Division Zero

by Matthew S. Cox

  She grinned. Dorian got the bastard…

  Her attacker’s bicep swelled as he cocked his arm back. She fell into a squat, ducking a punch that drove his fist into the fence with enough force to bend the bar and break his hand.

  Crap, combat muscle graft.

  She took advantage of his sudden pain, but he deflected three of her five kicks. His defense looked clumsy, as if he overcompensated, expecting her to be much faster. The two hits she scored damaged his mood more than his body. He caught her foot on the last and held it. Time crept to a halt as their glares clashed. He tensed to twist her ankle. She moved first, snarling as she threw her weight into the air, wrenching her foot in his broken hand. He lost his grip, screaming and cursing as she aimed up at him from the ground.

  “Game over,” she said, finger tightening on the trigger.

  He blurred into a smear of black, neuralware pushing his limbs too fast for her to perceive. Blue laser passed through empty air. The silver pistol sailed from Kirsten’s hand, engulfed by a pile of auburn leaves, launched by a kick that stunned her whole arm numb. He leapt forward, seizing her with two fistfuls of hair, unconcerned with what her hands might do to his undefended chest. The hair clip went flying, blinding her with a curtain of blonde.

  She flailed as he wedged her head between bars in the fence; two kicks to the gut knocked the wind out of her and left her slumped in a heap. He pulled her head back by the hair to expose her neck, grinning as she spat blood from a cut lip. Dorian’s hands came through his chest, struggling to get a hold of him, but his touch caused only a shiver.

  No trace of emotion lived in his voice. “You fight like a little girl. I was expecting more of a challenge from the police, so disappointing.”

  She stared, searching for the strength to move, but could not manage more than a twitching finger. He slid a giant knife off the back of his belt, twirling it over a finger before he pointed the tip at her. She tried to pull away, gasping as his fingers tightened through her hair, pulling her throat toward the waiting edge.

  “I’m not a cop.” She glared into his mind. “I’m far more dangerous. Freeze.” Her last word resounded in his thoughts, echoing ad infinitum into the recesses of his consciousness.

  His hand trembled, unable to move. She cried out as she twisted her hair out of his grasp and stood up. He hunched there, unmoving as if he still had a victim in his grip. Dorian stared at the knife with a determined glare, and then seized it with both hands before twisting it out of his grip and dropping it.

  The assassin’s eyes flicked, a futile attempt to watch her as she stumbled away to dig through the leaves until she found her weapon. She aimed it at him, wiping blood from her chin with her free hand.

  “You people really don’t know what you’re dealing with, do you?”

  A staccato noise chattered through his teeth as he shivered, failing to form words. Terror spread across his face in a wave of red caused by his struggle to move. She battered her way into his thoughts. He pondered a tooth loaded with toxic gas while he tried to activate his implanted comm to call for help, but her psionic command threw a crowbar into the gears of his brain. Behind the panic lurked confusion at why she had no augmentation.

  She eyed the E90. I don’t want to kill this guy.

  Kirsten put her gun away. A stunrod to the back of the man’s head sent him convulsing to the floor with sparks dancing out of his eyes. She scowled at the flopping body for a moment before walloping him once more for payback. Gathering his hands behind him, she locked him in binders and disarmed him.

  “Kirsten!” Dorian yelled

  Ice cold on her shoulder solidified into a hand yanking her backwards, throwing her into a roll. A shot rang out, ricocheting from the street somewhere behind her. Another man with a rifle had rounded the corner at the end of the block. He aimed for another try as she somersaulted through the leaves. Dorian stared at the weapon, drawing the power out of it. Instead of a gunshot, a faint click came before the man growled in dismay. The E90 rose into her field of vision as she trained it on him.

  “Hold it right there.”

  Dorian pointed at him. “Don’t hesitate!”

  The beating left her drained. Another psionic attack would hurt her as much as whoever she hit with it; at least until she had a moment to gather herself.

  Dammit, where the hell is my backup?

