Chapter 7

2308 Words
Chapter Seven A couple of hours later, Erik and Jia sat in their office, eyes searching the air in front of them. Both were finishing some of the lingering reports required for recent cases and incidents, including the jewelry store robbery. Holographic data windows surrounded them, and other than a few quiet murmurs, neither had said anything for several minutes. Erik glanced up when Jia’s hand waved in a circle, closing the windows floating around her. “You finished already?” He looked at the reports around him that still needed attention. “I need you to teach me your tricks. I’ve done my share of boring reports over the last few decades, but these cop reports are boring at a whole new level than I’m used to.” Jia shook her head. “We didn’t talk about him. That doesn’t seem right.” Erik’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Captain Ragnar?” She laid her head back for a moment, looking up. “I want to believe everything he said, but I wonder if he’s too good to be true.” Erik chuckled. “Don’t worry about our present from Generous Goa.” Jia looked at him, her brow creased. “What do you mean?” “You’re acting like it’s some great deal that we’ve got him, but the guy basically admitted that half this department and a bunch of politicians are still going to be trying to screw us.” Erik offered her a lopsided grin. “Short answer: don’t get too happy yet.” “Anyone who isn’t actively sabotaging my investigations is an improvement over Monahan.” She turned her chair to face him. “So, what are your thoughts about our new captain? If other detectives or corrupt politicians want to come after us, so be it.” Erik blew out a breath and thought for a moment. “I’m not saying we co-sign a loan with the guy, but I don’t think he’s going to pull a Monahan for a while. If he wanted us on a tight leash, he would have made that clear right away. It’ll be too late to get us under control later, and he seems to be the type who would know that.” Jia let out a sigh of relief. “It’s not that I need perfection. I just want to build on what we’ve done. I feel like we’re making progress, even if things are getting more chaotic.” “It’s like I told you before. Think of dealing with crime like fighting a frontier insurgency. That’s how I’m viewing it.” Jia’s incredulous look told Erik she didn’t care for his choice of metaphor. “Let’s try that again,” he offered. “All I’m saying is that when you’re poised to break the back of an enemy army,” Erik explained, “is when they get desperate and start fighting back the hardest. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing, and it’ll all work itself out. Even the laziest cops can become an asset if we stay the course.” “How do you figure?” Jia asked. “Because once it becomes uncomfortable for them to not do anything, they’ll start doing their job because that’ll end up being easier than not doing it.” “Here?” Jia muttered, her eyes flicking to the bullpen. “I don’t believe it.” “Huh?” Erik had gotten somewhat lost in the conversation, which was unusual when dealing with Jia. Her naïveté had made her straightforward and honest, far more than he was in a lot of ways. Jia took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “It’s just hard accepting the truth, even now. I mean, if Earth is as corrupt as any other planet, and Neo SoCal is, too, what does that say about the rest of the UTC? I keep thinking about the kinds of things you have seen. I’m still processing everything that’s happened since you arrived, and sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night. I already believed the frontier was terrible, and now I wonder if it’s even more terrible than I’ve imagined.” Erik’s stomach tightened, and an image popped into his mind: his unit being slaughtered on Molino. He offered Jia a forced grin. “I’ve seen a lot of nastiness,” he responded, his voice quiet and personal. “I’m not going to deny that, but I also learned during that time on the frontier that any enemy can be beaten.” “I feel…” Jia lowered her head to look directly at Erik once more. “I feel guilty when I’m not doing something. I’ve taken up indoor gardening lately. It’s something I used to do, but when I became a cop, I figured I should be spending all my time doing work in my profession. I know we’re not the only cops in the metroplex, but it’s hard not to feel like every wasted minute means I’m letting the criminals grow stronger.” “You can’t obsess about the job all the time.” Erik’s brow wrinkled in concern. “If the soldiers I commanded needed downtime, so do you. You’ll burn out, and you’ll be useless to the captain, the 1-2-2, and me.” “What about you?” Jia peered at him with undisguised interest. “What about me? I just said I need you.” Erik grinned. “It’s not like I can beat down every criminal in this city by myself.” Jia chuckled. “I’m not talking about that. I mean, what do you do for fun, other than