Maelstrom of Treason

by Michael Anderle

  “Of course, I figured it out. How could I not from the name and everything you just did?”

  “Great.” Erik clapped once. “That makes it easy. I’m almost certain you’ll have a natural talent as an exo pilot. It’s not like it’s that hard. They’re designed to enhance people’s normal movements, after all, but walking around in one and using one in a fight are two different things. Developing the muscle memory for everything other than basic movement and getting used to the exo as an extension of your body takes a while for some people. This isn’t piloting a ship, but given that it’s you, we can get you walking and running immediately and up to TPST level in a couple of weeks.”

  “Exoskeleton training?” Jia slowly looked around the room. “But, um, we don’t have two. Or even one.” She ran her tongue inside her cheek and rubbed her chin, trying to fake deep thought and distract from her face. If it was as red as it was hot, her embarrassment could be seen from Alpha Proxima.

  “I’ve got Alina working on that.” Erik chuckled. “It took a little convincing, but I think we’re going to get something a lot better than even I’m used to. It’ll be nice when we have to knock on a door with a bunch of Talos Tin Men on the other side.”

  Jia turned away, feigning examining the corner of the room. She should quit working with Erik and start her academic career with an interesting research paper proving it was impossible to die from embarrassment.

  She’d risked her life to prove the hypothesis.

  “Is everything okay, Jia?” Emma asked. “Your heart rate is extremely elevated, given the situation.”

  Jia pressed her lips together, fighting the curse that wanted to erupt.

  Sewing her mouth shut was not going to be harsh enough.

  Never in her life had she thought about how unfair it was that AIs couldn’t be strangled. Taking Emma’s core and smashing it to pieces wouldn’t be as satisfying as wrapping her fingers around a windpipe.

  Maybe she could strangle an embodied Emma in the simulation.

  “Huh?” Erik frowned. “You get a weird message or something?”

  Jia chuckled nervously and waved her hands in front of her. “I’m just pumped. My pilot training has been more exciting than I expected, so it’ll be nice to know how to pilot an exoskeleton, too. Every skill I have is useful, am I right? It’s just weird to think about how I used to do nothing but sit at my desk doing reports, and I’m going to be running out in an exoskeleton.”

  “You’re a great partner now, and it’ll only make you better,” Erik suggested.

  “You’re trying to turn me into Assault Infantry,” Jia joked, desperate to push the conversation away from her misunderstanding. She couldn’t be sure Erik wouldn’t figure it out.

  “Nope. I never served with someone as sexy as you.” Erik grinned.

  Jia took several deep breaths. Warmth suffused her body. Erik might not know what she’d been expecting, but it was like the bastard could sense it.

  She smiled. What was she so afraid of? No, he hadn’t brought her to the building to take their relationship to the next level, but if she wanted something, she could push for it herself.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Jia sauntered over to him with her best hip-waggling sexy walk. She wouldn’t be hired as a model anytime soon, but the look in Erik’s eyes told her he appreciated it. “I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m the most beautiful woman in the UTC, but I hope I’m doing pretty well.”

  “More than pretty well.” Erik smirked. “And I know I’m better looking than Mr. Down-to-Earth Businessman.”

  Jia punched him in the arm. “You’re bringing up Corbin now? Talk about killing the mood.”

  “I am here to teach you to kill people in an exoskeleton. Killing the mood for anything else is kind of inevitable.” Erik shrugged, although he kept the playful grin.

  “Emma, can you give us five minutes alone?” Jia asked.

  “Very well, Jia. You can use your PNIUs to call me back sooner if you need to.”

  “Why did you do that?” Erik asked. “I still need her to adjust some things about the scenario.”

  He hadn’t realized her mistake, and she’d accepted something important about herself.

  It was time to take control of the situation.

  “There’s more to life than training on how to kill people,” Jia offered.

