Enlightened Ignorance

by Michael Anderle

  “Yeah, but we’re us,” Erik countered. “And there’s only ten of them. It’s not even fair. I almost feel like we should give them a handicap.”

  He pushed the MX 60 down to bring the vehicle level with the rifle fire. Jia had seen him do that many times. All the reinforced armor in the world wouldn’t do anything if the grav emitters were damaged, and there was only so much that could be done to protect them—one of the reasons flitters weren’t preferred military vehicles. He circled near the bay, the vehicle taking a few shots in the maneuver, but at least they were out of the immediate line of fire.

  “What’s the plan?” Jia asked. “Charge in there with the flitter? The suspect is getting away.”

  “Miguel’s going to murder me in my sleep if I try that again, and I’m half-convinced Emma might, too.”

  “All scenarios should be considered for proper future predictions,” Emma offered cheerfully. “Make sure that if you damage my body, it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Muzzles flashes lit the otherwise-dim loading bay.

  “If we try to get in under that kind of fire, it won’t matter how much armor this flitter has,” Jia suggested. “We need to take them out, then land.”

  Erik gestured toward her seat. “Time for a big gun. Emma, I’m going to need you to take control. Just keep circling while Jia and I clear our landing zone. These guys are cocky, but I doubt they’re used to fighting cops with my kind of firepower.”

  Jia moved her legs aside.

  Emma took control before Erik even released the yoke. She maintained a tight semi-circular evasion pattern. Jia pulled the TR-7 out of its hidden compartment and handed it to Erik, along with several magazines. He loaded the gun as Jia readied her slug-thrower.

  “No stun pistol?” Erik flipped the safety off on his rifle, surprise on his face.

  “Not at the range we’ll be shooting from.” Jia shrugged. “It’d be pointless. Even if I hit them, there won’t be enough energy left to stun them.”

  “Fine by me.” Erik brought his window down and stuck the barrel of the TR-7 out of the flitter, holding it primarily with his left arm. He flipped to four-barrel automatic mode and narrowed his eyes. “Let’s make a hole and go after our suspect. Go straight at them and turn hard about twenty meters out, Emma.”

  “This ought to be interesting,” she replied. “I hope this doesn’t end with all of us plummeting to our fiery deaths.”

  “It probably won’t, but no guarantees,” he agreed.

  The MX 60 straightened and flew toward the cargo bay. The gunmen didn’t break from their positions. They maintained their fire. The suspect was a distant black blur in the back of the vast bay.

  A few seconds later, Emma turned, providing Erik with his first shot. The TR-7 came to life with a roar. Ten men firing their rifles in bursts had been covering the MX 60 with bullets, but one detective with an overpowered rifle was matching them in raw spent ammunition. His firing window was short, only a few seconds, but effective. Two men screamed and fell, the TR-7’s bullets ripping through their heads. A few others staggered back, their tactical vests saving their lives. Another dropped his weapon as a bullet pierced his shoulder. The others scattered, their fire becoming erratic.

  Jia didn’t have her partner’s ridiculous gun, but she was a good shot, even moving. She kept her head low and her hands steady. Her first few shots went wide. The third was a headshot that finished another man.

  Erik popped out his magazine.

  “Empty already?” Jia asked.

  “Yeah, but this is something different.” He slapped in a new mag. “Armor-piercing.” He grinned. “Don’t want the colonel to think I’m wasting all his nice help.”

  The defenders rallied as Erik and Jia came in for another pass. Brave, perhaps, but also futile. With the new ammo, Erik didn’t even have to aim as carefully. His AP rounds ripped through their tactical vests, shredding several gunmen. In the chaos, the survivors stopped firing and turned to run, making them easier targets. It didn’t take long before the ten gunmen lay on the ground.

  “Bring us in, Emma,” Erik ordered. “We need a better insertion solution in the future that doesn’t involve crashing into things or risking heavy weapons fire, but it’s not like I can stick a drop pod on the MX 60.” He scratched his cheek. “Yeah, that mostly doesn’t make sense.”

