One Dark Future

by Michael Anderle

  Jared placed his face in his hands. “I’d deserve it. I’d deserve that and more, but my sister Mara doesn’t.”

  “Your sister?” Jia frowned. “What does she have to do with anything? I thought she was a low-level office drone.”

  “She is,” Jared replied with a heavy sigh. “Here’s the simple version: a couple of days ago, I was contacted by someone, a guy named Ralic. I’d never met the guy or heard of him, but he started name-dropping my old contact, and he made it clear that a new syndicate moving into town had an investment in me, and that they’d expect it to pay off. He wanted me to purge the surveillance data on a case. Best I can tell, it was a minor breaking and entering thing. It was a 1-2-2 case, but it’s low priority and not even my case.”

  “The case that led to Ceres Galactic and the councilman started low and unimportant, too.” Jia scoffed. “Seriously? Bribes that require no favors? Sure. What syndicate?”

  “Hell if I know, and I didn’t want to look into it in case it started something I couldn’t handle from IA before I could get it under control.” Jared lifted his head. “With the way the cops and CID have been ripping the balls off all the local syndicates, I thought there couldn’t be anyone left, let alone the guys paying me. But it doesn’t matter.” He clenched his jaw. “I told them to screw off. They threatened to turn me into IA. I told them to go ahead, I’d do everything in my power to help the NSCPD and CID track their asses down and fry them. I also said I’d make sure the entire law enforcement community was looking into their case.”

  Jia smiled despite herself. “You’ve got balls after all. But that sounds like starting something.”

  “Yeah, it started something all right.”

  “You mentioned your sister.”

  Jared nodded. “They sent me a bunch of pictures of her going into her apartment. Her at her job. Her at a restaurant. Ralic sent me a message saying how it’s always sad when people get hurt, but it’s a big city.”

  “Okay.” Jia nodded, sympathy leaking into her hardened heart. “I get where you’re coming from, but if they’re threatening your sister, why haven’t you grabbed her and gone straight to the 1-2-2 to ask for protective custody, especially after everything you just said? If you do what you threatened to do and shine a light on the investigation, you can get them all taken down while your sister’s being protected.”

  “I can’t risk it. When I told them all that stuff before, I was bluffing.” Jared swallowed and surveyed the area slowly, his eyes haunted. “I can’t be the only leftover piece of trash in the department. I might just be the only one in a position to get to the data they want since it’s a 1-2-2 case. If I go to the department and blow the whistle, I can’t be sure the cop assigned to guard my sister won’t put a bullet in her brain.” He turned toward Jia. “But you and Erik, you’re not part of the department, and if there is one thing you’ve proven, it’s that you’re not on any syndicate’s payroll. You could help me by relocating my sister until everything gets taken care of.”

  “Let’s pretend I’m willing to help you with this and risk my life rather than just call the department or the CID.” Jia sighed. “I need to understand something first.”

  “Sure,” Jared replied. “What?”

  “Why did you call me and not Erik?”

  Jared let out a quiet, pained chuckle. “I know he’s not dirty, but I also know he’s not like you.”

  Jia frowned. “Meaning what?”

  “I always got the feeling he joined the department so he could continue kicking ass rather than because he cared about justice. I figured he wouldn’t want to risk himself for something dangerous if it wasn’t some big, high-profile thing.” Jared shrugged. “And I couldn’t take the risk he’d say no. If he said no first, there would be a bigger chance of you saying no.”

  Jia pinched the bridge of her nose, a headache already coming on. “Okay. I’m not saying no, but I’m also not agreeing. If I’m going to help you with this, I’m going to need Erik, and that means talking to him about it.”

  “Fair enough. Just…hurry. I don’t know how much longer I can stall Ralic.”

  Chapter Six

  This was not the night Erik had wanted nor expected as he sipped a beer on his couch. Jia paced in front of him, her gestures animated and her voice loud as she related her meeting with Jared the hour before. Erik had known something was off when she’d called him and asked to talk right away but refused to speak about it anywhere but face-to-face. He could tell from her voice things were serious.

