Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  Laney sniffled and nodded.

  “Would you mind if I held the urn for a little while? I’d like to use it to try and call him here.”

  The woman looked around at random objects for a few minutes, her expression shifted from frightened to sad to confused. Eventually, she got up without saying anything and padded off to the back. A chorus of baleful meows followed her deeper into the apartment.

  “Can you ease back on the wiseass remarks for a bit please,” whispered Kirsten. “She’s been through enough.”

  “Okay… sorry.” Dorian raised a hand in surrender.

  Laney returned with a plain plastisteel urn, the size of a large synthbeer canister but rectangular, with an engraved portrait on one face above the name “Charles Prentice.” Below, in block lettering, the words: “Beloved brother.”

  She sat on the edge of the cushion, seeming not quite able to hand it over.

  “It’s okay. You can hold him. I just need to touch the urn.” Kirsten set her hand on top of the rectangular vessel and closed her eyes.

  Psionic energy swirled around in her head, concentrated on beaconing the spirit linked to the astral residue lurking in the ashes. Kirsten called out into the ether, radiating her desire for the ghost to seek her out. Another cat screamed, and something in the back of the apartment fell with a thud that jarred the floor.

  At the sense of another person there, Kirsten opened her eyes.

  The eyeless, hollow-chested apparition she’d seen before stood at the opening between dining room and hallway, under a white-painted arch. He ‘looked’ at Dorian, then Kirsten, with a grim expression of simmering anger.

  “Charles.” Kirsten stood, facing him. “Thank you for coming here. I want to help you.”

  “I don’t trust you. That thing you did burned.”

  “Is he here?” asked Laney.

  His rage faded, his expression became mournful as he glanced toward her.

  “Yes he is. Charles… can you tell me who killed you?”

  The spirit paced around, coming closer. “You’re not going to trick me?”

  “No. I’d like to ask you to stop hurting those people. They don’t know where the organs came from. They have no idea you were killed.”

  He shuddered with anger. “The big bastard kept talking about ‘be careful with the lungs.’ He said that’s the whole reason for grabbing me. Three of them. Big guy, bald, had silver eyes. The other guy was about his build”―Charles gestured at Dorian―“but his head was shaved. Same look too… Middle Eastern or whatever. The other guy was small, bright red hair… candy red. Purple eyes, and he kept twitching like he was on some bad shit.”

  Kirsten typed notes as fast as she could. “Did you overhear any names?”

  “The big guy… they kept calling him Nurse B, or something. Little dude got called Spaz a few times, but I don’t know if that was a name or just because he was one.”

  “Okay.” She added another two lines to the file. “I think I know where your lungs are.”

  “That rich girl. Senator’s daughter. Seraphina or whatever. The one that tried to kill herself.” Charles folded his arms. “I… Poor kid was so damn pathetic I couldn’t do anything to her. She reminded me a bit of Laney.”

  Kirsten glanced at the woman who’d been staring open-mouthed into space.

  “Careful, K. This guy’s only been dead two months is it? He shouldn’t be able to affect the living. Might be more than he appears. Remember Vikram?”

  “He’s technically affecting his own body.” Kirsten looked from Laney to Charles. “It makes the most sense.”

  “Charles?” asked Laney. “Charlie? Where are you?”

  “Here, Lane.” He put a hand near her shoulder. “Tell her I saw Mom and Dad, and Goblin is with them.”

  Kirsten repeated it.

  Laney sobbed.

  “A dog we had as kids.” Charles gazed down. “I can’t let her see me like this.”

  “Spirits manifest most easily as they appear at the moment of death. It’s perhaps the most powerful emotional imprint left on the psyche… being killed. It’s not permanent. You can make yourself appear however you want, if you concentrate hard enough.”

  Dorian’s attire changed to his dress uniform, and then to a tee shirt and shorts. After a smile, he let it go back to the standard Division 0 blacks. “Might take some practice, but you’re years away from appearing to anyone but an astral sensitive, so you have time.”

  “I’ve got a lot of information to process now. Please give me the time to do this for you. I’ll do everything I can to get the bastards who killed you, but I won’t be able to if you kill one of those people.”

