Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Bullshit is what it is.” Lamb grabbed his side again. “Shit… is that thing here again?”

  “No.”

  “Bastard thing still hurts. You know that sanctimonious prick from Pantheon smiled at me when he hung up? Like we’d gotten into some kinda virtual Gee-ball game and he shut me out. I’ll probably be chatting with your counterparts in blue if I ever meet that weasel in person.”

  Kirsten cringed. Was that a serious death threat or was he venting? “Mr. Lamb, you know I’m still an officer of the National Police Force, even if I am an investigator with Division 0… if you’re seriously threatening someone’s life in my presence, I have to―”

  “Oh, for the love of… I’d only punch him.”

  “I see. Well… That won’t be much of an issue if it’s uncovered that you arranged for a man to be killed for parts.”

  Lamb somehow managed to grow paler. “N-no way. I’d’ve paid for the damn procedure myself before I killed someone. This guy I know in Investigative got a line on a person of interest. He’s been doing a series of exposé pieces on so-called ‘ripper docs,’ and he knew I was having all sorts of problems with fucko at Pantheon. Turns out, he got in with this one ‘doctor’ who happened to have an extra liver sitting around with nothing to do. No way was I trusting my life to someone who works outta a black zone, so I checked around and found a place that’d do the procedure no questions asked, and they said the DNA didn’t matter… they could ‘make it work.’”

  “So this guy grabbed a liver from a Nippy Nom and waltzed into a free clinic?” Dorian phased out of the wall on Lamb’s right, and strode through the couch. “Not much here. I get the feeling he’s not home much.”

  “Where’d you get it?” asked Kirsten.

  “I never got the guy’s name. Mole set me up with it.”

  “Mole?” Kirsten stared at her fingers, tinted green from the holo-panel over her left arm. “I hope that’s a nickname.”

  Lamb flashed a grin tinted by wince. “Yeah. He’s one of our better investigative reporters. Jim Burroughs. Everyone started calling him Mole after the ‘Burroughs deep’ jokes got thin. Anyway, Mole finds this thing… makes the deal. I show up in this broken down parking deck in a grey zone to do the swap. Wasn’t even the doctor who showed up, some big guys with more hardware than most cops.”

  She typed as fast as she could with one hand.

  “You don’t have an implant? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of you guys use that arm thing before.”

  “I don’t like cyberware. The mere thought of it makes my spine twitch.” Kirsten shivered. “Can you tell me where you had the organ implanted?”

  “Yeah.” He picked at the fabric of his shorts. “Place called 1UP… with a number one in front of ‘up’ in caps. It’s in Sector 5956, near the grey zone north of it. Doctor Simon something… tall woman with weird hair.” He waved his hand around in thought. “Uhh… black and pink. Look, if the man was already dead… is buying that liver illegal?”

  “Umm…” Kirsten entered notes about 1UP and a ‘Doctor Simon?’ to the file. “Technically it is, but assuming you had nothing to do with the procurement, it’s somewhere between trading in stolen property and desecrating a corpse. Given the classification of the offense, it’s unlikely command would pursue the investigation.”

  Robert Lamb exhaled with relief.

  “Though, I don’t think the former owner cares about legal technicalities.” She shot a pointed stare at him. “He’s only going to become stronger as time passes and he gets angrier. Considering the damage he did the other night, I think it’s quite possible he could be able to kill you in six months or so.”

  “C-can you stop him?” Lamb shivered.

  “That would require finding him. Are you sure you don’t have any idea who ‘donated’ that liver?”

  “I swear on my mother I don’t. There’s gotta be something you can do.” He leaned forward; the look on his face said he’d have grabbed her like a begging child if she’d been within reach.

  “Without being able to find this guy, the only thing I could suggest would be to get rid of the organ. He might not be angry with you anymore if the organ’s not inside you.”

  “They still won’t cover the procedure.” Lamb deflated. “Two point nine mil to do a full regeneration, plus I’d be stuck in a tank for three days.”

  Kirsten stood and held her arms out to the side in a limp shrug. “Unless you can give me more information and I find this ghost, that’s all I got.”

  “What if he comes after me again?”

