Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  An oblong mass of black fur trotted out from behind a periwinkle blue sofa and yapped at Dorian. He waved at the miniature Schnauzer, but the dog only snarled louder.

  “Oh, no! The spirit, it is back.” Mrs. Dominguez clutched at her chest, eyes wide.

  “Calm down, Ma’am. I have a spirit with me. He’s here to help.”

  The little dog continued barking, bouncing in place.

  “Y-you bring a ghost with you? I ask you to get rid of one, not bring more.” She fanned herself.

  “He’s Division 0 too, Ma’am. Killed in the line of duty. You have nothing to fear from him.”

  “Well, all right, but… I don’t know.” Mrs. Dominguez snapped her fingers at the dog. “Bridget, quiet.”

  Kirsten put on her ‘trust me’ smile. “I understand you’ve been having things happen? Doors opening and closing, lights flickering… the dog barking?”

  “Yes. All of this.” She gathered her sweater closed. “Can you get it to leave me alone?”

  Kirsten wandered deeper into the room, peering down a short hallway and into the kitchen alcove. “Is it okay if I look around?”

  “Go ahead.” Mrs. Dominguez picked the still-growling dog up and carried her to the sofa.

  The animal squirmed to keep facing Dorian as he glided by, heading for the master bedroom. Kirsten explored a small dining area, the kitchen, a little bathroom and two sub-bedrooms (one peach and one blue) still decorated as if teens lived there. She stood in the hall, glancing back and forth between two sets of stacked beds necessary to allow five siblings to share two bedrooms. The size of the senator’s house annoyed her all over again.

  “Anything?” asked Dorian. “Master bedroom’s got a little feeling to it.”

  “Rest of the place is dead.” Kirsten skirted around him and went in to the last room. Sure enough, the walls resonated with a latent presence. “This feels angry, but not too strong.”

  Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose. “I used to like dogs. Really. That one is driving me up the wall.”

  “Argh.” She set her hands on her hips. “This is so frustrating.”

  “You think it’s the same ghost from the senator’s?” He looked around. “Maybe we have a serial prankster.”

  Kirsten followed the strongest sense of presence to a spot near the bed, by the nightstand. She held her hands out, palms oriented at the floor, fingers spread. “He―the energy feels male―was standing here for a little while.”

  “Think he was pulling a Theo on Mrs. Dominguez?”

  She shook her head. “No, too angry. Also too weak for me to tell if it’s the same entity.”

  “Husband?” asked Dorian.

  Kirsten forced air past her lips as she shrugged. With nothing else to do, she returned to the living room. “Mrs. Dominguez?”

  “Is the ghost gone?” The woman stood, holding the dog under her left arm like a purse. It snarled in Dorian’s direction. “T-that’s your friend, correct?”

  “Yes. I was able to sense the presence of a spirit, but he’s not here right now. I’m sorry if this is a painful question, but I assume you have or had a husband at some point?”

  Mrs. Dominguez nodded. “Yes. Eric. We divorced four years ago.”

  “So he isn’t dead?” asked Kirsten.

  “Not as far as I know. I think they would have told me that.” She appeared light-headed and lowered herself to sit, clutching the dog in her lap. “He didn’t even visit when I was in the hospital.”

  Kirsten walked to the left so the woman didn’t have to twist her neck to maintain eye contact. “Can you think of anyone who might’ve died within the past ten or twenty years who may hold a grudge against you or somehow blame you for their death?”

  “No. I keep to myself. I work virtually, so I only rarely go outside.”

  “May I ask what you do?” Kirsten surveyed a holo-bar projector and coffee table full of small religious figurines. Much to her surprise, she didn’t roll her eyes at them.

  “I do logistics―clerical work for the military. Keeping track of uniforms, armor, drop buildings, vehicles, and such.”

  “Ask her if there’s even a remote chance an error she made might’ve cost lives in the field.” Dorian rubbed his chin.

  Kirsten relayed the question.

  “Oh, no.” Mrs. Dominguez looked offended, but shot her disapproving scowl at the wall. “I suppose you must ask these things.”

