“Wow, I thought I lived in a dive. The map must be wrong; this looks like a grey zone.”
“Nah, Sector 40 is just a bad part of town. There’s no disavowed areas anywhere near here.”
Landing on the roof proved easier than expected. While not designed for residents to own hovercars, the building had two landing pads for emergency vehicles. While jogging from the car to the door, Kirsten glanced at the slab of light bobbing over her left arm, and confirmed her target was still here―or at least his NetMini was―far below on the fifth floor.
She stared at the floor ticker in the elevator as it counted down.
“Something wrong with your arm?” asked Dorian.
“No.”
“You keep fidgeting with the arm guard.”
“Oh, just Konstantin’s bracelet.” She smiled at the sound of his name.
“You should have left it in your locker. It’s as thick as a finger. It could break your wrist if you get hit in the arm.”
“Someone might steal it.” She put the uncomfortable tightness under the rigid armor out of her mind. “Besides, it will bring me luck.”
“Are you feeling alright, K? I’m not used to seeing you go from anxious and moody to grinning so fast.”
“You grumble at me for being short with the radio guy, and now you’re grumbling at me for being too chipper?” She blinked. “What do you want me to do?”
“Now I know something’s wrong with you, K. You’re not this belligerent.”
She drew in a breath, finger up, but stopped when the doors opened. “Maybe I am just shitting bricks that I’m not gonna be able to save Vernon. Stupid council.”
Kirsten stomped past six apartment doors before hanging a right and passing three more. Turning on her heel, she raised her boot to smash the door in. Wait. Foot down, she slid gloved fingers under her visor to rub her face. I don’t even know for sure this guy is involved yet. Slow down.
“I think you might need a vacation, K―after we figure this one out.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She pushed the door buzzer.
A blink of her eye aimed at just the right spot switched on tactical mode. Sensors in the armor rendered the apartment on the other side of the wall in a wireframe of glowing lines traced over the real world. Toward the back right corner, a hazy figure loped out of a hallway and leaned into the living room.
“Fuck off, I’m not buying shit.”
“Mr. Morris, I’m with the police. I have a few questions to ask you.”
The shimmering outline of a man shuddered and sprinted across the room to what appeared to be a closet door. When he leaned back, he fumbled with a large rifle.
“He’s going for a gun!” Kirsten backed away from the door.
“On it.” Dorian leapt through the wall.
“Console, command override.” Kirsten looked at the apartment door and blinked. A rectangle of yellow light flickered over it, as if the door itself reacted in the manner of a clicked-on desktop icon. “Shit, this is a lot faster than my armband.”
The door snapped open, allowing the sound of Randall Morris’s cursing into the hall. He rattled a power-drained rifle, smacking it with a metal right hand. Kirsten ducked in, E-90 aimed.
“On the floor, Morris.”
He hurled the firearm at her, making her flinch enough to foil her aim as he ducked around a wall and sprinted down a hallway leading into the back. Kirsten wobbled on a loose rug as she avoided the weapon, which stuck into the drywall, and ran after him. Rapid motion and numerous walls thwarted the HUD on her visor. She had no warning as she rounded the corner into the hallway and found a small, black canister bouncing toward her.
“Shi―”
She crossed her arms over her face as the deafening explosion of a stun grenade threw her to the ground and into a sliding skid. The visor blocked out most of the flash, though the concussion left her paralyzed and disoriented. When a large, meaty hand clamped around her neck and lifted her into the air, her brain snapped out of it, but her body did not. Kirsten moaned, trying to get her right arm to raise the E-90, but she felt less coordinated than Brooke hopped up on muscle relaxants.
Randall grinned at his helpless target, taking his time to flutter the fingers of his cybernetic left arm as he balled it into a fist. He twitched as Dorian attempted to grab him, glaring with confusion at the odd sensation.
With only her brain free of the effect of the blast and her vision spared by the visor, Kirsten focused on the presence of Randall’s mind. A rapid assault of psionic energy knocked him loopy. His hand opened and Kirsten fell straight down like a sack of meat packed in tactical armor.
