Harbinger

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Oh. Well.” She crossed her arms and glowered at the screen, cheeks warming. “I didn’t even really finish high school, you know. Only had four years’ worth of full time school after I got to the dorms. The only ‘learning’ Mother allowed me was out of her stupid mythology book. And at least one of those years was remedial. They tried to compress first to eighth grade into one year.”

  He set his hand on her shoulder, the chill of contact spreading down her arm. “I wasn’t making fun of you. And, you did pass the test for a diploma, didn’t you?”

  “Barely,” she muttered. “They wanted me out there so bad they curved me. I had to keep my grades up or they would’ve taken me off active duty—not that I would’ve minded. So, yeah, I technically have a grade twelve diploma, but…”

  “Yet you excel in some areas. I remember you schooling that detective on forensics during the Motte case. That’s reasonably impressive physics for someone who barely passed.”

  “They taught me what I ‘needed to know.’ How to pronounce PhD, not so much.” She glanced back at the screen. “Cause of death: gang-related violence. Inquest priority ten. Yeah… that means no one’s ever going to investigate it.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She smirked. “Of course it is. P10 is the lowest priority. Those cases only get looked at when there’s absolutely nothing else to do, and that never happens.”

  “Not what I meant.” He poked her in the ear, causing a spike of frost to cross her brain.

  “Gah!” she jumped.

  “You’re going to investigate it.” He winked.

  Kirsten clamped a hand over her right ear, playfully scowling at him. “You’re almost as bad as Theodore. Only he didn’t ice-finger me in the ear.”

  Dorian gawked.

  “Broken mirror?” She grumbled. “My old apartment.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She spent a little over a half hour reading up on the brother’s background. Rafael had a point. At a priority ten, the detectives from Division 2 would never get around to touching the case. Even if by some miracle all P1 through P9 cases wound up cleared, the system had over two million P10 inquests in an ‘unassigned’ state, some going back over thirty years. Almost all of them involved gang-on-gang violence, though a heartbreaking number of cases related to the deaths of young prostitutes like Rush and Stardance. At least they’d found justice. Nina hadn’t left much of The Russian. Then again, a pissed-off and emotional Division 9 operative in a doll body became a force of nature.

  Rush had already transcended at that point, but Stardance—who’d led the way right to her killer—stood there watching with her as the Harbingers dragged the guy away. Kirsten cringed, hoping that man never escaped the abyss. The Wharf Stalker had been bad, but The Russian coming back as an Abyssal would be an entirely new level of suck.

  Kirsten stared over the floating holo-panel at Captain Eze’s office. No one ever told me I can’t pluck an inquest from the Div 2 backlog… but I should probably run it by him first just in case. Don’t see why anyone would care. Not like they’re going to work it.

  She swiped a finger at her terminal to lock it and walked down the aisle between six empty desks. Her squad room held seven tactical officers as overflow despite technically belonging to I-Ops. But, Investigative Operations for Division 0 didn’t exactly have a lot of people. She’d been put in this room as a sixteen-year-old agent, sneaking into a space mostly full of tactical officers. Though, a little over a year later, Jen Kurosawa and Alan Montez, two other I-Ops investigators, joined her in here. They still outranked her as first lieutenants, but the gap didn’t feel quite as big now that she’d been promoted to second lieutenant.

  Upon reaching Captain Eze’s office, she leaned over and peered between the slats of the blinds in the giant window. He sat behind his desk, absorbed in whatever his terminal screen showed. She knocked softly and stuck her head in.

  “Captain?”

  “Wren?” He looked up, his expression a mixture of warmth and concern. “You seem troubled. What’s on your mind?”

  She stepped into the office and approached the desk, eyeing the small African masks lined up along the near edge. It bothered her feeling so anxious about her request, but a kid’s future not only depended on him saying yes, but her ability to follow through.

  “You’re not going to ask for a car on your birthday are you?”

