Cabal of Lies

by Michael Anderle

  “Shower and all that pesky necessary stuff behind that door,” Alina gestured toward the bulkhead. “You can sleep here. It’s going to get cramped if you make a long journey, but it’ll work for tooling around the Solar System for now. Most of the side jobs I imagine coming up in the next few months would be local system jobs.”

  “You’ve got it planned out already?” Jia asked.

  “Fortune favors the prepared,” Alina quoted.

  She continued toward the door in the front bulkhead. This time she slapped an access panel to open the door. The small cockpit contained three high-backed seats that blocked a clear view of the front window, tightly packed in front of the inactive control panel. Without the ship being powered up, it resembled a flat gray shelf. All the projected displays and active adjusting haptic feedback was unnecessary while docked.

  Erik poked his head into the cockpit. “I’m not going to complain about having more toys, but I can’t fly a ship. Jia can’t either, and I don’t think either of us is going to become a pilot anytime soon.”

  One of the seats turned, revealing a smiling muscular man about Erik’s size. His long, drooping dark mustache reminded Erik of a moon gangster’s.

  Erik and Jia both went for their guns.

  The man raised his hands above his head. “Damn, Koval. I thought it wouldn’t get dangerous until we were on a mission. They’re about to smoke my ass.”

  Erik and Jia looked at Alina. She nodded with a slight smirk, and they both lowered their hands.

  “We don’t like surprises,” Jia commented.

  The corners of Alina’s mouth curled up in a faint smile. “Good way to stay alive.”

  The man stood and offered his hand to Erik, who gave it a firm shake. “Cutter Durn. I do freelance work for Koval occasionally. She said you might need help flying this Rabbit around sometimes.”

  “You’re not a ghost?” Jia asked.

  “Nah. No way I’m good enough for something like that.” Cutter shook his head. “Nope, I’m not a fancy Goddess of Death like her. I just fly. Do it damned well, though.”

  “’Goddess of Death?’” Erik echoed, glancing at the ghost.

  Alina raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Problem with nicknames, Obsidian Detective?”

  “Sensitive, huh?” Erik smirked. “I’ll let it go.”

  Emma materialized in the corner of the room, frowning at Cutter. “You don’t need a fleshbag to fly this ship. I can fly it easily.”

  Cutter grimaced. “Damn. You warned me, Koval, but I wasn’t ready for it. Big fancy military AI who looks like a chick.”

  Jia eyed the man. “No offense, Alina, but how do we know we can trust him? You just said he was freelance. He can be bought.”

  Cutter laughed. “Yeah, and piss off Koval? I like living and having all my fingers and toes.”

  “It’s a fair complaint.” Alina inclined her head toward Cutter. “I trust him, and you’ll need a physical pilot at least initially, even if you don’t have him fly the ship.”

  “Why?” Jia asked. “Emma’s right.”

  The AI nodded firmly.

  “Because neither of you knows enough to fake proper procedures, even with Emma whispering in your ear,” Alina explained, gesturing to the inactive control panel.

  Cutter shook Jia’s hand before taking a seat. “If Alina just wants to pay me to look pretty, that’s fine, but you can’t always trust a machine.”

  “And you can’t trust a man who looks as ridiculous as you,” Emma retorted.

  Cutter burst out laughing and shook his head. “I’ve never been owned by a fake chick before.”

  Emma scoffed and folded her arms. “I can see you’ll wear thin quickly.”

  “You sound like my ex-wife,” he muttered.

  “Cutter has a point,” Alina commented. “Depending on where Emma’s matrix is, she might not be able to control the ship. You might need to take her with you.”

  “We’ll figure out something,” Erik replied. “But we just took a vacation. We’re not going anywhere soon. I’m surprised you got us this ship.”

  “I’m fine with that.” She smiled. “But you’re not just good at solving problems. You’re also good at finding them. I’m sure that’ll be useful sooner rather than later. I’ll also make sure you have an easy and secure way of getting in touch with Cutter via Emma.”