  “Put me on speed dial. I can’t stay with you. He should be able to hear you. Try asking him to wait for me so we can talk.”

  Lamb struggled to his feet. “You think that’ll work? Wait, am I seriously contemplating talking to ghosts?”

  “You’re offering that a lot,” said Dorian. “Hope they don’t all call you at once.”

  Kirsten folded her arms. “Do you have a better explanation for what happened?”

  Lamb slouched.

  She patted him on the arm. “Hey… You work for NewsNet. You could always threaten to do a week-long special on how the insurance industry rips people off.”

  A spark lit in Lamb’s eye. “That might work.”

  “Or they’ll have him killed.” Dorian chuckled.

  She glanced at him. “I’m going to see if I can track this guy down before he comes back. Call me if you have any more information.”

  “Thanks, Agent.” Lamb walked her out. He closed the door after she left, muttering about scheduling that special.

  Kirsten looked at Dorian. “You’re so cynical. Do you really think Pantheon would have him assassinated to stop a news report?”

  “Would Intera send assassins after a cop to keep a secret?”

  She shivered. “Thanks for reminding me of that mess.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” He smiled. “Though, I think you’re more confident now… you’d probably handle that a lot better if it happened again.”

  “Don’t jinx me.” She hurried to the elevator and took it to the parking deck.

  A woman in a black business skirt-suit with a row of oval mirrored buttons down the front hovered by the patrol craft. She looked in her middle twenties, pale, blonde, and had the sort of severe look to her one might expect from an Eastern European spy―or dominatrix. As Kirsten approached, the woman offered an unexpected warm smile.

  “Agent Wren?” Her voice had a chirpy, upbeat, almost teenage quality, at utter odds with her appearance. “I’m Katarina Burke, VP of operations for Hearthford Abbey Management Corporation.”

  Kirsten accepted a handshake, feeling wary. “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to extend the company’s apologies for how some of our security associates treated you earlier.” She removed a holodisk in a clear plastic case from the pocket of her blazer. “We found evidence that a former employee infiltrated the building’s network and overrode the protocol responsible for detecting emergency service vehicles. It is our belief they were trying to initiate problems with law enforcement.”

  “Oh.” Kirsten turned the square case over, letting the light gleam off it. “Thanks.”

  Katarina’s pleasant demeanor hardened. “I reviewed security video of the… comment that was made to you. I also wanted you to know those two are no longer employed by us.”

  A twinge of guilt rose up inside her, but she decided to ignore it. “Thanks. Hopefully, they won’t do that to anyone else.”

  “Please let me know if there’s anything else we can do for you.” Katarina offered a slight bow, and walked off toward the pyramid of amber glass in the center of the parking area.

  Dorian walked around to his side of the patrol craft. “Now that was unexpected.”

  “I wonder what’s on their network they don’t want us to find.” She got in.

  “Hey.” Dorian poked her in the arm. “I’m supposed to be the cynic.”

  She logged in from the
car’s console, and ran a search of a Jim Burroughs employed by NewsNet Corporation. Within three minutes, she had a fix on his NetMini location… a run-down sector somewhat close to a grey zone. According to the map, a Chinese restaurant known as the Fu-Sheng House. Kirsten studied the face on the monitor: later thirties, flat-topped afro, dark skin, and something about his face made him seem easy to trust.

  “That place was awesome.” Dorian sighed.

  “Was?”

  “Okay fine. Is. Was for me.” He grumbled. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it… then again, you’re young and innocent. A lot of the local Div 1 guys go there three or four times a week for lunch.”

  “Thanks.” Kirsten tapped at the control sticks, not quite sure she still deserved to be called that. She couldn’t make up her mind at what point in her life ‘innocent’ no longer applied. Had Mother taken that from her, or did she give it away for food? Perhaps he meant her naïve tendency to search for the good in everyone. She let off a quiet sigh, and accelerated.

  A massive holographic sign painted half a block in two directions from the Fu-Sheng House bright orange and red. Chinese characters taller than Evan blinked in and out in sequence along a board seven feet tall on the front corner of a building next to a tiny parking lot. Kirsten didn’t even bother trying to squeeze the patrol craft in. Half again as wide and long as a civilian car, it wouldn’t fit in the single available spot.

