Damir flinched and looked away, shame eating at his concern. He shuffled toward the door, more unsure than ever. Thinking they could rebel against the UTC and win the war had been arrogant if not downright naïve, but the glorious rebellion he’d joined seemed like it was slipping away. Instead, they had put into motion something darker and more twisted.
He made for the door. It didn’t matter. He was committed. Either the rebels won, or people like him ended up in prison or dead. He’d listened to a couple of other people, and they’d all said the same thing as the commander—that the civilians’ deaths were either propaganda or the fault of the government.
He didn’t want to cause trouble. Maybe the commander was right, and he had misinterpreted what he saw.
Damir had always wondered what it’d be like to be the only sane man in the room. It’d turned out to be far less entertaining than he’d imagined. The cause remained, and he could be wrong. For now, he’d focus on freedom. There would be time for justice in the future.
Chapter Fourteen
September 25, 2230, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Summer of Sorrow Monument
Jia didn’t consider herself to be superstitious. She had always prided herself on that. Even when she joked about the Lady with Erik, it was nothing more than humor. Her family participated in holidays more out of social form than belief in the metaphysical necessity. Now, for the first time in her life, she wondered if the dead could come back to haunt the living.
She stood behind Erik, her hands tucked in her pockets, near a tall fence separating a vast, mostly featureless platform from the otherwise abrupt drop-off from the tower. There was nothing unusual about that, especially in Neo SoCal. It was what was in front of her that was the source of her concern.
Thousands of smoky, translucent forms walked with casual strides, smiles on their faces, their names floating above them in bright text. The ghosts had no destination. Some approached a wall and disappeared. Others vanished after a couple of steps, only to be replaced by someone else, but the spectral parade remained constant. The near-silence bothered her the most.
Her brain kept telling her the people in front of her were just holograms, not real ghosts. Each wore the visage of a victim of the Summer of Sorrow. Their order of appearance in the spectral parade was not random. They were appearing and disappearing based on last name.
With thousands of ghosts on the platform for an average of a minute, it took about five days to cycle through every one of the millions of victims of the worst terrorist attack in history. The question of whether they were ghosts was pointless. They represented lives cut short by intense violence and lingered as forms and memories in the world of the living. They were ghosts in every way that mattered.
Emma hadn’t said a word since Erik and Jia had taken the elevator from the parking platform. Even the world’s snarkiest AI could appreciate that some places required respectful silence.
Jia rubbed her shoulders. “Alina picked a cheery place to meet. I’ll have to congratulate her on her choice.”
Erik surveyed the area and gestured at a small cluster of solid humans in the distance. “Not a lot of people here. In that sense, it’s a good place to meet.” He looked at Jia. “You’ve never been here before?”
“Have you?”
Erik shook his head. “No. This is my first time.”
“This is my second,” Jia explained. “I came here in high school. Everyone who goes to school here visits the monument. It’s required. I didn’t like it then either.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “When it first opened during the first centennial anniversary, it was a big tourist attraction. Then attendance dropped off. No one wants to think about the dark past when you live in a place that’s recovered. Neo SoCal’s all about the future and people coming together to make something good after a tragedy.”
“That’s why this is almost perfect for a place like Neo SoCal.” Erik looked thoughtful. “When you live in Heaven, it can be easy to forget evil still exists below you.” He nodded at a passing hologram of a man in an old-fashioned uniform. “Call it chaos, evil, entropy, whatever you want. That darkness is always there, waiting. LA was an impressive city for the time, too. The more we remember things like this…” he motioned at a group of holograms. “…the less chance we have of repeating that horror.”
“I think she’s finally here.” Jia gave a slight nod at an approaching woman in a dark dress.
Her puffy face and dark hair didn’t resemble Alina’s, but she was about the right height. Doubt vanished when the slight whistle of the wind and distant murmurs of other visitors faded into silence.
“Can you hear us, Emma?” Erik asked.
No response. The jamming confirmed their guest was someone with special tech. It was either Alina or an assassin from the Core.
“In thunderous billows borne, some from the waning light, some through mid-noon, some from the rising morn, some from the stars of Night,” the woman announced in a Lunar accent.
“Let the clouds be my guide, for they desire no glory,” Jia answered, invoking a more modern Venusian poet based on Alina’s message.
The woman smiled and her voice changed, her accent shifting to match Alina’s normal one. “It’s been too long. I was beginning to miss chatting with you two.”
“Too long’s a matter of opinion,” Erik commented.
Alina gave him a coy smile. “You both knew what you were in for when you signed up with me. You can’t pretend otherwise.”
“Not saying we didn’t.” Erik shrugged. “Just saying it has not been that long.”
Jia stared at a gaggle of child holograms before tearing her gaze away from them to focus on Alina. “Let’s get to the point. I’d rather not spend any longer here than I have to. If we do our jobs, we won’t need more monuments like this one.”
Alina shook her finger. “Exactly, Jia. It’s nice to have a reminder of why we do what we do, and I appreciate that you two are always ready to move quickly. I’ll be blunt.”
