Ruthless

by Jonathan Clements

  Johnny glanced back towards the door through which Nigel had entered, seeing two crouched shadows shuffling through. It was difficult to tell at a distance, but both postures implied they were carrying large-bore sidearms. The deal was just about to go wrong.

  "You're a sneckwad, Morgan," said Nigel. Johnny's eyes widened in shock; what was the idiot doing?

  "I'm doing fine," said the kidnapper.

  The man peered out through the gloom at his accuser.

  "Is this what you've come to?" said Nigel. "Squabbling over a few thousand?"

  "Times are hard, my friend," said the man, an edge creeping into his voice. "We take what we can."

  "You double-crossed me," spat Nigel. "You broke your promise."

  "Oh, please," said the man, irritably. "I thought we were beyond that."

  "I trusted you," growled Nigel.

  Johnny darted another glance back towards the entrance. The two shadows were still creeping up on the handover. The leader gave a hand signal to the left and the other followed. They both must have been wearing nightvision goggles to make such an exchange possible.

  "There's your wife," said Morgan. "All safe and sound. And even in the right bay."

  "Excuse me?" Nigel sounded confused.

  Johnny looked between the calm sniper and the advancing strangers, his gun held aloft, not pointing at either. He tried to gauge who was going to ruin things first. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his soul, a voice reminded him that Nigel was Just Some Guy, but Johnny's true conscience knew that this wasn't just about saving Ruthie any more, it was about keeping the father of her baby alive as well.

  "She's in the shipping line for the Sherman," explained Morgan. "They'll come to load her onboard in thirty minutes."

  "I see," said Nigel, sulkily.

  "She's on her way to Mars. You can just pick her up at the other end. You don't even have to break your schedule."

  "You didn't have to break my toes!" said Nigel, quickly, fiercely, like his words were climbing an obstacle. Johnny had heard it too many times before. Nigel was working himself up. Didn't the idiot yuppie know this wasn't a quarrel at a badminton court? To fighting men, fighting words led to fighting.

  The advancing shadows weren't as experienced as they'd first seemed. The second one had just doubled back, his hands upraised in an exasperated shrug. The leader had sent him down a dead end. Johnny stared in disbelief as the two figures conducted a silent argument, comprising animated hand signals and accusatory finger pointing.

  So these amateurs didn't know their way around the warehouse maze. They weren't with the kidnappers. That meant they were either cops, or other bounty hunters. In a strange gesture, one of the figures seemed to lick his hand and smooth it over his head, and suddenly Johnny knew.

  Squid. Squid was here to save the day. And the moment he yelled, "Freeze," Nigel could get a bullet in the head.

  "Does it hurt to walk?" crowed Morgan at Nigel in mock concern, his voice tugged by a large smile. "Spare me," added Morgan before Nigel could reply. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for her. I've been in her shoes."

  Morgan wasn't making much sense to Johnny, but he was past caring about what he was saying. There was no way he could keep Squid and Blarg back without making a noise. No way he could let them interfere without setting off the sniper. He was going to have to take out the sniper himself and hope that Morgan wasn't quick on the draw enough to blow Nigel's head off in retaliation.

  It had been a long time since Johnny had gone into a fight without knowing Wulf was there to back him up. He began to appreciate how much the Viking helped keep him alive at times like this.

  "You've got what you want, Mister Less," said Morgan. "You can take your wife and sneck off to Earth. And stay there."

  Morgan turned to leave, swinging the bag of ransom money onto his other shoulder.

  "I want to hear you count to a hundred," he added.

  "Right," said Nigel, clasping his hands behind himself. From his vantage point, Johnny saw Nigel reaching for something, his right hand closing around something in the small of his back.

  "We won't meet again," added Morgan.

  "I know," said Nigel, pulling the snub pistol from his waistband.

  Johnny was no stranger to revenge. Nigel might have drawn his gun, but it was Johnny who fired first, putting a standard round right through the eye of the sniper. The noise was deafening as several gunshots overlapped. If a concerned Gronk had been present, the gunfight would have taken several subjective hours. With only humans and a Betelgeusian in the room, it was over in less than two seconds.

