Sweet Hunting Ground

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Ocean Blue Star, District Three, the Garbage Pit—a place notorious for being lawless and ungoverned.

The sun had managed to shine for a day, and Annie was carefully hanging her school uniform skirt out on the balcony to dry.

Behind her, an old man, cigarette in hand, called out, “Annie, come help me check if this prosthetic part is the right model?”

Annie let go and walked over. The old man had only his brain and lungs left original; the rest was replaced by mechanical prosthetics. With a sweep of his artificial eye, a floating display screen appeared in midair.

Annie bent over to help him select for a while, then suddenly noticed an implanted advertisement on the screen. It read, “The selection for the universe’s hottest live-broadcast hunting game will be held…”

She stared at the ad for a moment.

The old man’s eyes were cybernetic, and the advertisement was directly projected onto his eyeball. He naturally followed her gaze. “Only a bunch of suicidal maniacs participate in that thing. But…” He chuckled, “the live broadcast is pretty entertaining.”

Annie asked, “Suicidal maniacs?”

“That’s right,” the old man took a drag from his cigarette. “All kinds of races, all for the gene-evolution serum. Those big shots from the advanced planets fight tooth and nail over it. Ordinary folks like us—what good would it do?”

Annie propped her chin. “Are there races I haven’t seen?”

“Of course there are. Annie, you’ve only met a handful of cosmic races, just Cosmic Type One and Two humans, right? You haven’t eve