Learning to Fly

Part Two

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The following morning, I sat there staring blankly at the opposite wall of the alley, no longer possessing the mental strength to move without first having some actual place to go. I had slept but I wasn't rested. My body ached all over. The ground was hard, and the night was cold, I could still feel it in my bones. I was hungrier than ever.

If I was to survive in this world I would need money; that much was clear to me now. 'One of those things I needed to learn for myself, huh grandpa?' I missed him and my home on Zebes.

As I stretched away the ache in my back, I noticed in the newspaper, which served as my blanket, the symbol for federation credits printed again and again next to numerical amounts. At the top of the page, in large print it said: "Jobs", and just below that in slightly smaller print, "Earn Money Today". Below there were dozens of tiny boxes, each, in some form or another, listed an amount of money, an address, and a vague description of what needed to be done. I figured this was as good a lead as any and decided to pursue it.

The first place I went to was a docking bay, similar to the one I docked in. Only this place wasn't for passenger ships to park, it was where all the supplies the station needed were brought in. They wanted someone to off-load incoming cargo from the supply ships onto smaller vehicles to be moved around the station. It involved operating a forklift and paid fifty five credits for every hour of work done. I was told right up front I was too young and shooed away. I can't begin to explain how frustrating it was getting to be made to feel like less of a person because of my age.

The next place I went paid an even better rate of eighty credits an hour, and was something I was familiar with; it involved repairing machines. I was to be part of a crew that went around the station fixing various systems that had ceased functioning. They didn't seem to care about how young I was, the only thing I had to do was demonstrate an ability to perform the required work. As such, a test was administered; a damaged machine was placed in front of me and I was timed on how long it took me to figure out what was wrong. This would be simple; I'd done things like this a hundred times back on Zebes.

In this instance I was given a plasma injector from a micro reactor, a type of redundant power plant used around the station, as it had no central reactor core. As soon as I opened the casing I knew I was in trouble. I wasn't at all familiar with the design, in fact the type of technology was completely foreign to me, and it looked much more complex than anything I dealt with previously. I was certain if I was given the time I could learn it easily enough but that didn't seem to matter to the employer. They wanted someone experienced to put to work right away. I was again ushered away.

The description in the paper for the last place was especially vague, but it seemed to indicate being female was preferable. So I figured I'd have a better chance here. The guy I met, I thought, looked particularly unkempt, and this was coming from someone who had slept in an alley the night before.

"I came about this..." I pointed to the ad in the paper.

"You? Aren't you a bit young?" I swear I would have hit him if I didn't think it would hurt my chances at getting the job.

"I need money," I explained.

"Hmm..." He looked me over and began to circle me. It was then that I got a bad feeling about him, something about the way he was looking at me made me uncomfortable. "Well, as I said, you are a bit young, and you don't got much going on up top. But I guess some guys will go for that."

"Go for what?" I looked at him suspiciously.

"Alright...Come upstairs and I'll try you out; see if you're any good. You got all your shots don't ya'? No diseases, right?"

He gave me a sinister feeling, and I felt like I had to get out of there. I was naïve and didn't know what he really expected of me; it wasn't till years later that I realized exactly what I had walked into. Thankfully my instincts were sharper than my reason.

"Uh... I... I have to go," I said cautiously. It could have gone very badly and I'm glad I got out of there when I did.

Just one dead end after another, and now I was back where I started... and I still hadn't eaten. If I didn't have the energy of youth on my side I would probably have gone back to that alley, laid down, and never gotten back up again. But I was determined not to give up, and instead decided to return to the police station on the remote possibility that my ship had been recovered.

I hated this place. I wanted more than ever to go home, and if I still had my ship I would have. Despite Grandpas advice I would have still gone back and lived there on Zebes, even if I would have been all alone. I understood that world; I knew how to live there. Besides, I was alone here anyway; even if there were people all around, I was completely alone. Since the day I was rescued by Grandpa from the ruins of K-2L, I haven’t cried once, even to the present day, but at that moment I almost felt like I would.

As I entered the station, Officer Jansen from the day before greeted me when I entered.

"Sorry, kid, no news on your ship," he said before I even had a chance to ask.

"Oh... well, I guess I'll try back tomorrow." I turned to leave.

"Samus, wait," he called to me.

"Yeah?" I was surprised he remembered my name.

"Come here for a second." He came out from behind the counter and sat on the bench along the wall. I walked over and sat next to him.

"Are you going to arrest me for not registering right away?"

"What? No. Listen... Let me ask you: You don't have any family on the station do you; no one to stay with?

"No. I don't..."

"The thing is, I was talking about you last night... with my wife. And... well we don't have any kids of our own... so... since you're on your own here we thought that, if you want, you can come to stay with us."

At first I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was this person actually showing me kindness? This was the first positive thing that happened to me since I got to the station and probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me since I was adopted by the Chozo. However I also got a very uncertain feeling about it as well and it made me hesitate.

"Maybe... I don't know... I'll think about it," I said and then quickly left. Again he called after me to stop; again I didn't heed his plea.

