“I heard it but I’m not sure what to make of it.” Dorian nodded. “Using Suggestion the way Marley can use Telempathy on ghosts?”
“Suggestion doesn’t work on spirits.”
“Have you ever tried?”
She locked stares with Dorian. “Quack like a duck.”
He blinked. “Why would I do that?”
“See? Doesn’t work. Spirits don’t have brains. There’s nothing for me to connect to… but.” Kirsten waved a hand around. “Evan is an astral and he can’t do the lash.”
“No Mind Blast,” said Dorian.
Lucky kid. She forced a smile. “Yeah.”
“Umm, what the hell is going on?” asked Sharla, walking up to Kirsten. “Did you find the ghost?”
“Yeah. He’s right here.” Kirsten looked back toward Lennox—who’d vanished. “Or was. Dammit!”
“What now?” Dorian leaned back.
“He poofed before I could ask him where the hell this dude is.” She grumbled.
Dorian plucked the same lint ball off his arm. “You heard the man. This other astral merely walked up to him. He probably doesn’t even know where the man lives.”
She made herself solid to spirits and leaned against him. “Not fair! Ghosts are just supposed to know stuff.”
He laughed.
“Hello?” asked Sharla.
“Yeah…” Kirsten exhaled, un-leaned from Dorian, and walked over to her. “The spirit attacking your people is gone. This sounds crazy, even to me, but I have a theory someone on the living side arranged for the harassment. Probably KHI, but the odds of me proving it are extremely low. At least, proving it in any way a judge won’t laugh at. However, I’m going after the guy who sent the ghost here.”
Sharla whistled. “Well, damn. I guess it’s better than nothing. Didn’t really expect you’d like ‘arrest’ a ghost or anything. But you got it to stop? That’s the important part.”
“There’s a chance the same person might send a different ghost here once he realizes the last one is gone. If anything else paranormal happens, call it in.” Kirsten accessed her armband terminal. “Need to collect a few more bits of info for the report and I’ll get out of your way.”
“She loves reports.” Dorian grinned.
Kirsten gave him epic side-eye.
24
Corporate Leverage
Kirsten leaned against the door of the patrol craft, gazing up at a tower of gleaming naked plastisteel.
The construction workers had been a little reluctant to accept all the ghostly weirdness would stop right away. Calling a Harbinger here had likely not been the smartest thing, as it made bots and electronics on every story below her go haywire in a spectacle ten times more obvious than anything Lennox did. She didn’t exactly consider it lying to tell them the mass disturbance had been part of her removing the ghost from the property. Generally, she tried to avoid talking about Harbingers to normal citizens. She’d already exceeded her monthly allotment for shattering people’s worldview.
Technically, the disturbance had been part of stopping Lennox, if indirectly.
Dorian constantly called her ‘too nice,’ which he meant as a compliment. However, she knew full well she often let people—and ghosts—slide on certain things. Three murders, she couldn’t simply ignore, so she had to know for sure Lennox didn’t bear responsibility. It encouraged her to learn the Harbingers’ view on crimes of compulsion aligned with Division 0. If a person used Suggestion to force someone else to murder, the law considered the psionic responsible for the death. Apparently, the Universe felt the same way about this man who could control spirits.
Lennox describing how he’d been forced to do things sounded rather like Suggestion, but it didn’t prove anything. Astral Lash wasn’t truly Mind Blast, but some wholly other thing somehow related to her having both powers. She thought of it as an entirely separate ability, not her Astral Sense letting her use Mind Blast on ghosts. Were that the case, she’d merely stare at ghosts and give them nasty headaches.
She couldn’t even explain why it took the form of an energy whip. Maybe it came from something she’d seen in a holovid somewhere as a teen and forgot about except at a subconscious level. The first time the lash came out had been a manifestation of fear. She’d been fourteen, not activated as an agent at the time, but Division 0 brought her to a scene to act as an interpreter between a spirit and the people living there—only the ghost turned out to be malicious. When the specter, a barely human shaped monster with giant needle-like teeth and hollow black eyes, grabbed her, she screamed, wanting it to get the hell away from her—and blasted it with blue-white energy.
