Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  “More like kid sister. I think.” Dorian winked and made the NavMap scroll to the area in question. “He did seem to throw off an older brother feeling. Besides, Sector 1405 isn’t too bad as those places go.”

  Kirsten fished the mini out of her pocket. “I want to live the daydream or kill it; I can’t take it anymore.”

  Beep.

  Threads of light wound about in the air above the slab of technology, stretching into a three-inch bust of a man with broad shoulders and a large mass of hair bundled in two-inch-thick ropes. Kirsten bit her lip as the shape of a carved-from-rock jaw and broad, thick lips appeared. He still had on the same olive drab coat. In the absence of a dark alley, his face shimmered bronze. Like the bulk of the population, his ancestry was far from obvious.

  “Hi, Templeton?”

  “Oh, yeah, Officer Wren. How are you?”

  Agent. She swallowed the correction. “Fine, thanks. I was um, wondering if, um.” Can you sound less like an awkward schoolgirl please? “I have to go into Sector 1405 and I need some backup and…”

  “The department is letting you go alone?” Even over the tiny speaker in her palm, the deep timbre of his voice thrummed through her.

  “I’m trying to find a ghost. Officer Logan is on Mars and it would take too long to talk anyone else into it.”

  “And she wants to see you.” Dorian leaned over.

  Kirsten went red in an instant, slapping her hand down and crushing the holographic bounty hunter into the NetMini before she glowered at Dorian.

  “Relax, only you heard that.” He chuckled. “Of course, now you’ll have to explain why you’re the color of a fire suppression bot.”

  “Hello?”

  “Uhh.” She slid her hand to the side, allowing Templeton’s visage to fade into view from right to left. “Sorry, thought there was a bug on the screen.” That was original.

  Templeton’s baritone laugh pulsed up her arm as the miniscule speaker struggled to cope. “Sure, I’ll meet you in Sector 1353, just south of it. I can be there in about ten minutes.”

  “Great.” She made a sound somewhere between a squeal of delight and a giggle. I’m so pathetic.

  The light from the vid call faded. Dorian reached over and pawed at her hand until she let him hold it. “You need to be ready for this not working out the way you are hoping it does. He’s thirty-six, you’re twenty-two. To him, you’re a kid in need of a guard dog.”

  She waved dismissively and accelerated up to a point where Dorian became nervous. A few minutes later, approaching from the south, she dropped altitude in an area dominated by huge warehouses arranged east to west. Most of the buildings were of similar size, long, rectangular, and in various shades of white. Sector 1509 brought to mind the thought of a dark cancer eating the horizon, a spot where the fragmented skeletons of collapsing skyscrapers folded into the center of a festering ruin.

  A police vehicle, even a solid black one, coming in for a landing chased away about two dozen people hanging around a chain link fence on the west edge of the street. Most sauntered away casual, or acting it. Two sprinted, but Kirsten was not interested in giving drug dealers a hard time. She shut down the propulsion unit and leaned back in the seat. The various sections of console went out, letting the dark blue glow of the NavMap panel flood the cabin. She stared at the ascending rows of numbers in a line north along the coast: 1353 (where she was), 1405 (grey), 1457 (grey/dangerous), 1509 (black), 1561 (grey), 1613 (grey). Sector 1509 contained no subdata points, the entire square was as black as a hole in space.

  Kirsten poked the one-inch square representing 1405; her finger pierced the hologram with ripples that spread out as it the programmers designed it to animate. Information popped up in a side panel, listing about eight small-time street gangs. The only one she found worrisome were The Angels―a mostly Latin group that started in the area once known as Los Angeles.

  “Might run into Angels here.”

  “Well, that would make things a lot easier.” Dorian watched shadows creep between the warehouses to the right.

  “You are such a comedian.” She gestured at the terminal, laughing. “The gang. You still think there’s such a thing as real ones?”

  “Harbingers exist, don’t they? Besides, the gang isn’t that bad. They know enough not to get into a pissing contest with the police. They work most of their frustrations out on other gangs trying to cut into their territory. I don’t see you wearing Táng-Long colors, so you should be safe.”

