Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (13 page)

Shani smiled. “Watch this.”

She set the unicorn down on its legs and stared at it. A ripple spread through the plush white fabric an instant before the stuffed creature pranced around, apparently on its own. The telekinetic animation was precise enough to make it appear alive.

Kirsten broke up, giggling. The kid’s intense concentration lapsed as soon as Kirsten added a human-shaped rag doll to the mix. Her telekinetic effort was crude by comparison, the doll bobbed along as if held by a hand.

Playing with dolls for a few minutes seemed to take the girl’s mind off the fright of a self-smashing wall. Nila walked in and put a hand on Kirsten’s shoulder.

“Thank you.”

Noticing a lack of Dorian, Kirsten got paler. “Where’s Dorian? He didn’t just vanish, did he?”

“I think he said roof, or car, or something. It was hard to hear him.”

Kirsten stood and the doll fell limp. “Yeah, he hasn’t spent a lot of time trying to learn how to project into the real world. I should get going; I’m in the middle of a case and just stopped by to help.”

“I think I’m starting to remember things; it’s coming back to me in bits and pieces. I’m gonna find that bastard.”

Shani curled into a ball, frightened at the tone of her mother’s voice.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Nila. It’s not worth it.”

Tactical Officer Nila Assad shifted her eyes to Kirsten and gathered her daughter into a hug. “I have to think. I know I accepted the possibility that ghosts were real, but seeing him, seeing
proof
that gho”―she squeezed the girl tight―“seeing proof there’s more than just this. It makes a lot of things seem different.”

Kirsten’s offer of a handshake became a long, silent clasping. “Things other than police keep the laws of the dead. I don’t really understand it either yet.”

“Mom?”

They both looked at Shani, who showed no obvious reaction to the strangeness that had occurred around her.

“Can we go swimming now?”

t took a moment for Kirsten’s eyes to adjust to the abrupt darkness that followed her terminal shutdown. Two hours’ worth of staring at images left them pulsing. On the far end of the squad room, Morelli and Simons chatted about a dust up they had gotten into with a telekinetic shoplifter. Through the blinds, she watched Captain Eze gathering his things into a briefcase in preparation to go home for the night. Morelli wandered off, saying something about an anniversary dinner with his wife. Simons laughed, eager to get home to her husband.

Mind Blast, they think I’ll roast them if they piss me off. As if I couldn’t control myself.
She pouted at her terminal. Kirsten brushed off the feeling of isolation even among her own squad and glanced at Dorian for a while. He did not look up from his screen.

“You shouldn’t torture yourself, Kirsten. I’m flattered, though.”

She looked at Nicole, in the office late due to being absorbed in a video game. She slurped purple tea through a straw, her frantic poking finger trying to guide a screaming cartoon squirrel through a burning city. Kirsten laughed; that so fit her personality. Nicole paused the game long enough to nibble at her dinner, and sent an eye-smile at Kirsten while sucking small gummy globs through the straw.

Maybe I’m going about this wrong. I wonder if I should try dating a woman instead.
I could ask Nicole.

The redhead gagged and coughed tea, which ran out of her nose as the holo-terminal flashed red with the death of her virtual rodent. She whacked herself in the chest twice, trying to breathe, and gawked at Kirsten.

“Serves you right for peeking.” Kirsten winked. “That’s not what I was going to ask you about, though. I found a lead on our friend Vikram. I kind of got the idea forensics might have been played.”

Nikki does have a cute butt.

Choking, sputtering, and more coughing. Her friend’s face matched her hair.

“Oh, come on, I’m messing with you.”

After blowing her nose, she wiped her eyes. “What do you mean about forensics?”

“What if Vikram set the whole thing up? Maybe the bomb wasn’t a dead-man switch. I didn’t see him haunting the place, most murder victims linger around the scene of their death. What if he got away and just set a trap for the hitters?”

Dorian sounded bored. “If he killed the people who murdered him there’s no unfinished business to keep him here.”

“Ooo. That’s an idea,” chirped Nicole. “So how do we find out? Did you get that net-pin I sent you? New dating site opened up.”

“I found a record of someone that did―”

“It’s just guys though, no girls.”

“―some private work for Vikram.” Kirsten massaged the bridge of her nose.

Dorian winked. “You’re wasting your time trying to tease that one. One thought at a time, hon.”

“What did he do?” Nicole swiveled in the chair, facing her.

“The guy seems to be a member of a hoverbike gang that lurks near the piers around Sector 313. I found some money going from Vikram’s PID to this guy, umm, Ronnie’s account. Only thing I can think of is either he’s buying a lot of drugs or hiring muscle.”

