by Mark Wandrey
“You only get one for free,” Murdock said and planted a fist into the man’s abdomen with enough force to lift him completely off his feet. “Sorry, boy, I need to work out a little aggression, and y’all just volunteered.”
“I’m callin the cops, you bastard!” Ruth yelled from the bedroom as her boyfriend screamed and the sounds of fists thudding into flesh reverberated.
A few minutes later, Murdock picked up his duffle and headed toward the door. He felt better, though not as much as he thought he would. Just punching a meat sack for five minutes proved only about as amusing as a trip to the gym. He was still out of shape from being in zero gravity for so long.
As he stepped out the front door, the wail of approaching police echoed in the streets. Several neighbors were out in their yards looking on, wondering what the crazy Murdock lady was up to this time. When he walked out onto the sagging stoop, they backed out of view. He stopped next to the fancy new alien aerocar.
Nice design, he thought, probably cost a good chunk of my death benefits. Murdock fished out the partial Bongani, lit it, then laughed. She could have bought a house for what she’d spent on the car, or lived for years off the money. The guy his mother had briefly married just hadn’t had a lick of sense, and neither did his kids.
A pair of Sheridan PD cars came racing up and skidded to a stop. They were probably going to lock him up for beating the fucking idiot to a bloody pulp. He glanced at the aerocar again and grinned. While the cops were still clambering out of their cruisers, he reached into his duffle, drew something out, and tossed it through an open window on the aerocar.
“Hey, fellas,” he said and walked toward the cops, hands in the air. Of course, they still had their guns out, pointing at him. Dumbass local cops. “How’s business?” The K2 grenade went off with a thunderous roar, blowing the expensive aerocar to pieces and raining fiery debris all over the neighborhood. Murdock puffed his cigar and laughed.
* * *
Murdock’s legal status caused the Grant County Judge all kinds of trouble. First, he’d committed a felony by using a grenade. Second, he’d beaten the shit out of a local. Third, he’d embarrassed the Sheridan PD captain by just dancing around the front yard of Ruth Murdock while the captain and eventually nine of his deputies tried to restrain him. The merc never once actually hit any of the cops, they just couldn’t hold him down. One guy almost passed out when Murdock blew cigar smoke in his face. Pussy.
They’d finally tazed the shit out of him. Even though it hurt, a lot, it didn’t stop him. Eventually he just let them cuff him. All the while, he was madly laughing as the former luxury aerocar’s owner screamed and threw things at the cops, further exacerbating the situation. It didn’t help that the aerocar debris had started half a dozen fires. When the judge found out the car was purchased with a mercenary death benefit on the not-dead merc, it all became a nightmare of tangled culpability and blame. In the end, he gave Abraham Murdock thirty days in the county lockup, all but ten days of it suspended (the time it had taken to adjudicate the case), and fined him $5,000 for destruction of private property (arguably his own). He also got a $500 fine for smoking in public.
Ruth Murdock threatened to sue everyone. Just threatened—she was under the same legal conundrum as the county judge. Not even the local ambulance-chasing, dime-store attorney she’d hired could make the case stick. She’d also bought a shitty insurance policy on the aerocar, which only paid about 25% of the vehicle’s actual value.
When he was released, Murdock paid the $5,000 fine with fifty-nine credits. He grumbled at the unsavory exchange rate. Since he’d gotten some rest and had eaten for free, it all balanced out.
“You’d be smart to get out of Dodge,” the county sheriff advised him as he handed Murdock his duffle. “Guns and stuff are in the bag. You’re still a registered merc senior NCO, even if you’re a dead one, so we can’t confiscate your hardware. However, if you so much as touch a gun or any of those grenades around here, I’m just gonna start shootin’ and call it even. We on the same page?”
“Sure thing,” Murdock said. “My cigars?”
The cop laughed and shook his head. “You goddamned mercs, I swear. Yeah, they’re still in there. Illegal as shit, but there’s an exclusion for owning them for mercs, too.”
