Dead Dwarves Don't Dance

by Derek J. Canyon

  A faint point of light glowed to brightness and then dimmed. “Whatever you say, Buhl.”

  “Lights!” The room immediately brightened.

  Noose sat on the sill of the open window, puffing on a cigar.

  “Nothing like a good cigar and fine music to calm your nerves on a dark night,” he noted, smiling.

  Buhl’s hand trembled in seething anger as he stepped farther into the room, around the scattered furniture, pointing his gun at the dwarf. “You’re a dead man, Noose.”

  “Dead dwarf,” Noose corrected.

  “Stay right there and don’t move.”

  “I’m not moving, Buhl,” Noose said with a shrug, holding his palms outward toward the man.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Just wanted to confirm that Governor Xin is the man pulling your strings.”

  “How’d you expect to do that?” Buhl stopped in the middle of the room and, gun still pointed at the dwarf, glanced from side to side to make sure they were alone.

  “Well, I was going to ask you, since I couldn’t find any evidence here in this mess.”

  “I’m not stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence in my apartment. Where are Earless and Grue?”

  “They were here, earlier. Helped me search your apartment. Considering your feelings toward them, I suggested they leave before you arrived.”

  “Tell me where they are now.”

  “Can’t do that.” Noose took the cigar from his mouth. “Would you like a cigar?”

  “Bastard!” Buhl fumed. “I’ll enjoy killing you.”

  “Listen, Buhl. I only came here to ask you some questions about your boss, the governor.”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything about him.”

  Noose smiled. “That’s all I need to know. I’ll be going now.”

  “You are not going anywhere. We’ll wait here for my men to arrive.”

  “Next time you see the governor tell him to be careful. The strangest things can be made to explode.” He flicked his cigar at Buhl. The German dove sideways and crashed on top of the overturned coffee table. Rolling over it, he landed on his knees and spun around, firing off three rounds.

  But the dwarf was gone.

  Buhl ran to the window. A sleek black skycar convertible sped away with Noose settling down in the passenger seat. The German fixer raised his gun to fire but the car disappeared around the corner of another building.

  Buhl swore, hammering his fist against the windowsill. He turned back into the room and noted the smoldering cigar lying on the floor. It gave a loud pop and exploded in a small pink cloud of confetti and smoke.

  59

  “Everything go as planned?” Cori asked as she piloted the skycar through the night.

  “Like clockwork,” Noose replied. “Buhl should be riled as a squirrel with a sparkler up his ass. Is Joystick’s drone in position?”

  “Yeah, it’s monitoring Buhl’s apartment from across the street.”

  “All right, let’s head back to the others.”

  Cori flew a mile away to a warehouse and descended to the ground. The door rolled up and she hovered to a stop inside. Grue pulled the door back down.

  “Never knew you were a comedian, Noose,” Grue smiled toothily.

  “What?” Noose climbed out of the car.

  “Joystick’s drone recorded your chat with Buhl. You just can’t help rubbing it in, can you?”

  “When you stir the pot, you have to do so vigorously.” Noose stuck a new cigar in his mouth and went to examine the commuter aerodyne that sat parked in the center of the warehouse.

  The Boeing Sparrow was definitely not a factory original. The interior seats had been replaced by large magazine hoppers and ammo feeders for the miniguns mounted on the exterior. A missile launcher perched on the roof. The cab was loaded with extensive radar and tracking equipment, as well as direct neural interface appliances. The entire vehicle was heavily armored.

  “Good evening, Ichabod,” said Sweetpea from the open side door of the Sparrow.

  “Sweetpea,” Noose responded. “Any sign of anything unusual over at Buhl’s?”

  “Nothing. Just as I told you earlier. Bernd Buhl does not, apparently, expend funds on psyker protection. It appears that my presence was not needed, after all.”

  “I like having insurance.”

  Against the back wall of the warehouse, a large, long-haired black man sat in an office chair with eyes closed. A cable ran from a port behind his ear to a stack of blinking monitors and other equipment on the table in front of him. From a chair next to the man, Earless watched the displays. Noose, Grue, and Cori joined them.

