“I’m not afraid,” Erik growled. “I’m hunting them, and they should be afraid of me.”
“Of course. My mistake.”
Barbu waited, his attention focused on Jia before he reached slowly into his pocket. She jammed her hand into her jacket and gripped her stun pistol without drawing it. Barbu paused for a couple of seconds before producing the data rod, tossing it in front of Jia, and standing.
“As much as I have enjoyed being at your service, I’ve done all I’m willing to do and risked all I’m willing to risk at this time.”
“Meaning what?” Jia couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice. It was taking all her self-control to let the bastard walk.
“As the situation changes, my involvement may change. Have a good day, Ms. Lin.”
Barbu set off for the door, limping. The normal din of a lunchtime crowd returned with his retreat. Jia watched him as he exited the restaurant and headed to an unassuming flitter parked at the front.
“Emma, follow him,” Erik ordered, his voice low.
Jia gingerly picked up the rod as if it might explode. “I honestly don’t know what to think. That went about as well as we could expect, but I don’t trust him.”
“No reason to trust him, but I don’t think it’s that difficult.” Erik inclined his head toward the rod. “There are different layers of scum, and Barbu might not have appreciated being on the run because of what happened on the moon. Remember what they told us about him.”
Jia nodded. “The name’s fake, and he came out of nowhere but quickly established himself. He’s not your common garden variety antisocial piece of trash.”
“Someone like that might have run across our friends before and not thought much of it because it benefited him like it did on the moon.” Erik frowned as Barbu’s flitter windows darkened to opaque, and the vehicle lifted into the air. “He might sell weapons, but their plans are making things far worse. Even criminals have limits, and I’ll take the help for now. The CID can always track his ass down after this is all over, but it doesn’t hurt to see where he ends up.”
Jia frowned as the flitter left the parking platform. “I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ll see of him.”
Five minutes later, as Jia sipped tea, she heard something far more disturbing—a genuinely apologetic and worried Emma. She set down her cup as the AI delivered the surprising news.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” Emma sighed. “I’ve somehow lost his flitter. One moment, my drones were following it and I had it on camera, and then it was gone.”
“He hacked your drones and the cameras,” Erik suggested.
“Without me knowing?” Emma scoffed, her confident arrogance returning. “That seems unlikely.”
“But it doesn’t change the fact he’s gone,” Erik countered.
“That much is true,” Emma admitted. “Unfortunately.”
“Jump drive on his flitter,” Erik joked. “Oh, well. Less to worry about right now.”
“That would be rather more obvious than what happened.” Emma sounded annoyed.
Jia looked out the diner window at the stream of flitters in the sky. Marius Barbu was somewhere out among the hundred-million people of Neo SoCal. They had not come to the diner to capture him. As long as the data rod held something useful, it wasn’t a wasted trip.
She ran her finger along the data rod. “Let’s be safe about this. You’re right, Erik. Barbu’s a lot more than a simple arms dealer, and he might have attracted the wrong kind of attention. Let’s go back to your place. At least there, we know it’ll be safe to check this out.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Erik’s eyes shifted left to right as he pored over one of the files on a large data window projected in front of his chair in his living room. Numbers, numbers, and more numbers.
“This isn’t what I’d expected,” he complained. “I thought it was going to be more dramatic.”
“It’s kind of exactly what I expected,” Jia replied, looking between four different data windows. “He’s a piece of trash, but at the end of the day, Barbu is a businessman, and he understands how devastating records are.” She smiled. “This was how we discovered our first big lead, by looking through records.”
“That was more you.” Erik smiled. “I just followed your example. I don’t know, I was expecting a recording of Sophia Vand plotting something. A concrete lead.”
“This is something,” Jia insisted. “We just have to figure out what it is. With this volume of data, these must be important. Once we know the context, everything will fall into place. This seems familiar, and at least some of these are dates, but I can’t figure it out.”
“Dates?” Erik squinted. “They are?”
“Julian dates in an astronomy context,” Jia explained.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
He wasn’t seeing the pattern in the numbers, and he had no idea how an astrometric Julian date was calculated, but they’d already established that at least one set of numbers meant something. That gave them a better chance of figuring out the rest.
“Yes, you are correct, Jia.” Emma appeared with a triumphant smile. “I’ve been reviewing both the data on the rod and my own data concerning Barbu during the encounter. I can find no evidence that he hacked the drones. He must have achieved a temporary disruption, followed by some form of advanced camouflage. I see no evidence of unusually advanced technologies, but there are certain limitations in the sensors in this body compared to the Argo or the Bifröst.”
“I really was joking about the jumping.” Erik looked up from his window. “So, instead of Barbu having unusually good hacking skills, he has access to advanced technology that lets him trick drones, cameras, and your sensors, and active optical camo, too. I don’t know if that makes me feel better just because it’s not Hunter tech. Those bastards on Molino only needed to be a little more advanced than my unit to ambush us.”
