Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “So you’ll help?” asked Evan.

  Shani didn’t look up, too focused on the ball. “I guess.”

  Evan bounced on his toes. “Hey I got you out of cit points. And we’re helping someone.”

  “Okay, fine… When?” Shani missed the incoming ball, which turned into a little dancing figure and held up a ‘score’ sign a few inches in front of her. “You’re distracting me.” She slapped the paddle over the animated ball, but it didn’t react.

  “It’ll have to be after school… probably before we get a ride home. I wanna look up the archives to see how hard it’ll be to get in first.”

  “Okay.” Shani served the intangible ball. “If we get in trouble, I’m gonna be mad at you.”

  “We won’t.” He grinned.

  Nine minutes later, the score had tied 11-11, and the class buzzer sounded. With a mission in mind, having to endure another two hours of school felt more like a burden than ever. A few seconds of grumbling gave way to resignation. Helping Abernathy would take planning. He didn’t have to rush anything; the man had died. Not like he’d get any worse.

  irsten pounded away at a handful of old reports, wrapping up a few bits of bureaucracy from the incident with Konstantin she’d left hanging from a month ago. The mere thought of him made her want to shoot him all over again, but she had to admit a demon devouring his soul topped anything she could do. I don’t think a person could get any more dead than that. Every so often, the memory of a hand creeping up the inside of her leg made her consider showering again.

  At 2:08 p.m., a text message popped up on her desk terminal:

  [D0-Eze, J Captain-O3]: Ghosts are quiet today. You can go home if you want, but you’re on call.

  She bounced in her chair.

  [D0-Wren, K Agent-W4]: Ok. Ty!

  A tap on the holo-panel opened a new chat window.

  [D0-Wren, K Agent-W4]: Nila, I got the all clear to bug. Want me to take Shani?

  [D0-Assad, N Tactical Officer II-E4]: Ok w me. Up 2 her. Thx.

  Kirsten waved at Captain Eze through his office blinds as she jogged out of the squad room, Dorian close behind. The opportunity to not make Evan wait around until her shift ended was a rare treat she couldn’t refuse.

  “What are you going to do with them when they call you in an hour?” asked Dorian.

  Kirsten shot him a look. “Don’t you dare jinx me.”

  “I’m serious, K. You can’t leave a seven and nine year old home alone. You can’t drag them to a scene with you, and there might not be enough time to drop them at the dorm.”

  She grumbled. “I’ll ask Sam over.”

  “He doesn’t get off shift till six.”

  Kirsten stopped in the middle of the hall. “In the six years I’ve been activated, I’ve only run into one entity that’s been strong enough to be such a threat to the living that I wouldn’t have time to drop them off here on the way, and if you’ve just jinxed another Wharf Stalker incident on me, I’m going to… I’m gonna…” She fumed. “Paint your pat-vee pink.”

  Dorian gasped. “You wouldn’t dare. Besides, it’s against policy to use a non-black vehicle in an official capacity.” He grinned. “I think Charazu would’ve been strong enough to hurt someone.”

  “That thing didn’t manifest until I pushed it. And what are the chances―” She pointed at him. “I’m not saying it.”

  She rode the elevator in silence, dreading the mere idea of another ‘demon’ showing up. When the doors finally opened, she walked to the front lobby of the education wing and used her NetMini to send Evan a message to meet her out front as soon as class let out rather than spend three hours in the rec room.

  At 2:11 pm, Evan came sprinting down the main hallway and leapt into a hug, cheering.

  Shani hurried along behind him, struggling with a bright pink backpack. “Hi, Miss Wren.”

  “Hi, Shani.” She gave Evan a squeeze and set him down on his feet. “How’d it go today?”

  Evan cringed. “Uhh, I think I broke one of the teachers.”

  Kirsten raised an eyebrow.

  “She didn’t believe in ghosts…” Evan explained what happened with Mrs. Han.

  Shani smiled. “She’s okay. She wasn’t as mean as usual and kept looking around.”

  “Heh.” Kirsten took them each by the hand and walked out. “Abernathy was here when I lived in the dorms. He used to talk to me at night when I couldn’t sleep.”

