A swift deathworlder with a strong ship refuses to believe humans cannot be escaped if someone simply TRIES hard enough. They make a challenge. 1 v 1, any person - except a lucker or pax humanis - can be chosen for this. The challenge? They get 1 day head start and the human has the equivalent of one month to catch them. The gambling on this went wild. -- Anon Guest
One average, ordinary, everyday Human accountant with access to any everyday resource versus a Deathworlder with everything they normally had access to. There's always someone who wants to prove they're the biggest dog in the yard, and this was yet another occurrence of the game.
Deathworlder Challenger Kaj had a day to get away from Human Qing. After that, then the Human was free to do anything within their normal realms of expertise and resources to find and then physically contact Kaj.
The betting pool was marked in hours and days, with or without travel time. The betting was hot, and usually in the lower available numbers.
Those monitoring the situation paid all their attention to Qing, to make things fair. If Qing could just tune into the betting pool feeds, then the game was over and done with.
Qing slept in on the day that their hunt was meant to start. He sat up in bed, activating his datareader and eyescreen. Seemingly browsing their interests before starting his day.
Washed, dressed, and breakfasted, Qing strolled from his domicile and booked a transit ticket to Hitizzy.
By the time Qing got to Hitizzy, Kaj had moved on.
A Terran philosopher named Xeno concocted a paradox involving a projectile traveling half the distance towards a moving target. Anyone who knows that one is obviously faster than the other can tell that it's pure horseshit that the projectile would never reach the target.
This chase seemed to be the embodiment of that paradox, at least for a little while.
One nexus. Two. Three. Kaj had always moved on by the time Qing got there.
Yet Qing was always just that little bit closer, every time.
At the fourth transit nexus, Qing arrived just as Kaj was entering the departure lounge for the next leg of their journey. Without stopping, Qing made his way to the very same departure lounge and sat next to his quarry.
He offered his hand to shake and said, "Good game."
They shook.
[Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash]
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