The men stared at each other in tense silence.
Colonel Adeyemi finally looked away with a grunt. “I’m thinking this conspiracy is a lot bigger than Neo SoCal, so we need to start thinking bigger than Neo SoCal. You’re not in the military anymore, and this is personal business. It’s not like I can order you to do anything, but I want you to keep the possibility in mind. If you’re hesitant because of your partner, she’s proven competent, and I’m sure I could set her up.”
Erik doubted Jia would want to stop being a cop to follow him around the UTC on a conspiracy hunt, but he wasn’t sure. Taking down the conspiracy might serve justice more than the occasional arrest in Neo SoCal.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Erik began, “and things have slowed down, but this Talos thing is another example of evidence falling into my lap here. I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave. At least, not yet.”
“Your choice,” Colonel Adeyemi replied. “But what you just said does rest on the assumption that Talos is involved in the conspiracy.”
“If they are,” Erik wondered aloud, “why haven’t they come after me before?”
Colonel Adeyemi followed a roach scuttling across the floor with his eyes. “They didn’t have to before. They had other resources they could throw at you, like terrorists.”
“We’ve gone from a few bots and terrorists to King sentries and full-conversion Tin Men.” Erik managed a dark chuckle. “It might help if I had better gear. The TR-7 isn’t enough anymore. At the rate things are escalating, they’ll probably drop a whole platoon in exoskeletons on me next.”
“I’m sure I can work something out,” the colonel replied. “Between your vet status and working as a cop, there’s a lot you can possess legally, but it won’t be something I can do overnight. Good enough?”
Erik grinned. “It’ll have to do. I’ll try to stay alive until then.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
February 21, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Aurum Sphere Ball Stadium
Jia kept close to Erik, his quick steps through the crowd forcing her to take longer strides to stay in his wake.
They were among thousands of people walking through the wide entrance tunnels leading into the stadium. She hadn’t been sure about accompanying him to a sphere ball match when he asked, but she felt compelled to join him after thinking about it.
The unresolved tension of the last few weeks had made Erik distant.
She understood why. They both suspected Talos might be related to the conspiracy and the Molino massacre. However, without a new attack or more evidence, there wasn’t anything they could do to further investigate the threats against Dr. Chen. Unfortunately, the CID agents running the case were keeping their information completely contained.
To her, the case represented another chance to serve justice, but for Erik, it was personal.
They had moved on to a few other cases, minor matters that didn’t require showdowns with Tin Men or giant bots to resolve, but the threats against Dr. Chen refused to leave either of their minds. Agent Koval hadn’t shown up again, and Captain Ragnar was reluctant to push.
A mutual outing was a good way to blow off steam and take their minds off...well, just about everything at work.
Erik and Jia emerged from the tunnel into the main arena. A beautiful blue sky hung above them, with only a few clouds. The sun was bright but not overwhelming. Anyone looking at it would be fooled into thinking it was the real thing rather than a projection.
The stadium was actually in the center of a recreation tower near the Hexagon. No fan had seen natural light from inside since it had been built decades prior.
She had read about how such displays were heavily used in colonization domes to assist with psychological stability. Humans were not meant to live in metal shells without seeing the sky or the sun directly.
For all the artificiality of Neo SoCal, most people traveled from building to building in flitters and at least saw the sky.
Thousands of stacked seats split by narrow, shallow stairs surrounded the central arena. On first impression, the playing area wasn’t that impressive. Until the match was active, it was nothing more than a series of dark cylinders and pyramids—specialty built grav-field emitters. Two large sealed doors lay opposite the middle of the arena.
Erik and Jia made their way down the stairs, guided by arrows overlaid on their smart lenses leading them to their reserved seats. Loud music combined with thousands of overlapping conversations to produce an overwhelming cacophony.
Jia chuckled as she tapped on Erik’s shoulder to get his attention. He turned an ear to her, eyebrow raised. “I always did hate hearing!” she told him with a glint in her eye. “I’m so glad you brought me to this place so I can get rid of it.”
“That’s part of the fun.” Erik grinned. “That’s why it’s important to come to the actual arena.” He waved around the stadium. “You can’t have the same experience at home, even hooked up to an AR or VR setup. Sports just aren’t sports unless you’re sharing them with thousands of screaming fans. Yeah, you can’t go to every match, but I think you should go at least once a month.”
“That sounds painful,” Jia replied. “Direct command, audio dampener thirty percent.”
The raucous noise quieted, her PNIU’s active noise cancellation performing heroically. She sent silent praise to the engineers and scientists whose hard work throughout the decades had led to its development.
“You can’t have the full experience if you’re cheating.” Erik shook his head and looked disappointed.
“I still can’t believe you talked me into this.” Jia surveyed the stadium. The vast swarm of humanity added different patches of color to the gray and black seats. Green and gold, the colors of the home team—the Neo SoCal Dragons—were common.
“It’ll be fun. You remember what fun is, Jia? Yes? No?” Erik shook his head as she eyed him. “It’s that thing you do when you’re not working,” he finished, smiling.
