Gainful employment (January 13th.....)

Telling the boys who we were protecting was only the first bombshell. Telling them who hired me, and by extension, them for the job was the second. I considered the situation before I continued.

Brannigan was a mercenary, no doubt about it, wanted everyone in the damn universe to know too. He walked around with Tara the pulse rifle all the time. He even had the thing programmed to complement him in a sexy female voice everytime he killed someone or something with it. But he was honest, he didn't fuck around, and moreover, he got the job done. These are qualities that I value, but Simon Magnus did not. Magnus, of course, only valued things and people that increased or protected his own. He'd enlisted in Magnus' personal security retinue when Brannigan and I had first come here years ago. Rose right to the top of the ranks, of course, and even had taken a titanium bolt to the shoulder when the water-farmers went on that union strike a while ago. The Nurses of Nereid were able to save him, but Magnus had no more use for him and fired him. A couple of months later, Magnus was re-elected, and I collected that big ol' check. Part of the money went to Sydney's bar, another big slice went into rebuilding Brannigan's shoulder with cyborg parts. As hardcore as that rifle of his was, it was nothing compared to the sheer poetry of seeing him connect with a right hook.

Either way, there was no way I could tell him he was directly or indirectly working for Magnus.

Derek was my scout, my recon. He'd be packing his bags for Triton soon enough. I'd need to know everything about the site, logistics, topography, everything. Derek was good for that kind of stuff. He'd been your garden-variety Tech-addict for years, his father dying in a farming accident. I pulled out all the Tech ports in his flat, smashed all the equipment, and sat with him for a month until he was clean. Derek hadn't gone near Tech since, and had been with me on just about every job I'd taken. Tech changes the way the brain is wired, moreso when teenagers get hooked on it. It left him with a certain kind of hyper-attention to details, to the point of obsessive-compulsiveness. The mannerisms he'd developed as a result left him a sort of outcast, but he was a great kid. And why not turn the negative into a positive? I got him his own Scally Cap for his birthday a few months ago, and it was the first time I think I'd ever seen him really happy.

But he didn't trust Magnus, and hated every second of working for him. It was looking like I wasn't going to be divulging to the guys who our employer was.

I glanced over at A-Ron, and thought that it couldn't give a flying fuck who was paying the bills, just as long as the check showed up. So no big thing there. But I still wasn't saying who hired us, at least not at this point.

"I don't know why I got this job, and I don't even know who's the employer. I got anonymous holograph message last night, with the terms and the conditions spelled out." Which was easily the lamest lie I've ever come up with in my life.

Brannigan finished his beer in a gulp, and exchanged a glance with Derek. Derek nodded.

"You saw Magnus last night, didn't you?" Brannigan asked. Well, shit. There went that.

"Yeah."

Brannigan got up immediately. Derek sat back in the booth and folded his arms. A-Ron didn't bat an eye, or, thing, or whatever the fuck genetically-altered spiders used to see.

"Mickey, there's no fucking way I'm doing anything associated with that dickbag. He's lucky I haven't blown his perfect little skull off his shoulders," said Brannigan in his outdoor voice. Sydney took notice of Brannigan from behind the bar. Derek sort of nodded to her, and held out a hand to Brannigan.

"Just settle down, Brannigan. I'm sure Mickey's got a good reason for this. Boss?"

I sighed. I only really had just the one reason, which I guess made me a sort of mercenary, too. I was just cuter about how I went about things, I supposed.

"There's 125 thousand each, for us, if our two regal guests get married and go on their way." I lowered my eyes to my drink, and slammed it back in a gulp.

I didn't look up at my partners, but in retrospect I think they must have all agreed that my reason was good enough for them, too. I heard Brannigan sit back down. When I looked up, both he and Derek had that 'I hate that I'm friends with you sometimes' look on their faces. A-Ron polished off wine cooler number twenty.

"Click-click. Click. Click."

"We don't speak spider, A-Ron," said Derek.

Then that head of his turned to us, and it rubbed two of it's legs together.

"I said 'this stinks, but fuck it'". There was a moment of awkward silence, and then the four of us belted out a burst of laughter.

"So tell us what to do, boss," said Derek.

And then I told them.

January 13, 2213 Maybe more than just a round or two....

