Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “It looks like a hunk of raw meat someone tried to wring out like a dishtowel,” said Dorian.

  “Ouch.” Kirsten braced a hand on where she assumed her liver was. “I’m guessing that would hurt. Enough to make someone pass out?”

  Doctor Gerhardt flashed an appraising frown. “More than likely, with the possible exception of someone with an unusually high pain threshold.”

  “You have no explanation for how marks like that could’ve occurred?” She held her forearm guard up, taking an image capture of the screen to add to the Inquest.

  “The most plausible theory I’ve been able to come up with involves a coordinated attack by nanomachines, but anyone capable of doing that could easily have killed him… and there’s both no evidence of that and no reason I could think of for the complexity of simulating finger marks. Oh, and there is something else.”

  Kirsten raised an eyebrow. “I hope it’s good.”

  “Well.” Doctor Gerhardt chuckled. “I doubt it will top inexplicable finger marks on an internal organ with no damage to the epidermis or surrounding tissues. Mr. Lamb’s liver is a transplanted organ. I found evidence that the tissue was subjected to DNA manipulation to make it more compatible.”

  “That would explain why he seemed serious about not drinking.” Kirsten closed her eyes and pictured the apparition from Jonah’s memory. If this ghost was killed for parts, he’d be pissed. “I need to track down where that organ came from, Doctor.”

  Gerhardt’s face tinted blue as he held up a datapad to read it. “Mr. Lamb’s medical records do include several diagnostic procedures that indicate advanced liver disease as a result of alcoholism. Replacement or regeneration were advised, but there is no record of either procedure having been performed. The only possible conclusion I can reach is that he obtained an organ off the books. I ran the DNA profile in Ancora’s system, but the anti-rejection treatments muddled the original genetics to the point where the liver is technically its own unique person.”

  Dorian read over the doctor’s shoulder. “Finally something that makes sense.”

  Kirsten narrowed her eyes. “How long will it be before I can speak to Mr. Lamb?”

  Doctor Gerhardt flipped three screens over on the datapad, his face tinted green, white, and blue again. “Likely not until morning. He’s still undergoing surgery.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” She moved to leave.

  “Agent?”

  She glanced back over her shoulder. “Hmm?”

  “Sometimes the realm of science doesn’t have all the answers. I’m curious what your thoughts are on this most bizarre of injuries.” Doctor Gerhardt’s smile drew a little warmth to her cheeks.

  “Well.” She cleared her throat and resolved to stop staring at him. “I think you are right about his getting the liver from a street doc. I’m sure the former owner of that liver wasn’t happy about ‘donating’ it, and my best guess is that those finger marks you saw are the results of a ghost attempting to tear it out of him by hand.”

  “Interesting.” The doctor seemed to think it over for a moment, and shrugged. “I suppose anything’s possible. I hate to say it, but that sounds more plausible than nanobots.”

  Kirsten wasn’t quite sure what to make of the doctor. No derision for being psionic, no ridicule for talking about ghosts… “There’s so much more out there than most people believe.”

  “Well… I must return to my rounds. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Short of giving me a name on that liver, I think you’ve already done quite a lot to help.” She smiled. “I’ll be back tomorrow to have a chat with Lamb.”

  The doctor left after a handshake.

  Kirsten exhaled and spun to put her back to the door, staring at Dorian. “That went well.”

  “He’s old enough to be your father, and his good looks are probably a perk from knowing an aesthetic surgeon.” Dorian winked. “Besides, aren’t you seeing Sam?”

  “Yeah. We dated twice. I’m just admiring the scenery.” She rubbed her arms. “I like Sam, but I’m still a little freaked out by what happened with him, so we’re going slow.”

  Dorian nodded. “Perhaps after Lamb, you should try some apple pie.”

  She laughed her way into a nervous stare at the floor. “Back to the office… I’ve got a few hours of data to sift through.”

  he apartment trembled under the bass roar of six enormous starship engines. Some ridiculous massive spaceship version of an aircraft carrier lumbered across the holo-screen, surrounded by tiny fighters and streaks of blue and yellow lasers. Kirsten half slept on the couch next to Sam, smiling at Evan’s frequent cheers. He’d started off on her right side, leaning against her, but from the start of the battle scene, he’d been on his feet.

