Chapter VI

Jack found the inside of the bar to be far less pleasant than the outside. It was filled with just as many seedy looking characters as there were out on the street, and there was a good chance that at least one of them could be a bounty hunter. But bars were good places to get information if one could find the right person to talk to. That person was nearly always the bartender. The bartender of this particular bar was an overweight purple alien with four yellow eyes. He was rubbing the counter with a cloth, but he seemed to be doing it more out of boredom than actually wanting to clean anything. Jack bravely approached him through clouds of tobacco smoke.

Meanwhile Tetsuko followed him with much less confidence. During the day Metro City was a relatively harmless place, but at night it transformed into a jungle. The homeless woman preferred to take shelter in her junkyard shack and not to go out in the streets then, unless she was especially desperate for food. In such cases she was careful to avoid any and all drinking establishments, since the men who went there were often predatory toward females. Usually she could fend off one or two creeps, but here there were dozens of them. The ragtag occupants of one table kept looking in her direction, and one of them, a particularly ugly bat-like creature, grinned and leered at her. With a disgusted shudder, Tetsuko turned back toward the counter and focused her attention on Jack to calm herself down. She had already seen how skilled he was in battle, and he had promised her personally to keep her from harm. As long as she stuck with him, none of these weirdoes could hurt her.

Seeing possible customers approaching, the bartender stopped rubbing the counter and gave them a rather smarmy smile. "Welcome, guests." he said in a very thick, almost Russian accent. "What can I doing for you?"

Jack rested one arm on the counter and kept his voice low. "We are looking for the nearest bullet train station. Perhaps you could tell us how to find it."

The bartender arched a brow above one pair of eyes. "Train station, eh? Is very far away, that place. How you two come here, trying to go there?"

Jack turned to Tetsuko to ask her for the map, but she was facing the other way and gripping her hood tightly with both hands. She would not be able to hear him over the noise of the customers, so he tapped her shoulder.

"Gah!" she yelped and all but shrank away from him. When she realized it was Jack who had touched her and not one of the drunken weirdoes, her mood changed from panic to annoyance. "Don't scare me like that!"

He gestured for her to lower her voice and leaned in close enough to whisper. "I apologize, but I must borrow the map from you. May I see it, please?"

Still looking annoyed, she fished around inside her cloak until she found the piece of paper. As she passed it to him, she lowered her voice to a very tense whisper. "Jack, I hate this place. Let's get directions somewhere else."

"There is nowhere else to go here." Jack replied. "Besides, we have had nothing to eat since this morning. You especially need food to restore your strength."

Tetsuko frowned and was about to make a snappy comeback when the noisy gurgling of her stomach betrayed her. As her face reddened with embarrassment, Jack simply smiled smugly. Frustrated, she clanked one steel hand against the counter and spoke to the alien behind it. "Hey, bartender, do you sell anything here besides booze?"

His smarmy smile returned. "Most certainly, young miss. We carry wide assortment of soft drinks, and serve most delicious pickled eggs and jellied eels in whole town."

To Jack pickled eggs and jellied eels sounded repulsive, but Tetsuko was not so finicky. "Sure, yeah, sounds great."

The bartender changed the direction of his smile to Jack. "Anything for you, sir?"

Jack was about to ask if any kind of tea was served here when he heard heavy footsteps coming up from behind. A clawed finger tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see a tall, bulky alien that looked very much like an alligator. "Hey, mister." he said in a very gravelly voice. "My buddies an' me were just wonderin'. Is this you?"

He held up a digital tablet. It was a wanted poster bearing Jack's face. Tetsuko stared at the image with wide, confused eyes. Jack set his mouth into a firm, straight line and replied only with a fierce look.

"Says here you're a wanted man." the alligator man went on. "And Aku's got a huge reward for the bounty hunter that catches you. Why don't you come along with us so we can straighten it all out?"

The alligator man's friends began to surround them. Tetsuko recognized one of them as the ugly bat-like creature who had been leering at her. Jack's dark eyes narrowed as he surveyed the whole nasty bunch. "I do not think so." he said.