  “I’m sure you’re good at what you do, but I need to cover all possible angles.” Kirsten bit her lip. “You mentioned you were in the hospital? Did you share a room with someone who passed away?”

  “Yes, I was in the hospital, but no… no one around me died. Please, you must do something about this ghost. My new heart cannot take this much longer.” She patted her chest.

  “New heart?” Kirsten blinked.

  “I was born with a congenital defect, but it was mild enough not to cause problems until last year.” She coughed into a tissue. “My health plan covered regeneration, but my DNA would’ve come up with the same defect. Altering my DNA got deemed too expensive unless I was about ready to drop dead. I got lucky. A donor organ became available. I’d been waiting almost eight months.”

  “Is that long?” Kirsten tilted her head.

  “Well, not many people donate these days what with all that fancy regeneration. The donor organ wound up being much cheaper anyway. Something like three hundred thousand compared to two-point-two million for the DNA adjustment plus making my body re-grow a new heart.” Mrs. Dominguez lost her grip on the dog, which ran circles around Dorian, barking. She waved at it. “Bridget, be quiet!”

  The dog stopped only for three seconds.

  Dorian gave it an ‘I’m so tempted’ look.

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Dominguez, “if I was going to die, they’d have had to cover it.”

  “Assuming they made the decision fast enough.” Dorian grumbled.

  Kirsten pursed her lips. “You think it might be the donor?”

  “Organ donors are usually willing.” Dorian chuckled. “If whoever the heart came from agreed to be a donor, I don’t see why they’d be pissed off.”

  “They raided a ripper doc’s place last night… What if it was an illegal donation?”

  Mrs. Dominguez wheezed. “I went to the Empyrean Life Science Center. That is not a small hospital, officer.”

  Kirsten pulled it up on her armband display. The hospital campus took up almost a third of a sector, with three high-rises as well as a recovery park. “Well, so much for that.”

  “Zero for two. What about bringing in a clairvoyant? Evan?” Dorian raised an eyebrow.

  “No. I’m not going to involve him in an official investigation.” She ran a hand through her hair, scratching her scalp. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and he won’t wind up in I-Ops.”

  “And I might come back to life.” Dorian put a cool hand on her shoulder. “They’re going to lean on him. He’s only the second Astral Sensate within 1300 miles. At least chasing spirits is less chances of him getting shot at.”

  “You have been with me the past couple of months, right? This is supposed to be safer?”

  Dorian chuckled. “Point.”

  Mrs. Dominguez kept a polite silence, though her expression made it seem as though she regarded Kirsten as having a loose grip on sanity. “Can you remove the spirit? I am afraid for my life. Last night I awoke unable to breathe. I felt like a weight sat on my chest.” The woman blessed herself. “I think the new heart was ready to quit, but whatever was doing that stopped all of a sudden.”

  Kirsten paced. “I’m… There’s no one who you think would be upset with you. The heart came from a respected medical facility. As far as I can tell, the entity has left. All I can do right now is give you a PID to call if it comes back and try to show up while it’s still here.”

  “This sounds familiar.” Dorian folded his arms, sighing.

  Mrs. Dominguez looked down. “Will you be here fast enough to st
op it from killing me?”

  “I’m sorry.” Kirsten cringed. “I wish I had more to go on. Can you think of anything else? Even if you had nothing to do with it, someone who might blame you for their death?”

  Dorian feigned a lunge at the dog, which darted into the back room, crying.

  “I…” The woman startled at the unexpected departure of Bridget. “Is it back?”

  “I’m sorry. My friend was tired of hearing your dog bark at him.”

  Mrs. Dominguez frowned. “I don’t know why it would want to hurt me.”

  Kirsten looked around. “I’ll run the history on this apartment. Maybe it’s a previous occupant. Sometimes it takes ghosts a long time to build up enough strength to affect the living. It could be as simple as a territorial spirit who views you as invading their home.”

  “Bridget has never acted out before. All the years I have lived here, there has never been anything strange.”

  Kirsten waved her NetMini at the one on the coffee table. Both devices chirped. “I sent you my contact tag. Vid me anytime it starts happening again, okay?”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Dominguez stood. “Please tell me if you find anything in the records.”