Maybe Tactical Officer Yanez, who’d escorted her there, calling it ‘lashing out’ helped her form it into a literal lash. Of course, Yanez seeing her wield an actual weapon conjured of pure psionic energy against a ghost was largely responsible for the Command Council activating her two years later at sixteen when the Wharf Stalker happened.
She didn’t want to be special. Having more astral sensitives around would be awesome. Not every ghostly weirdness would land on her desk. She could help on other cases without feeling as if she ran the risk of failing to respond fast enough to something critical. Alas, Marley had no interest in being a cop, and the guy sending ghostly assassins after people wouldn’t get the chance to. People who used their powers to commit murder—especially contract killings—weren’t asked to join.
Division 0 could brush aside killing in some circumstances, such as self-defense or accidental eruptions of power. It would take a truly extreme situation for Command to give someone a pass on deliberate murder.
Someone can mind control ghosts… She fidgeted, trying to process the idea. Oh, shit. The spirit watching the board meeting… the insider stock trades. There’s no reason for a ghost to care about money—unless he was ordered to spy. Kirsten ran her hands through her hair, neatening it and re-clipping it up off her shoulders. If Burkhardt learned of a person who could turn ghosts into weapons, spies, or assassins, he’d probably lose his mind. Generally, Kirsten tried to think of the government in a positive light, but even she accepted they occasionally did highly shady things. Most of that came from C-Branch, military intelligence. If they found this guy…
The spirits don’t deserve to be turned into guided missiles. C-Branch won’t even think of spirits as people. Hell, they barely think of people as people—assets.
“What the heck am I going to do here?” whispered Kirsten.
“About?” Dorian appeared beside her.
“If I arrest this guy, Burkhardt might turn him into a weapon. What if C-Branch gets him? I can’t kill the guy. I can’t ignore what he’s doing.” She hung her head. “Every decision here feels like it’s the wrong one.”
Dorian rested a hand on her shoulder, chilling it. “The actions of others don’t reflect on you. This guy’s a killer. You have to bring him in. Whatever happens after we get him isn’t your fault. And you know Director Carter would never let Burkhardt abuse something like this. She’s almost an older version of you after the naïve idealism has been squeezed out of her.”
“You make it sound inevitable.”
“Not intentionally. Only a special sort of person can grow old in this world and cling to the hope people are inherently good. Maybe you can. Director Carter surrendered a little to pragmatism.”
Kirsten folded her arms. “They’re going to want to study him like they did me. Maybe even worse because he’s got military and intelligence applications.”
“Ghostly assassins aren’t practical. C-Branch has living people, synthetics, dolls, and bots far more deadly and useful than an unwilling spirit.”
“What about spying? Remember the Lyris Corporation boardroom?”
Dorian blinked. “You’re thinking it’s the same guy?”
“Why else would a spirit care about information valuable to stock traders?”
“All right, spying maybe… but Astral Projection is no different. An
d far more reliable than a spirit forced to do it against their will.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re right. I’m being melodramatic. Everything I’m worried about them misusing this guy for, we can already do.”
“That’s the spirit.” He smiled.
“Ugh. There’s my cue. Time to leave.”
Kirsten pushed off the door and turned to grab the handle, but stopped, staring over the patrol craft’s roof at the ghost of a Chinese man sprinting into the construction yard heading right at her. He appeared dressed as an ordinary office worker, but she tensed up at his expression of urgency and panic. Only a few situations could make ghosts appear frightened: the sight of a Harbinger, being close to obliteration, or having a living relative in imminent danger.
“They always seem to find you when they need help,” said Dorian.
“I don’t mind.” She let go of the door and hurried around the back of the patrol craft as the ghostly man jogged up to her.
