Science Fiction: GU: Justice Net (Science Fiction, Dystopian, The G.U. Trilogy Book 1)

by David Archer

  Martin rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “It's not so terrible,” he said. “I'll admit that I was hoping for something similar, that we could continue, even if he came home.”

  Charlotte looked him in the eye, and a half grin materialized on her face. “Since he's been gone, I've had to look closely at all those feelings. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I had reached the point of knowing that I needed you, more than I needed him. If he had come home, I would've tried to keep everything normal for him, but I think we both know it wouldn't have lasted. Carson, he would never do some of the things you've taught me to love so much, he's just too—he's too conventional, I guess. His mother raised him to be respectful of women, which is a good thing, I guess, but it means that our sex life was pretty—well, boring.” She picked up her glass and took a sip of tea, then set it down and went on. “Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that no matter how I might have tried to make things work with him, I know that I would have reached the point of saying the life we had just wasn't enough for me, anymore. I have these fantasies, fantasies I didn't even admit to myself I was having, about you and me being together all the time.” She suddenly looked down at her plate, and her face began to turn red.

  Martin squeezed her hand. “Then, you won't get upset with me if I tell you I have the same fantasies?”

  She kept her eyes down for another second or two, then looked up at him once more. “Do you still want it?”

  Martin smiled. “More than anything, but I want you to be sure you're ready before we take any step like that.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked deeply into his eyes again. “I'm ready,” she said.

  Her mood suddenly lifted, and Charlotte began to smile, the happy smile of a woman in love. They chatted as they finished their dinner, and when it was over, they went back to the living room and watched a couple of Cloudcast programs before going to shower together.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Carson's training was drawing crowds. The dozen who had begun watching the day before had multiplied to more than fifty, including several women, and every time he managed to land a blow or duck one, they broke out in applause and cheers.

  Roscoe looked the crowd over carefully, but didn’t see anyone he thought would be a likely opponent for Carson. In most cases, new fighters were assigned an opponent in their own weight class. The opponent might be just as new, or might be experienced; the only criterion normally used was body weight. Men fought men and women fought women, but unless the less experienced fighter requested to go out of class, his or her opponent would be no more than thirty pounds heavier or lighter.

  In order to keep Carson focused, Roscoe talked a few of those men into taking their turns as his sparring partner. Roscoe and Johnny stood by to watch as, one after another, seven different men took up positions in front of Carson. As always, the goal was for Carson to strike with the stick, and he was becoming skilled enough that four of them found themselves on the ground, gasping for breath.

  Roscoe felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked around. One of the guards stood there, a man that Roscoe knew as Georgie.

  “Got you a new one, I see,” Georgie said. “Think there's any hope?”

  Roscoe nodded. “He’s smart, and he know how to follow instructions. When he got here three days ago, he hadn't never been in a fight in his life, but now he's holding his own against these guys. Every one of them done killed somebody in the arena, most of them more than one, but they can't hang no mouse on him.”

  Georgie watched the sparring for several minutes, occasionally asking a question about one tactic or another, and Roscoe answered. “When's his first fight?” George asked.

  “He got here on Wednesday, so it should be next Thursday. They almost always give the new guy a week before his first bout. Reckon you can find out who he draw?”

  Georgie watched for a few more seconds, then turned around and walked away from the group. Roscoe kept one eye on him, and saw him speaking into his handheld radio. A few moments later, he walked back over to Roscoe.

  “They don't have anybody set up for him yet,” Georgie said. “You think he can go out of class?”

  Roscoe nodded his head. “As long as you don't go too big. Maybe you call the Cage, get him somebody with a couple kills under his belt, but who ain't too smart. He could handle that, and you can make some fast money with a big bet on him.”

  Georgie walked around the group of men in order to get a better view, then stood and watched for another half hour. As he left, he caught Roscoe's eye and nodded once.