  The AI rolled her eyes. “Must I be the one who has to communicate with this ridiculous…” she eyed him, “fleshbag?”

  “I like her,” Cutter commented. “She’s feisty. Always trust a feisty chick, whether she’s real or a hologram.”

  Erik chuckled. “Alina, I’ve got decent savings, but running a ship could eat into that pretty quickly.”

  “Don’t worry.” Alina patted the back of one of the seats. “I’ll get you set up with my ID-affiliated accounts. They don’t show up that way, of course. More shell companies, but you’ll be able to expense the basic costs of the ship through those. It’ll be enough to keep you going for basic operations.”

  “Weapons?” Erik asked, boyish curiosity in his voice.

  Jia glanced at him.

  “You’ve got plenty right now on your own. Don’t get greedy. It’ll be easier to keep your involvement with the ID secret if we limit what we’re paying for. You’re cops. You know how this goes. Lines of evidence.”

  “I’d prefer a few on this baby,” Erik commented.

  “If Talos or anyone else comes after you in space, you better board their ship, because there is no way you’re going to win in something like this.” Alina’s earlier cheerful tone had vanished.

  “I’m ex-Assault Infantry. I prefer boarding actions anyway.”

  Jia cleared her throat and gestured toward the crew berths. “Erik, could I talk to you alone for a moment?”

  “Sure.” Erik nodded to Cutter and Alina before following his partner into the other room.

  Jia eyed Alina in the cockpit and lowered her voice. “You find strange women.”

  “I didn’t find her,” he argued. “She found me. Technically, she found both of us.”

  “And she just gave you a ship.” Jia gestured to the cockpit.

  “Us.” Erik pointed to her and then himself. “She just gave us a ship.”

  “What the hell are we going to do with a ship?” Jia ignored his clarification.

  “Fly around?” Erik shrugged. “I thought you were almost ready to take her offer.”

  “I am.” Jia glanced at Alina again with a slight frown. “But I don’t like doing things on her terms. We should make the call and control our situation.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but we’re going to need a ship, and this is a good start. Taking it doesn’t mean we are her lapdogs.”

  “Yet,” Jia replied. “But remember to be careful. The conspiracy might not own the government, but they’ve got their claws into it.”

  “I’m always careful,” Erik commented. “But that’s also why I want you to watch my back.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Erik wanted to say something more, but there was no way in hell he was going to do that with Cutter and Alina only a few meters away.

  The idea of flying around in a ship with Jia in close quarters appealed for reasons that had nothing to do with the conspiracy.

  “How about we take it for a spin?” Emma interrupted via their PNIUs. Her holographic form remained in the cockpit, frowning at Cutter. “Without the mustachioed fleshbag, of course. Have either of you watched the planet turn from your own ship before?”

  “No.” Erik rubbed his face, grateful for the interruption. “But not yet. We’ll get our chance, but she’s right. We’ll need Cutter, at least for now.”

  “Just because we have a pilot, it doesn’t mean we don’t need you, Emma,” Jia insisted.

  “This isn’t about being needed,” the AI insisted. “Have you seen his mustache? That’s a grievous insult to anything with visual processing ability. Have some standards f
or your species, I beg you.”

  Erik glanced at Cutter. “We’ll have to take him with us to Chang’e City the next time we go. He’ll fit right in. For now, let’s get the info about the accounts from Alina. We don’t know if we won’t need this for months or if we’ll need it tomorrow. Somehow, though, I think this is as much a signal from the Lady as it is from the lady in the front of the ship.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  September 5, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Copez Pilot Training Center

  Jia stepped into the spacious lobby of the pilot training center. Light classical music played over speakers.

  On either side were small offices with transparent walls, holding black tables and chairs. Some of the offices had people inside, gesturing to data windows, but most were empty.

  A couple of men, folded pressure suits under their arms, passed through the door into the back.

