The buildings stood too close together, crowding each other onto the streets and threatening to swallow up the few pedestrians still out as they trudged to God-knows-where. It was reminiscent of Chinatown, sitting in one of many craters on Mars.

The crater was thought to be big enough, but colonists didn't take into account the velocity of Earth dwellers moving to the red planet. A second crater city was built soon after, which they named Nemesis. Nevertheless, Olympus City was still too crowded. Nemesis was on its way to the same degree of overcrowding.

A yellow tint painted the sky after the sun fell below the horizon. Beyond the city, which lit the sky like Tokyo, hills were silhouetted against the stars. In the daylight, those hills were red dunes that waited for the wind to herd them across the wasteland. Occasionally, starships disrupted the wind's herding as they sped across the planet. Some head home, some go to the police department to turn in bounties, and others simply enjoying the sights of Olympus City. The sand looked like outstretched hands trying to grab the ships' wings. The dunes appeared stationary in the night.

Aside from the planet's natural elements and the people, everything was fake. The heat, the water, the plants, and the air were man-made. Nothing felt real, but it was the price for making an uninhabitable planet habitable. It took many years to master a controlled atmosphere when the red planet hardly had anything to protect its surface like Earth.

A woman in her late twenties was almost invisible in the shadows of an alleyway. Eliza Kane, a bounty head's worst nightmare, scanned the street, waiting. Her sky-blue eyes were like steel in the darkness. She was on the prowl.

Eliza didn't plan to be a bounty hunter – no one ever did – but when the money got low and life was unexciting, hunting was the preferred professional past time. There were always less honorable ways of making money, like her bounty head's hobby. Eliza knew better though. Her parents wouldn't have wanted her to go down that path. Bounty hunting would have worried them enough.

Finally, her target arrived. Her bounty head looked old, hunched over, as he checked over his shoulder. He shuffled into the alley adjacent to Eliza's. Another one of his drug deals, just as she planned.

Following the dealer, Eliza scampered into the alley where he stood, waiting in the shadows. Her black Converse shoes squeaked against the concrete, still wet from an artificial rain, and she pulled her well-worn brown jacket around her. She contorted her frame to seem uneasy and paranoid, gaining his trust. His eyes softened minimally at the sight of her. He took a small step into a nearby streetlight's beam to welcome her toward him. It was all too easy.

The man before her stood up straight, leaving him a few inches taller than her 5'6" frame. A wicked grin appeared on his face. Even in the night, his teeth glowed yellow from years of cigarettes and hard liquor. The drug dealer dug into his black coat and pulled out a bag of three dried mushrooms. He held it toward Eliza. His fingernails were cut too short and surrounded by hangnails. The dried blood from where he bit at the dead skin didn't go unnoticed in the darkness.

"This what you want?" the man asked.

"How much?" she asked, reaching for her gun tucked in the back of her waistband.

The bounty head opened his mouth to answer, but the scuff of boots stopped him. Eliza and the dealer looked to see a man standing at the end of the alley. He must have been over six feet tall. He stared, shocked. His hair looked black in the night, along with his leisure suit. A light-colored trilby hat, angled over his face, hid the stranger's eyes from them. He must have left a club before he came across them.

"Hey, I thought I was buying from you."

The stranger's voice was deep. Eliza was intrigued momentarily.

She frowned, "You must have the wrong guy. This is my deal."

The stranger shrugged and took a few steps toward them, "I could just take you both to the police instead. I could get double the money. My stomach would enjoy the extra cash."

The bounty head started to mumble and hunched over once more. His sleazy confidence was shattered. He was going to run thanks to the leisure suit guy. Eliza needed to do something drastic if she was going to get that bounty.

"I'm sorry, but you're in the way," Eliza said before she kicked the stranger in the head. He fell to the ground hard.

"That was close, huh?" The bounty head sighed, straightening his posture again.

The barrel of Eliza's pistol suddenly pointed to the space between his eyes. "Finn Strovsky, you're coming with me," she said. The butt of her gun met his head at full force, and he toppled to the ground.

Eliza relaxed her shoulders slightly and sighed. She stretched out her limbs and neck, preparing to carry Strovsky to the police. Her eyes landed on the unconscious stranger for a second. It would be unfortunate if they met again. Most people didn't take kindly to getting knocked out.

With a huff, Eliza hoisted the dealer onto her shoulders, almost buckling under the weight of him, and awkwardly trudged out of the alley. It was a long walk to the police station.