  She landed on the roof of a building across the street, a five-story… something that looked abandoned. It might’ve been an office or an apartment, though the condition of the place left its former purpose a mystery. Kirsten jogged down a rickety fire escape ladder, basking in clouds of warm air tainted with the smell of urine. The flavor of rusting metal settled on her tongue with each breath.

  The glare from the sign made her squint as she crossed the street, until she reached the shallow alcove sheltering the front door, covered in cracked, red paint. The powerful sign forced light through heavy curtains, tinting everything inside in shades of burgundy and orange. Metallic gold on the wallpaper shimmered wherever red felt didn’t cover it, and a five-foot long carved-wooden dragon (also painted gold) gazed at her with a red lightbulb eye from where it hung at the back of the room.

  A woman behind a tiny counter to the right smiled at her and asked something in Chinese.

  Kirsten’s NetMini translated, reciting, “Welcome to the Fu Sheng House, officer. Booth or table?”

  She whispered, “I didn’t come here to eat, I’m looking for someone… but it smells so good… Give me a moment?” back into it before a version of her voice, speaking Chinese, played out of its speaker.

  The woman nodded. She said something else, which her NetMini echoed in English. “Okay. If you want to eat, you tell me.”

  Kirsten smiled at her and scanned the room. Jim Burroughs sat in a booth seat most of the way down the right-side wall, opposite a spritely ginger-haired girl with pale skin and freckles. Her short bob glinted with metal and flashing lights, some kind of headset with pods over each ear and moving antennas that made her seem to have metal rabbit ears. Jim had a napkin tucked into the neck of a beige turtleneck, with a few dribbles of dark red sauce on it.

  She walked up to the end of the table, glancing back and forth between them.

  Chopsticks in his right hand animated his conversation like a conductor’s baton over a symphony, though he froze in place as soon as Kirsten arrived.

  “Mr. Burroughs. I’m Agent Wren, Division 0 Police. I’d like a moment of your time.”

  The girl looked up at her with an eager expression. More tiny lights on her headgear came on. “That’s the psionic cops, Mole. What’s she want with you?”

  “Great question.” Jim wiped his hands and offered one. “Nice to meet you, Agent.”

  She shook. “I need to ask you a few questions about your association with Robert Lamb. More specifically, how much you know about his recent health problems.”

  “He’s at the upper end of middle management. I’m just a reporter. He and I don’t really interact.”

  Grr. Kirsten squinted at him, unable to resist skimming his surface thoughts. He worried how much Lamb told her, and feared his cover being blown if he talked. The word ‘Mardrake’ drifted by, along with a scary-as-hell image of a cybered-up mammoth of a man who he’d apparently come to know as Nurse Bea.

  “Mr. Lamb gave me a somewhat different version of events. He said you were doing an investigative piece on the recent surge in illegal organ sales. The impression I got was that you gave him some information.”

  “That’s true about the story, and I’m still in the middle of it.” His surface thoughts flashed a fast forwarded conversation with Lamb. Again, the name Mardrake came up, this time with the image of a man in a blood-spattered teal coat. The figure stood in harsh contrast at the edge of an operating room style lamp; half his face, pale as snow with a visible crow’s foot entered the light, though much of him remained in shadow. Thick, black hair in a side part left him looking like a mad scientist from an old holovid.

  “I see. I suppose Mr. Lamb may be trying to direct attention away from himself.”

  “How should I know what his game is?” Burroughs gave her a pointed look. Come on… read my mind. You people do that all the time, right?

  Kirsten cringed inside. Not all the time, but Lamb’s life is in danger and I don’t have time for bullshitting around. I appreciate your need to keep a distance. What do you know? “Do you have any idea why Lamb would mention you?”

  Burroughs shrugged. “Hell if I know.” If you’re listening to my thoughts now… Lamb was pretty fucked up. His liver was gonna crap out and he couldn’t afford to replace it. This guy Mardrake―I have no idea if that’s his real name―did a job for someone else, and had a bunch of other shit lying around. They gutted some poor mofo but real. Took just about everything. You don’t wanna go in there on your own, girl. He’s got three hired bastards what do the ‘unpleasant’ parts. Spaz, Uri, and this cromag they call Nurse Bea. “Like I said, I don’t usually talk to the man. We’re in different circles.” Burroughs nabbed another piece of shrimp in dark orange sauce with his chopsticks and ate it.