“Be that as it may, it implies he would not be able to easily disappear if he was, for example, in a small restaurant.” Emma let out a snort of triumph. “As for the records, I’ve established what they are with a less than 0.2 percent margin of error.”
“Care to share with us mere fleshbags?” Jia asked. “I’m thinking they’re not only dates.”
“Your deduction is correct. They are sanitized shipping records. They don’t all appear to be from the same companies, given the routes, and without additional information about their source, I have no method of determining what was being shipped, but they all indicate dates and locations. They appear to be from all over the UTC, as one file clearly indicates HTP coordinates.”
Erik wrinkled his forehead. “Shipping records without the companies or the cargo. How is that helpful?”
“If it’s the conspiracy, it tells us where they’ve been and when,” Jia offered.
A three-dimensional star map of the UTC appeared, white lines stretching between the actively connected systems. Red and blue lines stretched between different systems, marking some of the shipments, forming a dense, impenetrable web.
Emma pointed to the map. “There’s a pattern of someone using a lot of different companies to carefully conceal the mass movement of unknown cargo while simultaneously coordinating it with military-like precision. I can’t be certain of what was moved where, since these records don’t include any detailed tracking information for the cargo, but by overlaying dates and locations, at least some of the routes could be traced from origination. And there is a curious specificity to our current situation.”
She magnified a star system on the edge of the UTC. Bile rose in the back of Erik’s throat when the colony moon appeared. He recognized it before she added the helpful legend.
Mu Arae System, Molino, First moon of Planet Quijote
“According to the information on the rod,” Emma continued, “there were shipments shortly before and after the ambush. Unfortunately, as I noted, there is no clear identification of cargo or tracking num
bers, so I can’t follow the entire path of the Molino cargo. Please note those shipments don’t seem to correspond to other shipment data I previously obtained while investigating this matter.”
“That doesn’t help,” Erik replied, his voice low. “I found messages when I first got back to Earth talking in code, but that made me think they’d already shipped stuff, probably whatever Hunter or Navigator artifacts they found there and didn’t want the government finding out about it. What good is any of this?”
Jia shook her head. “It might not help us to look at the data since despite having Emma, we still have limited access to the breadth and depth of possible data to compare the contents of the rod. We should hand it over to Alina and let her analysts go to work. She could plug the holes, and maybe even figure out the companies and cargo.”
Emma nodded. “I will continue analyzing the data to the best of my ability, but Agent Koval’s people are more likely to be able to extract something more immediately useful out of it. Please note this does not imply they have analytical superiority.”
Erik chuckled. “Noted, and it makes sense. The ID has a much bigger picture available than we do. We’ll keep the rod just in case, but Emma can send them all the data, and we’ll explain where we got it.”
“Speaking of that, I’m still bothered by how Barbu got this and why he has it.” Jia swiped through her windows and closed them.
“Is it that important right now?”
“It could be. We don’t know who he really is. I don’t buy the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Arms Dealer act. He disappeared well enough that the CID couldn’t find him, which means he’s not a normal criminal, and I don’t care how many connections he has, asking around and pulling in favors from friends wouldn’t get him detailed cargo shipments from the conspiracy.” Jia folded her arms. “That’s what this is supposed to be, right? The Molino data confirms it.”
Erik stared at Molino. The memories of the battle were never far away. They motivated his every action between awakening and falling asleep at night. His trip to Provence reached those fifty light-years from Earth to the frontier moon colony. A once-desperate lost cause seemed achievable, and he didn’t mind rolling around in the mud if it helped.
“If Barbu wanted to set us up, giving us some records isn’t the way to do it.” Erik stood. “And that’s the only thing I care about. But you’re right, and we have evidence he was involved in the Chang’e incident. He might not have been happy about them using that bomb, but if we’re right, he had no problem giving guns to people he knew were about to hurt a lot of folks.”
“So what’s his angle? We need to know before the next time we deal with him.”
“Before Sophia died, she mentioned some woman, and now we’ve got Barbu giving us this.” Erik chuckled darkly. “And then there were the two separate ships that traveled to the Hunter ship.”
“The conspiracy turning on itself? We’ve been wondering, but it’s been hard to say.”
Erik nodded. “We’ve got more than enough evidence now. I can’t say I’m going to complain if they line up to screw each other over. It makes it easier for us if they’re tearing each other apart.”
“Then we’re being used.” Jia crossed her arms. “We don’t know how far this goes. They could be purposely leaking information to the ID and us to get them to take out anyone who can stand in the way of their power. How do we know they won’t end up stronger after this?”
Erik scoffed. “Because they won’t end up stronger than our side. They keep losing people and resources. There are always going to be more people hunting the conspiracy than at the top.”
Jia blew out a breath. “I hope that’s true.”
“I’ve been involved in my share of anti-insurgent campaigns,” Erik replied, breezy calm in his voice. “I’d like to say most of them failed because of the superior training and skills of the UTC Army, but that’s only half of it.”
“Okay.” Jia figured it would be faster to ask than wait for Erik to get to the point. “What’s the other half?”
