“We do work together.” Jia shrugged. “That comes with the territory.”
Sometimes the best defense was to face the attack head-on.
Imogen picked up the bottle in the center of the table and refilled her glass. Like Chinara, she was more interested in the alcohol than her fish. She shook her head lightly at the approaching waiter.
Jia was trapped.
There was no escape from her friends’ attention. On some level, she knew this was why she’d been spending less time with them. Keeping track of lies was one thing, but that didn’t mean that they would never see through them.
“That’s the thing,” Imogen continued. “Working with the man you’re dating means you’re getting the equivalent of multiple dates a day. It has to be accelerating certain things because effectively you’re living with him even if you aren’t, you know, actually living with him. You know what I mean?” She blinked a couple of times, clearly confused by her own statement.
Jia eyed her friend. “’Certain things?’ I think I’m comfortable with where things are. Erik and I are in a good place.”
“Are you?” Chinara asked. “I wonder if that’s true. What about love? Are you in love with Erik?”
Jia managed not to flinch. It was dangerous to spend time around people who knew her too well.
“Love’s just a word,” Jia mumbled.
As she said it, she accepted that it was a word that carried special meaning. It also efficiently and effectively described how she felt about Erik. She’d wanted to run from it for so long, but it was always there, waiting. Worrying about romance when a dark conspiracy threatened the galaxy felt selfish.
“Uh-huh,” Chinara replied. “Sure, it’s just a word. Are you saying you don’t love him?”
“I…things are more complicated than that.”
“’Complicated’ is another way of saying yes.”
Jia shrugged. “If you say so.”
“What are your dates like nowadays?” Imogen asked, peering at Jia like she was waiting for a telltale sign of a lie. “That can prove a lot about the state of a relationship. All the wild fun stuff is cool and all, but it’s when you settle into a routine and you’re still happy that you know it’s working. No one can have constant spontaneous romance forever.”
Jia thought constant spontaneous romance sounded like hellish punishment, but she appreciated her friend’s sentiment.
“There’s nothing special about our dates,” Jia replied. “We just do the usual, dinner and something fun. We’ve got a date tomorrow, nothing different from you and your guys. Now, let’s stop talking about this. I don’t want another word about love and marriage unless it involves Chinara.”
Imogen nodded slowly with a sly look. “Fine.” She turned to Chinara. “Let’s talk about your wedding plans.” She rubbed her hands together. “There might be a lot of time, but there’s also so much to plan.”
Jia smiled. Accepting she loved Erik was easy enough, but she wasn’t prepared to talk about it to anyone, friends or family. Things like marriage lay far in the future, if at all.
First, they needed to survive his revenge.
Chapter Fourteen
April 21, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Apartment of Erik Blackwell
“Oh, come on!” Jia leaned forward on the couch, her finger pointed at the video as she shouted. “That defense is so bad our goalie must be taking bribes from the other team. I’d say he was blind, but he was able to dodge the other player. He’s good at protecting himself, just not the goal.”
Erik laughed and placed his arm around Jia’s shoulders as she leaned back on the couch. Jia getting worked up over the sphere ball quarter-finals was as predictable as the tides.
If their team wasn’t destroying the other team, she was convinced it was a plot by the conspiracy, but Erik preferred an even game. There wasn’t much point in watching a blowout.
The ebb and flow of the sports battle was the entertainment. Jia preferred the expected results based on cold, statistical analysis despite witnessing how her own attitude and sheer willpower could overcome numbers and superior equipment.
“I doubt he’s taking bribes,” Erik suggested as she calmed down.
“You’re right,” Jia muttered. “There are tons of other possibilities.” She put up a hand and started lifting fingers as she called out three of them. “Drug abuse. Too many hits to the head and insufficient follow-up medical care. Someone could have kidnapped his family and is threatening them.”
“Or,” Erik replied, “it could just be the game being the game.” He reached over to slowly close the three fingers of accusation. “They’re still in the lead, so you don’t have a reason to be this pissed off.”
“That lead is going to evaporate if the wings and the goalie don’t stop the other team, and I’m not convinced they are going to be able to do that, based on what I’m seeing right now.” Jia folded her arms and frowned. “They could go all the way this year if they keep it together. No suspensions over Venusian luck rabbits, no injuries, great team roster and depth.” She narrowed her eyes and turned to look at him. “Are you sure he’s not taking bribes? He could make a lot of money throwing games with more on the line.”
“It could be. Anything’s possible.” Erik gestured to the game hologram with his free hand. “Maybe you’re not thinking this through.”
“How do you figure?”
“He could be a human-alien hybrid who is suffering side effects from his genetic engineering.”
“Huh.” Jia nodded slowly. “That alien mutant on Venus did move pretty well. He might have made a nice goalie.” She rubbed her chin. “But you could get more value out of a modified center or forward.”
Erik laughed, not sure if she was serious. She could keep a clear mind about almost everything but sphere ball. He didn’t hold it against her. Everyone had their weakness, and she was far from the only sports fanatic in the UTC.