  “You’re sure you’re being honest with me? Lamb was pretty convinced you gave him some information.” Where can we find this guy? Do you have any idea who they killed or who uhh, ‘commissioned’ the harvesting?

  Burroughs shook his head. “No idea. On all counts.” Rumor says he’s got his setup in Sector 6903, but I ain’t know that for a fact.

  “All right.” She sighed with a scowl. “Thanks for your time.”

  He took another piece of shrimp, and seemed to be fighting the urge to smile. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.” Damn. I wish all cops could do this. That’s a damn sight easier.

  Kirsten tried to act frustrated. “I hope for your sake Lamb doesn’t turn up any proof of your involvement.” She glanced at the maybe-eighteen-year-old girl staring wide-eyed at her. “Since that would mean you’ve just been recorded lying to me.” Thanks.

  “Since when does Zero investigate ripper docs?” Burroughs waved shrimp and chopsticks about. “Not the usual sorta thing you guys get your hands dirty with.”

  “The former owner of Mr. Lamb’s liver isn’t too happy about it.” Kirsten winked. “If you think of anything else, please contact us.”

  “Whoa,” said the girl, her antenna-ears perking straight up. “Did you just imply that ghosts are real?”

  “Yeah… sure will.” Burroughs popped the shrimp in his mouth.

  “They are.” Kirsten smiled.

  The girl leaned closer. “Can I interview you about that? A lot of my followers are into that stuff.”

  “I don’t mind, but you’d have to go through the usual channels. I’m not really permitted to give interviews without the blessing of the higher ups.”

  “Right…” The girl sighed, antennas drooping. “Usual runaround. Is it okay if I tell them you’re willing?”<
br />
  “Sure. They like good PR.” Kirsten headed for the exit, but paused at the front counter. “Can I get an order of shrimp lo mein to go?”

  The Chinese woman nodded. Her voice repeated in English from the NetMini. “Sure. Thirty Eight please.”

  Six minutes after swiping her NetMini over the reader to pay, Kirsten hurried back to the patrol craft. Rather than try to fight her way up a fire escape, she summoned the car with her armband. It levitated, slid out over the street, and settled down at her side. She hopped in, and ten stories off the ground, engaged auto-hover and opened her lunch.

  “Now what?” asked Dorian.

  “I got a name. Mardrake. He’s a ripper doc.” Kirsten stuffed her mouth with noodles. Oh wow… this is amazing!

  A rattletrap of an e-bike whipped around the corner and skidded into the tiny parking lot of the Fu Sheng house. She smirked at the driver, a scrawny black-haired man, but didn’t feel like ‘slumming it’ and giving him a citation for speeding. She had bigger issues to deal with. The man rushed inside as if he hadn’t eaten in months.

  Dorian shot her an astonished look. “After all the grief you give Nicole for that… I never imagined you of all people would play fast and loose with ethics.”

  She sighed out her nose while chewing, rushing to swallow. “I only surfaced him, and Lamb’s gonna die if I don’t do something. It didn’t expose Burroughs to any trouble, legal or otherwise. I’m not going to rely on it directly for anything, and I have something to look into now. Besides, he wanted me to do it.”

  Dorian remained quiet while she slurped up another chopstick load of noodles. “You’re making justifications, but I suppose I can’t disagree with your reasoning.”

  Kirsten grinned at him with a tangle of lo mein hanging from her teeth.

  ith the patrol craft on auto-drive, Kirsten attacked the computer terminal in the console and ran searches on the word ‘Mardrake’ as well as the 1UP clinic. The name search kept churning, but the clinic came back as a charity medical facility occupying a grey zone in Sector 6061. The system identified the chief doctor on site as one Petra Simonova, age twenty-six. Kirsten pulled up her records, finding images of a dangerously thin six or seven year old girl with black hair from an immigration intake scan. She’d slipped into the UCF with her parents by way of Mars. Aside from a few pick-ups for illegal chems in her middle teens, her record was clean.