Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (14 page)

“Mood boobs?” Nicole asked. “That’s kinda neat.”

Six others reached for guns. Kirsten scorched a hole through the thigh of the man with the claws; his panic-stricken attempt to grab the wound did more damage to his leg than the laser. He fell out of sight on the porch, screaming.

A huge man burst through a window on the far side of the bar; almost seven feet tall with a build like a combat cyborg made of meat. He took off running, no intention of participating in any fight. Others drew weapons as Sicario gawked at his empty holster. Wild with panic, he charged Nicole while the bare-chested woman ran through Dorian towards Kirsten, emitting a banshee wail.

Dorian drew in a non-breath. A pulse of energy wafted from him and the bar windows glimmered with spectral light. His reflection appeared, his skull glowing from within. Men screamed, dropped guns, and ran. Another woman, short with black hair, raised both eyebrows.

“That’s awesome…” She gawked, stepping closer. “Are you really there?”

Kirsten focused on the charging woman reaching for a belt knife. Nicole’s laser spat a streak of green light through the periphery of her awareness. It was second to the glint of a blade catching the red glow of a scorpion and swinging breasts. Kirsten should have fired, but felt too guilty about laser on knife to do it; too close to murder.

She stepped back with her right leg, turning ninety degrees and letting the knife slide past her chest without contact. The woman’s momentum carried her forward. Kirsten hooked a leg, put a hand on the woman’s back, and shoved her face-first into the hood of the patrol craft with a meaty smack. Unlike a normal car, the military plating had zero give. The windshield and windows, from the outside, were opaque―armor plates with tiny camera holes. The knife bounced out of the woman’s grip. The E-90 went back in its holster. Before Kirsten could advance to contain her, she pushed off the hood and swung with a wild right hook.

Ducked.

Second punch.

Leaned.

On the third punch, Kirsten caught the wrist and spun the woman’s arm around behind the back in a chicken wing on her way to the hood again.

Whap
.

Bare chest squeaked on icy Indirium-alloy plating. Kirsten leaned all her weight on top of the struggling body, grinding her into the car. A loud whack turned her head, in time to see Sicario staggering away from a roundhouse kick from Nicole. The redhead bounced her stance back and forth like a boxer, grinning. He had a laser wound to the shoulder; his left arm was out of the fight. Kirsten fumbled for binders.

The woman growled through clenched teeth. She almost stood straight up with Kirsten on her back, but collapsed again over the hood, sliding. “Ow, fucking bitch, you’re gonna rip my nips off.”

“Not my fault you’re not wearing a damn shirt. Should have thought of that
before
you pulled a knife on a police officer.” Kirsten grabbed a handful of hair and smacked the woman’s head into the armor plating twice. “I could have shot you. I’m trying to be nice here. Stop resisting arrest.”

Kirsten’s uncharacteristic aggression shocked Nicole’s attention off Sicario. He yanked a bootstrap gun off his leg and shot her in the chest, the loud snap of the slug bouncing away from her tactical vest whip-cracked off nearby buildings. With one hand pinning the woman’s wrist between her shoulders, the other crushing the back of her head into the car, Kirsten could only gawk as Nicole got pissed off.

The gun rocketed out of his hand before he could fire it again, tearing the trigger finger off at the first knuckle as it flew.

Nicole held her arm out, growling. “You motherfucker.”

Sicario’s legs swept out from under him, as if he lay on his stomach, suspended eight feet in the air. Nicole’s arm went down, as did Sicario, smashing into the ground hard enough to crack a rib. Still growling, Nicole sidestepped and telekinetically launched him headfirst into the front passenger wheel-guard. The impact to the armored shroud knocked him cold.

“Son of a god-damned bitch, you’re so fucking lucky Kirsten’s here, or I would have shot your ass.” Nicole took a running two-step and drove her boot into the side of his unconscious head.

Seeing her boyfriend fly took the fight out of the shirtless woman. Kirsten cuffed her and hauled her around to the back seat. Propping her chest-first against the car, she patted down the cloth-covered areas in search of other weapons.

“Are you going to admit to hiding anything in any body cavities, or do I have to go digging,” asked Kirsten, listening to surface thoughts.

“I’m sure you’d love that.” The woman growled.

“Sorry to disappoint. Got a feeling you’re clean.” Kirsten shoved her in and slammed the door.

