by Jaxon Reed
He nodded at Wilcox and pointed at her pistol with his eyebrows raised.
She moved into a standard military stance, both hands gripping the weapon.
Thip!
A tiny energy bolt spat out of the little gun and hit the image in the head. It flickered red and disappeared.
“Good shot!” Bertie said.
Wilcox said, “This thing is anemic. That guy who shot up the club last night had a real gun, not a little pea shooter like this.”
Bertie looked affronted.
He said, “This is standard issue for AOJ. Director Farthingale mandated it. You don’t like it, take it up with the new Director.”
“We trained on these in the Academy,” Boggs said quietly to her, stepping up to fire at his own target. It flashed red and he stepped out of the way.
Collier followed next and said, “Yeah. But they’re nothing like what we had in the Marines, huh?”
She fired her one shot and the holo flashed red.
“You were in the Marines?” Gina said.
“Yeah. Mortie told me you were his Sergeant for a while before they took you away for secret assignments and such.”
“How many others were matriculated out of the Academy today?”
Boggs and Collier looked at one another.
Boggs said, “Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three if you count Rosemary,” Collier said. “She graduated earlier.”
“Yeah.”
Wilcox said, “And everybody got snapped up for assignments except you two?”
“That’s right,” Boggs said. “Guess they didn’t want the Marines hogging the glory!”
“Wait. Were any of the others Marines? Or, just you two?”
“Fergusson was a Marine,” Boggs said.
Collier said, “Yeah, but he transferred into the Navy before Juventas. He wasn’t in there for long.”
“That’s odd,” Wilcox said. She filed it away for later. “Come on. We’ll put your stuff in my office for now, then we’ve got to get to work.”
Together, the three ex-Marines said goodbye to Bertie. They left Weaponry and walked back toward the elevators.
Half an hour later, Gina’s car left the garage and they flew out over Octavia.
She guided the car into a stream heading toward Plairmont and let it assume automatic flight.
She swiveled her chair to face the back seat where Boggs and Collier sat.
Boggs said, “Eastside is in the other direction, Sarge. We’re headed west.”
“That’s right. We need to make a stop by a storage unit I rent in Plairmont.”
During the trip Wilcox spoke more with Collier, encouraging the younger woman to share her military experiences. Collier had served on the William Howard Taft in the 57th platoon, which saw heavy action on Juventas and Sporades.
The more she listened, the more Wilcox came to like Collier, and it was not just the shared military bonds. The woman had a good head on her shoulders, Wilcox thought. Not everybody did these days, but Collier seemed like one of the good people so far as Wilcox could tell.
The car landed in a secured area, a red force field dissipating to let the vehicle inside its defined boundary.
All around a large perimeter, a tall cement wall topped by razor wire discouraged pedestrian access, too.
Wilcox popped the top and everybody climbed out. She walked over to a bunker door set in concrete alongside dozens of identical entrances. She stuck her hand inside an advanced scanner more often found in banks than regular buildings.
Boggs said, “Whatcha got in storage out here, Sarge?”
Wilcox did not answer.
The scanner turned green, the door swished open and lights flickered on inside. Boggs and Collier followed Wilcox in.
Along the walls, rack after rack of advanced firearms gleamed at them.
“Omigosh,” Collier said, staring at all the weapons. “You’ve got enough here to equip a small army.”
“Is this part of AOJ?” Boggs asked.
“No, this is my private collection.”
Wilcox pointed to a rack and pulled down one of six identical handguns.
She said, “Metzinger MEG-22, late Marine issue used in the war. Everybody take two.”
Boggs dutifully stuffed a couple of the guns in his belt. They were considerably larger and much more lethal looking than the law enforcement models from AOJ.
Collier was slower but eventually followed suit, admiring the handguns.
Wilcox walked over and examined several rifles hanging on the opposite wall.
She said, “The heavy guns and missile launchers the Black Goggle Gang used to take out the muni PD station were pretty powerful. If they’re hiding out in Eastside, we need something equivalent. All I’ve got are Marine rifles, but they should be adequate.”
She pulled down three and handed one each to Boggs and Collier before strapping the third over her own shoulder.
She pulled out several backpacks and inspected the contents quickly before handing three to each person.
“Thirty egg grenades are in each backpack. That should help even the odds.”
Collier’s eyes bulged while Boggs cracked a grin.
Wilcox said, “Let’s see. We might as well bring the puppy. Maybe Boggs will get a chance to use it again.”
She pulled down a small drone from a shelf, the size of a shoebox.
“I remember those things,” Collier said, examining it. “Where did you get this? It’s Marine issue only.”
“Ask me no questions, Collier, and I’ll tell you no lies. Now, where are my cigars? Here we go.”
She pulled down a box and opened it, fishing out a fresh stick.
Wilcox turned to Collier and said, “Do your parents grow tobacco on Pearl?”
“No. But we have neighbors who do. I’m afraid to ask where you got that. Imports of tobacco products are restricted.”
