Division Zero: Thrall

by Matthew S. Cox

  “You said you couldn’t hurt me. I knew you wouldn’t.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

  She pulled him into her lap, cradling him water and all, and mumbled apologies into his hair.

  “Mom?”

  “ Yeah?” She sniffled, and raised her head to look him in the eye. “Yes?”

  “You’re still bleeding. Take a stimpak before you get sick.”

  Kirsten made a noise somewhere between laughing and crying. Evan tugged at her until she stood, and had to drag her to the bed. As she sat on the edge of the Comforgel pad pushing a stimpak between two claw punctures on her arm, he traded his soaked PJs for a dry towel.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “It’s four in the morning.”

  Arms folded to his chest under the terrycloth wrap, he walked right up to her with a serious face. One droplet of water fell off his nose. “Are you going back to sleep?”

  Kirsten leaned out and ruffled his hair. “Mocha.”

  he din of voices tugged at the edges of her consciousness. Kirsten moaned: a noise that began deep in her brain as a request for a few more minutes of sleep, but entered the world as a monosyllabic grunt. Her right forearm balanced over her face, and as her sphere of awareness widened, she noticed the absence of Evan. Her most recent memory was of him curled up next to her. With another groan, she moved her arm, letting it arc upward before falling heavily onto her gut and sliding off. Cold floor across the back of her knuckles reminded her she was on a sofa in the squad room.

  She pawed at the cushions, searching for the missing boy, sitting up after she found no trace of him. White socks at the end of her black leggings confused her. She did not remember taking her boots off, or even putting her uniform on. Morelli was the only other person in the room, and as usual, he made it a point not to look directly at her at any time.

  “Dorian?” she rasped, forcing herself to swallow.

  Morelli fumbled something small and plastic, which clattered to the floor.

  “Evan went to school about an hour ago. Someone from the dorm came to escort him over.” Dorian coalesced nearby. “I’m to tell you Eze wants to see you when you wake up.”

  Kirsten held her face in both hands, elbows on her knees, trying to rub wakefulness through her eyelids. “How long was I out? Wait, Eze can see you?”

  “No, he just spoke assuming I was here. It’s about ten now. The two of you arrived a little after six in the morning. Bad night?”

  She stared at her boots, unable to fathom how to work the five fasteners along the outer edge. The act of sliding her legs into them made the task automatic, and she stretched away the discomfort of a too-brief sofa nap.

  “An abyssal came after us in the apartment last night. Bastard thing got me half-awake, slipped into my head. My defenses weren’t ready.”

  Dorian put his hands on his hips. “Evan gave me the rundown.”

  “Someone tried to get me to…” She pivoted toward Eze’s door. “Now I’m pissed.”

  “Oh, shit.” Dorian held his hands up. “Look out.”

  “Dammit, I’m serious.” Kirsten managed to stop glaring by the time she entered the captain’s office. “Sorry for passing out like that, sir. I had an event at home last night.”

  “Yes, so I hear.” Eze looked away from his terminal, chair creaking as he leaned back. “The boy filled me in.”

  “Did he sleep at all?”

  Eze laughed. “He said he’d nap in math class. To be honest, I’m not sure if he was kidding.”

  Sounds like something my kid would say. Kirsten smiled. “Sir, I’m at a loss. I have scraps of things that don’t make sense and some theories―but no evidence I can take to the council.”

  “Alright.” Captain Eze steepled his fingers to his chin. “Let’s hear it.”

  She sat facing the desk, casting a brief glance over the row of four-inch ceremonial African masks. “Okay, I went to the morgue…” Shit, I forgot to type the reports. “I had a suspicious feeling about some recent deaths. I went to the RTC to follow up on it, and found evidence of what appears to be some kind of ritual murders. While I was there, one of the clerks called to warn someone I was getting too close. Then he tried to kill me. I chased him, but he shot himself and destroyed his NetMini in the process.”

  Eze reached toward his terminal, swiping through a few screens. “I read what Div Two filed; however, the investigation has stalled pending your reports. Do you think Hassan acted of his own volition?”

