Dead Dwarves, Dirty Deeds

  Chapter 1

  “Dead dwarves don’t dance!”

  Earless giggled as she crouched with her two companions, Grue and Munk, in the dark apartment.

  “Quiet!” Grue ordered, clamping a meaty hand down on the slight woman’s shoulder. He pushed her out of the light streaming up through the cracked and stained duroplas window.

  “I told you we shoulda left her behind. She’s getting worse every day.” Munk shook his head, still kneeling by the window, gazing out intently into the night.

  “We don’t leave family behind,” Grue grumbled. “’sides, we needed three shooters to pull this.”

  “And ain’t I a shooter!” Earless chuckled, her neon eyes dancing in the gloom. She pointed a forefinger at Munk and clicked her thumb. “I’m a wiz bang genny shooter!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Munk muttered between his teeth, “a damn wackjob shooter.”

  Grue bent down and looked at the hyped woman. Her long, grimy, blonde hair hung down in tangles behind her head, while her shaved temples exposed the unattractive stumps that had once been her long, pointed ears. Her face was thin, her cheeks hollow and pale. Great shadows hung under her eyes, but those eyes remained active, darting about, looking everywhere, the implanted neon rings in her irises flashing with her chaotic mood. A thick turbo patch nestled affectionately on her neck, her skin slowly absorbing the narcotic within. Dirt and grime stained her unkempt red leather jacket, the lumiweave dragon on the back long since faded into obscurity. Thin, silver bracelets snaked around her wrists, and a matching necklace peeked out from beneath her tank top wrapped tight around her skinny torso.

  “Listen up, Earless. Just stay icy a few more minutes. The target’ll be here any minute, then you can zero him.”

  “Not a problem, Grue! Can I take the first shot? Huh? Can I? Can I, please?” She smiled, revealing perfect teeth marred only by the absence of two incisors and an upper canine – casualties of violent johns.

  “Maybe. Just calm down. Why don’t you watch through that window? And stay out of sight.”

  Earless made a big show of sneaking over to the second window, raising her long legs high and walking on her toes. This did little to dampen the sound of her hard-soled, gator-skin cowboy boots striking the floor.

  “She’s gonna get us smeared, Grue,” Munk whispered to his big companion.

  “Well, since she’s saved our hoops more times than I can count it’ll make us even.” His eyes narrowed menacingly at the man beside him. Even crouching, Munk’s muscular frame was impressive, thick and stocky; a good friend to have in a fight. But compared to Grue’s genetically engineered bulk, he might as well have been a skinny, little kid. Of course, Munk had repeatedly upped his lethality over the previous fifteen years of his criminal career. His body hid a variety of cybernetic surprises. Unfortunately, those surprises were old tech in 2234, antique cyberware that couldn’t compete with today’s new chrome.

  Undaunted by Grue’s glowering, Munk pushed the subject. “That’s ancient history. Ten years ago she was hell’s own bitch. A psyker that could blast away like Satan himself. But she’s fried. When’s the last time she even tried to teekay a freaking spoon?”

  Grue shot a glance over to Earless and lowered his voice. “Be quiet. Listen, this is a big score, enough to get us out of Atlanta, into Arizona. No more ducking the Reggies or being cheated by fixers. And she’s going with us. We’re all that’s left.”

  “Yeah,” Munk almost growled, “and we were more until she let Salina get diced by that pack of rippers.”

  Grue’s face stiffened, and he pushed Munk against the wall. “Damn it, Munk! The past is the past. We gotta look ahead. If we snag this job we’ll score the creds to ditch the biz. Retire. That way we won’t end up like Salina or any of the others.”

  Munk shook off Grue’s hand with effort. “I ain’t ending up like them. Bank on it. But I still don’t like Earless being here. I don’t like this job, neither. It’s mass murder.”

  “We’ve had this talk, Munk, and we all agreed it was the only way to go.” Grue sighed and turned around, looking out the corner of the window.

  “Don’t mean we can’t back out,” Munk’s voice softened. “Listen, I don’t mind smearing a few corporate security guards during a grab, but this is a massacre. They’re all innocent.”

  “Nobody’s innocent and we can’t back out. Smith already forked the advance and we got the ‘ware. We don’t fade from fixers with their gear and creds.”

