to obey him.
You can end it all another way. With his tongue, he felt for the self-destruct cap hidden in a recessed compartment behind his rearmost left molar. He’d been fitted with the apparatus in case he was apprehended by Earth authorities and could not escape. It would prevent Coalition technology from getting into Terran hands. One brief flash of plasma, and there’d be nothing left of him to pick through.
No one will miss you. A broken piece of machinery, he no longer was of use to anyone. The realization left him feeling hollow inside. Lonely.
REEF made a hiss of displeasure. He didn’t like feeling lonely; he didn’t like feeling anything. It had always been the job of his command center to dispense nanomeds into his bloodstream as needed to suppress emotion. Now that command center was malfunctioning.
A professional killer cannot afford to feel…. REEF made fists on the dirt as visions of the kills he’d accomplished over the years flickered through his mind. The vast majority of the hits had been quick, even instant, but there had been a few that hadn’t gone as planned. In his mind’s eye, he saw the stares of shock before he administered the final blow; he heard the futile pleas for clemency….
Stop! Feelings kept coming, and he could not shut them off. He didn’t know how. How did humans cope? The pointed tip of his tongue hovered over the explosive device behind his molar. One press and it’d be all over….
But a distant rumbling grabbed his attention. With his acute senses, he homed in on the sound and analyzed it. It was an Earth vehicle. Designation: Truck.
Annoyed, he pulled his tongue away from the explosives. Killing a Terran along with himself would be sloppy.
Pebbles and grit popped under tires as the truck pulled off the road and onto the shoulder and stopped. A tall male jumped down from the old truck. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt and cowboy boots. His skin was browned and wrinkled from a lifetime spent outside in this harsh climate. Mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes. His silver hair was cropped close to his head and styled to look flat on top. He was older, in his seventies, at least, but he was lean and muscled, in excellent shape.
A former military man—REEF knew the look.
A large, black plastic bag swung from his hand as he sauntered over. “Shoo,” he said to the vultures congregating nearby. He shook open the plastic bag—the body-size plastic bag. Then he froze, seeing REEF conscious. “You’re alive.”
“Disappointed, Terran?” REEF sneered, his voice hoarse and