  “I never got the chance to find out. I didn’t see a spirit lingering after he died, nor did I feel Harbingers around. If he had a ghost, he ran off before I got into the room.”

  “If?” Eze leaned back with a raised eyebrow. “I did not think spirits were optional.”

  “I…” She gazed into space. “Dammit, I have so many reports to write up. The incident at the Pentecostal place, B. G. Wallis. The people the Div One officers killed had no ghosts; they were bodies worn by demons. I still don’t know if they were killed ahead of time, displaced, or stolen from a morgue.”

  “So there were just abyssals inside them?”

  “I think so, sir, yes. They were dark spirits; however, they were weak. They ran at armed officers with nothing but knives. They were trying to get killed, like some kind of trap.”

  “I spent two hours with Chandrasekhar yesterday afternoon.”

  “Who?”

  “Division One Bureau Chief. I had to give a statement about what happened at the church. He asked how you were doing.”

  Kirsten frowned at the little masks. “I couldn’t save Womack. The man was so strong, he threw me around like a rag doll.”

  “They don’t blame you. You tried everything you could think of to keep them outside. It was my error insisting they accompany you.” He tapped his finger on the desk and met her stare. “I wanted to apologize for over-coddling you.”

  “No offense taken, sir.” She couldn’t quite smile so soon after remembering the death of a police officer. “It’s nice to be cared for. Back to the case, I think the nexus of it is a man named Yevgeniy Suvorin. He is the majordomo of Kukla Investment Corporation. I can’t see any other common thread among the dead.”

  Kirsten recounted the bodies. Arris, the security guard from the Archives. Connected via the Konstantin having an office there. Donn, the engineer, worked for EnMesh, which Kukla recently purchased―direct connection to Yevgeniy. The woman, Munoz, worked for RedEx, which VSKK just acquired―connection: Konstantin. The two men appear to be friends, which links both spheres together.

  “What of Mr. Rosa?” asked Eze. “Did he not manage security at the Municipal Complex?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Commissioner Vernon is under the influence of a paranormal entity, much the same way one tried to make me hurt Evan.” Kirsten scrunched her fingers into the seat cushion. “I bet they took Mr. Rosa first to get inside, and got rid of him when he was no longer useful. The trade deal being pushed around now would benefit the entire ACC.”

  “Need I remind you your friend Konstantin’s company is ACC. Sure, they are in a moderate quasi-republic, but they are still loyal to the ACC when push comes to shove.”

  Kirsten’s head shook with an emphatic negative. “That’s the whole point. Yevgeniy is trying to ruin him!”

  “What convinces you Konstantin is a target and not an actor?” Eze’s face changed from deep chocolate to a light brown as the holo-terminal bathed him in light from a new page. “He does possess familiarity with the archaic language you keep finding, does he not?”

  She gawked at him. “How could you even suggest that? He loves me!” Kirsten covered her mouth with both hands and swallowed. “Sorry, sir.” Her gaze fell into her lap. “I mean, if he had anything to do with it, why would he try to cuddle up to me? I’m the one chasing the abyssals around. Hell, he gave me Charazu’s name―I couldn’t have destroyed it without that. I think Yevgeniy has been after him for years; he had to learn Sumerian to protect himse
lf. Over there, the government just kills people for being psionic. Who knows what the hell they’d do to a person for claiming to be at war with demons. It’s probably no big deal to him anymore.”

  “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

  “Sun Tzu?” she asked.

  Eze smiled. “Not exactly. It’s from The Godfather, I think. Did you ever consider he may just want you where he can watch you?”

  Kirsten shuddered. “No, that can’t be true. He’s so sweet. I feel safe around him.”

  “Have you considered the possibility he is influencing you?”

  “I’m a grade three suggestive. If he was doing something to me, I’d feel it. I’d know.”

  “Perhaps a telempath?”

  “I…” She stared down. “I don’t think so. Telempathic manipulation feels false once they stop concentrating on it. If it’s powerful, it seems genuine in the moment, but the victim always gets a sense that they were manipulated later. I don’t get that from him. I saw one of the murders happen in the memories of a witness.”