“You always are,” Erik replied.
“It helps things move along, and you don’t need the bullshit.” Alina stepped back with a pensive expression. “We’ve done well on recent missions, both you and the ID, but right now, that jumpship is one of our major advantages over the Core. Especially since we’re handicapped by having a vague sense of morality and ethics and are unwilling to use whatever monstrous means we can think of. The ship gives you mobility, and that means we might be able to get out ahead of the Core instead of disrupting their operations after the fact.”
“So, we’re going to another system again?” Jia asked.
Alina clucked her tongue. “Ironically, no, despite that big speech. At least not yet. This won’t require any jumps. This one’s a little closer to home. You’re going to grab the Argo and go to Mars.”
Erik frowned. “This better not be more pointless syndicate crap.”
“It is syndicate crap, as you put it, but it’s not pointless, if by pointless, you mean not related to the Core.”
“Are you sure?” Jia challenged. “Your little Mars rescue mission was nothing more than an agent getting caught by criminals. The CID and your local assets could have handled that.”
“Yes, but part of the reason I sent you that time was to test you.” Alina shook her head. “This is different. There is no such thing as being sure, which is one of the reasons I’m sending you two. Your borrowed tech is helpful, but your position, combined with your unique competence, will be even more helpful and useful in this particular situation.”
Jia frowned. “I’m not following you. How does our position help?”
“Let me give you some background.” Alina folded her hands behind her back. “A suspicious arms shipment passed through Mars a couple of weeks ago. That shipment might be linked to other suspicious shipments that have passed through over the last six months, and those in turn might be linked to some other odd activity. I’m not going to go into the details for
the moment, other than to say something might be stirring in the colonies, and that might be linked to the Core.”
Erik grunted in frustration. “Even with emergency expedited comm, once you get twenty or thirty light-years from Earth, something could happen, and it’d take us weeks or months to find out. That’s a lot of time to pull off something.”
“That’s what’s got me so worried,” Alina replied softly.
Jia sighed. “There are good leaders out on the frontier. It’s not like if there’s an attack, they have to wait for reinforcements from Earth.”
“No, but not every general or governor out there knows about the Core and what they’re capable of. A terrorist attack on Earth or an older colony might get immediate headlines, but we’ve seen what they’re capable of. If they decided to destroy an entire colony, it’d be easier to do it farther out, where the UTC is less prepared for that kind of thing.”
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” Erik asked, looking at the women. “Just because someone’s smuggling weapons, it doesn’t mean they’re planning to kill a colony. I spent enough time busting smugglers in the Army to know sometimes it’s about colonies thinking they’re not getting enough gear from the core worlds and Earth and being willing to look the other way. Yes, that includes guns. There might not be as many people on the frontier, but it can get wild.”
Alina shook her head. “We have reason to believe it’s not that benign from some of our follow-up analysis and investigation of the information you got from Barbu.”
Jia stiffened at the mention of Barbu. There was still much they didn’t know about the man.
“All that makes sense, but this isn’t about the frontier. This is about the Solar System, so why isn’t this a CID matter?” she asked. “They have plenty of agents on Mars.”
“They do, and that’s part of why we need you two.” Alina sighed. “In the interests of transparency, I’ll be honest. The CID is far more interested in crushing syndicates on Mars than they are in stopping smuggling, except in how it impacts the syndicates.” She inclined her head toward Erik. “Their operating paradigm is that smuggling is at most a way syndicates make money, not a source of significant local trouble. The farther out you go, the more law enforcement becomes a military matter, so based on simple political capital reasons, they care far less about anything that happens outside the core worlds. Because of that, we’re going behind the CID’s back on this and taking the matter into our own hands.”
“Great.” Jia shrugged. “Does this mean if something happens, you’ll leave us to twist in the wind? Curious, since we’re being honest.”
“No.” Alina’s expression turned serious. “As assets, you are too important to be burned for some middle-importance op right now.”
“Right now?” Erik chuckled. “Does that mean in the future, you’ll toss us to the wolves if things get hot?”
“We’ll see what happens when we get there. I do what I need to do to protect the UTC. For now, I’m not asking you to go against the CID. I’m simply noting it’ll be helpful this time for me to send someone to Mars who is at least partially independent of the ID. It helps that you have an in on Mars.”
Jia looked at Erik and Alina “An in? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t have an in,” Alina clarified. “To be specific, Erik has an in.”
Jia didn’t understand. They’d been to Mars together before, and while Erik performed well, he seemed far more comfortable on Earth than Mars.
Her stomach knotted. There was one possibility, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Erik grimaced. “You’re talking about Radira Tellvane, aren’t you?”
Jia blinked. “That bitch. I tried to purge her from my mind.”
Alina laughed. “I’m not ordering you to sleep with her, Erik, but from what you both told me, she has more than a professional interest in you. We can exploit that, and I have some leads for you as well if that doesn’t pan out as well as we’d like.” Her amused smile twitched into a look of concern. “But because I’m trying to keep this a little cleaner on my end, I won’t be sending Kant and Anne with you, and our local agents will be focused on other tasks to give them plausible deniability.”
