Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Ahh, so you were one of the six people that bothered to read it? I have somewhat esoteric hobbies. I like beautiful things as well as ancient things.” He set his cup on the desk, tilting his head a notch to the side. “I’m rather fond of things which appear delicate on the surface but are, in fact, quite dangerous.”

  Her gaze ran over his chest, eyebrow climbing as a pectoral ridge swelled prominent through his shirt. She fumbled with a datapad, before holding it out to him. Konstantin took it in a manner that caused his fingers to brush over her hand in a lingering departure.

  “The image scans we took are in there.” She could not look at him anymore.

  “His desk is large enough, the walls are thick, and no one would hear anything.” Dorian stood next to her, hands clasped behind his back. “What are you waiting for?”

  Crimson. This isn’t right. I want a relationship; I’m not a cat in heat.

  Konstantin tapped the screen, and lowered himself into the other guest chair. Images of the silver circle appeared in midair, enlarged as he pinched and stretched at the intangible light. He studied one for quite some time, and then flipped to the next. Kirsten sipped her coffee, still refusing to look at him.

  “I have not seen anything resembling this since my arrival in the UCF. This appears to be an attempt at constructing an intraplanar bridge.”

  “A what? Like a portal?” She looked. “Seriously?”

  “Well,” he said, lips parting into a confident grin. “Some people believe in this sort of thing. Cults, mostly; societies that died out quite a long time before the Corporate War.”

  Transfixed, she let him gaze straight through her. Her heart beat at the back of her consciousness; the light in here made him seem younger, as if he only had her by four years.

  “Have you been here very long, Konstantin?” She absentmindedly tried to sip from an empty cup, putting it back in the saucer and feeling foolish. “I didn’t see any emigration documents.”

  “Fascinating.” He held his hand to his chin. “I am here on a journey of information sharing, for the Archives. I don’t have a political agenda; I operate in societal circles that don’t have time for pettiness of that nature.”

  “So he is a foreigner.” Dorian resumed his wander.

  “Let’s suppose this stuff you’re talking about is real. I’ve seen ghosts. I guess I’d be a bit of a hypocrite to discount anything at this point.” When she made eye contact with him, she caught him glancing out of the corner of his eye. “What would something like this circle do, assuming it was real?”

  Can he see Dorian?

  His glance flicked back to her, and then to the images. “From this, it appears as if someone attempted to contact an entity on the other side, from an alternate world. These ancient sects thought it was possible to channel the energies that flow between and divide different planes of existence by using a combination of force of will and patterns traced in precious materials.”

  “Like silver?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Why would a precious material concern the planes? It’s only precious because we make jewelry out of it.”

  “Rarity.” An aloof expression of interest crossed his face. “The pattern and the intent is what matters, the preciousness is an element of exclusion. When the implements cost more than peasants earn in a lifetime, fewer people attempt it and many discount it as a hoax. It is just a means to achieve a degree of safety with secrecy and doubt.”

  “Peasants?” Kirsten giggled. “Did we slip back into the dark ages?”

  “This has been around for a very long time. Occasionally, someone with a gift tries something and gets it to work. Perhaps someone such as you, who can see other worlds?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to call anything out of anywhere. I have to send them back. Could that circle have enabled spirits to slip out of the Abyss?”

  “If you believe in such things, perhaps.” He stood. “I would love to discuss this with you at length; you are an enigma of splendor.”

  “Oh, you’re too kind.” She eased out of the chair, taking a step for the door. Enigma of splendor… that’s a compliment, right?

  “Wait, so you have a decent looking guy with an incredible amount of money who also happens to not care you’re psionic, and you’re ready to run like hell?” Dorian shook his head. “I give up on understanding women.”

  “Let me copy these files; I’ll study them in detail and get back to you.” Konstantin glided around behind the huge desk, and eased himself into an enormous black leather chair.

  “I’ll just need your PID.” He leaned into creaking leather. “So I can call you if I find anything.”

  “Of course.” Give him the department number.

  Beep. Her personal NetMini chimed.

