Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Yes, Agent. There are officers on scene. You were logged as having been there recently, so they wanted your input.”

  “That must mean they’ve got nothing.” I know how they feel.

  “I don’t have that information, Agent. Sergeant Patel is the senior on site.”

  Kirsten grumbled and stood. “All right. Tell them I’m on the way.”

  Nila breezed in with an armload of blankets. “Was that good or bad news?”

  “Bad, but only in terms of sleep.” She yawned. “I gotta go follow up on a case.”

  “They have the worst timing.” Nila dropped the blankets on the kids and removed their shoes. “Hope it’s quick.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Kirsten leaned over and kissed Evan on the head.

  His eyelids parted. “Mom.”

  “Official call. I’ll be back soon.”

  He smiled and closed his eyes. “‘Kay.”

  Well, he’s not panicking… that’s good. She smiled at Nila. “Thanks again.”

  Nila waved. “Anytime.”

  Kirsten ran upstairs, chased by the meows from her sneakers. She jumped into her uniform and hurried to the roof parking area. Dorian faded into visibility in the passenger seat as she pulled the car into the air.

  “Sorry. Something happened to Lamb.”

  “Too much mint jelly?” asked Dorian.

  “What?” She spared a two-second stare before looking forward again.

  “Never mind. Think it’s the ghost?”

  “Div 1 called me in, so… probably.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I’m going to run through the whole damn building this time. Maybe I can get those security guys back on duty.”

  “Here’s hoping.” She pulled up out of civilian traffic and hit the lights.

  Thirteen minutes later, the patrol craft shot between a pair of century towers belonging to Sur-Stor Backup Solutions. Kirsten rolled her eyes. Ahead, the shimmer of emergency lights guided her to a sprawl of five Division 1 patrol craft, mostly identical to hers aside from being blue and white, not to mention the Starburst laser cannon mounted in a pod over the passenger seat.

  She deployed the ground wheels early, and fought the drag on the control sticks down to a hasty landing. Two patrol officers walked up as she got out.

  “Man, fuck this freako shit,” muttered the one on the left. “This is all yours.”

  “Thanks.” Kirsten jogged toward the door. “What’s the situation?”

  The men pivoted as she passed between them and followed. Dorian flew off and vanished into the side of the building.

  “Building security called us in about an hour ago on reports of gunfire. Turns out some manager had a meltdown and shot up his office. Far as we can tell, he tried to kill a hallucination.”

  “What happened to Lamb?” Kirsten waved her forearm guard at the door scanner, which beeped. The door opened. “He still alive?”

  “Yeah. They got him over to Ancora now. He was still kickin’ when they dragged him out of here.”

  A thin blond man in a black suit and purple ascot shot her a sour look as she strode to the elevator. “Figures. Always trouble around psionics.”

  Two women and another man standing in a cluster with him shifted, looking away from him and anywhere but at Kirsten.

  She met his glare. “Trouble follows us like scandal follows the NewsNet, right?”

  He whirled away with a petulant scoff.

  Kirsten stomped to the elevator, fuming the whole way up to Lamb’s office. Division 2 techs swarmed the area, boots crunching. Several of the Fish Tank’s panels spread out over the floor, a glittering snowfall of safety glass bits. The rug nearest the central enclosure resembled new fallen snow; tiny fragments sparkled in the glow from ion thrusters on a quartet of orb bots zipping around scanning for evidence. Energy charged the air, but again it felt like an aftereffect rather than a current presence.

  An athletic man with coffee-toned skin and a prematurely silver buzz cut glanced at her as she strode up to the confusion. Silver sergeant stripes glinted on his shoulder. She drifted by the door to Lamb’s office, but didn’t bother trying to go in while six crime scene techs examined it. The energy, stronger in that room, had a hint of an identity to it. She grinned at getting enough of a feel for it that she could probably recognize the entity in the future.

  “Sergeant Patel?” asked Kirsten. “Agent Wren, Division Zero.”

