Enlightened Ignorance

by Michael Anderle

  “Just having a gun doesn’t make him a terrorist,” Jia temporized. “But a known terrorist hanging out with a man from a colony engaged in a violent, self-destructive insurrection and carrying a gun makes me a lot more suspicious. I think we’ve found Mont’s hide-out.”

  The suspect stepped into the apartment and the door closed. Another man stepped out of a back room just as it did.

  “Ah, yes, this is particularly troublesome,” Emma announced.

  “What?” Erik asked.

  A different image of the last man appeared, this time with him smiling in a Lunar Militia uniform.

  Jia growled. “He’s a soldier?”

  “Yes,” Emma confirmed. “Active duty.”

  “If they’ve got a soldier, they might have a cop or two. At least enough to cover their tracks or slow things down,” Erik concluded.

  “But if they had a soldier, why not just steal military gear?” Jia wondered.

  Erik snickered. “It’s a lot harder than you’d think. If it wasn’t, every wannabe terrorist and insurrectionist out there would just be raiding Army bases constantly.” He motioned to the image. “But this means we’re going to need to contact Alina. If we go to the cops, someone might leak something to Mont, and we won’t be ready.”

  Jia’s eyes widened, her focus not on Erik. She jabbed her finger on her map, bringing up a location. He watched as she repeated it several times, the data and image changing with each touch. “I’ve figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “His path,” Jia explained. “I know what it means. It looks like he was just wandering the city, but his trajectory took him close to all the grav towers.”

  “I can confirm that he spent a longer time near the grav towers than any other landmark or building,” Emma added. “

  “He must be planning to disable the grav towers somehow,” Jia concluded. “But one wouldn’t be enough. There’s too much redundancy.”

  Erik gestured to one of her data windows displaying a grav tower near Founders’ Park. “They aren’t that fragile. You can’t shoot them. Without major explosives, you’d have to know exactly where to damage them. These guys aren’t the first terrorists to think about messing with a colony’s gravity.”

  “You’d need someone with the right kind of knowledge, such as someone with extensive knowledge of dome engineering might have,” Jia replied. “Even if he’s not planning to blow them up, he knows a lot about how these things interface with domes.”

  “Damn.” Erik grimaced. “I forgot about that. It also explains why he’s calling the shots.”

  Jia tapped another spot on her map, revealing the area around another tower. “What’s the point, though? Damaging the towers would be disruptive, but this is the moon. It wouldn’t be zero-G.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. Most people have spent very little time in low gravity or zero-G. That means you mess with gravity, and everything from movement to using a weapon becomes hard. I wouldn’t want to fight in one-sixth gee; that’s why military-grade exoskeletons have grav compensators.”

  “It’d be hard for the terrorists, too,” Jia insisted. “Unless they had something like grav boots.” She looked at Erik. “Or some of those exoskeletons?”

  “Exactly.” Erik tapped his PNIU and searched for some information before he set it down. “I doubt they’ve got exoskeletons, but I think they’re preparing to lower the gravity and kill a lot of people during the chaos.”

  “But why?” Jia shook her head, her jaw tight. “If this is about Diogenes’ Hope, it’s not going to stop anything there.”

  “They’re terrorists. Their goals don’t have to be logical from our perspective, and from what Emma told us, not all of them are part of the insurrection. This might be some sort of ad hoc terrorist alliance.” Erik tapped his lips with his thumb and forefinger as he thought. “This is about sending a message. I think they want to prove how vulnerable even a core colony can be. Killing a lot of people without blowing the dome or using explosives might even be more frightening because it means the terrorists have a better chance of surviving and going on to cause more trouble.”

  Jia took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I think it’s time we contacted Alina.”

  Erik turned to grab his PNIU once more. “Yeah. Too bad I didn’t smuggle the TR-7 up here. It’s time to show the terrorists how we do things downwell.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Twenty minutes after Erik sent his message, there was a loud knock on the door to his room.

  Erik and Jia exchanged glances. He didn’t want to believe they were about to be ambushed, but they’d been trying to track down a dangerous terrorist. Assuming things might see them end up with bullets in their brains.

  “It could be a local ID agent,” Jia pointed out.

  “Probably,” Erik offered. “Emma, I’m assuming you’ve been monitoring the hall cameras outside our rooms?”

  There was another knock, this time more urgent.

  “Yes,” the AI replied. “It seemed prudent, given all concern with gun goblins. My monitoring suggests it’s an ID agent, because I don’t see anyone on the feed, and there’s evidence of external access to the system. I haven’t challenged it because I don’t want them to be aware of it, but if someone isn’t going out of their way to disappear from feeds, I’d be very surprised.”

  “Let’s be careful, just in case.” Erik nodded. “I’ve got a lot of unfinished business before I die.”

  Jia drew her stun pistol and crouched behind the couch, pointing the weapon at the door.

  Erik tapped his PNIU to interface with the external door view. Emma was right; there was nothing there. He reached to the access panel and slapped it.

  The door slid open, revealing a tall blue-eyed blonde woman in a tight black dress that flattered her athletic form. If Erik had never seen Agent Koval and was given a picture of the blonde woman, he wouldn’t have been able to connect them, but at less than a meter away, he could almost tell just by how she moved.