“You’re the one…”
“If you mean the person who can see and talk to spirits, yes.” Kirsten focused on his essence. His energy was unfamiliar, but reasonably strong, not a recently killed spirit. His office casual outfit gave off little indication of age. It didn’t look obviously outdated, so he most likely had been dead less than thirty years.
He kept staring downward, catching himself, and making eye contact again. “They said you can help.”
“Is someone related to you in danger?”
The spirit shook his head so fast his features blurred. “No. But a young girl is. I’m not related to her. A man did something to me. Felt as if he remote-controlled my body—well, whatever I have—and used me to possess this girl, making her walk straight into a group of kidnappers.”
“Bastard,” whispered Dorian. “We need to find this son of a bitch fast.”
Kirsten’s face flashed hot from anger, but not at this ghost. “Tell me as many details as you can.”
“My name is Wilbert Yong. I died forty-one years ago and—”
“About the kidnapping,” said Kirsten, nearly yelling.
Wilbert raked his hands through his hair. “Sorry. I’m all kinds of messed up right now. If they hurt that kid…”
“Please, try to stay calm and tell me the situation as best you can.”
“Okay.” Wilbert lowered his arms. “A man found me in the parking deck of my old office building. I’ve been stuck there since I died at work.”
“Ouch,” said Dorian.
Kirsten grimaced.
“So, he looked at me and the next thing I know, everything around me looks way different. Like forty years went by in an instant. The walls got all dirty and all the cars changed. I didn’t want to, but I started walking off.”
“Did he say anything?” Kirsten opened her armband terminal to create another Inquest file.
“Maybe. I’ve kinda been stuck re-living my death over and over, not really aware of the world around me too much. Umm. The next part’s a bit blurry. Don’t remember going from my office to this fancy residence tower, but there I am in the lobby. Somehow, I know to go up to the eighty-fourth floor, apartment 84-8, and possess this girl named Kena Carlin. I made her sneak past the security officer, leave the apartment, and go outside. Couple blocks from the building, I take her into an underground parking garage and over to a car waiting for her.”
Grumbling, Kirsten looked up ‘Kena Carlin’ in the system, getting a few hundred hits. “How old is this kid? Do you remember her address?”
“Like fourteen or so, at a guess. Never had the address. I just knew where to go. Kinda like how I found you.”
Kirsten limited the search to ages thirteen through sixteen. Three hits came up. “Manageable…” She opened the first record, displaying an ID photo. “Is this her?”
“No.”
She swiped at the holo-panel, moving it to the next image. “Her?”
“Yes.” Wilbert pointed. “That’s her.”
The slim-faced girl flashed a bubbly smile up from the holo-panel at her. Long, dark brown hair cascaded down over the shoulders of a private school jacket, the type of academy rich people sent their kids to where they still attended classes in person. Her light brown skin, features mixed of too many different ethnicities to count, landed her in the ninetieth percentile. It stood out for being a little strange. Wealthy or prominent people with kids at high risk of abduction often had prenatal gene tweaking done for a rarer ‘look,’ like freckled redheads, pale blondes, or went the other direction with extremely dark skin. Her friend Nicole’s parents turned her into a pale redhead purely because they liked the aesthetic, not out of worry she’d be kidnapped.
Uniqueness stood out on missing child announcements.
Kena’s parents letting her keep her natural looks made Kirsten think they probably loved her more—not forcing her to be someone else purely for convenience. The girl suffered from the same curse as Kirsten, appearing young for her age, and somewhat reminded her of an elf from the Monwyn franchise, except for not having pointed ears. At a glance, she’d have taken the girl for thirteen, though her ID record listed her as fifteen. She cross-checked the parents’ files. The mother, Naomi, worked for a film studio as a producer of feature-length holovids, the father, Xander, was an executive, junior VP of engineering for NinTek Corporation.
“Do you know why you were sent to help abduct her?” asked Kirsten.