Murdock nodded and shouldered the bag without looking. He knew he could probably take the whole county’s contingent of deputies; there was just no reason to do so. “I’m never coming back here again.”
“Your sister’s just gonna be all broken up over that.” Murdock snorted, then laughed. The sheriff nodded toward the maglev train station. “Stops in an hour. I’ll walk you over there.”
“Worried I’m gonna start something?”
“Not at all,” the sheriff said as they walked. “Now, Junior just might.” Murdock looked at him curiously. “Your sister’s boyfriend, name’s Carl Edward Beaumont, Jr., or just Junior. His whole family ain’t very happy you put him in the hospital for a week.” He saw the look on Murdock’s face. “No, doesn’t matter if Junior swung first. I’d just as soon it didn’t turn into some bad revenge Tri-V show.”
“Fair enough,” Murdock said as they reached the train station.
“What’s your plan, if you don’t mind my askin’?”
“Heading back to Houston. Might as well see if I can sign back on with a merc outfit.” He shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever been good at.”
“After watching the video of you going all Kung Fu on the Sheridan PD, I believe you.” Murdock stuck his Yack in the station’s automatic ticket system and bought a pass through to Houston. He noted his balance was below 1,000 credits. Wouldn’t last long in Houston. “Best of luck, Abraham,” the sheriff said and offered him a hand.
“Just Murdock is fine,” he said and shook the man’s hand. The station vibrated slightly as the train magnetically braked to a stop, and the doors hissed open. Murdock swiped his Yack and it beeped, allowing him to enter. “Take care,” he said to the cop. The man watched him all the way, until the train doors closed, and Murdock went to find a seat on the upper level. Moments later the train accelerated away, leaving Arkansas behind him forever.
* * * * *
Chapter Three
Murdock rolled off the woman and to his feet. The act had left him physically satisfied, but emotionally empty. “About fucking time,” the whore said and got to her feet as well. He grabbed the partially-smoked Bongani and brought it back to life. Part of the reason he came to places like this was he could smoke. She pointed to the slate installed next to her place of business. “Fifty credits, stud.”
The distraction had seemed like a good idea at the time. He’d left an interview with a merc unit an hour ago, his ninth interview since the incident with his sister. Nothing was sorted out, he was still nobody, and merc companies didn’t hire nobodies. Oh, sure, lawyers promised him they could fix it. For a stack of credits, they would. He was damned low on credits, and as a nobody, he didn’t have any credit. The whorehouse had still seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Fifty?” he barked, stopping in mid-action of stuffing his still mostly-hard junk back into his pants. He hadn’t bothered to undress for this kind of transaction. Besides, who knew what kind of parasites called that place home? “You said twenty down on the street!”
“That was for a blowjob. You wanted the whole ride.” She pointed at the cloud of smoke. “And that costs extra, too!” He glared at her and she glared back.
“I could get all night with a hooker on the moon for what you charge, you dried up old twat.” He took out his Yack and tapped it against the slate, touched his finger to verify the DNA, then keyed in twenty-five credits. Before she could notice, he slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the door.
“Hey, motherfucker!” she cried. “I said fifty!”
“And I said you’re not worth it.” He gestured at the glowing transaction confirmation. “I threw in five for letting me smoke, and it’s still four time
s what the nasty thing between your legs is worth.” His level of regret was redlining. As he reached for the sliding partition out of her space, he felt a quick and sure tug on his bag. She was trying to yank it away. With reflexes honed in a thousand life and death battles, Murdock hooked his wrist, catching the strap, and jerked back hard. The whore, having started to pull the bag away, overbalanced, and his sudden yank pulled the bag out of her grasp and sent her sprawling off the bed and onto the metallic floor. She cursed and spat all the way down.
Cigar chewed into the corner of his mouth, Murdock was out the door and moving quickly down the hallway. He’d reached the stairs when the whore stuck her head out of her ‘office’ and screamed, “He didn’t pay!”