  She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she was wasting her time. The doubt passed, and she made her way toward a smiling young woman standing behind a desk at the front. Her nametag read Daiyu.

  The receptionist stared at Jia for a moment, uncertainty on her face.

  “Is something wrong?” Jia asked. She hadn’t done anything odd she could remember since entering the building.

  The receptionist winced. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to be rude. You just looked familiar. I like to think I never forget a face, and I know your face, but I also don’t think we’ve met. Is that like fate?”

  Jia didn’t want to play the fame card, but it wasn’t like she could hide her identity for long.

  “Not fate. The news.” Jia shrugged with an apologetic smile.

  “The news?” Daiyu tilted her head, a confused look on her face.

  “There’s been the occasional news story on me. I’m Detective Jia Lin.”

  “I know you!” Daiyu put both hands over her mouth and gasped. “Lady Justice!”

  Please don’t squeal!

  “That’s…a nickname they have given me, yes. Apparently, it’s too hard just to call me Detective Lin.” Jia tried to keep smiling. Sometimes the price of fame wasn’t getting shot at or having bombers sent.

  Sometimes it was inconvenience in your daily life.

  “Are you here on a case?” Daiyu leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is there a syndicate smuggler here? Terrorists? I totally saw this guy who looked like one of the terrorists on my favorite drama Red and White Mars, and I told my friend, and she’s like, ‘That just means he’s probably an actor.’ I tried to tell her they pick actors who look like criminals to make it more gritty.” She paused to gather breath. “So he’s probably a criminal.”

  Jia blinked, trying to keep everything straight in her head. Once she finally realized what the woman was talking about, she shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not here on police business. I want to talk to someone about getting lessons for a Class D license.”

  “Oh.” Daiyu smiled, although there was disappointment in her eyes. “One moment, Lad…Detective Lin. I’ll go get someone for you.” The tapping of her shoes broke the silence as she hurried to a door leading to the back and disappeared through it.

  Jia grimaced.

  A few producers had sniffed around her and Erik, asking about making a movie or a show, but they’d been able to scare them off. There might come a point where a studio decided to make a fictionalized show about a corp princess and her vet partner. They could just change the names and pretend it wasn’t about them. For some reason, the Blackstone Gambit came to mind as a title.

  “Maybe something with Brown would work better,” she muttered under her breath, wondering why she was even thinking about that sort of thing. There was nothing she could do about a docu-drama at the moment. She needed to concentrate on her reason for coming to the training center.

  Jia had not mentioned her plan to anyone, including Erik, and since Emma didn’t actively interface with her PNIU when they weren’t together, no one knew about her little scheme to improve her skills.

  Of course, the only reason to take lessons was if she decided Emma and Cutter needed backup. It didn’t make sense not to keep Cutter around since Alina was the one paying him.

  If he was working for the Goddess of Death, they wouldn’t have to keep secrets from him.

  Jia’s body stiffened. Had she already advanced that far? She’d been skeptical of the ship, but at the same time, she was considering the logistics of what it would take to live a life of investigation without police resources. She’d already made up details she could pass along to her family to explain her job shift.

  Erik kept warning her not to do anything because of him, but her thoughts about the offer had long since passed just wanting to help him.

  He’d changed her.

  She couldn’t deny that, but the potential was always there. A year ago, she thought stopping the occasional fraud in Neo SoCal would be enough to satisfy her, but now she craved to travel the UTC and make it a better place.

  It was more than that, though.

  She wanted to test herself.

  The frontier couldn’t be any more dangerous than her experiences in the last year. She wanted to tell Erik all that, but it felt like pushing too hard. Or maybe some small piece of the old Jia was still holding her back. She couldn’t be sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to expand her skill set in either event.

  Jia waited patiently, lost in her thoughts until Daiyu reappeared with an older man with close-cropped graying hair.

