Division Zero

by Matthew S. Cox

  “I’ve been trying to tell you people, it’s a ghost!” Kirsten took a step forward but backed off as the doll threatened to lose its grip. “I don’t give a damn about whatever Cerberus is.”

  Lucian snapped out of it at the word Cerberus. “Ghost? Are you insane?”

  “Okay, you tell me what you just saw then.” Kirsten looked back and forth between the Talbots.

  He shrugged. “I thought it was a virus.”

  Albert glared. “You are a moron, Lucian. You always have been. That’s why I was going to Simulacris. You don’t even know the goddamn difference between Division 9 and whatever the hell that bitch is.”

  Lucian bellowed. “You had no right to take―”

  “Cerberus? I had every right to take my own work with me,” Albert fumed.

  “Can you guys maybe continue arguing without Marisa dangled over the side?” Kirsten asked in the most unassuming voice she could produce.

  “Nice try.” Albert’s haughty laugh made her skin crawl. “That piece of shit took my life. I am going to take his, but not before I make him suffer. There’s only one thing this bastard cares about, only one thing that will leave a mark on his soul.” He shook the girl to add emphasis in time with his words. “I’m going to let him live.”

  Marisa sobbed, having lost the ability to speak in her terror. Kirsten wanted to lash Albert into oblivion right there, but knew just a little thumb actuator kept the child alive right now. One flick and she would be gone; if the dress did not rip first.

  “Albert… If you hurt her, I promise you what awaits you is horrible beyond your wildest imaginings. What the Harbingers will do to you will…”

  “Bah, you? You of all people threatening me with fire and brimstone?”

  “Albert.” Lucian set his rifle upon the patio. “We can negotiate here. You want me? Take me, let Marisa go.”

  Kirsten pleaded. “Lucian, don’t. He’ll just dive off with both of you.”

  Lucian approached the doll with his arms raised. He took the free, porcelain-white hand of the possessed machine and clasped its fingers through his shirt. “You have me now, please let my child live.”

  The doll’s fist tightened into a secure grip. “I have a better idea.” Once more, the head rotated to face straight backward at Kirsten. “Miss Wren…”

  Kirsten jumped as the child’s other shoe succumbed to the howling gale, making her worry what might happen to its owner. The wind tugged at Marisa’s dress and hair as the white in her knuckles lessened. She grew weaker, out of breath.

  “Albert…” Kirsten leaned forward, giving him a stern glare.

  “I want you to choose which of these two should die. Who is it then, the innocent little girl or the corporate king? I know which you will choose, but I want to hear you say it. Tell me to kill him.”

  Kirsten shivered. Lucian’s eyes widened to a meaningful stare: do it. The thought of ordering a man dead made her sick.

  “Why the hesitation?” Albert cocked an eyebrow. “This man has caused the death of innocent people, too. Take, for example, his own wife. He had the mother of his child killed just to save money. Surely this cannot even be a choice for you? I know how you are about kids.”

  “Mom?” Marisa gurgled, struggling to look at her father as a new wave of tears cascaded down her face.

  “That’s right, kiddo.” Albert’s ethereal face once more manifested in front of her. “Your daddy had your mommy killed because he was afraid of big bad lawyers.”

  The girl lapsed into incoherent screams.

  “Stop!” Kirsten shuddered with rage.

  Albert sank back into the machine. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Did it elude you he also ordered you killed? Even if you spare him tonight, he’s as good as dead once the police trace the assassins back to him. I always figured you for an imbecile, Lucian, but you astound me.”

  Kirsten edged closer. “Lucian had no idea; he thought I was after his secrets.”

  “My secrets!” The doll shook Lucian. “Cerberus is mine. How could you defend a bastard that murdered his own wife?”

  Marisa bawled. “Daddy?”

  Lucian shuddered, unable to look at his child. Marisa’s stare burned questions into his heart he could not bring himself to answer.

  “You must be some kind of naïve little ingénue, Miss Wren. You won’t even suggest I kill a man who has hurt so many people just to save the life of a little girl? Tell me to do it and I’ll walk over and hand her to you.”

  “It’s you who doesn’t understand, Albert. If I tell you to kill someone, it’s a mark on my soul.”