“So what’s that have to do with our Vik?” Nicole giggled at her own joke. When she ran out of air, she grinned. “I guess if he’s not dead, he’s not a vic.”

“I’m not sure if he survived; that’s why I wanted to talk to this Ronnie. It’s kind of a bad part of town. I’d rather not go alone. You up for a ride?”

Nicole jumped up, wearing an exaggerated, closed-mouth smile. “Need protection?”

“Yeah.” Kirsten grabbed her gear. “You know I’m afraid of living people.”

Sector 313 sat on the coast, a wharf district once busy with international shipping before shuttles replaced ocean-going vessels for heavy transport. Trade left the domain of the sea to pleasure cruises, scientific research vessels, and warships. No one bothered fishing anymore; even if they caught something, it either belonged to a protected group or was tainted to the point of inedibility.

The warehouses and docks, abandoned for about ninety years, experienced a brief rush of activity during a charged political campaign about a decade ago. Sheila R. Burke ran for the Senate on a platform of providing affordable housing by repurposing unused commercial properties. Her smiling mocha face still clung all over the area on tattered plasfilm panels. Several detached from the walls as the car glided past; thrown into a frenetic spiral before they followed lazy eddies to the ground.

“What are we looking for?” Nicole asked, forehead pressed to the passenger side window.

“Bunch of guys standing around hoverbikes, I think they call themselves the Skorpions. With a k.”

“That’s stupid. Why do they always have to use mean things? Why doesn’t some gang call themselves the chinchillas or something?”

Dorian cracked up. “I’d think twice about messing with a gang with the balls to call themselves that.”

“Yeah, maybe. I dunno,” Kirsten said, half paying attention.

She set the car down by a row of hoverbikes parked in front of a long, one-story building. It resembled an afterthought erected out of scrap metal and set up in the parking lot of a shipping warehouse. Closer inspection revealed a construction of welded cargo containers. A handful of people outside propped up the front wall. Their attire ranged from light, civilian-grade, bullet-resistant armor to tattered scraps of gang couture. The most extreme example, one of the women, pranced about bare-chested and wearing sheer pants that left most of the outside of her legs exposed. A shifting NanoLED tattoo of a scorpion glowed over her sternum; its twin tails coiled outward, circling beneath one breast each. Fluorescent green lipstick curled into a frown as she saw the police lights on the car.

“How can she walk around like that?” Kirsten averted her eyes, blushing.

“I know, right?” Nicole muttered, putting her helmet on. “That’s gotta be damn cold. You should’ve grabbed a set of tac armor for this.”

Kirsten gaped, deciding against saying anything more. Dorian slid out of the car, walking between them. Conversation simmered out to the silence of a faint whistling breeze, too weak to hide the electronic firing circuit chirp from a few weapons turning on. At the sound, Kirsten put one hand on her E-90 and the other in the air.

“I’m not here to bust anyone’s balls. I just want information. Where can I find Ronnie?”

“Hah.” A sienna-skinned man, blue vest over his bare chest, stepped down off the porch wearing a massive grin. “You guys shouldn’t have. Cop strippers, nice.”

“Happy birthday, Sicario.” A pudgy Asian in an armored vest raised a beer in salute.

The big guy sauntered over, stopping a few paces away.

“That’s close enough. We’re not strippers, jackass.”

Scorpion-tits sashayed over, still frowning. “The police don’t send young chick-meat out to a grey zone.” Kirsten’s face reddened, but she did not break her cop-face. “Cops also wear blue. So who are you?”

The one called Sicario put an arm around her, cupping her right breast and flicking the gold barbell through the nipple. Kirsten suppressed the urge to cringe as her brain took a guess at what such a piercing would feel like.

“Back up, hands where we can see them.” Nicole had her gun out now, waving it at them.

More than half of them noticed it was a laser, and seemed confused. One man tilted his head at her as blades slid out through his fingers and locked in place with a click. Seconds later, the high-pitched presence of vibro inducers rattled Kirsten’s teeth.

Kirsten’s E-90 whipped out of the holster, aimed right at him. “You take one step; it’ll be your last.” She sounded too frightened to make idle threats.

Scared enough to where they believed she would shoot.

“I just want to talk to Ronnie about some side work he did.” Kirsten reinforced her grip with her left hand, keeping the weapon aimed at vibro-claw man.

“Yo, Rampart. Some funny cops are lookin’ for you.” Sicario yelled over his shoulder.

Glass shattered from inside the building.

“He’s gonna run,” said Dorian.

“Fuckin kill ̓em!” A deep voice boomed from inside.

Sicario went for a pistol on his belt, which leapt out of the holster and skittered to the ground at Nicole’s feet. A tiny camera flash from the side of her helmet confirmed another addition to the wall. The scorpion turned blue.