  Jia side-eyed him.

  The flitter cruised forward, turning and settling down near the front of the truck. Jia threw open the door and leapt outside after stuffing a few more mags into her pockets. Erik grabbed every magazine he had in his storage space and shoved them into the pockets of his duster.

  “I know it’s difficult, given what we’ve seen, but we need to take the suspect alive,” Jia noted. “He might be the key to whoever was behind all this.”

  “Understood.” Erik selected single-barrel mode, wearing a slight frown. “But if it comes down to him or us, you know the choice I’ll make every time.”

  Jia took a deep breath and nodded. Her heart pounded, but no fiery anger filled her like it would have before she’d started seeing the counselor. She needed to do her job; it might involve having to shoot someone and risk her life, but that came with the badge. She wasn’t sure if the new chief had survived his assassination attempt, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t time for revenge. It was time for justice, and justice required evidence.

  She gripped her pistol grip tightly. “Emma, this place doesn’t look shut down. Can you take over? We can justify it under emergency protocols.”

  “I’m attempting to interface now with the systems. Industrial systems are surprisingly robust. It pains me to admit this might take a few minutes.”

  “We can’t wait that long.” Jia inclined her head toward the other end of the loading bay. A wide door lay open.

  “She’ll do what she needs to, and we’ll do what we need to.” Erik stepped forward. “Let’s go find our boy.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Erik and Jia charged the open door, zigzagging and staggering their path.

  The attack might have been a surprise, but that didn’t mean they weren’t prepared. They were already in tactical vests, and they had enough ammo to take on an army. Jia was right. They couldn’t let the suspect escape.

  Emma would call for reinforcements, but in the chaos of the explosions, it might take them a couple of minutes to arrive, let alone proceed deeper into the tower.

  This wasn’t a municipal building. An industrial tower made perfect sense as an escape. In a metroplex packed with people, it would have fewer people and more places to hide.

  The wide doorway didn’t open into offices or a hallway. Instead, it led to a vast factory floor, a cacophonous mechanical hive. Lines of cargo drones of different sizes zoomed around the maze-like rows and columns to deposit small and large components—metal and shaped ceramic panels, from what Erik could see.

  Fixed-installation construction-bot workstations, tall and wide spindly vertical bunches of robotic arms, torches, saws, and even lasers spun and tilted to do their work, joining the delivered pieces together. The whole assembly at each station was then moved to the next.

  From the looks of things, they were building mini-flitter bodies. With their luck, he half-expected to walk into a King sentry bot factory. It was always nice when the Lady worked with him instead of against him.

  “How are we doing on the hacking, Emma?” Erik asked. He crouched behind one of the workstations, peering around the corner before he pulled his head back.

  The cargo drones stopped moving and hovered in place. The workstations powered down with a low whine.

  “I’m almost there, Detective,” Emma reported. “I thought it might help if there are fewer things flying around. I’m into the security grid and have disabled at least the primary security response.”

  Jia knelt next to Erik. “Good, no bots. I’ve blown up enough bots to last me until I’m your age.” He eyed her. “Real age, not physical.”

  She
gave him a half-hearted smile. Nice comment in the middle of a battle.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t have been bots for this part of the facility,” Emma explained. “They just seal the vents and flood the entire operations floor with sleeping gas. How wonderfully civilized.”

  “That makes sense.” Jia sighed. “There are probably very few humans who normally work on this factory level, and bots running around firing stun bolts might damage some expensive, sensitive piece of equipment.”

  “I should note, there was no indication that the system was otherwise compromised, but the primary security grid was easy to disable because the main system defenses weren’t active,” Emma explained. “The logs indicate a valid external code was used to do that.”

  “They prepared their battlefield. It’s not like they would assume this place wouldn’t have defenses.” Erik frowned. “Maybe we can use that gas on him, but in a different room. That’ll make this easy.”