“That simple truth is that a lot of rebellions defeat themselves.” Erik tore his attention away from the star map and Molino. “People get fed up with governments for all sorts of reasons, but they’re often the same ones. It makes sense to band together when you know the Army or cops are on their way, but those differences are a slow poison. Factions end up betraying each other, selling out to the government to try to get influence, or simply becoming arrogant and thinking they don’t need the others anymore.”
Jia lowered her arms with a surprised look on her face. “You think that’s what’s happening with the conspiracy?”
“Fleshbags are ever so disagreeable,” Emma offered cheerfully.
“It’d explain a lot of what we’ve seen, especially on the Hunter ship, and the uneven response to the raids. Not just us, the ID, too.” Erik rubbed his hands together. “Which means we’ll have more opportunities to fatally wound them coming up. Not bad. I’m getting excited.”
He turned back to the star map. Barbu might work for the conspiracy or be nothing more than a criminal wronged by them. It didn’t matter.
Too many of Erik’s and his allies’ actions had been defensive, including going after the Hunter ship. Blowing up a yaoguai factory wasn’t satisfying, not as much as taking out the main Ascended Brotherhood base had been. Between the intel from the yaoguai raid and this rod, it was time to push their efforts into offense. The best time to take on the enemy was when they were divided.
“It’s inevitable.” Erik smiled. “You know Ben Franklin’s old joke about secrets?”
Jia frowned. “What joke?”
“Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Let’s send the info and wait for Alina to get back to us.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
July 20, 2230, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Parking Platform of Residential Tower of Erik Blackwell
A light breeze brushed Jia’s face. She watched the rivers of light marking the flitters flowing from location to location between the towers of Neo SoCal. There was a certain irony in humanity achieving a common-use air vehicle and still being restricted to lanes.
They might have vertical and horizontal lanes, but the average flitter in Neo SoCal didn’t take advantage of its flight capability except when landing and taking off.
She’d read the virtual lanes were originally enforced to make the autodrive systems safer and more reliable and discourage the small number of irresponsible self-drivers from causing too much trouble. She included herself in that group now, despite having balked at Erik doing it so much when they first met.
These days, she didn’t care to let the flitter drive itself. Her taste for flight had grown along with her understanding of the world.
Erik stood beside her with a thoughtful expression, his hands in his pockets. “You sure about the message, Emma? It’s our week for unusual messages.”
“Yes,” Emma replied, eschewing taking a form, given their public location. “It was clear you were to be on the platform at this particular time. I showed you the message text in its entirety.”
“But standing out on a parking platform in a residential tower?” Jia threw up her arms. “This is ridiculously open.”
“Don’t be overly concerned. I’m monitoring the area for unusual activity. Thus far, the only thing I see out of the ordinary is a limousine.”
“Somebody’s probably having a better night than us,” Jia grumbled.
“Maybe she’s finally decided to get rid of us.” Erik grinned. “Because we’re too noisy. It’s easier to kill us here. A good sniper can hit us from kilometers away, and it’s not like even you can spot everything that might be a threat in a crowded part of Neo SoCal.”
Emma harrumphed. “We’ll just have to put your lives to the test.”
“Thanks.” Erik laughed. “Sometimes you can be so warm and fuzzy.”
“She’s already proven she can get into our apartments without much t
rouble.” Jia looked around to make sure no one else was nearby. Emma was reliable, but she wasn’t perfect, as Barbu’s escape had proven.
“Get inside, sure.” Erik shrugged. “Kill us? We’ve both tagged her when she’s gone full ghost on us, and neither of us is ever far from a weapon. We’re also together a lot more now, which means we often have Emma nearby. She’d have to take us both out. Missile, maybe?”
“I could block a missile launched this way with a drone,” Emma insisted. “And she’s not going to sneak in a gunship. I’ll admit the ID uses impressive technology, but I’m getting better at seeing through their tricks. If I were them and I wanted to kill you, I’d sabotage the Argo.”
Jia scrubbed a hand over her face. “Can we please stop talking about ways Alina might kill us?”
A flitter pulled out of a nearby lane and headed toward the platform. Jia slipped her hand inside her jacket and gripped her slugthrower. She didn’t believe Alina would attempt to assassinate them, but being prepared wouldn’t hurt.
The vehicle slowed and descended toward them, passing under the bright holographic lights of the parking platform. It was a long black luxury flitter, the window shading set to opaque. Despite Emma noting it before, Jia remained nervous.
“Transponder check, Emma,” Erik ordered, the earlier humor gone from his face.
“It is registered to a local limousine rental company,” she replied. “They haven’t reported any stolen vehicles. Corporate registration is too labyrinthine for me to determine who might ultimately control the company without more investigation, but upon initial inspection, there is nothing unusual about the vehicle other than its appearance at this location at this time.”
“If I get gunned down by a guy in a limo, I’ll never live it down.” Erik grumped.
“Obviously,” Emma replied. “You’ll be dead.”
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