A medpatch could take care of the bruising, but he didn’t want to challenge a machine gun directly again. Even a military-grade tactical vest would have trouble taking that kind of punishment. He should know.
He’d seen them fail under constant fire.
“Not so tough now, are you, cop?” the Tin Man taunted. “I’ve heard about you. I made the right call in coming here today. Not only do I get what I need, but I get to kill a famous cop.” He swept back and forth with his gun, the cacophony of the echoing gunfire a painful drumbeat in Erik’s ears. Whether by dumb luck or a merciful Lady, there were no other chemical spills. The gun fell silent.
Erik considered peeking around the corner. Something clanged hard, metal grating rattling.
“Can you help me, Emma?” Erik asked.
“I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing a drone,” Emma offered. “He’s out of ammo and he’s dropped his weapon. He’s running.”
Erik yanked his pistol out of his holster and jumped to his feet. He didn’t have time to go back for the TR-7 and keep up with the suspect. Rushing toward the fleeing Tin Man, he fired several rounds. They struck the man square in the back. The gangster stumbled, but he didn’t fall.
“Little extra armor, too, huh?” Erik complained. He lowered his gun to take the more difficult shot and take out a leg, but the Tin Man disappeared through an open door into a small side room.
Erik shot a few more times on his way. “Give it up. You’re going down, big bro. You picked the wrong day to go after this place. You don’t have to leave in a body bag, but that means you need to surrender right damned now because I’m getting a little tired of this game of lead tag.”
A drone descended and hovered into the room. A chair flew up and smacked into it. Both furniture and drone flew out of Erik’s sight, but he could guess the fate, given the loud crash that followed.
“I take it you don’t need me to tell you what side of the room he’s on?” Emma asked.
“Nah, I think I can figure that out, even with my tiny fleshbag brain. But thanks.”
Erik slowed to a jog and took a deep breath. He wanted to take the suspect alive, but that didn’t mean he was going to risk getting killed to do it. If Jia hadn’t forced Malachi to immediately order an evacuation, a lot of innocent workers might have ended up dead. Ruthless men required ruthless solutions.
If a bullet to the chest didn’t do it, a bullet to the brain would.
His jog became a walk. The small room was for storage, sparsely filled with racks of full-body protective suits and breathers.
“Now I find them.”
Erik paused at the door, listening but not hearing anything but a light hum from the machinery around him and the whir of the surviving drones. He spun to his side to find this target and found two chairs flying toward him instead. He managed to get off several shots before a chair collided with his right arm, bending it back and knocking his pistol out of his hand. A quick swipe with his left arm knocked the other chair out of the way just in time to reveal the charging Triad Tin Man.
“Die, cop!” the gangster screamed, his eyes wide open and hand curled into a fist descending.
His punch connected with Erik’s vest with a crunch. The minor sting blossomed into a fiery burn. Erik stumbled backward. Without the protective vest, the gangster might have caved his chest in with the blow. The gangster must have realized the same thing, because he stepped back, his face contorted in irritation and shaking out his fist. Erik knew all too well that even the dulled pain in many cybernetic limbs could be distracting.
Erik gritted his teeth in pain. He shook his head and cracked his knuckles. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, asshole.”
“You’re nothing without your gun.”
“Try me again, and we’ll see if that’s true.”
The two men warily circled each other, neither willing to make the next move. Erik had the advantage. The longer he stalled, the more chance he had of police or security reinforcements showing up.
The triad had launched the distraction operation to insert the Tin Man into the plant, which meant there was something inside they needed. They had to know that if they didn’t act quickly, they would be overwhelmed. That same desperation would push the gangster to make a stupid move.
“You think I’ve never killed a cop before?” The gangster gave a feral grin. “You think I won’t now?”
“I think you’ve never killed a cop like me.” Erik threw a punch with his left arm. The gangster snorted and didn’t even try to block. His head snapped back as the powerful blow struck home.
