One Dark Future

by Michael Anderle

  “I’ll go.” Erik sighed, admitting the truth. “I just don’t like underwater settlements.”

  Jia opened her mouth to add another justification before closing it. Everyone had their foibles, and it wasn’t like they needed to head underwater that often.

  Alina cleared her throat. “Now that we have that cleared up, I’m going to give you a straightforward assignment. I’ll be transmitting relevant ID information to Emma, and she can coordinate with Malcolm. I want you to investigate two of the corporate officers in particular using your disguises and false registration, and not to, uh, burn down the palace. We’re not sacking Troy here, we’re just checking on some stuff. It sounds like you’ll be restrained, if only to stop all that water from flooding in.”

  Erik gave her a lupine smile. “I’ll do what I need to do. Sometimes it involves fire, sometimes it involves water.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Alina shook her head.

  “Why just the two?” Jia asked.

  “They are the only ones who can be linked to all of the unusual activity we’ve been observing,” Alina answered. “The retreat is on the 29th. I’d recommend arriving a couple of days early, but note you’ll be relying on Emma and Malcolm to handle the insertion. The ID needs to be cautious about using their pull, especially now that we appreciate the scope of the conspiracy’s resources. A light touch will keep us in the war, even if it makes individual battles more difficult.”

  “Expendable assets.” Jia offered Alina a thin smile. “Understood.”

  Alina shrugged her shoulders. “Just don’t get caught or die, and you won’t need help.”

  Erik stared into the distance with a mischievous look. “But trouble’s just so much fun.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Erik and Jia descended the Invisible Tower and loaded into the MX 60, which was currently a dull gray color to blend in. They offered Emma a quick overview of the situation, but she revealed that Alina had already transmitted information on the targets of the investigation.

  The two men of particular interest were Karl Sillen and Javier Gallegos, both working for Crown River Logistics and Transport.

  Unsurprisingly, the company was a subdivision of Ceres Galactic.

  Jia shook her head as the MX 60 rose from the platform. “The conspiracy seems to have deep tentacles in Ceres, Hermes, and a lot of the most important corporations. Sometimes I wonder what happens when we finish them off.”

  “Nothing,” Erik muttered. “We replace the rich, ruthless assholes at the top with other rich, ruthless assholes who don’t hire mercenary companies to kill soldiers or make yaoguai. They’ll probably do something else wrong, but at least the CID will be able to keep them in check.”

  Jia sighed. “Not saying we don’t continue hunting them, but sometimes I wonder about the scope. Before we ran into Vand, I’d half-worried that the conspiracy was this grand thing, stronger than the government, but now I’m wondering if it’s more brittle than that.”

  “Probably both.” Erik turned his flitter toward a dense lane of air traffic a couple hundred meters away. “Somebody like Sophia Vand has major influence, and she had a lot of power, but you heard Alina; not everybody in her family knew what she was up to, and it’s not like every last employee in the Vand Foundation or every employee in every company she had a stake in would rise up like she’s their queen. Whoever is left in this conspiracy is the same, I bet.” He snorted. “You know what true power is?”

  Jia thought for a moment, then shook her head.

  “True power is being able to walk down the street surrounded by your enemies and have them too afraid to screw with you. A true queen doesn’t need guards because no one would dare take a shot at her.”

  “I don’t know if it’s that simple.”

  “Maybe not.” Erik frowned. “But that’s closer to the truth. The conspiracy knows they’d be taken out if they were identified, so they hide. That means they have a lot of influence, but I bet you it’s thin and spread out. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could stop them by taking out a single small conference room filled with power-hungry assholes.”

  “Even if that’s true, we need to find them first,” Jia replied.

  “I don’t have a problem starting that at Mizuchi.”

  “There’s a problem with this mission that I don’t think either of you realizes,” Emma interrupted.

  “What is that?” Erik asked. “Alina’s been upfront about us having to do the heavy lifting, and if it’s about her being ready to cut us loose if there’s too much trouble, I figured that was how it was going to be working for a ghost from the beginning. And as much as I don’t like undersea places, I don’t think the conspiracy is going to waste time blowing up a resort. There are not enough places like that to make it worthwhile. If everyone stops going to underwater resorts and settlements, it would barely make a ripple for most people on Earth.”

  “No, I’m not talking about your odd obsession with underwater domes or the obvious and inevitable betrayal by Agent Koval, but something far more important.”

  “Wait a second,” he interrupted. “You think Alina’s going to betray us?”

  Erik couldn’t deny the thought had occurred to him, but he doubted it would happen anytime soon. The strongest lesson of Molino was to never take trust for granted. An Army unit out on a frontier planet protecting it from aliens shouldn’t have been ambushed by humans.

  Emma sighed. “From my perspective, she’s made it clear that you are tools, not friends. At some point, you’ll prove a liability for protecting the ID and the government, and they will likely turn against you. I haven’t worried much because you’ve made it clear that your loyalty is more personal than organizational in nature.”

