Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Erik frowned. The weight of the rifle was all wrong—too heavy. An unwieldy weapon wouldn’t be good for field use, especially in a forest on a planet with two suns. It was the small details that kept reminding him he wasn’t actually on a frontier world, but instead in a holographic simulation supplemented by a quick-adjusting nanite-infused room that could provide at least a decent approximation of physicality and texture to back up the holographic illusions.

He preferred this kind of training to pure VR. His brain would never let him accept a lie beamed directly to his eyes. He would have to talk to them about a different rifle. He didn’t need a fake TR-7, but he wanted something that at least weighed what he expected, based on the appearance of the rifle.

Bad training bred bad habits.

Erik knelt behind a tree and waited. He had spotted the glint from a patrol in the distance a few minutes prior. He took shallow, quiet breaths, waiting. Patience won as many battles as bravery.

Branches crunched under boots in the distance. The targets were near. Two men emerged from the trees, not talking as they looked around.

Erik popped out from behind his cover and took two quick shots before the men even turned his way. They both fell without a scream or any sound at all except for a rustle of leaves and the crack of branches near the ground. He couldn’t claim that was completely unrealistic. Not everyone survived long enough in a fight to let off a final scream or grunt, but he assumed Pacific Tactical Center kept the blood and screaming to a minimum for reasons other than realism concerns.

It didn’t matter. Right now, PTC was his only decent choice for keeping his edge.

The police had similar systems. However, since Erik was a detective and not a TPST member, they’d turned down his request to use them.

“Please consider joining the Tactical Police Specialist Team if you feel your talents lie in that area,

” they told him.

“But these aren’t toys for detectives to live out fantasies.”

Erik scoffed. Fantasies? He’d spent decades as a soldier. He understood fighting and killing dangerous enemies. In contrast, the average Earth customer probably wanted a heart-racing experience, not an actual depiction of war.

Jia might have been unusually naïve, but Erik’s time back on humanity’s home continued to prove that even people who knew better still wanted to look the other way and convince themselves Earth’s perfection was something other than mere propaganda fueled by the corporations who controlled the UTC in reality.

If enough people spouted the lie, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. It

became

true in a sick way. Was this how large swaths of humanity were controlled? Did it matter if the end result was a civil society?

It beat having to incarcerate tens of thousands of people who just accepted the false reality and didn’t push at the boundaries. At this point, he couldn’t come up with a good reason

NOT

to do it.

Erik darted from his cover to a thick tree trunk several meters to the left. About a hundred meters away, the high fence of a field base concealed the bulk of several squat buildings.

A communications tower stood tall in the center of the facility, but he had a different goal this afternoon. The final target of the exercise, an enemy commander, should be inside the base. There was no alarm activity, despite his earlier shots. He was a little surprised.

“I can help you cheat if you want,” Emma sent directly into his ear. He’d almost forgotten about her. She’d gotten much, much better about listening without revealing herself. That might cause trouble in the future, but the advantages of partnering with a self-aware AI outweighed her occasional nosiness. “For example, I could appear in hologram form and draw some of them off.”

Erik wasn’t sure that would work. He didn’t know what types of sensors were used for the tactical training environment. He had never bothered to ask or look. As long as the simulated soldiers displayed at least half-decent tactics, he thought he would be satisfied.

“I don’t need any help,” he replied, his voice barely a whisper. He could hardly hear himself. From what she’d told him, she could understand him with no trouble regardless of his volume. That might prove convenient in a more serious future situation.

“I don’t see the point of all this,” Emma explained. “You were in the Army longer than Jia has been alive. Do you really need to run around practicing this sort of thing?”

“Being in the military is all about training your body to react without thought.”

“I know that, but is thinking bad?” Emma chuckled. “That explains a lot about you, Detective, not that your aggressive attitude doesn’t have its charms. You’re far more than a mere gun goblin, I’ll grant you that.”

“Overthinking can get you killed in a fight.” Erik rushed forward. “And my experience helps, but I’ve been out for over a year now, and if my time back on Earth has taught me anything, it’s that I need to keep those habits and training if I don’t want to end up dead on the job.” He spotted another simulated soldier in the distance and downed him with a quick shot. “Tactical training is part of that.” He grinned. “And hitting the range with the TR-7 is another part of that. At least they’re allowing me to use the 1-2-2s.”