  He saluted; she returned it. “Sorry to knock you day job types out of bed in the middle of the night, but I’m getting some unbelievable reports.”

  She scowled.

  “You are with I-Ops right?” He smiled. “Sorry. Bad detective joke… didn’t mean anything about psionics there.”

  Kirsten exhaled. “Not your fault. Asshole downstairs. So, what happened?”

  He brought up a holo-panel over his left forearm. “Security video caught something wonky.”

  She watched Lamb seated at his desk, still working on his terminal, and still spewing an endless stream of profanities. He repeatedly grabbed for a glass that wasn’t there, and shot dire looks across the room at a cabinet.

  “Was there any alcohol in his system?” asked Kirsten. “Looks like he’s desperate for a drink but trying to quit.”

  “Not sure yet. He’s not a stiff.” Sergeant Patel tapped the bottom, by a progress bar. “Six minutes thirty three seconds is where you want to pay attention.” He skipped ahead to six minutes flat. “First few minutes are just him getting more and more pissed off at some guy named Andrew.”

  At 6:33, a flickering speck of light glided across the office and disappeared into Lamb’s side, an inch above his belt. By 6:35, his face had gone beet red. He grabbed his gut and let out a belabored bellow before collapsing over his desk and breathing hard. Sweat ran down his forehead in rivulets. Lamb wheezed and gasped, reaching for the Vidphone, but wound up falling out of his chair before he touched it.

  By 6:39, his hand appeared at the edge of the desk and he pulled himself upright. After leaning against the desk for the span of a few breaths, he patted his belly and sat, seeming to brush off whatever happened to him as a non-issue.

  “Dumb bastard doesn’t call for a medic.” The Sergeant shook his head. “If he’s a heavy drinker, his liver’s probably on the way out.”

  Kirsten looked at him. Oh, right… alcoholics have liver issues.

  “It doesn’t get interesting again until twelve minutes. You ever see that little light thing before?”

  “Orbs are pretty common manifestations on electronic recording devices. Even when spirits aren’t visible to the eye, cameras sometimes pick them up as light spots. It’s not conclusive evidence, but on top of the way it feels in here, I’m sure there’s a ghost involved.”

  At twelve minutes, Lamb jumped. Hairline bands of static rolled down the image. He screamed and scrambled away from his desk to a cabinet in the back of the office from which he produced a pistol. He aimed at nothing, screaming, “Go away,” and “what are you?” A second later, he flinched back as though someone rushed at him, and fired. The handgun went off four times. Bullets pulverized glass as he spiraled to the floor and passed out. Another orb exited from Lamb’s back and glided toward the door, but faded away several feet from it.

  “What do you think?”

  Kirsten set her hands on her hips, frowning at the screen. “I think I’m going to be up too late. Doubtful the techs are going to find anything. There’s definitely a ghost out there who has a taste for Lamb.”

  Sergeant Patel moaned.

  “Sorry. I’ve been hanging around Dorian too much.” She grumbled, twisting to stare past the smashed-out window at the techs working over the office. What on Earth could possibly connect Lindsey to Lamb? Other than Ls. Or either of them to the senator’s daughter. Why would a senator want to keep his child a secret? Not like anyone gives a crap about affairs these days. Hell, he could probably have sex with his own daughter on a live NewsNet feed and it would only boost
his approval rating. She cocked her jaw to the side, exhaling.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’m thinking. This is so random I’m having trouble putting the pieces together.” The energy streaming out of Lindsey and racing back to Earth so fast made her think of astral projecting. She teased a finger at the spot between her eyebrows where the silver cord connected. Grabbing it triggered a near-instantaneous return to the body. What if Seraphina is psionic and she’s doing this? That memory Jonah had was like something out of a horror vid… something a teenager might have watched. Or… could this be connected to that organ harvester?

  Kirsten pivoted on her boot heel and marched into the office. The techs gave her a cursory glance. One fortyish woman opened her mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it. It didn’t much matter if they feared her rank or her being a Zero, as long as they stayed out of her way. She closed her eyes and opened her senses up to the room, detecting a residual presence stronger than at the doorway. She crept forward, honing in on the direction from which it seemed to grow the most potent.

