Obsidian Detective

by Michael Anderle

  Jia stared out the window of the MX 60 as they cruised along a crowded air lane. The skies of Neo SoCal were even more full than normal. She hadn’t heard anything about traffic being rerouted.

  Am I just noticing it, or is there actually more traffic?

  “Isn’t this kind of a long way to go for a good sandwich?” Jia asked. “I know the captain said he didn’t care how long a lunch we took, but I think that was just his way of telling us to stay out of trouble. I don’t think he meant for us to disappear for hours at a time.”

  “It’s only been a half-hour.” Erik grinned. “And it could be worse. We could be going to the Shadow Zone. I bet they have great sandwiches down there. There’s something about people living close together in rough neighborhoods that brings out the best sandwich skills.”

  Erik figured he could write a whole book about the variations of outstanding sandwiches on poor, hard-scrabble frontier worlds.

  “We don’t have clearance to go into the Shadow Zone, and I’m mostly thankful for that.” Jia watched a flitter nearly collide with another and winced. That was why everyone should use autonomous mode, but then again, she sat in a luxury vehicle worth years of pay and Erik insisted on controlling it manually. “But it might be nice to talk to your informant again.”

  Erik glanced her way. “Alicia? Why? You like her?”

  “Not really.” Jia wrinkled her nose. “But she did seem knowledgeable, and maybe she would have more information on the cases for us. Nothing new has come into the station about Tessan or Winthorpe since we sent out the word about the alleged coming arrest. I’m beginning to think your scheme isn’t going to work. If it means anything, I thought it was a good plan.”

  “Yeah. Looks like a bust.” Erik tapped a couple of buttons on his screen. “They might have called our bluff, but you’re right. It was worth trying. We’ll figure out something new. This isn’t over.”

  Jia suddenly laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Erik asked, eyeing her like she was drunk.

  “I was just thinking I was almost blown up the other day, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the other case that has almost cost my life multiple times.” Jia shook her head. “It’s certainly sobering to consider that. Every step we take into darkness, I think it’s gotten as dark as it could be, and the city proves me wrong.”

  Erik chuckled. “Still mad enough to electro-enema me?”

  Jia patted her holster. “Don’t tempt me. It might make me feel better, and I’m more frustrated than anything. There are so many pieces of things that I almost understand, but I’ve been thinking about how to fix at least some of those problems. I get that I’m just one detective, but I’m tired of feeling like I’m so many steps behind the criminals.”

  “Come up with anything good?” Erik reduced their altitude, but they were still kilometers away from the Shadow Zone. “I’m all ears. I’m just one detective too.” He shrugged.

  “I’ve been studying law enforcement history a lot lately,” Jia explained. “It helps me think about cases. I’ve always found it interesting, but a reoccurring motif is that when local law enforcement becomes too corrupt, the best thing to do is bring in a higher authority less beholden to the local centers of power. It disrupts the status quo and helps local law enforcement reform itself into a less corrupt organization.”

  Erik’s eyes brightened. “Is that what I am? A higher authority? I like the sound of that.”

  “No. You’re a maniac and a pain in the backside, but I’ll also admit you’re a good cop sometimes.” Jia watched another flitter drop and turn to the right. “Captain Monahan might be trying, but he’s still obviously afraid of all his corrupt connections. If Tessan and Winthorpe were murdered, we need to bring it to the attention of someone completely outside the NSCPD. You might be a newer detective, but you’re still operating within the NSCPD structure. What we need to do is get enough evidence that the Criminal Investigations Directorate comes in and starts handling the investigation. There might be corrupt CID agents, but they are far less likely to be on the payroll of men like Winthorpe.”

  “The CID?” Erik nodded. “That’s a possibility, but among other things, we’ll need to prove these crimes involved something outside the scope of the metroplex. The military has made it clear I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut about Emma, so I don’t think we can flash her. They’ll just try to take her and shut down the investigation to cover what was stolen from them.”