A little cartoon face surrounded by animated sweat droplets appeared on the right side of her HUD. “Stim-suit not detected, automatic adrenaline cannot be deployed.”
“Fuck you, too.”
Randall staggered down to one knee, holding his head. “Ngh, what the hell?”
Dorian continued trying to apply a technically perfect police ass whipping, but the minimal solidity he generated did not have much effect on the titanic Morris. Kirsten dragged herself away, fear and anger conspiring to force her stunned muscles back into compliance. She pulled herself up with the help of a small table full of mock hand grenades from various eras, and whirled into a kick. Her boot caught Randall on the side of the head, knocking him flat. On top of the mind blast, the impact caused him to vomit.
She pounced on his back, gathering his still-human right arm in a chicken wing hold.
“He’s gonna snap the binders with that thing, you need a medusa.” Dorian scowled at his inability to do more than offer advice.
“Don’t have one.” She held the E-90 to the back of Randall’s head. “Don’t move shithead. Console, comms, operations. Request backup, my location. Suspect augmented.”
“Copy that, Agent.” A woman’s face shimmered in on the left side of the HUD long enough to speak three words.
She leaned forward, bracing her left arm across the back of his neck. Her weight balanced half on her knees and half where she sat on the small of his back. Morris grumbled and coughed up a bubble of puke. Kirsten grinned to herself. Even if this idiot won’t talk, all I have to do is ask and he’ll think about it.
“Who are you working fo―”
Question became scream.
Kirsten gaped in shock at the seething hot vibro-blade embedded through the armor on her left thigh. The two-inch wide weapon had sprung to the rear from the elbow of the cyberlimb, and gone deep enough into her thigh to find bone. As if the pain of a stab wound was not bad enough, the hypersonic oscillations heated it beyond agony.
In one motion, Randall yanked the blade out, sending his left arm forward as he came around with a right elbow that knocked Kirsten into the wall. The scent of burned blood and cooked meat rose into the air. He continued the spin to face her and leapt, tackling her flat while covering her helmet with his metal left hand. Plastisteel fingers squeezed. Aiming with hope, she brought the E-90 around and fired. It missed, but it was close enough to cause him to let go of the helmet and grab the gun.
Able to see, she tilted the pistol toward his face and fired. He pulled down to save himself, causing the beam to drag across his left bicep―severing it. What few strands of flesh remained intact succumbed in seconds to the weight of a metal arm, which thudded to the ground between her boots.
Howling, his cauterized stump wagging, an enraged Randall Morris palmed the top of Kirsten’s helmet and rammed her head into his knee. Kirsten fell, dazed. Her armor absorbed most of the impact, but the hit left her staring at a spinning hallway.
Dorian shouted as he forced himself into the world of the living, a trace of glowing skull shimmered through his skin. “Get away from her!”
Seven-foot, 340-pound Randall Morris shrieked with the voice of a six-year-old girl. After soiling himself, he sprinted down the rest of the hallway and dove headfirst through the window. Several seconds later, the deep, echoing whump of a body striking a
dumpster rang out. Kirsten tried to stand, but collapsed with both hands on her left thigh, screaming. Dorian dropped to one knee and grabbed her shoulders.
“Go, chase him. Find him. There’s no one else here.”
“I don’t want to―”
“I’m not helpless. Go. Don’t let the fucker get away.”
Dorian closed his eyes, shaking his head. He leapt to his feet and ran down through the floor. Kirsten dragged herself against the wall, unable to hold back wails of pain as her leg moved. Outside, sirens closed in on the area.
Captain Eze’s face appeared on the left side of her visor. “Wren, your armor’s transmitting crazy bio readings. What happened?”
“Got stabbed in the thigh. Bleeding a little.” Kirsten glanced at the scarily large stain on the rug under her. “Shit, I’m in trouble. Nicked the femoral. I shot a cyberarm off this bastard…” She slumped to the ground. “Make sure it gets to Div Two.”