  “Oh.” He perked up. “What did they see?”

  Kirsten relayed the scene of Alaina Munoz’s murder: the four men, the mask, the chanting, and rambled through a ten-minute grumble about Lace and Brooke’s plight. When she reined in the runaway emotion, she gave him a forlorn pout. “I have two men in my head I can see, but I have no way to connect them back to anyone.”

  Eze spun in his chair, taking a small black case from the shelf behind him. He whirled back, peeling plastic film bearing a Teradyne logo away from the thin plastic box, which he opened. She sat, quiet and patient, watching as Eze unpacked a blank holodisk and inserted it into a writer on his desk. Four two-inch silver disks on a central spindle vanished into the device as a motorized hatch closed and it spun up to speed.

  He leaned forward, left hand on top of the holodisk writer. “Focus on the memory, Kirsten.”

  She sat up, hands on the edge of the desk, and locked eyes with him. Relaxing, she let his telepathic feelers enter her thoughts. Kirsten called the murder of Ms. Munoz to mind, trying to pay attention to the faces of the two men holding her arms. Fatigue came over her from projecting it into Eze, and after a moment, she sagged back in the chair, out of breath. When she looked up, she stifled a gasp with her hand. Eze’s eyes had faded to plain white, and the small electronic device beneath his hand whirred and beeped.

  After the writer wound down and stopped, he put a hand to his tired face. When he lowered it, his eyes were brown once more. Captain Eze touched a button and the writer whirred open. He put the disk back into its case and handed it to her. “Here, you should be able to get a searchable face print from this.”

  Kirsten accepted the holodisk as if it were a holy relic, cupping it with reverence in both hands. “I had no idea you could do that.”

  “It is a simple thing, Wren. No different than someone with a wire.” He poked himself behind the ear. “It is just a link between my mind and a device; the writer did all the work.” He winked.

  She stood, still cradling the disk, and ferried it out to her desk. Whatever Eze had done transferred her memory onto it as if it were a video recording taken through an old lens. After popping it in her terminal, she spent a few minutes pulling her fingers through holographic panels to move it frame by frame to a point she could isolate a still image of their faces. The distant city had strange artifacts, products of blurry memory or random subconscious flights of fancy. In almost all glass surfaces, a phantasmal version of Konstantin appeared, gazing at her. The faces conveyed no emotion, but every one of dozens stared right at her. He’s watching me. She felt warm inside, hugging her hands to her chest. Absentmindedly, she stroked the bracelet. I guess I’m thinking about him when I don’t realize it.

  Aside from mild graininess due to the nonstandard interface between Eze’s brain and the writer, the image surprised her with its clarity. She drew a box around the face of both men. The one holding Alaina’s right arm had his back to Brooke for most of the event; however, she managed to grab a profile image when he shifted to walk away.

  She set the system going in search of a facial match and got to typing out the reports and incident forms for everything that had happened thus far. For quite a few minutes, she glanced at Eze with envious squints. When he was just an Agent, filling out reports took him only seconds. Fingers twirled hair behind her right ear as she considered the option of getting headware put in, but shivered. No. No way. I’d rather type all day than have metal in my skull.

  Two hours later, she left the search going and took a break to meet Evan in the dorm area for lunch. After a pleasant forty minutes, she returned to find a red square flashing on two separate display panels. On the left screen, a close-up of one man from the telepathic transfer was frozen at the precise instant he appeared to make eye contact with the viewer. The other pane contained a dozen possible matches.

  It took only a minute of flicking through the short list for something to jump out at her. A coincidence too glaring to ignore―a man by the name of Randall Morris was a ninety percent match on the face and a security guard for EnMesh Corporation. Kirsten leaned back in her chair, flicking her eyes on the still-flashing images the system attempted to match to the other man.

  “Think that’s the guy?”

  She glanced up at Dorian, and back to the employee record for Mr. Morris. “Nothing in his file says anything about him having lost an arm or gotten a cybernetic prosthetic. Am I losing my mind or is the relationship to EnMesh strange to you?”