  “Shit never ends here, does it?” Erik commented after Jia finished. “It’s like…what’s the dragon monster thing where you cut the head off and more come back?” He frowned. “Alina would know.”

  “A hydra.” Jia stopped her furious pacing to settle into Erik’s recliner. “But this isn’t a hydra. This is just cockroaches moving into uncontested territory. There’s too much food and filth in a place as large as Neo SoCal. There always will be. This just happens to be a situation where it’s linked to the 1-2-2. I don’t doubt this new syndicate is putting the squeeze on leftover dirty cops and other department personnel all over the metro.”

  Erik polished off his beer and set the empty bottle on a small side table. He considered Jared’s plight before offering his answer. “We’re not cops anymore. It’s not our responsibility. We could just call IA and let them handle it.”

  Jia nodded. “I know, and I’m doubting this has anything to do with the conspiracy. They’d know better than to try to get at us through Jared Thompson. I assume it’s exactly what it appears to be: a dirty cop whose past is catching up with him. I’m also not excited about the idea of getting involved in local trouble that’s not related to the conspiracy. There’s helping make the world a better place, and then there’s taking on unnecessary trouble.”

  “We don’t know when Alina will need us again,” Erik replied. He laced his fingers together and stuck them behind his head. “If we got all spun up working some local case and then have to leave in the middle, that might be trouble, but at the same time, we’re not her bitches, and she’s not our boss. We don’t need her permission.”

  “Then you think we should do something?” Jia asked. “Despite the speech I just gave, I’m having a hard time not wanting to get involved. Everything he said was right, and as far as I remember, his sister is nice enough. I met her once, and she recommended a nice restaurant. She seemed a little embarrassed by her brother when he said some crap to me.”

  Erik had offered resistance to see how Jia would react. Now he understood they were close on the issue.

  “I might be focused on getting revenge, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t give a shit about what being a cop meant,” Erik replied. “And I don’t like the idea of our hard work getting undone because Jared Thompson couldn’t keep his house clean. Besides…” he chuckled, “we could use this to our advantage against the conspiracy, so it’s a two-for-one.”

  Jia’s brow lifted. “How? As I said, I doubt they’re related. It’s not impossible, but I don’t think the conspiracy would try to get at us that way.”

  “They don’t have to be involved, but we can still use this against them by taking advantage of what you were worried about.” Erik inclined his head toward her. “Our reputation. If the conspiracy’s watching us, and we’re messing around with local syndicates despite not being cops anymore, they’re going to start asking why. It might not lead to anything, but they’ll waste resources looking into it.”

  “I didn’t think of that.” Jia stood, confidence returning to her face. “I miss being a cop. Sometimes it feels good to take down some local scumbag who isn’t part of a galaxy-spanning conspiracy. I’ll call Jared—”

  “Detective Thompson has just sent a message to your PNIU, Erik,” Emma interrupted. “The text of the message is as follows: ‘Please go to Mara’s place right away. There’s trouble. I’m worried about her.’ He sent the address.”

  Erik frowned. “Huh? Call him back fo
r me.”

  “Very well.”

  Erik stood and cracked his knuckles. He had wanted to get involved, but he’d thought they would have more time to develop a strategy. Jared needed to understand they would be the ones controlling the situation. He’d come to them for a favor, and they were only getting involved because of an innocent woman, not because they liked the guy.

  “He’s not answering,” Emma reported in an annoyed voice. “I can verify the calls are reaching his PNIU, but nothing else.”

  Jia shook her head, her brow creased in worry. “He waited too long. Damn it. They might have already taken him out.

  “Doesn’t make sense to take him out before he can help them,” Erik replied. He walked toward his bedroom to grab his holster. “But it’s not like it’ll hurt for us to take some time out of our day to check on his sister. Emma, call Mara Thompson.”

  “Her PNIU is currently not accepting calls,” Emma replied.

