Enlightened Ignorance

by Michael Anderle

  Alina frowned. “This doesn’t make sense. If they damaged the emitter somehow, shouldn’t it be at one-sixth gee, not zero? This is the moon, not deep space.”

  Jia pushed away from the roof and gracefully glided back to the floor. “It’s time for the world’s more lethal sphere ball game. Erik, how close are you?”

  “A few more minutes.”

  “What’s gravity like outside? Any sign they’ve disrupted the colony in general?”

  “Everything looks normal,” he replied. “Couldn’t Mont use the emitter to cancel the local gravity?”

  “In theory,” Jia replied, “but everything I’ve read about the towers says they should have overlapping fields. The last thing anyone wants is a sudden massive change in gravity inside even a small portion of a dome.” She shrugged. “He is a specialist, but if it only applies to the building, what good does it do?”

  “This isn’t the plan, then,” Alina concluded. “It’s just another way of slowing us down.” She frowned, and there was something slightly ridiculous about the woman doing so while holding a rifle and standing on the wall. “I don’t have grenades. Do you?”

  Jia glanced at her tactical vest. “A few stun grenades and a blinder.” She patted her stun grenades. “I’m going to throw these first and then the blinder. If they have stun dampeners, they’ll probably ignore them all and not understand what’s happening until it’s too late. They were prepared for gas, but blinders are working on them.”

  “Probably haven’t trained well with their equipment. It’s a good plan.” Alina switched to burst fire. “Let’s find Mont and his Golden Fleece.”

  Jia grabbed the first grenade and smiled. No gravity meant getting the grenade to the enemy without exposing herself was nothing more than a trivial geometry problem. She visualized the path of the grenade and hurled it. The force of the throw sent her floating backward. She flung another grenade, and when the first grenade buzzed, she tossed her third weapon, the blinder, and turned her head.

  The terrorists groaned. Jia brought up her legs and pushed off against the back wall, launching herself around the corner. Alina ran along the wall. Both women fired into the terrorists. The men were standing on the floor in larger, more obvious magnetic boots, but nothing as large as grav boots.

  The bullets pelted their tactical suits, and they jerked back.

  Jia pushed off another wall and rotated her body to avoid Alina. She continued firing bursts at the same spot in the enemy tactical suit until her rounds penetrated. Each shot propelled her backward, but she put her foot back and caught herself before colliding with a wall. Her target screamed, his body leaning backward at an angle but his boots keeping him in place. Spherical blood droplets leaked from the wound, becoming dark crimson beads decorating the sterile gray hallway. His partner didn’t last much longer under Alina’s lethal attention.

  “You’re missing all the fun, Erik,” Jia commented. “If you can call a zero-g gunfight fun.”

  “I’m almost there,” he grumbled. “You better save me a terrorist or two.”

  “Didn’t you just destroy two exoskeletons singlehandedly?” Jia replied with a laugh.

  “Yeah, but that’s easy when you’re in an exoskeleton. I want a little more challenge, just to make sure I don’t get rusty.”

  “Whatever gets you here,” Alina offered.

  Metallic clacks echoed from around a corner at the end of the hall, and Jia and Alina readied their guns. They opened fire when several small security bots emerged. The machines were unconcerned with gravity, thanks to their magnetic adhesion to the metal walls of the corridor.

  Jia flung herself backward to brace against the wall. She took careful aim at the main body housing the processing core and downed a bot with ease.

  She’d gotten a lot of practice destroying bots in the last year, and now they barely registered as a threat. The machine sparked and smoked, its magnetic grip releasing. It floated away from the wall.

  She had downed another bot by the time Alina destroyed her first.

  “I don’t get why they’re sending bots,” Jia muttered, firing again. Her body pressed against the wall. “They had guys left by my count. More stalling?”

  “I’d assume so.” Alina annihilated another bot. “Every second they stall us is another second for Mont to do his thing. If they’ve already messed up the gravity, he must be in the control room, or at least have low-level access to the system.”