  “No. We just murder a couple dozen innocent dwarves.”

  “Damn it! Drop it and think about the payoff!” Grue swung around and stomped off across the empty room. He pushed past the unconcerned Earless and into the bathroom. “Just watch the damn club!”

  “Yeah, right,” Munk breathed, leaning beside the window and looking down at the dance club. Wetwork. He hated it, and had promised himself never to do it again after Minisoft’s ripper squad had offed Salina during a hit. He pulled a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket and upended it in his palm. The last Kokastik flopped out. Shaking his head, he scratched it across the stubble on his chin, puffing it to full life as the end started to glow. He bent his head back, taking in the diluted buzz of the drug, calming his nerves.

  Last time, he swore to himself, turning to glare at Grue’s broad back in the bathroom door. Last damn time.

  Puffing on the ‘stik, Munk leaned his head against the wall and gazed down at the club. Damn dwarven dance club. What the hell did genetically-engineered dwarves need a dance club for? He smirked, picturing a room full of meter high, bearded dwarves jumping around like Bernie V. Hotdog. And that idiot name: Stiltzkin’s Dance Club. Munk couldn’t understand dwarves. Hell, he couldn’t understand any gennies. He wondered what it was like back before genetic engineering. Back when none of the goons like Grue, or pleasers like Earless, or dwarves, or rippers - or any of the other neohumans - existed. Things were a lot simpler then he guessed. Only problems back then were humans, and they made enough for the entire planet all by themselves.

  A shadow appeared around the far corner on the next block. A short shadow pushing stolidly through the throngs of night-time street roamers. Raggedly clad welfare sponges wandering about aimlessly, gawking tourists from anywhere, ganger wannabes, revelers, jump-suited drudges hurrying to catch the transit; all of them swerved aside from the purposeful figure.

  Munk stepped back further into the darkness of the empty apartment, crushed the cigarette pack and threw it to the floor. “Another dwarf coming.”

  Grue ducked out of the bathroom, water dripping from his wet, whitening hair and flowing down the deep wrinkles of his rough and scarred face. He crouched over to the window, hardly making a noise despite his size. Earless followed the goon, also in a low stance, thankfully silent for once.

  Grue knelt and peered around the sill. Gazing through the cracked window, he looked down across Dresden Drive at a lone dwarf walking along the opposite sidewalk. The dim light of the streetlamps kept his face in shadows; he wore a hat and pulled his duster up high around his neck. The faint ember of a nicostick glowed in the darkness beneath the hat.

  “Hey,” Munk whispered, “that hat looks familiar...”

  The goon adjusted his cyber-optics, zooming in on the dwarf as he approached Stiltzkin’s. The light from the blinking neon sign gave him enough illumination to identify the newcomer, and he saw that the unbearded dwarf was not smoking a nicostick but a short cigar clamped firmly in thin lips. The dwarf looked up at the sign and shook his head in seeming disgust. He threw the cigar to the ground as he entered, pushing aside a mind-numbed, scantily-clad and emaciated patch-head begging by the door.

  Grue’s face fell. He turned around and leaned against the wall with a moan, putting a hand to his forehead and scratching around his shining neuroport on his temple.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Earless scampered over. “Was that him? Huh? Was that our target?”

  “No,” Grue re
plied, “that was trouble.”

  Munk recognized the fear in Grue’s voice, something that he rarely heard. It made his own gut ache.

  “Who was it?”

  Grue sighed. “Noose.”

  “Damn...” Munk slumped against the wall.

  “Noose?!” Earless squeaked, looking back and forth between the goon and the human. Even in her buzzed condition she could see the effect that name had on her two friends. “Big freaking deal! He’s just another dirt-eating gimli. We’ll smear him, too. No problem. He’s gone, history. deader than a Kennedy!”

  “Smith never said nothing about Noose being involved,” Munk muttered, ignoring the pleaser.

  “What the hell is he doing at a dance club, anyway?” Grue asked of no one in particular.

  Earless laughed, the tune to an old song still playing in her head. “Dead dwarves don’t dance! Woo! Woo!”

  “Shut up, Earless!” Grue growled, no longer in any mood to tolerate her antics.

