Department Zero

by Paul Crilley

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

  “You’ve been demoted to crime scene cleanup?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Wait, you said supernatural crime scenes?”

  Graves shrugs. “An infinite number of universes, remember? There are worlds out there, just like yours, but where vampires are real. Or wizards roam the streets of New York. Where witches rule England and the Nazis mastered black magic to win the war. If there’s crime, we put in the time.”

  “Nice tagline.”

  “I like it.”

  “So . . .” I say, trying to decide how pissed off I’m about to get. “All that stuff about learning about the monsters under the bed?”

  “Still applies. We have access to the ICD files down in the Dee-Zee.”

  “The . . . ?”

  “Dee-Zee. Department Zero.”

  “Oh. Right. But . . . no investigating? No actual police work?”

  “Not . . . as such.”

  I should have known it was too good to be true. I’d screwed my chance to be a cop once before. No one ever gets second chances in this life. Just the way it is.

  “But we’ll get back into the investigative branch. One day. You think I’m going to live out my life in a bunker surrounded by weirdoes and losers?”

  “Nice way to talk about your coworkers.”

  “You haven’t seen them yet. Department Zero is where all the . . . undesirables get sent. You know the ones. They piss off the wrong people. Don’t know when to shut up.”

  “Kinda like yourself, then.”

  “No, idiot. I’m nothing like them. Thirty years I’ve been an ICD investigator. I don’t deserve this shit. Because of one screwup? I don’t even know why the higher-ups took it so badly in the first place. It was just a standard intra-dimensional art theft. I’ve covered a thousand of them in my time.”

  “So . . . I don’t get it. Why do you want me, then? You must have enough freaks and geeks on your team already.”

  Graves looks away, stares at the rapidly descending numbers on the digital readout. “I . . . liked what I saw. You handled yourself well. Jumped into the fight.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “I want people on my team who won’t cut and run. Loyalty is very important to me.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “Which isn’t to say you have any of these characteristics. You’re on probation. We’ll see how you do.”

  “I’m on probation? To clean up body parts?”

  Graves smiles at me, and I really don’t like that smile. Not at all. “Oh it’s a lot more than that, my friend. A lot more.”

  Then we’re plunged into darkness as the elevator drops below ground level, soaring down into a metal shaft that cuts into the earth.

  A couple of minutes later and we’re still dropping.

  “Um . . . how far down is Department Zero?”

  “Picture the deepest hole you can dig. Then when you hit the bottom dig a second hole next to it. Just as deep. Then dig down some more. That will get you about halfway to us.”

  “Shit, man. They really don’t like you, do they?”

  “That is an understatement. Department Zero is an embarrassment to the ICD. We put up with them because we must, because no one else will do the job they do.”

  “You’re talking like you’re on the outside looking in. But from where I’m standing you’re one of them.”

  “How dare you! Take that back!”

  “Um . . . no. I don’t think so.”

  “I’m going to get out of the Dee-Zee. Believe me. I don’t belong there. None of my people do.”

  He folds his arms and turns his back on me. He doesn’t say another thing until the elevator eventually bumps to a stop and the door slides open into a chaotic, open-plan office. Desks laid out in uneven grids, covered with files and ancient computers. Workers drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, chatting about last night’s television shows. And . . . yes, a few people swigging whisky. It looks like an office from the eighties. Before health and safety was actually a priority.

  “I hope you have a fetish for paperwork,” says Graves. “Like, a deep, ongoing love affair for it. If you don’t, my advice is to pretend you do.”

  He steps out of the elevator and makes his way through the alleys between the desks. No one greets him. People look up at him, but they quickly turn away as soon as they see who it is.

  Havelock Graves is not well liked.

  I follow Graves to the farthest corner of the room, where four desks have been pushed into a square to make a private office, with the desks forming the walls and a small, empty space in the center.

  The desks are occupied by two of the people I saw fighting in the Rip three weeks ago.

  “This is Ash,” says Graves, waving at the woman with the auburn hair. He turns to the young woman. “And this is . . . What name are you going by this week?”

  “Asmothep, destroyer of worlds,” she says. She’s wearing a Knight Rider T-shirt, lace gloves that go up to her elbows, dark eye makeup, and a tutu.

  “Right. And this is Harry Priest,” says Graves. “I’m sure you’ll all get along wonderfully.”

  He gestures at an empty desk. “That’s yours.”

  Introduction done, Graves flops into a chair behind a desk covered with files and paperbacks and drops his head onto the desk with a loud thunk.

  Ash nods at me in greeting. “You know those little desk signs people used to think were funny? ‘You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here, But It Helps?’”

  I nod.

  “Those signs were invented here. For here. And they weren’t a joke.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. We have certified insane people working here. On the twentieth floor.”

  “Why? Do you go and stare at them? Does it help office morale?”

  “What? No. That’s sick. Why would anyone do that? Is that what you would do?”

  “No! It was a— Forget it. Why do you have mad people working here?”

  “Dangers of the job. Sometimes you step into a reality that’s so different to the human mind that it—” she clicks her fingers, “—breaks you. Just like that.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” She smiles. “Welcome to Department Zero.”