  Jia ejected her magazine. The discarded piece spun away from the gun and bounced off the floor. She jammed another magazine into her weapon and unloaded on two closer bots. “Then we’re already out of time.”

  Alina blasted through the last bot. She stepped away from the wall and onto the floor. She motioned forward. “I don’t disagree.”

  Jia pushed off the wall and floated forward. “We’re coming.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Erik set down outside the facility and hopped off the mini-flitter with a restrained grunt. After depositing Emma in a pouch on his vest, he dropped his rifle into his hands. “I’m here. Emma can lead me to you once I’m inside.”

  “The trail’s pretty obvious,” Jia commed. “If grisly.”

  “Understood.” Erik took a few steps toward the building. On this third, he pushed off the ground and didn’t come back down. He chuckled. “The zero-g field extends a few meters from the building. Nice.”

  “We’re advancing and almost to the control room,” Jia reported. “But there are more stupid bots. What good is having a bunch of security bots if you let terrorists turn them against the authorities?”

  “The locals have set up at other grav towers,” Alina explained. “They aren’t reporting any trouble, and the staff inside are all cooperating, but the units that were supposed to reinforce us directly are taking fire. They’ve killed or disabled most of the attackers, and they don’t seem to be outgunned from what I’m hearing on the comm, but it’s holding them back.”

  “So Mont didn’t have everyone here,” Erik concluded. “And their spy must be giving them location information. It’s just more stalling.”

  “Gun goblin,” Emma announced. She sent a red arrow to his smart lenses, pointing to the left

  Erik spun to his left. He fired at the terrorist near the corner of the building, the shot propelling him backward.

  It might have been a while since he’d fought in zero-g not stabilized by grav or mag boots, but the old instincts returned. Zero-g didn’t bother Erik. He’d trained for it, and he’d fought in it countless times. It was just another variable to take into account for moving or shooting.

  The burst struck the terrorist’s helmet, cracking it, and they stumbled. Erik didn’t bother to right himself as he continued floating backward. He stabilized his rifle by using his live arm as a platform and fired twice to finish off his target.

  “Anymore, Emma?” Erik looked around.

  “No. Based on movement and size, that was almost certainly the gun goblin who broke off from the group earlier.”

  Erik snorted. “Idiot thought he could win in an ambush.”

  “I’m the one who alerted you.”

  Erik grinned. “One of the reasons I can fight without watching my back is because I know you’re watching it.” The direct compliment shut her up, so Erik continued with, “How are we doing on the hacking?”

  If he were on equal equipment terms with the terrorists, he would have had the advantage of experience, but their boots negated a lot of his advantage. There was no reason not to have Emma restore gravity.

  “The building systems are completely cut off from the outside world,” she replied. “While I see no indication of a virus, it’s startingly similar to what happened on the transport. There’s little to anything I can do without direct physical systems access.”

  “There have been a lot of careful terrorists focused on the moon lately,” Erik muttered. “I’m having trouble thinking this is all a coincidence. A careful terrorist doesn’t ne
cessarily mean a successful terrorist, though.” He pushed his rifle down like an oar and caught the ground. With a shove, he launched himself toward the door, spinning and contorting his body to slide through the open entrance.

  Erik flew into the building, swimming through the cloud of door fragments floating in the hall. He shoved them out of his face and pushed off the wall toward the other wall, avoiding the bodies. The sight didn’t shock him, but it did remind him of the stakes.

  He built up speed with his zigzag flight pattern. “How are you doing, Jia?”

  “We’re almost to the control room,” she replied. “They’ve got it sealed and reinforced. We haven’t run into any more terrorists, and we’re through all the bots. Oh, wait.” Gunfire echoed through the hallways. “More terrorists.”

  She sounded annoyed.

  “I should be there soon.” Erik entered the passage containing Jia’s and Alina’s earlier victims. A small cloud of their blood droplets filled the air. He considered grabbing their mag boots.

  After a few seconds of thought, he unlatched a man from his boots, but he didn’t take the footwear. Instead, he pushed the body forward. It was an eerie sight, a cop with a floating corpse.