  “I’m wearing worse.” She poked herself in the breast.

  Dorian chuckled. “Not all gangs grab any woman they can get their hands on. Around here it’s all about territory, merchandise, and a sort of quasi-politicking bred from having the people who live here actually support them. Both the Angels and Táng-Long are more like loosely-structured corporations than street gangs; they just generally trade in illegal things. Though, you might find the Táng-Long interesting―they’d be apt to believe in ghosts.” He winked.

  “Something’s coming up behind us.” Kirsten looked at the rear-view screen.

  A battered, two-seat Chīsai took a corner two blocks down and turned towards them. Most of its beige paint had flaked off in patterns suspiciously reminiscent of repaired bullet holes. It rode low on the driver’s side, a severe lean made worse for an instant as it changed lanes to get right behind them. Kirsten could almost hear the motors in its twelve-inch wheels screaming for mercy.

  The instant it lined up with them, she poked the console to run a scan. Light levels balanced out, and Templeton’s face became clear. He sat in a scrunch, his shoulders almost at the level of his ears. She burst out laughing.

  “Why do huge men always seem to have tiny cars?” Dorian cackled, and then drifted through his door. “Good grief, he doesn’t get into that thing, he puts it on.”

  Kirsten got out and checked the fit of the silver belt around her waist. She did everything but look at Templeton as he parked. The Chīsai groaned as he disembarked; a mechanical sigh of relief as it no longer bore the weight of a muscular seven-foot-tall man. A boot scuffed the metal walkway; she looked up at his face and stopped breathing.

  There he was, the guardian angel who had come out of nowhere in the alley a few weeks ago. Waist-long chestnut-brown dreadlocks trailed in the air behind him, fanning out as he walked. Kirsten’s brain slam-shifted down two gears, into in a speed below the ability for verbal communication. Her mouth opened as she imagined his approach in slow, glorious motion, noting every flutter of his long green coat.

  Dorian looked over his shoulder, twisting right and then left. He moved through the car and surveyed the street. “I don’t see a holovid crew. They’re going to miss the romantic moment.”

  Templeton stopped at handshake distance, extending an armored glove. In her mind, she reached out, tiny hand grasping only one of his gargantuan fingers. The reality was less extreme.

  “So you’re chasing a ghost?” The full force of his deep laugh fell over her, without the protection of a tiny speaker. “If you weren’t a Zero, I’d expect you mean someone hard to find.”

  Kirsten closed her mouth, and opened it. A trace of cologne mixed with the scent of the ocean. She stared.

  “Are you all right, Officer?” He waved a hand through her vision.

  “Yeah…” She spun her back to him. “I was just thinking about how to go about this.” You really are a rotten liar.

  “How much do information do you have?”

  She gave him a quick rundown of the situation. “… and the IPv12 trace showed activity from a building a few blocks in.”

  “All right.” He slung a large over-and-under rifle around from his back. Laser on top, 42mm shotgun on the bottom.

  Dorian scowled at it.

  “Lead the way, Officer, this is your show.” He gestured with his left arm.

  So formal. Officer… “You can call me Kirsten if you like.” She smiled back at him.

  “Agent… Sorry, didn’t notic
e the rank.” Templeton offered an apologetic bow.

  Kirsten trudged forward. Not a single spark of anything but friendliness glinted in his eyes. She could not bring herself to look at Dorian, expecting the I-told-you-so face he so adored giving her. Keeping her head down, she watched shiny metal walkway turn to dark traction coating as she crossed an approach lane that ran beneath a rolling mechanical gate in front of another warehouse yard. Another block passed in silence.

  “Peaceful here,” said Dorian. “No advert droids.”

  Kirsten paused at the end of the next block, leaning against the wall to peek around as if observing a potential threat, but there was no one in the street. When Templeton arrived behind her, also against the wall, she leaned into him.

  “The building is another block up, on the wharf property.”

  Templeton’s head tilted back as he surveyed the smog. Beneath his dark glasses, his right eye painted his cheek and forehead with orange light. “There is some kind of EMF in the air, sensor sweeps, I think. Your boy seems to have set up a defensive perimeter. I’ll need a closer look.”