drink beer and eat beignets? I might feel guilty about it, but I do have a life, both gardening and with my friends. I even go out on annoying dates. We met on a night I was out dancing, after all, but I still don’t know a lot about what you do when you’re not on the job.” “I’m spending a lot of time getting used to Earth and figuring out where to get certain things I need,” Erik answered. Just the other day, he had tracked down a new supplier for his TR-7 ammunition. That was as much for personal enjoyment as work, wasn’t it? “I’ll figure out something to do with myself soon enough.” A knowing smile appeared on Jia’s face. “Physician, heal thyself. Neo SoCal might have a corrupt underbelly that we’ve exposed, but it’s also the largest city in the world. There has to be something you can find to do here that isn’t police work.” “You don’t need to worry about me. I know how to keep going.” Erik slapped his chest. “I’m still here after all these years and all those battles. I don’t know how to burn out.” Jia leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “What now?” Erik answered her unasked question. “You’re suspicious of Ragnar, so now you’re interested in my private life?” “Oh, sorry. No. It’s…your hair. It’s not as gray?” Jia sat up straight, an apologetic look on her face. “It looks like the de-aging treatment is still working. I wasn’t sure. I’ve seen more than a few people where their hair stayed gray.” “Yeah, I’ve met more than a few myself.” Erik ruffled his hair. “But I can live with gray hair for a while. There are worse things.” “Thanks for the advice, Erik.” Jia tapped her PNIU and a new data window appeared in front of her. “I suppose I should finish this report and not worry about the captain or feeling pointless guilt.” “Probably.” Erik nodded and returned his attention to his own windows. He needed to give Jia the custom-engraved pistol he’d purchased for her, but he wanted it to feel special. Like a commendation, not a gift. Jia’s time was coming. It just wasn’t that moment. Erik yawned as he headed down the hall toward his apartment. Writing up reports had tired him more than getting jumped by angry security bots or having a firefight with robbers. It drained the soul, and even his decades as an Army officer hadn’t helped him build up a decent resistance. Someday, when he died, it would probably be from a heart attack in the middle of writing a report. The apartment door across from his slid up, and his neighbor Garth stepped out. The redhaired man blinked in surprise before smiling. “Hey, Erik. I was just going out on an errand.” “I just got off work.” Erik’s door slid open, but he stopped and turned toward the other man. “Can I ask you something about your job?” His eyes lit up. “My job? At Hermes? Oh, you mean…” Garth’s eyes lost a bit of their excitement. “You didn’t read the book I sent on the hidden Navigator truth, did you? I’ve been waiting for you to ask me about it.” “I’ve just been busy, is all,” Erik replied. There was no reason to spin up the conspiracy theorist by explaining his theory that the Navigators were hanging out on Earth in stasis in platypuses was insane. Garth was pleasant enough otherwise, and unlike many conspiracy theories, it was relatively harmless. The man wasn’t calling for the extermination of any of the species he believed were actually Navigators or attempting to link them to the government or corporations. As far as Erik was concerned, without a time machine, humanity’s relationship with the long-extinct Navigators would be limited to the reverse engineering of their technology, such as the hyperspace transfer points. The UTC had gotten lucky that the Local Neighborhood races all seemed to have achieved roughly the same level of advancement. A more-than-a-million-year-old advanced race would, by comparison, be like humans showing up to chase monkeys out of an area. The very real conspiracy of Erik’s unit being slaughtered needed to be solved and Hermes’ comm message tracking codes had brought him to Neo SoCal. They had taken him on a trail leading to a conveniently exploding office controlled by Halcyon, a Ceres subsidiary, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone had led him there on purpose. “Busy?” Garth’s expression brightened a bit. “Oh, right. I get that. You’ve been doing your thing to clean up the city.” He waved a hand. “Take your time. If you have any questions about the Navigators when you get to read the stuff I sent you, you know where to find me.” “Sure, sure.” Erik waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll do that, but back to Hermes. I was just wondering a few things. I’ve got an investigation I’m working on, and Hermes came up. I’m not saying they did anything wrong, just that I have to follow these leads, and I’d like to know what the hell I’m talking about before I go knocking on any doors. After what happened with Ceres, I need to