Jia folded her arms. “In summary, we’re supposed to go to Mars to investigate smuggling, but don’t involve the CID, don’t use local ID resources, and do our best to keep a low profile while walking into a search that’s almost certainly going to bring us trouble with a local syndicate. And our only real advantage, besides Emma, is that a syndicate boss wants to sleep with Erik. In other words, you’re telling us to work with organized crime.”
Erik averted his eyes, but there was far more of a smirk on his face than Jia would have liked. If Alina hadn’t been there, she might have slapped him upside the head.
“Yes.” Alina nodded. “That all sounds accurate.” She held up a hand. “I understand your concern, but I personally don’t care much about criminals, organized or not. Syndicates can be crushed by conventional law enforcement, and they might be criminal scum, but they aren’t determined to undermine the entire UTC or fund mass-casualty terrorist events. If we can take advantage of them in the short term until the CID removes them from play, we should.”
Erik cleared his throat. “Tellvane might not trust us. We weren’t very polite to her the last time we were on Mars.”
“She probably trusts you more than you think, and not just because she wants to screw you. The last time you were on Mars, you effectively took out a competing syndicate for her. All the information we have suggests Prism Associates isn’t smuggling what we’re interested in.” Alina offered a cold smile. “That should minimize the necessity of you fighting Tellvane’s people.”
“All this for weapons shipments?” Jia asked.
“Weapons at a minimum,” Alina replied. “It’s easier to follow the trail this time, so I doubt it’s artifacts, but we need to know what it is and if it is linked to the Core. I don’t care if they’re shipping illegal animals for a party. If the Core is doing it, I want to disrupt it. Every victory we achieve against them weakens them.”
Erik nodded slowly, looking far more concerned than normal. “If it’s them, I want in.”
“If Barbu’s info pointed that way, the chances are good that this is something,” Jia added with a sigh.
“The whole point of giving us Kant and Anne,” Erik continued, “was so we wouldn’t end up fighting entire bases full of guys by ourselves. There’s a line between confidence and stupidity. If we ask around too much or poke our noses into the wrong place, it’s going to end with trouble.”
Alina waved a hand dismissively. “I told you already. Utilize Tellvane.”
“She’s not going to help us just because she’s attracted to Erik.” Jia frowned. “We need some way to make it worthwhile. What are we supposed to do, bribe her?”
“No, it’ll be worth her while to help you for the same reason it was last time. If you two are making noise, she can take advantage of it to weaken another syndicate. Initial inquiries suggest the syndicate facilitating the smuggling is the Star Guild. They’re currently in a little cold war with Tellvane’s Prism Associates.” Alina smiled hungrily. “The Star Guild is already weakened from what I could get out of the CID through back channels. It’s only a matter of time before Prism Associates takes them out, so you might as well use that eventuality to your advantage in this case.”
Erik looked at Jia expectantly. She would never deny she had far more trouble with their flexible arrangement with the law than he’d ever had, but there was a greater threat to consider. Chang’e City, Parvati, Neo SoCal; the Core had repeatedly demonstrated they were willing to kill tens of thousands of innocent people for their goals. If working with antisocial gangsters was the worst thing Jia did that year to stop the Core, she would be able to sleep at night.
She nodded firmly. “We leave our manpower then, but how are we supposed to get to Mars? If we’re supposed to be play
ing at independence, won’t it look suspicious if we’re flying around in a ship the ID pays for?”
Alina shook her head. “You have physical custody of the ship and the hangar, and the accounts you used aren’t audited on a daily basis. We might have to apologize for you going for a joyride in the Argo, but it’d be easy to deflect responsibility.”
“When should we go?” Erik asked. “If Tellvane’s about to finish off the Star Guild, I assume we can’t wait around too long.”
“I’m preparing some things on my end and on Mars through local agents. They need to be more careful than useful because of the political considerations, so it’ll take a couple of days to get everything set up. To cut down on suspicion, I don’t want you leaving before then.”
Jia looked up. “I hope Radira Tellvane doesn’t end up screwing us.”
Alina smirked. “Screwing you? Well, if she does, it won’t be both of you.”
Jia glared at her. “Very funny.”
Alina snickered and waved. “Plan to depart in the morning two days from now unless I tell you otherwise. Your maintenance staff is part of the ship, so they’ll be going. You make the call on if you bring Constantine.”
With that, she headed back toward the elevator but stopped for a moment to stare at a batch of memorial holograms before continuing.
“I hope you didn’t have anything else fun planned for this week,” Jia mumbled.
Erik shrugged. “Beating down a syndicate sounds fun.”
Chapter Fifteen
September 26, 2230, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Private Hangar of the Argo
In the Argo’s cargo bay, Jia knelt by a crate and pulled the lid off. Rows of grenades were nestled in racks, a box full of death waiting to be delivered to her enemies. She preferred solving problems without grenades, but the universe had conspired to make that all but impossible during the past few years.
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