  Oh, shit, what did I just do?

  he Archives faded into the distance on the rear-view monitors. Kirsten squeezed and released the control sticks to work out the tension in her body. Weaving through the ad-bot layer, she swerved hard to the right and climbed into the hovercar lane. The rain continued, appearing as brief pixilation in the windscreen, digitally removed from the pass-through display. Silence pervaded, save for the steady vibratory thrum of the various electronics in the patrol craft’s console. The pulsating rhythm of the ion drives ran down her back like massaging hands.

  Kirsten settled into her seat, death grip relaxing. “That was strange.”

  “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t―”

  “Don’t even say it. What do you think I am? Sure, he’s tall, dark, and richer than God. I’m just gonna fling my pants off and leap onto his desk?”

  “Umm.” He chuckled. “I was going to say peek into his surface thoughts.”

  A minute of silence.

  “The red goes quite nicely with the blonde.”

  Kirsten wanted to scream in anger, cry from shame, and hide from embarrassment all at once. After a moment, she just muttered. “It was just too good.”

  “You know, I think the man saw me.” Dorian glanced at the console; the heat ticked up two degrees.

  “I had a feeling. If I wasn’t gawking at him like a cat in heat I might have eavesdropped on his head.” She growled. “I’m such a screw up.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. He could just be an undocumented astral. Really, he’s a foreigner, so it’s out of our purview unless he does something criminal with it. Usually ACC psionics come running to us waving their arms and begging for help.”

  “He wanted to put me off balance.” She hung a left turn and climbed up a lane.

  A teen rolled sideways and shot past on her right side; the look of “oh, crap” unmistakable when he realized he just cut off a police vehicle. He slowed down to the pace of a grandmother. Kirsten ignored him. He’ll be too terrified to drive like an idiot for at least twenty minutes.

  “Maybe he just found you attractive? You are very pretty; you have those tragic Cosette eyes.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Kirsten looked away from traffic in short spurts to pin him with a quizzical stare.

  “It’s from an ancient theater production you’ve never heard of. Whenever you’re not doing anything specific, you just seem to stare into space asking the world why it’s so mean to you.”

  “I do not.” She frowned. “I’m doing okay now.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “Nowhere specific. I’m thinking.”

  “Agent Wren, please acknowledge.”

  Kirsten looked at the console. “Guess we have a destination now.” Poke. “Agent Wren here, go ahead.”

  “21-47 reported at PubTran monorail Terminal, Sector 1471.”

  A handful of small holo-panels opened: security camera footage of glass exploding for no reason, gunfire cracking out of thin air, and a man in a long black coat fading in and out as he walked down the concourse.

  Kirsten whispered. “Seneschal.”

  “Copy that, I’m en route. I suspect astral entities
involved. Please advise Division 1 not to enter the area. I don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. Also, gimme a red dot on the station, I don’t want any trams arriving until it’s clear.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Dorian glanced at the roof, the bar lights came on.

  She yanked back on the left stick; the car shot vertical out of the hover lane and whirled to face Sector 1471. Kirsten tightened her grip on the controls as acceleration pressed her against the seat.

  Chaos played out below. A row of parked cars along the street leading up to the station bore the marks of a roving gunfight, recent since the shattered remains of their windows still covered the road and sidewalk with twinkling crystalline glitter. People streamed down two large powered stairways that led from the small micro-park between the street and the station up to the elevated platform. The top of the long oval tube, the clear barricade over the monorail itself, peeked over the edge of the raised floor. Lights flickered inside.

  A group of Division 1 patrol officers worked the base of the stairways, attempting to keep order among the fleeing crowd. Everyone ducked at once as gunfire echoed from the evacuated station. Kirsten elbowed her way into the opposing mass of bodies, plowing through the crowd and up the stairs. At the top, she stepped into the squint-inducing fluorescence of an empty plastisteel-floored mall. Metal support beams flanked bench seats, a plastic carton slid across in spurts of wind, and a few of the shopkeepers on the street-side end remained to defend their possessions.