  The Mitsu’s face contorted in a grin far wider than natural. “So you’d rather have the stain of me killing them both?”

  Kirsten glanced around, searching for some way out of the stalemate before the unthinkable happened. Her gaze locked onto motion at the periphery of the room, and then darted back to Albert.

  “I’m surprised.” A playful quality rang in his voice. “I half expected you to offer yourself in exchange for them. Isn’t that the kind of nauseating drivel people like you usually come up with?”

  “Albert… it’s still suicide, no matter how noble the sacrifice. There is no reason anyone else has to die tonight. What Intera did to you is evil, but you are not making things better.”

  Marisa’s legs ceased kicking. She had run out of energy again and dangled limp in the doll’s hand, barely breathing. Kirsten stared at the girl and then the floor.

  “Okay, Albert, fine. If that’s what you want, put her back on solid ground and take me. I won’t fight you if you let her go.” She held her arms out and crept toward him, eyes flicking at the moving darkness.

  “Too quick a change of heart, I’m supposed to believe you?”

  “If you know me like you claim to, you know I don’t lie.”

  Albert scowled. “Perfect little angel… you are nauseating.”

  Kirsten stared at Lucian as she got closer.

  Grab Marisa and hold on. Three seconds… two…

  He glared for an instant, stunned by the telepathic voice in his brain.

  Remembering his earlier reaction, she challenged him. “Albert, please. Marisa’s life is more valuable than Quark the Fish. How would your father feel if he saw you kill a child?”

  The doll’s eyes widened with intense amethyst light, accompanied by the mixed-gender growl of Albert and the voice processor. Just as the doll began to move, Dorian leapt from the darkness and grabbed it by its shoulders, hauling back with as much force as he could muster.

  Both of Albert’s hands snapped open.

  Lucian’s arm moved before the release, slapping his daughter in the back hard enough to leave a bruise and cut short her terrified scream. He shoved forward, allowing her toes to catch purchase on a thin seam between two glass panels. Her chest smacked into the wall, his hand clenched her dress, and she clamped onto the metal struts beneath the patio. She gasped for breath, trying to scream with empty lungs.

  Lucian swung down, hanging by one hand from the faux stone railing. His feet scraped on the angled glass wall with nowhere to go; the narrow gap barely allowed Marisa something to stand on, and could not give purchase to a grown man’s shoe. His legs flailed out into space with all his weight on one arm. Albert’s ghostly image snarled, stretching out of the doll. Dorian turned, heaving against the machine and trying to sweep its leg.

  Albert peeled out of the mechanical woman up to his waist, lurching forward and clapping his hand down upon Lucian’s. With a sickening squeal, fingers froze solid to the stone amid a haze of spreading white. Talbot howled, unwilling to let go of his child to grab on.

  With a sharp crack, all four fingers snapped off at the last knuckle.

  Sensing the inevitable, Lucian closed his eyes and freed his other hand from Marisa’s dress with a shove that gave her a better grip but launched him into the night. He tumbled down six stories of pyramid and vanished over the edge.

  “I’m sorry, Marisa…” His voice whisp
ered into the wind as he fell away.

  Kirsten ran to railing too late to see him. The metallic whump of his body bouncing off a hovercar echoed from thirty stories below, chased by impatient horns. Mercifully, his encounter with the street happened too far away to be heard.

  “Get… kid…” Dorian growled.

  He dragged Albert over backwards as the stretched ghost snapped back into the doll like a failed rubber band, hurling them both to the ground.

  Kirsten bent over the barrier, reaching for Marisa. Her fingertips teased at the top of the girl’s head, too far below for a good grip. Without even considering the risk, Kirsten climbed over and held on against the whistling currents of air. Between the railing and the floor, a space just large enough for her boots afforded her a tenuous foothold. Above, immense lights painted the tip of the Intera tower in a blinding teal glow. The sound of Dorian and Albert locked in combat kept her attention off her altitude. With one hand on the bars, she reached down and clutched the back of Marisa’s dress.