  Kirsten laughed, all her tension bursting like a popped balloon. “No, sir. I wanted to ask if I could poach a P10 case from Div 2.”

  “Are you that bored?” He leaned back, smiling. “Best not make a habit of that or some half-bird colonel will decide we all should be doing that.”

  She sat in one of the chairs facing his desk, smiling. That problem, she’d already solved. “It’s directly related to one of my cases, though the substance of the P10 inquest doesn’t look like anything we’d normally bother with.”

  “I’m listening.” He steepled his fingers, his expression saying he’d already agreed to it but wanted to hear her logic.

  “The juvenile I brought in earlier lost his older brother a few weeks ago to gang homicide. It got P10-ed. Kid didn’t think anyone cared, so he tried to hold a couple of Div 1 guys hostage thinking he could force an investigator to work the other case.”

  Captain Eze massaged the bridge of his nose, muttering to himself.

  “Yeah. I wish he didn’t do that, but I can’t help but feel bad for him. As soon as I promised to find the killer, he completely changed. Even Velez signed off on him being compliant. I’m worried if I can’t find whoever murdered his brother or if he thinks I’ve given up on him, he might go from a scared, lonely kid to a serious problem.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap figuring he’ll instantly go bad.” He chuckled. “Depends on how long it takes him to give up. He might still turn out okay, then go vigilante after he’s eighteen.”

  Kirsten glanced off to the side. If he’s too dangerous, they’d make him forget he ever had a brother. “You’re right. He’s still a child who thinks of the cops as some kind of magical force that can just go out and find the killer right away. I don’t know why I expected such a bad outcome.”

  “Children are resilient. Some can go through hell and grow into adults who always try to find the good in everyone.”

  She smoothed her hands down the clingy black fabric over her thighs. “Evan’s doing really well. Sometimes it’s almost like he’s completely forgotten about the first nine years of his life.” She paused, shifted her eyes to meet his, and managed a weak smile. “Oh. You weren’t talking about him.”

  “Indeed. I understand why you feel the need to help him out, and as long as you don’t prioritize it over any active Division 0 investigations you own, by all means, proceed.”

  Kirsten nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “And yes, I am aware you’re presently not on the hook for anything.”

  “If they want me to start helping out with other investigations, I don’t mind.”

  “Perhaps when you are no longer the only astral sensitive in the entire city. For now, Command wants you available on short notice… especially after what happened on the Moon. Don’t worry about so much idle time. You are in no danger of being reassigned.”

  “I just feel guilty sitting around while everyone else is so backed up.”

  “Consider it compensation for being the only one in the division who’s obligated to get slapped around by ten-foot-tall demons… or whatever that thing was.”

  She shuddered. “All right.”

  “Now”—Captain Eze pointed at her, smiling broadly—“you should probably go keep that promise you made.”

  “Yes, sir.” She stood, smiled, and hurried back to her desk.

  3

  Dark Spirit

  Page after page of data scrolled across the five holo-panels above Kirsten’s desk, the faces and records of people ranging in age from mid-teens into their thirties. She’d com
bined the handful of Juan Miguel’s ‘known associates’ with a system search by PID. Any NetMini that spent more than an hour in close proximity to his, or that stayed close to him for at least ten minutes multiple times per week—factoring out areas that coincided with maglevs, PubTran bus routes, or any public transportation.

  The end result created a list of seventy-two people she considered likely sources of information. Fifty-three of them also belonged to the Jade Scorpionz gang, though thirteen showed up as having been murdered in one shot three months ago. A black shield icon at the corner of the tag for the inquest into that execution caught her eye.

  According to that file, one clique within the gang had the misfortune of being gunned down by the Syndicate. Citycam video showed a plain black hovercar landing by an alley full of young men and a handful of women. Three men in suits got out and proceeded to shoot them one at a time except for the youngest woman who looked to be in her later teens. Her, they dragged into the car.