Why had I not jumped at the offer? What was I thinking? I was probably going to starve to death here and I had to think about it? Though as much as I wanted to accept I knew what it really meant: that I failed, that I had given up. I wasn't ready to accept defeat just yet. My prideful and stubborn side had shown itself for one of the first times. His offer felt like yet another person treating me like a helpless child, which by now was something I was growing to hate. It actually made me feel good about myself not to have given in.

I often look back on that moment and wonder. What would my life be like now had I taken his offer? How different a person would I be? I sometimes think that that was my greatest mistake ever. Other times I think it was a disaster averted.

Although I thought highly of myself for not caving, not giving into weakness, I was still feeling quite low as my situation had not improved any. I was a failure regardless; I felt completely useless. Could grandpa see me like this from his higher place of existence? He said he knew I could handle it when I had left him. Would I be a disappointment to him? He seemed to have such lofty hopes for me... 'Become someone truly great?'

"Right... I can't even feed myself."

I trudged down the street with my head hung. My hunger was making itself known more and more. It had been nearly a day and a half since I last ate anything, my neck and back ached from sleeping in an alley, and I nearly got hypothermia the night before.

'This can't get much worse,' I thought.

Though, as much as I hated it, it was still nothing to me. It was nothing compared to that fateful event that set the stage for the rest of my life. If I could survive that hellish ordeal then I could survive being hungry and alone.

Because I wasn't watching where I was going, I bumped into another person on the street and staggered backwards.

"Hey watch it, stupid kid. Get out'a my way," came the gruff voice of the person I'd bumped into.

I looked up to see a seven foot tall, muscle bound, mountain of an alien. I didn't know what his species was called, but he had four arms, dark leathery reddish brown skin, and pupil-less purple eyes. His face had a nasty scar from his jaw up to just above his ear, which was merely a hole on the side of his head.

"S-sorry..." I was a bit shocked by the size of him.

I turned and continued on my way, when I suddenly realized I recognized him. His face was incredibly familiar to me. I knew I had seen him somewhere before. I was sure of it because of the scar. ... The police station! There was a hologram of him, among other criminals, on the wall. As I sat filling out that paper work the day before I stared at it for nearly an hour. It said: "Reward: 25,000 credits," below his face.

I was unsure exactly what that meant, but I had an idea, and the only way to be certain was to take this guy to the police station and find out. I also knew that twenty five thousand credits could get me a ton of food and put me up in a hotel room for several weeks. Without a second thought I chased after him, following behind him for a ways, until I eventually caught up to him in a deserted lot behind a building. He went over to the corner behind a trash heap and removed a tarp revealing a crate of some kind.

"Hey!" I shouted making my presence known. He turned looking a bit startled.

"What-- what do you want? Did you follow me here?" He said nervously, while moving slightly to obstruct my view of the crate he had. "Oh... You're that human from before. Take off if you know what's good for you."

"Are you the one with your picture in the police station?"

"Huh?"

"If I bring you there, do I get the twenty five thousand credits?"

"What? You're after my bounty? A brat like you?"

"If it's true, then would you come to the police station with me? I really need that money, I lost my ship and I don't have any money for food and--"

"Ha ha ha! You're joking, right? I'm not going anywhere with you. Now get lost before I decide to kill you."

"You won't come willingly then?"

"What, do you think I'm stupid? Of course I won't!" I think he rolled his eyes at me, but I couldn't tell since they were one solid color.

"Then you leave me no choice, I really need that money." I squared off against him and took a fighting stance.

"You're not serious... You think you can take me down? You're nothing but a child. "

That was the wrong thing to say. I launched myself at him; running at full speed, I leapt and delivered a spin kick to the side of his head. I fell to the ground and hit my head hard, but my foot hurt worse. He, apparently, was unfazed. It felt like kicking a solid rock, and I thought I had broken my foot.

I had let anger get the better of me and rushed in without thinking and paid the price because of it. Another lesson I had to learn on my own. Agonizingly, I stood back up. I was in pain but I could stand; I hadn't broken any bones.

"Ok twerp, now you're asking for it." He reached behind him and pulled out an energy pistol and fired at me. Fortunately, I was faster than him; as soon as I saw the weapon I had jumped out of the way and was already in the air by the time he fired at where I had been standing. He fired a second time, but I jumped again and kicked off the wall to my right, flipped through the air over his head, and landed behind him.

'Alright grandpa, I think this situation counts.' I took the small disk from my pocket that stored the armor while it was dormant. I swiped my thumb across its surface, and as my Chozo blood was recognized, it activated. Its form quickly materialized over my body, its variable nature allowing it to fit perfectly on my then much shorter frame.

He turned around to look at me and was obviously confused. "What the hell? Where did she--"

I didn't give him time to finish however. I delivered another kick to his face; same attack, same foot, same head, very different result. He was knocked down and back, into the wall. I took a short hop backwards, closer to the center of the abandoned lot, putting some distance between us.

As he regained his bearings he aimed his gun at me again, but with one well aimed shot I disarmed him before he could fire. The weapon was knocked from his upper right hand. He clutched the pained appendage with his other right hand, while he reached for the crate with both his left. I fired a second time, the shot grazing his fingers. He quickly retracted his hand and clutched the singed flesh.