  Emma spoke up. “I concur with Detective Blackwell,” the AI noted. “If you attempt to use me to bring in someone else, I might just drive off with this body. I sympathize with you having to deal with horrible hooligans, but I’m not sacrificing my life because you humans can’t keep a city under control.”

  “There you go.” Erik sighed. “I’d be out a lot of credits, too, and I really like my MX 60.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking.” Jia rubbed her chin as she drifted on the tides of thought. “If we could establish the people involved in some of these crimes had serious operational connections to an entity outside Neo SoCal, that might be enough to convince the CID to get involved.”

  “Who are you going to try to link them to?” Erik asked. “That seems to be the hard part in all this.”

  “There are lots of possibilities.” Jia ticked off fingers as she built her list. “Insurrectionists, terrorist groups, colonial officials, and corporations. Windward is a little too local in scope, and the CID’s reluctant to step in when local law enforcement pushes back. If we can establish a direct link to an organization that’s broader in scope and pass it along, that would help a lot.”

  Erik’s eyes kept darting between the front, his lidar, and the cameras. “It wouldn’t be our case anymore. Would you be okay with that?”

  “I want the criminals identified and punished,” Jia answered. “This isn’t about personal glory. My problem with Captain Monahan sending cases on wasn’t that he was taking the cases from me. The problem was that the cases weren’t getting solved at all. The CID isn’t going to just set a case aside for an easy bribe.”

  “We might still have a chance to get more evidence,” Erik muttered, a slight frown on his face. “And I think my plan is going to work after all.” An eager grin pushed away his previous frown.

  “What are you talking about?” Jia glanced at him. “I’m obviously missing something.”

  “Did you catch them, Emma, or were you just testing me this time?” Erik asked.

  Emma snickered. “I wanted to see if you would notice. Good eye. It hasn’t even been that long.”

  “What’s going on?” Jia looked confused. “Someone care to clue me in?”

  “We’re being followed by several flitters,” Erik explained. He turned toward a denser patch of buildings. “The only question is about the best way to handle it. Should we have a little fun like we did in the zone, or should we land and take them on that way? I’m confident we can win, but it might be hard to find a platform where we can have a gun battle without risking civilians getting hit by stray bullets.”

  Jia grimaced. “We’re absolutely not going to have any sort of high-speed chase. If a flitter loses control here, the chances of it causing a secondary accident or hitting a tower are too high. Even if the buildings won’t take much damage, we don’t want a ball of crumpled metal bouncing around and causing a cascade.”

  Erik chuckled. “You know what I just realized?”

  “What? It’d be nice if you said you were wrong about us being followed.” Jia rubbed her wrist.

  Erik shook his head. “Nope. I was thinking about this the wrong way. I’m falling too much into Uptowner thinking. There’s no shield over the Shadow Zone. The only thing keeping us from it is clearance.”

  Jia’s breath caught. “A lower altitude means less chance of inadvertent damage or falling metal balls of death.”

  “Exactly.” Erik dropped a few vertical lanes but kept his speed normal. “If we lead these guys to a platform
, there might be a big battle. At least this way, we can pick a location better suited. Or, you know what? Time for a friendly trip to the mountains. They aren’t right on us yet.” He altered course.

  Jia shook her head. “You enjoy this sort of thing too much.”

  “There’s no such thing as enjoying your job too much, and one thing I’ve learned this last year is to take life seriously when you have to, but not to otherwise.” Erik glanced at the lidar. “Okay, Emma, take control. Gradually take us low and get us near the mountains.” He pointed at Jia’s feet. “I’m going to need my gun, and we’ll have to be smart about this. This should be something more than entertaining shooting practice for me.”

  Jia moved her legs, fished the TR-7 out of its compartment, and set it between them before bending back down and retrieving magazines. “And what’s being smart in this situation? Heading to a police station?”