  “Hey, Joystick.” Noose patted the man on the shoulder and looked at the monitors, which showed zoomed-in views through Buhl’s apartment window. “Any news?”

  Joystick’s eyes remained closed, but he did respond. “Buhl waited for his buddies to get to the apartment and then they searched it. He’s on his phone now. Want to hear?”

  “You bet I do.”

  Joystick did not move a muscle, but Buhl’s voice came in loud and clear over speakers on the desk.

  “…give a damn, sister! Your boss will damn well want to be informed immediately. Now patch me through!”

  “Don’t you just hate executive assistants?” Grue asked, leaning against the wall and chugging down kaf.

  “This is Buhl.” One of the monitors revealed the German pacing back and forth as three other men stood silent and motionless nearby. “Listen, that asshole dwarf was just here at my apartment. Little runt’s got more balls than an elephant! What? No, the sneaky bastard jumped out the window. No! Into a waiting skycar. Yeah, right. Yes. Okay. Two hours, on the zeppelin. I’ll be there.” Buhl waved his men out of the room and followed them.

  “Hey, Noose,” Earless said, “he doesn’t like you too much.”

  “It’s mutual.”

  “It didn’t take Buhl long to go crying to the governor,” the goon noted. “You’re a master pot-stirrer, Noose.”

  The dwarf bowed. “Not to mention an asshole, bastard, sneak, and runt.”

  Earless punched the dwarf in the arm. “Hey, no matter what Buhl says, you’re not a sneak.”

  Noose squinted up at the pleaser with a frown.

  “Hey, lighten up!” She laughed. “It’s a joke.”

  “We going to hit the bastard now?” Cori asked, ignoring the pleaser.

  “As soon as we figure out what zeppelin he’s talking about,” Noose nodded.

  “That’d be the Goodyear Executive Dirigible the governor bought two years ago,” Joystick informed them, opening his eyes, “at taxpayer expense. It’s just another example of the political elite abusing their legislative and fiduciary powers to elevate themselves to a position of superiority. That airship is a god-damn symbol of arrogance.”

  “Whoa, Joystick, let’s not get all activist,” said Noose, trying to calm the man.

  “Why the hell not? I can’t wait to kill that government asshole. Any government asshole. Not only do they waste our money, they exempt themselves from laws that apply to everyone else! Did you know that they don’t have to comply with the health care restrictions that all the rest of us do? They automatically get whatever transplant they need. They’re parasites! Worthless parasites! And, if they don’t have to obey the laws, why should I? We don’t even need the laws. We’d get along a lot better with no system of government.”

  Grue rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  “I love it when anarchists get all riled up like this,” Earless said and jumped onto Joystick’s lap. “Let’s go sex it up, wild man.”

  Joystick pushed her off. “Later, Earless. I gotta do some 15mm high-explosive armor-piercing protesting.”

  “First you have to give us the skinny on the blimp,” Noose said.

  “Dirigible, not blimp. The Goodyear S4009 Executive Dirigible is a rigid airship built for corporate luxury. It’s old-tech these days, what with the anti-gr
av platforms they’re putting into service. But, for corrupt bastards like Xin, it’s a perfect symbol of inefficient, worthless opulence.”

  “Specifications?”

  “It’s huge and armored and has compartmentalized self-sealing gas chambers. Radar and laser jamming to prevent automated targeting. Governor also installed some Gauss shielding. It’ll take a lot of damage before going down. I’ll have to shoot all my ammo to take it out.”

  “I love it when you shoot all your ammo, Joystick,” Earless played with his hair.

  “You’re not going to hit the dirigible,” Cori said. “Xin’s got to know why he’s dying.”

  “What?” Joystick said. “I thought we were going to shoot it down. It’s a perfect way to inaugurate my Sparrow. It’s been taking up parking space for six months waiting for a good cause. This is it. Vengeance against a government bastard for genocide? It’s epic poetry!”