  He did not react to her leaning against him.

  When her mind ran away with the imagination of turning around and kissing him, then and there in the street, she took a step. Hopeless. This is gonna get me as dead as my daydream. What the hell am I doing? She grumbled in her mind and stomped forward with a determined glower. Abandoned buildings passed on the right, though this place had few dead cars. This outer edge of the grey zone seemed more like an area people just got up and walked away from rather than one destroyed by some horrible event. Flickering light reflected on the storefronts of a passing side street. Holographic tacos danced in the air, almost making her change course.

  She decided against it. “Well, it’s not totally abandoned.”

  Kirsten hooked a left past a long building full of garage doors in varying degrees of open. At the third, someone sprang from the dark and grabbed her from behind. The handle of her E-90 clanked into a metal crotch guard a second before the thick fragrance of motor oil and unwashed body fell on her. Strips of gloss black cloth fluttered around the arms that spun her against the wall; sleeves shredded to the point they resembled unspooled magnetic tape.

  “Sweet.” Metal eyelids blinked horizontally.

  The effect stunned the words right out of her.

  “That’s a cop,” said a wheezy voice to her left.

  Fingers dug into her shoulder and side. “Just means we can’t let ̓er leave.”

  Whap.

  A large armored hand fell on the ganger’s shoulder. Both of his eyes extended out of their sockets on thin metal rods, then swiveled around either side of his head to look behind him. Kirsten cringed away.

  “And that’s a problem,” added wheezy.

  Templeton took a step to the rear, grunted, and hurled the man across the street in a graceful arc. She could not help but stare at the two fluttering eyeballs on twelve-inch struts as he flew and smashed through the second-story window of a warehouse across the street. When Templeton recovered from the spin, he leveled his rifle off at a shorter man.

  Clumps of coarse black hair stuck like steel wool to a pallid, emaciated chest. Legs covered with multiple layers of torn camouflage, denim, and something that may once have been leather, quaked. The delicate sound of distant breaking glass audible in the rapid inrush of air made it obvious he was a whisp-head. The rattle in his lungs grew in prominence as he hyperventilated.

  “Get out of here.” Kirsten waved him off.

  The wheezy ganger sprinted like hell. At least, as fast as someone with only twenty percent of his lungs still working could. Kirsten peered into the broken window across the street, listening for traces of life. When she heard cursing, she felt okay leaving him there.

  “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Dorian leaned on the wall.

  “What?”

  “Let that shithead grab you so your hero could save you.”

  “Hm?” asked Templeton. “Are you sure you’re okay? Your heart rate is way up.”

  The same hand responsible for tossing a two-hundred-pound man through the second story window of a building twenty yards away now offered a gentle pat on her shoulder. She wondered how much of him was still human. Could just be Myofiber combat boosts… the arms don’t look replaced. She put her hand on his forearm; he smiled, sensing the subtle squeeze test.

  “I’ll be okay, just startled. I didn’t expect anyone to be in these storage bins.” One more try. “Thanks… guess that’s twice you saved me. I should make it up to you sometime, dinner?”

  Templeton chuckled. “I don’t mind at all, Agent. Just doing my part.”

  Somewhere in her head, a scene from an old holovid played. Disaster on Colony Four, specifically, the last twenty minutes where the Marine dropship on its way down to save the survivors malfunctioned and burned up in the atmosphere. Her mind went right to the part where it turned into a flaming comet that plunged into the ground.

  Okay, I get the hint. “Just thought I’d offer.”

  Dorian rubbed her back, making her shiver. “Sorry, K. For what it’s worth, he’s fourteen years older than you. Don’t take it personally.”

  Kirsten steeled herself against the disappointment she had expected and followed an S-curve around a large building. Thirty yards past the second turn, a gate manned by four men in dark grey armor blocked the way. She picked at their surface thoughts.

  “Promacor Biotech Corporate Security.” She muttered while conducting psionic surveillance. “They’re protecting a CSET, whatever the hell that means.”