  Kirsten swallowed. The sight of an empty PubTran monorail terminal was scary in a post-apocalyptic sort of way that tensed the muscles in the back of her neck. A feeling simmered in the air, telling her something else was here. Dorian drifted right as they advanced, searching for any trace of activity.

  Boots crunched on broken fragments of holo-bars; the damage appeared to be the result of bullets. The girder to which the device was once mounted showed no sign of harm, not even scratched paint, as though the projectiles ceased existing as soon as they hit the first object. She had seen a similar effect before. Some ghosts could learn how to cause direct harm to other beings, and that technique often manifested in something familiar to the ghost―like a gun. Of course, they did not fire real bullets, just bursts of energy.

  An Indian man darted out of an empty store, dark grey sweater and black pants glimmering with adhering flakes of broken glass. He ran past an armed shopkeeper without triggering any sort of reaction. Someone in the store behind him fired a gun; the sound, heavy and booming, made Kirsten think shotgun.

  Her shoulder hit the nearest metal post, which she leaned around. “Vikram?”

  The runner looked, blinked, and dove over a bench as a shower of sparks scored dark gouges in the white paint on the column behind him. Seneschal stalked out of the one-room store, holding a rifle-shaped weapon with an almost two-inch thick barrel.

  “42 millimeter.” Dorian blinked. “Those come with a coupon for a free mop. Even Div 5 thinks they’re overkill.”

  Kirsten got down. “Five doesn’t use them because a mess of little bullets won’t scratch a cyborg. They want one big one.”

  Boom.

  A scattershot pattern of sparks ended another holo-bar full of arrival and departure times, leaving the post unscathed. Icarus rushed out of a store a quarter mile away, dreadlocks trailing him like a cape as he ran towards the sound of combat.

  Vikram scrambled into a forward crawl and screamed as another blast from the huge shotgun tore the slats out of a bench above his head.

  “Over here,” Kirsten shouted, waving.

  Dorian ran to the next column, taking cover. “Try shooting one.”

  “Seneschal,” she yelled. “Stand down, we can’t―”

  Boom.

  She hit the floor amid a rain of fragments on her back. Dorian leaned out, firing his E-90, though rather than a blue beam it made a white streak. The energy spread over Seneschal’s left shoulder, hitting him with the force of a punch. An annoyance.

  Dorian ducked behind cover as the rifle pivoted in his direction. “They’re strong.”

  “Guess it’s true what Theo said. They’re not who they were before.”

  “Oh, they are.” Vikram appeared at her left, crawling. “They’re still trying to kill me.”

  She waved a hand through his shoulder. “They already did.”

  “I mean, they’re trying to kill me again.” He curled up behind another column six feet away. “It seems they are somewhat upset with me for blowing them up. The dark things took them but they came back.”

  Kirsten popped up, firing. The laser seared through Seneschal’s chest, tearing an ember-edged channel several inches tall. Flakes of ash blackened and drifted off in the wind, and the hole sealed. In the distance, a small shop caught fire.

  “Please, you can’t let them get me,” Vikram begged. “They murdered me once already.”

  “Stay down.” She leaned around the column to take another shot.

  Seneschal slid behind a vendomat. Kirsten kept her aim on the machine, nodding to Dorian, who ran to take cover at a closer post. Icarus emerged through a cloud of fire-suppression fog billowing out of the burning store, firing at Dorian with what appeared to be a standard assault rifle. Bullets clicked into the floor, but made no secondary ricochet.

  “You do not seem confident.” Vikram risked a brief peek.

  Kirsten did not take her eyes away from the floating azure dot of her gun sight. Vendomat and gun traded blurriness. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m dealing with here; ghost bullets aren’t supposed to break things, just cause pain.” She shifted her aim to the right, and fired at Icarus.

  A diving roll put him behind the wall of a gadget store, leaving a glowing patch of plastisteel where Kirsten’s laser scored the floor. Dorian roared and charged, his gun vanished and reappeared in the holster as he leapt through the vendomat. A heavy thud echoed through the vacant concourse, and he came sliding into the open on top of Seneschal.