  Erik smirked. “We’re also training on how to wound people.” He lowered his voice and looked into her eyes. “But it’s also important to remember why we care.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know what’s going through your head,” Jia murmured.

  “Good. If you can’t figure me out, they certainly can’t.”

  “Is this thing between us real?” Jia’s breath slowed, even as her heart pounded harder. “We might not talk about it, but that doesn’t mean anything I said before has changed. Sometimes I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Erik offered. “I don’t have it figured out. There’s something. We both feel it, but we’re not like most people. Our situation’s complicated.

  Jia tilted her head and slightly parted her lips. “That means we both understand all the distractions are just that. I don’t see the problem. Do you?”

  “No problem.” Erik leaned in and captured her mouth with his.

  Jia didn’t close her eyes.

  She peered into his eyes as they deepened the kiss, a searing fire spreading throughout her body. Erik wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Time slowed, Jia’s attention captured by that moment until Erik slowly pulled away with a reluctant look.

  “That felt like you meant it,” Jia whispered, her lips swollen and her breathing ragged. She shivered with excitement.

  Erik gave her a lopsided grin. “Consider it motivation. Don’t make me regret it during training, or I’ll have to reconsider it in the future.”

  “Are you threatening my kiss supply based on my exoskeleton training results?” Jia pulled back, then planted her hands on her hips and offered a mock glare. “That’s an interesting motivational technique.”

  “Different people require different techniques. Now let’s get Emma back here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A couple of hours later, Jia had all but mastered the basic movements and controls, including fire control for the heavy rifle they’d added for the night’s training.

  Most new recruits took a few days to move naturally, but anyone watching Jia would have thought she’d been training for weeks.

  Erik stood in the corner of the room, watching her progress on multiple data windows. When he watched her directly, it looked like she stood inside the top half of an exoskeleton, the bottom of the floor twisting and turning. From her perspective, she had full freedom of movement.

  Jia jogged along, the exoskeleton thudding hard on the hardpacked dirt of the simulated wasteland setting. Large rock outcroppings covered the area, along with the bleached white skeletons of different species, some native to Earth and some not.

  A huge thin reptile-like skeleton with twelve legs, two half-broken off, lay at the base of an outcropping blocking Jia’s path. The air rippled in the distance, and oppressive heat choked half the room.

  Erik could feel it if he stuck his arm out.

  “Continue running toward the nav marker for one more klick without significant deviation in course,” Erik ordered. “Don’t trip, or I’ll make you start over.”

  “I only tripped a few times, and not for an hour.” Jia scoffed and sped up, weaving between two large skeletons of something that might have once been a four-winged bird. She fired her jump thrusters and the exoskeleton launched into the air, its feet barely clearing a huge rock. Erik’s jaw tightened as she headed toward the ground, her exoskeleton’s upper torso too far forward. Right before impact, she brought the feet forward, landing and continuing her run without stumbling.

  He blew out a breath he was holding.

  “Damned good landing,
” Erik announced.

  “I’d love to roll to conserve momentum, but I don’t think that would work well,” Jia replied.

  “They need to develop an exo that can do that.” Erik laughed. “Some aliens might have ones like that. The Aldrans probably do.”

  “We’ll need to sneak into their territory and steal the plans.” Jia jumped again.

  “I’m sure Alina will have us doing that kind of thing eventually.”

  She landed on top of a huge pile of rocks and leapt off, this time without using the thrusters before hitting the ground. “Okay, I’m past the nav point. I was expecting something more exciting.”

  “Erik didn’t suggest the initial training nav points needed to be interesting,” Emma noted. “Blame him.”

  “Hey, when you’re out in the field, you don’t always have something interesting,” Erik countered. “Being overly obsessed with landmarks is a good way to get ambushed. Practice like you play.”

  Jia jumped again, the exoskeleton managing a clumsy though impressive spin. Quick counterthrust at the end had her facing the opposite direction, her rifle at the ready.

  “I think I’m getting the hang of it.” She grinned.