  Charles’s presence darkened, becoming foreboding. Three cats shot out from under the sofa, blurry streaks of fur that disappeared down the hall. “You’re threatening me now? Those people had no goddamned right to kill me for parts!”

  “Charles.” Kirsten raised a hand. “I’m not talking about me… though I will try and stop you from harming the innocent. I’m talking about other things. Entities who come for dark souls.”

  “Innocent? They stole my life in little pieces!”

  “Calm down and listen to me. Julia thought the heart came from someone who’d been killed in a gang war. Lindsey, the girl from the moon station, she believed new kidneys had been regenerated using her DNA.”

  “That NewsNet asshole knew.” Charles glared at her. “And that chemist didn’t seem to care much.”

  Kirsten cringed. “Okay. Fair point, but none of them were responsible for your death. Lamb’s an asshole for not caring about it, but he didn’t cause it. Did Seraphina know?”

  Charles’s anger faded. Again, he stared at his sobbing sister. “I don’t think so. She saw me. She’s close enough to death that she saw me. She told me to kill her. Welcomed it. Her father’s the one who arranged for me to be killed. I’ll leave those people alone, but you take him down. You also have to come help Laney if she wants to talk to me.”

  “Actually…” Dorian smiled. “You can do that with a NetMini on audio record mode. It’s a bit slow to go back and forth with, but it’s faster than waiting for us to get here.”

  “I can show you how to do that.” Kirsten slipped her NetMini from her belt. “Laney, if you want to talk to Charles, you can use your ‘mini. Go into Apps > sound recorder. In settings, turn up the microphone all the way.” She demonstrated, pushing little sliders to the top of the touchscreen. “Charles can hear you speaking, but you can’t hear him without something like this.” She looked at the ghost. “Get close and speak into this.”

  Charles leaned his face to within inches of the device. “Hey, Laney-boo.”

  Kirsten paused the recording and wiped a tear from her eye. “Just, uhh… back it up and play.”

  After Kirsten’s recorded instructions, a distorted whispery rasp repeated, “Hi, Laney-boo.”

  “What?” Laney jumped. “It’s garbled.”

  “It takes a bit of getting used to… and Charles needs to concentrate on speaking slow. I understood it because I can hear him speaking like a normal person. He said ‘Hi, Laney-boo.’”

  The woman burst into tears. Kirsten looked away but couldn’t help but cry too.

  Laney sniffled. “Play it again, please?”

  On the fifth replay, she looked at Kirsten with adoration. “He’s really here…”

  Kirsten stood and tucked her NetMini back on her belt. “I’m going to go start trying to track those men down. If you get angry or frustrated, please find me.”

  “How?” asked Charles.

  “I’ll stick around a bit and try and show him how to do some things,” said Dorian. “On the condition you leave those people alone for the time being.”

  Charles scowled.

  “Going after a senator for a contracted killing is going to be a delicate process. It may take me a while to gather enough evidence to nail him… if you want to go mess with him, feel free.”

  Laney ran of
f into the back.

  He smirked. “Guess the law doesn’t work for me anymore since I’m dead.”

  “That’s my job, Charles. The law does help the dead… but it’s an uphill march.”

  Dorian grumbled. “We’re trying to turn the law back on one of the people responsible for making it. It’s got to be done carefully, and will take time.”

  “It will be much smoother if I’m not racing around worrying about you killing someone.” Kirsten summoned up her most reassuring smile. “Please?”

  Laney jogged back into the living room, clutching a bright purple NetMini.

  “Fine. I’ll try waiting… but, if that girl dies, don’t go pinning that shit on me.”

  Kirsten sighed. “So much for no longer having a timer running.”

  “I’ll catch up.” Dorian winked at her, and patted Charles on the arm. “First lesson, how to scare cats.”

  “Scare cats?” asked Charles, raising one eyebrow over a hollow eye socket.

  Dorian walked over to him. “Oh sure. Every ghost works on that first. Ever see the little bastards lose their minds and zip around for no reason? Means there’s a new ghost adjusting to life on this side. Extra points if you can get them to climb drapes.”