  The girl looked up at the touch, having been oblivious to Kirsten’s presence. Thick brown hair whipped about in the wind. She had screamed herself mute. The child cringed with every roar and grunt of the men fighting above. Albert wailed in desperation, scratching at the floor to get to two vulnerable targets. Dorian was in rare form. Kirsten had never seen him so incensed before. He flipped Albert over backwards, pouncing with his stunrod wedged across the doll’s neck.

  This must be the Dorian that killed people.

  She leaned closer to the child. “Come on!”

  “I’m scared,” the trembling girl whined, clinging tighter to the struts. “My dress will rip, I don’t wanna fall.”

  Kirsten’s legs wobbled, she could not spend much more time clinging to the railing before her muscles gave out. She crept even closer, straining to get her hand under the girl’s armpit and around her chest.

  “Grab my belt.”

  Marisa, paralyzed with terror, pulled herself tighter into the steel frame.

  “Sorry, Marisa, but I have to do this. Grab my belt.” Kirsten’s eyes glowed as she commanded.

  Kirsten squeezed the girl hard, preferring a bruise to a lost grip. Marisa hyperventilated as her arms moved against her will, hooking her right hand through the metal loop around Kirsten’s waist. She hugged Marisa tight against her side, refusing to look at the angled glass below. The girl shrieked as her stocking-covered feet slid free of the gap and wrapped her legs around her rescuer.

  A loud slap startled Kirsten’s eyes forward. The doll’s hand had struck the railing just in front of Kirsten’s face, inches from her hand and the ruin of Lucian’s fingers. With a desperate growl, Dorian grabbed it by the legs and dragged Albert backwards. Albert’s ghostly legs separated from the doll’s, stretching out as Dorian pulled. Kirsten shoved her body upward, not noticing as the terrified Marisa kicked her repeatedly in the leg in an attempt to climb her. Her belt dug into her gut with fifty-some pounds of panicking child dangling from it.

  Kirsten hauled herself up and, allowing gravity to do the rest, slithered over the railing and back onto the patio. With the immediate threat of falling gone, Marisa stopped thrashing and clamped on. Kirsten braced the trembling girl with one arm as she struggled back to her feet. She took one step toward the office, intending to bring Marisa inside, but stopped as Albert knocked Dorian away with a backhand across the face. A quick dash put him between Kirsten and the door, cornering them at the outermost corner of the patio.

  “Oh, how heartwarming.” The combined voice had grown even more demonic. “I think I’ll spare you both the years of therapy.”

  The doll charged at them with Dorian running up behind it. The machine crashed to a halt as if it had run into a wall. Kirsten’s eyes flared with white light so intense, wispy trails of ethereal vapor wafted from the corners. She lit into Albert with an astral lash driven by her emotional state. Pure rage at the sound of Marisa’s whimpering scorched like an afterburner on the jet of Kirsten’s adrenaline. The attack slapped the doll motionless in one pass. The body twitched in a zombie’s dance, fingers clawed at the air as the interface between ghost and droid faltered.

  Kirsten gathered the whip, her voice eerie and calm. “Marisa, stay behind me.”

  The girl complied, but refused to let go.

  “You will not hurt another innocent.”

  Kirsten struck out at him again; the second strike sent the Mitsu to its knees. Blue light shone through the hole in its cheek. It reached at her, shaking out of control as transparent olive-green fluid drained from numerous holes. The third pass of the whip tore Albert loose from the machine; the doll went rigid and fell forward like a mannequin. More fluid gushed from multiple bullet strikes, creating a puddle of dark liquid on the white tiles. It beeped, shuddered, and went still; too damaged to function without ghostly intervention.

  A placid voice emanated from unmoving lips. “Attention: critical system functionality has been compromised. Sentient AI core now entering emergency standby mode. Please assist with repair within four hours, failure to assist constitutes the legal equivalent of murder.”

  Kirsten tuned out the rest of the explanation of the statute. Dorian tackled Albert as the specter crawled along the floor, drawing his foot away from the twitching doll. He dragged the stunned former scientist out on his chest, gathering his arms behind his back out of practiced habit. Albert disintegrated to fog, reappearing on his feet. Dorian caught the incoming punch, twisted the arm, and flung Albert once more to the ground. Kirsten turned to face the girl, squatting, wiping tears from her cheeks. Marisa, shivering, gasped at the sight of glowing eyes.

