by Mark Wandrey
Once, in order to impress a girl, he’d taken her and two of her friends in using his pass. They’d acted all impressed, and he’d hoped he might receive certain...considerations in return. They’d ditched him within minutes and showed up the next day with brand new morphogenic tattoos, something that underage girls could only obtain in a startown. Of course, everyone knew the only place to get those was in a startown, and no one else in their school had a pass to get in except him. The girls did him the tiny favor of not directly implicating him, but word got around. Soon others began bothering him to take them to the startown. Not wanting to be used that way again, he refused as politely as he could. One girl slapped his face in the hall after class when he said no. He was once again the school joke, but at least they finally stopped asking him.
Jim sighed and keyed in a mall near his apartment instead. Now that he’d graduated, he’d be heading to Houston pretty soon. The Cavalier’s HQ was there, and he had figured doing his management training closer to operations would enable him to actually work a few hours in the company every week. His mother had told him that was fine months ago. The problem was she hadn’t returned his calls or emails for a week now. She never left the planet, so there was no way she’d gone on deployment. To his knowledge she’d never even gone up to orbit where the Cavalier’s starships were located.
Jim killed a few hours at the mall then went back to his place. When he closed the door to his apartment, he was feeling depressed and hungry. He went to the kitchen first and flash-cooked a meal pack, then headed for the living room and his Aethernet direct connection. He almost missed the envelope on the floor just inside the door. He couldn’t remember ever getting a physical letter in his apartment in the four years he’d been there. It was large and legal looking.
From the Law Offices of Leo Witwicky, Bankruptcy Attorneys in Extra-Planetary Law, Houston Startown, it read. For a rare moment, Jim forgot about food as he felt his blood run cold. He fell into the seldom used kitchenette chair that creaked in protest. He tore open the envelope and began to read.
A few pages in, he groped around his belly and reached into his front pocket to retrieve a mobile pinlink to his system. He was always careful in public, pinheads often were attacked by purists. That’s why he didn’t shave his head and get tattoos like many of his fellows.
The mobile link clicked in place and instantly synched with his main system. He could have just hooked up, but it was hard to read in the real world while submerged in the Aether. After chewing through the pages and pages of legalese, he needed the hive-mind to help him make sense of it all.
When he put the paperwork down, he glanced at the microwave meal and probed it with a finger. It was room temperature, just like his life. In his head he summed up what he’d read:
Cartwright’s Cavaliers went back to the beginning of the off-world mercenary companies. Founded by James “Jimmy” Cartwright, Sr., shortly after initial contact, it got one of the first one hundred contracts ever signed. Of the companies that signed contracts, ninety-six of them did not survive action. The remaining four became known as The Four Horsemen, partly because they’d seemingly survived the apocalypse, and partly because they all just happened to have horses in their logos.
His father was the sixth owner and director of Cartwright’s Cavaliers in an unbroken line of wealth and success that was the most storied of the Four Horsemen. Jim had grown up listening to unending tales of the exploits of the company on a thousand alien worlds. It was his history, his past, his birthright. And it was gone. It had survived thousands of battles across the galaxy, but it had not been able to survive his mother.
After Jim’s father died, the company had been left to him, in keeping with both law and tradition. He could not legally serve in the CEO role until he was eighteen, so in the interim his mother had agreed to run the company until he was old enough to take over, which would have been now. Jim had watched her slowly depleting the company’s financial reserves, but he’d never worried too much. The contract acceptance and deployment aspects of the company were handled by handpicked officers who’d served with his father for many years.
As he was getting closer to being able to chart the company’s future, Jim had visited with their command staff the last time he was in Houston. They’d assured him it was impossible for her to do any real damage. A merc company’s real wealth was in its assets, and she couldn’t sell or give those away. Tragically, that was only partly true. Pages of affidavits attested to his mother making a number of extremely risky investments, and with her authority as CFO of Cartwright’s Cavaliers, she had used the company’s name as collateral.
