Thousands of years after Earth became uninhabitable, humanity colonized other planets and moons around the solar system. Amid rising crime rate, the Galactic Space Force (GSF) set up a legal contract where registered bounty hunters (known as Coyotes...
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Wolf walked out of the shower and went straight to the galley with only a towel around his waist, water droplets covering his torso. A stove stood on one end, a sink on the other, and rows of shelves filled the surrounding wall, full of utensils he barely used.
It had been a long and painful day; the bruise on his ribs and cut on his bottom lip proved it. But on the bright side, he had lived to see another day. He cooked two slices of bacon, four slices of toast, and made tea on the long counter below the shelves, the bacon's intoxicating smell sending shivers through his body.
"Wednesday, log in to my GSF account."
An image of him and Rainbow standing in front of his spacecraft the day he bought it appeared on his HUD visor glasses. It always made him happy whenever he saw it. Wednesday had been excited about customizing it after he had gone to Paradiso to show it off. Six years later and the spacecraft was still functioning, something he hadn't expected knowing the destructive nature of bounty hunting.
The Galactic Space Force app opened, its first three letters—GSF—appearing at the top and center of the screen. The upper half of each letter was silver, and the bottom was gold. The background was grey, and at the top left side was a small image with Wolf's face. By clicking the image, he would go to his profile.
At the bottom, filling the screen horizontally, were four categories: Completed, Ranking, Bounties, and Community.
Completed, as the name stated, showed how many bounties a coyote had accepted, finished, and got paid for after delivering it to the GSF. After over seven years at the company, Wolf had racked up quite the number of completed bounties. But most of those were low-tier—Green Zone—which didn't help his ranking.
In Ranking, the GSF showcased the best one hundred coyotes in the company. Sadly, Wolf wasn't among them. It focused on the number of bounties completed, speed of completion, and casualties. The more of the first—especially for Red Zone bounties—and less of others, the higher a coyote's rank. The public could access this category, helping the coyotes get brand deals, sponsorships, and agents.
The Bounties category had the available bounties, difficulty level, and how much it paid after completion. And in Community, coyotes hung out and interacted with each other through message boards or virtual realities where they used avatars. This category was crucial in forming relationships and creating groups and alliances to help complete bounties.
Wolf never hung out or talked to other coyotes. The ranking system had brought a "celebrity worshipping" culture to the GSF he didn't like. The top one hundred were revered as Gods until when they dropped out.
