“What?” She flipped the sixth pancake, having gotten the hang of cooking them.
The reassembler beeped and whirred to life.
Evan continued to stand there, eyes closed.
“Go get dressed, hon.”
He wiped a hand down his face, then yawned. One eye popped—halfway—open. “I fell asleep in the shower tube. I’m having a caffeine emergency.”
“You’re too young to be caffeine dependent.” She scooped the pancake out of the pan, set it on the stack designated as his, and squirted another portion of batter into the pan.
“Nmmn.” He opened the reassembler after a minor amount of fumbling around, grasped the cup which had appeared inside it, and sipped.
“Are you just going to stand there in your birthday suit drinking coffee in front of the reassembler?”
“Uh huh.” He sipped more coffee. “Sorry. Caffeine emergency.”
She chuckled. Only because she knew he’d been up super late did she not panic.
Evan took a few more sips, less and less time between them. He opened his left eye, yawned again, and set the cup on the table before trudging back down the hall.
Should I have interrupted them and told him to go to sleep? She bit her lip, second-guessing her skills at momming a child. Nah. He’ll learn.
Thud. “Ow,” deadpanned Evan.
She snickered. “Be careful!”
“Oops,” said Evan in complete seriousness.
She felt ninety percent certain he joked, and smiled.
Nah, I did the right thing. Can’t shut down moments of happiness, not even for bedtime. We all need them whenever we can find them.
23
Damage
Evan smiled in his sleep, out cold in the passenger seat on the flight to the PAC.
Pancakes had been a big success. Neither of them finished, since Kirsten underestimated how filling they would be. Hopefully, the leftovers would keep in the fridge until dinner time. After an uneventful flight in, she carried Evan to the school entrance in the Division 0 wing before waking him up.
He hugged her, yawned again, and stumbled off to class, looking way too much like a small version of an office worker on a Monday after a long weekend. She watched him until he vanished behind the curve of the hallway. Thinking about her dad reading to him kept a smile on her face the whole way to her squad room.
Dorian, already at his desk, looked up from the holo-terminal, smiled at her, and resumed reading. Perhaps one might consider it progress no one in the squad room thought it weird anymore whenever his terminal activated seemingly by itself.
She flopped in her chair, grabbing her stomach in both hands. Oof. Pancakes are awfully heavy. Shouldn’t eat so many. Groaning, she leaned forward and logged into her desk terminal, looking forward to a calm day spent in the PAC. As the only astral sensitive Division 0 had in West City, Command preferred to keep her on standby in case something paranormal happened. They didn’t want her bogged down on a case any other psionic investigator could deal with while a spirit wreaked havoc.
Predictably, due to the often infrequent nature of hauntings, this made for long hours sitting around the PAC feeling like a lazy freeloader. However, for at least the next week, she wouldn’t mind the idleness at all.
Two new emails greeted her as soon as she logged in. The first came from the Admin section containing the registration info for Marley Santiago. The woman tested at a grade 3 rating for Astral, surprisingly high for someone who never consciously tried to use it. Kirsten suspected Marley had at least a grade 2 since she’d gotten Blockade to work.
She’s probably been using it subconsciously for a few years.
The evaluators down in the lab agreed with Kirsten’s theory of subconscious radiance into her music, most likely empowered or uncontrolled due to her frequent use of Placid Rain. Oddly, despite her impressive grade 5 rank in Telempathy, Marley struggled to use it actively. The passive evaluation rated her at a five, but active testing resulted in scores closer to someone with only a grade 2—if that—power level. However, when they had her demonstrate it in tandem with playing her music, she had most of the medical wing feeling mellow and ‘at one with the universe.’ As of yet, they hadn’t determined if the power difference came from lack of trying to use her abilities on purpose or if she had some mental hang up where she could only truly use them at their full potential while engrossed in performing or creating music.
Either way, it meant two things: Marley didn’t intend to make ghosts go crazy, and the storm of crazy ghosts would stop. Between her now being aware of what she did, plus having the ability to Blockade her studio, her abilities wouldn’t leak out and drive spirits over the edge. People living in apartments close to her would continue to feel her music, but with training, she might be able to control it more.
The second email, alas, made her fake cry.
“Darn. Not again.”
Dispatch sent over a 20-04 call, a low-priority investigation request from a construction site in Sector 4858.
“Didn’t we already fix this?”
“What?” asked Dorian.
“Another ghost causing trouble.”
She sighed at the screen. The construction site being upwards of 200 miles away from Marley’s apartment weakened her hopes a spirit agitated by Marley’s power had gone so far afield to mess with workers. Of course, multiple other events happened well away from the ring of hauntings centered on her.
At least a 20-04 often ended up being relatively tame. The code meant someone reported observed paranormal activity such as objects moving or strange sounds, but nothing actively went on at the time the call came in. Consequently, it became a low-priority email request and not an alarm beeping right to her NetMini.