Gina grinned, the unlit cigar sticking up at an angle from her face.
“My mom sent them. She’s a hoot. I’ve got lots of stories I’ll have to tell you sometime.”
She looked around one last time at the storage facility’s guns. Then she reached up to a clothes rack and took down two black overcoats. She handed one to Collier, the other to Boggs.
“These are made of Kelvingarb. They’re not perfect, but they help shield you from gunfire. Put them on.”
The agents complied, pulling the garments over their clothes.
Wilcox took down another black overcoat for herself.
She said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Laden with weapons, much more appropriate ones for the job at hand Wilcox thought, they headed back to the car.
She locked the storage space behind them.
21
As her car sped across the urban sprawl below, Wilcox continued speaking with the two new agents.
“Another thing that bothers me is, why hasn’t anyone else had the idea to go check out this location? I would think that would be basic detective work. We have all these agents assigned to cases running around like proverbial chickens with their heads cut off, and no one has stopped by to talk with Forensics? It just seems odd.”
“Maybe nobody else has thought of it like you have, Sarge.”
“Boggs, this is the AOJ. We are the premiere law enforcement agency in the entire Republic. Probably the entire galaxy now, since the League has shrunk and we dismantled SSI. Although, SSI was more concerned about torturing their own citizens than enforcing laws.”
She sighed in frustration and chewed hard on her unlit cigar.
“I just find it hard to believe that nobody has followed the obvious leads yet.”
Collier said, “You know, I have been paying attention to the AOJ since grade school. It’s always been my dream to become an agent someday. The war delayed that goal, but I picked it up again as soon as I was discharged from the Marines.
“Anyway, I noticed a serious decline in the Agency sometime around the start
of the war. Farthingale really was a bad appointment, and he came onboard about that same time. I started reading about more botched cases after he took over. Serious mistakes led to criminals literally getting away with murder. Other times, investigations slowed to a crawl for no good reason.”
“Great,” Wilcox said. “Right now, when we need AOJ to be at its peak, we’ve got a brand new leader getting baptized by fire and half the tenth floor is empty. I had trouble even rounding up a group to go with me to Eastside.”
“Look at it this way, Sarge,” Boggs said. “Three ex-Marines are worth about ten regular agents.”
-+-
Wilcox returned her attention to the controls for a while. Collier and Boggs continued conversing in the back seat. They discussed life onboard troop transports, and shared experiences in the Academy.
Wilcox felt fairly certain that Boggs was smitten with Collier. He certainly transmitted all the right signals during their conversation.
For her part, Collier remained polite and professional. If she was attracted to Boggs, she did not make any outward displays or cast any hints.
That was smart, Wilcox thought. It was smart on multiple levels.
She took a look at the map displayed on her windshield.
“We’re getting close. I’m going to look for a place to park.”
Down below, the scenery changed. Buildings now looked gray and dingy. Debris choked the alleys and litter fluttered through the streets.
People moved slower on the sidewalks, too. Some pushed carts full of trash, intent on selling scrap for credits. Others sat with backs propped up against the walls with a hat nearby collecting tokens.
“One of the bad parts of town,” Boggs said, looking down from the window.
“I take it OPD doesn’t spend much time here?” Wilcox said.
Boggs glanced at Collier and said, “You’re an Octavian native. What do you know about Eastside?”
Collier shrugged and said, “There are slums in every city. This is one of ours.”
“Slums tend to get bought out and redeveloped, eventually,” Wilcox said. “PLAIR, run a report on real estate sales in Eastside going back the last five years. Let me know who’s been buying property and what they’ve done with it, if anything.”
“Will do, Detective Wilcox.”
Collier said, “Why is she calling you ‘Detective?’ Aren’t you the Assistant Director now?”
Gina shrugged and said, “Maybe she hasn’t updated the title in her database yet. It doesn’t matter so long as she does what I ask.”
She glanced back down at the dull scenery below.
“Uh oh.”
“What is it, Sarge?”
“What we’re looking at right now is an electronic reflection field.”
Both agents in the back seat stared down. The scene remained the same, with dingy streets and littered alleyways.
“How can you tell?” Collier said. “I don’t see any difference.”
Gina said, “That’s the point. It looks the same, but it’s not.”
She thought fast. How could she explain her powers without giving everything away?
She said, “I, uh, received some special training when I was on special assignment toward the end of the war. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. All these blocks below us that we’re looking at are under an electronic field disguising the true view from above. We are not seeing what is actually going on below. Somebody spent a lot of money on this to protect the view from satellites and police flyovers.”
She turned the car around and flew back out of the field’s area of effect.
“I’m going to set down on the street over here so we can get out and walk in under it.”
Little terrestrial traffic flowed in the street, so Gina landed next to a sidewalk in front of an abandoned car.
She popped the top and everybody got out, pulling egg grenades and other bags with the long guns out. Then she asked PLAIR to leave the car floating in the air above them.
The top lowered and the vehicle rose vertically several meters.
