Kirsten squirmed. “Don’t blame her.”
“Theodore’s move,” said Dorian.
“He’s hardly the only spirit capable of doing it. And he’s definitely not the type of ghost to throw random innocent construction workers off a high-rise.” Kirsten grumbled. She’d found multiple pockets of residual spirit energy, but none had enough potency to give her a sense of the spirit’s identity, or ‘fingerprint’ so to speak.
Sharla laughed. “If I believed in such things, I’d swear KHI hired a damned voodoo witch doctor to mess with us.”
“KHI?” asked Kirsten.
“Oh, sorry. I’m used to dealing with people in the business. KHI is Kalis Heavy Industries, another construction company. They’re bigger than us and on the shady side. They put a bid in on this job but didn’t get it. Things got kinda heated. Word is, they made a veiled threat to the bosses if they didn’t pull out and let KHI take this project. It’s most of the reason Mero and his team are here at night.”
“You think the other company would sabotage this site?” Kirsten opened a sub-window on her screen, accessing the police record for KHI.
“The bosses sure do.” Sharla grumbled. “Not directly, of course. KHI contracts out. They have a bit of a reputation. Everyone on my crew checks every piece of equipment twice for bombs or malware each morning. Sometimes, they even pay gangs to come in and do damage. Almost feels like the strange stuff going on here is because they hired a damn witch doctor to curse the place.” She chuckled. “Good thing I don’t really believe that, or my ass’d be gone already.”
The sub-screen on Kirsten’s armband terminal filled up with thousands of Division 1 Inquests alleging KHI illegally arranged property damage, intimidation, sabotage, and so on at various construction sites. Somehow, the vast majority of the Inquests ended up closed as ‘inconclusive’ for lack of evidence. Not one had any links to Division 0 for ‘paranormal oddities.’
Kirsten furrowed her brow at the implication of a spirit trying to drive everyone away from a construction site after a rival company threatened them. She’d seen plenty of spirits protesting changes in their environment by creating disturbances similar to the activities going on here. Some spirits hated construction, especially when their former home had to be demolished first or altered. One sour old man kept pushing people—including a small boy—down a new flight of stairs the family added to their home because he didn’t like them changing ‘his’ house. Occasionally, spirits experienced an alternate reality based on their memories, but sudden, severe changes—like a new high-rise going up—could disrupt their ideal reality and trigger hauntings.
The pranks, groping, pushing, and two deaths here most likely resulted from a ghost who objected to the demolition of the prior tower. Before Elan Mendoza’s death, the two situations would never have come close to appearing related. Also, Dacre, the spirit who attacked Plasmahawk, claimed someone forced him to do it. She’d initially thought Marley’s uncontained psionic-charged music threw him into a frenzy out of his control. Frustratingly, ghosts didn’t always speak plain truths.
“Dorian?” Kirsten glanced at him but ended up watching two men working near the edge a distance behind him. This high up, the lack of walls around the outside of the building resulted in a significant crosswind ripping through the building. Even though both workers had safety harnesses on, she couldn’t help but worry.
“Hmm?” asked Dorian.
She shifted her attention back to him. “Do you think when Dacre said someone forced him to attack Plasmahawk, he meant specifically him or someone forced him to be violent in general and he chose a victim at random?”
“I had been taking it the same way I believe you did… Marley drove him crazy and he couldn’t stop himself.” Dorian paused to watch a large bot rumble by, transporting a stack of metal struts. “Are you wondering if it might have been less than random?”
Sharla took a NetMini from her pocket, opened the holo-panel, and tapped at it.
“Think about it… someone wanted Mendoza dead, and a ghost attacked him. There’s a real good chance someone wanted Plasmahawk dead, and a ghost attacked him.” Kirsten gestured at Sharla. “Now she’s talking about a contested bid against a rival construction company known for retaliating illegally. There’s tons of Inquests, but nothing came our way.”
“Hang on…” Sharla looked up from her NetMini. “Do you seriously think they somehow sent a ghost after us?”