  “I will.” Kirsten followed the woman to the door. “Sorry I couldn’t do more, but… ghosts aren’t exactly routine. Every one of them is a different situation.”

  “I know you are trying your best.” Mrs. Dominguez smiled. “I hope it’s enough.”

  Kirsten sighed at the door as it closed.

  “Feels like what happened at the senator’s.” Dorian started for the elevator, but stopped when Kirsten remained still. “Coming?”

  “There’s anger in that residue. I think the spirit wanted to hurt her. The heart’s a weak point… vulnerable after an operation like that.” She dragged herself away, shouldering a weight of guilt at not being able to do more. “If that woman dies, I’m going to feel like shit.”

  “Maybe Evan can learn something? I know you’re trying to protect him, but it’s not like this is a bad neighborhood.”

  “He’s nine, Dorian. I told you: I’m not involving him in an official investigation. Who knows what sorts of visions he could get from spirit energy. What if it scares him senseless? I can’t risk that. If I don’t get anything from the records, I’ll try to talk Easley into coming out here.”

  “Good luck. She’s Admin for a reason. She’d probably pass out if you suggested going into the field. Evan’s got more balls than she does.”

  “I’d rather bring a twenty-five year old Senior Specialist scared shitless of her own shadow than a nine-year-old child who doesn’t know enough to be careful.” She punched the elevator call button. “This is pissing me off.”

  “What about beaconing for him?”

  She stepped into the elevator, spun on her heel to face the door, and grumbled. “I need to have some sense of who first or I’ll just get every curious spirit within a hundred miles showing up… and it would be just my luck that one of them would like her apartment and stay there.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Endless barking…”

  “Something like that.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Dorian clasped his hands behind him. “Perhaps this guy is weak and he’s draining himself with these minor attacks. Could be why there’s several days between reports.”

  “So you do think it’s the same ghost as the one bothering Senator Winchester?”

  “MO is similar. But bumps and bangs in the night aren’t exactly unique.”

  She stormed across the roof to the car once the elevator opened. “Let’s start with property records.”

  Dorian gestured at the patrol craft. “After you.”

  irsten darted along a darkened section of sidewalk in the shadow of a decaying warehouse, following the pale amber line of the waypoint provided by her helmet’s HUD. Comm chatter offered sporadic updates regarding the movements of the Ridge Hill Crew. A force of at least forty armed gang members rushed a police line less than two blocks from her current position.

  She leapt across a puddle to avoid making noise, and ducked for cover in a spot where a recessed channel ran up the length of the building. The hollow disguised the gap between pre-fab sections of the high-rise as an architectural element, and she used it as cover to catch her breath and gain her bearings. Her helmet tracked her eye motions, dragging the minimap out and expanding it across the HUD. Blue triangles representing police moved in clusters of three to five, attempting to corral a disorganized swarm of red dots.

  Why is he bothering with this elaborate scenario? This isn’t tactical training.

  After shrinking the map, she ran out from her hiding spot and headed for the first possible right turn into an alley wide enough to be a four-lane road. Slick with rain, the plastisteel ground shone like a lake of blue light from the moon overhead, darkened in spots wherever grime or trash lay undisturbed. Despite knowing she essentially played a video game, the perceptible reality of her surroundings kept her on edge.

  With a tremendous crash of metal-on-metal, a forklift crashed through the door of an abandoned warehouse up ahead, sending two dumpsters spinning and screeching, while a handful of smaller trash canisters went flying. Warped steel slats clattered to the ground, drowning out the murderous roar coming from a huge man hanging off the left side. Tires squealed as the somewhat smaller driver fought to get his ungainly vehicle to turn toward her.

  On instinct, she drew her sidearm and fired five times into the front end of the lift before realizing the sim had given her a standard Class 4 ballistic weapon. The 10mm slugs bounced off the heavy loader with flashes of orange sparks. The driver raised the lift, using a shield plate to conceal himself as well as his hanger-on from further gunfire.

  This isn’t fair. My E-90 would’ve shredded that thing.