“So you’re saying you don’t mind illegal genetic engineering as long as it makes for a better sphere ball team?” he asked.
Jia jerked her head in his direction. “I’m not saying that. I was just thinking about it in a hypothetical sense. Of course I don’t support illegal genetic engineering.” She jumped up when the game hologram froze. “What the heck? What’s going on? I swear, if terrorists attacked the Dragons, I’ll personally track every last one of them down, stick your TR-7 up their asses, and use four barrels.”
“That’s some next-level obsession, but I’m sure Emma’s got an explanation for us.”
Emma appeared next to the hologram in a green and gold Dragons uniform. “I apologize for stopping your feed, but something has arisen.”
“Something more important than the quarter-final match?” Jia ground her teeth. “I know you don’t care about this, but it—”
“Yes, far more important.”
The image changed to an anchor staring at the camera with a stern, concerned look. “We now go to a representative of the Vand family.”
Another change brought a severe-looking woman with an overly angular face into view. She sat in a tastefully decorated office with a frown. “There has been much speculation in the last few weeks about where the current head of the family is. Until today, it has been a matter of rank and unnecessary speculation put about by people who have no reason to question the Vand family. Miss Sophia Vand, as the current head of the family and the foundation, was under stress few people in the UTC could understand, and found it necessary to take a short vacation out of the public eye.”
The woman took a deep breath. “But now the situation has changed.” Her voice cracked. “It is with our greatest regret and sadness that we inform you the family has suffered a tragic loss. Yesterday, during a recreational diving excursion, there was an unfortunate accident, followed by an equipment malfunction during the emergency recovery procedure. Sophia was without oxygen underwater for a significant period, and by the time she was recovered, she had passed. She was airl
ifted to the nearest medical facility, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.”
Emma dismissed the image. “The rest of the statement is extraneous mentions of her charity and activism designed to highlight what a wonderful woman she was supposed to be. There are additional exhortations to donate to her charities.” She scoffed. “Unsurprisingly, they failed to mention her murderous scheming.”
“I get all that, but why the elaborate story?” Erik shook her head. “Why don’t they just say she drowned?”
“I think they’re trying to make the lie easier to swallow by explaining how one of the most well-guarded and wealthiest women in the UTC ended up dead on vacation,” Jia replied. “There are already a lot of conspiracy theories floating around about her, just none close to the truth. This way, they can hide it.”
“You think?”
Jia nodded. “Plenty of wealthy people die doing risky activities. They might leak some other details later about her not using the maximum safety equipment or something like that. It’ll feed into people’s preconceptions even more and give them a way to channel the below-the-surface disdain that fed into the conspiracy theories. The last thing they need is half the UTC probing her death.”
“This still seems sloppy.” Erik frowned. “Isn’t the best lie one partially based on the truth? Why not just claim there was some sort of accident in space rather than dying on Earth?”
Jia shook her head. “Someone like Vand leaves too big a trail. If they say she died in space, they’d need to account for the ship being destroyed. If they admit a ship blew up, that’s going to get the government involved, including the Fleet. If they had total control of the Fleet, they wouldn’t need hidden Tin Men factories.”
He thought for a second. “Ok, that makes sense.”
“And a destroyed ship begs for people to go find what’s left of it. They might want to collect debris to look for terrorist or insurrectionist involvement. But drowning in a simple accident? There’s no great mystery to investigate, minimal equipment to recover, and if they tossed it out when investigators showed up, it wouldn’t seem as suspicious.” Jia stood and paced. “The family more than anyone would be the ones who would want to investigate if there was any hint of foul play, and now they’re cutting off that avenue and also trying to smother the other rumors about how long she’s been dead. It was a Qin Shi Huang play. Not sure if that means they’re involved with the conspiracy or just that the conspiracy set up the lie.”
“Qin Shi Huang? I remember him from history class.” Erik looked up for a moment to pull out the details. “First emperor of China, but he died, maybe from mercury poisoning from drinking some alchemist’s immortality potions. They were worried about an uprising, so they just pretended he was still alive until they couldn’t.”
“Exactly.” Jia stopped pacing and furrowed her brow. “That’s the one thing I don’t get. Sophia Vand might be important in the conspiracy, but it’s not like the conspiracy is publicly known for having a lot of control. Even if they announced she was dead the next day, it’s not like there would suddenly be a bunch of rebellions on frontier colonies.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised they concealed this for as long as they did. There’s a balance between setting up a plausible lie and giving people time to become suspicious.”
Erik shrugged. “If someone lies about something, that means they think people knowing the truth is going to mess things up. These people are willing to do a lot of things to keep their secrets, and they aren’t that afraid of the government.”
“She must have been a high-level member of the conspiracy, one of the top leaders.” Jia nodded as it came together. “If they lied, they had to worry about the downstream effects, but they know we survived, which means the lie might not have been about concealing it from the people hunting them. I think our ID involvement has given us something of a shield. That could be it.”