  “The other areas are defended by more conventional door and bot defenses,” Emma explained. “As Detective Lin suggested, they were likely more worried about damage in here, but as soon as I take control of the system, I’ll send bots to overwhelm him. From what I can see, they’re all non-lethal, and he’ll be the one damaging things. He’s heading away from anything expensive if you’re worried about the company complaining.”

  “Not that worried, but it doesn’t hurt to know.” Erik jerked his head down once again as a rifle flashed from a corner several rows down. “They had more than the guys in the bay. Expensive operation. Someone really, really wanted the chief dead in a fancy, public way. They could have just tried to assassinate him at his house.”

  “They can’t send as big a message that way, and I’d hope they wouldn’t be able to kill the chief of police for Neo Southern California on a small budget. That would be more disturbing than the assassination itself.” Jia pulled out her stun pistol and holstered her other gun. She spun around her station on the opposite side to fire a few stun bolts. Her shots pinned down another gunman. “If it’s this bad here, I wonder what it’s like on the average frontier colony.”

  “Not as bad as you think,” Erik replied, looking around. “When insurrectionists move, things get bad, but Neo SoCal has a much larger population than most colonies, even most core worlds. Can’t have as much trouble if you don’t have as many people.” A bullet flew by him and made a hole in a thin metal box about twenty inches tall beside him. “Huh. That was close.”

  “I’ve gained access to cameras,” Emma announced. “But I still don’t have access to the full security grid. I have to applaud whoever is responsible for security here. This has been harder than most systems I’ve attempted to breach. It’s interesting, considering the relatively modest importance of what’s being built here.”

  “All corporations are worried about protecting their profits.” Erik squeezed off a burst and clipped his target in the shoulder. The man let out a loud yelp and dropped behind the station he had been using for cover.

  Twelve different red human outlines of various sizes appeared in Erik’s smart lenses. One of them lay on the floor.

  “I trust that was successful?” Emma asked. “I figure it’ll be a trivial matter for you to dispose of these gun goblins if you know exactly where they are. I have full access to the cameras now. There are fewer than I would have hoped, but there are a sufficient number for purposes of finishing off the current fleshbags.”

  Jia grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you talking about people like that.”

  “It’s accurate if nothing else.”

  A loud, resounding clank bounced around the factory floor.

  Erik frowned. “What the hell was that? They have exoskeletons?”

  Emma snickered. “Nothing so impressive, Detective. I sealed in your suspect using the emergency doors in a connecting hallway. Take your time with his friends. Unfortunately, he does have eight men with him, and they have some sort of bulkier armor compared to the tactical vests of your current opponents. They came from the other side of the floor once you entered the level. I can’t identify the nature of their armor through their coats. Their thermographic profiles are warmer than normal. They are carrying rifles, along with several grenades. They are currently attempting to figure out what is going on with the doors, and seem surprised about being sealed in.”

  “We’ll worry about them when they get out. If we can finish off their friends, we’ll be in a position where they’ll have no choice but to surrender. Good job.” Erik downed another man who had been brave enough to walk around the corner. “Give it up,” he shouted. “The police have control of this facility now, and our reinforcements will be here before your guys ca—”

  Several men charged around the corner, shouting profanities in at least four different languages. They pointed their rifles toward Erik’s station and held their triggers down. As their bullets whistled through the air, Erik stayed behind his cover and didn’t panic. The bullets struck the workstation, bouncing off with sparks. He wasn’t surprised. A few of them broke away from the group and rushed down the row on Jia’s side. He could admire their stubbornness, but that didn’t change what he needed to do.

  Erik pulled back to another station and waited. Even though he lacked direct line-of-sight to any of the charging enemies, Emma’s targeting assistance would give him a warning before they could get a shot off at him. The enemies continued firing off a near-constant stream of bullets, roaring their defiance like brave insurgents making their last stand in their capital city.