Dorian’s face filled her visor. She looked up, unable to speak. He leaned closer, his hands settled on the sides of her head and slipped down to her shoulders. Lightheadedness came on worse. The last thing she remembered was a blanketing of cold all over and the sound of approaching boots.
Warm.
Weightless.
Goop.
Yay. Naked time. Her hands confirmed it. Well, at least I’m alive.
“Agent Wren, we’re about to drain the tank. You may experience some lingering discomfort in your thigh. The pain is only in your head; your leg is no longer injured.”
She reached up and gathered her hair tight to her neck, leaving her eyes closed as she let gravity take her down to a seated position at the base of the medical tank. Before the doctor said a word, she assumed the position: head down, ass in the air. Choking the breathable gel out of her lungs felt less like drowning and more like a bad flu this time. The clear glass barrier rotated and sank into the floor, letting cold air wash over her. She sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth off on the back of her arm. After a moment of savoring the breeze on her face, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she did was examine the pale strip in the middle of her left thigh, a scrap of brand new skin that did not match the older tissue around it. She held her arms away from her body, cringing at the sensation of the slippery gel all over her becoming sticky at exposure to air. Her attempt to be casual at the situation caused her to slip and fall as she tried to walk to the shower tube unassisted. A medtech and an actual doctor helped her up and wrapped her in a towel. The tech swabbed at her in an effort to remove as much of the substance as he could.
She coughed, spitting up more into a teal tray one of them handed her.
“You may be woozy for a few hours, Agent. You lost quite a bit of blood. In some ways, it was good he had a vibro blade. It partially cauterized the vessel and slowed the bleeding. Also, whatever psionic talent you used to cool your body off helped. I think it made the difference.”
“That would be a ghost saving my life.” She offered a weak smile, and walked with them to the autoshower.
The medical staff exchanged a glance as she let the towel fall.
“After you get cleaned up, you should go eat something.” The doctor looked at her stomach and hips. “Preferably something with protein.”
“Thanks.” Kirsten blinked as she reached out to activate the wash cycle, noticing the gold bracelet still on her wrist. Not even one carved scale was out of place. She glanced at the medical tank for a moment, then back at the jewelry. Strange. I guess nanobots don’t have a taste for gold.
Kirsten looked up from the tray of food, a silly grin aimed at Evan.
He stared at her, still red-eyed. The smile he cracked was only for her benefit.
“Sorry I scared you.”
Evan pushed mashed potatoes around his tray.
“Hey, you helped. They know you’re clairvoyant, sweetie. When you got scared, they came looking for me.”
He pushed his tray across so it was next to hers and crawled under the table to her side. She squeezed his shoulder and ran her hand through his hair. He nibbled on a nugget of battered vat-grown chicken. Watching him tease his food around for another few minutes without eating was too much for her, and she broke into sobs and pulled him into a hug.
After a moment, he squirmed around and stared at her. His look of worry became one of calm, and he smiled. Kirsten gathered her emotions and let him cling, continuing to stroke his hair as he ate as though nothing was wrong. His sudden acceptance made her feel uneasy. Well, I suppose it’s a good sign when a clairvoyant stops worrying about you getting hurt. She smirked. Guess that means I’ll live at least another few months.
irsten fell back in her chair with both hands over her face, a little after eight. The last of the reports done, she finally had a moment to breathe. At the sound of a chime from her terminal, she split her fingers apart to stare through them at the window that popped into prominence. Citycams came up blank for hits on the second face; however, a cross-division feeler got a hit from Nine.
The result was an eighty-two percent match on a man named Nafiz Ajouri, suspected of being involved with international smuggling. Kirsten poked the screen, scooting up to her desk as she read over various details: art objects, historic relics, corporate intelligence, even a handful of cases of reported human trafficking. Fortunately, he was listed as “low” for risk of violence.