  “Stay here, stay down.” Kirsten leapt up and ran, tossing the E-90 to her left hand.

  Icarus popped out at the sound of squeaking boots, aimed at Kirsten, but hesitated. Grimacing, he fired a few shots into the ground to her side, forcing her to slide into cover behind a metal-walled planter. Seneschal locked eyes with Dorian; a second later, his fist flew up and caught him across the cheek. Dorian flew vertical, a dozen feet in the air from the force, his head stretched backward like a warping hologram. Seneschal dispersed into a cloud of mist and reappeared on his feet.

  A thread of azure light lanced through Seneschal’s thigh as he reached for his rifle. Kirsten’s laser burned an ash channel through his leg, bringing forth a roar of pain and a glare. The massive shotgun pivoted on the ground and flew into its master’s arms, pointed at her.

  Dorian came down on top of him, screaming, stunrod across the man’s throat. The shotgun took two lights off the ceiling as it went off in mid takedown. No longer holding back, Dorian crushed the manifestation of his baton into Seneschal’s neck as he flipped him over and landed on top of his back. Icarus swiveled aim to Dorian, but ducked when Kirsten melted a spritz of plastisteel out of the wall by his face.

  Taking the opportunity, she ran across a large oval planter surrounded by benches and vendomats. Three steps through dirt, and she leapt a bench on the other side. Calling the astral lash in midair, her boots touched down just as the tip hit Seneschal in the back of the head. It tugged, feeling like a swung blade stuck for a moment in gelatin, before it pulled free and passed through the floor.

  Dorian leaned away from her attack, barely containing the primal urge to flee from such a thing. Seneschal’s scream melted into a roar as his eyes lit crimson with the fires of the Abyss.

  Vikram screamed. Kirsten whirled, finding Mariko having come out of nowhere, sword rammed through his back. The little Japanese woman grinned with sinister glee. A veil of darkness clung to her face and her eyes burned red.

  She enjoyed cau
sing pain.

  The dead hacker gaped at the shiny blade sticking through his gut, whimpering. Kirsten whirled and took a second to aim. The sword jerked free, raised for another stroke. She fired. The beam caught Mariko in the face, melting her nose into a hollow and starting a fire in her mouth. The corporate ninja stumbled a step to the rear, less hurt than appearance would dictate. Mariko shook it off, her face filled in; smoke peeled from her nostrils.

  With a wail, Vikram dove through the ground out of sight. Mariko hissed at Kirsten, a snarl so feral and deep it did not sound human. The once-woman circled to the side, spindly limbs elongated and narrow, her lithe body shrouded in black fumes. Kirsten raised the lash, coiling it behind her. Mariko shrank away from the light with a hiss and darted off to the south. As if some kind of human-headed spider, she leapt from monorail to monorail, out over a dozen parallel tracks. Kirsten shrieked from a sensation similar to a bucket of ice water hitting her in the back. Dorian flew through her, thrown by Seneschal. Before she broke free of the paralytic cold, he vanished through the floor. Kirsten spun to the rear, just in time for Seneschal’s hand to grab her around the throat and lift her off her feet.

  Eyes bulging, she gurgled. The touch of his hand burned; her kicks passed harmless through a body solid only where he wanted it to be. Icarus nodded at Seneschal, lifted his rifle, and sank through the platform, chasing either Dorian or Vikram. Seneschal pulled her in close, bright eyes burning with hatred. The same aura of dread Harbingers carried was on him―the taint of the Abyss. She shuddered from her proximity to evil.

  He slid a large handgun out from under his coat, raising it to her forehead. “You are a pain in the ass. Welcome to the world of acceptable collateral damage.”

  The lash, driven by fear, swatted Seneschal into the air. He careened in an arc, a living dart, before landing on his head and sliding a few feet. Momentum carried his body over and he fell flat on his chest. She rubbed her neck, thankful not to feel the tenderness of a real burn. His touch caused pain in the mind, not trauma to the flesh.