Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (31 page)

“Kirsten. I strongly urge you not to pursue Rene Bollard into Sector 187.” The glower he shot into the terminal screen moved to her, and softened. “However, if you are insistent upon it, I will not stand in your way.”

Dorian yelled. “You won’t? Dammit man, don’t let her do this!”

“He is right,” added Vikram. “This is taking away from the time you could be spending destroying the demons before they kill me.”

“You’re already dead, Vik.” Kirsten whirled, hands shaking. She felt like a kid denied the ability to stay out late finally getting her wish, and then being terrified of being outside after dark.

Who was on the terminal? What did they tell him?

“Right after I ran away, when I was below the city, I sometimes felt as if I wasn’t alone. I had a feeling that something was there watching out for me, leading me to food, leading me away from danger.”

“I’ve heard nothing converts an atheist like getting caught in a war,” said Dorian through a wry grin.

Captain Eze lifted an eyebrow. “A ghost?”

She frowned at Dorian. “I don’t know. I felt it again at the parking deck. Eleven stories up, two seconds away from a dozen hand grenades, I got this sense it was safe to jump. Somehow, I just knew I’d hit the advert droid and not die. It was almost as if something helped me.”

“An angel?” Dorian grinned. “That Theodore fellow seemed pretty convinced the Harbingers have a counterpart.”

“I don’t know.” She folded her arms.

Both Eze and Dorian took her answer as directed at them.

“Harbingers I’ve seen, often. If there is such a thing as their opposite, why don’t I ever see them?”

“Maybe they’re afraid of the dark,” offered Vikram, sarcasm obvious.

Dorian shot him a glance. “I’m starting to see why Lyris wanted to kill him.”

“Kirsten.” Captain Eze got up, walking around the desk to put both hands on her shoulders. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, or what hope you think you have out there. I would advise you to leave chasing Rene to people who have combat training and experience.”

“But…” She looked up at him.

“I won’t stop you.” His teeth creaked.

She hugged him. “I’ll be fine, sir.”

He eased her to arm’s length, grinning. “Careful, Agent, that’s how rumors start. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Don’t say ‘so do I,’ don’t do it.
“I do.” She thought of the horror in Shani’s memory at almost killing her mother. “I’m going to get the bastard.”

A knock came from the door, turning two live heads as well as two dead ones.

“Enter,” said Eze, returning to his chair.

Tall and wiry, a man in an I-Ops uniform slid through the door. Dense wavy hair, as black as the government-issue coat he had added to his attire, clung tight to his scalp. His skin, pallid and corpselike, his eyes surrounded by sunken shadows. A matte-black oak leaf pin adorned the right breast of his coat, above a silver nameplate.

Eze shot to his feet, rendering a sharp salute. Kirsten followed suit, as did Dorian. Vikram rolled his eyes.

“Commander Ashford,” said Eze, snapping his arm back to his side.

The living phantom returned the gesture casually. Kirsten could not tell if his expression was caused by fatigue, boredom, or annoyance. Wherever this man went, conversations stalled and people scurried away. He endured a harsher form of the worry her small rating in mind blast earned her; in a way, she felt bad for him. Not only was he a mind-blaster of no small degree, he was part of Division 0’s internal affairs corps. She made it a point to project camaraderie at him, even edging closer as if she
wanted
to be near him.

He noticed, almost even smiled. “I’ve just finished meeting with the Assad girl, and her mother. The child should not remember most of the incident yesterday.” His lips curled just a little more as he shifted gaze to Kirsten. “You were pretty thorough. I could not find any further latent commands.”

“Should ask him to make you forget about Rene,” said Dorian, folding his arms.

“Thank you, sir.” Kirsten nodded once.

“I need a few minutes with the Captain if you don’t mind, Agent.”

“Yes, sir.” She scurried out, making no effort to give him a wide berth like everyone else did. The gratifying feeling faded when she saw the office, and two connecting squad rooms, empty.

Kirsten sprawled on the cold tiles, one arm draped over the toilet. Trails of OmniSoy ran down her lip from her nose, pooling on her chin in droplets before they fell. Once an omelet, it had returned to the base from which it had been reassembled. Any second now, she felt another wave coming.

I almost died.

Stomach muscles contracting, she bent over the toilet. Just a dry heave.

The image of little Shani behind the glowing blue ring/dot gunsight stood in the dark of her memory.

Another dry heave.

She imagined an azure streak from the E-90 tearing the diminutive threat in half.

