Jared’s nostrils flared. “Just because you’re up Ragnar’s ass for giving you the keys to Shadow Zone doesn’t mean you have to defend everything he does. There’s no guarantee he’s going to be here long-term. I’m not the only cop in the 1-2-2 who has problems with him. Keep that in mind. You want to make sure you’re in a good position once he goes away.”
Erik finished filling his cup. He set it on the counter beside the coffee machine and offered Jared a cheerful smile. Some men deserved menace. Some deserved only mockery.
That could strike deeper, depending on their personality.
“Enlighten me, Thompson. What exactly has made you so angry about the captain’s orders for the last few weeks? Be specific since I’m trying to understand. It might just be that I’m a little too slow, so talk to me like I’m an idiot rookie.”
Jared slammed his cup down on the counter and squared his shoulders. Erik almost laughed in his face but kept his control. Talking like a tough guy and being a tough guy were two separate things. It was hard for a man to be truly intimidating when he was lazy.
“We don’t have to investigate every random crime sent our way,” Jared insisted. “We could punt a lot of those along to different enforcement zones, or at least different divisions. Look, a murder or a major robbery, I get that, but it’s like Lin’s in charge. Someone sneezes on a dog in our EZ, and he’s making us investigate it. That’s a waste of police resources and man hours. You shouldn’t be supporting that.”
Erik nodded slowly, his smile remaining. “You’re complaining about doing your job? Last time I checked, being a cop meant investigating crimes. We can’t sit around in the break room drinking coffee all day.”
Jared stepped forward, his face contorted in rage.
Erik didn’t care if the man took a swing at him. He could disable him with ease without causing serious injury, and the cameras would show who started it. Sometimes a good beat down communicated what the cleverest words couldn’t.
“This isn’t about crime,” Jared snarled. “You don’t get it because you’re new.”
“Like I said, treat me like I’m a rookie. Spell it out for me.”
“This is about Ragnar thinking we’re bad cops. He thinks he’s so much better than us. He waltzes in from outside, not just the department but even the metroplex, and he’s going to tell us how to be good cops?”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Thompson. Bad cops don’t get encouraged to solve crimes.” Erik reached over and grabbed his cup. He brought his arm close to his body so as to not spill any on Jared. No reason to waste good coffee because of a whiny, lazy idiot. After taking a sip, he added, “You saying you think he believes you’re a dirty cop? Because if he thought you were dirty, you would be locked up. Trust me, Ragnar’s made it very clear he’s zero tolerance for corruption, even if it means pissing off people in the department.”
Jared’s mouth quivered. He stepped back and took slow, deliberate breaths, his face scarlet. “No, I’m not saying he’s calling me dirty. I’m saying he’s trying to force some of us out because we don’t believe in the way he runs things, and he knows that. That’s why we’re working a lot of unimportant cases. It’s just him playing games.” He jerked up his finger, almost knocking Erik’s coffee cup out of his hand. “I’m not a bad cop, Blackwell. I’ve been a cop a lot longer than you have. I earned my promotion to detective. I didn’t sneak in with some ridiculous outdated law. Being a cop isn’t the same thing as being a soldier. This isn’t the frontier. This is Earth.”
“Oh, if this were the military, you would have been long gone.” Erik took a long sip of his coffee as Jared glared at him. “Thompson, I want you to think about something. We’ll ignore the thirty years I spent getting shot at by terrorists and insurgents and focus on my return to Earth. Since that time, I’ve had hordes of criminals try to kill me, along with hacked security bots, and just a few weeks ago, terrorists tried to blow me up with missiles.” He took with another sip. It was good coffee. He wondered if they changed their supplier. “And now I’ve got you whining about me earning my rank. I’m not Jia, Thompson. I believe the rules can be tweaked to deal with problems. Push me hard enough, and I’ll push back. Because right now, all I hear is someone whining about doing their job. If you don’t like it, quit and go work for Ceres Galactic. You’re a detective. Your job is to investigate crimes, and not just the ones you think are worthy of it.”