Brannigan sat down at the table. He balanced his pulse rifle against the wall. Both Derek and A-Ron looked at it the gawdy piece of firepower nervously. I looked at Brannigan. His red hair was rarity, even on Neptune. There were less than a thousand people in the entire solar system that still had it – and half of them were employed as “specialty” escorts at a high-end Gentleperson’s place on Saturn. Between that, the ostentatious gun, and the eyepatch, Brannigan was easily the attention grabber of my gang.

Which made him perfect for what I had planned.

Sydney came over, and put a pitcher of beer between Derek and Brannigan. She filled my glass with bonafide Jack Daniels, all the way from Earth. Out here, in New Boston, Neptune, she could get 500 credits a glass for it. All she charged me was a smile and a nod, which I gave in spades.

“You always could charm me with those baby blues, Mickey,” and she walked away.

After a moment of awkward silence, Derek spoke first.

“So what’s the job, Mickey?”

Brannigan didn’t let me answer. “Probably some bullshit favor for a water-farmer. I probably won’t even get to use Tara again.” Tara was the name he gave to his pulse rifle, by the way. Pretty sure he took care of Tara more than he did himself.

I glared at Brannigan, and he could tell by the look I gave him that his assumption was incorrect; far from it in fact. He smiled. “Or maybe I will…” His right hand subconsciously moved towards the gun.

“We’re gonna be bodyguards, gentlemen and A-Ron,” I said. Derek and Brannigan gave me a ‘wha?’ look. Spiders don’t have facial expressions, so A-Ron just clicked six times in succession. The three of them exchanged a look, and then burst out laughing. I smiled, because I knew why they were laughing.

In case you’re not really familiar and you haven’t already gleaned, Neptune isn’t exactly the nicest of places to live. The sixteen cities here are suspended in the upper atmosphere by quantum stabilizers, and are contained within geodesic domes. The only reason why anyone’s even out here comes from Neptune’s water supply, which is harvested by the aforementioned water-farmers. They’re all hardened, slightly psychotic, danger freaks who go out of the domes and pull good ol’ H2O into their Harvesters. Problem is, the environment outside the domes is best summarized by insane blue tornadoes that make storms on any other planet look like warm breezes.

So, the kind of people that live on Neptune, whether it be water-farmer, societal outcast, or what have you are generally not the type that require “bodyguards” or “protection”.

Hence, Derek, Brannigan, and A-Ron’s laughter.

Derek stopped for a moment. “Who the hell needs our protection…out here?”

“Imperiatrix Bella One-Five and Prince Napoleon Putin.”

The laughter ceased immediately. A-Ron chugged a wine cooler. Derek and Brannigan took big heaping gulps of beer.

“They are important. Why us?” A-Ron’s speech might have been simplistic, but it cut right to the core.

I drank my Jack. “That’s an excellent question, pal. And that’s what we’re gonna find out first.”

A Round or two at the Faith No More....(continued)

“Sorry, darling. I’m gonna need you to lock the doors for an hour. Well, as soon as Brannigan arrives.”

Sydney’s frown deepened. Derek’s shoulders sagged.

“I’m not letting that guy in my bar again, Mickey. You know what happened last time,” Syndey said.

Last time, Brannigan started a fight with four water-farmers, three of whom were spiders. How he managed to fend off all of them spoke to just how crazy Brannigan could get, especially with a belly full of beer. The place was trashed, Sydney had to shut down early on one of the busiest nights of the week, and there were Imperium guards in the Faith No More for the next month to make sure everyone stayed in line. Needless to say, just about everyone stayed home and got pissed until the Imperium were satisfied that things had returned to semi-normal.

A-Ron had finally caught on to our presence. “Mickey! Grab me another seven wine coolers before you come ovah, wouldja?”

I looked over at Sydney. “Put it on my tab, darlin’. And Brannigan will be gone as soon as we’re done. Promise.”

Sydney only shook her head. “Whatevah….” She snapped open a few bottles, and left them on the bar. “Lock the door yourself. I’ll be in back when you’re ready.” Sydney walked off to her office in back.

“Derek, help me with these bottles,” I said.

“I still don’t understand how anyone drinks these fucking things, boss,” Derek replied.

“I know. But A-Ron loves his booze, and he loves his sugar. It’s better than seeing him eat, though.”

Derek cringed. We’d seen A-Ron devour a mule once. And no, it was far more revolting than you think.

Derek and I sat down, and A-Ron’s head tilted to the side. “This is unexpected pleasure - click -. Derek and Mickey -click-. Brannigan coming, too ? -click-."