  Earless turned around, but continued to sing under her breath. “...Unless they’re zombies, ghouls, or bloodsucking vamps...”

  “What’re we going to do, Grue?” Munk asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Grue said. “I just need to think!”

  Earless moved to the far side of the room, humming and dancing, hopping from foot to foot, her long blonde hair swirling. Grue watched her, his eyes narrowed, and he inexplicably found himself noting the complete symmetry and grace of the pleaser’s movements. Genetic failure was slowly tearing through her body, destroying brain cells, upsetting internal organs, and degrading molecular cohesion, but she still had the light-footed movements of a neohuman genetically engineered and bred for perfection, performance, and pleasure. Her long, spare frame looked like a praying mantis in motion, sped up and unnerving.

  “Do you think Noose knows about the hit?” Munk asked.

  “How could he?” Grue answered, breaking away from his near trance. “Hell, I don’t think he even likes Salvino.”

  “Then what’s he doing here?”

  “Slumming? Dancing? Does it matter?” Grue rubbed his forehead, trying to relieve a sudden headache.

  “Noose dancing?” Munk shook his head incredulously. “No way.”

  Earless stopped in the middle of her dance, one leg up in the air, her arms spread out. “Who? Noose slumming with dirt-eaters? Naah. I heard he likes humans.”

  Neither Grue nor Munk replied. Earless returned to prancing about the room, singing under her breath.

  “I think we got the target,” Munk said.

  Grue turned around slowly and watched the street. Another dwarf approached, this one from the opposite direction, dodging a speeding bicyclist. The goon’s cyber-eyes quickly tagged the second dwarf as Albert Salvino, neohuman rights activist and their target.

  “That’s the bird.” Grue nodded.

  Earless stopped dancing and ran to the second window. “Where?! Where?!”

  “Shutup!” Munk barked.

  Salvino walked down the busy sidewalk, wearing a long, gray overcoat, his hands in his pockets. He tossed something to the begging patch-head at the door and entered the club, faint snips of music escaping from within.

  Munk and Grue exchanged glances.

  “Let’s get the gear.” Earless jumped up, singing and laughing. “Time to dead some dwarves!”

  “Well?” Munk looked at the goon.

  Grue frowned. “We don’t have any choice. We got the advance, we gotta do the biz.”

  “What about Noose?”

  Grue hesitated, his mind a jumble that he finally just ignored. “This is biz. He got in the way. You think he’d worry about us getting blown to kibbles and bits by one of his bombs?”

  Munk shook his head.

  “Let’s get the gear.” Grue lumbered to the far side of the room. Three large, black tuffplast cases rested against the wall. He crouched and opened one. Inside, a matte black Global Arms Violator assault cannon cuddled in a foam depression. He reached in and picked it up, also taking three large magazines of explosive ammunition. He loaded one into the cannon, and put the strap around his shoulder.

  Munk opened another case and removed the Akbar surface-to-surface man-portable missile launcher. He hefted the military weapon on end beside him.

  “Hey!” Earless jumped over beside Munk and tugged on the missile launcher. “That’s mine! I shoot that one!”

  Munk struggled with the skinny pleaser. “Get away, Earless! Back off!”

  “It’s mine! Mine I tell you!”

  Grue yanked Earless away and pressed her firmly against a wall. “You get the grenade launcher, Earless! You ain’t checked out on the Akbar.”

  “What the hell do you need to know? Aim and shoot. A crap-eating null-brain could do it.”

  Grue leaned in close to her drawn and pale face. “Just snag the Thumper and get ready!”

  Earless cowered under the much larger goon, but finally shrugged her compliance. She moped over to the last case and unpacked the third heavy weapon.

  Grue and Munk moved back to the windows, their weapons fully armed.

  “What about Noose?” Munk asked again, the strain in his voice revealing his apprehension.

  “What about him?” Grue shot Munk an angry glance. “In a few seconds he’ll be dead.”

  “Dead dwarves-”

  “Shutup!” Munk yelled, interrupting Earless.

  Grue opened the window and Munk knelt before it, shouldering the missile launcher. The subdued whine of electric minicars speeding past intruded into the room. He sighted on the front of the club, the thermal imaging in the weapon showing him the red, blurry forms of the short, gyrating dwarf dancers inside, the tottering patch-head at the front door, and the wandering passerby.

