Dirty Deeds

by Mark Wandrey

  “Who are you, ma fucking mother?”

  “Mayor,” Murdock said. “Unfortunately.”

  “I didn’t vote for ya.”

  “No,” Greenstein agreed. “You didn’t bother to vote at all.” Dod issued a single grunting laugh and grinned.

  “What’s going on?” Murdock asked as he came up the porch steps. “How long you been stuck there?”

  “A day or so,” Dod admitted.

  “Jesus Christ, old-timer,” Greenstein said.

  “Easy, he’s only ten years older than I am,” Murdock reminded the younger merc.

  “Those goddamned little robots,” Dod said, looking at Murdock as if he expected the nanites to start crawling out of his skin and attack him.

  “Yes, Dod, nanites.” Murdock took out the simple medical scanner from his kit. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get up, what the fuck’s it looks like is wrong?”

  “I mean why can’t you get up?”

  “Damn leg,” Dod said and smacked his right leg with a clunk.

  Murdock looked away from the scanner and at Dod, who glared back at him defiantly. “Are you telling me your artificial leg is broke?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It just doesn’t work.”

  Murdock looked at Greenstein, who looked back at him, shaking his head. “Fuck me, Dod, do you have to be such a huge pain in the ass?” The old man ground his teeth, and Murdock sighed. “Let me check the leg.”

  “Fine.”

  Murdock stood there for a second. “You need to let me see it, you stubborn old shit.” Dod cackled for a second, then unhooked his buckle and skinned out of his jeans. “Oh, fuck, Dod, you don’t have any underwear on.”

  “I like a good breeze about my ’nads,” Dod said.

  Murdock grumbled and got down on one knee, way too close to the aforementioned items, and examined the limb in question. Just like Dod, it was old. The cybernetics were largely Human technology, which made sense when he looked at how old the injury appeared to be. Dod had lost his leg midway up the thigh.

  Murdock found the access system and opened the limb’s port. He’d seen a lot of these kinds of limbs. You didn’t drive CASPers and not see it. This one was quite old. “What did you drive, Dod?”

  “Mk 2,” the old man said, throwing his chest back in pride.

  Murdock whistled. “No shit,” he said, to which Dod nodded again. “I trained on a Mk 5, but those old Mk 2s were only in service a few years. Didn’t they try some crazy idea of a powered ejection system?”

  “Sure as fuck did,” Dod said and slapped his cybernetic limb. “Tried, anyway.”

  “Holy shit,” Greenstein said, “you mean you were one of those poor sods?” Dod nodded. “Wow.” Dod shrugged.

  “You make sense of out that old piece of shit?” Dod asked Murdock.

  “I ain’t no tech,” Murdock admitted, “but I think Vince could figure this old thing out.” He reached into his pocket and took out a multitool.

  “The kid stayin with you?” Dod asked. Murdock nodded as he used the tool to pry open a compartment in the leg. “Kid’s got a powerful hard-on to be a merc. Get that from you?”

  “Probably,” Murdock admitted. “I rescued him from a bunch of cock-sucking pirates.”

  “Heh,” Dod said, “that’s what he said. Sounded like you went all Rambo on their asses.”

  “What?”

  “You know, Rambo? Sylvester Stallone? Vietnam?” Murdock and Greenstein both stared at him. “Jesus Fucking Christ, don’t they teach you kids anything?”

  “You’re like ten years older than me,” Murdock reminded him.

  “Sure, sure,” Dod agreed as he fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it with a little plasma lighter, “but you can’t ignore the classics! Anyway, he’s been coming by every few days. He brings me some beers, and I tell him stories.”

  “Damn it, Dod,” Murdock growled.

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to let the kid get a little older so he can make a reasoned decision, maybe do something more than get himself shot to shit like you and I did.”

  “Nothing wrong with being a merc,” Greenfield said.

  “You were a pilot,” Murdock reminded him.

  “Ain’t the same,” Dod said.

