Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “No. So what did you have?”

  Curtis worked his hand in a flurry over the datapad. “The last time Lamb sent in an SR, we pulled up the security vids. Check this out.”

  A holo panel appeared above the datapad, displaying a clone of the contents of the screen. Curtis opened an app, which split the secondary panel into six sub windows, views from security cameras. A pale blue vaporous mass glided across a black room. Lighter blue shapes hinted at cubicles, chairs, and pushcarts. The mass floated along, at times two whorl trails at the bottom swayed back and forth in a manner suggesting legs.

  “That’s a thermal anomaly, twenty-one degrees colder than the surrounding air.”

  Kirsten held back the urge to be sarcastic. “I’m familiar with the technology. I know something was here; I just can’t tell who or why.”

  “Good grief,” yelled a man on the other side of frosted glass. “I can’t concentrate on anything with you out there talking. Either come in or go the hell away.”

  Kirsten gazed at the dark drop ceiling. “Lamb?”

  Dorian poked his head up out of the floor. “No thanks, I’m watching my figure.”

  She exhaled out her nose. He’s not going to let that go.

  “Yep.” Curtis nodded. “Oh, check this out.” A few swipes of his finger changed to a thermal view of two bright orange bodies walking, with another pale blue anomaly to the right. On this screen, the cold spot had a far more humanlike shape.

  “Damn, that’s almost military grade… I didn’t think civilians bothered with such high-res thermal units.”

  “You’d be surprised. Two or three times a year, we get people trying to sneak in and plant taps on our network. The ones who make it into the building invariably have some manner of thermal cloaking suit on. This can spot them.”

  “Wow. Who cares about news that much?” Kirsten pushed the door to Lamb’s office open on her way in.

  “Some want to inject their content onto our network to broadcast disinformation. Usually it’s people who make money on ads,” said Curtis. “Other networks steal our feeds before we can broadcast so they get the ad revenue.”

  A thick-bodied man in a shiny silver dress shirt leaned over a desk formed of an inch-thick slab of the same cyan frosted glass as the outside of the Fish Tank. Dense, curled blond hair resembled a dead woodland creature draped over his head. His ruddy complexion strengthened her impression the hair didn’t belong to the man. Trails of sweat glided down saturated cheeks and a droplet pooled at the tip of his nose. His face reddened more as he leaned back in his chair. After a second or two of staring at Kirsten, the meaning of her uniform seemed to sink in and his demeanor went from irritated to tolerating. He grumbled before knocking back the last quarter-inch of brown liquid in a tumbler glass and setting it down, a pair of thermo-cubes rattling. Detecting no more liquid around them, they ceased glowing blue and went dark.

  The other three walls had a grey tone not far removed from black, covered with motivational posters, bookshelves, and a few portraits of people that looked vaguely familiar. She might’ve seen one or two on the NewsNet as a child, and assumed them retired reporters.

  “Mr. Lamb?” Kirsten walked up to the desk, taking note of a squarish bottle of JDH―Jack Daniels’ Hydroponic, about Ͼ4,700 per bottle. “I’m Agent Wren from Division 0. We received a report of unknown activity here?”

  “That’s right.” He wiped a hand down his cheek, pulling his jowls into a distorted caricature of a face. “I’m trying to finalize production schedules for the next broadcast period, and I’m being constantly distracted by something. At first, I thought it was a couple of the day crew messing with me, but when I got up to look, I couldn’t find anything. No way could anyone make it to the elevator that fast.”

  “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Lamb?” Kirsten tilted her head. “You look like you might be running a fever.”

  “Stress… and whatever atrocity those cafeteria people are passing off as food these days. Shit. I can’t even tell what my lunch was supposed to be.” The bottle of JDH wobbled in his hand as he poured himself another finger. “Been tryin’ to cut back, but this is more than I can handle.”

  “I’d like to try something. It’s going to look scary, but I want you to understand that it can in no way harm you.” Kirsten concentrated on the astral lash, and a long tendril of blue-white energy extended from her right hand.