  “Yeah. If they go after us, it’ll be a bad day for them, but I think Alina would do the right thing. She’ll probably stop paying us once we take down the conspiracy.” Erik’s grip tightened on the control yoke, then pushed it in and aggressively dove into a lower lane. “But I don’t care about that. As long as she helps me take down the conspiracy first, I don’t care if she wants to pretend she never met me or even if she comes after me.”

  By the time Erik and Jia finished off the conspiracy, the ID would probably be too afraid to take them on. Despite what Jia worried about, an increasing reputation for explosive lethality could serve them both well later in life.

  Assuming they survived.

  Jia looked at Erik with disbelief. “I’d prefer not to have the ID trying to kill me, but I’ll worry about that when we get that far. What’s the real issue, Emma? What could be more important than what we just talked about?”

  “Mizuchi,” Emma declared.

  “What’s your problem? You just got done making fun of Erik for being worried about it.”

  Erik grunted his disapproval.

  “Don’t you see?” Emma asked. “You can’t take a flitter to an undersea resort.”

  Jia’s forehead scrunched in confusion. “Yes, and? I’m not seeing the big problem here. We won’t need a flitter. Mizuchi isn’t that big. The entire place is walkable from what I remember. It’s a contained resort, not a sprawling city.”

  “You’ll need me, but I’ll be forced to be outside the MX 60,” Emma replied. “I’ll be without my primary body.”

  Jia considered their recent operations. “There were plenty of times you’ve been outside the MX 60, including on our recent trip to Venus. You’ve done just fine, and you haven’t complained about it much. I doubt we’re going to need a bulletproof flitter with a turret for this job.”

  “You say that, but you can’t be sure.” Emma let out a sigh that sounded both depressed and mocking. “And our Venus trip was a different situation. Among other things, I spent days interfaced with a proper spacecraft, an acceptable body and replacement for the MX 60. But that’s not going to happen with this resort. You’ll probably just interface me in a room and leave me there without an appropriate compensatory situation. Don’t tell me that dr
ones and cameras are enough.”

  “That’s what you’re bitching about?” Erik barked a harsh laugh. “You’ll survive, Emma. Besides, isn’t being obsessed with a body a very fleshbag way of thinking?”

  “No.” She sounded miffed. “Setting aside the unusual nature of my creation, my primary advantage in my current form is the ability to switch bodies to maximize the efficiency of my interaction. I prefer a true body, perhaps because of my fleshbag heritage, but as you pointed out, this vehicle has been considerably customized, including the recent addition of the turret, which allows me to be effective in a number of ways. I’m more vulnerable when that’s not the case.”

  Erik could see where she was coming from, but there wasn’t a lot they could do. Even if they spent a ridiculous amount of money and somehow convinced the resort to let them ship a surface flitter there, they wouldn’t be able to use it.

  Jia folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “I think this is less about danger and just you whining because you can’t cruise around in this ridiculously souped-up flitter and shoot fleshbags with turrets. Don’t try to convince us you have a deep need to be in a particular physical form at all times. We already know you can handle it, and it’s not like this is going to be a long job.”

  “I’ll have to make do, I suppose,” Emma replied, finishing up with a sniff of disdain. “I could always borrow the controls of a submarine or something else at the facility.”

  “You should probably not steal vehicles and draw attention to us unless there are no other choices.”

  Jia thought Emma’s answer of “Only if it becomes necessary, I assure you,” sounded a bit hollow.

  Erik accelerated and changed direction. “Keep in mind those corp bastards might not be anything. You heard Alina. There were a lot of qualifiers and mentions of indirect evidence. If they had those bastards dead to rights, a bunch of CID agents would be arresting their asses already.”

  “I doubt Agent Koval would send you on this mission if she truly thought it was nothing,” Emma clarified. “In intelligence work, circumstantial evidence is hardly something you should dismiss out of hand.”

  “That’s true, but it doesn’t have to end in a massive shootout that needs exos and turrets.” Erik drummed his fingers on the control yoke. “Think about that. If this does get heavy, Jia and I won’t have our top equipment either. We won’t be able to smuggle in our heavy guns without too much risk, so you’re not the only one who has to make sacrifices for the mission.”

  Jia’s gaze dropped to her feet. They rested atop the hidden storage compartment storing the TR-7, and uncertainty played across her features for a brief moment. Erik wasn’t worried. The same restrictions applied to their targets. He doubted they’d follow them into a restaurant and end up fighting an exo.

  “You’ll survive, Emma,” Jia muttered. “Just like Erik will, having to go to an undersea resort.”

  “I suppose.” Emma offered a long and painfully melodramatic sigh.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Erik replied, feeling they might be overestimating his concern. “It’s just not on my list of favorite things. This could be a nice way for me to get over the problem.” He smirked. “We can’t all be as worldly as you.”

  “I’ve never been to an undersea facility.” Jia smiled. “Another new experience. I don’t know if this is more impressive than going to a floating city, but it’s nice to be able to share it with you.” She blinked, and her cheeks reddened. “Uh, you know what I mean.”

  “New experiences help relationships.” Erik shot her a happy grin, covering the unease within. He was glad to have control of the conversation again.