  “No doubt, Joystick,” Noose agreed. “But, we have to be sure to tag the governor, otherwise he’ll get away and push his security through the stratosphere. You know he’s going to have armored escape pods in that ship. He’ll jump in one as soon as you start firing. You think you can tag him on the first salvo?”

  “No, you’re right,” Joystick moped. “Damn it! It would have been awesome to target that zep.”

  “Oh, you’re still going to target it. You’re going to blast a hole in it and park inside so we can have a chat with the governor.”

  “Say what?” Joystick yelped. “Hey, Noose, you guys may be paying me a bundle, but there are some things that are just plain impossible.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, a dirigible’s not very maneuverable, that’s for sure, but any pilot can weave and evade. Plus, he’ll have Reggie gunship escorts. They’re not going to let me just fly up alongside, shoot a hole in the gondola, and scoot right in.”

  “You don’t have to fight the gunships. They can’t do anything once you’re in the blimp.”

  “My Sparrow ain’t the nimblest bird in the sky. It won’t be easy to shoot a hole in the side of the ship and then fly through it. With all my armaments and the lot of you on board? Me, you, the pleaser, Cori, a freaking goon, and that whale of a psyker? You know how much weight that is?”

  Sweetpea waddled around the Sparrow, her multi-colored robes swaying over her bulk. Her wide eyes examined the pilot intensely. “It’s no use arguing. Your mind is open to me. You want nothing more than to make a political statement by attacking that dirigible.”

  Joystick let out a deep breath and looked away. “No fair having a psyker poke around in my head! And, even if I want to do it, it doesn’t mean I can do it with all the armament and passengers.”

  “We could throw the dwarf out,” Earless suggested.

  “Watch it, Earless,” Grue growled. “Don’t get started with–”

  “Wait,” Noose said, a wide grin spreading across his face, “that may not be such a bad idea.”

  60

  Noose pulled the goggles down over his eyes, and looked back at Cori. She stood behind him, firmly clasping a handle above the open door of the Sparrow. She wore a black combat suit, complete with flak vest, ammo harness, wire mike, and sidearm. Behind her, the others waited. Grue stood ready to slide the door shut as soon as Noose was gone.

  “Good luck,” Cori mouthed, smiling at him, the wind too loud for conversation.

  Noose squeezed her hand and then jumped out into the night sky. The Regional Atlanta Metroplex glimmered with millions of lights. Far below, he could see the countless skyscrapers surrounding the kilometers-tall Peerless Tower. Shining vidblimps, advertising everything from GoNerds cola to the newest Hollywood holofilm, wove between the tall buildings. Streams of light revealed the freeways and skyways.

  The governor’s dirigible flew along directly beneath Noose, its huge hull blotting out a large swath of the city. Five gunships orbited around it, but none noticed the dwarf in the stealth skysuit.

  Noose plummeted toward the airship, guided by the two blinking points of light that glittered on its dorsal surface. When he was almost on top of it, he pulled his ripcord, releasing the micro-chute in a noisy flutter of cloth. The parachute slowed him enough to land on the ship as if he had jumped out a second story window.

  Slipping and sliding across the smooth unbroken surface of the dirigible, he punched the release on the chute, sending it flapping away. He activated the van der Waals generator in one of his gloves, which instantly adhered to the ship’s envelope and kept him from sliding off. With his other hand, he pulled a cable from his harness and secured himself to the hull with an adhesive piton.

  Noose pressed his throat mike. “The eagle has landed.”

  “Confirmed,” Joystick responded. “T minus twenty and counting.”

  Noose stood up and jogged across the giant dirigible toward the rear fins, the thin cable spooling out from his harness to the piton. He had only twenty minutes to plant the charges and enter the dirigible before Joystick maneuvered the Sparrow into position.

  61

  His explosives in place, Noose found one of the dorsal access hatches. He disabled the alarm and blew the hatch open with a micro-charge. He climbed down a ladder to a platform. Removing his goggles, he punched the rewind button on the spool, and the cable disconnected from the piton and wound back up in seconds.