  He glanced at the estimated progress bar on the other process. “We probably have enough time to pay this guy a visit and get back before we have anything else to go on. What about the other close matches?”

  “Morris is the second most likely match at ninety percent. This guy,” she said, flipping two images to the left, “has been on Mars for the past six months working for a geological survey company.”

  Dorian chuckled. “He doesn’t look like a scientist.”

  “Private security force.” Kirsten locked her terminal and stood. “Most of the hits are either mercenaries, criminals, or military. Four of them have been in prison for more than a year.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to Mr. Morris.”

  She took a step for the door, but did a one-eighty toward the locker room. “Yeah. Be right out, gonna grab armor.”

  hree minutes into the flight, the location of Randall Morris’s NetMini appeared on the navigation console. Kirsten pulled back on the stick, rising out of the traffic lane as she hit the bar lights. Blotches of abnormal color shimmered on nearby buildings, aftereffects of the windscreen filtering out glare. She let off the stick as the yellow triangle representing the car’s location and orientation lined up with the distant red dot.

  Her course resulted in a slalom path between buildings as the hovercar cut diagonally across the city’s grid layout. A quarter mile later, a young man with light brown hair appeared as a holographic floating head in the middle of the console.

  “Unit 1815-0I4, request verification for noncompliant traversal of Sector Grid. I’m not seeing any incident alarms active in accordance with your vector at this time.” He blinked at something to his left. “Uhh, 0I4… Division Zero?”

  He looks seventeen. “You look new, Lumford. Is this your first week?”

  “Holy shit, you are psychic.”

  Dorian and Kirsten spoke at the same time, though Junior Tech Lumford only heard her. “Your name is on your uniform.” She leaned into a left swerve around a black glass tower. “Not bad. You’re right about Zero. Do you know what the I stands for?”

  “Uhh…” Lumford’s eyes darted around; he stared at something above his terminal. “Investigation, uhh investigative operations.”

  “Ooh, you really are new. Still have the cheat sheet on your cube wall.” She smiled. “Yep. What else does that tell you?”

  “You’re going to retire someone?” He turned pale.

 
; Kirsten glared, making him jump back in his seat. The holographic head shrank. “No, Lumford. That’s Division Nine. Zero doesn’t assassinate anyone.”

  “We’re here to usher in a new era of service.” Dorian spoke in the cadence of a used-hovercar salesman, fists on his hips and wearing a plastic smile.

  “Ugh, I hated those commercials,” whispered Kirsten.

  “Uhh, I-Ops…” He stared into space for several seconds before looking up. “You’re a detective, not enlisted―an officer.” Lumford remained pale, and fumbled with a salute.

  She returned it. “I’m trying to intercept a potential suspect, Lumford. I’m not using the lights to race home for a mid-day fuck break. I’m not Div One.” The same hand she used to salute cut the comm.

  “Bad mood?” Dorian raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe I’ll send him a text later and apologize for giving him a hard time. It just pisses me off that these jackasses from One skirt traffic protocol constantly, but when I do it for a real issue, I get the just-out-of-the-academy radio guy who wants to boss a couple of beat cops around.”

  “So what’s got you in the bad mood?”

  “I just have this feeling Morris isn’t going to get me anywhere.”

  Both of Dorian’s eyebrows crept upward a tick. “Really? There’s nothing more than that?”

  “I’m worried about Evan, alright? A demon got into my apartment last night and tried to kill us both. So yeah, maybe I’m a little on edge when I get shit for driving diagonally across the city.” she grumbled, twisting her hands around the control sticks. “It feels like whoever is doing this is two steps ahead of me every bit of the way and I feel…” Kirsten’s gaze fell to her lap.

  “You’re not helpless, Kirsten. You never were.” He pointed. “Umm, building.”

  The crash avoidance got off two warning beeps before she swerved, still faster than the automatic override. She rolled through the maneuver, pulling up past the hundredth-story mark and gliding in a graceful arc over the last two miles. Off to the left, the Y-shaped road bisecting this sector into three small districts gleamed in the waning midafternoon sun. On final approach to Morris’s apartment, she shut off the bar lights and circled.