He staggered back, blood pouring from his nose, his eyes rolling up in the back of his head. “You’ve got…hardware…too.”
“And here I thought it was all over the net.” Erik grinned as the man pitched forward and landed with an unceremonious groan. “But yeah, I do. Surprise.” He took a deep breath, wincing at his cracked ribs. “Jia, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she transmitted. “I was just securing the scene before heading in there to help you. I take it you’re okay?”
“I’ve got our big bro. He underestimated me.”
“Does ‘got’ mean you’ve arrested him, or does it mean you blew his head off?”
“Nah, he’s still alive.” Erik nudged the man with his foot. “I’m sure he’ll have interesting stuff to tell us. By the way, you still have medpatches on you?”
“I used the ones I had to stabilize some of the suspects,” Jia replied.
“I’ve repaired the emitters,” Emma explained. “There are still several inside my body.”
“You know,” Erik looked around a moment before focusing back on the comatose body, “that sounds weird coming from you.”
Chapter Eighteen
October 1, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station, Interrogation Room
Jia paced in front of the table. Their suspect was chained to the chair, thin silver coils around his arm—cybernetic inhibitors, unusual restraints for an unusual man. He glared at Erik and Jia defiantly.
Erik yawned and patted his mouth. “Shit. Making us work overtime. Why couldn’t you have attacked that place in the morning? Plus, you’re lucky the guys at the armory can patch it up for me.”
“You’re worried about your gun?” The suspect sneered. “How are your ribs?”
“Fine.” Erik patted his ribs. “Medpatches took care of them right away. How’s the face? It’s looking pretty messed up. Oh, I forgot. It looked like that before I knocked your ass out.”
“Screw you, cop,” the gangster growled as he struggled against his bonds. “When I get out of here, I’ll finish you off.”
“You had your best shot at doing it already, and you lost. If we go at it again, it’s going to end with four bullets in your brain, not my fist in your face.”
“You were pretty brazen,” Jia interjected. “Attacking a place in broad daylight while cops were there. Even if we hadn’t been there, that facility has great security.”
“It would have worked,” the gangster insisted. “Cops were there before they should have been.”
Jia tapped her PNIU. A mug shot of the suspect appeared, though he was years younger, a teenager. “Harry Hui, born and raised in the Greater Hong Kong metroplex.” She clucked her tongue. “You’re really lucky, Mr. Hui. Despite getting arrested for multiple thefts when you were younger, you didn’t get transported. They let you get out after a little jail time. A lot of people have ended up on the colonies for a lot less.”
“You should think about why that might be, cop.” Hui bared his teeth. “You think I don’t have connections?”
Jia rolled her eyes. “Is that supposed to be intimidating?” She dropped into a seat and smiled sweetly. “You don’t get it, do you, Mr. Hui? This isn’t Hong Kong. This is Neo SoCal. Whatever cops your triad bought off over there aren’t here to save you.” She narrowed her eyes, her sweet demeanor disappearing under her mask of hostility. “And you attacked a chemi
cal plant and attempted to murder police officers,” she added, her voice infused with utter contempt.
“The CID has sent us a bunch of info on you. We know that you belong to the Eternal Dragons, and the CID and HKPD have been looking for enough evidence to nail you to the wall.” She waved a hand across the table. “You’re not walking this time, Hui. You’re not even going to get off with transportation. We haven’t even bothered to check all your hardware yet. I doubt it’s all legal. You’re going to prison. It’s just a matter of how many decades your sentence will be.”
“You can’t do shit to me,” Hui strained against his chains, but his arms failed him. He leaned forward, his eyes dangerous. “You think you’re special, but you’re nothing before the Eternal Dragons.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Erik shook his head. “Your little attempt to hide as you murdered Victoria Dwazil didn’t work.”
“You’ve got nothing. No DNA, no case.”