  “We don’t need more cops, but we do need more witnesses,” Erik explained. “Several of the survivors from the mansion battle aren’t giving up anything useful other that they were paid through anonymous means. The more men we take alive, the better chance someone slips up or heard something important. There can’t be that many thugs with perfect discipline.” He loaded his TR-7. “So, we’re going to keep this low speed and low altitude. The point is to take a few suspects alive.”

  “And if they just shoot us out of the sky?” Jia asked. “If these are assassins. They might be here to stop you before your fictional arrest.”

  “It’s not fictional. We’ll be getting someone. It’s just a matter of when. I need to add some armor to this thing,” Erik muttered. “But we’ll have to make do today. Let’s see how much our friends like nature.”

  Erik kept his altitude above two hundred and fifty meters as his flitter headed toward a nearby mountain.

  The deep haze characterizing the Shadow Zone lightened, and they moved toward the oft-neglected if still protected slice of nature.

  While citizens loved their taxes to go toward preserving their natural heritage in theory, in practice, venturing away from the main metroplex to go stare at trees, rocks, and dirt didn’t appeal when they had perfectly serviceable holograms.

  Their lack of attention had allowed nature to reassert herself in areas outside the large footprint of the metroplex.

  “Several backup flitters on their way,” Jia reported, finishing her call. “Including some with disruption systems and rams.”

  “Another thing I should add to my MX 60,” Erik mused. “If we end up in this situation again, I want to be better prepared.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree,” Emma offered.

  Jia grimaced. “How often do you anticipate us having to flee paid killers?”

  “Often enough.” Erik glanced at the cameras and lidar. “But I don’t think we’ll have enough time to wait. Our tails have given up even pretending they aren’t following us. They’re going to make their move soon.”

  “So does this have to do with the Winthorpe case or that building? The list of people interested in killing us feels like it’s increasing each day, and that’s if we don’t count the captain on that list.”

  “Who knows? I’ve been assuming this is about Winthorpe and Tessan, but you might be right, and this is about Halcyon.” Erik surveyed the nearby terrain through the cameras and windows, his brow furrowed. “Skim the tops of the trees, Emma. Dial down our speed. You’re risking outrunning the guys. We don’t want to goad them just yet.”

  The MX 60 dropped and slowed, still zooming past the dense trees and mountainous jags just below. Even a flitter control freak like Erik might not risk too many stunts at this speed and altitude in this terrain without Emma. Even standard autonomous mode didn’t provide that kind of careful control, and it certainly hadn’t been intended for fleeing criminal killers.

  Jia glanced at the yoke moving itself and shook her head. A soldier, an AI, and a corp princess. What a team we make.

  The other flitters moved closer to them. Whatever Erik’s plan was, he needed to execute it.

  “Emma, can you transmit an emergency laser point-to-point comm beam to the closest flitter?” Erik asked.

  “Yes.” Emma sounded confused. “Should I?”

  “Yeah.” Erik glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe Jia’s rubbing off on me, but I want to make sure these are people I need to take out before I start shooting at them.”

  “It’s not an unreasonable thing to do,” Jia commented.

  “Preparing beam,” Emma announced. “Contact established.”

  “This is Detectives Erik Blackwell and Jia Lin of the NSCPD,” Erik announced. “I don’t know why you’re following us, but I have reason to believe you have hostile intent. Why don’t you back off before you get hurt? We will defend ourselves with all necessary force if you display any hostile actions.”

  A passenger-side window opened on the target vehicle. A rifle barrel poked out.

  “That answers that question,” Erik muttered. “Emma, take evasive action while I shoot back at these idiots.”

  The flitter tilted as the enemy rifle flashed. The shooter fired again, and the vehicle shuddered. It tilted back and forth a few times before leveling out, and an alarm sounded.

  “What the hell just happened?” Erik demanded.

  “There are failures in some of the left rear electrical systems, including the left rear grav field emitter,” Emma reported. “I’m attempting to reroute power, but I’m limited by the design of the vehicle and the control system themselves.”