  “Cyberspace event team, probably a small cadre of deck cowboys holed up in this off-the-grid warehouse to make it harder to trace back to Promacor.” Colors shifted through Templeton’s eyes as he scanned them.

  “I expected to see more gangers.” Dorian caught up, arriving with a rotating stride as he glanced about.

  “Not too many gangers out here… I expected it to be more dangerous.” She offered an apologetic face upward.

  “This is a corp op and it’s only two in the afternoon… Most of them are asleep, and the ones who aren’t are busy warning everyone to stay away from this spot.”

  She frowned. “I don’t see Vikram anywhere.”

  “Could be inside. Gimme a few minutes.” Dorian jogged through the gate.

  Damn, you left me alone with him. She tried to see beneath Templeton’s sunglasses, unable to tell if they were worn or implanted. “Sorry to waste your time; I thought this would be a lot more dangerous for me.”

  “Well.” He laughed. “I did pull one moron off you.”

  Kirsten giggled. “Yeah, you did. Not to mention a whole pack of them a few weeks ago.”

  “I wound up in a lucky place at a lucky time. Did you ever find the punk?”

  “Yeah, I got him.”

  “Good.”

  “Umm, nice car.”

  “It’s a lot easier to sneak up on bounties in something they won’t look at twice.”

  “Yeah, so do you have a―”

  Dorian came out of the wall between them. “I think a girl inside is using Vikram’s old deck. There’s some energy on it; you might be right in assuming it is his attachment.”

  Dorian, you have either awful or perfect timing. Maybe someday I’ll figure out which it is. “Okay.”

  “What?” One eyebrow peered over the top of Templeton’s black lenses.

  “Do you have an idea how we can get inside?” She looked at the gate. “Oh, screw it. I’ll try the obvious first.”

  She walked right up to the barricade. The four men startled and aimed their rifles in her general direction without lining her up for a shot.

  “Private property, get lost.” The man just right of center put a visible-spectrum red laser dot on her chest.

  “Police, Division 0. I need to talk to one of your operators inside. If all that is going on here is inter-corporate backstabbing, I couldn’t care less about it.
I’m trying to find a ghost.”

  Rifles drooped. Pale grey helmets swiveled back and forth. One of them mumbled, no doubt to a communicator.

  Kirsten squinted at him. “Tell Kincaid to relax before he has a stroke.”

  Dorian sidled up next to her. “She’s got dye-red hair, black at the ends. Wearing a Netßunny shirt.”

  “All I want is to have a chat with the redhead in the netbunny shirt.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “What the hell is a netbunny?”

  “Famous deck jockey, some kind of cyberspace folk hero or celebrity, I think.”

  A few minutes passed in a cold, awkward silence, broken only by the occasional sound of sheet metal flapping somewhere in the wind, and an unseen can rolling. Kirsten gazed past the guards, watching the glimmer of the mid-afternoon sun play with the ocean. A hundred yards past the gate, a section of building turned from white to black as a door opened. The motion drew her attention away from the sea. A man with the build of a former soldier came walking out upon the base of a great angled shadow.

  He wore the same armor as the rest of the guards, but had no helmet, and had more small devices on his belt. Gleaming silver thread danced in the air behind two large pistols, one per hip, evidence of a cybernetic targeting link. White hair, too short to notice the breeze, glowed as he moved through a patch of unobstructed sun.

  “So they weren’t bullshitting me. A single cop shows up at the gate asking to see one of our assets.”

  I never did care for people who referred to other people as assets. “That’s correct. You must be Kincaid. I’m investigating a paranormal event, and have reason to believe one of your contractors may be in possession of an item that used to belong to the spirit I am pursuing. I don’t care what you’re doing here; I just want to find this ghost.”

  Kincaid made a face and drew in a deep breath as though he was about to scream at a teenaged daughter for sucking down too many pills. Red flooded his cheeks and faded, and then he took a step back. “Ugh. God damned psionics always make my God damned testicles itch. Tell me, kid, you ever get a case of Martian Nut Fleas?”