“Junior, Bubba!” He screamed. The two men that had captured X in the first place appeared before him.
“Yeah, pa?” Junior said.
“Our guest has slipped out, please retrieve him for me, and don’t forget to bash some instruction into him to come back.”
But X was far away by the time the men left, he sat on another roof in New Atlantis. “This town is too big a job for me,” he thought, “I’ll need to come back to this one.” He decided to go to the next town, maybe find a few willing souls to fight for justice. He slid down the wall of the building and ran on the street, he headed further north, he heard there was a new tax on water during a local drought through the grape vine.
Back in New Atlantis, Junior and Bubba were still looking for X.
“Where is he?” one of the brothers asked?
“Maybe he left?”
“Should we tell Pa?”
“We can take care of this ourselves brother.” A laser shoot between them. It was John and Mark, the two androids from before.
“You can’t handle X on your own,” Mark said.
“We’ve caught him before, and just who the hell are you?”
“Believe us, we’ve caught him a few times before, he escapes once, he’s hard to get back, we’ve been chasing him for over fifteen years.”
“I think we can work together to get him,” Bubba said, “Come on we’ll take you to Pa.”
So they lead the androids to the city hall to meet Mr. Big. He was more than happy to sit with them. They discussed their past run-ins with the mystery thief.
“Android bounty hunters you say?” Mr. Big said, sipping a glass of ice tea, “So there is no stopping this man.”
“It almost seems like that yes,” John said.
“’Almost?’” Mr. Big said.
“We know he has almost has no weakness to our knowledge, but he is…” John hesitated to choose the correct word, “Slow, around women.”
“Ah,” Mr. Big said, “So it will be beauty that kills the beast. This is very good for us gentlemen. We now know how to subdue this little pest, with some bait. And after I’m done with him, you two can have X all to yourselves.” The two androids smiled at each other and shook hands with Mr. Big and agreed to aid him before they got X.
Three days later in the evening, X sat at a bar in the town he went to save from water taxes. “Another round of water on me!” everyone cheered victoriously.
“Ha, ha, it’s all free thanks to you, X!” one man said. X laughed and took back a refreshing glass of water. He then sat sadly at the bar stand. The bar tender walked up to him, drying a mug.
“Why so glum, X? You freed this city of the water taxes! I mean who else could have known that the mayor was holding all the water reserves under his estate to gain control of the taxes? You’re a hero, a true genuine class a hero.”
“Yeah,” X sighed reluctantly, “I guess I am, but New Atlantis is still in trouble, and I couldn’t handle it on my own. I’ve been looking for a few volunteers to take on Mr. Big but no one wants to fight him.”
“Mr. Big is the devil in these parts, friend, anyone willing to fight him is either a fool, or just you.”
“I just wish I didn’t have to always go through all of this alone when it came to the big jobs.”
“Well, I’d be willing to help you stranger,” A seductive voice said on the right. They looked to the right and saw the most beautiful creature sitting, smiling at X. She was a blue-eyed blonde bombshell with a beauty mrk on the side of her cheek. She wore a small black dress and heels with a diamond necklace draped over her elegant shoulders. His mouth dropped, the bar tender closed his jaw to cease his gawking. Like a switch, he then slid to the stool next to her. His goofy actions made her giggle, it made him even more infatuated.
She held out her hand, “I’m Lilith.”
X held her hand kissed it, “And I’m smitten.” She laughed again.
“I’ve heard a lot of you, Mr. X, but I’ve never heard of you being such a charmer.”
“Thank you miss,” he said, tipping his hat to her, “So what’s this I hear about you willing to help? You don’t seem like the fighting type?”
“Looks can be deceiving, Mr. X, there’s a lot of things you don’t know I can do.”
“Please,” he smiled, “Call me ‘Handsome.’” She laughed again, it seemed that this came more naturally to X than stealing.
“I’d be more than willing to help you Mr. Handsome, but first you must help me. You see, I’ve never been with a man of your…valor. If we could have just one night together, I’m sure I could do anything after that.” X was overfilled with what seemed like endless bliss. He picked her up and headed out of the bar to the nearest inn.
The Bar tender laughed and returned to cleaning his glass mug, “Things you witness in a bar.” He ducked as a wooden chair flew for his head. “Whoa, Tiny Tommy,” he yelled at the small child that threw the chair, “What did I tell you? No chair throwing!”
X threw her on the bed and took off his shirt, Lilith held up her hand, “Slow down, handsome,” She got up off the bed, “let me just get into something comfortable.”
“I could get you out of something uncomfortable sooner.”
“Trust me, it’ll be worth it.” She walked into the bathroom and shut the door. X hummed a tune and waited for his convenient angel with baited breath. But then he began to wonder how she could change into something comfortable if she came to the inn with no change of clothes.