"Oh, I think you will." The alligator man gave a very wide, sharp-toothed grin as he pulled a giant laser gun from his side. Jack was about to draw his sword, but to his surprise, the gun was aimed not at him, but at Tetsuko.

His entire body went rigid. Eyes smoldering, he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, but he made no move to attack. He already hated to see anyone in danger, but the sight of Tetsuko facing the barrel of a gun made him almost angrier than he could stand. The alligator man saw that his prey was becoming unsettled and decided to goad him further. "So what's it gonna be? It's up to you whether your little girlfriend lives or not, samurai."

Tetsuko stiffened abruptly and her already wide eyes grew even wider. Normally she would have been uncomfortable with being referred to as a 'little girlfriend', but those were not the words that were troubling her now. The last word the hunter had said was echoing in her mind. Samurai …Where had she heard that word before?

Jack glared defiantly up at the tall alligator man. He was just barely able to keep his temper in check in order to speak. "Leave the woman alone. She has nothing to do with me."

"In that case, you won't care if she dies." The alligator man's toothy grin widened as he started to pull the trigger.

Even as she was staring down the barrel of the giant gun, Tetsuko could not concentrate on what was going on. The word continued to echo in her mind. Samurai … Samurai …

Suddenly a huge scream shocked her back into the present. The alligator man's huge gun and severed forearm dropped heavily to the floor. Jack stood over him with his sword drawn and stared fiercely at the other bounty hunters. Confused and nervous, they looked from him to their wounded comrade, trying to decide what to do next. Tetsuko felt much the same until she heard Jack's voice speaking to her in very urgent tone. "Take cover, now!"

Seconds later the hunters had produced laser weapons of their own and began firing. Pandemonium ensued as Jack ducked and rolled out of the way, kicked over an empty table and used it for a shield. Tetsuko managed to disappear behind the counter, where the frightened alien bartender was also hiding. He was covering his head with his thick arms as laser blasts whizzed over his head. "This … This is madness!" he said aloud. "I must call police!"

Tetsuko thought quickly. If Jack was an outlaw with a price on his head, the police would certainly try to arrest him. She knew perfectly well that Aku's robo-cops were no match for him, but she was not about to take any chances. As the bartender began reaching for a telephone hidden under the counter, she whacked his hand away from it with all her cyborg strength. "Don't be stupid!" she snapped at him. "They'll just make things worse!" Confused, the bartender recoiled from her and rubbed his sore hand. How could such a little human hit so hard?

Jack waited for the lasers to stop firing before he leapt from behind the fallen table, grabbed a stool and flung it at the group of hunters. It knocked them all to the floor, but the hunters were only disoriented momentarily and were soon shooting at him again. Even then, he was still fast enough to dodge their blasts and get close enough to slice another hunter's arm off.

From behind the counter, Tetsuko had peeked up just enough to watch what was going on. She had already seen Jack in battle twice before, but this time it was different. He was not protecting anyone else or sparing enemies here. He was fighting as if his life depended on it, and it was a truly impressive sight.

A stray laser shot skimmed over the top of her hood, forcing her to duck behind the counter again. The sounds of gunfire and screams were deafening. She covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. There was a terrible pain in her skull, and the loud noises were not helping. But this was not the kind of pain that came from a normal headache. This pain was like the hammering fists of some nightmare beast trying to break free from a deep, dark cave in her subconscious mind. She clutched her head to hold it in, but the beast only pounded harder and chanted a single word with each strike.

Samurai … Samurai … Samurai …

"Shut up." she groaned. "Just shut up."

"But I did not say anything…" the confused bartender said.

One after another, the bounty hunters dropped like flies. Jack was not surprised by this. Most of the bounty hunters he fought were usually not very good at their jobs. It was rare for any to come close to beating him, and they were the ones who were able to use their brains as well as their weapons. Unfortunately, one of these hunters proved to be slightly smarter than his friends. The bat-like creature, the last hunter still standing, opened his mouth wide and emitted a screech so loud and powerful that the sound waves knocked Jack off his feet, across the room and into a wall. Stunned, he slid to the floor in a heap.

