Challenge #04620-L236: Lasting Impression

"Why didn't you kill him?"/That's your job, I'm not a killer.
"But you delivered him to me."/That was my job. Besides, I'd be too merciful, and after what he did....
"They will help all of you recover."/This lady with the kind eyes who gave me a hug with her tail already has helped a lot. -- The New Guy

[AN: This post has been edited to improve brevity]

You can call me what you like. It doesn't matter. Not really. I've been called a lot of names by a lot of people. Some of them are even accurate. I'm a bounty hunter. I'm used to it. I'm no judge, nor am I an executioner. There's only one of me, so I can't ever be a jury.

I leave the killing to the people who decide on what justice looks like.

That said, I don't always guarantee that the bounty arrives in one piece. They often arrive broken, bloody, and missing a few relatively insignificant pieces. Just to teach them why they shouldn't try escaping again.

Not my fault some of them are really slow learners.

In more than one occasion, I had to stick the target into stasis, or I might have done too much damage to them. I hate those jobs. So do my clients. It costs extra,and it has to. Stasis booths are expensive to run, and if it's a long trip back to the client... cost overruns are a bitch.

This one was bruised, bleeding, battered, and broken. Not quite at the point where they needed the booth, but it was a close thing. On the other hand, they were also gift-wrapped for delivery.

The client seemed... disappointed? "I half expected that [WASTE VENT] to be dead already."

"I don't kill 'em. I'm just the courier. I can make 'em wish they were dead, but that's as far as I go."

The gift-wrapped target made an incredulous noise at that news. I kicked them and made the float-pallet wobble.

"Why?" said the client.

Once upon a time, there was a child trapped in the grasp of true evil. Then along came two murderers and an angel wrapped in white fur. No. That story was far too private. I still remembered wanting to stab that evil myself, but the angel didn't let me. She wrapped me up and purred and blocked my view.

"Justice," I said. "Justice should belong to the victims."

[Photo by Jakub Pabis on Unsplash]

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