If you’ve never spoken to a spider, they make clicking noises at the end of every sentence. Just FYI.

“Yeah, A-Ron, he’ll be here shortly. I left a message on his phone.” I said.

“Psycho -click-. He takes his medication -click-?”

I rolled my eyes. Brannigan and I went further back than anyone, and I was a little sensitive about people taking issue with Brannigan’s medication. The guy just wasn’t equipped to deal with the shit that he’d been through back on Earth. There were very few individuals that could, and only then because they had screws loose to begin with.

“Yes, A-Ron, he’s taking his medication.” A second later, the door flew open.

Of course, Brannigan just had to kick the fucking door. He couldn’t just push it with his hand.

He yelled: “Mickey! Derek! A-Ron!”

A-Ron shook his head. Derek looked down into his beer. I sighed.

“We’re over here, Brannigan.”

January 13th, 2213. Nighttime. A Round or two at the Faith No More.

The Faith No More was the local dive bar about two blocks from my office, and it was the most comfortable place on the planet. Sydney, the girl who ran the place, had it made up to look like an Earth bar, even going so far as to import an actual hardwood bar all the way from home. I'd helped her with the cost of having it shipped most of the way across the solar system to be put in, a task I'd happily do again. The jukebox she'd brought out with her, a hand-me-down from her old man. Although the resident spider population had managed to get more than a few songs on it - ninety-five percent of which were by some broad from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries named Bjork - there was a solid foundation of rock songs from Mercury. Who the fuck knew that (a) things actually lived in that cratered-out fireball, and (b) they were the best musicians in the known universe.

When I strolled in, "Fireball" by Asteroid One was playing, and be damned if I wasn't instantly ready to jam myself. Power chords were still power chords, and it didn't matter what century they were played in. Since I'd called Derek earlier that day, I'd put together a little roadmap for the gang for the next couple of days. I had some time, and I was gonna pull every string, call in every favor, and flip over every rock on Neptune for this case. But, that was all just thoughts though, notions, ideas. The function.

But something about that jukebox being just loud enough...the purple, orange, and green light illuminating the place in tacky, wonderful flourescence...the smell of actual bourbon permanently stained into the floor, the stools, the fuckin' walls baby...and over in the corner, a television showing a hockey game and not some fuckin' holodeck...I was back into the form.

I felt for my revolver - it was tucked into my leather jacket, tight against my right side. I glanced over to my left, and sitting at one of the tables was A-Ron, my favorite stoolie spider, and one of the more vocal of the gang. He was fixated on drinking all six of his sucrose-filled wine coolers as quickly as possible, as usual. And over to my right, alerted to my presence the second I pushed open the doors, was Sydney. The greatest gal on any of the outer planets. She smiled, and beckoned to me to have a seat.

"Well, I'd say I was surprised to be seeing Mr. Mickey Mah-tinelli so early, but that'd be a lie now, wouldn't it sweet hahht?" Sydney was awesome. She'd kept the Old Boston accent alive when she came out here three years ago, and it'd since caught on around town, especially among the water-farmers.

"You know it would be, sweetie." She turned to pour a drink for me, a second later she turned back to me. I took in her jet black hair. She flashed a toothy smile behind shiny red lips. I looked into her pale blue eyes, and had a thought that maybe I'd been wasting my time chasing down cases. I should have been chasing -

From behind me, the door swung open and there was Derek. "Boss!" he cried.

Sydney frowned, her teeth disappeared. "Business before pleasure tonight, Mickey?"

January 13th, 2213 Noon...maybe one o' clock earthtime

I'd grown up on Earth, and so, despite having spent years on Neptune, I'd never gotten used to the sun being a tiny yellow pin-prick in a perpetually night sky. The clocks here were synchronized with earth time, so the positions of the stars and Triton and Nereid relative to the date were always fucked beyond belief. I tried to pay as little attention as possible to numbers and dates and astronomy, and, well, time for that matter. Instead, when I was feeling philosophical enough and I cared enough to look out into the sky, I just looked at all that glamour, so to speak, and admired it for what it was: Just the mad, fever dream of some incomprehensible force.

That thought always comforted me.