  Erik halted and frowned. “Meaning she’s got it disabled, or meaning someone threw her into an incinerator?”

  “I can’t give you a high-confidence answer to that without more data, Erik. There are multiple possibilities besides the aforementioned two. Someone could also be blocking it.”

  “Damn it.” Erik grunted in frustration. “Jared’s not going to make this easy.”

  “Should we call for backup?” Jia asked. “Or send someone there?”

  Erik shook his head and continued toward his bedroom. “Jared could be right,” he called over his shoulder. “We could be calling dirty cops to finish her off, and we might need to get friskier than the on-scene cops would prefer.”

  “Friskier?”

  Erik stopped at his bedroom door and shot her a grin. “I’m not worried about taking kidnapping syndicate scumbags alive. We’ll slap on our vests and arm up in the MX 60. Emma can fly.”

  “I should always fly,” Emma commented. “I’m far superior at it.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Jared threw himself behind a flitter and pistol bullets ripped into the vehicle. The guns’ loud reports echoed around the parking platform. He didn’t understand why there were no drones converging on the area, but understanding wasn’t necessary for his current predicament. The important takeaway was that his survival depended on him. Shots continued to perforate the vehicle as he crawled forward, his gun in hand. Stunning one or two thugs wouldn’t be enough to win.

  He needed a slugthrower, which meant he’d need to take one from a thug, but that would require him getting closer. Jared might have his cocky moments, but he understood he was no Jia or Erik. He wasn’t going to win against a group of enemies with better weapons. Every time he’d done something impressive, he’d been with a group of other cops.

  A thug darted between two wide cargo flitters. Jared fired his stun pistol and hit the bastard in the leg, and he toppled to the ground with a groan. Two more shots left him twitching and drooling, with Jared smirking. More bullets ripped into his cover, and he half-stood, hunched over as he rushed behind an undamaged vehicle.

  “It didn’t have to be like this, Thompson,” shouted a thug. “Ralic’s just collecting his due. You’re a dirty thief who took money and won’t pay it back.”

  Jared’s heart hammered. He’d managed to send a message to Erik and Jia before Ralic’s enforcers jammed the area. There was no way a bleeding heart like Jia wouldn’t go help Mara. All Jared needed to do was stall until the local cops arrived. At this point, he didn’t care if any of them were dirty. It didn’t matter what happened to him as long as his sister was safe. A jammer here and there wasn’t enough to stop all of the cameras and drones from noticing what was going on.

  Bullets ripped through the windows of a cargo flitter. The thugs were circling and trying to flank him on both sides. He didn’t have time to wait for reinforcements that might not even be coming. The thugs splitting up gave him a chance to take some down and get their weapons. He might not be an Obsidian Detective, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t act like one. In the last minutes of his life, he would down fighting like a man.

  Jared stayed low and squeezed off shots. The bright white bolts flew toward the thugs on one side, briefly destroying the shadows. One struck a man square in this chest and he collapsed to his knees before falling forward, his face smacking into the ground with a loud thud. That left two men on that side. He could win.

  “You really thought you could take the money and never have to pay back what you owe?” screamed a thug over his loud pistol shots.

  Bullets whizzed over Jared’s head. There was no way this could keep up without the cops showing up. This wasn’t the Shadow Zone.

  Jared rolled between two matching bright yellow luxury flitters to escape the latest barrages, his pulse thundering in his ears. He wasn’t in the Zone, but he also hadn’t seen anyone else in the last couple of minutes other than the thugs. If they were smart enough to bring a jammer, they might be smart enough to redirect people and not cause a mess. He wanted to believe that people would hear gunfire and contact the authorities, but the thugs didn’t need hours to finish him off. They only needed minutes, and once people were inside the commerce level, they wouldn’t hear anything from the outside.

  “Should I have just done what they asked?” Jared muttered under his breath.