  "Freeze!" shouted Squid in vain as the sniper's dying reflex pulled his own trigger. A third gunshot rang out as Nigel shot his tormentor. Even as Johnny swung his gun to fire on Morgan, he saw a flare of red leap from the kidnapper's head. Morgan was dead on his feet and Nigel was the killer.

  From somewhere behind Johnny, Blarg reflexively put two rounds in the dead sniper, adding to the unbearable noise. Taken aback by the sudden burst of action, it was Squid who fired last. He so rarely got the chance to use his gun. The boom from the larger of his Westinghouse's two chambers announced the launch of a number four round - a high explosive. Johnny had just enough time to think "oh sneck" and duck before the slug tore right through Morgan's chest and into the bag he was carrying.

  The bag of credits erupted in a fountain of high velocity plastic, sending discs, chips and shards in every direction. They ricocheted and bounced in the narrow confines of the corridor of crates, creating a storm of hot particles.

  Nigel's yelp of pain from somewhere told Johnny that he was still alive.

  Johnny was dropping to the floor before the rain of plastic was even over. Another bullet slammed through the side of the crate behind him, slapping to a halt as it hit the lead inner casing. Someone was shooting at him.

  "Squid, Squid you snecktard. Cease fire."

  A chaotic arc of standard rounds peppered the crate beside him, climbing ever higher-a sure sign of an idiot unused to recoil on fully automatic. With a start, Johnny realised that the path of bullets was leading straight towards the crate holding Ruth's stasis chamber.

  Without a moment's thought, Johnny leapt up and pointed his gun at Squid, ready to shoot the little snecker's head off. But Squid had dropped his out-of-control gun to clutch at his face, and the chaos ceased as abruptly as it had started. Two alleys over, Squid screamed through his muffling hands; he had caught some of the exploding money on his sensitive skin.

  Good, thought Johnny, as he scrambled between the crates in search of Nigel.

  "I can't see," yelled Squid, to an uncaring audience.

  Nigel was coughing in pain, the after-effects of inhaling a cloud of super-hot plastic shards. His clothes were ripped and torn with plastic shrapnel, but he was going to make it. Nothing an hour with some tweezers wouldn't cure.

  "What... the sneck...?" mumbled Nigel.

  Squid, meanwhile, dropped his hands to his sides and stopped whining. His face stung like hell, but he was going to make it. He blinked in the gloom.

  "Blarg," he called. "Get the lights."

  "You are not the boss of me," called Blarg. "Although I shall get the lights of my own volition."

  Somewhere in the warehouse, Blarg flipped the main switch. There was a flicker of fluorescence, and suddenly everyone was blinder than they'd been in the dark.

  "Agh!" yelled Squid again. "My eyes."

  Johnny ignored the bounty hunter's anguish and grabbed Nigel by his collar.

  "What's with the hero act? You could have got yourself killed."

  Nigel stared up at Johnny defiantly.

  "You know what," said Nigel. "I enjoyed it."

  "Shut up," said Johnny.

  "I snecking loved it!" shouted Nigel. He turned back to look at Morgan's corpse where it lay on the ground and raised the small pistol he still clutched tightly in his hand.

  "No," said Johnny.

  But Nigel shot M
organ's dead body again for luck, laughing as it jerked in front of him.

  "How's it feel now, bitch?" he yelled at the body. He pulled the trigger again but there was nothing but a click. The gun's chambers revolved and the hammer slammed down on a spent cartridge. Nigel was all out.

  Johnny angrily slapped the gun from Nigel's hand.

  "Okay, Nige. He's still dead," he shouted.

  "Shame," yelled Nigel, his chest puffed with false bravado. "I wish I could kill him again after what..."

  Nigel abruptly stopped talking and looked down at the body, his berserk rage fading, civilisation returning, and with it, some sense of what he had done. He swallowed uneasily and looked at Johnny.

  "After what he did to me," he said, his voice cracking slightly.

  Johnny wasn't going to hang around for any more of Nigel's guilt trip. He shoved him bodily towards the exit.

  "Get out of here," he said. "Now."

  "Alpha," called Squid. "Is that you?"

  Johnny pointed unequivocally at the door. Nigel didn't stay to argue.