  She couldn’t even remember the name of the main character, but whenever the photogenic fighter ace got into a scrap, Evan twisted himself about as though he worked the controls himself, slapping imaginary buttons.

  It occurred to her that she ‘tolerated’ Sam’s arm behind her, and his hand on her shoulder. He’d been nothing but genuine with her, even when she’d shown no interest. Her hand migrated to her gut in an effort to massage away the twinge of nausea that came on. For days, she had been interested in the Division 2 tech who didn’t run screaming from a psionic, who thought she was pretty, who helped her without expecting anything in return. She had been interested, but Konstantin’s little pet bastard from hell made her hurt whenever she felt attraction to anyone else. It had made her so painfully sick that even without the bracelet, her stomach braced for agony whenever she thought about him.

  Kirsten glanced left and up at him. He smiled, though awkward disappointment showed on his face. She shifted her weight and leaned into him. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m still trying to deal with what that demon did to me. I’m not trying to be distant on purpose.

  Sam opened his mouth, glanced at Evan, and nodded.

  Kirsten stood and pulled Sam to his feet. “Be right back.”

  Evan shouted, “Pause!” The movie froze. He looked up at them.

  “I’m going to get some real popcorn.”

  “‘Kay.” Evan smiled at Sam. “I gotta pee.” He ran off.

  Kirsten walked with Sam to the kitchen, tapping at her NetMini to order a bucket of hydroponic sourced popcorn. The butter flavoring was some non-caloric ‘healthy’ option, since all the ‘wellness’ taxes made the closest thing available to genuine butter prohibitive. Fifty-two credits for a treat hurt enough already. Order complete, she let her arms flop down, still holding the ‘mini in two hands.

  “I understand.” Sam smiled.

  “No, you don’t.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’ve got this look like you’re expecting me to break up with you. I’m not. I’m… guilty as hell, but scared. You’re a great guy, Sam Chang. I can’t believe you’re interested in me.”

  “Hey.” He encircled her with his arms. “I can’t even imagine what it was like not being in control of your thoughts. Yeah, I was wondering if you’d only gone out with me to be nice. Guys like me don’t usually get a second glance from girls like you.”

  “Girls like me?” She gave him a coy smile.

  “You’re a beautiful person in every sense of the word. I knew from the first minute I saw you. Strength of heart, strength of mind, kindness, compassion, smart, and you’re not bad on the eyes.” He winked.

  “Thanks, but I know I’m underweight, short, flat-chested, and have the face of a tween. I look like a refugee from an ACC prison colony.”

  He swayed side to side with her. “It’s the big eyes.”

  “Big eyes?” She furrowed her brows.

  “They make you look sincere and innocent. Stop being so mean to yourself. You are angelic. And you’re not flat chested.”

  She blushed and giggled. “Thanks, but I just pick up their odd jobs sometimes.”

  “Kirsten Wren, slayer of demons.” He looked her in the eye. “I want to help you kil
l your own.”

  Kirsten leaned up and kissed him. He seemed surprised at first, fumbled around a second or two, and they both wound up laughing.

  “I’ve never really done this before,” she whispered. “Wow… it didn’t hurt.”

  “This is your first kiss?” He smiled. “And, you expected it to hurt?”

  “Uhh… remember when I got sick at your desk? That… thing was attacking me because I found you charming. I’ve been acting like this because I kept expecting it to tear me up inside again.”

  He put a hand on her stomach. “I didn’t mean to―”

  “You didn’t hurt me.” She leaned up and kissed him again. That time, they embraced for two solid minutes before the soft pssht of a pneumatic door came from the interior hall.

  “Can I finish peeing yet?” yelled Evan.

  Kirsten’s eyes fluttered open. “That was my first real kiss. Please don’t give up on me yet. I…” She looked down at his shoulder. “Might need a little more time to kill that demon, but I’m working on it… and I need all the help I can get.”