The hunter cackled gloatingly. "Take that, samurai!"

Samurai … Samurai … Samurai …

"Shut up!" Tetsuko growled, still clutching her pounding head. By now she was making the bartender nervous.

Jack's ears were still ringing from the sonic screech, but he managed to pull his aching body off the floor and get back on his feet. The bat-like creature opened his mouth again, preparing to screech again, but Jack was quicker. Snatching a fallen plate from the floor, he threw it like a discus at his opponent, where it became firmly lodged between the creature's jaws. That gave him the time he needed to finish the hunter off and finally end the battle.

As he sheathed his sword, Jack surveyed the wounded bodies and broken things on the floor and realized Tetsuko was nowhere in sight. For a moment he feared she might have gotten carried off by the panicked mob. Then he heard the bartender calling to him from behind the counter. "Sir! Come quickly! Is something wrong with your friend!"

Jack immediately dove behind the counter to find Tetsuko curled up on the floor in a trembling ball. She was clawing at her skull with her metal fingers and groaning in agony. This was highly unusual. Even the strenuous agony of her arm repairs had not driven her to this kind of behavior. What was going on? Was this some kind of unforeseen reaction to the operation? Confused and worried, he looked at the bartender for answers. "What happened? Is she hurt?"

The bartender shook his great head helplessly and spread his hands. "I don't know! Vun minute she is yelling at me, next minute she is like this!"

Something terrible was happening here, that much was certain. Jack dropped to his knees and took hold of Tetsuko's shaking body in the hope of calming her down. "Tetsuko, please tell me what is wrong!"

"J-Jack?" she whimpered, prying her eyes open to look at him. At once the nightmare beast resumed its pounding with even greater force. The pain of her arm surgery had been terrible, but it was nothing compared to this. Her face twisted into an anguished grimace as she wailed and squeezed her skull again, hunching over so far that her face nearly touched the floor. Gritting her teeth, she attempted to form words but all that came out were strangled grunts.

SAMURAI … SAMURAI … SAMURAI…

Suddenly she screamed and arched backward, causing her hood to fly off her head. Her short hair fluttered around her head wildly and her pupils were shrunk down to tiny dots. Then, just as suddenly, she fell silent and slumped forward.

The bartender's four eyes grew as big and round as ping pong balls. Jack stared in horror at the unconscious woman in his arms. She was so motionless that it was only the sound of her steady breathing that suggested she was still alive. Very cautiously, he leaned closer to get a better look at her face. No signs of consciousness. "Te…Tetsuko?" he said, hoping she might react to the sound of his voice.

From out of nowhere, a hard steel fist punched his jaw. Surprised, he pulled back and touched the throbbing spot with his hand, staring wide eyed at the woman in front of him. Her arm was still raised from the follow-through of the blow. Then she turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes were glowing with a bright red light.

For a moment Jack was too shocked to do or say anything. Then there was a flash of light against metal as her other fist came flying toward his face. He barely moved in time for it to miss him and crash through the wooden shelf next to him. As he started inching away from her, she pulled her left arm free from the shelf and swung it at him again. This time he sprang out of the way completely and landed a few feet away.

She stood up very slowly and stared back at him with an empty red gaze, completely devoid of any emotion. Two identical twin blades snapped out from the sides of both her forearms, stretching from elbow to wrist, looking exactly as they did in the diagrams back in Gus's shop. She began to walk forward. She took no notice of the broken glasses, bottles and bounty hunters on the floor. Her movements were stiff and mechanical. Her expressionless red gaze was unblinking.

Not taking his eyes off of her, Jack carefully lowered his hand to his sword. He began to sweat. This could not be happening. Gus could not have been right. It was not possible. She was not his enemy. "Tetsuko…" he said in a shaky voice. "What has happened to you?"

To be continued …