She stared at the file image, trying to reconcile it against her memory of reading Brooke’s mind. It was just as likely to be him as not. Profile searches suck. This is next to useless. Kirsten tapped her fingers on the desk, frowned, and crosschecked Nafiz Ajouri against any ACC affiliation with Kukla or VSKK. Kirsten’s head went in a spiral as she followed the spinning ‘please wait’ icon. Somewhere, deep in cyberspace, hundreds of thousands of transactions collided in a spectacular storm of electrons. Vid calls, financial exchanges, medical records, all possible points where the entity of Nafiz Ajouri may have had contact with either company. Two hundred miles away, she imagined a CPU core somewhere got one degree warmer.
“Why are you comparing him to those two companies?”
Kirsten shot upright in her chair, screaming as Captain Eze’s question came out of nowhere from behind. “Holy shit…” She grabbed her chest. “Sir… Sorry.” Blush. “Umm, because I don’t have ninety-one days to check him against every Russian corporate entity.”
He allowed a trace of apology to leak through his smile. “I think you should trust your instincts.”
Beep.
Kirsten squinted. “What the hell is Koloss Venture Capital? How the hell did the search give me that?”
“Probably a few layers in,” said Eze, rounding her desk on the way to his office. “Let me know if you need any assistance.”
“ Can you ask the council to let me sneak up on Commissioner Vernon?”
Eze’s voice echoed from inside his office, a baritone half-shout. “I said assistance, not act of God.”
Kirsten poked the line on the holo-panel. Koloss VC had issued a payment to Nafiz for Ͼ400,000 five months ago. The comments held little of use, something about an expedition to North Africa. Probably smuggling some priceless national treasure into Russia.
The VidPhone on her desk went off, scaring the second shriek out of her in five minutes. Eze got up to give her a quizzical look.
Wren, are you alright? You seem wound rather tight lately.
She looked at him with a sad stare. I have three days left to stop Division Nine from murdering an innocent woman. Can’t you call that off?
He sent a defeated gaze at the floor, shaking his head.
“Kirsten?” Samuel Chang’s smiling face shimmered into view over her desk, a life-sized hologram.
“Hi, Sam.”
“How are you doing?” He leaned on his hand. Even if she could not see his mouth, his eyes told her how wide his smile was.
She tried not to take out her mood on him. “I’m having a shitty week. Quite shitty
actually. Post-bad-Mexican-food shitty. I almost bled to death a few hours ago, got attacked in my own apartment by a demon a day ago… Oh yeah, in three more days, the government is gonna murder someone unless I prove them wrong. So, yeah, I’m just fucking peachy keen.”
“If there’s anything I can do for you, Kirsten, please ask. I…” He looked to his right twice, and spun back with a smile. “I have a hit on the cyberarm you recovered. It’s an Intera Iron Claw series. Very similar in handprint to a NinTek Warrior. Factoring in that bizarre withering effect, this arm is a ninety-four percent probable match. It’s only a little weaker than military grade and a competent tweaker can get it up to mil-spec. Civilians need a permit for these bad boys, like energy weapons. I traced the lot number for this puppy to a shipment headed for a body shop by the name of Plastisteel Dreamz. With a z.”
“Of course they mangle it.” Kirsten rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that z increases revenue by twenty percent over an s.”
Dorian cracked up laughing, appearing in the chair at his desk behind her.
“Even when you are angry, you are very pretty.” Sam paled, and seemed embarrassed at having blurted his thoughts.
Kirsten smiled at him. The sudden pain in her stomach barely registered compared to her leg. “Thanks. I gotta find this shithead.” She grabbed her thigh. “This time I’m inclined to interrogate his ghost. Can you send me a pin for that store?”
“Sure thing.” He couldn’t look at her now.
She got up, locking her terminal after the call dropped. “Crap, my tac armor is still getting fixed.” NetMini out. Two seconds later, Evan appeared. “Hey, kiddo. I’m gonna go to a store and check something out. You feel anything bad?”
He made a series of faces, calling to mind his autoshower impression of the wizard Monwyn. “Nope.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
She went to hang up, but he blurted, “Wait, the cat is hurt. Be nice to the kitty.”
Division Zero: Thrall Page 29