  His eyes lit up with love and hope; the way he looked at her made her shiver.

  “Pee for another minute,” yelled Kirsten.

  Sam initiated the next kiss, and their hands went roaming. Her eyes shot open when his fingers glided up her bare back under her oversized tee shirt, and she moaned into his mouth. Her breath quickened in time with her heartbeat. She slid her hands up his chest and held on to his shoulders while he pulled her close by the hips.

  The doorbell rang.

  Kirsten let her weight down off tiptoe. “Popcorn’s here.”

  “We should probably get it before it’s cold.” He hugged her again, patted her on the back, and walked her to the living room holding hands. “‘Mon Ev. You’ve been in there long enough.”

  Kirsten retrieved the delivery from a hovering bot at the front door. She’d expected the usual ‘looks bigger on the screen’ thing with the bucket, but she could barely get her arms around it. With her face in a mound of buttery goodness, she pushed the door button with her big toe and walked back to the sofa. “Well, we’ve got popcorn for two weeks.”

  Evan flopped on the couch again, clinging to her right side. Sam put an arm around her, occasionally patting him on the head. Kirsten basked in the warmth of it. Evan seemed to like Sam. He’d never liked Konstantin. Maybe, in time, she could forget the withered demonologist altogether. Bah. Go away. She pulled Evan half into her lap and held onto him while leaning into Sam.

  Two hours and eleven minutes later, the space epic ended. Kirsten walked Sam to the door, held hands and made goo eyes at him for a few minutes, and wound up kissing him again, not particularly caring if Evan saw.

  “Hey Mom―eww.” The soft thuds of him walking back to the living room faded to silence.

  She chuckled.

  Sam grinned. “I think we’ve got a good thing here. Don’t feel like you’ve got to rush anything. You’re worth waiting for.”

  “I’m letting it get to me more than I should.” She squeezed his hands. “The case right now is so frustrating it’s hard to think of anything. Maybe after, I could see if Evan wants to spend the night at Nila’s.”

  He wagged his eyebrows. “That will have to be a special night.”

  She nibbled on her lower lip. “I’m sure it will be.”

  They kissed again, more briefly than she’d liked, but part of her felt relieved he was leaving.

  “Night, Sam. How much longer are you on that silly early shift?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. Saunders makes it up based on a complex series of calculations and data analysis.”

  “So wherever the dart hits the wall.”

  “Basically.” He caressed her cheek. “I love you, Kirsten.”

  Her heart did strange things that resulted in a pronounced moment of light-headedness. “Uhh, wow.”

  Sam tilted his head.

  ‘Uhh, I mean… I…” She stared into his eyes. Her throat tightened. The butterflies in her stomach got into a dogfight using missiles. She grabbed her wrist―no bracelet, nothing on her to force these feelings from out of nowhere. No painful knife in the gut. “… think I love you too.”

  “After all you’ve been through, I’ll take a ‘think.’” He glanced at the floor, chuckled, and made eye contact again. “I can’t wait to see you again. Why don’t you bring Evan by sometime and we can check out the dragon.”

  “Dragon?” She fidgeted, still sure her face had gone bright red at chickening out and saying ‘think.’

  “Little China.” He grinned. “Once a month, the dancers come out with this giant dragon costume. There’s a street fair… food, fireworks, live performances.”

  “Sounds fun. I’ll run it by little man.”

  “Night Kirsten.” He kissed her again.

  She bit her lip and waved. “Night.”

  Kirsten watched him walk until he went out of sight at the corner of the hall. She closed the door and armed the security system before dragging her feet back to the living room where Evan busied himself with the Yume Koujou. The 150-inch holo-panel showed a view remarkably close to how it felt to wear Psi Armor, though the HUD was different, and Kirsten had never even seen a rifle that large.

  “Hey kiddo. You should’ve been asleep forty minutes ago.”

  He paused the game and stared down at the controller. “I know.”

  She sat on the sofa behind him. “What’s wrong? Is it Sam?”