  "Yes it snecking is!" he shouted. "I am sending the civilian out! Do not shoot at him or I will tear you a new one and pay someone to fill it."

  "You shouldn't snecking be here!" yelled Squid. His voice was getting closer. Johnny didn't have much time.

  "Hi there," said Squid in the distance.

  "Out of my way," grunted Nigel.

  "Hey, buddy, I just saved your life," protested Squid.

  "Sneck off," said Nigel.

  Johnny darted back to Ruthie's open crate. She was still there, oblivious to all the men outside fighting over her. Johnny had not been this close to her since his mother's funeral. He rested his hand gently on the cold glass and looked down at his sister's face for just a moment. The stasis indicator was topped all the way up. She could remain like this for centuries, if undisturbed.

  Johnny checked the crate door. Morgan had not lied. Ruthie was due to be shipped out on the freighter Sherman that morning. Johnny quietly promised her he'd stand guard and slowly shut the crate once more so as not to make a noise.

  "There's no snecking gratitude," moaned Squid, notably close now. "I saved that putz's life and I don't even get a sneckin' thank-you."

  Squid's damp footfalls reached the place where Johnny leaned on Ruth's crate, and Johnny tried to quickly think of a way to throw him off the scent. He was still thinking, his face dark and savage, when Squid rounded the corner.

  "You snecking idiot," rasped Johnny.

  "Where's the money?" asked Squid in sudden confusion. He looked around the clearing between the crates, but saw nothing but debris. Squid faced up to Johnny, slapping his retrieved gun ominously on his palm.

  "Blarg," he called, not taking his eyes of Johnny.

  "What?" Blarg yelled out from some unknown location.

  "Remind me again," said Squid smugly, "what we're looking at here."

  "Kidnapping, that's illegal," said Blarg. "Payment of ransom, that's illegal. Consorting with criminals, that's, you know, illegal."

  Johnny stared at Squid with alpha sight, reaching into the bounty hunter's dirty mind. Inside, he saw nothing but elation and indignation. Squid didn't just expect thanks, he thought he was going to get a reward.

  "So I'm thinking," said Squid, breaking his return stare before Johnny could reach into his mind again, "the sniper's yours, but the bagman's mine."

  Johnny had what he needed. Squid was sniffing after glory, but he hadn't registered anything about the crate Johnny had been leaning on. He didn't know that Ruthie's sleeping body was only a few feet away from him.

  Realising that his sister was safe, Johnny ran out of reasons to hang around. As if Squid wasn't even there, he began walking for the exit himself.

  "I mean," added Squid quickly. "Your friend shot him, but he's not a bounty hunter. I mean, that's murder. We don't want to do the paperwork on that, right?"

  Johnny picked up the pace. Squid took the bait and scurried after him.

  "Don't go all quiet on me, Alpha," said Squid. "Me and Blarg, we're partners now. So two-thirds is ours. I don't see your Viking friend here, so I'll be snecked if he gets a cut."

  "Leave me alone," said Johnny.

  "But the ransom money," said Squid, dropping his voice slightly. "That's something we can talk about, yeah?"

  "Bite me," said Johnny, as he reached the exit. Outside in the darkness, he could see Nigel lighting a cigarette. Johnny was through the door and into the cold Tammerfortian air without breaking his stride. But Squid continued to press him, tripping over the doorstep as he left.

  Johnny wasn't in the mood for smiling, but Squid was well and truly owned. He was now out of the warehouse. He couldn't find his arse with his hands and Johnny doubted he'd be able to find his way back to Ruthie's crate even if he had known what was in it. Squid's mind was still on the big bag of money.

  "We don't need to let the cops take that as evidence, right?"

  Johnny halted abruptly, causing Squid to skid out of his way, reluctant to get too close to someone who could hurt him.

  "Take a good look, Squid," he growled, pointing back at the light that shone through the warehouse doorway. "There is no snecking money. You blew it up."

  "Oh..." said Squid, as it began to dawn on him.

  "So let's work that one out," said Johnny, walking back towards Squid, who nervously began to back away.

  "Criminal damage, tampering with evidence, breaking and entering," he said, gesturing at the warehouse behind them. "I'd say things were looking shaky for all of us right now."

  In the distance, a wail of a siren could be heard.