  An hour later, he was back. “Made a call,” he said so only Roscoe could hear. “I got him somebody you know, I think, Lou Malkovich. He's big, but he's slow. He's already won five fights, but mostly just because they were stupid enough to let him get hold of them. He crushed them, squeezed them like a bear. Make sure your boy knows not to let him get a grip, or I'm going to lose a lot of money.” He walked away again.

  When they broke for lunch, Roscoe told Carson the news. “We done pulled it off,” he said. “Georgie, he one of the dicks, he called the Cage. You gonna fight Lou Malkovich. He's a big guy, but not too smart, and all you got to do is keep out of his reach. He does a bear hug thing, and he can crack your ribs like walnuts.”

  Carson was quiet for a moment. “Has he already killed people?”

  Roscoe nodded. “Yeah, and that's what will make him cocky. He gonna think you just another newbie, like all he need to do is get hold of you and it's over. You got to make sure he don't, and keep jabbing at him with that stick. You got to make him go down, then go for the kill.”

  Carson stared at his food for a moment, then looked up at Roscoe again. “We've still got one problem,” he said. “What happens if I just can't make myself kill him?”

  Roscoe shot him an evil grin. “Then you gonna die,” he said, “and Georgie and his dick buddies gonna beat me senseless before my next bout. If you die, I'm probably gonna die, too. You don't want old Roscoe to get killed, now do you?”

  Carson shook his head, but didn't say a word. They finished eating, turned in their boxes and trays, and went back to training.

  Their audience had grown to more than a hundred, and Carson looked at them nervously. “Is that Lou guy watching us? I'd hate for him to know what to expect from me.”

  Roscoe looked around and shook his head. “He won't be watching. He thinks he can handle anybody, even somebody like me. He's the type, he'll like fighting newbies like you, ’cause he thinks you ain't got a chance.”

  Carson continued to examine the crowd. “If I had the chance, I'd go and watch him practice. That's why I wondered if he might be watching me.”

  Johnny laughed. “Yeah, but you gotta remember, Professor, you got a brain. All he's got is muscle.”

  “Let's get back to it,” Roscoe said. “I want us to do something new.” He turned around and spoke to a couple of the bigger men in the crowd around them, and they grinned. One of them stepped up close to Carson, who looked at Roscoe with his eyes wide. “Professor, this is Big Leo. Since we know you're going to be going up against Lou, Big Leo is going to help us out. He'll spar with you for a while, and he's going to do everything he can to get you in a bear hug. We need to teach you ways to get out of it, just in case Lou gets hold of you.”

  Carson looked at Leo, and saw the big man still grinning at him. “Okay,” he said. “And just how do you suggest I do that?”

  Roscoe shrugged. “We'll figure that out when it happens.”

  Carson swallowed hard, and then made his first lunge at Leo. The big man sidestepped him and reached out to try to grab him, but Carson danced away.

  “That's good, try to stay out of his reach,” Roscoe yelled.

  Leo made another grab, and Carson ducked under his arms and drove the stick into his side. Leo let out a yelp, backed off a few steps and then came at him again. One of his hands caught Carson on the side of the head, stunning him for a second, and before he kn
ew what had happened Leo had his arms wrapped around him and was squeezing.

  Both of Carson's arms were trapped alongside his body, but they were free from the elbow down. He brought up the hand with the stick as hard as he could into Leo's belly, but the big fellow only grunted without letting go. Carson's face was turning red from exertion and lack of breath only a few seconds later, and Roscoe was yelling at him to do something, so he reached up with his left hand and got hold of the skin on the back of Leo's arm, then pinched and twisted as hard as he could.

  Leo's eyes went wide, and he let out a roar, but he held on. Carson was getting desperate, fighting for breath, and the rising sense of panic suddenly turned into rage. He threw his head back and then brought his forehead down as hard as he could into Leo's face, and blood sprayed from Leo's nose. Carson could hear something snap in it, and then suddenly he was free.