“We’ve got a matching gait analysis—unless there’s some other cyborg who walks exactly like you and decided to murder a woman linked to that plant.”
“You’re not going to send me up with that.” Hui scoffed. “That case is weaker than you.”
“Says the man who got knocked out in one hit.” The corners of Erik’s lips turned up. “Just saying.”
“Don’t get too comfortable, Hui.” Jia looked incredulous. “We don’t even need to link you to Victoria Dwazil’s murder to send you to prison. We have enough with your stupid stunt at the plant, not to mention your attempted murder of us, but we want the whole plan.” She pointed at him. “And you know what I think? I think you panicked. Something went very wrong, which was why you attacked the plant.”
Hui turned his head to the side and sneered. “You’re not getting anything from me. I’ve been tortured by triads before. You don’t scare me. I don’t care. Do whatever you think you’re going to do to me.”
Erik leaned back in his chair, his arms folded. “But prison isn’t safe like it used to be, not that it was that safe to begin with. I’m sure you heard about that incident, right? You end up in the wrong prison, you might be eaten by a hungry yaoguai.”
A flicker of fear passed over Hui’s face. Even monsters feared bigger monsters.
“Do yourself a favor,” Erik suggested. “Give us what we need about Victoria Dwazil, and you might be able to shave a few years off your sentence and end up in a safe prison.”
Hui’s face hardened and he hocked up a huge glob of spittle, almost hitting Erik. “I’ll never betray my brothers. I’d be strangling you if I didn’t have these inhibitors on.”
Jia rolled her eyes. “No, you’d be getting your ass knocked out again.”
* * *
October 2, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station, Office of Detectives Jia Lin and Erik Blackwell
Jia’s eyes darted back and forth as she perused the list of names on the window floating in front of her. It was almost sad, a list of young men who were throwing away their futures. If they had the discipline to resist police interrogation, they had the discipline to hold down an honest job.
“Have you seen this list?” she asked.
Erik looked up from the document he was reading. “The likely triad members list the HKPD sent over?”
“Yes.” Jia nodded. “I’m surprised they have a good idea of who the members are, but they haven’t been arrested. They must have done something they could get nailed for.”
“Maybe, but going after an organization and missing can be worse than waiting until they’ve made more mistakes.” Erik shrugged. “And you heard what Hui said. They’ve paid off some people, but helping bust this triad will mean the CID and the good cops over there can clean out the trash, just like we’ve done here. By waiting, the entire organization can be taken out in one major sweep.”
Jia nodded, satisfied by the idea of indirectly helping destroy another group of criminals, on top of catching a murderer. “I’m also surprised how quickly the HKPD sent us this list.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because that means Hui is overestimating his triad’s influence. There’s probably only a small number of bad cops in the mix, rather than it being a major organizational problem.” Jia’s brow wrinkled, the frustration on her face plain. “The interrogations of his lackeys aren’t giving us much. It sounds like they didn’t know what the hell was even going on and were just brought along for muscle. The only useful thing we’ve gotten is the man who mentioned they’d been told the cops were about to search the plant. It confirms what we heard from Hui.”
“Yeah, at least that explains the desperate daylight raid. And the truth is, we were lucky.”
“How?” Jia asked.
“If we hadn’t had Emma filter all that data, it might have taken us days to figure out the link between Victoria and the plant, let alone Archangel.” Erik nodded at his data window. “Most cops don’t have access to that kind of independent AI.”
Emma appeared and bowed. “You’re welcome.”
Erik continued, “And without that link, the triad would have had more time to get whatever they were looking for, probably without going all-out.”
He slid a hand through the air, and an ornate triangular emblem with two inscribed intertwined dragons appeared. Eternal Dragons was written in ornate hanzi along the bottom.
Jia snorted. “Fancy symbols don’t make them any less than scum. Suits don’t make them gentlemen.”