  “And that’s my fucking beer you been slurping, you old fart.” Dod cackled and Murdock shook his head. He’d been wondering why he was always a couple bottles short of what he’d thought he had. He’d wondered if the kid was dipping into it, only the boy hated alcohol. “Any ideas if the kid’s been talking with others?” he asked Greenfield.

  “He might have come by a few times,” the pilot admitted.

  “Great. Who else?’

  “Oh,” Greenfield said, a sly grin on his stubbled cheeks. “Kelso, Roberts for sure.”

  “Ripper, too,” Dod said.

  “Maybe I saw him over at Dolan’s place the other day,” Dod said, “when he helped me get to the crapper.”

  “Fuck a duck,” Murdock said. There was an electric snap, a whiff of ozone, and the leg twitched.

  “Hey, watch it!” Dod said. “That hurt!”

  “Good, serves you right,” Murdock replied. He’d found the problem. One of the battery’s contacts connecting it to the main power input had corroded. It looked suspiciously like the old codger had spilled one too many beers on it. The battery itself was a newer lithium dioxide hybrid, modified at some point with a field charger. The actual charger was probably in Dod’s bed, or maybe there were several around the cabin.

  He disconnected the battery, used the multitool’s wire brush to clean the contacts, and reconnected it. The leg jerked once and came to life. “This should do it,” Murdock said. “Stop pissing down your leg, though.”

  “I ain’t been pissin’ on myself,” Dod complained and pushed Murdock back. “But if’n you don’t get outta my way, I’m gonna piss on you!” Murdock and Greenstein made way and Dod hobbled into his cabin. In a moment they both heard a prodigious stream of urine hitting water and the old merc letting out a sigh.

  Murdock glanced around and wondered how the old man had been relieving himself. Then he spotted several beer bottles, and none of them were empty. Ugh, Murdock thought and shook his head. In the now vacated chair, Murdock saw a shiny new GP-90 pistol, the smaller cousin of the HP-4 he carried.

  “Hey, Dod, where’d you get the hardware?”

  “The gun?” Dod asked, hobbling back out of the cabin. He had a big grin on his face and was carrying a bottle of beer. Sure enough, it was Murdock’s brand. He scowled as the old merc took a drink. “Aaaah. Yeah,” he pointed at the gun. “I got it at this place in Atlantis when I was in there a couple weeks ago.”

  “Merc outfitter?” Murdock asked. He already knew the answer. There were several gun stores in Atlantis he’d known about. Only none of them stocked Ctech hardware, like his gun and the GP-90 Dod now owned. The places in Atlantis sold inexpensive alien-made guns adapted to human use on the aftermarket.

  “How long has it been there?” Murdock asked. “Do you know?”

  “Not sure,” Dod admitted. “It wasn’t there a month ago, before you played Errol Flynn.”

  Murdock didn’t bother asking who Errol Flynn was, he was too busy thinking. “Next time your damn leg breaks, give me a call, will ya? There’s a lot of paperwork if you drop dead.”

  “Sure, whatever,” Dod said and plopped back into the chair. “More beer in the fridge, if you want one.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Greenstein said and went inside.

  “I’ll pass,” Murdock said. He looked out across Margarita Bay to his dock and could see the kid walking along its length, two fishing poles in hand. “I’m gonna do some fishin’.”

  “Get another a’ them kraken!” Dod suggested. “Tasty fuckers.”

  “Naw, just off the dock. No time to get out in the deep where the kraken are. Maybe next week.”

  “Well,” Dod said, toasting wi
th his beer, “you catch another, I’ll bring the suds.”

  “Sure,” Murdock said, heading down the steps toward the gravel road, “only next time bring your own, not my beer the kid gave you?” Dod cackled and took another drink.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Murdock was up with the sun, doing the modified exercise routine Dr. Tangens had assigned him upon release from the hospital. He was still a few weeks from being able to resume any running, so he settled for mostly aerobic exercises. Vince rose a little later and joined in. The boy’s stamina grew daily, considerably faster than Murdock’s did. Many decades separated them, so Murdock suppressed his exasperation.