His mother hadn’t wanted him to come down to Houston – or to visit him after his birthday – because she’d been fighting her way through a series of appeals in the World Court while the company’s combat units were fulfilling a contract off-world. According to the paperwork he’d just read, the appeals were lost, and the company’s assets had been seized to cover the debt.
Jim checked his account linked with the company. There were still several thousand credits there, but the account showed as frozen. He couldn’t touch it. His rent was due in days. In a panic he slipped into the Aether and checked his private account. It was still there, and untouched. Being very careful to avoid linking it to his company account in any way, Jim logged onto the airline and made a reservation to Houston on a flight leaving in three hours. He then set about tying up his remaining loose ends in Indiana.
An hour and a half later he was back in a cab heading to Beach Grove. He’d ended up spending almost a quarter of his hidden account between the airfare and arranging to have his Aetherware gear carefully packaged and sent to their Houston home. He had two bags with all his clothes and a few personal items – mostly some tech, and a small collection of very precious stuffed animals. Everything else in the apartment had been leased anyway. With no way to pay the lease, he didn’t care what happened to it.
At the startown, he checked his bags and went through security. The screeners, obviously ex-mercs, didn’t pay him any attention. Terrorists were never fat teenagers. He was at the gate more than an hour before his flight and with time to kill. Not wanting to be seen with a pinlink over his ear in public, he dug out a seldom used slate and looked through the public Aethernet news. It only took a minute to find a story.
“Fall of the Four Horsemen!” read one headline. “Steeplechase of Fraud,” said another. “Millions Go Missing,” was another. He clicked through a few and read the pieces haltingly. They all told the same story, just with different slants. Large, risky real estate deals. Interstellar speculating. He sighed at that one, his mother always thought his father was a fool for not playing the aliens at their own game. One story even mentioned something about her buying a decrepit old manufactory. Then there was the only publication that treated the demise of the Cavaliers as anything other than juicy fodder.
“One of the Best Is Gone,” said the cover of the ancient Soldier of Fortune. There was a picture of his father, resplendent in light combat armor, with the gleaming Cartwright’s Knight – a logo of a soldier in shining plate astride a warhorse, with his lance tip pointing skyward – on a dropship behind him. The resolution wasn’t high enough to read the motto around the image: Lead the Charge.
“That one of the greatest merc companies in Earth’s off-world service is lost to financial mismanagement is not only a disgrace, it’s a terrible blow to the prestige of human mercs as a whole, and ultimately to the planet’s economy,” Soldier of Fortune said. There was a picture of his father standing with Jim, taken many years ago. His father was smiling, holding his deployment duffle bag over his shoulder with one hand and holding Jim’s hand in the other as they walked down a corridor in Houston’s Startown. His father looked so happy, and so did Jim. A couple passing Jim slowed and wondered why the fat kid sitting by himself was crying.
Two and a half hours later, Jim was trundling down the jetway from the flight into the Houston
Startown air terminal. As he walked, Jim noted random things. Posters describing attractions in and around Houston. The long windows of the terminal that showed the near distance where the pointy noses of several orbital shuttles could be seen nestled in their launch cradles. Runway traffic like his flight accounted for mostly short, regional transport anymore. It all seemed so disturbingly normal, unlike what waited for him.
As Jim left the jetway and turned toward the baggage claim area, he caught sight of a gaggle of reporters. Most were conferring with their camera crews, adjusting equipment, or checking their look in a mirror. Some were performing sound checks and referencing their notes. Jim was in the first group off the plane, and when he came into sight, the newsies all sprang into action.
Oh, shit, Jim thought. He knew the fate of the Cavaliers would be big news, partly due to the company’s high-profile status and partly because of the nature of what had befallen it. A hundred companies had died over the years, but the vast majority had been lost in the line of duty, not to poor financial management. Jim ducked his head and walked with a group of curious tourists, even slowing as they did while passing the reporters.