Jared’s jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists. “I’ve always done my job,” he barked. “I don’t need some outsider coming in here and pushing me around and telling me how to do it. You don’t know crap about Neo SoCal. The Corp Princess thinks she’s better than us, but she’s a rich girl who barely understands how the world works. Ragnar’s not even from Neo SoCal. He shouldn’t be leading us.”
“We’ll set aside Ragnar for now,” Erik replied. “Let’s focus on my partner. Jia might not be better than everyone in this department,” he continued, mild anger now slipping into his voice, “but she’s also been shot at and nearly blown up dealing with criminals and terrorists.” He set his cup down again. Greater fist mobility might soon be necessary. “Which means she has more balls than a lot of cops in the 1-2-2, if not most, including people who like to frequent break rooms and whine about doing their jobs.”
“You got something to say to me, Blackwell?” Jared growled.
“I said my piece.” Erik chuckled quietly. When he next spoke, there was only amusement in his tone. “And I always say what I mean, but I don’t even understand why you’re bothering to complain. We’re all going to have to work Halloween, and even if it’s just drunks, that’s something even Monahan would have forced. So if you want to take a swing at me, get it over with. Otherwise, I want to finish my coffee and go back to work.”
“It’s not about Halloween. It’s about everything.” Jared looked away and scoffed. “I can’t believe this. The Ghost Festival was bad enough. I didn’t become a detective to keep working petty street crimes. Who even cares?” He threw up his hands. “Why are people in Neo SoCal so obsessed with the dead? Why can’t they stay home?”
“So now it’s not just Captain Ragnar. It’s the entire metroplex population?” Erik shook his head and snorted in disdain. “And what, you don’t believe in that kind of thing?”
“I believe what I can see. Those holidays are just an excuse for people to be annoying.”
“A lot of people live and have lived in this place,” Erik replied. “That means a lot of people have died here. This whole metroplex is built on top of a lot of dead. It’s a good way to process that kind of thing, but yeah, keep complaining about having to work a little overtime. It’s a good look on you. I’m sure they’ll make you captain in no time with that attitude, and you can have everyone sitting around on their thumbs doing nothing but drinking coffee.”
Jared snatched his cup and stomped toward the door. “Don’t think you’re better than me, Blackwell. You or your partner.”
“Think? Nah. I know we’re better. We’ve both proven it.”
Jared stopped at the door and spun on Erik, his eyes blazing with fury.
Erik smiled. “You look stressed. You should consider taking up penjing.”
Jared stared at Erik, his brow creasing as he tried to process what he had heard. “Screw you, Blackwell. You better watch your back.” He stormed out of the break room.
“Or maybe he needs to get laid more,” Erik murmured.
Chapter Forty-One
October 31, 2228, Neo Southern California Metroplex, near Residential Tower 546
Jia leaned back in the passenger seat of the MX 60.
Fireworks lit the night with dazzling kaleidoscopic displays over a nearby platform. Holographic dragons, demons, and even a giant Zitark flew through the sky to enhance the celebration.
All the illumination highlighted the thousands of people thronging the platform, but from a distance, she couldn’t make out any of their costumes.
Though
ts of Florida pushed away relaxation. A couple of missiles into the crowd would be a disaster. CID and police information suggested no credible threats to any celebration, but the Evolved Six incident had taught her not to take safety for granted.
Erik lifted the beignet he’d saved from earlier in the day and took a bite. “You know, best eaten hot, but not bad all the time. It might be a perfect pastry. Remember how I told you my neighbor thinks the Navigators are hiding as platypuses?”
Jia rolled her eyes but appreciated the ridiculous aside for pulling her out of her dark thoughts. “I’m disturbed that someone like that works as a tech for a major corporation. What about him? Is he buying a lot of platypuses to interrogate them?”