Kirsten swiped a hand at the holo-panel, closing it, and let her arm hang limp. “They don’t seem to have ever done anything like it before. But, could be, it’s simply not been noticed. It’s too early to say one way or the other if they are involved.”
“How do you prove something like this?” asked Sharla.
“Usually… we don’t. Most times—” Kirsten jumped, startled by a sudden spike in paranormal energy; she looked up at the bare metal ceiling covered in dangling wires and half-built ventilation ducts. “Most times it never gets to court. Judges don’t like psionic issues to begin with, because they can often be difficult to prove to people who don’t have telepathy. They like spirits even less. Umm, we have a guest.”
“What?” asked Sharla.
“Above us.” Kirsten eyed the elevator shaft, despite not trusting it in the vicinity of an angry ghost. If a spirit killed the ion thrusters, the mesh cage would fall straight down the shaft. She didn’t exactly love the idea of climbing several stories up a metal ladder in a vertical shaft either, but it beat free-falling inside a cage. “Ghost.”
Sharla hit the call button for the elevator.
A surge in paranormal energy came from above, along with—possibly—a man screaming. Given all the construction noise, she couldn’t be sure. Kirsten started to step out on the ladder, but froze at the sight of the red mesh box racing upward. Deciding against testing how much room the shaft had between elevator cab and wall, she jumped back.
The floating metal box bobbed into view, hovering in front of them on the fifty-ninth floor. Only route selection programming kept it within the walls of the future elevator shaft, a large bot flying up and down a vertical corridor formed by square holes in each floor slab.
Against her better judgement, Kirsten got in when Sharla slid the cage door open.
Dorian cheated—floating straight up through the ceiling.
“Which floor?” asked Sharla, sliding the grate closed. “And why do you look scared?”
Ghosts love to drain electrical power out of things like this, said Kirsten via Telepathy. Don’t want to free-fall.
Sharla jumped back against the elevator wall, wide-eyed.
Sorry. Using Telepathy so the spirit doesn’t hear me and get the idea to kill the elevator. And I’m tired of yelling over the noise.
“Uhh, okay. Whoa, trippy. Is this what it sounds like to get a call with a headware implant?”
Kirsten shrugged. Don’t know personally, but some people have said so.
“Seventy!” shouted Dorian from above.
Kirsten typed ‘70’ on the keypad inside the elevator, requesting it go to the second floor down from the present top of the structure. Roughly two-thirds of the seventy-first story’s floor had been installed, making the seventieth the topmost complete story—at least in terms of having a surface to walk on. The mesh cage lurched upward, stationary to full speed in three seconds. Fortunately, after riding it up and down with Sharla over the past almost two hours, she expected the hard acceleration and didn’t end up on her ass like she did the first two times.
The sixtieth-through-sixty-ninth floors shot by in a blur. Plastisteel mesh offered no protection from the veritable tornado inside the box. She cringed, hoping her hair clip would withstand the abuse. Weightlessness came on for a few seconds as the elevator slowed rapidly upon reaching the seventieth floor. She rose up on her toes, not fully leaving the ground before gravity returned to normal. Sharla pulled the manual door aside. Kirsten squeezed through before it opened all the way, eager t
o get out of a potential deathtrap.
Once on solid footing, she looked around for the ghost she sensed.
Three times the amount of workers scurried about on the seventieth compared to the fifty-ninth, most of them focused on assembling the floor of the story above this one. Car-sized bots on huge rubber wheels trundled around, transporting huge squares of plastisteel into position before lifting them into place to form the ‘slab’ for the seventy-first story. Smaller bots zipped back and forth on the floor, scanning and checking joins. Sharla had earlier explained they needed to be absolutely sure a slab met all quality checks before building higher than one level up. Since it appeared the seventieth floor still had auditing to undergo, they couldn’t start on the seventy-second.
Dorian hid behind a column, pointing.
Kirsten jogged over to him, not bothering to be sneaky. Dorian had a reason to hide, as ghosts easily recognized each other as spirits. Most didn’t realize Kirsten could see them until she did something to prove it.
