Hunter's First Rule
By Gerald L. Coleman, first published in The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology
A professional hunter scours the City for the woman he loves struggles to but eventually finds her before anything happens to her.
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Plot Summary
Fue is a professional hunter who deeply cares about a woman named Azzura, despite the fact that he had promised himself not to get close to anyone. One day, Fue's acquaintance Flitch tells him that he saw her taken in the City through the alleys. Fue is concerned. He also notices a smell on Flitch, but because he cannot place it, he ignores it for a while. Fue goes through the District, the City's main and most crowded place, asking if anyone has seen Azzura. Unfortunately, he is out of luck as no one had seen her at all. He decides to restart his search. As he rests at a cafe, he realized something. The pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together. Fue needs help from some friends and he is able to go down in the tombs to find Azzura. He is able to piece together where the smell Flitch had come from. It is an odor from the tombs: where people go in but never come out. He heard that people did not see Azzura, but they did see Flitch with Spazz.
Spazz is a fellow hunter, but he has been killing other hunters to take their territory, which is against the sacred hunters' rules.
Fue along with other hunters find Spazz, take him into custody, and will punish him and Fue is able to save his beloved Azzura.