  Disregarding the laser, he raised his hands at her. Six-inch claws sprouted from each of his ten fingers. Kirsten’s initial smirk ran away at the sudden presence of a sound beyond the edge of hearing. Heat blur shimmered around the blades.

  Vibro claws, oh no…

  In Kirsten’s mind, her arm fell off, replaced with metal. The thought bathed her in dread. Her resolve crumbled and she sprinted off between the houses with the assassin behind her.

  Dorian’s tackle passed through him causing only a mild stumble. He coalesced, standing on the far side of the fence and cast a lamenting stare in the direction of the patrol craft.

  omes blurred by in flashes of green, yellow, and white. Kirsten fought through the pain in her legs, forcing her body to run with as much speed as she could salvage. Her pursuer’s black coat fluttered like a leather flag, right behind her. Getting away from the eerie ultrasonic whine of his claws remained the only thought on her mind. Some ancient child’s toy died under her boot as she rounded the corner, shoving a rickety gate out of her way.

  She felt idiotic for running; she could have shot him before he got close. Of course, if she missed he would have been on top of her. She regretted avoiding the stimsuit Nicole nagged her to wear. Having five automatic stimpaks strapped to her body seemed like an awesome concept now, but she had not cared for the way the skin-tight mesh felt.

  A sudden grunt made her turn. The man leapt forward on boosted legs, flying through the air, waving his arms. She dove left with a squeak as the handful of claws bisected a streetlamp with a chirping click. The sound of metal bits hitting the ground triggered a burst of adrenaline. She summoned up enough energy to fill his mind with a static scream, the first time she floated a mind blast on fear rather than anger.

  It had the same effect.

  His run broke into a staggering walk; he palmed his head, howling through clenched teeth as if a cyborg had just punched him in the skull. Hope glimmered for a second; he seemed weak to psionics. Like his associate, he had a lot of augmentation. She could not bring herself to shoot him while he was helpless, even though she knew he would attack as soon as he shook it off. Consumed by the need to get as far away from his claws as possible, she ran.

  I’m too nice. Dorian would have shot him. Oh shit, where is he? Damn him and his superstition.

  She dashed across the street out of suburbia and into the comforting shade of massive buildings. She hesitated at the edge of the wall of glass and steel. Her terror had gotten her lost; she had no idea how to get to the car.

  “Command, come in, this is Agent Kirsten Wren. I’m under attack by an unknown number of assailants. Where the hell is my backup?”

  Her tender ear left her in doubt the comm bud still worked after her collision with the fence. Crackling filled her senses as the device responded to an incoming transmission. A fleeting shadow at the other end of the alley urged her back to a run. The man spun around the corner, his run half a stagger, and chased her down another block. Her arm braced her gut in a futile attempt to weaken the pain from being kicked.

  No way I’m gonna outlast an aug merc.

  Running into a lamppost, she clung and whirled around it, firing twice. Blue streaks of laser light passed on either side of his head, forcing him to dive behind a large trash bin. Another blast into the dumpster created a small hole, a spurt of molten steel, and a fire, but did not hit him.

  The flaming box shifted, rising into the air as the boosted assassin hauled it up over his head with an enraged howl. His whole body shuddered under the load as he pushed his hardware past its limits. Amid a scream of incoherent rage, he hurled
the dumpster at her. Although it missed, the concussion of a thrown object that size smashing into the street nearby scared her back into running. The screech of the vibro claws through the steel container would wake her up at night for months to come―assuming she survived the next few minutes. Kirsten sent a series of quick peeks back over her shoulder as she dashed into a side street. Her thought to shoot again was startled away at the sight of him two arm lengths behind.

  Kirsten screamed at the realization that the blurs of color she ran among were honking at her. Blind with fear, she found herself halfway across a six-lane road in the middle of commuter traffic. She scrambled through them, muttering apologizes to drivers who could not hear her.

  Better a chicken than a ghost.

