Obsidian Detective Read online

  Maybe he didn’t even realize he was driving toward her? But if that were the case, it only increased the chance that he might have run her over.

  She pursed her lips, thinking. Did he actually just save my life? He wouldn’t have had time to use a remote kill, but still…

  Jia sighed. “I think you’ll find that the detectives of Enforcement Zone 122 aren’t the kind of people who are interested in public gun battles. Given what you just told me, I’m presuming you’ve been away from Earth for a while.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  Erik nodded. “You could say that.” His head, then body pivoted like a turret toward the sirens. He spoke over his shoulder. “Oh, by the way, I’m your new partner.”

  “That’s… Wait. What?” Jia blinked several times.

  “Regulations state that if I want to work cases, I need a partner, and you need a partner for the same reason.” Erik turned toward the entrance of the club in the distance. More patrons drawn by the gunfire milled about, murmuring to themselves and pointing toward the smoking flitter.

  Jia shook her head. “I have not been told anything about a new partner. I’m currently…” She cleared her throat. “I think the captain would have told me about a new partner.”

  The sirens grew louder. Red and blue lights flashed above a platform across the way. A white ambulance trailed by a police flitter closed on the platform.

  Erik gestured to the downed John. “I can handle them. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and call the captain. We should probably chat after all of this, but I want you to understand your position, so we’re all proceeding from the same place, Jia. Can I call you Jia? I should have asked before.”

  “I suppose.” Jia shook her head, her thoughts a jumble. “Thanks for handling them.” She thought for a moment and appended, “and thanks for saving my life.”

  The entire situation was beyond surreal to her.

  Time flowed together for a moment as the police flitter touched down near John’s vehicle, followed by the ambulance. Erik waved them down, and the uniformed officer exited his vehicle, a look of confusion on his face as Erik gestured to his badge and then the two downed suspects.

  Jia took a step backward. She turned away from Erik and the crime scene to call Captain Monahan.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call,” the captain answered, his tone unusually cheerful.

  “Is this Erik Blackwell my new partner?” Jia got straight to the point, her eyes flitting over to the man. “He seems under that impression pretty strongly.”

  “Of course, he’s your new partner,” the captain replied. “I thought you would have been happy. It means you’re off fine verification duty and you can get back to working cases. Appropriate cases, but still.”

  Jia pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did he actually get in using the Obsidian Detective Act, or is that all a big joke? Every time this man talks, I feel like he’s purposely saying things just to confuse me.”

  Captain Monahan didn’t answer for several seconds. “Yes. He’s a highly decorated soldier, but he’s made it very clear to me that his interest now is in being a police officer and helping maintain order in the metroplex. From what he told me, I don’t think he wants a lot of emphasis placed on his military background, despite how he got in.”

  “Sir, you can’t seriously think this is a good idea?” Jia complained.

  “Why not? Because he didn’t work his way up? You didn’t either.”

  “It’s not that same thing,” Jia countered.

  “And why is that?” the captain replied, his tone filled with challenge.

  “Because I’m not an out-of-control maniac who discharged his firearm near a club filled with civilians. You should see the thing. It’s some four-barreled monstrosity.”

  “Erik’s using a TR-7 Quad?” Captain Monahan responded. He sounded impressed.

  Jia groaned. “Yes, but the point is, he fired that thing at a flitter.”

  “What?” the captain shouted. “Okay. Why don’t you explain exactly what happened?”

  Jia finished relating the circumstances surrounding Erik’s summary execution of John’s vehicle.

  Captain Monahan grunted. “I’m not saying what he did was optimal, but given the situation, he might not have had a choice.”

  “I don’t know if I can work with a man like that.” Jia glanced at Erik, who was chatting with the patrol officer.

  The EMTs had both suspects on hoverstretchers. They’d severed the binding ties and were floating the unconscious men into the back of the ambulance.

