Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (33 page)

irsten crawled through the rear door of an old white van, abandoned with two tires on the curb and the nose wrapped around a pole. The windshield had enough grime to offer a decent bit of cover from the people milling around in front of the hotel three buildings down the street. They circled a nonfunctioning fountain in the center of a courtyard of black tiles with bronze lines inlaid in diamond patterns around it. Across the main archway, the shadow of letters spelling “Echelon Guest Suites” remained, drawn in less advanced corrosion compared to the rest of the surface. It was anyone’s guess how long ago the locals shot the letters off the wall.

“The bastard even squats first class,” grumbled Dorian. “Wait here; I’ll go check it out.”

She opened her mouth.

“No arguments.” He held a finger up. “This is your idea; you suggested I scout, I am going to scout. I want you to stay right here, hide in the van, and be alive when I come back.”

She closed her mouth.

“Good, now that we have an understanding…” Dorian slid through the wall, moving at a brisk walk past the courtyard defenders.

Vikram chuckled through fingers over his mouth. “Don’t you outrank him?”

“Stuff it.” She leaned back, straddling the console. “That doesn’t mean he’s not right. Maybe this was a stupid idea, entering this sector alone.”
What’s that old joke about sergeants and lieutenants… If I even live long enough to get promoted to lieutenant.

“I thought the other cops by the perimeter were about to drag you out of here.”

“Heh.” She pulled her helmet off to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “If I wasn’t a Zero, they probably would have. Guess for once it’s good people are afraid to get too close.”

“You are too soft.” Vikram paced about the small area. “You let things get to you too easily. You suffer guilt about killing someone that wants to kill you. It would seem to me that is a detriment to your chosen line of work.”

Kirsten crossed her arms over the helmet in her lap. “The line of work chose me, I didn’t―”

Vikram vanished, yanked by a hand through the street-facing wall.

“Shit.”

She scrambled to the back of the van, trying to get her helmet on with one hand. Crunching through the debris-packed space, she shoved harder than necessary at the door and fell amid a trash-fall, landing on all fours in the street.

A wail drew her eyes to Vikram, hauled around by Icarus’s two-fisted grip of his collar. Dreadlocks trailed in a graceful arc as he flipped the dead hacker over and drilled him into the ground. Kirsten sat up, still kneeling, and shoved her hands forward. Icarus flew into the air as if hit by a speeding car, tumbling to the ground in a series of sideways rolls until he came to a halt on his chest.

Vikram turned into a cloud of mist, which reformed standing. He sprinted at Kirsten, screaming once again as Icarus pulled a compact assault rifle out of thin air and fired. She flung herself to the left, against the van’s rear bumper. The hit lifted Vikram off his feet. Seven shots hit him in the back; so rapid they sounded like a burst.

Holes remained in Vikram’s essence as he skidded to a halt by Kirsten. Vapor wafted from his moaning body. Ducking around the flapping door, she squeezed off several pulses from the E-90, which chased Icarus behind a broken bit of wall.

Vikram gagged, as if coughing on blood, crawling under the van while Kirsten’s attention was on Icarus. She charged the armor once more, and rushed out from cover surrounded by the reassuring glow. With her gun trained on the spot she last saw him, she jogged across the street, leapt a fallen vendomat, and came to a halt just short of the gap. Kirsten pressed her back to grime-covered concrete panels. A deep echo rumbled ominous through the opening. She peeked, spotting a row of cars long ago crushed by a falling ceiling support.

I don’t have the best luck with parking garages.

Icarus reached through the wall, clamping a hand over the front of her helmet. He jerked her skull back against the hard surface, pinning her to the wall by her head. A twist pulled the helmet to the right, exposing her neck. Her E-90 hit the ground as the lash draped out of her hand, just as his other arm came through the wall. The tip of a combat knife stalled on the mental field around the armor; pushing fatigue through her mind.

She flicked the glittering tendril behind her, into the concrete. His hands receded into the building, and she stumbled away from the wall. Rolling to her right, she leapt the guardrail and fell a few feet over the side of the ramp to the ground inside, chasing into the dark after him. The intensity of the lash plunged the collapsed garage into a forest of harsh shadows as she swung it overhead. The energy whip unrolled forward; her right boot hit the ground as Icarus leaned just enough to evade it.

Searing light strengthened the shadows over his face and chest. Overextended, she lurched past him, and he spun into an elbow strike that caught her between the shoulders. Two ungainly steps later, she hugged a crumbling pylon. Before she could inhale again, two loud gunshots, and two heavy impacts struck her in the back.

Each one walloped her in the brain; the purple stripes on the psi armor pulsated. Kirsten was unsure if he made physical projectiles or attacked with mental energy trying to trick her body into hurting itself. Either way, it felt like a battering ram. A spritz of saliva hit the inside of the visor as the second shot rid her lungs of what little air remained after the elbow.

Her boots slipped out to the rear as she clung to the pole and slid flat to the ground, arms bent upward, empty hands curled by her shoulders. Icarus shook his head, the thick mass of his ropey hair swaying as he walked up to her limp body.

Icarus sighted down his arm, pointing a massive handgun at her helmet. “I told you, lady, stay out of it.”

Kirsten flipped over, sweeping the lash sideways through his shins. The strike pulled his feet out from under him. Continuing the momentum, she leapt up and brought the lash over her head again. He rolled out of the way, trying to crawl to the side, but caught her third swipe across the back.