“We’re here at Houston Startown hoping to catch a word with James Cartwright, once heir of the powerful Cartwright’s Cavaliers...” he heard as he went by. Jim risked a glance and saw one of the reporters scanning the crowd with a critical eye. The man looked right at Jim for a split second, and moved on. He almost laughed. They must have been looking for someone like his dad, and Jim looked nothing like his dad. He always thought his build followed the men of his mother’s family: dumpy and fat. Luckily the brains seemed to be pure Cartwright.
Realizing none of the talking heads seemed to have been smart enough to access his high school records so they could get a current image of him, he took strategic advantage of a people-mover grinding along with a load of old people and accelerated to his rather plodding top speed. To his great relief, he soon rounded a corner in the concourse, and the reporters were out of sight. He chuckled to himself as he rode the escalator down to baggage claim. There were a few reporters waiting there as well, but all of them were busily accosting anyone who looked remotely like a young potential-merc. In that moment, he was happy not to be one of the beautiful people.
Jim took up a place between a portly old man absorbed in a video on his headset and a trio of teens all looking at a slate showing a basketball game while he waited. After a minute, the carousel beeped loudly and ground to life, disgorging its usual wide variety of bags, parcels, and golf clubs. He had just grabbed his first bag and was watching for number two when someone spoke up from behind him.
“Jimmy?” He jerked visibly, cursing himself. “It is, isn’t it? Jimmy Cartwright?” The portly guy next to him turned and eyed him curiously, obviously recognizing the name as well but not from where. Jim turned his head, afraid of some news hound who’d be about to make his life hell. He wasn’t expecting a familiar face.
“Hi Buddha!” he said. A second later all 325 pounds of him was swept off his feet in a full body hug by the only fat merc Jim had ever seen.
“James!” Buddha said in his thick Asian accent. “I can’t believe you’re here.” Buddha wasn’t really fat, just round. He was as strong as a horse and could run for hours.
“Me neither,” Jim admitted. He hadn’t seen Buddha for years.
“Look how you’ve grown!”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said dejectedly, trying not to look down at his belly and failing.
“Don’t worry about a few extra pounds, kid! Look at me!” Buddha was wearing a shirt that strained around his middle, the sleeves torn off revealing bulging muscles. He lifted a massive arm and flexed, the bicep fairly exploded into prominence. “We can get you in shape, no problem! Some exercise, protein shakes, and lots of pineapple.”
“Buddha,” Jim said, cutting him off, “have you seen my mom?”
“Elizabeth?” Buddha got a dark look on his face. “Haven’t seen her since before the last deployment.” Jim extracted himself from Buddha and glanced at the carousel. Naturally, his bag had just slid past and now he had to wait for it to go all the way around. You’d think after more than two centuries of space travel, someone would have devised a better system to claim your baggage than letting them crawl around on a mechanical conveyor. “I guess you’re kinda pissed at her, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “You guys were on deployment, right?”
“Yep,” Buddha said. “Just made transition from Sigma Draconis yesterday and came down a couple hours ago. We usually have a company bus waiting, but obviously that isn’t happening. So, we’re all waiting for friends and cabs and shit.” Jim nodded as his bag finally came back around, grunting as he pulled it off the belt. He was a little embarrassed to find himself unable to lift the bag without wheels while pulling the other one. “Here,” Buddha said and leaned over the bags, “Let me, little buddy.” With zero effort, the big merc took both bags under one arm, slung his own massive duffle bag over his shoulder and looked down at Jim. “Got a car?”
“No, I’m low on funds. I was going to grab a cab.”
“We can share. You going to the estate?” Jim nodded, and they were off.
After mercs started bringing back ever larger amounts of intergalactic currency, the governments of Earth realized the potential and started slowly raising taxes. A lot of merc companies grumbled, but even now with the tax rate at nearly fifty percent, an average paid contract would net each member of a company thousands of credits a day. Buddha probably made more on a one-month contract than the average American made in ten years. Of course, that was balanced out by the incredible risks to life and limb mercs were often expected to face, but to most of them, it was well worth it.