be careful.” “That makes sense.” Garth scratched his ear. “What do you need?” “Would it theoretically be possible for someone to hack into Hermes Systems to change tracking codes?” Erik asked. “When I was in the Army, they kept insisting it wasn’t possible, but the DD likes to claim a lot of things aren’t possible.” He wouldn’t have thought true AI was possible before meeting Emma. There was only so much he could risk the AI by pointing her straight at Hermes or Ceres Galactic. If he pushed too hard, the Defense Directorate might take her back. Garth furrowed his brow, the corners of his mouth curling in a frown. “The tracking codes for all messages are based on quantum-encrypted transponder signals. They can’t change the codes without the recipient system knowing. The quantum signature would be off. That isn’t even a hacking thing. It’s like a fundamental physics thing, and it’s preserved despite the effects of hyperspace. Hermes wouldn’t be the power it is in the UTC if all it took was a few good hackers to fake or alter messages en route. You can’t even spy on the messages without Hermes knowing.” He shrugged, his expression suggesting he thought the question was ridiculous. Erik had never questioned the security of messages. It hadn’t been relevant to his job on the ground. He was assault infantry, not intel. All he needed was for Intel to do their job so he could do his. He also didn’t know enough about quantum communications technology to come up with a useful follow-up question, but from what Garth had said, it sounded like it was secure enough. Despite that, he didn’t need years as a detective to understand something he had learned as a soldier long ago: a smart enemy always attacks the weakest point. “What about internal stuff?” Erik asked. “Internal stuff?” Garth’s brow knitted. “I don’t know what you mean. There’s no special internal quantum signature other than the one I just talked about.” Erik shook his head. “I don’t mean the tech or the science. I mean people. Hermes is a big corporation, and it’s not like no one ever goes bad at a corporation. Just look at what happened with Ceres Galactic. Could someone inside have changed the codes?” “Nope.” Garth shrugged. “It’s the same fundamental problem. It’ll still throw off the signatures. You could do it temporarily, I guess, but the propagation would tip someone off at the first transfer, and a lot of times messages are transferred in-system before being batched through the HTPs.” He frowned. “But…” He looked at the side, his face pinched in concentration. “If you didn’t care about changing the message, but only hiding the message, that’s a lot more possible. It’s the integrity of the message that’s protected, not its existence.” Erik nodded, hiding his disappointment. “I don’t think that’s what happened in this case, but thanks for the info. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m just trying to follow up all the potential problems, and checking into the next logical step.” Garth touched his nose. “All the fancy technology, but in the end, it always comes down to that, doesn’t it?” “That it does.” Erik nodded politely. “Talk to you later. I’ll let you know about the Navigator book.” Garth smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.” He waved and headed down the hallway, his door sliding closed behind him. Erik stepped into his apartment and waited for the door to seal. “You think that was helpful?” Emma asked, her voice coming from his PNIU but not transmitted directly into his ear. “Did you need that information?” Emma asked. “That was useful, I think. If I want something more low-level than that, I feel like I’m going to have to read his crazy conspiracy theory,” Erik answered. “I fail to see how it was useful, but please enlighten me, Detective.” “He confirmed that the messages weren’t fake,” Erik explained, making his way over to the couch. “Not that I thought they were, but I needed to be sure. For all I know, the people I’m looking for are halfway across the galaxy, and I’ve been wasting time, being led around like an idiot.” He dropped onto the couch with an annoyed grunt. “But I also don’t know where to go from here.” “Perhaps Colonel Adeyemi could help,” Emma suggested. “I’d rather avoid any entanglements with the DD and their myopic views on what I should be doing, but he does have a vested interest in helping and access to a far greater scope of resources than you do.” “It wouldn’t hurt to drop him a message and see if he’s got any new info or leads,” Erik mused. “He wants to know what happened to his son as much as I do, but judging by the past, it’s not like he’s going to respond anytime soon. I suspect he’s got to walk lightly on this, even more so than I do.” “You’ve got something better to do than wait?” Emma replied with faint amusement in her voice. Erik leaned back. “Yeah, fight crime.”
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