Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption Read Free Page B

our own share of empty attempts. If
the target has access to an identity blocker like we have, then the chances of
finding him are nearly impossible unless he’s reckless. Most often are.”
    “Because
you’re never reckless either.”
    Burke
laughed and went for a shower. Cass began her search for relevant data. They
had four days of time to kill.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    Frank
Copper’s face was on the screen at the helm. They had undocked the ship from
the station after receiving the tracer and replenishing the ship’s supplies.
Burke was eating his final fresh meal that Geoff had sent him. On the screen, Cass
was cycling through the information she had gathered.
    “This
is all I could find,” she said. “There are no reports of him leaving the system
but I still went through all the matches to his facial structure that I could
find since the bounty was posted.”
    The
display became a blur of images. Thousands of pictures of faces that looked
similar to Copper’s. Burke knew that there would be many false matches from the
different angles, perspectives, and qualities of the pictures. They all came
from dozens of different systems.
    “That’s
a lot more data than we used to get. Adam used to handle this side of things.
He’d hire outside help too, but they never came back with this many pictures,”
Burke said.
    “I
like being thorough,” Cass said, her voice higher than usual. “Hacking comes
more naturally to me than a human, anyway.”
    Burke
smiled and took another mouthful of potatoes. They were much better than the
dry food, plump with salt and preservatives, that he would be eating for the
next few weeks. Once again, he missed his old ship and its larger storage
space. Soon, he thought. He chewed while he stared up at the screen.
    “If
Copper got out of the system then we’ll have to let this one go,” he stated.
“Let’s commit a few weeks to this and take a chance. The pay is good enough.
I’ll set the ship for the Stratos system and we’ll narrow down our search on
the way there.
    “How
many pictures are you displaying right now?”
    “Currently:
146,762.”
    “Fuck.
Give or take a few?”
    “No,
146,762.”
    “Hah.
Okay. Remove those that didn’t come from Stratos. What does that leave us
with?”
    Parts
of the screen started to go blank as Cass sorted through them. Burke set his
plate aside and entered the coordinates for the first gate they’d use on the
way to the system. It would be two jumps and more travel time in between them
before they arrived.
    “Done,”
Cass said before he finished at the computer terminal.
    “How
many?”
    “Ten
thousand, roughly. Give or take a few.”
    “That’s
still a lot. The trip should take about eight days,” he said and then shook his
head at the task in front of them. “Well, we should start right away. Separate
each set by planets and stations first.”
    The
information was categorized and labeled as the ship hurtled toward the first
gate. Burke never stopped working even during the jump, choosing to stay in his
own ship instead of enjoying the amenities of the jump carrier. The work was
painstakingly slow and required a lot of comparison between pictures to rule
people out.
    Cass
was little help during that work, stating that all the pictures looked like the
same person to her, and she didn’t understand how humans could always tell each
other apart. She instead took over navigating the ship and reminded Burke when
to take a break so he didn’t strain his eyes.
    Over
half of the pictures were discarded. Although they shared similar distances
between the eyes, nose, and mouth, he was able to clearly see the difference
when put side by side Copper’s original photograph. When they completed the
jump into the Stratos system the possible locations had been narrowed to nine. They
were all spread across five of the inhabited planets in the system. It was more
than Burke would have liked, but he had dealt with worse.
    “That’s
a lot of