A large-framed man, his pale arms studded with black metal circles—some manner of long obsolete cybernetic implant—stood with his back facing them near the south edge of the seventieth floor, watching a group of four workers adjusting the position of a plastisteel square they planned to raise to become part of the seventy-first floor. Despite the size and apparent ponderousness of the bot, it appeared capable of making millimeter adjustments to its position.
The man’s brown brush cut, his overall size, and stance, gave Kirsten the impression the spirit had been military in life, or at least pretended to be. Some mercenaries acted the part even if they’d never served. The old cyberware—she’d never seen anyone with rows of one-inch discs up the backs of their arms before—suggested he’d died over a century ago. She didn’t worry about it, though. Cyberware didn’t do anything for ghosts. He’d kept it purely out of latent self-image.
He also felt familiar.
This is the ghost who killed Elan Mendoza. He’s not upset they tore down the old building.
“Bet he’s gonna push someone off,” said Dorian. “Altitude is the easiest way to kill here.”
“It’s the same guy from Ancora!” yelled Kirsten.
The ghost kicked a tool, sending it rolling to within a foot of the edge.
One of the workers chased it.
Wait! shouted Kirsten telepathically into the head of the man jogging after the tool. Stay away from the edge or you’re going to die!
“Gah!” yelled the worker, stopping short.
Kirsten ran in a straight line at the ghost, the wide-open floor devoid of any walls or obstructions beyond support columns, bots, tool carts, and workers. Dorian circled wide to the left, keeping pace with her. The ghost showed no sign of noticing or caring about her running toward him. She leapt a floor-scanning disc bot, unfurling the lash from her right hand. The brilliant blue-white energy cord trailed after her, seemingly floating on the wind. She didn’t often go straight to attacking spirits, but a spirit who had already killed three people wouldn’t be in the mood to talk. She also didn’t want to lose him. He could drop straight down through sixty-nine floors and be long gone before she even got to the elevator.
The ghost spun to face her, no doubt sensing the energy in the lash. Despite being seconds from killing a man, his expression held little discernible emotion—at least, until he saw her. His eyebrows crept up a little.
Kirsten whipped the energy cord around in a wide arc, swinging sideways at chest level. The ghost dove at the floor, sliding under the lash. Dorian crashed into him at a full run, knocking the bigger man into a logroll, tumbling with him. She snapped the energy whip to the right and down, its long reach allowing her to land the last two feet of it into the murderous spirit’s back.
The man howled in anguish as the energy strand sliced through him, leaving an inch-wide gap in his body from armpit to the middle of his back. Glowing white spectral essence lined the sides of the wound rather than gore. Still screaming, the man attempted to push himself up, his right shoulder grotesquely rising into the air away from the rest of his body.
Being a ghost, his essence coalesced whole by the time she ran up to him, coiling the whip for another strike.
“Fuckin’ hell that hurt,” wheezed the ghost.
For no reason Kirsten quite understood, she hesitated. Something about his demeanor had changed, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. The shimmering glow of the lash painted long, twitching shadows on the floor from the vertical columns around her. All the workers had gone silent, staring at her.
Dorian grabbed the spirit from behind in a technically perfect compliance hold, though the size difference in the men made it appear somewhat comical, like a little dog atop a German shepherd.
Kirsten couldn’t figure out why she aborted her swing, so raised her arm again.
“Hold the fuck on, kid. Don’t do that shit again.” The big ghost held a hand up as if to block. “You broke it.”
“Kind of the point,” muttered Dorian.
“Broke what?” asked Kirsten.
“Whatever made me want to do this.”
“Let me guess…” Dorian smirked. “The noise.”
“What noise?” asked the ghost.
Kirsten walked around in front of the man so she could see his face. “I know you’re the one who killed Elan Mendoza at the Ancora Medical building. You killed two people here already. Why?”
“Another breather sorta like you forced me to do it.” He rubbed the spot where the lash hit him. “Son of a bitch… stings. But it gave me my thoughts back.”
He doesn’t look like a robot anymore. Dacre did the same damn thing… soon as I hit him, his expression changed to human. “What did this person do?”