  She dove into a sideways somersault as the forklift thundered by. Rubber howled against uncoated plastisteel; the driver’s attempt to stop became a flat spin, and the forklift smashed ass-end into the building across the street with an echoing bang, next to a stockpile of three-inch diameter pipes, which collapsed onto it. The huge man flew into the wall, but bounced away and landed on his feet.

  I guess I’m supposed to fight him.

  “Why don’t you be a good little girl?” asked the behemoth.

  “Grr.” Kirsten found courage by picturing Konstantin’s face on him and charged, pulling a stunrod from her belt.

  The driver scrambled to get out of the forklift, hampered by the avalanche of pipes. Hoping to avoid a two-on-one, Kirsten sprinted at the big man. He swung a wide haymaker for her head, but she dodged left and cracked him on the wrist with the stunrod. Of course, she felt stupid for doing it; any real cop would’ve ordered him down at gunpoint… but she’d taken this sim for hand-to-hand training. As he started to cradle his forearm, she threw herself into a jumping spin kick that drove her boot into the side of his jaw. He stumbled a step to his left, turning his back as his body followed where her foot sent his head. She recovered her balance and swung the stunrod up between his legs, holding it in contact while the blue tip glowed.

  Growling, the giant whirled around in utter disregard of the stun electronics, using his thighs to torque the weapon out of her grip and grabbed her throat with both hands. Kirsten put her forearms together and shoved upward, forcing his arms apart while thrusting her thumbs into his eyes. He flung her away and wiped at his face.

  “Bitch.”

  She growled. Pipes rang in a cacophony of disharmonic bells as several dozen rolled off the forklift. Before she could look toward the sound, the big man tried to punch her again. This time, she spun under the attack while grabbing his bruised wrist and torqueing it with an aikido takedown that left him flat on his chest. She swung around, hooking his arm with her leg, and wrenched it backward at the elbow. The man roared and rolled onto his side, cradling his floppy limb.

  Kirsten kicked a field goal into his nose, knocking him senseless not
a second before the driver, the long-haired, perfect, beautiful man of a driver, ran at her with a crowbar. She leaned to the right to avoid an axe-like downswing. He followed through with a sideways slash, chasing her back from the abandoned stunrod. She ducked his next attack and grabbed his arm, trying for a shoulder toss, but he spun out of it and tried to bash her in the kidneys. Kirsten dove to the ground on her chest to avoid the crowbar, rolled, and swung her body around while kicking his legs out from under him, hard armor almost frictionless on wet plastisteel.

  Gabriel’s avatar landed flat, made an impressed face for a half second, and sprang upright. They circled, trading tentative attacks and grabs. Kirsten’s heart pounded. All she could think about was Konstantin touching her, his coarse hand sliding up inside her leg, stopped by the symphonic blast of a ringing NetMini. That made her think of the ignored call from Evan. Somehow, whatever he’d done to that bracelet had made her regard the boy as unimportant. More than almost letting a seventy-year-old man have sex with her, more than getting locked up naked in a basement dungeon, more than anything physical he did to her… Taking her mind away, making her into someone she wasn’t… Making her dismiss Evan…

  Kirsten let off an enraged roar and lunged. Gabriel seemed unprepared for her aggression, and her armored fist crashed across his chin as an ill-aimed attack from the crowbar glanced over her left arm. As he reeled from the hit, she grabbed his right shoulder with both hands and drove her knee into his gut again and again while shouting, “Fucking… bastard…”

  He let off a wheeze, abandoning any pretense of style to smash his crowbar down with a barbarian’s wild swing into her left thigh. Again, the Division 1 armor bore the brunt of it, though the leg went numb and locked. Kirsten growled and shoved him forward while hooking his leg with her right heel. Gabriel slammed onto the ground, jacket flaring open to reveal a handgun in his belt. She favored her left leg for two steps and pounced on him, pinning his weapon arm to the plastisteel plate with her shin. She grabbed the pistol from the front of his belt and pounded him in the face with it over and over, bouncing his head off the metal ground. Not until the seventh hit did she realize she screamed, “son of a bitch,” with every strike.