"Enough! I yield," he said, and put up all four of his hands.

With my cannon still aimed at him, I approached, opened the crate, and looked inside. It was filled with weapons, all energy pistols of the same model as the one he had carried. 'So that's why he had reached for it when I disarmed him.' I preformed a scan on him, searching for more weapons, and my visor detected a knife strapped to his ankle under his pant leg.

"Damn kid! Where'd you get armor like that?"

I stuck my cannon right in his face while I reached down and took his knife away and tossed it aside.

"Will you come with me now?"

"You're not leaving me much choice, now are you?"

"I guess I ain't. Now, get moving."

"Yeah, yeah," he complained as he got to his feet.

I marched him down the street towards the police station, keeping a few paces behind him. Somewhere along the way I let my armor dissolve away, as I didn't really need it just to walk down the street. He apparently didn't want to test his luck and didn't try anything while my defenses were supposedly down; smart move on his part as they are almost never down.

This was my very first bounty, and it wasn't something I planned or chose; it just happened on the spot. It was like the profession chose me, rather than the other way around. Even then, as I walked my first catch back to the police to collect my first reward, I didn't expect this to be a way of life for me. I only thought of it as something I did then and there to make some quick money.

As we entered the police station we received several gasps of shock. I saw Officer Jansen staring at me.

"I brought that guy..." I said pointing to his hologram. "I can get money now?"

"Samus! What... what are you doing?" said Jansen.

"That sign says I get money if I bring this guy in here. Right?"

"Someone... someone get some cuffs on him," he yelled out and a couple of other officers came over and put restraints on the alien and led him away.

"Samus," he said walking up to me, "How--, you--, where did you..." he stammered in disbelief. "I don't know how you managed to do it but... Samus, that was incredibly dangerous, you shouldn't be anywhere near criminals like that. What in the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about those twenty five thousand credits... I do get them... don't I?"

"Well, I... I guess so, but... Listen, I don't want you to do that ever again. Understand?"

"But what if I need money again later? This was easy and I get so much, and it seems a lot better than all those other jobs I looked at. Did I do something wrong? I thought that was what the sign was for, right?"

"Yes but, you could have been killed--"

"No I couldn't!" Now I was annoyed at him now; I thought he was trying to insult me. It didn’t register with me then that he was concerned. "That guy was pathetic; he wasn't even a challenge to me. I really think you should give me my money now." I said stubbornly.

"Not a challenge? Samus, that was a major illegal arms dealer, he's been wanted for months. He sells banned armor piercing plasma pistols on the street. You're very lucky he didn't have any on him."

"Oh I almost forgot, he did have one on him, and he had a whole big box full too."

"Uh... a big box... I... "

"Can I have my money now?" I said angrily, by now it felt like he was stalling and I wanted what I believed I was owed at this point.

"Yeah... yeah sure... come on," he said defeated. He took me down the hall to a window with a woman behind it. He explained to her the situation, and I had to fill out more paperwork. "You should know... if you seriously plan on doing this for a living , you need to register officially as a hunter. Depending on what level of government issued the bounty, you may need a license to be a hunter; otherwise you might not get paid."

"I won't get paid?" I said anxiously, looking up from the form I was filling out.

"No, no... You'll get paid for this one. That bounty was issued by the PC-304 local authority. If it had come from Perata VII's central government or the Federation's main office, and you didn't have a license, then they wouldn't be obligated to pay the bounty."

"Oh..."

"I seriously can't believe you. This is crazy..." he sighed. "Well just stay here and fill out that form then the woman there will take care of you," he said, then went off and returned to his desk.

I finally filled out the form, which actually took longer and was more challenging than catching the arms dealer himself was, then returned it to the woman behind the window.

"What's your account number, sweetie?"

"My what?"

"You know, for your bank account."

"I don't have one of those."

"You don't have one? How odd. Well I guess I could give you cash."

"Is that money?"

"It can be exchanged for credits if that’s what you mean... but you really should get yourself a bank account though."

I noted her advice and made a mental note to do that later, but right now I was just itching to get my hands on that money. She went into the back where I couldn't see her and was in there for a while, I was getting very anxious. She finally returned and handed me a thick wad of small papers, each with elaborate designs on them and numbers printed across the face.

As soon as I had my prize in hand I bolted out of there as fast as I could run. But on the way out I passed Officer Jansen and stopped.

"I um... thanks for, uh, you know, before... your offer. But I don't think I'll need your help now. See you," I said and quickly resumed my frantic pace before he could respond. I ran from the police station and tore through the streets with only one thing in mind.

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My first couple of days amongst my own kind didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped. Grandpa was right once again; I did have a lot to learn. I was off to a good start in that regard: In just a few days I learned about crime and criminals, that money is a requirement in a world like this, and that humans are generally unfriendly to complete strangers, though some can be nice. Of all the things I learned I think what would stick with me most was that...

...steak tastes really good. 

Close log.

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Next chapter: Huntress