If nothing else, it gave her an excuse to continue hiding from the mountain of Inquest files she still needed to finish filling out reports for—her least favorite part of a job she never asked for. Kirsten generally loved being a Division 0 I-Ops officer, but she’d never asked for it. They dropped it on her. Having a near irreplaceable skill gave her a fair amount of bargaining power. She might be able to demand an end to reports but couldn’t bring herself to seriously consider it. All cops had to do reports. Even if no one else could handle spirits, she didn’t consider herself better than anyone or worthy of being above tedium. Tedium came for everyone.
And most cops tended to procrastinate on reports.
Smiling, she locked her terminal and stood. “Let’s go check it out.”
“Situation?”
“Construction site supervisor reporting a bunch of ‘spooky things’ going on. Didn’t give much detail over the vid, but I’m guessing it’s going to be tools moving around or disappearing, maybe people seeing shadows. Machinery turning on or off, you know, the usual stuff.”
Dorian cracked his knuckles. “Ahh. A good normal haunting.”
She exhaled hard. “Here’s hoping.”
* * *
A blue holographic falcon the size of a small private aircraft flew in lazy circles around a skeletal high-rise, projected from an orb bot.
Kirsten steered the patrol craft into a leftward descending curve, flying in a wide circle around the construction site.
Rising spars on the topmost floor suggested the crew had no intention of stopping at sixty-five stories. Thus far, only the first fourteen levels had outer walls, the rest of the structure remained as a simple stack of floor slabs open all the way through, supported by a grid of interior pylons. Bots of various sizes glided or drove around doing spot welds, transporting materials, or scanning. A scattering of people also roamed the wide-open floors, some controlling bots, others running wires, working, or standing around apparently doing nothing.
“Weird. Bit early to take breaks, isn’t it?”
“Hmm?” Dorian glanced over.
“There’s one or two people on every floor among the workers who are just kinda standing there doing nothing.”
“Oh, they would be the
supervisors.”
She chuckled. “Seriously?”
“Could be safety watchers, too.”
“What the heck is a safety watcher?”
“People who stand around watching other people and bots work to make sure they’re being safe.”
Kirsten blinked. “What do they do if someone’s not safe?”
“Yell at them. Maybe throw a helmet.”
She rolled her eyes. “You always tease me.”
He snickered. “Okay, fine. Don’t believe me.”
“Don’t they use the bots for scanning, like to check safety stuff? They really still hire people to do it?”
“Union rules.”
“Wow. Is that good or bad?”
“Good, I suppose. It’s a job for a living person on Earth. Less people ending up in gangs. You know what’s worse than a desperate person?”
“Dare I ask?”
“A desperate person in a society where everyone has guns.” Dorian brushed at the same piece of lint he always dislodged from his sleeve, and always reappeared. “You know they do it on purpose. The government, I mean. They stopped regulating firearms because they want the undesirables to handle population control on themselves.”
“So pessimistic.” She shook her head, more disgusted at the idea he came closer to being right than not.
Numerous signs and banners on the building-in-progress bore the same falcon logo as the giant hologram beside the words ‘Peregrine Fabrication Services.’ A few large piles of debris sat at one end of the border defined by the fence surrounding the site, no doubt remains of whatever building stood here prior to this project.
Century towers usually lasted for a long time, but they still eventually degraded to the point replacing them turned out to be cheaper—and safer—than repair. However, except for bad areas where neglect hastened the process, few buildings ended up being replaced out of need. More often than not, property changed hands, and someone wanted an office where a residential tower had been, or a residential tower where a commercial building or parking deck stood.
She didn’t even bother trying to understand why people would tear down a perfectly usable building. It had to be cheaper to modify an existing one, right? Kirsten never got along well with math, and economics fried her brain worse than a stunrod to the nose.
A decent amount of open space at the southeast corner of the yard contained a handful of hovercars, parked as far as possible from danger while still being on the property. They all likely belonged to managers, supervisors, or inspectors. ’Bot wranglers, electricians, plumbers, human labor, and others most likely took PubTran cars to the work site—or walked if they could get a hotel room close enough.
Billowing clouds of grey dust exploded off the plastisteel ground when she brought the patrol craft in for a landing, likely dirt from the building they tore down before starting on the new one. She’d once heard somewhere the average century tower had something like 500 pounds of crud in the ventilation system.
She opened the door to the flavor of dust and metal in the air. Coughing, she tried to breathe through her nose as much as possible.
A fortyish woman in dark green coveralls, armored boots, and a hard hat walked up to her. “You must be from Division 0.”
“Yes. Good morning. Kirsten Wren.” She offered a hand.
“Sharla Ward. I’m the site supervisor for day shift. Mero told me he’d had enough of the weird shit and called you guys. He’s the night supervisor.”
“You’re working around the clock?” Kirsten gazed up at the massive structure, finding it far more imposing from the ground.
“Nah. He’s more security than operations. His crew watches over the place to keep curious locals out when it’s dark. Guessing you’re going to ask me what kinda stuff’s happening to make us call you.”
She smiled. “Wow, you’re psionic, too? You totally read my mind.”