“I’m not disagreeing.” Erik offered a shrug. “According to the report the CID sent,” he began, “their primary base remains in Hong Kong. Our boy is a mid-level lieutenant at best, even if he was in charge of local ops.”
“Sure. I get it. This was an expansion attempt. I’m used to that now, but that doesn’t answer the question of what they were doing with that plant, and what this has to do with Victoria Dwazil’s murder. If we can’t get him to talk, we might not find the link. But…” Jia looked to the side for a moment in thought before making hand gestures to summon another data window. “Hmm. Did you get a chance to look through the part of the report where it talks about income streams?”
Erik shook his head. “Not yet. I’m sure it’s exciting.”
“Justice can be exciting.”
“Sometimes.”
Jia pointed at her window. “It’s a lot of the standard organized crime things you’d expect, but the Eternal Dragons have a specialty that might be relevant. They like to extend their initial influence in a city via the indirect capture of specialty waste management subcontractors, usually with a front company.”
“Huh,” Erik replied. “I can see how that’d be useful for them. It’s also downright subtle by the standards of the organized crime left in Neo SoCal.”
“Exactly.” Jia lowered her hand. “Simply flying in and attempting to shake people down won’t work anymore. The corrupt officials and police have been mostly purged. The only thing left is to behave as if you’re worried about the police, which makes them harder to catch.”
Erik snickered. “I’m not sure stabbing a woman through the heart with a pole meets anyone’s definition of subtle.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Jia agreed. “Normal people commit stupid crimes when they’re desperate, so what does that imply about desperate criminals? Especially ones who might be more brutal than bright?”
Erik thought for a moment. “You think the Dwazil murder was about them worrying about the NSCPD searching the plant?”
Jia shook her head. “The timeline doesn’t work out. From what the underling said, they’d decided to do the raid because they’d heard it was going to happen. But we weren’t raiding the plant, we were just doing an investigation. That means they don’t have a direct line to the 1-2-2.”
“If the manager was complaining to someone about the police showing up, it might have gotten back to them,” Erik suggested. “I don’t think he was in bed with the triad. He doesn’t s
eem like he’d have the stomach for it, but he also seems like the kind of guy who’d bitch about minor inconveniences. If the triad had an interest in that plant, they might have had someone on the inside who heard him.”
“But if they did have a mole, why did they go through all that trouble? If we weren’t there, they probably would have gotten in and out, but they still would have taken casualties. That means whatever’s in that plant is something worth dying for.” Jia hissed in frustration. “We’re missing something. We have to get Hui to talk.” Her pained expression disappeared, replaced by a satisfied smile. “Or we go at this sideways.”
“Sideways?” Erik raised a brow in interest. “How so?”
“His lackeys might not have known why they needed to attack the plant, but it wasn’t like he flew them in yesterday.” Jia swiped through the air, the data window in front of her changing to display different data. She stopped on a list of names and dates and inclined her head toward it. “Most of them have been here for months, and that means they have to know the basics of the local operations. We haven’t been asking them the right questions.”
Erik’s grin mirrored hers. “Asking them where their base is might not work. Telling them to give up the waste company might.”
“Exactly.” Jia stood with a determined look. “They didn’t volunteer the information, but they also thought we wouldn’t know. Let’s go squeeze one of the little brothers and find out where we need to raid.”
Chapter Nineteen
A few hours later, Erik stomped out of the MX 60 and over to the closest uniformed officer. “What the hell is all this?”
She blinked. “Detective Blackwell? It’s…a raid. The one you helped coordinate.” She looked toward the MX 60, a desperate plea in her eyes.
Jia sighed and stepped out of the flitter. She hurried after her partner, shaking her head.
Since the waste management company in question was in the Shadow Zone, Captain Ragnar had contacted the captain of the local enforcement zone to coordinate a raid. Erik and Jia were supposed to have led it, but a chance message revealed that the raid had already been launched. Erik and Jia had rushed to the scene, and judging by the lack of drawn weapons, it was already over.
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