  After a shower, he told Vince to go find some amusement because he needed to do some mayor stuff. When the kid headed off into the island in search of adventure, Murdock got out his slate and connected to the island’s node, which was in turn connected to the planetary node of the GalNet. There he started reading up.

  In his months on Valais he’d left the merc world, and all the news and happenings surrounding it, behind. Using his slate and the planet’s version of Earth’s AetherNet, he slowly began to catch up.

  Murdock read up on his last unit first, Cartwright’s Cavaliers. Under young Jim Cartwright’s guidance, they’d done incredibly well. However, it wasn’t without controversy. The aliens were grumbling about his use of the Raknar, giant robots more than 20,000 years old, in combat. Murdock chuckled. Nobody had thought the kid and his little monkey-critter could get the hundred-foot-tall machines running; they’d been wrong.

  “Wish I’d been there for the show,” Murdock said as he sipped a beer. Accounts were scattered on what had happened. One thing in common was the rumor about Canavar. “What the fuck is that?” he wondered aloud and did a side search. When an artist’s interpretation of the monster came onto his screen, he leaned back and gawked.

  When Murdock was a kid back in Arkansas, he and a childhood friend used to stay up late on Friday nights and watch old twentieth-century videos made in Japan with huge city-stomping monsters in them. It was fun stuff, and totally ridiculous. Yet here they were. Monsters of legend, brought to life by the Kahraman, sworn enemies of the Dusman.

  Strangely, no matter how much searching he did, Murdock couldn’t find any actual images of a Canavar, which was strange. The old Galactic Republic that had destroyed itself with the Raknar and Canavar was as high tech as they came. You’d have to be to build hundred-foot-tall war robots and genetically engineer city-smashing monsters. Still, no real images.

  Murdock moved on to what the Cavaliers were doing currently. Of course, being out in the colonies, most of the news was old by the time it got to Valais. Without a merc office, some data just didn’t get uploaded to the GalNet. Which meant no merc contract records.

  He scowled at his slate. He could request the data, sure. The next time a ship emerged in Valais, if they carried such data, the system stargate would retain a copy of it. It could be hours, days, or months. He scowled deeper and moved on to other merc news without sending the request. Something told him not to.

  When afternoon arrived, and the kid returned for lunch, Murdock took a break to make them both sandwiches. Vince tried to talk to Murdock about what he’d done, but the older merc was quiet and introspective. They’d lived together long enough for the young man to know his guardian was thinking about something.

  When they’d finished eating, he spoke up. “You wanna go fishing this afternoon?”

  “Sure,” the kid said with a huge grin.

  “Go prep the skiff?” The boy put his dishes in the sink and headed for the door. “Make sure it has enough hydrogen, too.”

  “You bet, Murdock!”

  The old merc grunted and nodded. He’d done enough online research to formulate an opinion. Something rotten was going on. Too many merc companies had left Earth and never returned. Asbaran Solutions, one of the Four Horsemen, had almost been destroyed. The commander had gotten involved with a vendetta against the MinSha, no surprise there, and it almost wiped them out.

  Asbaran Solutions had mixed it up with the MinSha dozens of times. It went back to first contact between those two. They’d formed from the remnants of the Iranian military after a MinSha cruiser had bombed them into the Stone Age. Old bad blood was the worst bad blood.

  Murdock stopped at Ripper’s place. The younger disabled merc was the island’s official bait source. He liked to sit in the surf in his waterproof mobility chair and cast nets to scoop up the little native fish called floppers. They tasted like shit, but made great bait for the Earth transplants. He bought two buckets of floppers for a credit.

  “Think you might get another kraken?” Ripper asked, his scarred face splitting into a huge grin.

  “You never know,” Murdock said.

  “Say hi to your kid,” Ripper said as Murdock headed back to his place.

  “He’s not my kid,” Murdock grumbled with half a grin.

