Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (36 page)

“Please don’t hesitate. Don’t try to butt heads with his power; if you feel him try anything―just shoot him.”

She stared at the warped reflection of her face along the barrel of her sidearm. The little metal prong she always ignored gleamed. With an expression like a kid at Christmas finding one more present, she pulled a length of microfilament wire out of the handle and tugged it out to about four feet. A few seconds of fumbling around the side of the helmet found the plug, and soon she had a tiny window showing her wherever the gun pointed.

“That’s perfect.” He hugged through her. “No line of sight and―”

“No suggestion,” she finished.

Her boot shattered the door open, flinging it through Dorian as she charged in.

“Rene Bollard! Police! On the ground. Don’t move, don’t speak!”

She shouldered into the pea green wall at the far end of the entertainment room, poking the E-90 through the arch into the bedroom. The little floating window in her view blurred as she panned to the right, finding Rene at the side of the bed with a woman in a headlock―gun at her temple. A sycophantic grin was the only thing the woman wore, legs threaded through white silk sheets. She stroked Rene’s arm, adoring even the touch that used her as a human shield.

He shifted behind her, pulling her by her hair. “I must commend your determination, though I lament your foolishness.”

The woman moaned, arching herself as he pulled, her left hand rubbed a breast. “Yes, Rene.”

Kirsten’s mind raced, she could not see the weapon anymore behind the hostage. The fragrance of jasmine and incense overwhelmed the foulness outside.

“You probably expect me to kill you. I want to bring you in alive.”

Dorian stomped toward him, shaking with rage.

The grainy image in the targeting window tilted his head; the well-practiced, disingenuous grin of a con man a decade past his prime wrinkled his cheeks. He edged further behind the mattress, pulling the woman up to her knees and drawing forth another moan of ecstasy. She did not realize what poked her in the back was a gun. Kirsten tried to put the blue dot on his face, but did not trust her aim.

“Rene, you know with an innocent life in danger I won’t hesitate to shoot. If you kill her, you only guarantee it.”

“I don’t believe you.” A fistful of hair tightened. The woman gasped in passion. “If I kill her you lose your justification. I know how you are; you do not want the stain on your soul. It’s amazing what you can learn from your worshippers.”

“Can’t see the gun,” Dorian growled, sidestepping for a better angle.

“I’m going to kill this whore and make you watch. Then I’m going to pay a visit to that little whelp of yours, what’s his name”―his head tilted to the other side―“If he begs well enough I’ll make it quick. Better yet, I’ll make him kill you.”

Rage boiled in her gut; somehow, she found the strength to swallow it. “Now you’re the one who’s lying. You won’t dare go near him. You’re scared, Rene, scared out of your mind. You can’t go near the city proper because every police officer knows you’re a cop killer. You know what they do to cop killers don’t you, Rene? There won’t be enough left of you to fill a synthbeer can. I don’t want to kill you, Rene. I’m here to bring you in alive.”

The woman squirmed, craning herself up to kiss Rene on the neck as she touched herself. Kirsten tried not to watch. Rene seemed equally as disinterested at that moment.

“So why now? Why you? After all these years, they finally found someone stupid enough to follow me here?”

“It’s deliberate misinformation, Rene. We want people to think we avoid black zones. That way we know right where to look. Come on, Rene. We both know you can’t stand it here, either. You’re more miserable here in this filth than you would be in a holding facility.”

Kirsten still did not trust using a four-inch screen to put a blue dot over a two-inch section of forehead.
Come on, come on, stand up a little more.

“I don’t think so. I’ve been in enough cop heads to know the truth. They’re all petrified of the
real
world. Their laws, their fake society, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Everything is politics. This is
old world
; this is how it used to be. The strong rule the weak. Why did you really come out here? Were you that dead pig’s side bitch? I thought he was bedding the nice little thing he had in the car. She was quite accommodating actually, gave me a ride, cooked me dinner, we had great sex… pity she doesn’t remember it.”

Dorian’s fury paled his face and darkened his eyes.

Rene jumped as a portable food reassembler to his right sparked and shut down. Two field lights went next.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself, Rene? He’s right in front of you.”

Kirsten swiveled around the corner. Dorian blocked her direct view, but did not appear in the digital targeting box.

The hostage moaned, reaching for Rene’s nether regions. Her other hand continued cupping her breast, noticing its reaction to the environment. “It’s cold in here, Rene, my love. Why don’t you warm me?”

A blaze of white vapor billowed around Dorian’s outline; he stepped closer, out of the astral realm and into reality. Whatever look he had on his face scared any trace of flesh tone out of Rene’s. The Frenchman jumped back, firing twice at Dorian. Two emerald laser streaks sizzled through the air, holing the wall just to Kirsten’s left. She yelped and dove, taking cover behind a marble-topped table that she knocked over forwards. One went high; the next disrupted Dorian’s left shoulder for a second. Without flinching, he leapt at Rene, emitting a primal growl of hatred. Kirsten shoved at the table, knocking it forward into a barricade. She popped up, trying to get a bead as Rene circled the bed in an effort to evade her partner.