“You don’t belong here,” she screamed.

Shani’s face flashed in her mind, loading the energy stream with enough force to blast Icarus into a projectile. The former commando slapped into the ground, knocking objects around for only the first few feet of his slide before becoming immaterial. A second after coming to a halt, Icarus sat up, firing at her as she stalked him.

Kirsten leapt as soon as he moved; the shot clanked into a lamp somewhere behind her as she somersaulted behind a wall that reeked of piss. Vikram appeared at the gap thirty yards back, drawing a quick shot from Icarus. She took advantage of the distraction, flinging herself into a two-stride lunge at him. Icarus spun; his gun fell from his grip and vanished as he caught her about the wrists. His left arm extended, holding the lash away as they rolled over each other. She growled; he remained silent.

She squirmed, trying to make the lash flick into him. Her arms went wherever his strength dictated, and an attempt to slam him in the groin reinforced the concept of hard concrete being a painful thing to drive a knee into. Icarus twisted over on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground on either side of her head. Helpless, with him on top of her, a new form of terror clawed at her heart at the implication of what their pose resembled. Without a free hand to go for a weapon, he met her gaze, peering through the amber visor into bright sapphire eyes.

Four seconds of still silence, gazes locked.

Whimpering futile struggles became growling convulsions. Fear became anger.

I’m being stupid again.

Rather than attempt an impossible contest of physical strength, she shoved with her gift. His semi-solid body shuddered; if not for the tactical suit, his fingers might have crushed the bones in her wrists. Her mind pushed so hard it hurt, and his weight on her hips lessened. Icarus had a lot of power for such a recent death; but he was also not a ghost.

In a gradual turning of the tide, she got her fear under control and replaced it with focus. Icarus leaned away, losing a contest where she had a mild advantage. He continued to hold her arms, pulling her into a sitting position as she forced him away. Almost nose to nose, her confidence met his confusion.

Vikram, wailing, sprinted in as best he could with a hand over a new bullet wound in his side. He leapt on Icarus’s back, dragging him away from Kirsten and sending them both gliding through the back end of destroyed old cars. She sagged forward, panting. Her head spun, the room shifted, and for a few seconds, she forgot where she was.

The sound of a scuffle shocked her back to rights. Icarus had Vikram by a fistful of hair, pulling him into a backward arch and raising a knife with his other hand.

“Icarus!”

His head snapped at her just as the lash burrowed into his chest. Vikram slipped away, falling, scampering off in a crawl. She lit into Icarus with a second lash, causing a deafening quasi-spectral roar that blew out any remaining car windows within a hundred yards. Intense red light shone from his eye sockets and mouth; the energy vibrating in the air reminded her of when she obliterated the Wharf Stalker. Instinct and memory combined to make her leap behind a pylon, hoping it would spare her the loss of two days.

Seconds passed.

“What the hell are you doing? Finish him!” demanded Vikram, sounding every bit as hurt as he looked.

Kirsten peeked out from behind cover, finding Icarus on his knees with a hand pressed into his stomach. At the sight of her, he raised a hand.

“Wait.”

Vikram pointed. “It’s a trick, kill him.”

“I know who you are.” The red light faded, leaving his eyes brown again, now sad. “I had no right to strike you; it was not my place.” Icarus bent forward, arms limp in his lap.

“He is stalling. Whip him.” Vikram gestured as if using a lash. “Do it!”

Kirsten edged a step closer, glimmering tendril coiling about her legs at the ready. “What do you mean, you know who I am?”

“I was sent where I belong.” His voice, silken and deep, reverberated through the abandoned place. “Call the ones who gather the hateful. Do so, I will not offer resistance.”

“No. Don’t believe him. He’s trying to fool you.”

She held a hand at Vikram. “You
want
me to call Harbingers? You think I can?”

Icarus lifted his head in a slow, nonthreatening way. Meditative acceptance in his eyes seemed genuine. “I know you can. You are the one, you were right. I do not belong here.”

“What
one
?” She wanted to trust his face, wanted to believe the sorrow in his stare. “I will call them, but tell me what you mean first.”

Vikram howled, flinging himself on Icarus with the fury of an injured wombat. The two men grappled; the drain of being lashed left him open to Vikram’s furious clawing onslaught. Strips of red light peeked through jagged claw rents as Icarus’s armor split open.

Obliteration cometh.

She glared. “Vikram,
stop.
”

The suggestion had no effect on a spirit. She brought the lash out, waving it.

“Vikram, so help me, do not destroy him. He is repentant.”

“He lies,” wailed the hacker. “If you will not do this, then I must.”

Icarus clutched at Vikram’s shirt, trying to peel him off, but was too weak. He gurgled. Vikram leaned back, clawed hands in the air.

The lash snapped through Vikram’s essence, sending a billowing blast of energy vapor from the point of contact. The stroke knocked him away, and she stomped after him.

“What’s wrong with you? If the Harbingers take him, he won’t be a threat to you anymore. There’s no need to murder him.”

Vikram moved in a sidelong circle, arm through his battered and smoking chest. Scuttling in the gait of a crab, he fixed her with a dark glower. “Just like you’re going for Rene, I want revenge.”

He blurred into a smear of color, glowing yellow eyes and claws flashing at her. Kirsten cringed; bringing the lash up to defend―but felt no impact. When she turned, he was gone.

So was Icarus.

“Dammit.”

The garage, aside from her, echoed empty.