  “Got the bait?” Vince asked as Murdock walked down the dock. The hydrogen fuel cells were humming efficiently, and the marker lights were flashing on the skiff’s transom, signs it was ready to go. Murdock held up the two buckets, and the kid gave him a thumbs-up. Murdock poured the floppers into the bait holder he’d installed after he’d demilitarized the skiff—only losing a couple—and climbed aboard.

  “Let’s roll,” he told the kid. “Same area we got the kraken the other day.” He lit a cigar.

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Vince said. Murdock cast off the lines, and the skiff powered away from the dock. He could see Ripper waving at them from the surf as they roared out into Margarita Bay.

  * * *

  “What were you thinkin’ about so hard?” Vince asked.

  The skiff rolled gently in the deep ocean, the swells no more than a foot or so. Murdock had been watching a line of squalls on the western horizon; they seemed to be passing by. He’d smoked most of a cigar without thinking about it, something he tended to avoid. It wasn’t the rain, which was a big deal. The day was a little warm, and a few minutes of rain might cool things off. He was starting to wonder what winter would be like. The locals said it was pretty mild, though the storms could be horrendous.

  “Merc stuff,” he replied.

  “Oh?” Vince asked, perking up. Their lines were sitting in the water, with not a bite in sight.

  Murdock was going to just ignore the kid’s never-ending enthusiasm about all things merc, then decided talking about it might help. “Something’s going on with the mercs. All the Human ones, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. He explained how two of the Four Horsemen had had simultaneous strings of bad luck. He hadn’t read anything about the Golden Horde, which wasn’t unusual. They did a lot of defensive work, and those jobs didn’t make headlines unless it went to shit. The Enkhs didn’t fuck up. The bit the kid said about drugs still gave him pause, though.

  The Winged Hussars were in the news in a spectacular way. They hadn’t gotten mauled or almost bankrupted, like Asbaran and the Cavaliers. Instead, the Hussars were involved in a series of extremely high-profile fleet actions. Apparently a lot of Izlians weren’t breathing anymore, if the space squids even breathed. Murdock chuckled as he mentioned it.

  “Why’s that funny?” Vince asked.

  Murdock described the Izlians, Vince’s eyes wide in amazement. “See, they’re old. Like, fucking old as space. Been around since before the Galactic Union. They claim to know everything there is to know about space combat. They wrote books and everything. Their best admiral is someone named Omega. Well, Alexis Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars, with one ship, faced Omega with an entire squadron. The Hussars apparently blew Omega’s ass to pieces.”

  “She’s a badass!” Vince said.

  “All the Horsemen are,” Murdock said. “They’re the oldest and best, because they’ve been doing it so long. Cartwrights led the development of the CASPers, th
en turned around and sold them to everyone. They could have kept them as an edge.”

  “Cool, but what about this weird stuff going on?”

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Murdock admitted. “It’s like some kind of crazy plot against Human mercs. Shady, quiet, real sneaky-like. All those units going missing and stuff. But…”

  “What?”

  “Who would have so much money? It must have cost a billion credits, if it’s a plot.” He looked at the kid, who shrugged. He finished his beer and dropped the empty into the can for recycling. He was pissed about the whole thing, and for the first time, wishing he was still out there helping in some way. His reel buzzed, and they finally had a fish. For a while he forgot all about the rest of the galaxy and tried to enjoy himself.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning Murdock’s slate buzzed just as he was working out back, covered in sand and muck. He answered voice only, figuring whoever was calling didn’t want to see a naked old merc.

  “Murdock, you there?” Coordinator Melvic asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe dirt and sweat from his brow.

  “Why no visual, you starkers?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll turn the camera on.”

  “No!” she exclaimed and then laughed. “I think this is fine.”

  He laughed too. “So what’s up?”

  “I got the information you were asking about.”

  Murdock set the trencher down and climbed out of the hole, walking over to the back patio table and snatching up an old towel there. He took a second to clean his face as best he could and used his fingers to comb his hair. It was getting long after months of not keeping it CASPer-friendly short.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  Murdock propped the slate up on its built-in kickstand, aiming the thing at his face, and tapped the camera icon. “Yeah, sorry, I wanted to face-to-face this.”