  She turned at a symphony of blaring horns and crumpling metal. The man walked over the cars, leaving a trail of dented metal in his wake. Fire escapes teased her in the next alley, but her jumps fell short due to the pain in her stomach. With no energy to try after three misses, she ignored the rest of the dangling ladders. She fired a hasty shot to the rear as he came into view, sending a spurt of liquefied plastisteel into the air that made him recoil. Some of the metal splashed on him and he screamed in pain as his coat ignited.

  “You’re a dead bitch!”

  Sirens floated in the air, somewhere. It could be her panic button or her call for backup.

  I just need to survive a few more minutes, they’re coming.

  Two shots splattered wet garbage into the air from a nearby pile. Fatigue from the foot chase dulled his rage, and he now seemed willing to settle for the brevity of a gun rather than the pleasure of claws. She almost slipped on another turn as two more slugs ricocheted behind her and broke distant, unseen glass. Up ahead, a long, open gap about three feet tall gulped air into a sunken parking deck.

  She slid through, over concrete, and fell to a floor six feet down from the alley. Her landing tumbled into a painless pratfall. At least, it would have been painless if not for her bruises. She struggled back to her feet with a grunt, darting away from sparks as a bullet bounced off the concrete floor. She weaved around columns as best as she could stagger, slipping into the stairway through a cloud of flying automotive glass from multiple pursuing shots. Cursing echoed through the cars.

  She ran her legs to jelly on the stairs, stopping at the tenth and opening the door. After a quick breath, she forced herself up to the eleventh. Almost unable to walk after reaching the next landing, she oozed through the door and closed it behind her.

  Her legs gave out from under her after she welded the door with a quick pip from the E90. With her last bit of strength, she dragged her aching body over the smooth concrete and under a black SUV, where she curled into a ball of nauseous pain and shivered.

  Come on, come on, where the hell is my backup?

  Quiet surrounded her; she found herself almost ready to pray he had taken the bait and searched the level below. The blood in her mouth from her split lip tasted sickening; for once, she felt thankful to her mother. This amount of pain would not have been tolerable without practice.

  Kirsten tried to quiet her gasping breaths, hiding her face in her left elbow. Her other trembling hand fumbled at her belt in search of a stimpak. The hiss of the autoinjector felt as loud as the echo of a thunderstorm, but she adored the soothing coldness the cocktail of nanobots and synthetic adrenaline sent into her thigh.

  It quenched some of the fire in her lungs and sent a ripple of convulsion down the length of her body as her muscles adjusted. For the second time in a week, she felt vulnerable and helpless.

  What would Templeton do to that son of a bitch if he was here?

  The shaking subsided as she sprawled on the cold concrete, breathing without a sound and fantasizing about the seven-foot guardian angel putting the assassin through a wall. Sirens circled the area and pulled her away from her daydreamed knight in dreadlocks.

  Shit, they can’t find my transponder through all this concrete.

  Kirsten did not want to move from her safe spot. Of course, it remained safe only until he found her. If he did, she had nowhere to go. She forced her arms to pull her out from under the truck, swallowing the urge to grunt from pain. Using the side of the truck for support, she hauled herself to her feet and gathered her hair out of her eyes. On uneasy legs, she faltered, clinging to cars for assistance.

  The edge of the parking deck beckoned up ahead; if she could get close enough, Division 1 would find her. Hope, and the thought of people in blue armor, fueled her, and she made it up to a weak run. Four paces later, the window of the car behind her exploded in a shower of glittering fragments.

  “You got me.” The assassin walked out from behind a row of cars with his weapon aimed. “I figured you for a total rookie and fell for the door.”

  Fear added to her hope. She flew ahead, somehow ducking another shot with a forward dive, sliding on her chest. Rolling behind a concrete support pylon, she grabbed for her E90 but found the holster empty. She imagined it on the ground under the SUV. Her arms wrapped about her legs, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Nope, I was wrong. Shuddering in a ball underneath a truck had replaced cowering behind a toilet as the most helpless she had ever felt. Now she had a new answer for that question. Two more shots gouged chunks of concrete away, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of screaming.

  She got angry rather than scared.