  “Ready, Grue.”

  Grue stood beside the window, the cannon across his chest. “When I say-”

  The thump of a grenade launcher interrupted him, and an instant later a loud explosion sounded across the street. He looked over at Earless, who fired out the other window.

  “Woo! Woo! Boom!” She laughed, firing again and again. “Now serving flame-broiled dirt-eater!”

  “What the hell?” Munk stared at the crazy pleaser.

  The front of the dance club erupted as the thermal grenades ripped it apart. Pieces of the patch-head splattered across the front of the building, while several other victims squirmed on the street amid their own melting flesh. Panic crashed onto the street, the calm night crowd suddenly transformed into a screaming horde of hysterical bystanders, running in every direction.

  “Dead dwarves don’t dance!” Earless screamed. “‘cept zombies, ghouls and bloodsucking vamps!” She hopped up and down, the red flashes of the explosions illuminating the eager bloodlust etched across her face.

  “Hurry up,” Grue hit Munk on the shoulder, and ducked behind the wall. “Those incendiaries won’t do any good until you blow away the wall! Fire!”

  Munk turned back to the dance club. The smoke and showering debris did little to interfere with his aim. He caressed the trigger, and felt the high-explosive missile vault from his weapon. He took cover beneath the window.

  A brilliant flash filled the room, the remains of the duropane windows shattered inward as the whole room shook and the air rumbled. Amid a shower of shattered plastic, Earless spun backward and slammed against the far wall, falling motionless to the floor. The grenade launcher flew from her hands.

  Before the last shards of plastic tinkled to the floor, Grue stepped around and leveled his cannon. He pulled the trigger, sending round after round into the ruins that had been Stiltzkin’s Dance Club. The smoke and flames and explosions concealed much of the club, but at least half of it was gone. It was his job to take down the rest with his cannon. At least a dozen smoldering bodies lay in the street, like the torn and broken rag dolls of an angry little girl. An overturned minicar spun slowly to a stop against the curb.

  Grue emptied one magazine, dropped
it to the floor, and loaded the second. He ignored the flailing bodies barely visible through the smoke and flames, concentrating on laying down a carpet of fire that left no corner of the club untouched.

  While the goon continued to fire, Munk dropped the missile launcher and ran over to the prone genny.

  “Dead....” Earless muttered as he rolled her over onto her back. “...dancing dead dwarves...” A long shard of plastic protruded from the pleaser’s neck, blood streaming around it and onto the floor. Her neohuman identification coding, a dim subdermal gloprint at the base of her neck, glimmered faintly beneath the blood. Munk grimaced and pulled a spray bottle from out of his pocket.

  “Stupid patch-head...” He muttered, as he pulled the shard from her neck and then quickly coated the wound with coagulant spray. Earless struggled and jerked spasmodically, screaming. The spray can flew from Munk’s hand, and he bent down, trying to hold her limbs steady.

  “Grue! Get over here!”

  The goon sent his last round into the flaming building across the street and dropped the cannon. He hurried over to his two companions.

  “What happened?”

  “Idiot didn’t duck when I fired the missile and got caught in the blast,” Munk explained. “Hold her down so I can sedate her.”

  Grue knelt down and easily held the pleaser steady. Munk yanked the narcotic turbo patch from the pleaser’s neck, then pulled out a tranq patch from his pocket. He applied it to her skin. Within seconds, her struggles weakened, and her flailing limbs collapsed.

  “I’ll get her down to the van. You finish up here.” Grue lifted Earless effortlessly into his arms, and carried her quickly out the door.

  Munk ran back to the scattered weapons and threw them into their cases, locking them securely. As he recovered the missile launcher, he looked out the window.

  Virtually nothing remained of Stiltzkin's. Only a few sections of walls still stood, and most of the roof had collapsed. Blazing fires consumed piles of rubble, as well as lumps that had been short neohumans. He saw one flaming dwarf crawling out the door. Burning debris littered the street, and clouds of smoke plumed in the air. Screams of agony and fear filled the night.

  Munk turned away and retrieved the three weapon cases, toting them down the stairs and out to the van. Grue helped him throw the weapons in the back. They jumped in and drove down the back alley, away from the glare and misery of the street.