But all of his rational thoughts left as he heard her angelic voice say, “Alright, Mr. X, I’m ready.” X turned around and instead of seeing the beautiful Lilith sexily clad in lingerie, saw one of the brothers of Mr. Big with a rock over his head with a crooked toothed smile.
“…You aren’t Lilith.” He dropped the rock on X’s head. He was knocked out instantly by the rock and blacked out on the bed.
X later awoke on a cold hard concrete floor in a jail cell in a warehouse. He stood up and examined the laser bars keeping him in, one touch and it could slice him into pieces. Mr. Big stood in front of him “Hope you are enjoying your stay in New Atlantis again. I suppose it is a city you just can’t help but return to.”
“Mr. Big,” X said, “so nice to see your jelly jowls again.”
Mr. Big smiled at him, “That’s what I love about you, X, always so confident,” he stepped closer to the cell, “It will be a pleasure of getting rid of that first. But you are quite the formidable opponent, I even needed some help tagging you in here again.” John, Mark, Bubba and Junior all emerged from the shadows. “These androids say they had a little history with you, my boy. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t know your only weakness.” Lilith then came out of the shadows, “Your longing heart.”
“…Lilith.” X said.
“Well since you’re here, I suppose some good old torture is in order, isn’t it. Come boys, lets go shopping for supplies, Lilith, you stay here and make sure our guest is very uncomfortable where he is.”
“Yes, sir.” She said. Mr. Big and the others left the warehouse and left them alone. The silence was awkward, until X spoke.
“So how much are they paying you?”
“Four million credits, and thirty gold bars.”
“Chicken feed, mere peanuts, I could give you so much more than that.”
“Oh really, like what?”
“Love.”
She laughed at his answer, “Sorry but love can’t get me a mansion in the tropics.”
“Suit yourself, but I know we could do even better than that.”
“Right…” She tried to change the subject, “…So from what I hear you’re just some traveling robin hood.”
“You are correct ma’m.”
“So what made you want to risk yourself just to steal from the biggest fat cats in the world?”
X sighed, “Well this is a story I hate to tell.” They both got comfortable and sat facing each other, “I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, the only son and heir to a wealthy family. My real name is Philippe J. Xavier; I’m Spanish on my mother’s side and French on my fathers. They were gambling tycoons, the luckiest people in the world. But the richer they got, the higher the stakes were. One evening, they were at a wealthy club associates meeting and they were on the top of their game as always. Making outrageous bets like how long could one servant stand on one foot, or which treat a dog would eat. But then a man came in, he looked confident, and challenged everyone in a game of poker. He dashed the competition until it was down to my parents, they lasted that long but they were losing a lot; but they never stopped, they couldn’t face the fact they couldn’t win. At the end of the game, the man won and my parents lost two thirds of their entire fortune. They begged like children for him to have something else, anything. After some negotiating, they agreed on the man taking a quarter of their fortune, and me. I was only nine, and my parents pawned me off to a stranger, from then on, I belonged to him. I never knew his name; he made me refer to him as, ‘Master’. He made me do the job of ten butlers, I washed his clothes, I cleaned his estate after extravagant parties, I slept in a box in the furthest part of his estate away from him. I worked like this for three years. When he left for a trip, I ran away as far as I could. With no food, I didn’t think I’d last long, but I knew I could stay there. I found a nearby city. There I met an old man with a gray beard. He was a homeless man, but he was more talented and kind hearted than any man I’ve met. He could run straight forward in a city and jump, climb over, slide down and swing around any obstacle in his way. He said it was an ancient skill called ‘Parkour’ and I begged to have him teach me. His name was Gabriel, and he adopted me as his apprentice. But as I lived there in the city, learning the art of parkour, my owner sent out bounty hunter androids to take me back. Gabriel helped me evade them numerous times, and traveled with me to the next town and the next. When I turned eighteen, I had mastered my craft, thanked Gabriel, and decided to use my talent to stop any wealthy, greedy b****** from stealing from good, innocent people. So that’s how I’m here.”
Lilith felt awful, she put a card in the card key slot and the laser bars left X’s view. “But…why?”
“Empathy, Philippe, empathy.” X nodded and kissed her on the cheek. He ran out of the ware house and into the street. He knew he had to leave but he wanted to bring Lilith with him.
The next morning X walked around the city in a disguise with his regular clothes in his bag, when he saw a news-bot give him a hologram article. The hologram was big and exciting, advertizing the city square execution…of Lilith. X was filled with rage, though always keeping his cool and composure he could not hide his pure anger for Mr. Big. That evening; he went to the city hall, where John and Mark waited out for the expected hero to return.