  “Be nice,” muttered Kirsten as she headed for the door.

  Kirsten stopped at the squad room long enough to start a data crawl with the descriptions of the suspects she’d gotten from the ghost of Charles Prentice, flagging Citycams within six sectors of the area rumored to be where Mardrake lived as well as any Division 1 contact with three men of similar descriptions.

  She placed a vid call to Theresa. The live-in medtech answered in four rings.

  “Hello, Officer Wren.”

  Sigh. Lieutenant. “How’s Seraphina?”

  “Sleeping.”

  Shock. “Please keep an eye on her. I think she may try to harm herself.”

  “Okay, I will do.” Theresa looked around for a second and leaned closer to her NetMini, making her holographic head enlarge. “She has already tried this. I should no say this, but the senator, he should do right by her before it’s too late.”

  “Yeah. I’m working on it.” Kirsten offered a resigned smile. “Thanks.”

  “Good night, Officer.”

  Kirsten left the data crawl going and locked her terminal. It wasn’t too late yet, only seven. Hopefully, Evan would still want dinner. Grinning, she hurried off to the dorms, where she found Evan and Shani lost in a multiplayer Colony Commando game in the rec room. Both wore senshelmets, though the Yume Koujou device projected a holo-panel showing a rotating point of view that cycled among all 120 players. She sat cross-legged on the rug between them, and gave Evan a pat on the shoulder so he knew she was there.

  “Ready to go home?”

  “Match is over in like two minutes, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She grinned at the kids chattering back and forth like little soldiers. “Cover me,” “going in,” “flashbang left,” and so on continued for about four minutes before the external screen showed a scoreboard split into two teams. Kirsten couldn’t tell who was who, or where Evan’s player name was, but based on the look on his face, his team had won.

  Shani stood and stared down at her toes. “Night, Ev.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows at her. “Huh? You’re coming over. Mom already said that.”

  Kirsten grasped Shani’s bony little shoulder. “I am not angry at you. The man made you point a gun at me.”

  “Really?” Shani twisted side to side.

  “Yes. Really.” Kirsten patted her on the back. “Come on. Get your shoes on.”

  She grinned up at Kirsten and ran off down the hall. While waiting, Kirsten shot a text to Nila: ‹Bringing Shani home. Good luck on the stakeout.›

  Nila’s response appeared in six seconds. ‹Thanks! She hates the dorm so much. Hope bratling isn’t a problem.›

  ‹Not at all.› Kirsten smiled as she typed.

  Kitten mewls echoed from the corridor, emanating from the tiny pink Nomz on Shani’s feet. She ran over with her jacket and backpack/book bag on. Kirsten took the kids each by the hand and walked to the elevator.

  Home, and out of uniform, Kirsten ordered delivery Chinese and ate with a child leaning against her on both sides while watching an animated movie about a planet ruled by giant robots. Once the movie ended, they played a holographic card game involving summoning creatures and managing land resources for a bit before the yawning started.

  Kirsten ushered one child then the next through the cycle of changing and brushing teeth. With Shani unrolling her sleeping bag on the floor of Evan’s bedroom, he sat up on the Comforgel pad and looked at Kirsten.

  Think that box will work? I don’t want the spirit to hurt Shani. His expression said he didn’t want Shani to see him curled up in the corner, terrified.

  Kirsten walked over and patted him on the head. Dorian tested it. If something shows up in your closet, it’ll make noise. Hey, why don’t you blockade tonight? We can set the trap when Shani’s at home and safe.

  He jumped up with an eager wide-eyed look. “Okay.”

  She backed out and let him hit the button to close the door. If a paranormal entity was harassing Evan, a blockade would let him sleep without fear… and from the grin on his face, he knew it too.

  ringing NetMini woke Kirsten at 5:59 a.m. She rolled onto her side, moaned, and plugged her ears until it stopped. Before she could smile at the silence, her alarm went off. She sat up, rubbing her cheek.

  “Son of a bitch.” She grumbled, killed the alarm, and picked up the NetMini to see who called. She dialed Nila back.