  “Whoa,” said Curtis. “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Lamb raised an eyebrow. “What is that?” Locking stares with a matching light emanating from her eyes, he froze.

  “It’s a psionic weapon that can only hurt ghosts. Please don’t worry.”

  He rendered a mute nod.

  She swept the lash through him, but felt no hesitation. After a second swipe, she let it dissipate, darkening the room. “Whatever is making you feel sick is not a parasitic paranormal entity.”

  “That’s good, I guess.” Lamb picked up the glass, hesitated, and set it back down.

  “Can you think of anyone who died within the past several years who might want to cause you harm?” Kirsten paced around the office, hand out like a paranormal antenna. Energy seemed at a constant elevated level. A glowing handprint appeared on a bookshelf, and a fist-shaped smear on the interior wall caught her eye. “Whoever this spirit is, he spent a lot of time in this room. And he was angry.” She walked to the spot and traced her finger around it. “I’m thinking this is a relatively recent ghost who doesn’t have enough power to affect you yet. He probably got frustrated and hit the wall.”

  “Uhh.” Lamb scratched at the silvery frizz in front of his right ear. “I’m so damn busy with the day-to-days… I can’t think of anyone. If an employee has been terminated from my group in the past three or four years, it would’ve been Sudha’s call.”

  Kirsten added notes to the incident report. “Sudha?”

  “Sudha Malhotra, Senior VP in charge of programming.” Lamb waved his left arm at the wall. “Next office over.”

  Dorian glided in through the glass wall. “The one who gets credit for all the work the assistant VP does. Nothing around but a few former security officers hanging out in the café two floors down.”

  Kirsten glanced at him. “Former former? Or former former?”

  “The latter. Couple years apart, but they were all killed by people trying to infiltrate the building.” Dorian shook his head. “Sometimes, I think it’s nicer on this side. No money to worry about. They didn’t report noticing any other spirits, and they all confirmed each other’s alibi at having been there the whole night so far.”

  She blew a sigh out the left side of her mouth. “Did you find out what’s keeping them here?”

  Curtis and Lamb exchanged a glance.

  “One thinks ‘haunting’ is fun. Two are upset NewsNet cheaped out on their death benefits, and are waiting around until the lawsuits their families started are resolved. The other guy doesn’t believe he’s dead.”

  “There goes my ‘be right back.’” Kirsten looked at Lamb. “Sorry. Looks like a couple of your security people are still haunting the cafeteria on the seventy-fifth floor. It wasn’t any of them.”

  “Oh wow. I always did feel weird going in there.” Curtis scratched his head.

  “Well, Mr. Lamb.” Kirsten closed the holo-panel floating over her arm. “I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot I can do right now other than document. While I am sure a paranormal entity has been here, and is likely the cause for your ‘distractions,’ I can’t do much to track them down without some real-world information to go by. If you can’t think of anyone who might blame you for their death, even if it’s untrue, I’ve got nowhere to start from.”

  Lamb grumbled and rubbed his chin. “Curtis, can you run by HR and see if there’s any recent deaths of disgruntled employees?”

  “Sure thing, sir. I just need you to reply to the trouble ticket with the authorization for that request.” Curtis shifted his head toward
Kirsten. “If you provide me the Inquest number, I’ll attach it to the incident report so you’ll get notifications whenever there’s an update on our side.”

  “Can’t you read some tea leaves or tarot cards or something?” asked Lamb, his deep voice making the glass wall vibrate. He heaved an exasperated sigh and rubbed his forehead.

  She smirked. “I’m afraid I’m neither a witch nor a fortuneteller.”

  “Or a clairvoyant,” whispered Dorian.

  Kirsten narrowed her eyes at Dorian. “Mr. Lamb, has anything happened to make you feel in danger of harm?”

  “Only from stress. I can barely concentrate on this crap. If I don’t lose my job in the next two days, I’ll be shocked.”

  Dorian smiled. “They won’t fire the salaried idiot willing to work sixteen hour shifts.”