“But we’re not the only ones hunting them,” Erik replied. “Even if they assume the ID and CID know everything we know, there could be other groups, other members of the conspiracy, or even other conspiracies. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.” He leaned back with a frown. “They haven’t compromised the entire ID. Otherwise, Alina would have been benched a long time ago.”
“That’s valid. There might be others like the woman Sophia referenced.” Jia scratched her cheek. “I don’t know if that makes me more comfortable. It means there could be some other dangerous conspiracy out there fighting our targets for power. If these other people, assuming there are other people, were the good guys, the ID would know about them and would be working with them.”
“No such thing as a secret cabal of good guys?” Erik asked with a smile. “Aren’t we that?”
“Maybe, but it’s because we’re just two individuals that we’ve managed to slip through the cracks.” Jia shook her head.
Erik didn’t drop his previous line of thought. “Speaking of the ID, aren’t their agents a secret cabal of mostly good guys?”
“It’s not like their existence is secret, just their individual members. But that’s not as important as the other implications of the death announcement.”
“Which are?” Erik frowned, unsure of where she was going.
“If they’re ready to admit she’s dead, they believe they’re ready for the potential fallout, or even for a counterattack from their collected enemies who might sense weakness.” Jia returned to the couch. “Even third-rate reporters know we were on Venus, which means the conspiracy would have to know that we were involved with Vand’s death. That’s assuming she didn’t transmit some final message making it clear.”
Erik shrugged. “Big deal. It’s like you said; they’re weaker now. That means it’ll be easier to deal with them, especially now that their Tin Man factory is gone. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing.” He inclined his head toward the frozen hologram. “Emma can restart our match feed. The game’s going to be over soon.” He gave a slight nod to Emma, who vanished and replaced the news feed with the game.
“That simple, huh?” Jia asked.
“There’s nothing simple about what we’re doing, which is why we should take our downtime when we have it.” Erik slipped his arm back around Jia’s shoulder. “There is going to be trouble waiting for us until we finish off all the Sophia Vands out there. The match is almost over, and we have plenty of time to do other fun nighttime activities.”
Jia turned back toward the hologram. “If the Dragons lose, I’m going to be in a bad mood. Aren’t you worried about that?”
“Nah.” Erik offered her a mischievous grin. “In that case, I’ll just have to do more work. There’s nothing so bad that fun nighttime and athletic activity can’t make a person feel better.” He thought for one second more. “Or if there is, I hope I never find out what it is.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jia laughed in delight. “You know what? This is a fun nighttime activity, though the machine’s doing all the work.”
She ducked her simulated exoskeleton under a low-hanging safety sign suspended from the top of the current tunnel. Post-game, when she’d stepped out of the bathroom at Erik’s apartment and spotted him holding her tactical suit rather than something slinky, she’d been confused.
Erik hadn’t told her he’d made a training reservation, but after he explained, it made sense. It was early in the evening, and despite her team’s victory, she needed to burn off her nervous energy one way or another.
Her partner leapt over her with a burst of his jump thrusters. “Emma’s got the simulation tuned better to the exos Alina gave us. We both need to get more used to their superior maneuverability, though this isn’t necessarily the best scenario for that.”
“Then why did you select it?” Jia asked.
“Because sometimes,” Erik replied, “you just want to take someone out. The scenario is straightforward: shock and awe kill raid against terrorists holed up in a building complex. The primary target is their leader, who is
a handsome copy of me, and who should be holed up in the primary security room, and we have intel on its location. The bastards don’t have any hostages, and we don’t have to take them alive. The scenario presupposes we’ve managed to gain control of local exterior cameras and drones and spoof them. All we need to do is search and destroy. Our recon suggests no exterior enemy forces. Like I said, easy.”
Jia lifted her arm, bringing the exo’s arm with it and raising the massive rifle with its grenade attachment. “You and Emma have really dialed down the weirdness lately. It makes me suspicious.”
“What do you mean by that?” Emma asked, still formless. “I don’t think you’ve encountered weirdness since you aided my stabilization. All our scenarios have some pragmatic and realistic aspects.”
“That’s debatable,” Jia replied. “In this case, I’m talking about no strange aliens appearing or bikini babes in training. We’re not on a strange colony world or an alien planet.” She continued her advance over the narrow sky bridge connecting their tower to the target building in the distance, keeping alert for enemies despite the scenario parameters. “It’s almost like you’ve decided our training scenarios should reflect reality.”
“Reality?” Erik scoffed. “Emma, is this room secure?”
“I’ve made it that way,” the AI replied. “You two have a habit of forgetting where you are in simulations, so I often go ahead and handle that while making allowances for external transmissions.”
Erik sidled his exoskeleton up beside Jia. “We fought a group of full-conversion cyborgs on Venus who were led by an alien-human hybrid. I don’t know what realistic is anymore. We could pretty much stick anything in these simulations and get close to the truth. Changelings, yaoguai, half-aliens. I wouldn’t be surprised if Generous Gao showed up on a mission and tried to kill us.”
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