Shattered Truth

by Michael Anderle

  “You don’t need to flag me down,” Emma announced, her voice slightly distorted. “I found a way to route my signal and apply some data filters to beat the jamming. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do.”

  “It’s fine,” Erik replied. “That fact you’re on the comm is good enough. Go ahead and try to enter the hotel systems. I’m going to need all the help you can give me if I want to have any chance of getting out of this alive.”

  Jia shook her head. “I can’t let you throw your life away. We need to figure out what they want with you. This level of effort just to take down one cop is too much. It’s not logical.”

  “They’re terrorists,” Erik snarled. “It’s like you just said. They aren’t always logical, and we’re on the clock, Jia. We can’t afford to sit around and go through all the scenarios. People will die, and we both know it.”

  “I know.” Jia averted her eyes and sighed. “But it’s like you just said. They aren’t always logical or rational. You dying doesn’t guarantee anyone else lives. And just because you aren’t in the military doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to live for!”

  “That’s not what this is about.” Erik gritted his teeth. He had something to live for. He had revenge, but only a coward stood by when others would die in his place. He took a few deep breaths. “I don’t know why they’re so obsessed with me. If it is something more than propaganda, I have no idea what the reason might be, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Right now, the only thing that matters is that I’m the only person standing between them and innocent people dying.”

  “No.” Jia’s hand tightened on her stun pistol’s grip. “We are. You’re my partner, and I’m not letting you go in there by yourself. Emma, where the hell is the CFM?”

  “Still en route, but they are sending out emergency clearance orders for the area,” the AI replied. “Unfortunately, as you perhaps can see, a lot of non-police flitters are attempting to flee the area, and the police are delayed. TPST is also on their way.”

  “Civil unrest or antiterror?” Erik asked.

  “Antiterror,” Emma explained.

  “Good,” Erik muttered. “Something’s finally going our way.”

  Jia nodded, somewhat relieved after all the worry. An anti-terror unit would have more than enough gear to take down terrorists, including exoskeletons.

  “But we need them to get here,” Erik added. “The people in less danger are safer than the people trapped in there with the hostages.” His eyes flicked in the direction of the door. “Having the power back on and Emma here changes things. We can risk the elevators. Emma, do you have access to the internal cameras?”

  “Yes, I have total coverage,” Emma reported. “They still have most people locked in their rooms, but they’re gathering hostages from the first floor and covering the stairways. I could guide you to a cargo elevator that will get you to the first level without running into any terrorists. There are numerous side hallways and service corridors they aren’t patrolling. I can cycle the feeds as you’re moving as well.

  “Do you have access to the building plans for this place?” A plan began to percolate in Erik’s mind. It would require careful timing and a bit of luck, but the Lady owed him.

  “One moment. There are some plans in the system. Why?”

  Erik surveyed the sky. No flashing lights in the cloud of vehicles in the distance, and they were running out of time. “Are they herding the first-floor hostages to a particular room?”

  “Yes,” Emma replied. “The banquet hall.”

  “What are its walls made of?”

  “Mostly wood, with reinforced alloy as support.”

  Erik took a deep breath. The next question would be critical. There were several different ways to build walls, and not all would work with his plan. “It’s not solid all the way, though?”

  “No, there are sizeable gaps.”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Erik explained. “These terrorists seem really fixated on me. They went ahead and attacked both rooms, but they only demanded I come, which means they don’t want or expect Jia to. The double attack was probably just to make sure they got me.”

  “Assuming all that’s true, what good does it do us?” Jia asked.

  “It means I can be useful as something I suspect I am to begin with—a distraction.” Erik allowed himself a grin. “We’re going to the first floor, and then I’ll get their attention. Maybe drop a few rounds into them. If I get lucky, I’ll kill everyone in the lobby.”

  Jia frowned. “They’ll execute the hostages in the banquet hall.”

  “That’s where you come in.” Erik pointed to the handgun in her other holster. “I had that prepared for you, and I know its capabilities. You should have enough penetration to shoot through the walls and hit the terrorists with your slug thrower. Put a few rounds in them, and they won’t be able to shoot anyone. Put three into them, even shooting through the wall, and they’ll be done.”

  Jia scoffed. “I’m a good shot, but I can’t shoot blindly through a wall, especially in a room filled with hostages.”

  “Emma can help you since she has camera access. She can do her fancy calculation nonsense.”

  “Spoken like a true mathematician,” Emma cut in.

  Erik continued, ignoring her jab, “Interface with your smart lenses via your PNIU and guide your shots with an overlay. If you’re sniping from outside the room and I’m taking on the guys in the lobby, the terrorists will be focused on finding whoever is taking them out and not shooting any hostages.”

  He watched her for a moment, trying to gauge where her mind was. Erik locked eyes with her. “You can do this, Jia. This is about saving innocent people. We don’t know when the CFM and their terrorist unit will get here, but we do know these terrorists were willing to launch missiles at a hotel, and we’re running out of time. Our only other choice is for me to walk in there and hope they don’t shoot any hostages in the meantime.”

  Jia took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine.” She holstered her stun pistol and drew her slug thrower. “Let’s hurry before it’s too late. Emma, please guide us to the cargo elevator.”