Jia rolled her eyes. “I have fun, Erik! I go dancing with friends. Human friends, not plants.”
Erik laughed, a hand over his heart. “Ouch, Jia.” His smile turned to a look of concern. “You know you could have brought Mr. Down-to-Earth-Businessman, right? I thought I made that clear. I’m sure he would love this.”
Jia nodded. “I know, and I asked him, but he had a meeting today. He encouraged me to go and have fun. He also made it clear he’s not fond of sports.”
“He what?” Erik looked dubious.
Jia didn’t want to admit that Corbin had indeed told her to go, but she could only describe his tone as sulky. It hadn’t been his most attractive moment. She understood that he might be threatened by her partner, but he was just going to have to deal with it like a man, especially when Erik gave him the opportunity to tag along.
He could have rescheduled his meeting.
The thought hung over her as they arrived at their row. They began making their way across to their seats. Other sphere ball fans allowed them through with little trouble. Everyone’s faces were lit up with excitement, their chatter describing the great season the Dragons were having.
Jia was struck by the diversity of the fans. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting—probably a lot of large, square-jawed men like Erik—but the fans differed in every way possible. Small. Big. Young. Old. Different races. Men, women, and everything in between. Some were dressed in suits and nice dresses.
Some had their faces painted green and gold to support the local team.
According to Erik, Neo SoCal’s sheer size was considered a large advantage in terms of fielding teams, but that was balanced out by the fact they had four different sphere ball teams in the area, including the Dragons. The Dragons were Erik’s favorite team, but to Jia’s relief, he had eschewed painting his face, settling instead for a Dragon jersey.
Erik and Jia took their seats. She adjusted her position, shocked to find the chair unexpectedly comfortable.
He pointed to his PNIU. “Did you already interface with the local network? If you want anything to eat or drink, just order, and a drone will deliver it.”
Jia frowned. “Isn’t it distracting having a bunch of drones flying around?”
Erik shook his head. “They’re all ground-based.” He pointed at his feet. “See how there’s a decent amount of space even between my big feet and the next seat? They did all this research and figured it out. Enough to maximize space, yet still allow the snack drones through.”
Jia didn’t know whether to be impressed by the careful planning or disturbed that the height of man’s knowledge and technology had been leveraged for the efficient delivery of snacks to sports fans.
She decided to go with the former. “I had a big lunch,” she offered. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Sure, but what’s sphere ball without a beer and shrimp crackers? You need to have traditional snacks.”
Erik’s bright smile reminded Jia of a child getting presents, and she almost laughed. Most of the time when he smiled, there was a small portion that felt forced, as if he were smiling so as to not let the darkness take him completely. Now his joy was pure and infectious.
Jia returned his smile. “Traditional snacks? You didn’t even like sphere ball until recently, and now you’re concerned about its traditions?”
“Hey, when you get to my age, you learn to appreciate new things quickly.” Erik shrugged. “Don’t make the rookie mistake of going for all the AR overlays during the game. The uniforms are bright enough that you can see what’s going on, and if you let the computers highlight everything, you might as well be at home.”
Jia waited for Emma to snark, but the AI remained silent.
She wasn’t sure if that meant Emma was trying to give them some time together, or if she wasn’t interested in complaining about fleshbag recreational activities. Emma might even be taking the time to run sensor analyses on all the nearby vehicles.
She could seem so human at times, but in the end, she was a machine, mostly interested in improving her abilities and knowledge.
“Okay, I’ll watch the traditional way.” Jia offered him a grin.
Erik gave her a thumbs-up. “Just trying to maximize your enjoyment, partner.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the announcer, his deep voice transmitted directly to each fan’s ear through their PNIU. “Please welcome your players from the Neo Southern California DRAGONS!”
The crowd erupted in a roar that vibrated all the way into Jia’s bones.
A faint, translucent white sphere materialized in the arena, over a hundred meters in diameter and fifty meters in height. Two glowing red squares appeared on opposite sides. A small panel opened in the floor, and a bright yellow ball covered with hexagonal patches floated to the sphere’s center.
The large doors on both sides of the arena slid open with echoing rumbles. The green and gold Dragons rushed out. Between their protective gear and the bulky thruster boots and gauntlets, they reminded Jia of Tin Men.
“Dragons! Dragons! Dragons!” the crowd chanted.
Even Erik was in on it. “Dragons!”
The players raised their arms in greeting to their fans. They spread out in an arc a few meters outside the bottom of the sphere.
“And now, their competition, the Vancouver SHARKS!” the announcer bellowed.
The cheering was noticeably subdued, but there wasn’t much in the way of booing as the other team emerged and spread out around the opposite side of the sphere.
“Before we begin this match of the Neo SoCal Dragons versus the Vancouver Sharks, please rise for the national anthems of the United States of America and Canada. Please do not sit until we finish with the anthem of the United Terran Confederation.”
Jia and Erik took their seats after the anthems finished playing.
“Shouldn’t you like Detroit?” Jia asked.