  “Okay, running and jumping are easy,” Erik observed. “At the end of day, if that was all you had to do in an exoskeleton, we wouldn’t even require all the controls. You need a real challenge.”

  “Bring it on,” Jia shot back. “Let me guess—you’ve got a squad of bikini babes in exoskeletons that I have to hunt down?”

  Erik laughed. “No. I don’t, and I’m glad I don’t after what happened earlier. Don’t want you getting jealous.”

  She growled a bit. “I wish I could shoot you right now,” Jia muttered.

  “We’ll make this easy. First, a few targets. Emma, give her the first batch.”

  Small circular targets appeared, all sticking out of the dried, cracked earth and evenly spaced at intervals of fifty meters. Another set appeared floating ten meters above the first set. Standard concentric rings of different colors filled the targets.

  “This is simulating a high-end military model, so take advantage of your helmet’s faceplate and the interface with your smart lenses,” Erik explained. “You’ve got all that targeting assistance, so you should use it. Hold position and bullseye those targets, ground and aerial. It should be easy since they aren’t moving.”

  Jia took a deep breath. The massive arm of the exoskeleton lifted the huge rifle. She lined up her first shot and fired. The rest came in rapid succession. Erik nodded, a data window displaying the targets all close up. Her shots had ripped out the center of each target.

  “Now, let’s make it a little harder,” Erik announced. “Emma, level two.”

  The targets vanished, and a new batch appeared. The ground targets floated back and forth horizontally, while the aerial targets bounced up and down. Otherwise, they were identical to the first set.

  “The aim assist can do a lot, but you still have to line up the shots,” Erik explained. “The grav fields installed in a military-grade exo will get you nice release without recoil sending you flying, but they can’t do much for your shots once they leave the field, and the aim assist isn’t always the greatest. Keep that in mind. We’ll train on that next time.”

  “It’s not like I don’t have experience fighting in zero-G,” Jia reminded him. Her gun came alive again, the sound muted for Erik, given his position in the room.

  The shots came slower, but Jia blew out the center of each target without a single miss as she continued her comment. “If you already know how to shoot, it’s not that hard with the aim assist and recoil suppression. It’s easier than using a rifle with my own two hands.”

  Erik chuckled darkly. “Sure, it’s easy when you don’t have anyone shooting at you, but what about when you do? Emma, level three.”

  The scene shifted. The barren rock-filled landscape disappeared, replaced by a dense forest. Brush and fallen logs were strewn all about. Trees with massive trunks stretched into the sky, tangling together to form a thick canopy.

  Birds and insects flew overhead, highlighted by the rays of sunlight penetrating the holes in the canopy.

  “You’ve got a lot of combat experience, Jia,” Erik observed. “But it’s been all in urban environments. They have their own issues you have to keep in mind, but we could end up in all sorts of trouble.”

  Jia scoffed, slowly surveying the forest. Erik smiled as he watched a data window providing her POV. She’d already flipped to thermal imaging to search the forest despite not knowing the target.

  “I’ve trained at the tactical center in all sorts of bizarre environments,” she noted. “With you and Emma designing the scenarios.”

  “True, which is why you’re somewhere between a cop and infantry at this point.” Erik swiped away a data window. A new one appeared with a list of possible enemies he’d prepared with Emma’s help. He tapped one and snickered under his breath. It was time to test the limits of Jia’s ability to handle a ridiculous surprise. A burst ripped from Jia’s gun, blasting a shower of bark off a trunk.

  “What’s the target?” Jia demanded. “I saw something appear out of nowhere, and it definitely wasn’t an animal.” She hissed and fired again as something rustled in the forest, darting behind another tree.

  Erik smirked, not bothering to look at her POV feed. He knew what was hunting her. If the enemy moved close enough, Jia’s shock would cost her the battle.

  “Come on, Jia,” Erik challenged. “You know how this goes. We don’t always know what’s out there. I’m not going to tell you. We’ll just say you’ve been separated from me, and we were investigating Talos, and now you’re being hunted.”