  Kirsten opened the Inquest via her armband display, poked her finger into the number: 24181108A1, and tapped a ‘civilian agency filter’ before flicking it in Curtis’s direction. His datapad chirped. Pop up holo-panels appeared over both her arm and his device, and they synced the case record with the NewsNet security trouble ticket. Fifteen lines of text scrolled in on the incident report, detailing Lamb’s numerous contacts with the security team. The thermal scan of the walking cold spot appeared last.

  “Got it.” She closed the screen and let her arm drop at her side. “Again, I’m sorry Mr. Lamb, but without something to go on… there’s nothing I can do other than catching him here. Has this happened before?”

  “Not that I noticed.” Lamb shook his head. He rubbed his gut and stifled a belch. “Ugh. Excuse me. The worst part about not knowing what the hell I ate is I can’t avoid it next time.”

  Dorian chuckled. “You’d think NewsNet could afford a decent cafeteria contractor.”

  “Everyone else orders delivery.” Curtis shrugged. “Do you think they order because the café sucks, or does the café suck because no one uses it?”

  Lamb almost smiled. “You might have a point about that… uhh…”

  “Parker, sir. Curtis.”

  “Right, Parker.” Lamb tucked up to his console and waved as if to dismiss him. “Thanks for the effort. I’ll send another email if it comes back.”

  Kirsten bit her lip. As much as it vexed her to walk away empty handed, the desire to get home to Evan won out. “I’ll do some research as well.” Tomorrow.

  Curtis spun on her with a broad smile. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “You’re not hitting on me, are you?” asked Kirsten as she left Lamb’s office.

  “No, Officer. I’ve just got a lot of respect for you guys… and I’m fascinated by psionics.”

  “Translation: He wasn’t accepted to the police academy, and he thinks you’ve got a perfect―”

  “Dorian!” yelled Kirsten.

  Curtis jumped.

  Dorian held his hands up. “I was going to say job.”

  “Yeah, right.” She narrowed her eyes, though smiled a little as she walked toward the elevator.

  “So who’s the ghost with you?” Curtis tucked his datapad under his arm again and hit the call button. “If you don’t mind me asking?”

  “My partner. He made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty a few years ago.”

  “That sounds much better than charged into a bad situation like an idiot.” Dorian winked.

  “Ahh.” Curtis looked around as if trying to estimate where he’d be. “Sorry, Officer. Hope they got the bastard.”

  “They did.” Kirsten turned to face the closing elevator doors, trying to force the memory of Rene’s head exploding out of her mind. “It was too quick.”

  Dorian blinked. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  She flashed a Cheshire cat smile. “I would’ve preferred he’d been arrested.”

  “Okay. That sounds like Kirsten.” Dorian chuckled.

  Once on the roof, Kirsten took out her NetMini to send Evan a message that she was on the way, but frowned at the time: 9:49 pm. He should be asleep now. She glared at the building. It would’ve been one thing to lose the hour and change she could’ve spent with her son if something was happening… but a new spirit being an annoying shithead―no risk of harm―made her bristle.

  She shook hands with Curtis and returned to the patrol craft. Going Code 3 on the way home would probably get her ‘talked to,’ plus it was already too late. She couldn’t keep him awake past his bedtime. Feeling defeated, she brought the car into the air and slithered into a normal traffic lane. Dark buildings passed on both sides, covered in streaks of light from cars as well as an ant army of small advert bots ambushing drivers with targeted commercialism.

  “You okay?” Dorian looked over.

  “I’m worrying how long his ability to forgive me for disappearing on him will last. Is he ever going to resent me running off like this? I feel horrible even when he’s okay with it… And this was a bullshit call. Some low-grade haunt waving his phantasmal dick in the face of some corporate manager.” She fumed. “I already don’t like him.”

  “The ghost?”

  “No. Lamb.” She squinted. “Pulled strings to get me here and it’s nothing.”

  Dorian looked ahead at the steady stream of red taillights in front of them. “He couldn’t have known that.”

  “Yeah, but the description of events would’ve been filtered out by Admin and not sent up to Eze as an urgent.” She scowled. “Too late now. If I whine about it, I’ll only look petty and emotional.”

  “Well, you are emotional.” He winked. “But I wouldn’t call it petty.”