  “I understand Erik might be a little rough around the edges,” Captain Monahan agreed. “He’s been offworld for a while, and the frontier and border are rougher places. But he’s earned his right to be a detective, and I think you’re the perfect person to help him adjust to how we do things in Neo SoCal. I’m counting on you, Detective Lin.”

  He’s barely called me Jia the entire I’ve been on the force, but the manic is called by his first name?

  “Sir.” Jia sighed. “What if I can’t keep him in check?”

  “I’m sure you can convince Erik to do things our way,” the captain answered. “You know the regulations probably better than anyone in the enforcement zone, and you’re a dedicated cop. Even when I’ve been pissed at you,” she heard his chair squeak, “I’ve always admitted that, and I think this is a good way for me to leverage you as a resource. It’s also a good way to help the department after driving off two detectives. You owe me, and you owe the department.”

  “I understand.” Jia shook her head. She wanted to pretend it was all a dream, but every detail was too real.

  “Good.” The uncharacteristic cheerfulness remained in the captain’s voice. “We’ll talk soon. Spend some time getting to know your new partner.” The call ended abruptly.

  “Damn.” Jia stared at the ground for a moment, taking slow, even breaths. She didn’t have to be an expert on management or human psychology to see through the captain’s plan.

  She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t succumb. Rather, she would rise to the challenge.

  She would whip Erik into shape, and they could go solve cases.

  The man might be a trigger-happy maniac, but he obviously had a more direct attitude toward engaging with criminality than her last two partners.

  That could be something to take advantage of, provided he didn’t end up killing someone.

  Erik finished chatting with the patrol officer and walked over to Jia. “Get everything figured out?”

  “Yes.” Jia forced a smile and extended a hand. “Partners?”

  He shook her hand. “Partners.”

  Jia pointed toward the burgeoning crowd. “I need to go say goodbye to a few of my friends. After what they saw and dealt with tonight, they deserve a face-to-face apology. The captain suggested we get to know each other, and since my friends drove me here tonight, I might as well head off with you after I check in with them.”

  Erik offered her another smile. She couldn’t figure out if she found it annoying or…annoying.

  “I’ve got nothing better to do.” Erik had slipped his weapon inside his coat somewhere. “Go find your friends, and we’ll go for a ride.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Erik smiled to himself as his MX 60 rose from the parking lot and entered a nearby air lane.

  Jia had given him her address, and chatting with her on the way home would be a good opportunity to get to know her better.

  Whatever else happened, she was his first partner and his entry to the department. There was just one minor problem. His gaze flicked to the side, catching sight of the legs that wouldn’t quit. He forced his eyes forward.

  I wish I could have met her when she wasn’t wearing a distracting dress.

  Fortunately, the necessity of concentrating on flying kept his eyes off the tight red dress. He wasn’t one to mix business and pleasure.

  Jia stared out the window with a slight frown, silent.
A couple of minutes passed before she offered, “It’s kind of a waste to have this advanced and expensive vehicle and not use the autonomous mode, you know, especially in a place with such complicated traffic.”

  Erik chuckled. “You think so? I feel the opposite. In the Army, most of our vehicles were selected for durability rather than handling. They aren’t as fun to drive or fly, and the driving was straightforward most of the time.”

  Jia gestured to a line of flitters. “This is fun for you?”

  “Yeah. It is.” Erik shrugged. “And not going autonomous might just be a habit after all those years in military convoys and missions. You don’t want to use a lot of autonomous control when you might be in a fight. You need to have an instant understanding of your vehicle’s situation the minute anyone starts shooting.” He grimaced. “And that’s doubly so for a vehicle filled with other soldiers.”

  “How long were you out there?” Jia asked. “It feels from your comments like it was a long time.”

  “You mean, how long was I out on the frontier?”

  “Yes.” Jia turned to look at Erik. “After that little stunt earlier, I’m convinced you’ve forgotten that this is Earth. It’s not some frontier world full of anarchy and insurrectionists. This is a planet where order and stability have proven that humanity can be something more than the savages who defined our history. We don’t need to resolve conflicts with military-grade rifles.”