Erik laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but I almost want to go to him and suggest the real hidden knowledge is our advancement in pastries.”
Jia put her head down, one hand covering her eyes as she groaned. “I think nearly getting blown up in Florida has damaged the part of your brain responsible for jokes.”
“Oh, come on.” Erik took another bite and swallowed. “Just a suggestion. How are we doing, Emma? Anything strange? Anyone we should be checking on?”
With the entirety of the NSCPD deployed, along with supplementation from other agencies, all major celebrations had police nearby, either as passive observers or mixed in among the crowds.
Half the country was convinced of risks to major Halloween celebrations because of the terrorist activity in Florida, but it hadn’t stopped the locals from coming out and having a good time.
“No, everything is status quo,” Emma responded. “I’m monitoring all relevant channels and signals and sweeping the local area with every sensor available. I’ve hacked a few nearby cameras and drones for additional visual support. Fortunately, being stationary makes it easier to expand my sensory capabilities. Right now, other than humans wasting time and resources, nothing’s unusual, and now that I think of it, humans wasting time and resources is the norm.”
“Wasteful,” Jia echoed. She snorted. “That’s part of it.”
Erik finished off his pastry and side-eyed her. “You were a little tense yesterday, and you’ve been getting increasingly tense these last couple of weeks. You hate Halloween, or you just worried that something is going to happen?”
“Both,” she admitted. “’Hate’ is perhaps too strong a word, but I won’t lie. I rather dislike Halloween. I have for a long time. Mei used to mock me for it when we were young.”
“You don’t seem squeamish about death or spirits and that kind of thing.” Erik looked concerned. “Does the idea freak you out? I figure most people don’t care about that kind of thing. They just want an excuse to have a good time, young or old.”
“Freak me out?” Jia shook her head. “No, nothing like that. My parents always made a big deal about the Ghost Festival, and it’s a rather spirit-centered holiday. It’s not like my parents believe all that much in spirits if you press them on it, but showing proper respect for family members, even dead ones, is not something they were going to pass up. It was just another way to teach family piety.”
He nodded, eyes roving around.
She tilted her head to watch a stream of blue fireworks zoom into the sky before bursting into a dozen smaller multi-colored explosions. “I always liked the Ghost Festival when I was a little girl because we got to do a lot of fun things while honoring those who came before us. It felt like a perfect balance of entertainment and social responsibility.”
Erik chuckled. “You were worried about social responsibility even as a little kid?”
Jia’s cheeks heated. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not saying there is. It’s just so…you.” Erik shrugged. “But back to the Ghost Festival. What did you like about it?”
Jia smiled, happy to focus on good memories rather than things she disliked or modern worries. “I always liked burning the fake money. The whole idea seemed so rebellious to me, even though we were doing it to help and honor the spirits. I remember asking my father why we still burned paper money when the living didn’t use it and hadn’t for a long time. I was concerned the ancestral spirits wouldn’t be helped by offerings that didn’t link to something real. I offered to burn my PNIU. At the time, I didn’t get that it was just an interface. I imagined little tiny copies of money sitting in it. It all made perfect sense to me.”
Erik nodded. “Practical even as a kid, huh? But that takes me back to my original question. Why do you hate Halloween, then? I mean, maybe don’t take it as seriously anymore as it sounds like your family took the Ghost Festival, but it’s not hurting anything.”
“Because it’s not about honoring those who helped in the past and helping them,” Jia explained. She sighed. “It’s about putting on a costume and partying, both for the young and old. I get that there are Halloween-linked traditions that aren’t like that, but in Neo SoCal, it’s mostly been a time where people cause trouble and pretend they are someone else.” She gestured at the crowd. “That idea bothers me more than anything. I’ve always wanted to be me, no one and nothing else. Something about the whole idea of putting on a mask and especially using one as a partial excuse for bad behavior runs right through me. I know that makes me sound like I’m anti-fun, but it’s how I feel.”