  “What do you think is going on?”

  He tapped his knee for a few minutes, tilting his head back and forth. “Could be one of the people trying to sneak in to steal data who got killed. Maybe it’s someone generally going after anyone working for NewsNet? Messing with their production schedule would cost the company money.”

  “Hmm. Not a bad angle. I’ll check that tomorrow. Right now, I have a pillow calling my name.”

  he grating buzz of the alarm clock dragged Kirsten’s consciousness kicking and screaming out of the warm, dark place it had crawled into. Her eyelids peeled apart, revealing a mass of dense mouse-brown hair in front of her face. Sleep melted away from her brain, allowing it to gnaw on reality. Evan had migrated at some point during the night, and pulled her arm over him. He stirred, roused a moment later by the incessant noise.

  “Morning, kiddo.”

  He shifted onto his back and turned his head, almost touching noses with her. The boy hadn’t bothered opening his eyes yet. “Morning.”

  Kirsten pushed herself up sitting. After a yawn, she reached over him to shut off the alarm, and then wiped her hands up and down over her face. “Bad dream?”

  “Snooze, two minutes,” said an electronic voice from the eight-inch silver bar on the nightstand.

  “Not really.” He seemed to go limp, as if about to pass out again. “You’re not gonna sleep here tonight, so I wanted extra time with you.”

  “What?” She stared at him. A minute later when he didn’t move, she traced a fingernail across a thin strip of exposed belly between his pajama top and pants.

  He grinned. When she did it again, he laughed and opened his eyes.

  “You dreamed it?”

  Evan caught her finger in both hands when she tried to tickle him again. “Yeah… You’re gonna call me to say you had to go somewhere.”

  Kirsten brushed his hair out of his face. “You need a haircut. Are you sure? Did you see something you needed to warn me about?” Precognitive episodes usually come on in the face of imminent danger. He’s not strong enough to see meaningless things. She closed her eyes long enough to hope he wasn’t. Or at least if he turned out to be, Director Carter would hide him from C-Branch.

  He sat up, wrapping his arms around his legs and hugging them to his chest. The look on his face made her think he pondered lying, but resignation (and a touch of blush) replaced it. “I had a scary dream and I was afraid of yo
u going.” He picked at the sheet by his foot. “It’s not bad… I’m just being a wimp.”

  She slid to the edge of the Comforgel pad and let her legs hang over the side. “Do you want to tell me about the dream?”

  “I woke up back in that place you found me. I didn’t know it was a dream right away… I thought I was still there an’ you finding me was the dream.” His lip quivered. “I…” He gave in to tears.

  Kirsten pulled him into a hug, and let him cry. When the loudest of it subsided, she rubbed his back. “Dreams can’t harm you, Ev. Something they kept telling me when I was younger.”

  He sniffled.

  “Didn’t help me much to hear that either.” She leaned her cheek against the top of his head. “Those people can never hurt you again. Look, I’ll stay home today.”

  Evan wiped at his tears. “I think someone’s gonna get hurt if you don’t go. I only had a bad dream.” He took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

  She held him to arms’ length by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Are you sure? It’s been quiet… mostly… I have so much vacation time saved up I could probably stay home for a whole year.” I may have to adjust my belief system. She glanced at her NetMini on the nightstand. Maybe there is a little old man in a white robe. The senator hasn’t called me yet.

  “Yeah.” He yawned and his mouth closed to a sour expression of protest at being awake. “I only dreamed about the call where you apologized for havin’ to go, so it was just me bein’ chicken.”

  “Ev. There is nothing wrong with admitting you’re afraid. Trying to hide it or ignore it isn’t going to help. It’ll only make it worse… trust me.” She grumbled. “Even when I was like eighteen or nineteen, I’d have nightmares about my mother and wake up acting like a little kid I was so scared.”

  He blinked, looking shocked and worried. “Am I still gonna be scared when I’m that old?”

  “I don’t think so. You’re a tough kid.” She ruffled his hair. “A lot tougher than me.”

  “Nuh-uh. No one’s tougher than you.” He hugged her, grinning.