  “The man’s crazy.” Dorian tapped his head. “Acts like an overgrown child.”

  “He’s harmless.” Kirsten smiled.

  “Can we go to a Funzone?” asked Evan.

  “I’m technically still on duty, but I got the okay to take off. I might have to respond to a situation.”

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed for a few seconds, but smiled anyway. “What do we do if you gotta go?”

  “Well, if something happens before five, I’ll drop you back off here. Otherwise, Nila’s.”

  Evan looked out at nothing in particular. “Ghosts, please stay quiet tonight.”

  Kirsten laughed. I wish it was that simple. She led the kids to the garage, where they ran ahead in a race to the patrol craft. She eyed the NetMini on her belt. Whatever’s haunting the senator… please take the night off.

  Nicole appeared at Kirsten’s desk at 10:08 the next morning. A strawberry-mocha latte floated away from the box in her arms as she passed, and glided to land in front of her. The redhead trudged, absent the usual spring in her step, and slumped in her chair against the left wall of the squad room.

  Kirsten minimized the cheesy arcade spaceship game on her terminal and swiveled ninety degrees left to face her friend’s back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing other than having been awake until almost six this morning.” Nicole yawned. “Total Mongolian clusterfuck last night.”

  Dorian sputtered.

  “Mongolian?” Kirsten lifted the seal off the lid of her coffee and took a long sip. “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a place in China,” said Dorian.

  Nicole stretched, yawned again, and opened a carton to reveal a breakfast burrito. “I dunno. It sounded more intense to add it. ‘Mongolian clusterfuck’ has a certain… something that a plain old run-of-the-mill clusterfuck doesn’t.” She lifted her egg-stuffed tortilla and let out an exhausted sigh. “It was a complete mess. Bunch of psionics decide to start a damned gang war in Sector 9924. Place turned out to be a ripper doc’s lab. They found like four million credits in black market body parts. Div One went in, not realizing psionics were involved, and by the time we got there, at least four of them are shooting at anything that moves―even us.”

  Kirsten shivered. “W-what happened to them?”

  Nicole flashed a weary smile. “I have three more images for my wall of derp.”

  “Hey, did you notice… when she’s exhausted, she stays on topic for more than ten seconds?” asked Dorian.

  “You disarmed them?” Kirsten let off a sigh of relief, glancing at all the images Nicole had printouts of the faces suspects made when she yanked their weapons away with telekinesis.

  Nicole spent a moment inhaling her burrito. Egg bits dribbled all over her desk. “Yeah. There was a pretty nasty pyro involved… chucking fireballs at us.”

  She winced. “Ouch. Was Nila there?”

  “Yeah. She kept him busy. So we’re like having this Mongolian standoff.”

  “Mexican,” muttered Dorian.

  “And like this massive dude comes running out, with two metal arms and huge blades sticking out of his fingers. He’s screaming like a lovesick moose. Gets his hand under the front end of a damned Div One pat-vee, and flips it.”

  “Someone with that much aug had to be a pushover for a suggestive.” Kirsten sniffed her coffee, unable to decide if she wanted to cradle the warmth or drink it.

  “Yeah, if we had one that would’a been nice.” Nicole grumbled. “So, Captain Torres is screaming over comms that we need Div 5 on site t
o deal with this insane borg, but the giant bastard takes off running. Benitez lifted a surface thought before the guy vanished, said it was all kinds of scrambled in there… but he was trying to save some kid. He must’ve been on some wild chems; he thought the little girl’s eyes were glowing blue.”

  Kirsten put a hand to her stomach to quell a churn. “Please don’t tell me they found a kid in there.”

  “We did find bloody footprints going out the back door. Based on size, Div 2 estimated around ten years old.”

  Kirsten’s heart sank. “Oh, no.”

  “Relax. Whoever it was got away. They only stepped in blood, didn’t look like they were hurt. Jody tried to get a psychometric reading from the procedure chair, but… ugh. I think she’s still screaming. Lotta people died on that thing. So the borg runs off, no sign of any little kid―with or without glowing eyes.” Nicole took two more bites, holding a finger up while she chewed. “Must’ve gotten away before we showed up. Wasn’t much left of the ripper doc either. Total hamburger case. They think the psycho-borg pulped him.”