  They might be going on a mission, but they were going to a resort together. When they’d gone to the moon, they’d joked about going to a different undersea resort. They kept traveling the world and seeing great sights before killing dozens of those who seriously deserved an introduction to the afterlife and blowing large holes in buildings.

  A run-and-gun vacation series.

  Jia folded her hands in her lap and gazed out the window as if trying to avoid looking at Erik. Their relationship was in a weird place.

  They slept together and spent all their time together, but they both knew they might not have a future together. The next day could bring romance or violent death. In a couple of days, he might get crushed by millions of gallons of ocean water.

  He kept circling back to the truth. It didn’t matter what they felt for each other. It didn’t change reality. They had a mission in a week, and they needed to get ready for that. His feelings would have to wait until something forced the issue.

  Why did it feel like his feelings might be coming sooner than he would like?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Garth missed living next to Erik. He’d been convinced from the first time he met the detective that he’d be a player in major events. Garth had a nose for understanding influence and the big picture.

  He’d applied that to communications systems and work, but it also helped him understand much more complicated and important real-life networks.

  The subsequent rise of the Obsidian Detective and Lady Justice had confirmed Garth’s instincts.

  As spectacular as their work in the department had been, he knew there was something more going on, especially after Erik’s retirement from the police department. It smelled of trouble, and the man who had been his neighbor couldn’t be working for the bad guys.

  There were conspiracies that corrupted the world, and Garth was close to understanding them all.

  “Conspiracy theorist.” People slung the term around as a slur, but they were nothing more than sheep, too afraid to face the truth. Garth was brave, and he knew secrets percolated underneath the thin veneer of human civilization.

  While the foolish government worried about the Zitarks, they ignored the true threat. The Navigators walked among them, hidden as animals like platypuses, awaiting the signal that would have them take back this galaxy from the lesser races.

  People laughed at him for believing. One man had even thrown a drink in his face in a bar when he tried to expound on his theory, but he refused to let go of his steadfast belief that an ancient alien race was hidden on Earth as an Australian monotreme.

  He didn’t care how ridiculous it sounded. This wasn’t absurd. He might not have solid proof, but he had plenty of indirect evidence.

  Maybe Erik and his partner were out there hunting down Navigators and lying about being security contractors. That made sense. He would have to check if there’d been any mysterious raids on zoos and other related facilities.

  Garth leaned back in his chair and tapped his PNIU.

  A holographic table appeared in front of him, surrounded by representations of different people in his self-declared Truth Brigade. They were good, open-minded men, even if they weren’t yet ready to accept his Navigator theory.

  It was difficult to be a genius not understood in his own time.

  Some of the Brigade, like Garth, used their true appearances, including two of the oldest members of his group, Tim and Minho. Others used blurred avatars or even fanciful costumes and alternative forms, such as White Rabbit, who resembled a bipedal white rabbit in a crushed velvet vest and bowler. That evening, White Rabbit was the only member present who was using a disguise.

  “Gentlemen,” Garth began. “Thank you for coming tonight. We’re here to discuss the document Minho sent. I’m sad that not everyone can be here, but we have enough for a decent talk.”

  Minho ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek and nodded. “This is the big time, guys. This is something the corrupt corp media won’t be able to conceal. I think this is what we’ve all been waiting for.”

  “I don’t get it,” White Rabbit replied, his voice distorted by an electronic filter and his nose twitching. “It was just a news report about that observatory that exploded. That’s your big discovery? The corp media already broadcast it. What secret are you supposed to be uncovering?” />
  Minho hissed in irritation. “The Llewellyn Observatory explosion wasn’t an accident. I’m surprised that you don’t see it. It was obviously destroyed to keep a secret.” He huffed. “I didn’t figure I’d have to spell it out for a member of the Truth Brigade.”

  “Maybe I’m just an idiot,” White Rabbit replied, his voice tight. “But I need more than an accident to believe something’s happened.”

  Tim leaned forward and steepled his fingers. “I do too. What secret is there, Minho? I looked into the explosion after you sent it to me, and there’s nothing special about the observatory. I thought there might be something off because it received a lot of Vand Foundation funding and she just died, but when I checked several others, I found they all did. Sometimes there is such a thing as coincidence.”

  “You can’t think of one obvious possibility?” Minho asked, his eyes going from one to another.

  “Experimental telescope and sensors?” White Rabbit’s whiskers twitched. Excitement infiltrated his voice, and all evidence of hostility vanished. “Maybe they use it to spy on other systems, and they don’t want to admit it had advanced technology.”

  “Then why would it be destroyed?” Tim asked. He lowered his hands. “You’re saying it was Grayhead sabotage? They learned about it, and they wanted to protect the aliens?”

  Garth watched the discussion unfold, staying quiet and letting his thoughts percolate. There was an obvious answer, but he wanted to give his friends time to come to the truth. A man couldn’t accept a truth he hadn’t worked out himself. That was a hard lesson he’d learned when trying to spread his message about the dangers of the platypus Navigators.

  Tim scoffed. “If it’d been sabotaged by Grayheads, the government would have used it for propaganda value. They love using crazy terrorists as an excuse to infringe on our rights.”