Sharla laughed. “Started off as nothin’ real bothersome. Workers reporting their stuff wasn’t where they left it. Bots acting odd for no reason. Didn’t think much of it initially. Figured maybe a prank. Then one of the guys said he saw a shadowy figure staring at him on the second to top level, which, uhh, would’a been the thirty-fourth at the time. After the ghost stories made the rounds, everyone and their mother started reporting hearing footsteps, feelin’ like someone was standin’ right behind them. They’d turn, no one there. Had about fifty some odd reports of workers being grabbed, pinched, or squeezed—mostly women. Hell, the invisible man copped a feel on me once.”
Kirsten bit her lip. Sounds like Theodore is bored. “Did it feel like an invisible person grabbed you?”
“Not really. Was on my way to the car after end of shift. Just handed things off to Mero. I open the door and a cold hand clamped onto my tit. Straight to skin, like I didn’t have on a safety vest, these coveralls, or a shirt. Only lasted a second or so, but damn it kinda got me.”
Dorian frowned. “Death can be a pervert’s paradise.”
“Yeah, sounds like a ghost messing with people.” Kirsten cringed as a huge, flying bot went overhead in a roar of ion thrusters. It lugged a bundle of pipes up to the sixty-eighth (or thereabout) floor.
“He’s doing more than messing. It’s gotten worse the past few days, which is why Mero and I decided to call it in without telling the project manager. He doesn’t believe in weird stuff. Wouldn’t want the bad publicity. Anyway, we had three bots fry themselves so bad they had to be scrapped. One took out a column on the fifty-first, which we had ta replace. Workers reported being shoved when they got close to the edge or something dangerous. Last straw was, couple days ago, we had two guys fall straight off the sixty-third.”
Kirsten gasped. “Oh, no…”
“Walls might help with that,” said Dorian.
She gawked at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true,” said Sharla.
“Sorry, I’m a ghost. All my humor is deadpan.”
“Not you. I believe you.” Kirsten sighed out her nose, then stared at him. “People died! You can’t joke about it.”
“Umm…?” Sharla tilted her head. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. My partner has a horrible sense of humor. He’s a ghost.”
Dorian raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t technically make a joke. This is presently a seventy-and-a-half story building, and it has walls only on the first third. Why do they wait so damn long to add the walls?”
Sharla grimaced, looking around uneasily. “He’s here now?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s wondering why so many floors don’t have outer walls.”
“Easier for the bots to get in and out, transporting materials.” Sharla pointed at hoverbot almost as big as a car lugging a stack of drywall up to the twenty-sixth, the lowest level lacking walls. “Once we get all the wiring, piping, interior walls, and other major stuff finished, then they cap the outsides. More efficient.”
Kirsten nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. How did the two men end up falling?”
“Officially, worker carelessness. They got too close to the edge and tripped. But it’s all bullshit for the insurance company. Everyone near ’em at the time they fell said it looked like someone or something threw them. I heard Upton was more than fifteen feet away from the edge and went literally flying like someone hit him with a running tackle. Steve was a bit closer. You ask any crew member near the upper floors, they’ll all tell ya the same story. He floated up off his feet a couple inches and went flying like a cyborg picked him up. But nothin’ there.”
“So much for a mischievous haunt.” Dorian frowned. “I don’t think this is related to Marley. Slow escalation demonstrates more of a calculated plan, not a spirit driven nuts by music.”
“All right. Anything else?”
Sharla thought for a moment. “More of the usual stuff. Noises at night. People seeing a figure lurking in dark places, an’ so on.”
“O
kay. I’m going to look around, see if I can find any residual traces of the spirit.”
“Hold on a sec. Let me get you a hard hat.” Sharla held up a ‘wait’ hand, then ran over to a portable office trailer. She returned in a few minutes, handing over a white helmet bearing a Peregrine Fabrication Services safety logo. “Here ya go.”
Kirsten thought it flimsier than psi armor, but still put it on, mostly because she didn’t have psi armor with her and didn’t feel like driving the 237 miles to the PAC to get it.
Sharla accompanied her on a tour around the work site. Over the next hour and forty-eight minutes, they visited multiple spots where unexplained events had been included in reports. Kirsten interviewed various workers, hearing more stories of being grabbed or pushed, having tools go missing, construction materials flying at their heads, and bots going crazy. Descriptions of physical contact remained consistent: men reported aggressive shoving or tripping while women relayed sexual groping and grabbing. All the events followed an escalation path from annoying to risky to deadly… except the perverted groping. None of the women reported being shoved at the edge of the structure or touched in a way likely to cause physical injury, though the strength and inappropriateness of the contact escalated along with the violence elsewhere.
After touring the fifty-ninth floor, they stopped to catch their breath—Dorian notwithstanding—by the elevator, a no-frills device consisting of a red plastisteel mesh cage with ion thrusters, essentially a delivery bot for carrying people. About twenty workers and sixty bots of varying types and sizes worked around them, creating so much buzzing, whirring, and banging, she had to yell to be heard.
“It’s almost as if the ghost is trying to make your people leave the site,” shouted Kirsten. “Everything going on here fits the pattern for an angry, territorial haunt.”
“A few have.” Sharla nodded. “Stacie, one of our bot technicians, told me she got goosed by an icicle. She demanded to be transferred off this site or she’d quit on the spot.”
The Shadow Fixer Page 31