  “That sounds like a mess.” Kirsten sucked on her latte like a baby with a bottle, feeling guilty at having a half-day yesterday.

  “Here’s the best part.” Nicole swiveled her chair around to face Kirsten, showing off dark rings under her eyes.

  “It gets better?”

  “Yeah.” Nicole yawned again. “We fight our way inside, and get the psionics pinned. Div One is hanging back, watching the front door. Next thing we know, time jumps five minutes forward and all seven of the psionic suspects are gone.”

  Kirsten blinked. “Are you saying they like… teleported?”

  “That’s what it looked like, but they think something made us all black out at the same time. No one remembers anything but watching the suspects disappear. I can’t even tell you what their faces looked like. Something even got into our armor cams and backed up the recording. The cars outside are the only reason we know like five minutes passed.”

  “That’s impossible.” Kirsten blinked. “Telepaths can’t make people forget things in an instant; it takes time and concentration… plus knocking a whole tactical squad senseless at the same time?”

  Nicole’s eyebrows formed a flat line across her head. “That’s why we were stuck there till six in the morning. They kept trying to figure out what happened to us. We couldn’t leave the scene.”

  “Had to be a chemical agent,” said Dorian. “Maybe C-Branch got involved. They’ve got stuff no one knows about.”

  Kirsten turned her chair another ninety degrees to look at Dorian, seated at the desk behind hers. “Why would C-Branch care about an organ harvester?”

  He shrugged. “Makes about as much sense as the idea of a telepath erasing the memories of multiple people in a few seconds.”

  “You should request the day,” said Kirsten. “You’re in no shape to go out there like that.”

  Nicole mumbled incoherent things into her food.

  “Wren,” yelled Captain Eze.

  “Someone should tell him they have these things called intercoms,” said Dorian.

  Kirsten laughed as she stood. “At least he sounds in a good mood.”

  She trotted to his office. “Sir?”

  “We’ve received a report of unexplained phenomena. Sounds like an easy one.” He touched his terminal with one finger and concentrated for two seconds. “There.” Her NetMini pinged. “I’ve sent you the particulars.”

  “On my way.” She started to leave, but whirled back. “Captain, Nicole’s in bad shape. You should probably let her go home and sleep.”

  “Her and fifteen others.” He shook his head. “Not practical; however, tell her to flop in the barracks. I’ll leave her and Forrester alone if at all possible.”

  Kirsten saluted, smiling. “Yes, sir.”

  She stopped by Nicole’s desk on the way to the door. “Eze said go to the barracks and warm a bed.”

  “Great.” Nicole dragged herself upright.

  When the elevator doors parted, Morelli stumbled into the hall looking dead on his feet.

  “Tom?” Kirsten waved a hand in front of his face. “Eze’s cleared you guys to crash in the barracks.”

  “That sounds like a good―” His eyes snapped open. “Kirsten.”

  “Boo.” She frowned.

  Morelli looked left and right.

  She smiled. “Yes, he’s right next to me.”

  He hurried out of the squad room. Kirsten headed down the hall to the elevator and hit the button for the garage level. Dorian whistled to himself until the elevator stopped.

  “At least he’s not afraid of you, per se.” Dorian walked while doing a full circle spin on the way out into the hall. “No demons following you today.”

  “Let’s not bring that up. I’d like to go at least a year without running into another one of those things. On second thought, let’s make that forever.”

  “Here’s hoping,” said Dorian.

  She checked her gear on the way to the patrol craft. Satisfied, she climbed in and pulled the gull wing door down. With a chirp, the computer in her armband sent the information from Captain Eze to the car’s terminal, and up on the screen.

  The face of a middle-aged woman with coppery-brown skin and black hair appeared. To the right, text identified her as forty-nine-year-old Julia Dominguez. No criminal record, but three citations for operating a ground vehicle at ‘speeds incompatible with public safety,’ the most recent of which occurred over eleven years ago.