  Erik shook his head, then gestured her inside. “Unless someone’s invented teleporting, you’ve been on the moon the entire time, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” Alina entered the room and closed the door.

  “Why?” Jia stood up, holstering her pistol.

  “You know why.”

  “Because despite all those lines you fed us, this is still a big test,” Erik concluded.

  Alina shrugged with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but I needed to be sure about your capabilities.”

  Jia snorted. “I don’t know if I like all your ghost games.”

  Alina eyed her. “You might not like them, Detective Lin, but they can be effective. You’ve found something quickly, which is proof that you two are just as effective.” Alina sauntered over to the couch and dropped into it. She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. “If you two decided to contact me, you must have something actionable. Rather than waste time trading accusations and complaints, why don’t you give me the information? I’m assuming I’ll need to do something very violent pretty soon.”

  Alina sighed after Erik, Jia, and Emma finished explaining the situation, then took a deep breath. “I was hoping this would end with me doing something simple and disrupting an interplanetary contraband supply chain, but it sounds like something far worse than that.”

  “You believe us?” Jia asked. “This is all circumstantial.”

  “I’m law enforcement, Jia,” Alina replied. “I’m a ghost in the shadows. I do what I need to protect the UTC, and sometimes that means I don’t have the luxury of waiting for concrete proof. Not only that, you two have repeatedly proven you have an uncanny ability to root out conspiracies and dangerous plots.” She smiled. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have sent you on this deadly errand, but I can take it from here. Based on what you’ve found out, I was right to be cautious, but even if that arms dealer partially sold Remy Mont out, our terrorist lik
ely has his weapons and people in place. I’ll need to move quickly.” She looked down, her brow wrinkling in concern. “This can’t be a simple search-and-destroy. The moon’s too small to cover it up. I’m going to have to bring local law enforcement on board so I don’t end up creating a bigger mess.”

  “The terrorists might have sympathizers in local law enforcement,” Erik reminded her.

  “I know who I can trust in the local CID office,” Alina explained. “I’ll gather what loyal agents I can and make my move. If we wait for reinforcements from Earth, it’ll take too long. They could launch the attack at any minute. You’ve got eyes on them, which helps, but you don’t know how many people are operating in Mont’s cell. I’m willing to bet he has a lot more than the few people you saw at that apartment.”

  “Makes sense,” Erik mused. “But it sounds like you’re going to be short-handed at a time you could use more people, especially people with experience fighting terrorists on short notice.”

  Alina raised an eyebrow, and there was a little tilt to the corners of her mouth. “You two want to join in the raid?”

  Erik smiled in response. “I can’t speak for Jia, but I want in. If you and the CID are in charge, I’m sure you’ll keep our names out of it.”

  Jia nodded. “I’m not going to sit around in a hotel room while terrorists attack innocent people and worry that I’ll have to deal with a different partner later.”

  Alina hopped to her feet with a cluck of her tongue. “Well, aren’t we all kind of Hercules today?”

  Jia raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

  “He had to clean disgusting stables that had been left to fester for far too long. That’s what we do—fight the darkness and corruption. It’s time to clean up some of the stink that’s been building on the moon.”

  An hour later, Erik and Jia stood inside a hangar filled with law enforcement agents, slipping on tactical vests and gathering their weapons from crates and tables arrayed along the wall.

  Alina didn’t just have a few friends, she had a full CID strike-team of a dozen agents, including a four-person High-Threat Response team in exoskeletons. The other gathered agents were loading additional gear onto single-person mini-flitters, including stun grenades and EMPs.

  Two empty exoskeletons remained.

  Alina gestured to one of the machines. “I’d love to give you each one, Detectives, but I don’t believe Detective Lin knows how to operate an exoskeleton, and this isn’t the kind of mission one uses for training.”

  Erik frowned. “Damn, Jia. I know what we need to add next to your training regimen.”

  Jia pulled the strap of a hefty assault rifle over her shoulder and clipped several stun grenades to her vest. “I don’t need that toy to take down criminals,” she joked. She patted her rifle. “I’ve got this one.”

  Erik nodded. “And you’re okay with it? When all is said and done, our names aren’t going to show up in any reports. I doubt Alina wants us talking about it with the 1-2-2.”

  “I’d strongly advise against that,” Alina confirmed.

  “No reports? Oh, the horror.” Jia grabbed additional magazines and tucked them into her vest. “You know my favorite part of being a police officer is filling out reports.” She winked. “Let’s take these bastards down and save some lives.”

  Alina nodded to Erik and pointed to a tactical suit draped over a nearby table. “There you go, Hercules. These aren’t assault-infantry-grade exoskeletons, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.”

  “It’ll be nice to pilot a suit again.” Erik picked up the tactical suit. “It’s been a while.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Jia slid off her mini-flitter about two hundred yards from the apartment complex. She was accompanied by a small squad of CID agents, plus Erik and Alina.

  The HTR team had broken into two squads of two and spread out, supplemented by regular agents at different locations. They had the entire apartment complex surrounded and the two main exits covered.