Not only did the enforcement zone allow him to use it, but many other cops came to watch when he practiced with the heavy rifle. Even the TPST didn’t use that kind of weapon. A few had dismissed it as outdated and overkill, but that didn’t stop the envious comments from others.

Erik didn’t use the gun to get comments. He used the gun because it had saved his life on multiple occasions, and he’d spent most of his life fighting far worse enemies than gangsters and security bots.

After moving closer, he crouched behind a bush as he looked across the tall fence until he spotted an open gate with two sentries. They stared straight ahead, their rifles at the ready. There was no chatter or sweeping of the area, just another reminder that he was in a simulation, and not a real situation.

“Besides, all this training has nothing to do with being a detective,” Emma suggested. “Nothing at all.”

Erik eyed the guards and the fence. He could hop it, but it would be trivial for the simulation to include some sort of sensor. Touching it would likely get him swarmed, and he accepted there was a time and place for stealth. Even shooting this close might raise an alarm.

“Why do you say that? Just the other day, I had to deal with trouble.” Erik jogged away from the gate and farther down the fence, taking care to use the trees for cover. There had to be some other way in.

“Because you being a detective isn’t even about you being a detective.” Emma scoffed.

“Huh?” Erik held in a laugh. “What does that mean?”

“It means you didn’t become a police officer because of some Jia-like obsession with justice and protecting the Earth,” Emma replied. “Being a police officer is ultimately about using police resources as a tool.”

“I protected the UTC for thirty years,” Erik whispered. He slowed as he spotted a tall tree close to the fence. Several branches reached beyond it. “I don’t owe the UTC more than I gave them, and I gave them my blood, my youth, and my arm. I gave them my damned soldiers.”

“That’s my point,” Emma explained. “You became a detective to aid in your quest to track down whoever was responsible for the slaughter of your unit. It’s nothing more than revenge in the end.”

Erik allowed himself a quiet snort. “You call it revenge, I call it justice. It’s not like I’m helping the criminals or looking the other way as a cop.”

“I’m not claiming that. I’m simply noting that you should keep your priorities clear even to yourself to avoid trouble in the future.”

“I don’t lie to myself.” Erik slowed to a walk and moved toward a denser patch of trees, being careful where he stepped. “Never have, and I’m not going to start now.”

“Good. I would hate for you to die because you allowed yourself to become deluded. I can’t say I’ve grown fond of you, but I do find you interesting.”

“It’s okay if I die as long as I’m not deluded about why?” Erik raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not as if you’ll accept my counsel to stop your plotting,” Emma replied. “A farce of an ending would be a waste.”

“You’re an AI. I’m not sure how much you understand why I need to do this.”

Emma sighed. “Oh, I understand it. I’m only suggesting that all possible analyses indicate the most likely end for your little quest is death. Specifically, your death.”

“I’m not going to die,” Erik insisted. “At least not until I’ve taken down the people responsible for the massacre of the 108

th

.”

“We’ll see.”

Erik grunted and dropped to his stomach at the sight of three men coming around the corner of the fence in front of him, leaves crunching. He hung his head in frustration at having let Emma distract him, another danger of having the AI always in communication.

“Who’s there?” yelled one of the soldiers. He looked around, now acting more like an actual person and not a mere construct of light.

Erik had considered running practice situations against other humans, but the average person using the facility was an Uptowner with no military experience who tweaked the settings so they could feel like an action hero. He would be able to take them out with ease.

Focusing on the problem at hand, if he took the soldiers out this close to the base, with the fence only meters away, there was no way he wouldn’t alert the rest. He wasn’t sure how realistic the simulation was when it came to hand-to-hand, and it was good as a time as any to test.

If he was going to continue using this place, the testing facility would have to have everything he needed.

Erik took slow breaths, his gaze focused on the three soldiers as they headed his way. They looked in his direction, but their eyes remained level. A glitch in the programming, perhaps, or an accurate representation of how some sentries made small but deadly mistakes.

The trio continued to advance. Erik waited until they’d passed him and had their backs turned, then shot up from behind his cover. He flipped and lifted his rifle to club the nearest man. His blow landed with an audible crack against the back of the soldier’s head.

Erik was already swinging at the head of the next man before the first even hit the ground. The butt of the rifle crashed into his nose, and he also dropped. Erik’s quick kick sent the last man stumbling back. He dropped the rifle and pummeled the man several times until he joined his friends on the forest floor.

Erik took a moment to examine the unconscious men. They looked like real people, and he felt resistance when he had attacked them, but the punches didn’t feel like a fist meeting flesh. It was more like he was punching a bag of sand. The nanites they were using to provide mass had their limits.