  Her gaze cut to her feet. A hidden panel there led to where Erik had stashed the gun. She was placing her feet on four barrels of destruction. With her luck, he was going to bump someone and it would go off, taking her feet with it.

  Erik burst out laughing. He calmed down after a few seconds once he realized Jia wasn’t laughing. She frowned and folded her arms over her chest.

  “You think Earth is a place of stability and order?” Erik changed vertical lanes, joining a long line of flitters heading away from the dense commercial zone toward a small forest of residential towers.

  “Of course,” Jia agreed. “Crime is much lower here than on any other planet, even Mars. Corruption has all but been wiped out. We have order and stability unprecedented in all of human history.”

  “It’s easy to say crime is lower when you ship off everyone who sneezes the wrong way. That’s not solving the problem. That’s just making it someone else’s problem.” Erik changed lanes.

  His gaze shifted between his front window, the cameras, and the lidar display. A rainbow of vehicles flew around him in the maze of lanes, the occasional floating signal or drone breaking up the flow of traffic.

  “Crime’s been all but wiped out, but random drunks can run down cops?” Erik snickered. “That’s order and stability? I’ve been on a lot of frontier colonies that are safer than that.”

  “That…wasn’t what it looked like.” Jia swallowed, uncertainty playing across her face. “It couldn’t have been. He was drunk, and it was a mistake. No one with his kind of background would do something so awful on purpose.”

  “So if he ran you down, it would have been okay because it was a mistake?” He smoothly moved up one lane. “That’s an interesting take.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Jia insisted. Her hands curled into fists. “Things just got out of control. I was trying to not begin a gun battle. Innocent people could have been hurt. Even stunning someone means they could fall and seriously injure themselves.”

  “But a battle requires the other guy to have a gun too,” Erik suggested. “And this is why you have to be careful. If you’re so concerned about things escalating, always remember ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum.’”

  “If you want peace, prepare for war,” Jia translated. She sounded surprised. “You’re an educated man?”

  Erik tossed her a sideways glance. “I spent many years as an officer. Education is part of that, even if I didn’t receive fancy instruction at an Earth university. I know a lot more than you might think.”

  “Perhaps, but your education was focused on war, not law enforcement. Police officers are peacekeepers, not soldiers,” Jia explained. “If we start thinking of ourselves as soldiers, it’ll contribute to a harsher environment.”

  “Maybe.” Erik shrugged. “But if you’re worried about saving yourself and others, that means sometimes you’ll have to take the risk of hurting people. If you had a chance to take that guy out before he got to his vehicle, you should have. Then you would never have ended up being required to make the more difficult choice.”

  Jia sighed, thinking back to her moment of indecision. “I might not approve of your methods, but I do want to be clear that I’m grateful. I could have been seriously injured, if not killed.”

  “Yeah, nothing nanobots can do when you’re dead. You’re my partner, and I’d be a pretty awful partner if I let you get killed my first night on the job.”

  They lapsed into silence, the light hum of the electronics of the MX 60 the only sound. The soundproofing of the vehicle kept almost all outside noise from contaminating the inside. That, combined with the smooth ride, would make it easy for a baby to sleep in the vehicle.

  Jia sat quietly for a while, lost in thought. “How long did you serve? You never answered my question about how long you were on the frontier, and I get that you didn’t spend your entire career there, but I’m curious.”

  “Thirty years.” Erik turned at an intersection signal. “And yes, I wasn’t always stationed on the newer colonies. I’ve been all over UTC space. Core worlds, frontier worlds, border worlds. Whenever the UTC needed me. Of course, they tend to need Expeditionary Corps farther away from the core, and I volunteered a lot. I didn’t have to spend so much time out there, but I wanted to do my part.”

