A Fresh Start

A Fresh Start is the sixth episode of Cyberpunk. The previous was Bustin' Out, and the next is New Lives.

Story
It was a week since SpongeBryan escaped from prison. The detective and the guard responsible for watching over him were fired by Alveus’ mayor and exiled from the city until they brought him back along with his partners in crime, Pat and Ron.

The detective waited by a coral tree in the middle of a vast trench, anticipating a very special visitor. Suddenly, his wrist-phone began to ring. He pressed a button, and the face of the guard who was exiled with him appeared in a hologram.

“What are you doing?” hissed the detective. “I told you not to call me during the meeting! What if he thinks I’m working with the police?”

“But you are working with the police,” said the guard.

“You know what I mean.”

“Are you sure that this bounty hunter will be able to find who we’re looking for?”

“I’ve talked to a lot of people about this guy. If anyone can find them, he can. Oh, no! I can see him in the distance! Goodbye.”

The detective turned off his wrist-phone and stood innocently by the coral tree as the bounty hunter approached.

“You got my money?” said the bounty hunter.

The detective took out a stack of sand dollars and placed them in the bounty hunter’s hand.

“Here’s half the bounty,” said the detective. “You’ll get the other half when you bring me these little punks.”

The detective took mugshots of SpongeBryan, Pat, and Ron out of his shirt pocket. The bounty hunter grabbed the mugshots and grunted as he stuck them in his pocket.

“Nice doing business with you,” said the detective.

The bounty hunter grunted again and walked off. Once he was out of sight, the detective turned on his wrist-phone and called the guard.

“It was a success!” cheered the detective.

“That’s great,” said the guard. “Now what do we do?”

“We do what we’re been doing up until now. We wait. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”

The guard sat down in the mud cabin he and the detective built for themselves. He nibbled on a piece of algae and shuddered at its bitter taste.

“I knew I should’ve been an engineer,” said the guard.

Five minutes later, the detective walked into the cabin and hung up his trench coat.

“Hey, Jimmy. I hope you didn’t miss me too much.”

Jimmy the guard threw his piece of algae to the ground and stepped on it furiously.

“Damn you, Arthur! Why did you have to choose the most desolate place in the entire ocean for us to pitch camp?”

“We can’t risk being seen,” said Arthur the detective. “If we want to nab those kids, we’ll need to do this as discretely as possible. That’s why we sent a bounty hunter after them. I underestimated them once. I’m not going to do it again.”

“Well, if it’ll help us get out jobs back, I guess I’ll go along with this,” said Jimmy. “But don’t expect me be happy about it.”

“I won’t,” said Arthur.

They brushed off the crumpled algae, cooked it, and ate it for dinner. That night, as Arthur and Jimmy slept soundly in their beds, a small army of mutants snuck into the cabin, led by a tall, muscular, one-eyed fish.

“Where’s the leak, ma’am?” muttered Arthur as he opened his eyes. Upon seeing the mutants, he leaned to the next bed shook Jimmy awake. They both scurried closer to the back of their beds as the mutants surrounded them.

“Please tell me this is just a horrible nightmare,” whispered Jimmy.

“Oh, this is no nightmare,” said the one-eyed leader with a devious smile. “This is as real as it gets.”

“What do you want?” cried Arthur. “If you want money, we have plenty of it. Take as much as you want!”

“We don’t want money,” said the one-eyed leader, disgusted. “What we want…is vengeance!”

The one-eyed leader pulled out a laser gun and shot a beam through Arthur’s chest, killing him immediately. Jimmy jumped out of his bed in terror. Two of the mutants grabbed him and pinned him to the wall.

“Please! Please,” said Jimmy. “Whatever you’re planning to do with me, don’t do it.”

“What would be the fun in that?” said the one-eyed leader. “Besides, we can’t risk you going off and finding SpongeBryan before we do. He’s the symbol of our insurgency.”

“Insurgency?” said Jimmy. “What are you talking about?”

“What does it matter? You’ll be dead in a few seconds, anyway.”

“No! I’m begging you!”

The one-eyed leader pointed the laser gun at Jimmy’s head.

“No!”

He pulled the trigger.

SpongeBryan, Pat, and Ron could barely walk anymore when they finally reached their destination: the isolated town of Insulam.

“Here it is,” said SpongeBryan. “The location of our new home.”

“Thank Neptune,” wheezed Ron. “I didn’t think I could go on for much longer.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Pat. “It’s a good thing you control our legs.”

“Think about it,” proclaimed SpongeBryan. “We no longer have to worry about the conflicts and troubles of our old life. It’s clean slate, a fresh start.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Pat. “So when do we get something to eat?”

“I second that,” said Ron. “We haven’t had a bite in almost a week now.”

SpongeBryan chuckled. They purchased a bowl of fried scallops from a nearby food stand, and Pat and Ron indulged in the scallops while SpongeBryan took in the sights around him.

“It’s a fresh start,” repeated SpongeBryan.

“You want some?” said Pat as he offered SpongeBryan a handful of fried scallops.

“Uh…no thanks.”