  "So if I were you," added Johnny. "I'd get out quick. Because when your stupid green friend turned on the power, this place lit up like a snecking Christmas tree."

  Squid slowly turned to look at the warehouse, reluctantly, as if what Johnny had said wouldn't be true for as long as he didn't see it himself. But among the dozens of squat, square buildings that made up the warehouse district east of the spaceport, only one had light pouring from its windows this late at night. Set among the utter darkness of the other buildings, their location might as well have had a neon arrow pointing at it.

  "Oh sneck," mumbled Squid as Johnny kept walking.

  Johnny's phone began ringing the moment he turned it on. "Johnny," said Wulf's voice. "I lost them. They might be heading your way."

  "That's okay," said Johnny. He snapped his fingers for Nigel to follow and the two men headed into the shadows, away from the warehouse.

  "How is it going?" asked Wulf anxiously.

  The sirens were getting appreciably nearer and searchlights were wafting through the night sky from squad cars coming in to land.

  "Well," said Johnny. "It could be worse."

  "Ruthie is safe?"

  "Kind of," said Johnny. "We're leaving this planet tomorrow."

  "And my money? I need my money back. I cannot leave the Happy Stick."

  Johnny shot a sidelong glance at Nigel who was shivering slightly in the night air, his clothes lacerated by the plastic shards, his face streaked with blood from a number of tiny cuts.

  "Yeah," said Johnny carefully. "About that..."

  HARMLESS

  Nigel was living out of a suitcase. He'd sold most of his possessions and what he had left in his hotel room barely filled a rucksack.

  "You mean you've got nothing at all?" asked Johnny, incredulously.

  "A crate, maybe. A crate and a half," said Nigel. He winced as Wulf's tweezers picked another plastic shard from his back. Wulf dropped the bloodstained speck into the sink of the hotel bathroom where it joined a dozen similar pieces.

  "Ruthie handled a lot of the move," explained Nigel absently.

  "While she was pregnant?" asked Johnny. It had been an idle query, but it came out wrong.

  "I... I guess I'm a bad husband," said Nigel, not putting up a fight. He looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and shook his head at himself. Johnn
y gently nudged the door shut with his foot. The Gronk was sprawled across the double bed, channel surfing and munching on cutlery.

  "Ow," said Nigel softly, as Wulf tugged a little too hard on something.

  "Sorry," said Wulf.

  "It's okay, really," said Nigel. "I do appreciate this. Johnny, Wulf, I don't know what I would have done without you."

  Wulf laughed to himself.

  "I imagine you would have gone in all guns blazing," he chuckled. "Which, considering all der other guns blazing, would have meant you'd be very seriously shot, and probably killed..."

  "That's exactly what he did," said Johnny.

  "You have true Viking spirit," said Wulf, making to pat Nigel on the back and then thinking better of it.

  "So where's your stuff?" asked Johnny. "And Ruthie's stuff?"

  "All in crates ready to ship to Mars," said Nigel. "We weren't coming back here. I got myself a passport under the name Webster. Enough to get me in."

  "And these crates are on der ship?" asked Wulf. He threw the tweezers into the sink and poured a liberal quantity of dark blue disinfectant onto a flannel.

  "Yeah," said Nigel. He pointed at the flannel. "Is that going to sting?"

  "Oh no," said Wulf confidently, slapping the flannel onto Nigel's blood-streaked back. "It's going to burn."

  "Holy sneck," said Nigel, more in surprise than pain as the disinfectant washed smarting rivers into his flesh.

  "The Sherman?" said Johnny, reading the dockets. "Same ship as Ruth."

  "Oh yeah," said Nigel, through gritted teeth. "She's travelling with the baggage."

  He had meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed.

  "And you're on it, too."

  Nigel shook his head.

  "I'm on another ship," Nigel said, trying to remember. "The, er... the China. Sherman's mainly cargo, China's mainly passengers."

  "Drunk ones," said Wulf, remembering.

  "What have you got?" asked Johnny.

  "It's not much more than a coffin capsule. Just a place to sleep."

  "Will it fit a Gronk?"

  Nigel hesitated for a moment.

  "If it's snecking quiet and not in the least bit irritating," he said carefully.