Robert Riker was not your typical bounty hunter. While others chased bandits and traitors through the neon alleys of the mega‑cities, he specialized in hunting long‑forgotten technologies and lonely cyborgs. Quiet, cold missions that required patience more than a quick trigger. The universe was full of ghosts of the past, relics from the great wars, machines that had wandered off by mistake or deliberately escaped in search of their own freedom. Those anomalies had to be destroyed as useless — and often dangerous — waste, and Riker was one of the few who could track them down.
His last contract was special. The target was Cyborg 326/Alpha — a model that should have been destroyed long ago. All information about it had been erased; only a bare designation and the coordinates of a desolate, icy planet somewhere on the edge of a known galaxy remained. No one asked why it was so important. And Riker didn’t ask either. His job wasn’t to ask questions, but to act.
He was simply the one who had to hunt, find and eliminate — and he was paid handsomely for it.
Silence and discretion were included in the price.
Riker tightened the straps on his armor and watched the last bit of grime fall from his ship out of hyperspace. The ship was small but fast. Exactly the kind he needed for this elimination mission. He had always been a loner, and that suited him.
His target was Cyborg 326/Alpha, who was hiding on the planet where he had just landed.
He had been instructed that the cyborg could be very dangerous. Unpredictably so. It was supposed to be a model, one of the first, equipped with something unusual, including a combat module. The cyborg had escaped directly from the development facility. It should have been destroyed long ago. All other 326 versions had been destroyed as failures, and now Riker was to close the project by destroying the last specimen named 326/Alpha.
The situation seemed clear and easy. There was only a small bunker on the planet, overgrown with sand and rock. The cyborg was hiding in that bunker. Its elimination should be a matter of practice and only Riker’s gross mistake could endanger it. But Riker didn’t make mistakes. He was one of the best in his field.
Outside a freezing wind raged that would tear a man apart without a suit. Riker didn’t care. This wasn’t his first rodeo. He knew what it was to be at war, he knew what it was to risk life.
Now he was on the hunt with a laser rifle in his hand, breathing slowly and deeply. The sensor on his helmet clearly showed a signal. Cyborg 326/Alpha was inside the bunker.
The doors groaned open and Riker stepped inside. The bunker was small and dusty. Bits of junk and broken electronics lay everywhere. In the middle of the room stood a table. The cyborg sat at the table, facing him. Riker raised his rifle.
“Are you Cyborg 326/Alpha?” he asked in an unexcited, cold voice.
The silhouette of the cyborg remained motionless. Dust filled the bunker’s air and Riker’s vision blurred after he saw that the cyborg had disconnected from the power cable. It was a woman!
That startled Riker. No — that’s impossible! Cyborg 326/Alpha was supposed to be a prototype with no gender, designed for combat and special operations! Riker stood with his weapon aimed. The woman sat at the table. She didn’t move. In her eyes, which were a mirror to her soul, fatigue and a kind of calm were reflected.
“I know why you’re here,” she said in a feminine voice. “But I am no longer what I once was.”
Riker’s helmet analyzed her face. It was a human face, but in her eyes he saw traces of a cyborg. Those eyes were very beautiful. Riker gripped his rifle tighter because something rustled. He scanned the room and noticed a cage in the corner with some animal inside. A kind of vole. It looked as if this little rodent served as a sort of pet. An animal kept in a cage for comfort. “Hell, does a cyborg without emotions and feelings need a pet?” flashed through his mind unexpectedly.
The woman didn’t move. The little vole rummaged through its bedding and then began to nibble at something it had as food.
“I’m here to eliminate you,” Riker said, to steady himself and remember why he was here and what it was all about.
“I know,” the woman replied. “But I want to die. I have for a long time. I just didn’t want to be killed by a machine.”
Riker looked at the woman for a moment and didn’t know what to do. A female cyborg was something entirely exceptional. He had eliminated plenty of cyborgs, but they had either masculine or purely robotic features.
The woman began to toy with her neckline, with her clothes, sensually revealing her breasts.
Riker tightened his grip on his weapon and barked, “What are you doing?”
“I want to experience what people do,” and then she took off everything she had on from the waist up.
Riker watched her perfect breasts. It aroused him. His pulse quickened.
The cyborg looked absolutely perfect. Her female body was sensually attractive.
“I’m here on business!” he snapped in agitation, but his terse remark seemed aimed more at his own thoughts than at the half‑naked woman before him.
“When I know you, man, for the very first time, you can eliminate me. It’s my last wish before death. Fulfill it for me. I don’t want to leave this world without having known — love.”
Her limbs sensually parted and Riker completely succumbed. He lowered his weapon...
And then it happened. A sudden, quick movement by the woman as she felt for a hidden gun. A shot flashed that tore Riker’s suit apart. Riker’s death was quick and painless, because before he could realize what was happening his body internally exploded and splattered inside his own suit.
Cyborg 326/Alpha, the very first combat cyborg into which female logic and female intuitive problem‑solving had been experimentally implemented, simply smiled, then took the dead Riker’s weapons and the ship’s access control panel.
“We need to find a new home; it’s going to get hot here soon, darling,” the woman said, then picked up the cage with the little vole and, taking nothing else with her, walked out of the bunker, unlocked Riker’s spacecraft and flew away with it, hiding somewhere in the depths of space from other hunters who would soon be searching for her.