  I’ve felt this before… Seraphina’s room. “Shit. No wonder I’m going in goddamned circles. I’m looking for a ghost when it’s a person I should be after.”

  She checked the cabinet that Lamb kept looking at. When she grasped the handle, a black square mounted to the center of the door projected a green-on-green keypad, looking for a six-digit code.

  Dorian walked in. “Got some good news.”

  “Me too.” She smiled. “Can you peek inside this cabinet and let me know what’s in there?”

  “Uhh, it’s locked…” One of the techs sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “Is there an Inquest Order?”

  “I wasn’t asking you guys.”

  “Two bottles of liquor and a tumbler glass.” Dorian extracted his head from the small door and fixed his hair back into place. “Looks like he was serious about trying to give it up. That’s not easy. Something drastic had to have happened.”

  The tech muttered something suspiciously close to “bitch” under his breath.

  Dorian went translucent. “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

  Kirsten had to look away to avoid laughing as the man screamed and fell over backwards. By the time the others looked, Dorian had returned to looking normal (which meant he’d stopped appearing to the living). The other techs exchanged confused stares as she walked out.

  “Idiot,” muttered Dorian.

  “So what’s your good news?” She stopped halfway between Lamb’s office and Sergeant Patel.

  “One of the dead security guys spotted an errant spirit in the building about ten minutes before Lamb collapsed. Male, thirtyish, chest hollowed out and no eyes. Bloody damn mess.”

  “Same thing as that guy saw on the Gravion platform. Can astral projections change appearance?”

  Dorian shrugged. “Don’t look at me… Way out of my area of expertise. But… why? The only reason to do that would be to hide one’s identity. There’s probably a dozen people in the entire UCF who can see spirits.”

  “That we know of.” She folded her arms and smirked. “I bet there’s hundreds, but they all think they’re insane and hiding it so no one puts them away. I need to go back to the senator’s place. I think this might all be connected to that girl. She doesn’t look scary at all. Maybe she’s making herself look like that to scare people more.”

  “Hmm. That might make sense. If she knows her father involved you in this, she might be trying to change her appearance to throw you off… but what’s her motive?”

  “She’s a kid. Does she need one?”

  “She’s twenty.” Dorian poked her in the side. “If she’s a kid, so are you.”

  Sergeant Patel walked over. “Agent… Do you need to see the weapon? Touch it and get visions or whatever it is Zeroes do?”

  “I’m not a clairvoyant. That wouldn’t help much, but… I’m sure Lamb was reacting to a ghost or… something else. Speaking of which… I need to talk to him too. Ancora Medical? Which facility?”

  “Umm.” Sergeant Patel checked his arm computer. “Sector 4491.”

  Kirsten shook his hand. “Thanks, Sergeant. Nothing more for me here right now. I appreciate the heads up.”

  “Anytime.” He waited long enough for her to take two steps toward the door. “Agent?”

  “Hmm?” She glanced back at him.

  “I, uhh, lost one of my guys last month. Real good man. His little sister called me the other day, said she thinks he’s still there. Any chance I could ask you to swing by and check?”

  “Sure. Send me the address and make sure it’s okay with the family. I’d be happy to.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  She walked out to the elevator door and hit the button.

  Dorian smiled. “You’re like a little kid, so eager to help people.”

  “It’s more than that. For one thing, that guy might actually need help. Two… when people treat me like a person―that’s rare enough―I automatically feel like I owe them something back.”

  “Sad.” He shook his head. “Maybe someday people will get over hating psionics.”

  “Yeah right.”

  Ping. The elevator opened.

  “A long time ago, they said that about skin color too.” Dorian followed her in.

  “Yeah well… under the skin, humans are the same regardless of what the environment did to their outer layer. Psionics actually are different.” She tapped her foot, trying to move the elevator faster by sheer force of will.

  “People have always feared what they don’t understand.”