  He extended his hand. “I’m Idrin. I’m one of the senior trainers here, Detective Lin. We didn’t expect someone famous to walk in.”

  Jia shook his hand. “I’m not that famous.”

  “Depends on who you ask.” Idrin pointed at an empty office. “Let’s talk over there.”

  The pair made their way to the office while Daiyu retook her post as a smiling sentinel on the lookout for handsome syndicate arms traffickers who looked like actors.

  The small flickers of doubt remaining in Jia’s mind began to burn away. Even if she didn’t end up taking Alina’s offer, learning to pilot wasn’t a bad idea. It would have helped with at least one case already. Admittedly, it was an Alina-related matter. Besides, something about piloting appealed to her.

  She liked the idea of controlling a spacecraft.

  She’d never had a strong desire to fly her flitter, but controlling a spaceship was a different matter. That might not be rational, but for once, she didn’t care. It was the idea that excited her.

  Idrin gestured to a chair across from him and took a seat. “Just to be clear, Detective, this isn’t about a case? Daiyu said it wasn’t, but then she immediately asked me if we have any new shady clients and then said something about actors looking like criminals. She’s a very friendly woman and good with clients, but I admit, I sometimes have no idea what she’s talking about.”

  Jia settled into her seat with a polite laugh. “No, this has nothing to do with a case and nothing to do with the NSCPD. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately, and I wanted to see how plausible learning to pilot is, given my schedule.”

  Idrin tapped his PNIU. Images of several small spacecraft appeared, including a Rabbit and some single-seaters. There were only a few ships larger than the Rabbit, including two sleek space yachts. “This is the range of things that are covered by a Class D license. I don’t mean to be rude, Detective, but I want to make it clear this is for spacecraft, not primarily atmospheric craft. If you’re looking for that kind of training, I can direct you to an appropriate place. Despite what you might see in dramas, the skills between atmospheric and non-atmospheric aren’t very transferable.”

  “No, I’m exactly where I need to be.” Jia gestured to the image of the Rabbit. “I want to be able to fly something like that.” She swept her hand to indicate the other craft. “Or any of them. Eventually, I’d like to learn to fly something bigger, but it’s not like I started with a h
eavy laser rifle when I learned to shoot.”

  He eyed her for a moment, taking in her last comment. “It uh, it takes a lot of time to become a certified pilot, Detective, even Class D. I know you’re a police officer, but you might not appreciate how many more laws, regulations, and rules there are for spacecraft than atmospheric craft. There are also many more legal limits on using AI assistance on spacecraft than any other type of vehicle.”

  “I’ve spent the last few days poring over those laws,” Jia replied. “You’re right. There are a lot, and they’re all good and reasonable regulations. I’m eager to study them in the context of piloting, but what I’m more curious about is the time commitment. If I were able to attend training on a weekly basis and I had access to my own ship where I could fly with a fully licensed pilot, how long do you think it’d take?”

  Idrin shrugged. “Three to six months, I suppose, depending on how quickly you get through the simulator training before we go to practice flights. The pilot you’re talking about could help you get your registered hours past the simulator hours. However, we have our own strict curriculum here, and if you’re getting your certification through us, we insist you follow our program in full, even if you’re supplementing with outside material.”

  “Understandable.” Jia leaned forward. “So, let’s talk about scheduling.”

  “That’s it?” He blinked. “That quickly?”

  “It wasn’t just the laws and regulations I was studying the last few days.” Jia summoned several data windows in the air between them. They contained reviews of different pilot training centers, pilot safety training statistics, and a myriad of other data.

  Idrin leaned forward to skim the windows, his eyes flitting from one to the next to take in the salient points before he looked through them at her. “Not just a whim? I’d say you were having a midlife crisis, but you’re a little young for that.”

  Jia brought up a calendar. “I’m not planning to start right away, but I’d like to start within a few weeks, and I also don’t want my name splashed all over the media. That’s both for my privacy and to protect the security of this place.”