  The Division 0 link in the file indicated the killing was related to a presently-rogue tactical officer by the name of Aaron Pryce. Investigators had located the remains of roughly a dozen Syndicate members in an abandoned retail property not far from that site, the majority of them liquefied by high-speed impact with the walls. According to the record, they believed Pryce did it with Telekinesis.

  “Someone’s been hitting the SynVod way too hard. Telekinesis doesn’t have that much power,” muttered Kirsten.

  Investigators also located Andrea Cortez, the abducted girl, when she attempted to pass herself off as a fourteen-year-old and request placement with an adoptive family. Turned out, the girl was sixteen and she’d witnessed Pryce go on a rampage. Her current status showed as having been sent to an adoptive family on a colony world, Frontier-8.

  “Poor kid. She must’ve been on some wild shit.”

  “What’s that?” Dorian walked up behind her.

  “This kid. She claims to have seen a telekinetic throw people into the wall with so much force they exploded like tomatoes.”

  Dorian cringed. “I’ve heard some rumors. It might actually be true. You read the thing about that little girl they’ve got set up out in the Badlands, right?”

  “Yeah. So weird. Accelerated Healing working on other people? Why are they keeping her way out there? That’s like exactly what shady corporations do. Is she some kind of top secret project?” Kirsten’s heart almost jumped into her throat.

  He shook his head. “No, she prefers it out there from what I overheard.”

  “Ugh. Okay, so the Syndicate may have something against this gang the brother used to be in.”

  Dorian pointed at the screen, managing to get the contents to scroll.

  “Hey, you’re getting better at that.” She grinned.

  “I’ve had some practice with terminals. That idiot two desks away from Sam.” He laughed. “He’s given up on the crystals, by the way. He’s moved on to trying pagan symbols. I’m half tempted to leave him alone as long as they’re up.” He tapped the panel. “Here. Look, they just land and start shooting… and the girl said she was bait for some manner of trap.”

  “Yeah. So you’re saying the Syndicate just pounced on the first gang they stumbled across in that area looking for a random teen girl to kidnap?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a theory. Only way to know for sure would be to go there and hope one of their ghosts is still around.”

  All five panels flashed black with red incoming dispatch scrolling across them.

  “Figures.” Kirsten bit back a sigh and touched the screen. “Wren. Go ahead.”

  A too-blonde woman appeared, one of the sub-sentient dolls at the National Police Force inter-division command center. “Lieutenant Wren, Division 1 is requesting your presence on suspicion of an unexplained paranormal event. There is a surviving victim and officers are on site now.”

  “Understood. Send the pin to my pat-vee. I’m on the way.”

  The young woman nodded. “I’ll inform the officers you are en route.”

  She locked the terminal and jogged off down the hall. Always twenty minutes before end of shift. Always. The bud in her left ear chirped in response to a finger tap.

  “Assad, Nila,” said Kirsten, initiating a call to Dorian’s former partner, a woman who she’d come to consider a close friend.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “K. What’s up?” asked Nila’s voice in her ear.

  She hurried down the overly white hallway to the elevator. “Just had a dispatch come in. No way am I going to wrap that up and get back in time to pick Evan up from school. Would you mind?”

  “Ahh. The usual timing, huh?”

  “Yep.” Kirsten mashed her finger into the button for the ground floor motor pool deck.

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best!”

  The soft pulsing lights along the elevator walls scrolled from floor to ceiling for the few seconds it took her to go down. On the way out of the elevator, she muttered, “Hey Suri?”

  Her NetMini chirped. “Hi!”

  “Please send a text to Evan and let him know I had a dispatch come in last minute.” She dodged around two Admin cadets and ran through a door into the parking area. “Nila will pick him up and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Okay,” replied her device’s AI in a cheerful tone.

  Kirsten raced over to her patrol craft and hopped in, finding Dorian already in the passenger seat.

  “You’re getting faster.”

  “Thanks.” She shoved forward on the left stick, accelerating out of the parking space into a left turn, then zoomed down the lane full of other hovercars and vans to the exit.

  “For?”