  “I don’t think it’s a Tin Man. No. A yaoguai, then. It wasn’t a human or a bot. That much I’m sure of.”

  Jia narrowed her eyes and fired a constant stream, riddling the tree with bullets. The dust and bark swirled in the air, almost a smokescreen as something darted to another tree, a flash of hot pink noticeable before it succeeded. Her target moved again, leaping and grabbing a branch. A quick swing sent the tailed creature flying. Jia jerked up her rifle and fired, narrowly missing the form before it landed behind a tree.

  “That can’t be,” she shouted. “No way.”

  “You could confirm it by reviewing your feed,” Erik suggested, trying not to laugh.

  “Not paying attention to my combat situation sounds like a good way to die,” Jia muttered. “I just have one question. Did you think of this, or did Emma?”

  Jia pivoted toward the tree. Two quick bursts blasted chunks out of the trunk, but the target remained crouched behind it.

  “Don’t blame me,” Emma insisted. “My scenario involved something far different.”

  The target sprinted from behind the tree, now fully visible—a Zitark. The dark colors of its scales blended with the greenery of the forest, but unlike the ones they’d fought in simulations before, this alien wore a hot pink bikini.

  Jia didn’t fire as the Zitark charged between trees, its path erratic. “Why is it wearing a bikini? They might not be from Earth, but they’re closer to Earth reptiles than anything. They don’t have breasts!”

  “Hey, don’t insult her just because she’s a little flat.” Erik laughed.

  The bikini-clad Zitark jumped again, a plasma pistol in hand. A bright blast erupted and screamed through the forest. Jia pivoted, but it was too late as the shot exploded against her faceplate. The forest and Zitark vanished, replaced by the white room. The exoskeleton around her flowed away, a thick dark fluid flowing into the floor and disappearing until she stood on the ground, staring at the wall, slack-jawed.

  “You sent a Zitark in a bikini after me?” Jia sputtered, her eyes wide.

  Erik laughed. “You never know what we might run into.” He laughed and slapped his knee. “One tip, though. I was waiting for you to use your shield, but you never did.” He raised his left arm and patted it. “If you’d had it up, you w
ould have survived. Military-grade shields can take a lot of punishment, including energy weapons.”

  “I guess I still have a few things to learn.” Jia sighed. “But I guarantee we’ll never fight Zitarks in bikinis.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Never say never.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  October 17, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Restaurant Colby’s

  The door to Colby’s slid open, and Jia stepped out onto the brightly lit parking platform, leaving behind the delicious savory smells filling the inside.

  She didn’t leave disappointed. Her tasty dinner had sated both her stomach and her soul, leaving her happy. She would have preferred to have had dinner with Erik, given that it was their day off, but he was busy.

  Colonel Adeyemi had finally arranged the latest weapons shipment. She had a flight training appointment, too. Just because things at the 1-2-2 had slowed down, it didn’t mean they couldn’t find ways to fill their days and nights.

  Jia walked past rows of flitters with a smile on her face. Only a couple more weeks remained before they left the department. Part of her mind told her she should be concerned about the bizarre and dangerous future lying ahead, but with each day that passed, she grew more excited.

  The prospect of tracking down dangerous scum alongside Erik fueled a broader smile.

  She had never met her family’s expectations. They had come to accept her, but that didn’t retroactively make the earlier years easier. When she joined the police department, she’d thought she’d found her place and her people, but she’d had to go through two partners and a captain before she could accomplish anything approaching actual police work.

  Anticorruption efforts had changed the 1-2-2 and the rest of the department in a short time, but she couldn’t deny that if it weren’t for Erik, she would never have faced the question of continuing at the department.

  Now, with the offer before them, she understood where she was supposed to be. She was meant for more. She was meant to go after the most dangerous of men and women, those who threatened the fundamental fabric of human society.