  A trip through a few more halls brought him to the others. Alina knelt near the corner. A dead terrorist floated near the end of the hallway, adding his own crimson cloud to the room.

  Jia floated behind Alina, frowning. She grimaced at Erik’s macabre cargo. “Why do you have a dead terrorist with you?” She gestured to the body. “I’m sure I killed that one.”

  “Don’t worry, he stayed dead.” Erik smiled. “I grabbed him because I don’t have any grenades, and from what I overheard on the comm, you don’t have anything useful left. We can use him as a distraction.”

  Alina looked over her shoulder. “Cold but effective. You already think like a ghost. I like it.”

  “We’ve taken one down.” Jia gestured to the body at the end of the hallway. “But there is one more guarding the control room. Mont must be inside the control room with whatever the drone was carrying. We might very well be blown up in the next few minutes if we don’t hurry. Killing an ID agent, the Obsidian Detective, and Lady Justice has got to be worth a few propaganda points.”

  “That news would never get out,” Alina insisted.

  “Still not my preferred way to die,” Erik admitted, “but it’s always ranked high in the pool.” He grabbed the dead terrorist by the scruff of the neck. “I’m going to toss this guy around the corner, and then we’ll finish his friend off. We can ask Mont what his plan is when we’re sticking our guns in his face.”

  Alina and Jia nodded.

  Erik pulled himself along the wall, dragging the body behind him effortlessly. Alina prepared to jump. Jia pushed herself the other way, prepared to shove herself into another gun battle.

  “Is this something you’ve done a lot?” Jia asked, a curious look on her face. “I don’t doubt the effectiveness; it’s just not something I would have thought of.”

  “No, it’s not something I’ve done a lot,” Erik admitted. “But it’s something I’ve had to do before. In a battle, you do what you need to do to win, especially when your friends’ and innocent lives are on the line.”

  “I’m not complaining. I killed that man.” Jia smirked. “It’s just that we never trained on a ‘throw a body in a zero-g scenario.’ You and Emma obviously need to get a lot more creative than you have been.”

  Erik shrugged. “I didn’t think it’d come up so soon. I still prefer the bikini beach scenario.” He grinned. “But we need to hurry. Ready?”

  Jia snickered and nodded. Alina gave a quick nod.

  “Surrender!” Erik shoved the body forward and immediately pushed off the wall. Alina sprang up, and Jia launched herself around the corner.

  The terrorist took the bait and opened fire on his dead comrade, which gave the team vital seconds of confusion to return fire. A tactical suit and helmet might as well be paper for three-trained marksmen concentrating their fire. Erik, Jia, and Alina shredded the man with their river of bullets. The body spiraled toward the doors to the control room, blood droplets streaming out.

  Erik kicked off a wall, moved forward, and pushed the bullet-sponge corpse toward the back of the hallway. With another push, he floated toward the closed door as he looked back at Alina. “Do you have another breach disk?”

  Alina walked toward the door, her mag boots clanging. “I could try, but this is thick. Because of the zero-g, debris backfire could slice us into Zitark appetizers.”

  “We could head around the corner,” Erik considered. “But I see what you mean. I don’t want to create a bunch of crap that might deflect bullets if we have to fire from the hallway.”

  Jia pointed to a small black square outlined on the wall. “There’s an emergency IO access point. We can just get Emma to open the door.”

  “I know it’s not as exciting as blowing a door up,” Emma commented.

  “Looking more for speed than excitement at the moment,” he admitted.

  He retrieved Emma’s core from the pouch and handed it to Alina. She walked over to the square and pressed her hand over the black square. A piece of the wall retracted and revealed the IO port.

  She inserted Emma’s core.

  “Much better,” Emma declared. “I don’t like stationary bodies, but just give me a moment to handle your unfortunate gun-goblin-hiding-behind-a-door situation.” She laughed derisively a few seconds later. “Oh, this is sloppier than I thought. They were more interested in disabling remote access than actually guarding the system. While I admire the efficiency, it’s rather sloppy and led to them losing access to many systems themselves. Ah, fleshbags disappoint so soon after they impress.”