A chance step on a piece of loose rug spared Rene from Kirsten’s first shot by dumping him on the floor. When he spun to face her, she ducked, breaking eye contact. His amber silhouette flaked in and out, bits of errant pixels. Two-inch-thick stone was too dense for the sensor to see through.

Dorian yelled. The sound gave Kirsten the mental image of him diving over the bed. She popped up, just as he landed on Rene and pulled him into a staggering step before phasing through. Dorian landed on his chest, looking out of breath. The wispy vapor faded. Rene looked around, unable to find him.

“What game is this?”

Kirsten ducked as Rene spun in her direction.

A thin line of spittle flew from Rene’s lip. “You. You’re in my head, making me see him.”

She startled as he tested his weapon’s chances at penetrating marble; three small glowing orange spots appearing one after the next did not fill her with confidence.

“No, Rene. I’m not making you see things. You have a restless spirit out for your blood.”

A fourth orange glow swelled an inch to the left of the first. “You don’t expect me to believe in ghosts, do you?”

“No, I do.” Dorian projected his voice into the world.

Rene startled, aiming toward the open balcony doors. “How are you doing that, bitch?”

Kirsten stuck the gun over the table, watching him on the tiny virtual screen. When he glanced away from her, she popped up, just as Dorian manifested again.

“Jusqu’à ce que nous reverrons, mon ami.” He stalked at Rene. “Do you remember when you said those words to me?”

The Frenchman screamed, falling into a tripping backpedal as his confidence dashed to shards. “You….” He swiveled to the bed. “Shoot the bitch. Kill her.” Rene’s eyes flared with a brief amethyst light. The amorous smile faded away to a zombie’s gaze. He tossed the pistol into the naked woman’s lap and ran for the balcony. He seemed ready to fling himself to his death to get away from Dorian.

Kirsten, trying to leg him, got off two misses before a green beam streaked past her eyes. Limp save for one raised arm, the woman on the bed fired a second time into the wall over her head. Kirsten ducked the streak of laser light, instinctual fear drowning her urge to stop Rene.

A wet splattering sound, reminiscent of a watermelon dropped from great height, came three seconds before a distant, rolling thunderclap. Kirsten relaxed her cringe, gawking at the wall above her head now spattered with small gory chunks and droplets of blood racing each other to the floor.

The unmistakable sound of a dead body hitting wooden floor came next.

She recoiled, trapped between a horrifying wall and a glowing slab of marble. “What the hell happened, Dorian?”

A brief pause of silence settled over the room, broken only by two hums of a laser pistol firing.

“Rene’s head just exploded.” Dorian’s voice sounded as if he were cringing. “Totally gone.”

“You do have a guardian angel, kiddo.” Her helmet vibrated with static as the comm struggled to compensate for signal interference.

I know her voice…

neeling behind a two-inch slab of marble, Kirsten whimpered at the growing collection of burning orange spots ranging from new and bright to almost too dim to see. The naked woman, the right half of her body spattered red with what had once been inside Rene Bollard’s head, did not react to the gore. Once, every three seconds, she triggered a blast of emerald laser light into the marble table with the precision of an assembly line doll. A thumb-sized fragment of brain slid from her temple over a cheek, fell to her chest, and slipped into her lap. The shots continued, not realizing or caring that she etched only shallow grooves in the dense material.

“We meet again, Rene,” said Dorian, seconds before the sound of a fistfight started.

Rene, hollow and echoing, screamed. Fear became confusion. Grunting, cursing (French and English), and more grunting rattled around the back end of the room to the metronome of a laser pistol set to repeat.

“Dorian… Little help here, I don’t want to shoot this woman.”

Kirsten huddled to the ground, listening to the brawl happening out of her sight. Laser blast, punch, laser blast, groan, laser blast, cursing, a punch; another laser blast.

“Dorian,” she shouted. “I need backup, now!”

Rene’s face came through the marble, transparent; she rolled away with a gasp, flattening against the wall. Right away, she cringed knowing she just leaned on blood. The sight of ghosts had become a matter of routine. As a little girl, when she had to think about turning it on, they looked like apparitions. When her skill increased and she could see them all the time, they looked opaque, real even. Whenever they stuck themselves through something solid, they went transparent again and it harkened back to some bad nocturnal scares. She despised her mother again for a few seconds.
What kind of parent blames their child for creating the monster under the bed rather than comforts her?
Another laser blast reined in her wandering mind.

Rene’s writhing form slid closer, pinned by Dorian in a perfect perp-hold.

Laser blast.

Kirsten scooted lower, back against the wall, boots apart. “Dorian? Would you please?” She gestured with her gun at the table.

Dorian wrenched Rene around so he could see the source of the rhythmic electronic noise. More marble glowed orange than did not; she had been hitting the same spot often enough to make it rather bright. The metronome changed from thrums to soft clicks.