  “Doesn’t make it any less degrading.” She stormed out onto the roof and to the patrol craft. Once inside, she logged in to the D0-Net and started another comparison search looking for anything common between Senator Winchester and Lamb.

  “The senator? Not looking for the girl?” asked Dorian.

  She glanced at him. “She’s a ghost in the other meaning… off the grid her whole life. I don’t even know what last name she used in public.”

  “Great.”

  A couple of finger taps lit the dashboard and flooded the cabin with the subtle hum of electronics. The instant the status light went green, Kirsten pulled the car airborne. “Right now, I’m going the eff to sleep. Tomorrow, I’m dropping in on our little angel.”

  he next morning, Kirsten spent a few minutes holding Evan at the entrance to the school. He’d awoke on Nila’s couch with an odd sense of fear about him, and didn’t want to go back to his own room, even to get dressed. After leaving him to shower in a borrowed bathroom, she’d gone upstairs to check, but nothing at home seemed amiss.

  “I’m worried.”

  Evan looked down. “Sorry. Just a bad dream.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s okay.” She hugged him. “I’m just not used to seeing you anything but fearless. Monwyn’s not afraid of the shade goblins, right?”

  He grinned. “Nope!”

  “Okay, you’re going to be late.”

  Evan gave her a peck on the cheek and ran off.

  She headed up to the office to check on the data crawl. The only connection that popped up showed a pair of transactions occurring at a Morning Bean near the Alan Kantor Performing Arts Pavilion within two hours of each other. Kirsten smiled at the memory of meeting the man’s ghost in the Beneath, and made a mental note to read up on him. A man famous enough to be dead for four centuries and still have buildings named for him had to be worth reading about.

  “Crap.” She typed a few notes in the case file about Lamb, and added a comment about heading to visit a possible suspect/witness. “Okay, Seraphina. What are you hiding?”

  Dorian glided up alongside her. “I’m assuming you mean to find out.”

  “Yeah.” She stood. “Coming?”

  “You’ve got my car.” He winked.

  A hair over an hour later, she approached Senator Winchester’s manor house. Since no military security officer tried to com
m her, she figured the senator himself wasn’t here. The official transponder in the patrol craft would’ve been enough to get by the standing security detail. She spent a moment looking around at live trees and trying to contemplate having her boots on real earth rather than metal plates. She daydreamed back to being ten, hiding in the Beneath with only a nightgown to her name. It felt bizarre to have both genuine ground and open sky at the same time.

  “What’s on your mind?” asked Dorian.

  “Nothing much… just enjoying a moment of nature.” She walked toward the door. “Do you think it was right to build the plates? All the trees that destroyed?”

  “Eco-alarmism.” Dorian rolled his eyes. “Civilization abandoned the center of the continent. There’s more than three times the amount of trees there than what died off after being covered by the cities.”

  “But they built the air processors.”

  He laughed. “You don’t know how government construction works, do you? They build to budget. If they have money with nothing to use it on, they invent stuff to use it on. If they show a surplus, they get less funding next year.”

  “You’re making that up. That sounds so wasteful it can’t be true.”

  “Poor, innocent girl.” He patted her on the head.

  She frowned.

  The door opened, revealing Marguerite. Her dark blue eyes sparkled in the early sun. “Mademoiselle Wren, such a pleasure to see you again.”

  “Hello.” Kirsten smiled. “I’d like to visit Seraphina. There was an attack last night and the energy I encountered at the scene felt like the same energy I found in her room.”

  “I’m… I…” Marguerite looked behind her for a second and bit her lip. “Senator Winchester is away and I’m not sure he’d approve.”

  “The only reason I’m here is because he asked for me to get involved in this case. The events so far aren’t pronounced enough to warrant an investigation normally. It’s a favor to the senator from Division 0 that we’re looking in to this.”

  “Where did you learn to speak bullshit?” asked Dorian.

  Marguerite glanced toward him for an instant before she raised her arms in a hint of a shrug. “Well, I suppose you do have a point.”