  “No.” He looked up, worried. “No… Sam’s cool! He’s not too good at Colony Commando; Shani’s better. He needs practice.”

  Kirsten leaned forward and brushed his still too-dense hair away from his eyes. “You’re white as a ghost. Ev, please… you’re worrying me. You laughed Theodore off, what’s got you frightened?”

  He set the controller on the coffee table and crawled up on the couch next to her. “My room is scary.”

  “Do you want me to take down all the Monwyn stuff? The spiders and dragons?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I love it. It’s an awesome room. I don’t wanna sleep.”

  She squeezed his shoulder and rubbed up and down his back. “You’re still having bad dreams?”

  “Yeah. I dream like I’m back at that other place and gettin’ hit.”

  She cuddled with him, racking her brain for what she could possibly say. None of the platitudes or motivational crap the psychologists spewed at her ever helped get rid of the ‘closet dream.’ “For years, I had everyone telling me dreams can’t hurt me. They were just images in my head, not real, my imagination.”

  He looked up at her.

  The NetMini rang.

  Kirsten growled, ignoring it. “They were wrong. Dreams can’t injure you physically, but they can hurt. They kept me hiding… kept me terrified, not wanting to leave my room. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t deal with the real world.”

  He squirmed into her, sliding one arm between her back and the cushions while clamping the other one around her stomach. “I don’t like having bad dreams. I hate being scared.”

  Her NetMini went off again.

  “It’s okay if you gotta go.” Evan sniffled.

  Kirsten snagged the handheld device and glared at it for a half-second before answering.

  A vaguely handsome twentysomething man in a grey dispatcher’s uniform appeared in an eight-inch hologram. “Agent Wren, we’ve received a report of a suspected paranormal disturbance in Sector 9517.”

  Kirsten clutched the carpet with her toes. “Details? Is anyone hurt, being hurt, or about to be hurt?”

  “The caller is identified as William Nuys.” A smaller image of a late-thirties man with long brown hair in a ponytail and a goatee appeared to the left of the dispatcher. “He is reporting issues at a nightclub he owns, uhh… chairs stacking on tables, glasses falling on the floor, some canisters of synthetic liquor have been moved, and the audio system and lights are turning off and on at random.”

  “
That’s it?” She smirked.

  “Mr. Nuys also stated that for the past month, whenever he’s shown up to open the club, he’s found tables upside down and liquor bottles scattered around.”

  “So basically, a ghost is being irritating?” She stroked Evan’s hair. “Dispatch, my son isn’t feeling well. From what you’re describing, this isn’t an emergency call. Please tell Mr. Nuys I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

  The tightening of Evan’s hug killed any sense of worry about Captain Eze giving her grief over not going.

  “It does seem like a low priority report, Agent. I’ll open a case file and send it to you. Shall I ask Mr. Nuys to provide an immediate update if he feels a life is in danger?”

  “Of course. Thanks. I’ll definitely check the place out tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Copy that, agent. Good night… and I hope your son feels better.”

  “Thanks.”

  The hologram went dark and she set the NetMini back on the table.

  Evan looked up at her wide-eyed. “You stayed?”

  “That isn’t even close to an emergency. If I was just me, I’d probably have gone out of boredom… but nothing is more important to me than you. I can’t leave you alone right now.”

  “Sorry for actin’ scared.”

  She ruffled his hair. “It’s okay. You’re nine. A couple of bad dreams are normal.”

  His eyes lit up white. “Do you think there’s something in my closet?”

  “Let’s go look.”

  He gulped, but released the hug. “Okay.”

  She took his hand and slid off the couch. He showed little reaction to anything until she poked the silver square on the wall that opened his bedroom door with a muted pssht. His grip on her fingers tightened. The room looked dark, but empty.

  Kirsten leaned in and brushed the switch on her left. Dragons winged above a nighttime meadow in his electronic window, and large fake spiders darted over the faux-castle-stone walls for cover when the room lights came on. Evan puffed his chest up and followed her to the closet. No spirits showed themselves, though the room did feel eerie. Something had been here.