  Earth-standard gravity resumed, and Erik and Jia fell to the ground with loud thumps. The blood droplets leaking from the body fell too in a red splatter like history’s most twisted Pollock painting.

  “Ow,” Jia muttered. “Thanks for the warning, Emma.”

  “My bad?” she questioned. Jia wondered what the AI was getting her back for.

  Jia got to her feet and rubbed her jaw. “Gravity is truly humanity’s greatest enemy.”

  “There are no active internal cameras in the control room,” Emma explained. “They aren’t even transmitting. I believe he’s destroyed them. Forward-thinking, this one. I’m on the verge of allowing myself to be slightly impressed, despite the earlier idiocy with the system.”

  There was a muffled boom from behind the door. The hallway shuddered, but the door remained firm.

  “If that was the bomb, it was kind of anticlimactic,” Erik observed. “We’re still here.”

  “He just blew a hole through the roof,” Emma explained. “I can see him via my drone eyes. It’s definitely Mont.”

  “Can you open the door?” Erik asked.

  “Yes. Should I do so now?”

  Erik, Jia, and Alina lifted their rifles and answered “Yes” simultaneously.

  The thick security door groaned open. Remy Mont reclined leisurely in the center of the cramped room on top of the gray crate they’d seen earlier. Its side was open, revealing that it was now empty. He smirked as the drone lifted an odd dark-green metal dodecahedron through the hole with its cargo arms. It didn’t look like any bomb Erik had ever seen.

  “It’s over, Mont,” Erik shouted. “You’ve lost. Bring the drone with the bomb back.”

  Remy chuckled and shook his head. “I haven’t lost. I’ve won, even with your raid coming days before we were supposed to start.” He slapped his chest. “Do you understand that? All your training and effort, and it doesn’t matter. We won. You lost. All you government dogs are the same. You think a man will give up because you threaten his life? Sometimes a man’s prepared to risk his life for a cause beyond his own.”

  Jia scoffed. “I don’t want to hear that kind of pompous garbage from an antisocial murderer like you. The men and women working here you gunned down might h
ave a little something to say about threats to lives, and we know you’re not here for a tour of the facility. You’re here to destroy it.”

  Remy stood and dusted off his sleeves. “I’m going to leave this place, and I’m going to leave the moon.”

  “Now you’re suddenly not willing to die?” Jia rolled her eyes. “Of course, you aren’t.”

  He glared at her. “I’m more than willing to die.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “But on my terms, not yours.”

  Alina shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere. Your men are dead. The bots are destroyed, and every grav tower in the city is being protected. Whatever spy you have in the department can’t compensate for all that. Damaging this one tower won’t accomplish much. It’ll simply be an inconvenience in the long run.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I already took the liberty of routing an evacuation order from the police. Everyone’s leaving this area. Even if you blow this tower, you’re not going to go down as a great terrorist. All the other people you sent to attack the police have already been taken care of. Our reinforcements will be here in minutes.”

  “I wouldn’t mind you leaving here in a body bag,” Erik admitted. “But if you disable your bomb, I guarantee you’ll live until trial. You can rant and rave about all your sick politics then. Otherwise, you’re just going to end up dead, and everyone will have forgotten about you while they move onto the next episode of Zitark, Leem, or Goldfish?”

  Remy pressed down on his shirt, revealing the outline of something small on his upper chest. “Go ahead. I’ve got a dead man’s switch. The second my heart stops, the device goes off.”

  “You plan to blow it up anyway.” Erik snorted. “Why should we let you go? And you heard her. They’re evacuating.”

  Remy sneered. “You should let me go because every second I don’t set it off is one second you believe you have a chance of stopping me.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Jia added. “You think you’re the first terrorist to think about blowing up a grav tower? Or was this all some pathetic attempt at misdirection? You think you’re going to blow a hole in the dome? The emergency systems will seal it. All you’ve done is thrown lives away on some pointless quest. It’d be pathetic if you hadn’t murdered innocent people to do it.”