I sat on the rooftop, doing just that, thinking about how Magnus had asked me to keep someone alive. Except, "asked" wasn't really the word to describe it though. He had really more of stated it to me, and then followed it up with the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse. Five hundred thousand credits and, more importantly, a full Imperial pardon. An ancient wise man once said you can never go home again. Of course, he meant something along the lines of that you'll never be the same person you once were. Fair enough. But if I could get my ass back to Earth a far richer man than when I was a kid scavenging on the streets of Los Angeles, well shit, that ancient wise man could suck my ass for all I cared.

And I bet if you're reading this, you're saying to yourself, 'shit Mickey, its’ obvious Magnus is up to no good; the guy's playing you like a fiddle. Tell the guy to get lost'. Well, it isn't quite that simple, gentle reader. Simon Magnus is Neptune Senator; just because he's making a deal with me doesn't mean he doesn’t already have a plan B in place. I say no to his deal, and I turn myself into one giant loose end. Two hours later the entire building, including yours truly is so much ash on an abandoned corner in New Boston. Nope – better play to along with the closest thing Neptune had to a playboy.

But Magnus knew that certain operations require a delicate touch, and not a single one of those alpha-male Imperium goons he had surrounding him most of the time could pull off delicate.For them, low key was always loud enough to break glass. I shook my head at my fortune. I was on the job as soon as that pretentious dickbag snuck into my office and put that gun to my head. Message received, Magnus. And now, I had to keep Prince Napoleon Putin XVIII and Imperiatrix Bella One-Five (yeah, I know, pretentious as the Neptune night is long) alive long enough to get married, and thus cement the long bandied about treaty between the Alpha Centauri Confederacy and the Terran Empire.

Me.

Mickey Martinelli.

Should I tell you about the whole Humans and Centauri thing? Nah. Fucking boring as hell.

So there I was, slightly drunk, fully irritated, star-gazing on the roof of my building. Well, I wasn't doing this alone. I needed help. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my phone. I dialed, and Derek picked up. Of course, the kid was ecstatic to hear from me.

"Mr. Martinell!! How you doin? haven't heard from you in months!" His somewhat loud and enthusiastic voice fast-forwarded me directly to a brain-splitting hangover. Wierd, because despite the pain incurred by the sound of Derek’s voice, I was genuinely happy to talk to him. Friends were harder to come by than sunlight on Neptune.

"I'm good, Derek. But kid, STOP calling me Mr. Martinelli. It's just Mickey."

"Sorry Mis- Mickey. What's up, we got work?"

I smiled dryly. "Yeah, buddy, you could say that. Get your cameras, and the rest of your equipment. You got some scoutin to do."

"On my way, boss."

Derek hung up. I put the phone away, and looked silently up at Triton and Nereid. They were beautiful. Cold. Silent. I sighed.

"This is gonna get noisy."

The Morning of January 13th, 2213 (3 AM, Earth-time)

"Used to be that nobody could sneak up on you, Mickey, even when you were drunk and passed out."

"And you're still a complete asshole, Simon."

A moment later I heard his gun power down, a sound that sounded something the static that came out of my vintage television when the VCR tape ran out.

I felt the barrel leave my temple, and I lifted my head off of my desk.  The figure shuffled over to the chair in front of the desk and sat down.  I clicked the desk lamp on, and looked over into the face of Simon Magnus.  I hadn't seen his mug since he begrudgingly signed four hundred thousand credits over to my ownership.  He still had those chiseled cheekbones, the faded blue eyes, and the thick black hair.  He'd been elected Senator of New Boston twelve years running, eleven times on his looks and winning smile alone.  The one exception was the year he had competition from a well-funded spider (they’d started off as business partners, then became political rivals) from Triton vaporized by yours truly. That was six years ago, but I already told you how that story ended.

So yeah, I also dabble in politics.

"Simon, couldn't you just have fucking knocked like everyone else?"

He snorted in defiance.  "An individual of my stature doesn't usually get to point guns at people, Mickey," he folded his leg over the other, and flashed that winning smile that got him voters and got him laid.  "Besides, that bottle of synthbourbon is three-quarters empty.  Still the only alcoholic on the outer planets, eh Mickey?"

"Yeah, Simon.  And you're still a massive prick."  I leaned over, poured a double into the clear plastic cup, and downed it in a gulp.  Synthbourbon was little more than whiskey-flavored formaldehyde, but it did the trick.

"Don't know how you killed Jatt Attarian, drinking like you do."