  “Powering the car up and not making a lame joke about winning ‘the race.’”

  He smiled. “It was only funny once, and… it bothered you.”

  “That wasn’t bother. Just frustration.”

  An active dispatch plus going code three caused the gate to open automatically so she didn’t have to wait for Samir—or whoever else staffed the booth—to open it for her. The instant the patrol craft cleared the ramp, she shifted to hover mode and went near vertical in a climb.

  “You don’t need to drive like someone is going to drop dead if you’re a half second late. This is a normal I-Ops call. Investigate the crime scene after the bullets have stopped flying.”

  She leveled off at 600 feet, swung the car around toward the nav pin, and accelerated up to 325 mph. “I’m aware of that, but if there is a ghost, I don’t want it wandering off before we get there.”

  Nine-ish minutes later, the destination neared. She slowed and began a fairly tame descent.

  “Amazing,” said Dorian.

  “What?”

  “We didn’t collide with a single ad-bot. It’s almost like someone remembered they’re supposed to avoid an emergency vehicle.”

  She laughed. “For a moment there, I thought you were taking a shot at my driving.”

  “I would, but forty-four miles in a straight line ten stories above the traffic lane isn’t exactly nerve-wracking. Though, I’m sure if a sushi boat went by, there would’ve been sashimi on the windscreen.”

  “You’re a funny guy.” She smirked to herself, picturing the hover-vans made up to look like ancient Japanese fishing boats. “And now I want sushi.”

  He snickered.

  The fluttering red-blue glow of Division 1 patrol craft’s light bars came into view up ahead. Multiple patrol craft clustered in an open square area surrounded on three sides by a four-story building covered with hundreds of doors, some manner of motel about three blocks deep into a grey zone.

  “I’m guessing this isn’t a five-star resort,” said Dorian.

  “Ugh. I’m going to want to shower just from looking at this place.” She grimaced at the bullet-marked walls, occasional broken windows, and vast amount of dark stains adorning the mostly pea-green walls. “Ick.”

  “Don’t wor
ry too much. There’s so many bodily fluids on everything here, the viruses are too busy killing each other to notice you.”

  Kirsten almost gagged.

  Bits of plastic trash skittered away as she set the patrol craft down alongside the three Division 1 cars. Six officers in blue armor milled around a ground-level doorway in the glare of the headlights.

  “At least I don’t have to deal with stairs.” She shoved her door up and open, regretting doing so in seconds.

  A blast of piss-and-puke scented air mixed with some unidentifiable industrial chemical slapped her across the cheek. Of course, she’d smelled worse. The dark purplish-black slime that collected here and there in the Beneath still made her throw up if she caught a whiff of it. That had been one advantage of only having plastic sheeting for clothes back then… whenever she fell in a puddle, she could ditch it and go forage another scrap of clean tarp. Well, cleaner.

  The brief memory from months ago of removing her underpants, throwing them, and having them stick to the wall made her shiver. Ugh. My entire uniform stuck to me. After that horror, this place didn’t even register on the scale of foul.

  She trotted over to the officers, four men and two women.

  “Lieutenant.” The woman on the left saluted her. “Sergeant Burke.”

  Kirsten returned the salute. “Sergeant. What’s the situation? They said you think there’s something paranormal going on here?”

  “Yeah. A couple things don’t quite add up, and there’s some really weird shit on video.” Sergeant Burke whistled. “So, we get a gold screamer for this address. My guys come in little more than two minutes later, and find the victim restrained naked to the bed.”

  “Okay…” Kirsten’s eyebrows scrunched together involuntarily until she remembered ‘gold screamer’ translated to Div 1 slang for a civilian panic button with a gold protection plan. Basically, someone with money. “That doesn’t sound too weird so far, unless she had no way to set off her alarm while tied down.”

  “Nah, it’s a headware unit. Mental command. That’s the thing. She could’ve set it off at any time during her abduction, but didn’t activate it until after her attacker fled the scene.”