  Too bad their weapons and accuracy didn’t match their volume.

  The men must have panicked when their buddies got locked inside. Whoever was behind the scheme had spent a lot of money on drones and weapons. They must have anticipated potential TPST support and arranged a counter for it, one that Emma had now bottled up. The weapons had changed over the centuries, but von Moltke’s dictum remained the same.

  No battle plan survived contact with the enemy.

  The disciplined soldier survived because he didn’t let the unexpected rattle him, but these weren’t soldiers. At least, they didn’t move like soldiers.

  The first few brave idiots cleared the corner right after Erik lifted his rifle. They didn’t even have time to shout at him before he put bullets into their heads. A few more fools continued the charge and ended up with their friends on the floor. He’d given them the chance to surrender, but they’d charged instead.

  He knew what they were thinking. They saw that only two cops had entered the loading bay, and they’d thought they could overwhelm them. It would be their last mistakes.

  Jia’s stun pistol fired, the bright bolts zooming toward more shooters. She wasn’t in a moving flitter trying to avoid heavy weapons fire. Shooting men at close range when she knew exactly where they were was trivial. Two men hesitated, slowing their movements as they squeezed off bursts in her direction, but Erik spun around the corner and took the opportunity to down them both.

  The smaller number of men who had tried to engulf Jia’s position lay on the floor, victims of her stun pistol. Their rifles were scattered around the floor.

  “We should secure the ones who are still alive,” she suggested, holstering her stun pistol and pulling out binding ties. “They might have something useful to say. I doubt it, but you never know.”

  Erik set his TR-7 against his shoulder and shrugged. “I did try to get them to surrender.”

  Jia chuckled. “You did. Some criminals are just stupid.” She bound one man’s hand, uncertainty playing across her face. “Unless they’re terrorists. That might explain why they’re going all-out. Then again, I’m not sure. We’ve seen gangsters practice rather lethal bravery.”

  “I’m guessing they aren’t terrorists.” Erik looked around, but no new outlines appeared. Emma would tell them if there was more trouble, too.

  “Why do you say that?” Jia crouched by a prisoner. “I’m not disagreeing. I would have expected mo
re political rants, but did you notice anything? I’ve filled my quota since becoming your partner, but you’ve still got a lot more experience with all sorts of antisocials than I do.”

  Erik gestured to a dead gunman. “I don’t think they would have gone through all this trouble to protect the killer. If he could smuggle a gun past the security cordon, he probably could have done the same with a bomb. I’ve fought enough of them to know that they tend to love their martyrs. Think about the Grayheads. So not terrorists. Insurrectionists don’t have a lot to gain from stirring up trouble directly on Earth and specifically in Neo SoCal instead of trying to blow up the UTC parliament or something. If anyone claimed it, they’d just get a UTC fleet above their planet and thousands of drop pods falling from orbit. These guys are criminals, or at least hired muscle.”

  Jia took a deep breath. “Or something greater?” She looked at him. He noticed how hard she yanked a guy’s arm to put the binding tie on and almost grimaced in sympathy. Well, if she’d had any for these people.

  She continued, “Agents of the conspiracy?”

  Erik gritted his teeth. “I can’t ignore the possibility, but I doubt it.” He glanced around again. “These guys are sloppier than what we’ve seen from Talos. He might not have anything to do with them either.”

  “The thought that the UTC might have multiple dangerous conspiracies is chilling.”

  “Several TPST and militia flitters have taken damage,” Emma reported. “No hard crashes, but there was a final smaller wave of explosive drones.”

  “Damn.” Erik shook his head in disappointment.

  Jia looked thoughtful for a moment as she stared at her stunned prisoner. “It doesn’t matter who the perps are. The vanguard here might have something interesting to tell us, but we still need to get the hitman. He’s our best shot at finding the mastermind. Emma, can you release the bots on him and his friends? It might be easier than having another shootout.”