  Erik jogged down a side corridor on the first floor, his pistol in hand. It was easy to avoid a group of enemies when Emma could pinpoint their locations.

  The bulk of the terrorists were now in the lobby, waiting for him. He was almost flattered that they felt they needed such a large group of men to take him down. Unfortunately, they had calculated poorly. They needed more than that, with him having the element of surprise.

  At a minimum, he could buy Jia the time she needed to take out the guards, and then it was just a matter of stalling until reinforcements could arrive.

  They only had a couple of minutes before the deadline, and Erik harbored no doubts the terrorists would execute people, just as he knew they would likely kill every hostage in there after they had killed him. After all, spreading fear and chaos was their explicit goal.

  The Grayheads might not be insane in the clinical sense, but they might as well have been.

  He slowed to a walk and then stopped at the end of the service corridor to peek around the corner. “I’m in position,” he whispered. “Jia?”

  “I’m also in position,” she replied through his PNIU.

  “Ready?” Erik flexed his fingers. The opening shots could often determine the entire course of the battle.

  The terrorists might be more disciplined than Shadow Zone thugs, but they weren’t trained Special Forces operators with decades of experience.

  Jia might lack experience, but she had heart and dedication—probably enough to match the intensity of their opponents.

  “Ready,” Jia muttered.

  “I’m rolling,” Erik muttered. “Do it.” He spun around the corner. There were no clever quips, no mocking smiles. Stone-faced, he pulled the trigger in rapid succession, shifting the aim of his weapon after each pair of shots. Two bullets struck the chest of each terrorist targeted. He didn’t need his
aim assist.

  This was decades of muscle memory.

  For all their hacking ability and rifles, the terrorists lacked armor, and they hesitated when the first men went down screaming. They managed to turn toward Erik when the second man fell and finally raised their rifles when the third man took his bullets.

  Erik ran and fired before spinning behind one of the six massive black pillars rising to the ceiling. He hoped his new barrier wasn’t as hollow as the dining room walls. A quick slap and release and his empty magazine dropped to the ground, clattering on the marble floor. He pulled another mag out of a duster pocket. A quarter of the enemy already lay on the ground, bleeding out. The survivors opened fire, their assault rifles spitting bullets that blasted chunks off the pillars but didn’t pass through. They moved to take cover behind the other pillars, the transparent metal counter near the front, and a few other pieces of furniture deployed around the lobby for the guests’ comfort.

  He had focused their attention, and now it was up to Jia to do her part. They were both doing the same thing as cops as he had as a soldier: protecting and serving.

  Jia waited for the first crack of a shot around the corner. Emma had already highlighted the terrorist targets with outlines on her smart lenses, displaying their real-time positions on the other side of the walls.

  All four men jerked in the direction of the closed dining room doors upon Erik’s attack. Standing in a side hallway, she took a deep breath, lined up her first shot, and fired three times. The bullets ripped through the wood façade, and the jerking outline proved her bullets had struck true.

  Before the first man hit the ground, Jia turned and lined up her next target.

  She put another three rounds into a terrorist as bullets ripped through the wall from the opposite side. They had figured out what was happening quicker than anticipated.

  A sharp fragment of wood sliced her cheek, stinging and drawing blood. She ignored it. Her heart thundered as she aimed at her third target and downed him. The fourth man fell to her final barrage.

  “The hostages?” Jia asked, lowering her weapon, her eyes turned in the direction of Erik’s gunshots.

  “Frightened but fine,” Emma reported. “Detective Blackwell is still under heavy fire, but TPST is on the ground and en route. They should be entering soon.”

  “It’s nice when backup shows up on time.” Jia holstered her pistol. It only had a few rounds left anyway. She drew her stun pistol and rushed down the hallway.

  It was time to take down some antisocial twits.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Erik took a deep breath before rushing from behind his pillar to another.

  A torrent of bullets whizzed past him, so close one or two mussed his hair. He silently chided himself. He’d had the foresight to have extra magazines in his duster, but a tactical vest would have been handy for a room full of terrorists.

  His idiot opponents kept wasting ammo with barely aimed bursts. Other than creating clouds of rocky shards from the pillars, they weren’t coming close to wounding him.

  Fortunately.

  He’d seen this kind of thing a lot on the frontier. More than equipment, this lack of trigger discipline was one of the main reasons the average Army infantryman was worth multiple terrorists or insurgents in a close firefight.

  Even a lowly private fresh out of training understood that taking your time with a careful shot and downing an enemy was better than flinging bullets everywhere with barely any aim.

  Suppression fire could work, but it still required someone else trying to hit the enemy.

  These fools might go through their ammo at this rate, but there was an entire room filled with hostages close by they still could hurt. He needed to keep them focused on him.

  “Terrorist reinforcements are making their way downstairs, but that is all of them,” Emma reported. “If you can just hold on, TPST is almost there.”

  “That’s one of those things that sounds easy in principle but is hard in execution.” Erik squeezed off two quick shots toward a brave terrorist attempting to flank him.