  Kirsten poked the link to the recorded call, and listened to Julia explain that bizarre things have been happening around her home: her dog barking as if someone was inside, doors opening, lights going on and off, and the occasional feeling of someone watching her. She complained that the police didn’t help, but they got sick of her calling so they gave her the link to contact Division 0.

  “This one sounds pretty simple.” Kirsten smiled. “Probably a previous tenant that doesn’t like her in the place.”

  “She’s lived there thirty years.” Dorian pointed at another panel, with the woman’s financial, employment, and tax records.

  “Sometimes it takes a while for a spirit to learn how to do things.” She shut down the file and drove out of the garage before hovering up to altitude.

  Again, with no emergency code, she flew like an ordinary passenger hovercar. While waiting at a midair traffic signal, she glanced up and left at a NewsNet bot. The thirty-yard wide holo-panel showed reporter Kimberly Brightman discussing a ‘hostage situation’ with Division 0 involvement.

  “Our sources within the National Police Force have confirmed psionic individuals present, though we are unsure at this time if the psionics were the victims or the hostage takers. I am pleased to report that the situation was resolved without any loss of life.”

  Kirsten scowled as the screen cut to an advertisement for self-warming breakfast waffles.

  “You do realize that three fourths of our job is PR, right?” Dorian held up a finger. “Amend that. Half. A quarter is filling out reports.”

  She couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh. “Whatever happened to the truth?”

  “Society doesn’t want truth. They want safety. Command doesn’t want truth either; they want people not starting a witch hunt on psionics.”

  Kirsten accelerated when the signal flashed green, fast enough to leave the traffic behind her looking stationary. “You don’t think people would understand? Someone commits a crime with a gun, they don’t blame guns. A psionic commits a crime, why do they blame all psionics?”

  “Easy targets.” He grumbled. “You missed a lot of school. Used to be they did blame all guns… or at least people who wanted to make things political did. Guy shoots someone and everyone went crazy about guns. Of course, no one really remembers that nowadays. A psionic commits a crime, so all psionics are ticking bombs. History is just repeating itself.”

  “So you think it’s wonderful that everyone in the city is carr
ying weapons?” She slowed back to a reasonable speed, eyeing the navigation light-ribbon where it swerved to the right up ahead past an octagonal office building that resembled three stacks of pancakes.

  “If a guy really wants to kill someone, they’ll find a way to do it gun or not… but I suppose convenience plays a factor. The politicians don’t care as much now. Civilian firearms can’t penetrate police armor, and there’s too many people in the city. I think the government wants people killing each other. I suppose they look at it like a body ridding itself of disease.”

  “That’s so wrong.” She shuddered. “I hope you’re just being cynical.”

  “Am I? Cramming three quarters of a billion people together on top of each other and giving everyone free access to weapons? Bullets are cheaper than social support services.”

  Kirsten glared at him. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or trying to torment me.”

  “Eh, maybe a little jaded. I’ve been working on my deadpan.”

  “Die.” She scowled.

  He winked. “Already did.”

  Eighteen minutes later, she landed on the roof of a residence tower in a middle-income area. A twenty-foot square enclosure allowed elevators up to the roof and offered the optional torture of a stairwell. Dorian, still smirking, followed her to the elevator and down to the 63rd floor. Kirsten kept her senses opened to her surroundings, but didn’t get a read on anything by the time she arrived at apartment 63-33.

  “Hmm.” Dorian chuckled. “333. That’s half the beast.”

  Kirsten rolled her eyes as she hit the doorbell. “Stop talking about demons.”

  A rainbow pixel glowed on the face of the door about twenty seconds later.

  “Oh, the police,” said a woman’s voice via a speaker. The door slid to the side with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the woman from the case documentation, only thinner and paler. Most of her shape vanished under a heavy blue sweater. “Come in. You are with the… special police?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Kirsten looked around at a living room done in shades of blue with white trim. A long, shallow cabinet of drawers on the right held something on the order of fifty tiny holo-bars displaying portraits of three boys and two girls all the way from infancy to early twenties. One lonely charcoal-grey disc bot made its way back and forth across the carpet, cleaning.