Vermin City was situated on Mimas, a small moon that orbited a gas giant right here in the Sol system, just past the asteroid belt. Vermin City isn't the town's real name. Its real name is Vermal City, named after the first astronaut to set foot on the place. But its adopted name fit it much better.

Vermin City was a cesspool of human outcasts: murderers, criminals, deserters, drug- or arms dealers...Vermin City was the place to go to disappear, purchase whatever you want, get what you needed. Anything at all is available in Vermin City.

Anything.

The rain pounded down on the city streets, hard. Most people sought shelter; only the police and the bums were still out. The police sat in patrol cars, eating donuts and drinking coffee, the rain obscuring the view. The bums that were still out where there because they were too drunk or jacked up to find the strength to get up and walk. So there was no one, really, watching much of anything.

A set of eyes glinted from an alley. The man behind the eyes looked about. All clear. With speed born of desperation he sprinted out of the alley, wearing a blue lab smock that was splattered with blood. He also wore rubber gloves, and his wild blond hair whipped out from under his medical face mask. In his hands he held three small boxes, all marked with a red cross and the same official warning: HUMAN ORGANS - PERISHABLE-KEEP REFRIGERATED.

Inside the boxes were a heart, a kidney, and a set of eyes. The running man leaped into his hovercar and hit the lights, and flew up and away as fast as he could without breaking city speed limits. He didn't want to attract any attention.

For the one-second that the lights illuminated the alley, he could see what he had left behind: the cadaver of a young woman, who lay almost naked on the dirty alley ground amongst the used needles, empty crack vials, broken glass and cigarette butts.

There was an incision in her chest, and on her side, and two empty holes were in her skull were her eyes used to be.

"Time to find some work, kids," said Jet as he looked over an invoice sheet. He had just done the end-of-month tally.

"Faye, you and Spike both went 'way overboard this month on fuel, and I'm NOT going to carry your debt."

"Yeah yeah, I know, time to pay up," said Faye Valentine as she lit up a cigarette. She looked over to her shipmate, and often rival, Spike Spiegel. He lay on the sofa, his own cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, looking totally relaxed, as usual.

"Hey, Lunk-head,turn the monitor on. Big Shot should be on any second," she said.

"Lunkhead!" laughed Ed, who popped out from behind a console. "Lunkhead lunkhead lunkhead!" Behind her they heard the bark of the ship dog, Ein, in agreement.

"I do everything around here," said Spike, and he flipped the monitor on. They were just in time to catch the transmission of "Big Shot", the show for Bounty Hunters.

The transmission was garbled and spotty, having been disrupted by millions of miles of gas, dust, and other stellar clutter.

"Hey there, Amigos, welcome to Big Shot, the show for Bounty hunters! I am your host, Senor Punch, and my lovely assistant Judy will now show you who is the big money bounty this week! Who do we have, Judy?"

A pretty blond girl in a skimpy cowgirl costume waved her hands at a monitor on the set. A face popped up, and she began to talk.

"Well, this week we have a bad ol' boy by the name is Riffraff. Riffraff is an organ-legger, and is the main supplier for most of the outlaw doctors in this-here part o' space."

The face was of a cadaverous man, with hollow cheeks and eye sockets. His head was bald, except for the stringy blond hair that grew from just above his neck and behind his ears.

He looked like a corpse, except for the wild glint of insanity in his eye. "Now this ol' boy kidnaps folks and then does them in, harvests organs and other body parts, and then sells them for a HUGE profit to any doctor with a rich client that needs an organ replacement, pronto. But he messed up big time the other night, didn't he, Punch?"

The black cowboy with the Spanish accent agreed.

"You got that right! He killed himself a woman, the daughter of the Mayor of Vermil City himself! She was down in the bad part of town doing a report on the homeless situation when she vanished, and when she was found she had been emptied. Security tapes tied Riffraff to the crime and, viola! FIVE MILLION WOOLONGS TO THE COWBOY WHO TURNS HIM IN! And that's not chicken feed..."

Spike turned the monitor off.

"Five million Woolongs,' he said to himself, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

"Five million," said Faye to herself, almost a whisper.

"Five MILLION?!?" said Jet in amazement.

"Lunkhead lunkhead LUNKHEAD!" laughed Ed as she tapped at her keyboard with her toes.

"Woof," said Ein...

And the cowboys on the Bebop started to chart a path to Mimas...the five million bounty would attract cowboys from all over, and they wanted to get there first.