  He’d always thought of himself as a decent cop and the bribes as bonuses that didn’t hurt anything or anyone. It wasn’t like he was helping gangsters assassinate council members. Everyone understood that the way to survive in Neo SoCal was to keep your head down, take what ended up in your lap, and look the other way. Then Erik and Jia had arrived, and everything had changed.

  Jared wanted to hate them like before. He wanted to spit at their arrogance and their high-paying private-sector job, but whatever their motivations and current employment, they’d only done what cops were supposed to do: protect and serve. No amount of self-pity or delusion made him better than them. If he’d been half the cop they were, his sister wouldn’t be in danger.

  The flitter behind him jerked from shots, but none of the bullets made it through. If he survived, he’d need to write the company and congratulate them on producing such a sturdy vehicle. He took a deep breath and lifted his pistol as the thugs continued closing, then rolled to the opposite side of the vehicle and ran forward in a feeble attempt to counter-flank the enemy.

  Jared’s ragged breathing filled his ears. The two thugs on his closer side pointed their weapons at him. He shot twice in rapid succession, aiming for their heads, and the stun bolts found their marks. Both men fell backward, their guns flying from their hands. He pivoted around the back of a flitter when fire tore through his side. Pain blossomed through his shoulder next.

  He managed a couple more steps before collapsing to the ground, his shoulder and side in agony. His vision wavered, and he realized he’d dropped his stun pistol. Blood splatters covered the ground. Jared groaned, the pain clouding his mind. He wasn’t sure how many rounds he’d taken.

  Jared couldn’t hold up his body and slumped forward, his face landing in his own blood. Mocking laughter sounded from behind him, along with heavy footfalls.

  “You should have just done what you were told, Thompson,” called out a thug. “Then you wouldn’t be full of bullets.”

  Jared tried to think about what Erik or Jia would do. They would come up with some witty comeback and then kill or disable ten times the number of men. He could do it. Erik and Jia weren’t gods. They weren’t even yaoguai or changelings.

  “Blow me,” Jared muttered. He could barely see the approaching man through his darkening vision.

  “What was that, Thompson?” the man asked. He pressed the hard barrel against the back of Jared’s head. “You still think you’re bigger than Ralic?”

  “That’s what his mom said.” Jared lost consciousness.

  Chapter Seven

  Jia handed Erik a TR-7 magazine, and he inserted it into his rifle with a smile. Ther
e was something oddly relaxing about routine, even when it might involve going into battle. At least in this situation, she didn’t expect any significant trouble or strange surprises. A syndicate wasn’t the conspiracy.

  The MX 60 settled into a parking space outside of the residential level containing Mara Thompson’s apartment. There weren’t a large number of flitters there, which heartened Jia. Fewer vehicles meant fewer people who might get caught up in a fight. She and Erik had already armed up, including tac vests and rifles. Her weapon might not have four barrels, but it was plenty deadly, especially against syndicate enforcers who weren’t expecting them.

  “Do you have control of the local drones and cameras?” Erik asked.

  “Yes, I have control,” Emma reported. “I’m also inside the main apartment registry. I should warn you. There are multiple vehicles present in the parking platform that aren’t registered to residents.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” Jia stuffed magazines into her vest pockets.

  “I’m cross-referencing with known arrests records, but I’m not coming up with anything.”

  “We’ll assume they’re smart enough to hide a little,” Jia replied.

  “We need to get Mara under our protection before we call in any reinforcements.” Erik opened the door and nodded to Jia. “Ready for this?”

  “It could be nothing.” Jia stepped onto the parking platform. She flipped off her safety. “Or it could be an entire floor filled with murderous, antisocial criminals. So, sure, I’m ready.”

  “Sounds like a normal day for us.” Erik headed toward the door, his gun pointed forward. “See anything, Emma?”

  “You might find this interesting,” Emma replied before feeding a camera feed to their smart lenses. Two large thugs pulled Mara out of her apartment and backhanded her when she slapped them. She fell to the ground, holding her reddening cheek. Red targeting highlights appeared, identifying four enemies, with two guarding a hallway intersection leading to Mara’s apartment, both with guns drawn.