“Oh, fuck me,” Murdock groaned. In an instant, a dude appeared in the stairway. He would have put a side of Angus beef to shame; at least two meters tall and 150 kilos was his guess. He wore what had been called a faded green ‘wife-beater’ in centuries past, muscles straining at the shirt around the arm openings. Morphogenic tattoos moved in comical sexual positions and mixed with images of virgin sacrifice and the occasional butterfly. This dude wasn’t nefarious, he was a poster child for post-birth abortion. Murdock wondered where he’d gotten the second-rate tattoo, Gangster Tattoos-R-Us?
“Pay the lady,” the man growled in English, heavily intermixed with a Slavic-sounding accent.
“I did,” Murdock said back calmly. He kept coming, stopped a meter away from the side of beef, and held up his Yack. Glowing there was a transaction ID and twenty-five credits.
“He pay,” the guy said over Murdock’s shoulder, “what you want me do, Candy?”
“He only paid half,” Candy insisted. Murdock chuckled. Candy? Of course she was. A pixy stick stuffed full of sour cream.
“You pay more,” the beef said.
“Ain’t happenin’,” Murdock said. The muscle cocked his head, obviously reaching the end of his language abilities, so he helped. “Fuck no.” He blew out a big cloud of smoke and growled.
“You pay, or I hurt.” Murdock let the bag slowly slide to the ground, spread his stance a little wider, and put his hands on his hips. The tattoos cavorted, and a butterfly few across Angus’ chest as Murdock watched. The tough’s mouth had fallen open a little, and he looked ready to drool.
“We’re back to that ‘fuck no’ part,” Murdock said simply. He flipped his Yack over to reveal the symbol of the Galactic Mercenary Guild. A sword, a gun, and a red diamond in a triangle pattern. The words in an alien language under each symbol read Power, Service, Profit. Angus’ jaw closed with a snap. The butterfly fled behind his right ear. “You better think this over real hard, numbnuts.”
Angus chewed it over with all his mental power, which wasn’t a lot. It took him a full five seconds to conclude Murdock wasn’t the kind of guy to fuck with. He took a step to the side, clearing the way to the stairs.
“Fair enough,” Murdock said, rolling the cigar to the other side of his mouth, and bent to grab his bag. It proved to be an auspicious move, because the fire ax flung by Candy whistled through the space his head had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. Chunk! Murdock looked up to see the ax had embedded itself to the handle in Angus’ sternum. Murdock stayed low, glancing back to be sure no more lethality was inbound. Candy stood there, still in the follow-through of the throw, a look of stunned horror on her face. He looked the other way to where Angus stood, ax handle quivering in his chest.
The big guy looked both confused and surprised. Murdock had a clear view of a tat of a naked biker chick astride her flaming devil-cycle staring at the axe sticking out of his chest, then flipping it off. Murdock upped his opinion of the artist a notch.
“What?” Angus asked, then fell face first, driving the ax the rest of the way into his chest. Someone screamed as blood began to pool.
“Time to go,” Murdock said, scooped his bag up, vaulted the body, and took the steps down three at a time. It was way past time to leave, judging by the yells upstairs. Meat markets like the whorehouse were a dime-a-dozen in Houston’s Startown, and would be sure to have more than just one enforcer like Angus.
He hit the landing of the ground floor and cut right in the direction he knew the main entrance lay, on the other side of a large seating area full of potential customers. In the room, men and women of every imaginable walk of life watched the merchandise parade back and forth to help them decide on their choice of entertainment.
Murdock got a fraction of a second’s warning before it happened. “Hey!” someone said as his elbow was jostled, spilling his watered-down drink. Murdock was in midstride, and he simply allowed his knee to continue bending, making it appear as if he’d just collapsed to the floor. The baseball bat made a whooshing sound as he passed through the cloud of cigar smoke over his head. Smack! The bat connected with and crushed the face of a man who’d been talking up a redhead. Murdock fell to one knee and skidded sideways, his eyes taking in the quickly changing situation. Patrons were screaming, yelling, and beginning to scatter to get out of the way.