  “Sorry, did I wake you? I thought you got up at six?”

  Kirsten feigned annoyance. “Twenty seconds to six is not six.” Raspberry.

  Nila laughed. “Your clock is slow. I’m on to you, trying to sneak in an extra half minute of sleep.”

  Children’s giggles came from the hallway outside her room, making her smile.

  “Still alive I see.”

  “Me or the kids?” Kirsten yawned. “How was the stakeout?”

  “Both, and a waste of time. The guy never showed. I have better things to do than sit outside a residence tower waiting for a telekinetic pickpocket to go out on the stalk. Thanks for watching the bratling.”

  “Oh, she’s adorable.” Kirsten sighed, rubbing her foot through the sheet. “Still a little afraid of me I think, but I hope she’ll grow out of it. Wanna pick her up before you leave or I can drop her at the school?”

  “Would you mind? I’m off today. Least they can do for staying up all damn night. I haven’t slept yet. I’ll pick them up after.”

  “Okay.”

  Managing two sub-ten-year-olds in the morning turned out to feel more than double as draining as one. Shani had way more energy than anyone had a right to possess that early in the morning and couldn’t seem to sit still. Add telekinesis to the mix, and Kirsten wanted to go back to her pillow by the time she reached the squad room.

  “Did you sleep?” asked Morelli.

  Kirsten froze. “Wow. Conversation. You feeling okay, Tom? And yeah, I did. Two kids this morning.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something sarcastic, but held it in. “You got another one?”

  “No, just minding Nila’s daughter… she had a stakeout last night.”

  “Oh, I heard about that. They’ve been ignoring that guy for a while since he’s hard to track down and isn’t hurting anyone… but the NewsNet got him on camera so now it’s like he’s a serial killer.”

  “Oh, no!” Dorian faded in at his desk, overacting shock. “Someone caught a psionic crime on camera.”

  Kirsten grumbled over to her seat, and opened a panel to order coffee. Nicole’s desk was empty, so she glanced at Morelli. “Want a latte or something?”

  “Sure. Plain cappuccino with an extra shot.”

  Order sent, she pulled up the dreaded reports interface and got to work updating the
official Inquest documentation with everything she’d learned. Much easier to do with two hands at a full computer as opposed to one finger picking at her forearm.

  Her NetMini chimed, indicating a notice from a delivery bot hovering at the entrance to the parking area. Policy refused to allow them into the building under fear they might contain dangerous substances or explosives. Kirsten hoofed it to the garage and back, carrying a tray with two cups. After giving Morelli his coffee, she cradled the double-extra-shot mocha latte in both hands and inhaled its aroma while staring at the data crawl she’d started last night.

  The system continued to search for the three killers, though some information had popped up regarding Charles. She sipped as she read over it. The routine had discovered a hit on the name Charles Prentice from a network border router at a Morning Bean café near the same grey zone where he’d been killed. I can’t do much with that, but maybe someone at the store saw him.

  She got up and headed to the car, bringing the coffee. Dorian leaned against the fender waiting for her.

  “Beat you.”

  “It’s not an official race until I can go through floors too.”

  He laughed. “You can if you project.”

  “And then I can’t drive, so there’s no point.” She hopped in. “How’d it go with Charles? I hope you didn’t torture those poor cats.”

  “So-so. He’s pretty weak, still. They got the hang of communicating with the ‘mini, but I couldn’t get him to manage noticeable physical contact. He can’t tap his sister on the shoulder to get her attention, yet, but we did get the lights to flutter.” He smiled. “And the cats are fine.”

  “That’s something. Do you think he’s going to wait?” She pulled out of the garage and climbed to the hover lane, tapping the Navcon to set a waypoint to the coffee shop.

  “He seems to want to, but you know how it goes with the ‘purposeful rage’ spirits. Eventually, the need for revenge is going to overwhelm reason. Of course, it could be years before his sense of who he was in life erodes that far.”

  “I hope this doesn’t take years.” She set the car on auto-drive and leaned back with her coffee, nursing it with small sips.