  The dwarf slid down the ladder, pausing only briefly at intersecting shafts that served other sections within the compartmentalized gasbags. He reached the bottom of the ladder and stepped through an unlocked hatch into a tool room. Leaving this, he strode down a long carpeted corridor that ended at a wide stairway. Descending the stairs to the next level and another corridor, he paused to look out the window. A Reggie gunship paced the airship, navigation lights flashing.

  Noose glanced at his watch and hit the detonator button.

  “The pig’s wings are clipped,” he whispered into his mike.

  “Confirmed,” Joystick replied. “T minus three minutes and counting.”

  Noose walked down the corridor, testing three doors before he finally found the one he wanted and stepped inside. He stood on a narrow balcony overlooking the executive banquet room that dominated the bottom two floors of the ship. The banquet room was located at the front of the airship, immediately below the bridge. The floor was covered in rich carpeting. The walls were mostly made of transparent tuffplast armor, providing a spectacular view of the city below.

  There were no Reggies in the room, nor had there been any security in the corridors. Noose guessed that the police were relying on the gunship escorts, but it still seemed odd.

  Noose crouched at the rail of the balcony. A number of dining tables lined the edges of the room, while a large conference table dominated the center. Noose recognized the governor as he sat at the head of the table, arguing with several well-dressed people.

  62

  “I don’t give a damn how long you’ve been district manager.” Governor Jones-Utu-Rudeholmer-Xin pointed a finger at an elderly politician seated to his right. “I won’t let you derail this legislation for your own petty schemes.”

  “How will you stop me?” District Manager Vanders responded. “You don’t have enough of our votes to push your proposal through. It’s dead.”

  “So, you’re going to go against the will of the people? You’re all up for re-election next year. I can assure you that your opposition to the safety of Atlanta citizens will be remembered.”

  “A single terrorist attack does not warrant wholesale revocation of basic civil rights,” Operations Administrator Elise Chauveau said. “Your legislation requires that all neohumans living in the Blackzone have tracking implants. That’s contrary to the United Globe Charter.”

  “Neohumans are not covered by the Charter,” the governor said.

  Delilah O’Rourke slapped the table. “But real humans are. You want to create permanent checkpoints in the metroplex. You can’t abridge their travel inside the plex.”
<
br />   “I’m also not going to vote for a massive tax increase,” Vanders said with finality. Several other managers around the table nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t see why we should continue this debate any longer,” Julia Braddock-Vyne said. “We’ve been here for hours and it’s clear you don’t have anywhere near the votes to get your scheme passed.”

  “I made a promise to the people of this city that I would protect them from subhuman scum and this legislation will do that.”

  “But,” said Chauveau with a smile, “it’s obvious you won’t get that passed. You don’t have a voting bloc big enough. I’d say you’re the one who’s going to be in trouble next year. The voters aren’t going to re-elect a governor who lets terrorists kill citizens.”

  “Stay out of this, you whore. I don’t want your opinion.”

  “It’s language like that that will doom your re-election next year.”

  The other politicians nodded and glared at the governor.

  The intercom on the table buzzed. “Governor? Captain here.”

  “What do you want? I told you we were not to be disturbed!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we seem to have a problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “The ship is not responding to the helm.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “We can’t control the direction of the ship.”

  “Oh my god!” exclaimed one of the district managers.

  “And the engines are jammed at full speed.”

  A fat politician jumped from his seat and ran to the windows. “Look outside!” He pointed as a Regional Police gunship exploded, while tracer fire zipped through the night. “There’s some kind of battle going on out there!”

  “We’re under attack!” the governor said, running for the stairs. “I have to get to an escape pod!”

  “You won’t be escaping anywhere.” Noose walked down the steps from the balcony, pointing the Stormer at Xin.

  63

  “Who the hell are you?” the governor demanded. The dozen politicians turned to watch the dwarf approach.