Satisfied, Wilcox nodded at the other two, and they walked across the street to the series of blocks under the reflection field.
“I can’t tell the difference,” Collier said. “You’re going to have to train me to notice the details that give it away.”
Wilcox smiled and said, “We’ll see.”
They walked down the street, Wilcox mentally scanning the buildings.
Most seemed truly abandoned from what she could tell, with occasional squatters. Often they and other homeless people had no implants, but other electronic debris indicated occupation.
Several hundred meters in she stopped, staring at a building to her right, on their side of the street.
“What is it, Sarge?” Boggs said.
She pointed to the boarded-up windows and said, “That one has a lot of electronic activity in its center.”
Again, Collier’s curiosity was piqued.
She said, “How do you know?”
This time, Wilcox was ready for the question.
She pointed to a brick on the side of the building. “Notice how the color there is slightly off? That’s because it’s hiding a camera.”
Boggs said, “Are we being watched right now?”
She could sense the electronics. The outer rooms were empty, so far as she could tell. But quite a bit of current flowed within the building’s center.
“Maybe. Let’s go inside and see what’s going on.”
“Don’t we need a warrant for that?” Collier said.
Wilcox said, “Not for an abandoned building.”
She approached the door, covered in plywood, and pulled out her much larger handgun than the standard issue LE-42.
Thoop! Thoop!
Smoke billowed out from the plywood and the old door swung inward.
Wilcox gave it a good kick and they went inside, guns ready.
22
“There’s, uh . . . nothing here,” Boggs said, covering the empty room with his gun.
Indeed, the entire place looked vacant. Dust hung in the air and coated broken furniture.
“Looks like it’s been abandoned a long time,” Collier said.
Wilcox holstered her sidearm and glanced at the far wall, frowning.
She said, “There’s living space on the other side, but evidently no door leading out here.”
In her mind, she traced circuits and looked around the building’s wiring. She followed a signal to the back alley and found a security camera there, too.
“Come on, let’s head around back. I bet we find a door.”
The agents retraced their steps back to the street, then followed Wilcox to the building’s rear. Here, a narrow alley separated it from the neighboring building.
Wilcox gazed down the length of the passageway and raised an eyebrow.
“Plastic explosives line the doorway. It’s a trap. If whoever is inside does not like what they see, they pull the trigger and take it all out.”
Collier frowned and said, “How can you tell that? I don’t see anything.”
Instead of answering directly, Wilcox said, “I’ll show you. Boggs, get the puppy out.”
Boggs set his duffel bag down and retrieved the small ground drone while Wilcox opened up a holographic control panel.
The little unit sped down the alley toward the door set in the middle of the building. It slowed as it came close, subjecting the exterior wall to scans for explosives and heat.
On the holo, Wilcox pointed out where plastic explosives were carefully concealed.
Just as Boggs and Collier nodded, she manipulated the signal and detonated them remotely.
KABLUMPH!
Wilcox hated to sacrifice the drone, but losing it made things more plausible.
Out loud she said, “PLAIR request backup from the local precinct. Also notify OFD of the fire.”
“Will do, Detective.”
She glanced back
at Boggs and Collier and said, “Come on. Let’s see if that left a hole in the door.”
She advanced on the entry, replacing her sidearm with a rifle. The other two agents followed, their coattails flapping in a light breeze.
The door stood, barely. An old fashioned model with hinges, it hung crookedly in its frame while smoking.
Wilcox glanced up where the security camera should be, and noted with grim satisfaction it had been taken out with the explosion.
She reached up with her foot and kicked the door in.
Thoop! Thoop!
She ducked out of the way as bolts sailed into the alley from inside the building.
Wilcox stuck the big rifle through the door without looking and squeezed the trigger on full auto.
ThuppaThuppaThuppaThuppaThuppaThuppa!
“Fight fire with fire, I always say,” she said, grinning at Boggs and Collier.
“Always fire back. That’s another thing you like to say, Sarge.”
“When did I say that?”
Thoop!
“Somebody’s still alive and shooting in there,” Collier said before he could respond.
Wilcox said, “I got something for that.”
She pulled out an egg grenade and pressed the plunger. She tossed it underhanded through the door.
Collier said, “Is that a pressure grenade?”
“Nope.”
BOOM!
As soon as the explosive went off, Wilcox rushed inside with the big rifle, spraying bolts.
ThuppaThuppaThuppa!
No one shot back.
The Phantom lay face down on the floor.
-+-
Wilcox waited patiently out in the alley while Ben Fenzinni and his team carefully scoured the interior, picking up clues from the scene with their specialized equipment.
A dozen uniformed OPD officers milled around nearby. Others stood stationed in the street, preventing onlookers and reporters from getting close.
A fire truck floated overhead, its red lights flickering along the charred walls.
Boggs and Collier maintained a quiet conversation.
“It’s just like combat. You wait for days on a troop transport, then all of a sudden you’re in the thick of it trying to shoot your way out.”