  He bounced back a couple of feet but Leo had his hands on his face, so Carson drove the stick into his solar plexus as hard as he could. Leo let out a loud chuff, and his hands went down to his chest just before his knees gave out and he fell onto his backside. Carson, still feeling the rage that had taken him without warning, swung a roundhouse kick that caught Leo in the side of his head, and the big man was suddenly out cold.

  The crowd erupted into a roar, and Carson was startled. He looked around, then glanced back down at Leo. His eyes went wide and he turned to Roscoe. “What happened?”

  Roscoe was laughing so hard he could barely answer, but he finally croaked out, “You kicked his ass, that's what happened! That's what I'm talking about, Professor!”

  A couple of Leo's buddies went to him and helped him get to his feet when he woke up a few minutes later. Leo stood for a moment, still a bit wobbly, then looked at Carson and smiled from ear to ear. “Man, you the first one ever kick my ass in here.” He looked over at Roscoe, then. “I thought you said this man was a candy ass?”

  Roscoe shrugged. “Was when he got here,” he said, and the crowd erupted into laughter and cheers again.

  After that, several of the bigger men volunteered to spar with Carson, each of them trying their best to get their arms around him. By the end of the day, Carson was instinctively ducking under the groping arms, and even dropped to the ground and rolled a few times, coming up on his feet as he stopped. He got grabbed a few times, but never lost his temper again like he had done with Leo. He kept his wits about him, and each time managed to break free.

  Pinching the back of his opponent’s arm was one of the more effective tricks he used, because the intense pain often made the arm go weak for a second. When that happened, he could usually spin out of the embrace. No one else let him use the head-butting technique on their face, but he found that bashing his head into their ears was almost as effective. If he smashed an ear several times, it would almost always make the man let go.

  A knee to the groin was another trick he caught on to quickly, but he only got to use it twice. After that, his opponents were careful not to leave that part of their anatomy exposed when they got hold of him.

  One man managed to grab him from behind, waiting until he spun out of one grip to grab him in another. Carson had a rougher time with that one, because he couldn't throw his head back hard enough to do any damage, and his hands couldn't reach any tender flesh on the arms. He forced himself to stay calm and think his way through it, though, and then reached behind himself to grab the man by his testicles. One good, hard squeeze was all it took to free him, but then he spun with the stick and the man was down and gasping for breath.

  Despite the fact that he was constantly winning these sparring matches, he never seemed to run out of volunteers. When they broke for dinner, Carson asked Roscoe about that.

  “Look around you,” Roscoe said. “Every man and woman here knows they got to go into that arena and fight to the death. These people that been sparring with you, they know they're out of your class, that they ain't going to go up against you. To them, that's a good reason to help you learn, because you might take out somebody they would have to fight.” He stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth, chewed for a few seconds and swallowed. “Besides, what else they got to do? Even when you kick they ass, they learning something, too.”

  “Okay, I guess I can see that,” Carson said. “I'm still worried about the people watching, though, what if I end up having to fight one of them later? They'll know a lot about how I fight.”

  Johnny chuckled. “I don't think I'd worry too much about that, Professor,” he said. “You know what I've seen? We give you a few little things to start with, but you're not just doing the things we told you, anymore. You're thinking your way through the problem, I can see that. Every time you get faced with something new, now, I can watch your face and see that you're thinking about how to handle it. Then you do something, and if that doesn't work, you do something else until it does. That's how you're going to win your fights, not just with the tricks we're teaching you. I'll be honest, when I first saw you I thought you didn't have a snowball’s chance, but now? Hell, I don't want to fight you.”

  Roscoe nodded his head. “He's right,” he said. “Most of these people, they look at me and see a big dumb black man, but just because I ain't got no fancy education don't mean I'm stupid. Most of the fights I done won was from figuring out how to handle things when it got rough. You got that in you, you know how to think about what's going on and see what you can do about it. That brain in your head, that's what is going to make you a survivor.”