  The man spiraled in a last death dance before falling to the ground. Another terrorist approached from the other side and pointed his gun at Erik’s head. The detective jerked his arm to the side to fire.

  Was he going to be too late?

  A bright flash erupted from behind the terrorist.

  The would-be detective-killer convulsed and fell to the ground, his eyes rolling up in the back of his head as he released his weapon.

  Two other men groaned and fell when blue bolts struck them in the back. Jia crouched near the corner where the hallway met the edge of the banquet hall, her stun pistol out, her face a mask of determination. She showed not a hint of fear or hesitation.

  She wasn’t the same woman who couldn’t bring herself to stun a fleeing suspect only months prior.

  Erik grinned. The terrorists thought they had the advantage, but now his partner was flanking them and their hostages were no longer in danger.

  They could end this.

  A terrorist fired a burst at Jia. She leapt back as the bullets riddled the floor where she had been a moment before, flinching as concrete chunks sprayed her face. Erik shot the exposed terrorist in the neck. Jia had already stunned a few, so they had interrogation volunteers.

  He would expedite a trip to hell for the rest of them.

  Their fire now split two ways, the enemy spread out, taking cover behind furniture, the pillars, and the check-in counter. Their initial numbers had been cut in half, but they still outnumbered the two detectives. It didn’t help when a few more filtered in and sprayed bullets in Erik’s general direction.

  The shots accomplished little other than adding new holes to the furniture, knocking off more pieces of the pillars, and causing Erik to jerk his head to the left and close his eyes when one sprayed rock splinters in his direction.

  Erik fired at the new arrivals more to suppress them than finish any off, and they too soon retreated behind pillars and furniture, allowing him the chance to reload. Jia’s stun bolts didn’t do much through the pillars, but they kept the terrorists down to taking an occasional quick shot rather than peppering the lobby with bullets.

  The front doors exploded inward, flinging glass everywhere, and the resounding roar was deafening. Erik ducked and rolled away, decades of protective instinct moving him.

  Jia flung herself behind the wall.

  Smoke billowed from the blasted entrance, and heavy thuds echoed in the cavernous lobby as large angular forms charged through the smoke. Rifle fire blasted from inside the clouds of smoke, ripping into a terrorist foolish enough to expose himself.

  Black exoskeletons holding dark helmeted men with opaque visors advanced into the lobby in a tight V formation. The sides of their exoskeletons and the fronts of their snug ballistic suits were marked CFM TPST.

  A terrorist screamed and rushed out of his cover, holding his trigger down, but the combined barrage of the entire forward assault team sent him flying back, a perforated and mangled mess. Erik rushed from his pillar and emptied his latest magazine into two exposed terrorists who were looking for him at the same time.

  Jia reappeared from around the corner, her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the new tactical situation.

  Now surrounded on three sides, the remaining terrorists screamed their defiance and charged the TPST officers. They got off a few final bursts before the river of bullets ended their lives. Some rounds sparked off the legs and arm extensions of the exoskeletons and other struck the operators, but the antiballistic suits absorbed the shots.

  A few bruises might form, but nothing more serious.

  The operators rounded on Erik, their guns at the ready. He placed his gun on the ground and raised his hands. “Detective Blackwell of the Neo SoCal PD. I’ve been helping Detective Antonio Perez with a case.” He nodded toward the banquet room. “We’ve got some scared hostages in there, and my partner is around the corner.”

 
; “Facial recognition matches,” announced one of the TPST officers over a helmet speaker, the tone a bit scratchy. “Sorry, Detective. Just needed to be sure. We assumed you were on our side when you fired on the terrorists. Any hostages hurt? Aerial thermal still shows a major concentration in the banquet hall.”

  Erik shook his head. “I don’t think so. Detective Lin took out all the shooters inside. It was just these guys we needed help with.” He picked up his gun and holstered it before shaking out his hand.

  Jia emerged from the corner, her pistol stowed in her holster and her badge in her hand. “Check on the hostages. There might have been some stray rounds.”

  She clipped her badge to her belt and hurried toward the dining room doors, throwing them open as Erik and the TPST officers advanced, weapons at the ready. Emma might not have noticed any injuries or surviving terrorists, depending on what she was choosing to analyze at any given second.

  The huge crowd of hostages huddled in the far corner of the room, pale, many trembling. Four terrorists lay on the floor in pools of blood, their chests not moving.

  Jia stared at one of the bodies for a moment with an uneasy look on her face. She shook her head. “I’m Detective Jia Lin,” she announced. “Is anyone hurt?”

  The hostages slowly rose, uncertainty on their faces. A few started weeping in relief, and one grabbed a small child and held her close.

  “It’s over,” Erik announced. “Lots of dead terrorists, no dead civilians. Sometimes you win.”

  One of the TPST officers clanked over to Erik and flipped up his visor, anger in his eyes. “They played us, but at least we made them pay. That’ll teach them to come to the CFM and start trouble.”

  Erik nodded toward one of the terrorist bodies on the ground. “How did they play us? I think they planned to assassinate me, but they didn’t kill a single hostage.” He looked around. “Most of them are dead. Thanks to my partner, we even have a few prisoners.”