Nicole picked at a scratch in her breastplate.

“You okay? That was… umm.”

Nicole panted, lifting her visor. “You’ve never seen me in the field before, have you? I hate asshats that shoot at cops. No respect.” She pointed her weapon at Sicario’s back. “Bastard.” Her eyes lightened back to their usual sky blue as they shifted to Kirsten. “Relax, I’m just fantasizing. Hey, where’d all the others go?”

“Dorian made a face at them. They ran, except for that one chick making goo-eyes at thin air.”

“They all ran,” said Kirsten.

“Oh.” Nicole cringed and put binders on Sicario.

She tried to lift him to his feet but could not move him. After a second try, and a mousy grunt, she gave up and searched him on the ground. A few drug injectors, two knives, another leg-gun, and a few mags of ammo gathered in a pile. “Damn, this guy was ready for a war.” The helmet cam recorded the search, and evidence.

While Kirsten called for backup, Nicole opened the other rear door and focused on Sicario with an intense stare. He floated again, toes dragging across the dirty metal ground. Screams came from the back seat as the unconscious man levitated into the car. When his weight settled down, Nicole sagged as if a great burden had been lifted from her. Kirsten punted the door closed.

“Backup’s on the way. I’m going after Ronnie.”

“Rampart.” The topless woman yelled. “His name is Rampart. What the hell are you people?”

Kirsten cringed at the question. “Division 0. We usually deal with psionic crime.”

“Psionics?” Her terror almost made the hovercar shake.

Consider yourself lucky. Ordinary cops would have just shot you the second you pulled a knife.

The telepathic voice slapped her still. Kirsten shook her head at the dirt-smeared breasts and the matching pattern of clean on the hood.

“Nikki, can you watch these two, I’m going after Ram-whatever.”

“Gotcha.”

“Over here,” Dorian yelled, about two blocks away.

She jogged after him, around the warehouse and away from the shore. He led her down one alley, around another corner and into a trash-strewn strip between two buildings. She waded knee-deep in old plastic cartons, empty cans, and unidentifiable scraps.

“He’s in the trash box at the end, the blue one with the white rose painted on it.” Dorian pointed.

“Thanks.” She paused. “Hey, you’re more than two hundred yards away from the car.”

Dorian gasped, looked in that direction, and bit his knuckle. After a moment, he stopped faking fear and laughed. “I guess it’s not such a big deal.”

Kirsten’s chuckle stalled at the sound of a soft feminine sob. “Ugh, what now?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

She trudged a few dozen meters toward the noise, arriving at another passage too narrow for the term alley; even a one-seat Jian Feng would be hard-pressed to fit down it. A mangled mass of woman paced back and forth, clutching entrails dangling over an emerald miniskirt. One blue high-heeled shoe danced around her left ankle, held on by one strap; the other was missing. No trace of a shirt remained, or much of anything else inside her chest. Her hands worked in an endless battle to put her insides, inside.

They kept slipping out.

Kirsten sagged, staring at the ground. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, my.” Dorian cringed.

“I’ll come back; she’s not going to get any deader. Please stay with her?”

“Sure.” He nodded, put on his cop face, and strode toward the dead woman.

The trek through the sea of trash back to the dumpster proved arduous; she worked up a sweat.

“Rampart? I know you’re in the blue refuse storage unit. I’m not here for you; I just want to talk about Vikram Medhi.”

She jumped at a sudden loud boom. The initial thought was gunshot, but as her heart got going again, she figured he had just startled and banged his knee into the side.

“All I want to do is talk.”

A belabored groan echoed from inside the trash box as a dull green industrial canister, the type often used to hold volatile gas, rose into view. Trash slipped off the top as it wobbled higher, supported on the massive arms of a man closer to eight feet tall than seven. Veins bulged out of his biceps, forearms, and forehead. He might have been Caucasian, but had turned bright red. Breaths came in struggled gasps as he strained to hold it in while supporting such weight.

E-90 came out, aimed. “
Do not throw that at me.
” Her eyes glowed for a second.

He blinked, making a disappointed face like a little boy told to go to his room. She half expected his response to be, “But I wanna.”

“Set it down before you hurt yourself.”