The guy with the baseball bat recovered from the swing and set up again. Murdock could see two others blocking the front door, and a fourth stepped out of a rear room to stop him from making it to the back door. He slowly stood up and let the bag fall to the floor again.
“Okay,” he said and calmly stashed the cigar, “let’s do this.” He hadn’t beat anyone up since Junior back in Sheridan. Why not?
* * *
The constable touched his control wand to the magnetic cuffs, locking them behind Murdock’s back. He’d flexed his considerable forearm muscles just as the man put them on, so he had plenty of room to move. A few feet away, a trio of rescue techs were working with a lifesaving bot, trying to resuscitate one of the whorehouse’s toughs. His eyes were open and staring, blood leaking from his mouth with each chest compression. Murdock shrugged. Another gurney stood by with an unmoving figure on it. This one had the wooden handle of an ax comically sticking up, and a pair of sheets were stained red and crudely wrapped around the ax to hide the dead man. It made him grin. At least he wouldn’t take the rap for the dipshit. Another constable had already lifted prints off the ax, and none of them were Murdock’s.
“Fuck a duck, Murdock, that you?” The constable who’d put the cuffs on had backed Murdock up to one of their patrol cruisers so he could lean/sit on the fender. Murdock looked to his left and saw another constable, this one with a golden braid over his shoulder. The man was about Murdock’s height and might have once had the same powerful build, but he’d gone a bit to seed. Despite the beer gut, the man’s uniform shirt strained at the muscled chest and his jaw was chiseled from stone. An unlit cigar dangled from the corner of his mouth, another sign of merc habits.
“Yeah,” Murdock chuckled. “How’s it hanging, Prescott? You pussy.”
“Show respect,” the constable behind him snapped and gave Murdock an elbow to the back of his head. Murdock just glared at the young man.
“Step off, son,” Prescott said, and the younger man moved back. “This here is a celebrity! Sergeant Murdock, decorated merc, distinguished for more than fifty years of service in maybe a dozen different companies.”
“Two dozen,” Murdock corrected, and the other man nodded.
“He’s been in more shit than a sewer worker and saved my ass a number of times.”
“I ain’t never heard of him,” another constable said. Not as young as the one who’d gave him the elbow, but not a kid either. He had the look of an ex-merc. Maybe he just hadn’t cut it.
“You haven’t heard of Sergeant Murdock because he’s dead. Well, as far as the guild is concerned, he’s dead.” Murdock gave him the finger, but with his hands cuffed behind his back, no one saw it. “Get him to the station while we clean this shit up.”
Six hours and one shitty cold sandwich later, he was before a district magistrate for the Startown of Houston. The judge looked over his file and eyed him dubiously before speaking.
“Can’t,” Murdock said from where he stood, his half-asleep council sitting next to him.
“And why is that?” the magistrate asked, gavel poised.
“Guild can’t straighten out my license.” The magistrate glanced down at his computer screen and read.
“It says here you were last contracted with Cartwright’s Cavaliers. Is that wrong?”
“That’s right enough. I used to work for them, then almost died in space. Took me a long time to get home, so they declared me dead.” The magistrate said something to one of her bailiffs, who walked over to a simple desk where a man sat. This man obviously had pinplants and had the vacant look of someone who was mostly submerged in the AetherNet. He whispered in the man’s ear for a moment. The guy with the pinplants nodded absently and a second later, nodded again.
“File’s updated, sir,” the bailiff said. The magistrate examined her computer.
“Ah, I see now,” she said. “So you can’t just hire on with another company?”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, seventy-nine is pushing it for a merc.” The magistrate looked at him with the look they all had when finding out how old he was. His face was a patchwork of worry lines, blemishes, and weathered scars, yet he still looked no more than forty. Those alien-manufactured nano-bots did a hell of a job on you.
“Go back to work or go to jail.”
“Whatever,” he grumbled and shrugged.
“Fine, ten days.”
“Thanks, asshole,” Murdock growled.
“Oh? Make it twenty days.” An hour later he was heading to lockup for thirty days. He seemed to be stuck in a rut. Fuck, he wanted a smoke.