Bile flew out of her mouth, several subsequent convulsions became bawling. Kirsten clung to the toilet like a well-meaning friend, sobbing against the plastic seat.

The familiar fragrance of her father’s ambiance surrounded her; she sniffled her tears under control. Trembling, however, was another matter.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, sweetie.”

She closed her eyes and smiled at the cool presence of his hand on her back; a mental flex, and she became solid to him. “It’s not that, Dad. I came close to being killed today, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. It was a little kid with a gun.”

Heave.

He crouched alongside her, frowning. “What has society come to? Couldn’t you just shoot the gun out of the kid’s hand?”

“It doesn’t work, Dad. E-90’s the biggest laser they can cram into a handgun. At that angle it would’ve gone right through her gun, through her, through the house…”

Another dry heave shook her. Crying flooded her nose, sending dribbles down her chin.

Her father patted her on the back, rubbing up and down like any parent with a sick daughter.

“I couldn’t do it. I just froze up. I knew it wasn’t her fault. That made it so much harder. That son of a bitch programmed her to do it. If I shot her, I’d have been killing an innocent.”

More bile.

“I think you more than anyone should know not to dwell on what-ifs.” His hand passed through the paper, causing him to grumble. “Wipe your face, hon.”

She gathered a few feet of paper and dabbed at her chin.

“After what your mother put you through, after what you put yourself through below the city, you should be better apt to cope with this kind of―”

“Dorian was right. I could have just suggested her to drop it.” She squeezed herself tight to her spectral father, burying her face in his chest. “Dad… I don’t wanna die.”

He held her for a moment in silence until she sobbed herself quiet. “You’re still young, sweetie. You haven’t gotten jaded like Dorian. You survived, no one got hurt, and you learned.”

The kiss he planted atop her head made her feel six years old; she adored it and hated it in equal parts. She wiped her face again and stood, flushing the toilet with her boot. Her father was gone when she reached for the stall door, a wisp of his old-man scent teased at her nostrils. She adjusted her belt, checked her uniform for spots, and took a deep breath.

Okay, Rene. It’s just you and me.

og rolled over the street a distance ahead from where the patrol craft had landed. Kirsten gazed at the shattered faces of long-abandoned buildings, a miles-long tunnel into the heart of a world abandoned by civilized man. Some shiny, some black, most devoid of intact windows, all of them wrapped in the misery of blight. Despite it being early afternoon, a pervasive gloom enveloped the area a few blocks distant. Kirsten, leaning against the center of the hood, steeled herself in an effort not to let the foreboding sense of apocalyptic dread cloud her resolve. She fidgeted, tugging at the tactical armor she found quite uncomfortable.

Black panels of DuraFib composite molded to her body on a flexible bodysuit. She shifted, trying to breathe in the chest plate and stop the crotch guard from digging into her thighs.

Dorian and Vikram approached on either side around the car. Vikram glanced over his shoulder at the intact city, swiveling back to the decay with an amused grin. Kirsten held up a hand at the glare Dorian leveled at Vikram and tucked her hair up to put on the helmet. As soon as the rigid armor surrounded her skull, a strange presence caressed her brain.

Psi Armor, a recent addition to the Division 0 arsenal, could use the mental energy of its wearer to power a deflection field that increased its protection. Some even maintained that it could, when charged, protect against paranormal attacks. She held her arms out in front, made fists, and twisted them to examine the lay of the plates. Sized for a woman two inches taller, it was the only one available for loan on short notice.

I hope Nila won’t mind I borrowed it.

“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Shani and Nila.” She fixed her eyes on Dorian. “You know he’ll kill them.”

Hands on his hips, he cast a stare into the mist. “If you had just left her alone like I’d asked you to, they wouldn’t be in danger.” He softened. “But I did see a little bit of the old Nila peek out.”

Kirsten pushed off the hood. “I know. You don’t have to remind me, I’m beating myself up enough. They’re in danger because of me; that’s why I’m here now.”

Vikram jogged alongside. “Maybe it would be safer to wait until the three demonic assassins coming after me are dealt with first? It would be somewhat inconvenient if they were to ambush us in this place.”

She kept walking. “They will come when they come. The things that live out here won’t stick around if weird crap comes out of the walls. They’re as superstitious as priests.”

A half-block later, Dorian caught up to her, moving with renewed purpose in his stride. His lip curled into a determined frown, fists clenching and relaxing.

“Dorian, we’re not going in there to kill him. I don’t want you to make yourself any more appealing to a Harbinger then you already think you are. Don’t give them more of an excuse.”