“I’m not a big costume guy, but it’s not like I hate them. I’ve been on the frontier for so long that Halloween seems like a strange, distant memory from my childhood. I don’t even remember it being celebrated on some of the other core worlds I’ve been to.” Erik glanced at the cameras before looking at Jia again. “It’s funny out there. A lot of Earth traditions have made the jump to the stars and aren’t all that different from what you might see here, depending on the cultural background of the colony population. A lot of the times, it’s the ones you expect, and other times, things that have been popular for centuries get left behind. Makes you wonder about unity. In a few centuries, the colonies will be culturally distinct. The Solar Systems colonies are still close enough that there’s a lot of mixing, but as things grow on the frontier and it takes months if not years to get from Earth to them, will we be able to keep things together?”
“We don’t have to share the same culture to be unified,” Jia commented. “It’s not like every country on Earth is a copy of the others, even with the fusion and mixing of cultures. Neo SoCal is unusually diverse in its influence because of its history, but we saw in the CFM how things can be different, even in the same country.”
“I know.” A strange looked flitted across Erik’s face. “It’s just, so many years of dealing with insurgents makes me wonder. But…” He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“What is it?” Jia asked.
“I’m still surprised you agreed to help me with my personal mission,” Erik admitted. “On a certain level, I’m doing what you said you hated. I’m not being honest and pretending to be something I’m not for my own reasons.”
Jia shook her head. “That’s not true. The way I look at it is that you’re a police officer who happens to have an additional investigation that’s slightly beyond his jurisdiction. A few months ago, I would have reported it to CID immediately, but I understand now why that’s not viable.”
Erik stared at her, a grim expression on his face. “You already saw what can happen. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since we did that last training session together.”
Jia’s mouth quirked into a smile. “I hardly think your investigation is going to end with me having to blow myself up to take out a fighter.” Her smile dropped after a moment. “At least, I hope it doesn’t.”
“Maybe, but this will continue to be dangerous. I just want that to be clear.” Erik stared into her eyes. “I want you going into this understanding all the risks, not just doing it because you’re my partner.”
She lowered her head to look at her twin holsters. “You have to understand that I never worry much about getting hurt. I only care about innocent people
getting hurt. I know this might not end with a few stun pistol shots and easy arrests. I hope and pray we can do this through appropriate channels, and for now, since I’m not confronted with any difficult choices, I’m not worrying about it.” She eyed him. “What will you do if you never find out who was responsible? Have you thought about it?”
“Nope. I’ll find out. I don’t care how cold the trail goes. Usually, planning an operation should include backup plans, but sometimes if you focus on how you’ll fail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m going to keep pushing on this, taking advantage of whatever scraps Emma, Colonel Adeyemi, or anyone else finds.” He gave her a smile, then looked around. “In the meantime, I’ll keep myself busy with my penjing, sphere ball, and work.”
Jia let a warm smile spread over her face despite the uncertainty swirling in her thoughts. She couldn’t do much to push her partner’s personal crusade forward, but at least she could support him. “I am still having a hard time picturing you doing penjing.”
Erik’s melancholy vanished, swallowed by a grin. “What can I say? I’m a deep guy. Deeper than the ocean.”
She snorted.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Incoming message from dispatch,” Emma reported. “They are requesting that you, along with several other mobile units, rotate to your next designated patrol area. No severe criminal activity has been noted.”
“What has been noted?” Erik asked.
“A few minor arrests, mostly drunken yahoos and that sort of thing,” she answered.
Erik cracked his knuckles and grabbed the control yoke.
He’d gotten so used to Emma screening his communications for him that it almost felt unnatural when she wasn’t handling his incoming queue.
Not that he hadn’t argued with her in the beginning.
Cats were more obedient than she was.
The Defense Directorate had spent billions of dollars on an experimental AI, but he doubted they’d intended for her to serve as a part-time receptionist and chauffeur for a cop.
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