  Behind me, Graves groans loudly. “Don’t say that! It sounds so final. We’re not going to be here long. I told you that.”

  Ash raises her eyebrows at me and tosses a file onto Graves’s desk. “Hope you’ve had your coffee, boss. First job of the day.”

  “Let me acclimatize, woman! I’ve only just got here!”

  “It’s half past eight. We should be in the field by now.”

  Graves sighs and sits up. “Fine! What is it?”

  “Illegal alien. A retrophile.”

  “Perfect.” He looks at me. “Your first job is the most boring type of crime we have to deal with. Lucky you.”

  He heaves himself out of the desk chair. “Come on then.”

  Ash and I follow after Graves as he trudges back to the elevator.

  We take the elevator up to ground level and step out into an echoing foyer covered with glossy black tiles. We cross the floor space, passing other (I assume) ICD operatives. And they’re not just human. I see giants trudging along, joking with small gnome-type creatures perched on their shoulders. Plus I see a group of what appears to be walking trees, chatting away as they move slowly across the tiles. Lots of humans, but lots of weird beings too.

  Ash sees me staring. “An endless amount of realities, an endless amount of possibilities.”

  “Yeah, but . . . literally? Are you saying there are an infinite number of these realities?”

  “We don’t know. We’ve only catalogued the tiniest fraction. The Company has an explorer division for that.”

  “So you’ve got an explorer division, a Cthulhu crimes division, and the ICD. How many others?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “And
Department Zero is the afterbirth,” says Graves without turning around. “The juice that collects at the bottom of the Company’s garbage cans.”

  The front entrance to the building is a long line of revolving doors, at least fifty, and all of them in use. We pass through and head down a wide set of stairs. The light of the stars is bright enough to illuminate our surroundings. The maze towers above us, a dark line against the night sky.

  “Suit up,” says Graves, attaching his mask. His is slightly different to mine. Wider, broader around the cheeks. And his eyes are made from red glass. But it’s still covered with etchings and runes.

  Ash’s mask is narrower, and has the look of a fox to it. Her eyes are golden. Ash and Graves are both staring. It’s pretty unnerving having those blank-eyed skulls just standing there looking at me.

  “What?”

  “Your mask, idiot,” says Graves.

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” I’m still holding my mask. Haven’t put it down since stepping out of the tunnel on the top floor. I lift it to my face and let it suck against my skin. Immediately, a heads-up display flashes into existence, floating in front of my eyes. The HUD displays a flashing orange arrow leading ahead.

  Graves and Ash start walking. I follow, heading toward the maze. The walls rise high as we approach. This isn’t some little hedge maze you get in eighteenth-century France. This maze is twenty feet high and made from stone.

  The flashing arrow leads into the labyrinth. I hang back a few paces and let the other two get ahead. Just . . . taking a moment. Trying to take everything in. I look back and see the huge building silhouetted against the cosmic backdrop, employees coming and going as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

  “Hustle up, idiot!” calls Graves.

  I sigh and step into the maze. The path is about ten feet wide, easily enough space for large groups of people. We pass plenty of Company workers. Some nod at Graves; all of them nod at Ash. No one gives me a second look.

  We make our way along the twists and turns, following the orange markers on our HUDs. We must pass at least a hundred Company operatives using the blue-white doors that appear and disappear in the maze walls.

  “I still don’t get why you do it this way,” I say. “Doors in a maze? Seems a bit showy. Pointless.”

  “Every single Company operative will agree with you,” says Ash. “We don’t know why it was set up this way.”

  “And what do you do if you’re called to emergencies? You never said.”

  “There are doors in the various departments,” says Graves. “We used to have some. In the Penthouse.”

  I look inquiringly at Ash.

  “The Penthouse. The ICD murder room. Where we used to work,” she adds in a low voice.

  “This is us,” says Graves, stopping before a blank piece of wall.

  I check the arrow in my HUD. It has turned blue and pulses gently right ahead of us.

  Graves glances over his shoulder. “Ready?”

  I shrug. “As I’ll ever be.”

  The door flares to life and we step in.

  Chapter Six

  We step out of the tunnel and onto a sand dune.

  The skies are gray, heavy clouds scudding across the horizon. A cold wind buffets me, sand whipped into stinging whirlwinds.

  I look around and shiver. The air feels different. Sharper. Colder. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? I’m in a goddamn new reality. A new dimension.

  I turn in a slow circle. Kind of a letdown, if I’m honest with you. I mean, it feels a bit different, sure, but not another reality different. More like I’m in England and not LA different.

  “Hey, do we get to go to a Conan reality?”

  “A what?” asks Graves.

  “You know . . . magic, the mad cults, snake priests. Barbarians and long-lost civilizations. You ever been to a place like that?”

  “No. We haven’t. And thank the gods. Sounds horrendous.”

  “Bummer.” I think about it. “But they exist, right? They must.”

  “I suppose,” replies Graves.

  “Can you seek them out? When I was a kid I used to love the books. I’d spend hours imagining I was in those worlds.”