Construction workers gathered in a semicircle around her, whispering amongst themselves about the ‘glowing noodle,’ wondering what it might be.
“He told me to come here and ‘do damage’ until the company abandoned the site. I couldn’t think about anything else until you zapped me.”
Kirsten lowered her arm, letting the lash coil loosely around her boots. “How did he make you do this?”
“This dude with glowing eyes walked up to me, said ‘stand still,’ and I couldn’t move. Then he holds up a screen with a map. Tells me to go here and do damage until they abandon the place.”
Dorian whistled. “What are the odds we’ve found two more astral sensitives?”
“I’ve been saying for years we’re not as rare as Command thinks. It takes a certain kind of experience for someone to realize they’re an Astral to begin with… and most of them probably think they’re insane. Society, generally, doesn’t believe ghosts are real. There have to be more astrals around, but they’re unknown, even to themselves.”
“The dude who sent me here figured it out,” muttered the big guy.
Kirsten thought about wanting a Harbinger to check this spirit out. She tried not to ‘summon’ them the way she’d done before in a ‘I need you now’ mindset, attempting more of a polite request if they had a moment to spare. Dacre must have run into the same guy. Marley didn’t affect either of these ghosts. Dammit! No wonder some of the events happened so far away from Sector 2890. Only the agitated spirits around her apartment reacted to the music. Shit! Does that mean Johanna Beck was targeted on purpose? What the heck for? She might be in danger still.
“All right.” Kirsten glanced around. “I’m inclined to believe what you did to Elan Mendoza and the two men here wasn’t of your free will… but I need to make sure.”
“Swear, kid.” The antique soldier held a hand up. “I didn’t wanna do it.”
“I’m not a kid.” She sighed, gesturing at Dorian to get off the guy. “If you’re telling the truth, it should be obvious in a moment.”
The large ghost rose to his feet, rolling his right shoulder around. “What did you do to me? My damn chest still hurts.”
“It’s a weapon.” She glanced down at the lash. “Drains en
ergy. Not permanent.”
Dorian smiled. “Unless she hits you with it too many times, then it’s fairly permanent.”
A pool of black vapors bubbled up out of the silver metal floor beside her.
“What the fuck is that?” The ghost took a step back, glowing orange crosshairs appearing in his eyes.
“Little overkill?” Dorian blinked.
“Three people are dead,” said Kirsten. “I want to believe this guy but—”
“Lennox,” said the ghost. “Name’s Lennox Beake.”
The black, vaporous form of a lone—somewhat small—Harbinger emerged from the plastisteel, its head nearly as tall as the ceiling.
She peered up at its sparkling metallic silver eyes. “Thank you. I don’t trust myself not to be too optimistic. Is Lennox responsible for those three deaths? Do you want him?”
“Oh, what the shit is this?” whispered Lennox.
The Harbinger gazed at the spirit for a moment, then shook its head before pointing at him, then down to the side.
“He’s okay, but you want the guy who forced him to kill?”
The Harbinger nodded once.
Eek. The guy’s alive. I can’t go execute someone… but I don’t think the Harbingers will mind waiting for him to die. Not like they’re in any hurry. Kirsten dispelled the lash, smiling. “Thanks. Sorry for bothering you.”
It peered down at her. Despite having nothing even remotely close to facial features beyond its two scintillating eyes, it gave off a sense of not minding—then sank into the floor. Wispy trails of inky black smoke withdrew along the seams between square plastisteel tiles, following it out of sight.
“Freaky,” whispered Lennox. “So… what happened here?”
Kirsten set her hands on her hips. “I’m still fuzzy on the details, but it looks like there’s another Astral Sensitive out there who managed to find a way to mind-control ghosts. The same man ordered you to kill Elan Mendoza?”
“Yeah.” Lennox nodded. “I barely even remember doing it.”
Dorian whistled. “We’re going into strange territory here.”
“You heard him say what I did, right?” Kirsten rubbed her temples. “Another live person ordered him to chase Peregrine Fabrication off this site—and kill Elan.”
The Shadow Fixer Page 32