Erik shook his head. “I might have been born there, but I haven’t lived there since before you were born. I asked my brother the other day, and he’s a Detroit fan. It gives me a reason to mess with him. They’ve had some trouble the last few seasons, but it’s hard for most North American teams outside of Neo SoCal to do well. The teams here tend to snap up the best players from the whole continent.”
The players moved forward in lockstep, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. The crowd joined them, including Erik. Jia hesitated before throwing in the towel and adding her own noise to the mix.
Each team alternated a player jumping into the sphere.
Quick bursts from their thrusters spread them out along half the sphere on their side.
Thirty seconds later, the clapping ended, and all fourteen players floated in the sphere, with goalies near the red goal squares. The ball hovered in the center.
Two players, the forwards, hovered a few meters away from it. They added reinforcements on their flanks, the offensive wings.
A loud buzzer sounded.
The forwards launched themselves toward the ball. The Dragons’ wings zoomed into the Sharks’ territory, moving to the sides.
Their forward whipped an arm out and activated his thruster to initiate a spin. He met the ball with his elbow and launched it toward one of the wings. The other forward smashed his shoulder into the Dragons’ player. Both men tumbling after the collision until they righted themselves with their thrusters.
The crowd cheered and clapped.
Jia was impressed by the players’ fine control. Their thrusters were operated through finger and toe interfaces. It took a tremendous amount of training to be able to move their limbs while simultaneously activating their thrusters as needed.
From what Erik had explained, direct ball contact with any part of the body was allowed, but the players weren’t allowed to grip the ball, except for the goalie.
Although intentional collisions between players weren’t allowed, there was a lot of subjective room for determining what constituted “intentional.”
For the most part, any collision that occurred when heading in the rough direction of the ball was considered legal, with the exception of collisions with the goalie, which always earned a penalty card.
The Dragons’ player receiving the ball twisted his body, his thrusters active on one side for a spinning kick. He slammed his foot into the ball and launched it toward the edge of the opposing team’s goal. His aggression earned a roar of approval from the crowd, but his distance from the goal doomed his attempts. The Sharks’ center blocked the ball with his chest before launching it to his forward with a vertical spinning kick.
“What’s the defensive wing doing?” screamed Jia, pumping her fist. “He’s letting the forward head straight toward the goal!” She pointed at the sphere with an angry finger as she eyed Erik. “Does he need cybernetic implants in his eyes?”
The Dragons were down by one goal, with only a bit more than a period to go.
Erik took a sip of his beer. “Getting into it, are we?”
Jia sank back in her chair, her cheeks heating. “They have positions for a reason.” She huffed. “He should be doing his job. He’s making the center and the forward work too hard.”
The Sharks’ forward punched the ball toward the goal right before a defensive wing slammed into him and sent him hurtling toward the wall of the sphere. He bounced off it before he regained control.
The goalie snatched the ball, pivoted, and tossed it toward one of his wings. The other player’s spin kick got it to the center in seconds. That man kicked it to an offensive wing.
Momentum favored the Dragons. Their forward was already on the other side of the sphere and ready. The wing passed it to him with a kick, and a rotating punch launched the ball toward the edge of the goal.
The crowd’s roar swallowed the noise of the goal buzzer.
“GOAL!” the announcer shouted. “Dragons three, Sharks three. IT’S ALL TIED UP!”
Jia stabbed the air like she was taking out a serial killer
with his own blade. “That’s what I’m saying! That’s how a good team does things. I can see why you like this game. The rules are simple, but the tactics are complex. It’s like playing weiqi, which you may know as Go, but in zero-G and with more collisions. And a ball. And you don’t play on a board with black and white stones. Okay, it’s not like weiqi at all, but it’s still incredibly interesting.”
“To me, it’s like a battle where no one has to die,” Erik countered. “I appreciate the athleticism and tactics, and there’s a discrete objective. I think when I was in the Army, I was too busy worrying about real battles, and sphere ball’s not as popular away from the core worlds. The tech is too expensive, and you don’t get many colonies outside the core participating in the UTC Cup.”
“That makes—" Jia shot to her feet and cheered as a quick strike by the Dragons earned them another goal.
“DRAGONS, DRAGONS, DRAGONS!” roared the crowd.
Erik and Jia slowly wandered through the chattering mass of people back toward the parking garage. Jia munched on shrimp crackers. She’d purchased a bag during the match but had ended up being swept away by the game and forgetting to eat. Now a little peckish, she was happy to have the snack
She swallowed her cracker. “I could really get into this.”
“You going to go all Lin-obsessive over it?” Erik asked.
She turned on him. “I don’t go ‘Lin-obsessive,’ whatever that means.” She rolled her eyes, but tried to keep it playful. She didn’t want to ruin the relaxed rapport. Neither of them had been this calm in weeks.
“I’m just saying you’re thorough.”
They stopped. A smiling woman blocked their path. They both waited for a few seconds, but she didn’t move.
“Can we help you?” Jia asked, trying to keep any suspicion out of her voice.
The woman clasped her hands together, her smile growing even wider. “I’m a big fan, Detective Lin. I’ve read all about you.”
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