The System Hunter

Chapter 7: One Year for a Witness

The offer stayed in the center of Elias’s vision while Tessa continued examining Rafi’s contract.

Three hundred sixty-five days. More life than Elias had ever possessed at one time. Enough for Mara to finish her apprenticeship, for them to leave Meridian, and for the hospital to stop deciding who deserved treatment based on the digits above a bed. All he had to do was hand over the woman who had helped him capture Hollen alive.

PRIVATE CONTRACT: DELIVER TESSA ROOK.

REWARD: +365 DAYS.

CAPTURE ONLY. NO PUBLIC RECORD.

ACCEPTANCE DEADLINE: 00:01:00.

Elias closed the panel with a blink. It opened again.

“Your face,” Mara said. “What happened?”

“Another order.”

“For me?”

“For Tessa.”

Tessa’s tablet stopped moving. She looked at Elias for a long moment, neither reaching for a weapon nor retreating. “How much?”

He almost lied, and hated himself for considering it. “One year.”

Rafi let out a breath that sounded like a laugh. “I would’ve taken that before you finished reading.”

“Which is why you should be scared of the people who offered it,” Mara replied.

Tessa folded the tablet and set it on the oxygen cabinet. “Give me the contract code. If I’m the target, it probably uses a sealed warrant. I might recognize the issuing authority.”

Elias let her view the panel. Her expression became colder as she read. “Continuity Nine. I signed the initial audit suspension. The System isn’t paying you to bring me in for questioning. It wants a witness transferred out of public custody.”

“Can we refuse?” Mara asked.

“We can,” Elias said. “The offer hasn’t been accepted.”

Tessa stared at a tiny symbol by the expiry timer. “There’s an automatic conversion clause. Once the minute ends, the reward passes to the nearest eligible hunter.”

They all looked at Rafi. He took two hurried steps backward.

“I’m not doing it.”

“The nearest eligible hunter after you,” Tessa said, “is the patrol at the door.”

Elias glanced down the corridor. A group of officers was already assembling by the stairwell. They had not been searching randomly. They were waiting for the bounty to rotate to someone willing to collect it.

Mara checked her wrist display. “If they force me to authenticate the duplicate, I can lock the building’s personnel index. For ninety seconds nobody will be able to claim an individual identity match.”

“That also freezes the patient-transfer queue,” Tessa warned.

“Then we move the patient first.”

They rolled the bed through the service tunnel while Rafi carried an oxygen bottle and Hollen limped behind. The boy’s ventilator continued its careful rhythm. At the end of the corridor, a freight elevator opened onto a long empty passage. Its cameras were so old that Mara could control them with the maintenance key.

The private offer reached ten seconds. Elias stood in the elevator doorway, making himself visible to the nearest patrol camera. The officer at the far end slowed, recognizing the bounty target behind him.

“Run the lock,” Elias said.

Mara tapped the command. PERSONNEL INDEX: MANUAL VERIFICATION REQUIRED. A warning siren pulsed through the hospital. The officers raised their rifles but did not fire; without verified identities, the safety software would flag any hit as an unlicensed attack.

The private contract expired.

TRANSFER PENDING.

NEW ELIGIBLE HUNTER: RAFI SOREN.

Rafi looked horrified as the same bright card opened over his vision. “They’re offering it to me.”

“Don’t accept,” Elias said.

“I’m not.” Rafi squeezed his eyes shut as though he could shut out the message with his eyelids. “I said I’m not.”

The System chimed again.

ACCEPTANCE MODE: IMPLIED BY PRIOR RECOVERY CONTRACT.

Tessa snatched Rafi’s tablet. “They chained the contracts. If you deliver me, you satisfy your first mission and claim the second. If you refuse, they fine you twice.”

Rafi’s balance began dropping in chunks of thirty seconds instead of one. He staggered, clutching his chest. A hidden penalty had activated.

Elias reached for the tablet, ready to challenge the fine. Before he could, the interface added one last line.

SECONDARY BENEFICIARY OF FORFEITED TIME: MARA VENN.

Someone was using his sister as the receiving account. If Rafi died, her balance would rise—and her signature would be proof that she profited from his death.