He shifted left and right, teetering as the exertion of bearing such a heavy load without hurling it overtook him. Gravity gained the upper hand and he let it go forward. The volatile materials cylinder crashed to the ground with a deafening clang and enough force to bounce Kirsten an inch into the air. She jumped to the side to evade the rolling canister, looking up just in time to see Rampart vault off the rim of the refuse box, flying into a tackle.

Fortunately, the amount of trash on the ground made the landing somewhat pleasant, except for the corner of a box that got her in the back of the right thigh. His hands slid over her chest on their way to her throat.

“
Freeze.
”

In an instant, Rampart went rigid, shuddered, and broke out in a cold sweat. “What the hell?”

“Will you please calm down?
Get off me.
”

Muscles, independent of his brain, obeyed.

She dusted herself off, rubbing the painful spot on the back of her leg. Rampart quivered, his body the victim of a raging contest of willpower. Confusion at why he could not move made him cry.

“Well that’s just a sad, sad sight.” Dorian chuckled, walking over with the gory girl behind him. “Felt that thing hit the ground, came running.”

“I got him.” Kirsten crossed her arms.

Nicole sprinted into view down the alley, sliding to a halt at an intersection and spinning in a circle. It took her two rotations to notice Kirsten, and she dropped into a tactical walk with her weapon trained on Rampart.

“Don’t kill me.” He continued to shudder as he strained to move.

Kirsten relieved him of a pistol, four knives, and a three-foot length of chain, all of which she tossed into the dumpster. “I’m not here to kill you, Ronnie. I just want to ask you about Vikram Medhi.”

“Uh, who?”

“You might want to step back, K. When your mind wank wears off, he’s gonna twist you in half.” Nicole came to a halt about ten yards away. “His arms are bigger than your thighs.”

Rampart appraised his biceps. “She’s got narrow legs.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, kind of,” said Nicole.

“You two can both go to hell.” Kirsten did not know if she should laugh or scream.

A holographic head appeared over Kirsten’s NetMini, spinning in a slow leftward rotation.

“Oh. Dude called himself Diva or something… Dava, maybe. Heard he got himself dead.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Kirsten put the mini away. “Have you seen him since the explosion, any idea where he hangs out?”

His gaze darted between her and Nicole, lingering on the redhead who seemed eager for any excuse to fire.

“You real cops? Not Lyris? What’s with the black?”

“Notice how you can’t move?” Kirsten put her gun away. “Division 0, psionic stuff. All I care about is Vikram right now, unless you’re wanted for a major crime.”

“He hasn’t seen Vikram for months,” Nicole added. “Negative on the serious crime, too.”

Kirsten whirled on her. “Dammit, Nicole, you can’t just go into their heads. It’ll get thrown out of an inquest, and they’ll walk.”

“What?” She relaxed enough to shrug. “It’s for
his
benefit. He’s not lying.”

“So you don’t know if Vikram survived the explosion? What did you do for him?”

Rampart managed to get his arms down. “He had the place wired up big time, carried a trigger button on him all the time. Me? All I did was loaf around eating his food. He hired me around to watch his limp ass while he jacked in, and ̓case some shit showed up to start problems. The dude was slick, though; no one ever backtracked him. I got paid to sit on my ass.”

“Lyris backtracked him.” Kirsten turned at moving lights, waving at a trio of Division 1 patrol officers.

“Yeah, I wasn’t there for that one, though, or I’d be kibble too. I ain’t seen him since. Word on the street is he set himself off.”

“He’s not lying.” Nicole lowered her gun. “Don’t do anything stupid, Howie.”

“Ronnie,” said Kirsten.

“Rampart.” He grumbled.

“Rampart?” Nicole scrunched up her face. “Isn’t that like a part of a um, castle or something?”

“Look at the size of him.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Nicole.

Ronnie gazed up at the smog, sighing.

All three of them turned at the scuff of a heavy boot approaching.

“Evening, Agent Wren, Officer Logan.” A tall, muscular woman, as pale as Kirsten, saluted her. “What’s this guy’s story?”

“Officer Dietrich.” Kirsten returned the salute. “I was hoping for information he didn’t have. He bolted from the scene; only thing I can tag him with is inciting violence against a peace officer.”

Nicole replayed the recording of Ronnie’s voice shouting “kill ̓em.”

“Understood. Your partner filled us in about the two idiots in the back seat. They’re on the way to the tank already.”