Above the file cabinet towards the right corner of the room, there was a bullet hole in the fogged glass. It was the diameter the size of my middle finger.  I waited a moment for my eyeopener to steady my hand.  I snatched the .38 snub-nose from the desk and fired one right through that hole.  The bullet struck the drywall on the other side of the corridor outside my office.  The glass remained the sam, untouched by the shot I had just fired.

"I shot off all eight of his legs, re-loaded, and put one in his fuckin' head, Simon. And then I vaporized him.  Like you asked. Seemed like overkill to me."

Simon frowned.  He looked behind him, and then got up out of the chair.  He opened the door to the corridor, and glanced over at the fresh hole out there.

He closed the door and sat back down.  He flashed that smile again.  Yeah, he'd paid me handsomely for the Jatt job, but it still didn't stop me from wanting to shoot those pearlies out through the back of his head.  Maybe it was the hangover I had.  Who the fuck knows.

"So what's the job, Simon.  It's gotta be something shady, else you wouldn't showing up here at 3 am. A person of your stature could never be caught dead in this part of town at this time of night.  Who do you want dead now?"

Simon held his right hand out in front of him, checking his manicure.  Nope, no dirt there.  He was good at keeping himself clean as a whistle.

"I don't want you to kill anyone, Mickey."

I raised an eyebrow.  I folded my hands, and put my feet up on my desk.  "Then what is it, then?"

"I need you to keep someone alive."
 

January 12, 2213

I hate this place.  I spend most of my nights here, in my cold and wooden office, whiling away what's left of my forties, watching old time movies from the 20th century and waiting for business to roll in - my favorite is Die Hard.  Commando is a close second.  It's slowed down a lot, ever since the Imperials actually made their presence known out here.  Everyone's afraid to do anything nefarious, or shady, or illegal, for fear they'll end up black bagged and on the express shuttle out to the supermax facility on Pluto.  Might as well be a death sentence.

Used to be that a guy or a girl, or a bird, or a spider could come to the moon and get their business done here, without a lot of fuss or muss.  Maybe not so quietly, especially if there were bodies involved, but that was the price one paid to get ahead without playing by the rules, so to speak.  And if somebody (or something) was up to no good, you can sure as shit somebody (or something) wanted to know about it.  'On the down low', as they used to say back on Earth.

When I started off, back in '03, they came in by the droves.  At first it was mostly jilted husbands and wives, looking for proof their significant other(s) were fooling around town.  Those were pretty open and shut type deals.  I give them the holophotos, they give me the credits.  The reputation grew, which happened quickly in a city where reputation was pretty much all anyone had, and soon it got to be a lot more than that.  In '05, a spider came in here asking me to off his former business partner for him.  It.  Whatever.  They still fucking creep me out. All of them except for one. I'll get to him later.  Anyway, he drops a hundred thousand on my desk, tells me I get another hundred thousand when I bring him the head of Simon Magnus.

Well, never brought him the head of Simon Magnus, because Simon came in the next night and doubled his offer.  So, with more money on the table, I did what any enterprising individual would do and followed through with the higher offer.

I vaporized the spider with a class 3 ion gun in its web, took the three hundred grand and the rest of the year off.  I still came into the office though, and clients still came in, but at that point I could pick and choose my jobs.

And then in '07, the Imperials came in, and shit just dried right the fuck up.

Did I mention that I hate this place?  I used to love it.  I used to think I was so bad-ass.  Mickey Martinelli, bad-ass for hire, the last of a dying breed.  Expensive, shiny laser cannon in my bottom desk drawer along with a bottle of imported bourbon straight from old Kentucky on good old terra fuckin' firma.  You got a problem?  Go see Mickey.  Something needed fixing?  Go see Mickey.  You wanna make somebody disappear, or just get the fuck off of Neptune?

Yeah, you got it.  Go see Mickey.  

And now, six years after the long arm of the Empire finally made its way here to New Boston, Neptune Prime, I'm almost a fucking beggar.  The laser cannon and the Jack Daniels? Gone. Now its’ Synthbourbon in a plastic glass and an antique revolver right out on the desk.  It's alright.  Nobody's walking through that door tonight anyway.

On the television, John MacClane lets Hans Gruber drop from the Nakatomi.  The lousy kraut deserved it - you always pay for sloppiness one way or another.  I'm tired.  I put my head down on my desk. Doze off.

I wake up with a pulse cannon pressed to my temple.

"Don't move, Martinelli," a familiar voice said.