  Carson looked at him. “Roscoe, trust me,” he said. “I figured out real quick that you aren't stupid. You watch everything that's going on, all the time, and I can see the wheels turning. You're analyzing everything, ready to do whatever has to be done if something goes wrong.”

  “That's how you stay alive in J-Net,” Roscoe said. “And you got it, too. That makes me glad, 'cause long as you stay alive in here, my family getting some extra help out there. I got a woman and four little kids, they need all the help they can get with me gone.”

  Carson smiled. “Then, I'm going to do my best to make sure they keep getting it,” he said.

  When dinner was over, Roscoe declared the training ended for the day. Carson went back to his room and took a shower, climbed into some clean clothes and carried his dirty clothes over to the laundry. The quick dry-clean method was effective, and a half hour later he was back in his room, kicked back on the bed and reading again.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Inspector Hansen was leaving his office for a late lunch when his holo-tab chimed. He touched it to bring up the display, and saw only a silhouette of someone he didn't recognize.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I think the proper question is can I help you,” the man said, his voice distorted and mechanical. “You have a problem on your hands, and I may be able to help you solve it.”

  An informant, Hansen figured. He wondered briefly which case the man might want to offer information on, but then asked, “Oh? And what might that be?”

  “You sent an innocent man to Justice Net,” the silhouette said. “You think you got the college rapist, but you didn't. You'll know that shortly, and then I will call you again.”

  The holo-tab went dark, and Hansen's eyebrows lowered in frustration. This person was claiming he got the wrong guy? Hansen grimaced and shook his head. With the witness identifications, DNA and all the tampered computer records, he had no doubt that Carson Pace was guilty. There was no way so much evidence could stack up against an innocent person, just no way. He shrugged off the caller and thought about lunch again.

  He left his office and hailed an Uber. The car settled to the floor in front of him and he climbed in, telling the AI to take him to the Billingsly's on Fifty-Six, where he had promised to meet his wife. She worked at a bank near there, and didn't mind accommodating his erratic lunch hours.

  Eight minutes later, his holo-tab chimed again. He touched it and saw his desk sergeant's face. “Inspector Hans
en,” he said.

  “Inspector, you might want to come back. We just got a call, there's been another victim raped at the University. Same MO as the guy we put away last week, same hooded jacket and everything.”

  “Oh, geez, a copycat? That's all I need.” He let out a sigh. “Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes.” He ended the call and looked at the AI's image in the corner of the screen in front of him. “Gigi, I need to go back to the station.”

  “Of course, Inspector,” the AI said, swelling to fill the screen again. “You will arrive at your destination in nine minutes.”

  Hansen used his holo-tab to call his wife and let her know what was happening, and promised to meet her for dinner instead. She wasn't happy, but she understood that she was married to a policeman. Broken lunch dates, and sometimes worse, were normal.

  When he got back to the station, he went directly to his office. The report of the most recent rape was already on his HD, and he read it quickly. The victim was Patricia Lightner, and she described an assault that was eerily similar to the previous ones. She had been taking a shortcut through a darkened area behind one of the gymnasiums, and had seen a man walking toward her wearing a hooded jacket. His head was down, and she never got a look at his face, but as soon as she passed him she was grabbed. Her attacker dragged her into an empty room off the hallway, threatened her and then proceeded to rape her. Moments later, he left her where she was and disappeared through the door.

  A chill went down Hansen's spine as he read the report a second time, and then he was up and out the door again. He flagged an Uber and told the AI to take him to Mercy Hospital, one level up. That's where the victim was taken, and where his officers had taken her statement.

  He fought with the door as the car settled to the floor at the hospital, but it refused to open until it had touched down. When it did, he rushed out and into the hospital, flashing his ID at the information desk to find out where Ms. Lightner could be located. Two minutes later, he walked into the curtained area of the ER where she was sitting on the bed.