  The terrorists were bottled up tightly, or so they hoped.

  Although many buildings in the city had underground exits, the blueprints for the target building indicated only surface access.

  She would be grateful for any small advantages they could manage against the terrorists.

  Erik had run in his exoskeleton alongside Jia, with Emma tucked into an IO port for maximum efficiency. She was providing information to Erik, Emma, and Alina but keeping quiet otherwise, at Alina’s suggestion.

  As far as the CID agents knew, Alina’s FGT—Fancy Ghost Tech—was providing the raid team with additional tracking and target information from a convenient fleet of ID drones. They would likely just assume that Emma was working with Alina.

  Which wasn’t completely wrong, Jia thought.

  It wasn’t a huge issue. Most of the 1-2-2 knew at least a little about Emma. As long as Erik didn’t advertise the fact on the net, the Defense Directorate wouldn’t make a move.

  They might eventually grow tired of lending their expensive research project to him, but as long as Emma didn’t want to go back, there was only so much they could do.

  Jia glanced at her partner. His eyes darted around as he took in diagnostic information projected to his smart lenses. Everything about Erik strapped into an exoskeleton felt right.

  He was confident in any fight, but the powerful tech wrapped around him enhanced what was already there without consuming the man inside.

  She’d seen him fight many times, but she’d never had a chance to see him in his true element using the kind of equipment that reflected his decades of experience and training. To Jia, he was Detective Erik Blackwell, a good police officer, but before that, he had been Major Erik Blackwell, UTC Army Assault Infantry, veteran of countless campaigns on the frontier.

  He was a man who had been poised for decades to defend the UTC against alien invasion.

  The shield of Erik’s exoskeleton wasn’t fully expanded. The massive rifle the exoskeleton held was wider and longer than the four-barreled monstrosity he normally carried. He lacked the grenade launcher attachment that some of the other exoskeletons carried, but he’d given no indication he cared.

  Jia had been on the other end of exoskeleton weapons enough in the last year that her heart sped up in excitement at the idea of her partner using that power to take on terrorists.

  She considered that a powerful testament to hidden desires she would rather not consider at the moment. Or later, for that matter.

  A year ago, Jia would have argued that decades of military experience weren’t that useful for being a police officer.

  She had considered being a cop as performing investigations, with the criminals surrendering when confronted.

  The idea of having to use heavy weapons to take people down seemed like something from a holodrama. Earth was supposed to be safe, and specialists like the TPST should have been necessary only in rare cases.

  Now she accepted the truth. With terrorists and conspiracies on the move, her partner was the best resource the NSCPD could have had. Even if Erik and Jia weren’t operating as 1-2-2 detectives on this little farce of a Moon vacation, they were doing their part to protect innocent people from dangerous monsters who saw no problem with murdering them.

  Some antisocial men and women didn’t respond to reason. They would only respond to strength, and it was up to the police to be the shield and sword of the common citizen.

  Jia took a deep breath through her nose and slowly let it out through her mouth. She was well out of her jurisdiction, but that didn’t mean her duty had ended. Criminals might be greedy, but terrorists were worse. They hurt innocent people in the name of righteousness. She inspected her weapon one last time.

  Now was the time to protect.

  “All teams prepare to move on my signal,” Alina transmitted. “In case any of you weren’t listening earlier when I went over this, I’m going to send an emergency override signal and lock the entire building down. The lo
cal CID headquarters will be transmitting a clearance order to keep the local LEOs from interfering to cut down on potential leaks. I’m hoping they’ll be lazy enough to stay away, but if not, things might get confused logistically. Just focus on not allowing the terrorists the opportunity to escape. Remember, our primary target is Remy Mont. Take him alive if possible, but we have no reason to believe these terrorists will respond to reason. He might be our primary target, but our mission is to disrupt whatever terrorist action these people have planned. Just to reiterate, our intelligence suggests they will be heavily armed, potentially with military-grade weapons and the skills to use them. Be careful.”

  Jia didn’t comment on the fact that their non-lethal loadouts were minimal—mostly a few stun grenades here and there. She wasn’t sure if that was more the choice of the CID or Alina. From what Jia had seen, by the time Alina got personally involved in a field situation, someone was going to die.

  But being loyal to the UTC wasn’t the same thing as always being right.

  “What about the civilians inside?” Jia questioned. “There could be hundreds in there.”

  “If they pay attention to the emergency order, they’ll be safer, and the lockdown should keep them in even if they panic.” Alina gritted her teeth. “I wish we could clear out everyone first, but if we do that, our terrorists will run with them, or even take them as hostages. It’s a big risk to not just hit the hideout before sending out the emergency signal, and the best way to protect people is to breach the apartment as hard and fast as possible to overwhelm terrorist resistance.” She shook her head. “Keep that in mind, everyone. We can’t sling lead wherever we want. The emergency override will include a message to encourage them to stay low, and that’s why I had you keep it to anti-personnel ammo. There’s less chance of a stray bullet hitting someone who doesn’t have it coming.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s hope today’s a little more Nike than Eris. Get ready. Transmitting the emergency override code in ten seconds.”