“They’re trying to force her father to do something related to the business, threatening to kill her if he doesn’t do what they want. I don’t know exactly what they’re asking for, but I can take you right to the office where they are keeping her. Not much time.”
Kirsten nodded. “What are we dealing with here?”
“It’s not a big operation, but they are dug in deep on a second-level sub-basement and will hurt her if they think the police have found them. I don’t know how many employees of the other company are involved. Seemed like a fairly small group is aware of the plan.”
“Another company?” asked Dorian. “Which one?”
“Sencor Electronics.” Wilbert pointed northeast. “The people waiting for her in the car work for their security team. They injected something into the girl to knock her out and threw her in the trunk. Whatever controlled me stopped as soon as she went unconscious. Uhh, I totally freaked, but I followed them. They have her locked in a room by herself, bunch of armed security officers guarding the hallway.”
Dorian squeezed his hands into fists. “This man is extremely fortunate I lack the substance necessary to perform summaries.”
“So are you.” Kirsten gave him a sad glance. “Not worth the black mark on your soul.”
“Umm.” Wilbert’s body gave off a mild pulse of phantasmal light. “I think they’re going to kill her anyway. The guy in the suit said something about punishing Xander for betraying them to work for another company.”
Kirsten scowled. “This is not the ACC. Corporations here aren’t supposed to behave like they freakin’ own people.”
“Don’t mind her,” whispered Dorian. “She’s got a severe case of chronic idealism.”
“I can help you get her out.” Wilbert looked Kirsten up and down. “But I know they’re going to kill the kid if they see cops. The room she’s in is rigged with an incendiary device. Please believe me. I didn’t want to do this. As soon as I saw where they put her, I started running around trying to find a way to get help. Another spirit told me about you.”
“Get in.” Kirsten hurried into the patrol craft and turned on the drive system.
Dorian faded into view in the passenger seat. A transparent Wilbert walked into the car, standing through it. He looked down at himself for a few seconds before attempting to sit in the rear seat. As soon as his body no longer pierced a solid object, he resumed his lifelike appearance.
“Never been in a car before?” asked Dorian. “As a spirit?”
“No. Never really went anywhere but the building where I die
d. Mostly stayed in the lab where it happened, but sometimes, I wandered.”
Kirsten pulled the patrol craft into the air. “Comm, Officer Logan, Tactical.”
A few seconds later, her friend’s holographic head appeared in the middle of the console.
“Hey!” chirped Nicole. “It’s too early for you to be off shift, so you must be calling about work.”
“I need some backup, but we have to keep it low key. We’re going to need civilian clothes… and a total disregard for normal procedures. It’s time to cheat.”
“Woo hoo!” Nicole clapped, grinning. “What’s the mission?”
“Recovering a fifteen-year-old kidnap victim before her abductors kill her.”
Nicole’s smile fell flat in an instant. “Shit. I’m in. Tell me where to meet you.”
“Just go to my PC.”
“Will do. Be there ASAP.” Nicole reached at the image and the holo-call dropped.
Kirsten levelled the patrol craft off to a standstill hover at 700 feet, rotating it in a continuous clockwise spin. “Okay, Wilbert. Point me where to go.”
25
Urban Assault Training
One block from the Sencor Electronics office tower, Kirsten dropped out of the hover lane and flew into the forty-ninth story parking level of an office building belonging to Innova Corporation.
The delivery bot containing the clothes she’d ordered had been chasing them for the past two minutes. It pulled up beside her as soon as she landed in a parking space. After collecting her purchases, she took off her boots, utility belt, and uniform top. She kept her uniform pants, since under a skirt, they didn’t appear much different from black leggings. A loose-fitting top and baggy jacket allowed her to conceal the E-90. Alas, the forearm guard and terminal would give her away, so she’d have to rely totally on her NetMini. Kirsten piled the gear she couldn’t bring with her on the back seat—then called Captain Eze.
The Shadow Fixer Page 33