  Jia thought for a moment. “I admire your sense of duty, but I have a hard time imagining leaving Neo SoCal, let alone Earth.” Her dark eyes looked troubled for a moment. “And you did it for longer than I’ve been alive.”

  “Some people are just suited for it.”

  “I’m not all that familiar with the military,” Jia admitted. “You were some sort of intelligence operative or military police? Something like that, then? I assume that’s why you want to be a police officer now, rather than going into security or a local garrison.”

  Erik laughed, his eyes roaming through the readouts the vehicle provided. “Not at all. I spent almost the entirety of my career in assault infantry in the Expeditionary Corps. I started as a private, later got a commission, and then worked my way up. I turned down a few promotions to keep myself in the field, and I resisted getting transferred away from being a ground-pounder.”

  “Wait.” Jia frowned. “You’re saying you have zero practical experience in law enforcement or investigation?”

  “Depends on how you look at it.” Erik grinned. “I studied what I needed on my way back, and it was a long trip, plus we are trained to find issues and make decisions quickly in the field from very small to very large datasets. Very similar to investigating.” He paused for a moment before adding, “In a very compressed timeframe.”

  “But…” Jia sighed. “You…investigation… Ugh.” She rubbed her temples. “Again, I am grateful for what you did, but I should note that, in general, we can’t solve our problems by shooting them, and we shouldn’t. This city isn’t a battlefield.”

  “Sure, we can’t solve all our problems by shooting something,” Erik suggested. “But we can solve a lot of them.”

  She ignored that comment. “And that gun can’t be legal. We’re police. We have to enforce the laws, not violate them.”

  “I applied for a special waiver,” Erik explained. “It takes about a half a year to fully process, but fortunately, I made sure to apply a while back, and it was a long trip here. If you look into my paperwork, you’ll find my TR-7 is all nice and legal, including concealing it.”

  Jia stared at him, her mouth open, not saying anything for several seconds. “You actually managed to get a waiver to carry that thing around?”

  �
�It turns out that being a combat arms Army veteran is useful for something other than just being a cop.” Erik chuckled.

  Jia rolled her eyes. “That’s just absurd. Shouldn’t you use a stun pistol?”

  “A stun pistol won’t stop a man about to run a detective over with a flitter.” Erik shrugged. “Sometimes you need to shred something with a few high-velocity rounds to make your point. Don’t worry.” He pulled back his duster to reveal a shoulder holster. “I’ve got this baby, too. I get that you don’t always need the TR-7.”

  Jia eyed it, unimpressed. “I’m guessing that’s not a stun pistol,” she muttered.

  “Nope. I’m sure some people will be stunned after getting shot with it, but that’s not the point.”

  “What about departmental regulations?” Jia complained as he closed the duster. “Don’t you have to at least carry a stun pistol?”

  Erik dropped the MX 60 one lane. “You haven’t read the regulations relating to personal firearms in a while, have you?”

  “I can’t say that I have, but I’m sure they don’t say, ‘It’s okay to have a huge rifle that takes down vehicles,’” Jia insisted.

  “I spent a long time reading the exact regulations. The TR-7’s very important to me. It has a lot of sentimental value.” Erik offered her a quick grin. “And no, the regs don’t say that, but they do say that as long as you have a valid general use permit for the relevant weapon, it can be kept as a backup weapon. My pistol is well within the departmental requirements. There is nothing in the regs that specifies you have to carry a stun pistol. It just happens that most cops do in Neo SoCal.”

  Jia scoffed. “They didn’t think they would need to specify that. I will remind you again that this is Neo SoCal and not some insurrectionist stronghold.”

  “Didn’t I just say Neo SoCal?” Erik wondered aloud. “I’m pretty sure I did. However, to your point, if this was an insurrectionist stronghold, I’d be carrying a lot more explosives.” He furrowed his brow. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a few.”

  “Explosives?” Jia turned, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times. “You can’t be serious. This isn’t a war zone.”