  “Electrical failure?” Erik grunted. “Damn. Disruptor bullets. I should invest in a few.”

  Emma tilted the MX 60 again and Jia groaned.

  “We need to even the odds,” she suggested. “We’re not going to win if it’s just them shooting at us until we crash.”

  “I agree.” Erik popped out and sprayed a burst at the drivers of two of their tails.

  The bullets blasted through the windshield and struck the drivers. Both slumped forward on their yokes, sending their vehicles plunging into the ground, their existences ending in columns of flame and smoke.

  Another disruptor bullet struck the MX 60 and the entire vehicle started shaking.

  “I can’t maintain grav field integrity,” Emma complained. “What an expensive piece of sensitivity and consumer-level quality. I’ll have to take us down soon, or the remaining emitters might overload, and we’ll go down the hard way.”

  “No,” Erik growled. “Keep us up. Do whatever you need to. We’re almost there. Just give me a few more seconds.”

  He repaid the rifleman’s fire by spraying bullets through the front of his car. Several struck and killed the driver. His next burst took out a few emitters on one of the vehicles, but without an advanced AI to compensate for the damage, the vehicle spun out of control, smashed into the ground, and exploded. Only one enemy flitter remained, but he hadn’t been hit by any of Erik’s attacks.

  Erik glanced down at the ground. Green and brown treetops rushed by in a near-blur. A bullet whizzed by the flitter.

  “Emma, change the external color to dark green,” he ordered.

  “That will cause a power drain,” Emma countered.

  “Just do it! We need to distract him for just a second.”

  “So be it.”

  More alarms sounded and the remaining enemy flitter slowed for a moment, obviously confused. Erik took the few seconds of confusion and blew out its right emitters with two careful shots. The flitter jerked down, then leveled out after a few seconds but continued to fall. It clipped a tree, the windshield shattering, and sliced through several branches before striking the ground, sending up a plume of dirt and rock.

  “Take us down, Emma,” Erik ordered. “Right on top of him.”

  Erik dropped back into his seat and nodded to Jia. “Get ready. These are some guys who deserve electrical enemas.”

  She nodded, drawing her pistol. “Let’s do it.”

  The smoking MX 60 coaste
d to the ground, bouncing once off the ground with the help of its makeshift grav field before slowing to a stop. Erik and Jia threw their doors open simultaneously. Two men fell out of the damaged flitter, guns in hand. They dropped to one knee, and Jia stunned them both with quick shots. A third thug went for a rifle. She fired two bolts into his chest and he fell forward, drooling.

  Sirens sang in the distance. The police reinforcements sounded like they were only a couple of minutes away.

  Erik grimaced as he looked at the long scratches on his flitter. “How much of that will you be able to self-repair, Emma?”

  “Most of the body damage I can fix using the self-repair systems, but some of the electrical components will need to be replaced,” Emma reported. “It’s going to cost more than a bar bill.”

  “Damn.”

  Jia jogged over to the stunned men. “You’re under arrest. You know what? You’re stunned. Who the hell cares?” She holstered her pistol and pulled out binding ties. She looked at Erik as he set his rifle on the top of his flitter.

  She gestured to the men after binding them all. “They aren’t wearing fake uniforms.”

  “Let’s hope we can get something from them.” Erik patted the side of his MX 60. “Otherwise I put this baby through all that for nothing.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  July 13, 2228, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station, Office of Detectives Jia Lin and Erik Blackwell

  Erik looked up from the dealer repair bill when Captain Monahan entered the room.

  “Good morning, Captain,” Erik offered.

  “I don’t think I’ve had a single good morning since you got here, Blackwell. You’ve taken years off my life with stress.”

  Erik grinned. “Then get a de-aging treatment. Maybe that’s why I’m so much more cheerful.”

  The captain grunted and looked around. “Where’s Detective Lin? This is for her too, but if she’s going to be a while, I’ll just tell you, and you can pass it along to her.”