  His boots squeaked as he drew closer. The brief reprieve under the truck gave her a second wind and the self-injury of overextended psionics seemed a much better option than taking a bullet. With a deep breath, she gathered her willpower for one all-or-nothing blast, and spun into view. Her eyes flared as an intangible wind tousled her hair. He cocked his head. The instant of confusion at the sight of white, glowing eyes stalled his shot just long enough.

  Anger and terror mixed in a mental attack that knocked him senseless. Fingers slackened, and the clatter of his gun upon the floor echoed through the massive chamber. The blue of her eyes returned as her mind throbbed. A trickle of blood seeped from her nose. A headache would come, great and thunderous, but not right away. She grasped the column for balance and stared wondering if she had the strength to get to him and take his gun before he could move.

  He stumbled backwards, clutching his head, claws once more hidden inside his fingers. Tugging at his coat, he pulled it open in search of a gun. Inside, half a dozen black hand grenades hung on a bandolier as well as three more pistols and a handful of knives. Her eyebrows tilted in incredulity at the sight. Her lips breathlessly rasped what the fuck…

  “Intera has it wrong. I don’t give a shit about them, I want to stop Albert,” Kirsten choked out.

  “Albert’s dead, like you’re about to… ugh.” The man could not pull his hands away from his head. “What did you do to me?”

  “His ghost is killing people. All I’m trying to do is stop him. I don’t give one shit about Intera.”

  He shook off the daze, but could open only one eye. He stared at the small, shivering woman using the wall to keep from falling over. “Oh, but I do so enjoy destroying pretty things like you.” Pure evil leaked through his smile. “Especially when I get paid for it.”

  She had nothing left for another mind blast. The last stimpak had only so much effect; her tenderized gut and tired legs had eaten most of it. Her brain scrabbled at the dark, searching for any way out. Kirsten’s gaze stalled on his chest, thinking of Nicole. The redhead could drag desks across the room without a second thought, but when she got pissed off, she could flip a car. Back in the dorm, she had tried to teach her, but Kirsten could only get a tampon to stand on end. It did not take much power to lift something so small.

  I don’t need much power…

  She focused as he tugged at one of the holsters, oblivious to the gun on the floor by his foot. The mind blast scrambled his brain; he did not realize a strap held the weapon in place, yet he kept pulling. She concentrated on the fist-sized spheres of dea
th. One by one, the grenades vibrated.

  Then the pins in the grenades rattled. The holster strap ripped.

  Come on! She grunted as a trickle of blood fell from her nose.

  Stillness.

  All at once, six pins popped out. The spoons sprang away in a cacophony of clattering steel as the little bits of metal hung in a cloud before his face for an instant before she let them rain to the floor. He looked down in horror and roared as he continued tearing at his sidearm.

  She ran to the edge of the deck, knowing as soon as she looked back at him that she could not get far enough away to survive. Over the side, the ground waited eleven stories down through a stream of ad-bots. In the span of a fractional second, fear of height and the dread of the imminent explosion battled. Without explanation, the yawning chasm before her filled with a welcoming sense of safety as though something urged her to trust it. Her fear gone, she leapt into the void, floating in serenity, and closed her eyes.

  Boom.

  The air behind her filled with sound and fury. Somewhere within the brutal concussion wave, she thought she felt the presence of a hand pull at her uniform. Her eyes snapped open as her body slammed into the advert bot she had aimed for. Lights shattered as the impact sent the coffin-sized droid into a dizzying spiral, fighting to regain control. She clung to its frame with her last bit of strength. When it stabilized, she looked up through the rain of fire and fragments that blotted out the sky. Threads of faint silvery light fanned out and shimmered in the air above her. Visible for a fleeting instant, they withdrew through a point in space. Her mouth filled with blood, each breath hurt, but she embraced the pain as a reminder of being alive.

  Am I that close to dead? I must be hallucinating.

  The ad-bot recovered and its hover unit propelled it back up to its former altitude. The holographic panel she lay through alternated between static and a test pattern, the ad-bot’s cracked emitter struggling to display it. Kirsten did not look down; only her fingers stood between her and a lesson in terminal velocity.