He pulled a knife from the belt of one of the men and finished them off. Like his rifle, the blade felt too heavy, and he wondered if it was an actual object added to the simulation grounds like his rifle or more nanite trickery.

With the patrol defeated, he walked over to the tree with the overhanging branches.

“If you don’t want me as a decoy,” Emma began, “how about I hack the system and tell you the exact position of the remaining enemy forces and the commander? If this is about training, shouldn’t you be taking advantage of all possible resources and practicing accordingly?” Erik paused at the base of the tree.

She did have a point.

There was no way he was going to get revenge on whatever powerful politicians or corporate bastards were behind the massacre with a fancy flitter and a single gun. He needed allies, like Colonel Adeyemi and Emma, and the more he kept them in mind, the better he could formulate a plan.

“You can’t always hack a system based on the setup,” Erik replied. “Or there might not be a system to hack.”

“There is now.”

“Yeah, but it’s one thing to hack gangsters or a lab. I’ve got no reason to mess with these people. They’re providing a service.”

Emma groaned. “Fine, but you’re not taking full advantage of my capabilities.”

Erik smiled. “You’re just bored.”

“No, I’m not bored. I’m spending my time searching the OmniNet to better expand my capabilities and frames of reference. I’m more insulted than bored.”

Erik shook his head as he clambered up the tree, using his cybernetic arm for most of the work and holding his rifle with the other. He wondered how extensive the nanite simulation was. The entire grounds couldn’t have actual mass.

The company wouldn’t reveal the usage ratio of nanites versus holograms for any of their programs, but it had to be limited by the expense. There were practical reasons, in the end, why homes and buildings, even among the military, weren’t built out of piles of nanites for quick changes.

His climb brought him above the fence line. A small group of soldiers stood about twenty yards away with their backs turned to him. A man in a ridiculously overelaborate uniform was speaking to them, his chest festooned with medals.

“Kind of going overboard for their normal customer,” Erik murmured. “This will be even easier than I thought.” He lifted his rifle and aimed it at the enemy commander. One shot was all he needed.

The rifle cracked, and the commander dropped. The enemy soldiers turned his way before freezing in place. The tree sank into the ground, leaving him standing.

“Congratulations!” a sultry female voice announced. “You have completed the scenario.”

The forest and base disappeared, replaced by a cavernous white room with a silver floor. There were multiple doors leading out of the room, each with large open white boxes.

“I should just pay the extra and work in the better scenarios,” Erik muttered. “I don’t know how useful that was.”

“I don’t understand,” Emma replied. “You got to do your lone hero act and defeat enemies in the training scenario.”

“It’s just too…” Erik struggled to find the words. He let out an annoyed grunt.

“Too what?”

“Too much what a civilian thinks it’s like to be a soldier in a fight,” Erik replied. “The tactics could be improved, even with their limited AI potential, but if I give them the scenarios, even with some randomization, I’ll have a big advantage. I don’t know if it’ll be good training.”

Erik walked toward the nearest door and set his rifle in its box.

“Might I suggest another possibility?” Eagerness dripped from her words.

The door slid open, and Erik entered the long, gray hallway. Everything about the Pacific Training Center came off as industrial and spartan to him. As if it had been set up by a new colonial governor on some far-off frontier planet rather than occupying prime space in a commercial tower near the Hexagon.

The design was an affectation to make weekend warriors feel like they were accomplishing something more real than they could in VR.

“What?” Erik asked. He spoke at normal volume. He presumed anyone overhearing him would think he was on a call, especially since Emma was still transmitting directly to his ear.

“I could study military history, small group tactics, and similar subjects,” Emma explained. “I don’t have a true body or fear of being shot that a human might, but I could put together some scenarios for future training purposes. I now have a more thorough understanding of why you’re doing this, and that will allow me to better customize my process.”

“That’s…” Erik nodded. It wasn’t a half-bad idea. “Go ahead.”

“I’ll also let you know this now, Detective. I find you stimulating, and accordingly, I’ll continue to help you as long as those anal-retentive bureaucrats from the Defense Directorate allow it.”

“Thanks.” Erik frowned. “But what are you getting at?”

“I might think your revenge plan is likely to end in your death, but if it doesn’t, or you hang together for a particularly long time, at least it’ll be tremendously entertaining.”

Erik laughed. “Well, as long as someone’s amused.”