With vast sums of liquid assets flowing into their accounts, the mercs spent lavishly. Cars, boats, planes, and of course, real estate. Since many liked to stay near Houston’s Startown, the center of Earth-based merc contract negotiations, most of the land around the city belonged to merc companies, owners, and contractors. The Cartwright’s Cavaliers family estate was a short ride west of Houston – more than 1,000 acres the company founder had bought with money earned during the early days. Back when a handful of credits could buy a stack of gold.
The computer controlling the cab had taken his instructions and Buddha’s credit chip, and sent them off at a respectable pace. They merged onto the expressway and soon they were rocketing along at 200 mph, crowded in with dozens of other cars only inches away. Jim suppressed a wincing fear as the cab shot away from startown. Those in the Indianapolis region weren’t nearly as fast. But of course Houston was the biggest city on Earth, so they needed to move faster to keep up with demand.
Jim did not want to just sit there like an idiot for the whole ride, but he also didn’t want to discuss the company’s situation. His anger and disappointment were simmering just below the surface. He’d almost cried once on the plane as he reread the lawyer’s letter. The last thing he wanted to do was lose it in front of Buddha – that would be like crying in front of a big brother.
“Any losses on that contract you just completed?” he ended up asking, a much safer subject. Mercs died; it was a fact of life. They considered it a point of pride that they could buy it any day they worked. The mental tests and conditioning a merc went through first verified they could handle the stress, then got them prepared for the reality. Most got truly excited by the prospect of being in mortal peril. It drew them to the job. And some just liked blowing things up, regardless of the species.
“Naw,” Buddha said and shrugged, then gave a little grin. “Just a garrison job. The Zuparti thought someone was going to make a move on a huge stash of radioactives they had. Turns out no one knew about it, and they were just being paranoid. Still, we got paid.” Jim had studied the Zuparti. They looked like big weasels and acted like shell-shocked chickens. They walked around in a perpetual state of freak-out, but they were shrewd traders, and that meant lots of merc contrac
ts. Because they were both wealthy and typically had half a dozen merc companies around them eating, smoking, and generally making themselves at home, no one tended to mess with them. Ironically, that only served to further feed their paranoia, making them certain that someday, it would all come apart at the seams.
“About the pay,” Jim said timidly. “You’ll still get yours, right?”
“Sure, no problem,” Buddha said cordially; “we’re paid on contract. So we’ll all get our contracted share before the fucking lawyers get the rest.” Jim nodded, relieved that none of his men were going to get shafted. Then he felt even worse when he remembered they weren’t his men and never would be.
The autonomous cab eventually slowed and pulled off the high-speed throughway and onto local roads. Minutes later it was turning onto the family’s private estate road where it came to a sudden and unexpected stop. Parked across the road was a Texas State Patrol car.
“Oh,” Jim said as the cab informed him, “Road closed. Change destination?” A pair of police officers froze in mid-bite of doughnuts and eyed the cab curiously.
“Guess this is the end of the road,” Buddha said with a shrug.
“You take the cab,” Jim said and clambered out. One of the officers was approaching to see what he wanted.
“Are you gonna be okay, Jimmy?”
“Sure,” he lied and shook hands with the man. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem,” Buddha said with half a smile. “Don’t forget, you’re a Cartwright. Greatness is in your blood, young man.” Jim sat his bags on the concrete driveway and watched the cab spin about on new orders and head down the lane until his thoughts were interrupted.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” the officer said. Jim turned around sullenly and looked at him.
“I’m Jim Cartwright, that’s my house.”
It took an hour to get past the police. First he had to prove who he was, then he needed to provide copies of the legal documents sent by the lawyer indicating he had access to the house. In the end he was escorted by one of the officers who drove him the three miles up to the main house. The compound was comprised of nine buildings in the middle of several thousand acres of real estate. The largest of the buildings was the primary residence; beyond that, there were garages, warehouses, a small private museum, and quarters for both servants and guests. Growing up, most of the employees jokingly called the estate, “The Ponderosa.” Jim didn’t get the joke until he was in his teens.