  “How incredibly sad for you,” says Graves. “Now shush, the grown-ups are working.”

  I follow his gaze and see there is a group of five people standing on the beach about fifty feet away. Graves frowns at them for a moment before striding off down the dunes, swearing and cursing as he goes.

  “What’s with him?” I ask as we follow behind.

  Ash gestures at the group on the beach. One of them, a huge guy nearly seven feet tall, draws my attention. Bald, grizzled, a long trench coat hanging off his massive frame.

  “That guy there. He’s called the Inspectre.”

  “He’s an inspector?”

  “No. He’s the Inspectre. It’s a title. A rank in the ICD.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “And Graves was up for the promotion same time as Jarvis over there. Then the . . . well . . . then you happened.”

  “His name’s Jarvis? That’s cute.”

  “Don’t call him that. He’ll hit you so hard you won’t remember your mother’s name.”

  “I’m adopted.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah. But point taken. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Asshole. And no problem.”

  As we draw closer I see there’s a body lying in the wet sand. He’s wearing a neon T-shirt, Ray Bans, cargo pants, and Pumas. He also has a big hole in his chest.

  “What did you say this case was? A retro what?”

  “Retrophile,” says Ash, nervously watching Graves as he stands behind the Inspectre, who seems to be enjoying ignoring Graves’s presence. “It means he’s a man out of time. You ever see those old photographs that do the rounds every once in a while? A guy in modern clothes standing in a black-and-white picture from the thirties? Or a street scene from the twenties that has a woman talking on a cell phone?”

  “Sure. People post those on the Net all the time.”

  “They’re fugitives. They’ve crossed through an illegal Slip into another reality to escape whatever it is they’ve done in their own.”

  I nod at the guy lying on the beach. “And that’s what this guy is? How do you know?”

  “Check your readout. Upper right-hand corner.”

  I unfocus my eyes from the scene before me and look at the writing scrolling past my vision. It’s going too fast for me to read. “Slow down.”

  The text slows to a Star Wars crawl. Apologies, sir. I wasn’t aware you had difficulty reading.

  I check the readout. It’s information on the reality we’re currently standing in. The code of this alternate is 5583/Beta 584-H96. Catchy. The text scrolls up, telling me I’m in England on the southeast coast, it’s autumn, and . . .

  “Ah,” I say. The text says the date here is 1911. I look at the guy on the beach in his DayGlo clothing. Now I see.

  “Does this happen a lot?” I ask Ash.

  “Yup. Criminals thinking it will be easier to hide in an alternate reality. People wishing for a simpler life. Sometimes they don’t even know they’re not in the same time period when they arrive. Black market Slips are unpredictable. They can’t hold them open for long because as soon as they start searching for alternates, we pick them up at ICD and the chase is on.” She nods at the body. “But this case is different. Retrophiles are trickier.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they’re actively seeking out different time zones between alternates. They try and introduce advanced technology a hundred years before its time. Or they use science to set themselves up as a powerful ruler. Or a god. We get a few of those. Big egos, retrophiles. Very annoying. Like to declaim their plan when they get caught. Love the sound of their own voices.”

  Graves has obviously had enough of standing around because he whips his mask off and strides forward, shoving his way between a couple of the ICD o
peratives standing around the body.

  “You lot finished staring?”

  “Hey, check it out,” says the Inspectre. “It’s the dicks.”

  Graves ignores him and squats down to inspect the body. He takes out a pencil and uses it to push the corpse’s jacket open.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” snaps the Inspectre. “You’re tampering with evidence. You’re not ICD anymore, remember?”

  Graves frowns and straightens up again. “Then get your pet monkeys to finish up here so we can do our job. You think we have time to wait around for you?”

  “You do if I say you do,” says the Inspectre pleasantly.

  Graves frowns, clenching and unclenching his jaw. “Fine,” he suddenly says, and claps the surprised Inspectre on the shoulder. “We’ll be over there, relaxing. Call us when you’ve finished processing your scene.”

  He strides away from the dead body, splashing along the shoreline. Then he stops, gets down to his knees, and starts scooping sand into big piles.

  Ash and I approach him, both of us detaching our own masks. “What you doing, boss?” she asks cautiously.

  He squints up at her. “My dear girl, I’d have thought that was abundantly clear. I’m making sand castles. Come. Join me.”

  I glance over my shoulder. The five ICD guys are watching Graves with their mouths hanging open in amazement. The Inspectre barks something, and they jump back to work, taking photographs of the body and the surroundings.

  “So who killed the stiff?” I ask.

  “Probably him,” says Graves, scowling back at the Inspectre.

  “Is that the punishment for sneaking between alternates? Death?”

  “Depends what the perp has done. Or if he tries to attack the ICD operatives.”

  I nod. “And . . . what happens if one of these guys materializes in a crowded city? Or in someone’s house? What do you do about the witnesses?”

  “We have ways of making them forget,” says Graves.

  “Like what you were going to do to me? If I didn’t agree to take the job?”

  “No. If you didn’t take the job I was going to shoot you. What?” he says in response to my astonished look. “You’d seen too much. I don’t think a memory wipe would have held.”