  “Marisa, please stay back, it’s dangerous.”

  The child clung tighter, whining.

  “I won’t go far, I”―Kirsten spun as Dorian went sliding away from Albert―“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Dorian recovered and flung himself around, kicking Albert’s leg out as he tried to rush at the corner where Kirsten hovered over the little girl. Albert landed on his chest, dragged back into a rolling brawl by Dorian. Kirsten gathered Marisa’s hands away from her belt, held them for a second, and left her crouched against the railing. Her small face twisted; she wanted to beg but could not speak. With only cold stone to hug, Marisa began to cry aloud.

  Kirsten felt like an ogre. “I’ll be right here.”

  Albert bellowed as Dorian caught him across the face with an elbow, knocking him to the ground. With Marisa out of harm’s way, Kirsten advanced, lashing at the exposed ghost. Albert reeled away, howling.

  Dorian circled around behind Albert, eyeing the whip, searching for an opening.

  Kirsten snapped her arm, impaling the energy tendril through Albert’s form.

  Dorian leapt back, giving Kirsten a hard stare. “Watch that thing…”

  Albert’s form twisted up on tiptoe as if electrocuted. He flooded the area with a window-shaking wail of agony as his apparition burst into a cloud of fog. Electronics in the office flickered in time with Albert’s scream. Several exploded. Coalescing, Albert rolled onto his knees and raised an arm over his face. Dorian pounced, holding him so he could not escape through the floor.

  “Please…you’re right, we can talk.”

  Kirsten stared at Albert as the shimmering energy went lax and coiled around her legs. Peals of ethereal vapor drifted from the corner of her eyes. Sensing surrender, Marisa sprinted from the railing and clamped on to Kirsten from behind, her arms encircling her like a living belt. Kirsten held on, tracing her thumb back and forth across the back of the girl’s hand. The trembles in the little body behind her made her seethe. After what Albert did, he had a lot of nerve to ask for mercy. Kirsten made a half-hearted attempt to shoo the girl back to the corner.

  “It’s not safe yet.” The desperation in the small face proved irresistible. Oh, hell. I can block him if he tries something. “Stay behind me, do not look at him.”

  Kirsten whirled on Albert, her voice as cold
as the wind. “We’re beyond talking now.”

  he searing blue-white light of the astral whip drew harsh shadows over her face as it flickered in the dark. Kirsten’s hair flew about in the whistling gale that all but drowned out Albert’s pleading voice. Marisa had settled into a cycle of soft whimpering sobs alternating with rapid breaths. Each time Kirsten thought she heard a tiny voice behind her sniffle ‘daddy’, her knuckles creaked about the lash. Somewhere deep inside this apparition hid the little boy from the holo-image, frolicking on the beach with his father.

  Albert cowered away with an arm over his face, failing to squirm out of Dorian’s grip. One more lash would bring about the end of his existence. The memory of what Albert used to be warred with her anger at what this version of him had done. With each sob behind her, Kirsten’s whip grew brighter. Albert raised his other arm over his face as the whip floated into the air for the final strike. Dorian lifted a surprised eyebrow.

  Kirsten hesitated. The look on her partner’s face said it all. This felt wrong.

  Who am I to judge?

  She lowered her arm, noticing for the first time the sweat on Dorian’s brow. The perspiration intensified as Dorian glanced at the edge of the patio. His Mediterranean skin faded a degree or two more pale. Then she felt the chill come over her from behind. The child’s face pressed into the center of Kirsten’s lower back, her breath warm through the thin cloth. Marisa’s overloaded emotion caused a series of dry heaves; Kirsten rubbed the little arm around her waist with her free hand.

  “It will be alright, Marisa. Close your eyes… don’t look.”

  A thick fog of darkness swam up over the railing. A sense of dread blanketed the area as even the stars went into hiding. Kirsten relaxed the whip, letting it sag low to the ground where it coiled around her boots. Dorian held on to Albert, eyes locked upon the approaching black.

  Kirsten looked down. Again they come.

  “Marisa…” Kirsten squeezed the child’s hands into her gut. “Close your eyes and do not open them no matter what you hear or what you feel. You are not in danger, but you don’t want to see this.”