“Oh.” Kirsten pointed to her right. “That way? Elevators?”
The sergeant leaned up over the counter and pointed, hooking her hand to the right. “Through the elevator lobby, ‘round the corner, there’s a bridge to the other building. Elevators on the other side.”
“Thanks.”
Kirsten jogged along, dodging two hover-chairs emerging from sliding doors. Beyond the glaring lights of the elevator lobby, a glass-walled tunnel spanned an eight-lane road to a century tower. Thousands of hovercars shot by, both above and below the tube. A similar blue stripe ran up the left side of the tower’s face, with an EMMC that spanned four stories about halfway up.
She refused to look at the locust swarm of hovercars as she ran down the transparent tunnel, nor did she peer out the curved sides past the floor at distant ground traffic. She stopped running when she reached an elevator lobby inside the tower, and paused a few seconds to let her heart rate slow.
“I didn’t know you were afraid of heights,” said Dorian.
“I’m not.” She hit the call button. “I’m afraid of being in a glass tube getting hit by a hovercar doing three hundred miles an hour.”
Dorian chuckled. “I wonder what that phobia is called. Bet it’s a really long word.”
The elevator shot upward, reaching from the thirty-first to the sixtieth floor in the span of a breath and a half. She found the office of Doctor Samuels by following small green holographic signs jutting out from the walls near each door, and knocked.
“Come in, Lieutenant.”
She entered a large, but modestly decorated, office. Shelves laden with holodisk cases, small statuettes, and plaques lined both sides. Digital windows covered the entire wall behind a stout brick-shaped desk of cherry red Epoxil, displaying a snowy forest. The man behind the desk stood to extend a hand in greeting. He seemed young for his position, perhaps mid-forties, and wore a silvery suit with a dark purple shirt, no tie. Traces of grey smeared across the sides of a short-trimmed afro, as though someone had highlighted him with an airbrush.
“Doctor Samuels.” Kirsten shook hands. “I hope you can help me get to the bottom of something. Is it possible to compare organs used in transplants to find a common donor?”
“Depending on the amount of pre-implantation work done on the organ, it should be possible, though it can be data-laborious if there were significant compatibility modifications done.”
He gestured at a wood-framed chair facing his desk with lavender cushions and back. “Please.” Not waiting for her to sit, he settled into his seat and brought up a large fifty-inch holo-terminal.
“Thanks. I’m trying to track organs taken from a victim of a ripper doc. I believe a man was killed for a specific body part, but I’m not sure which one or how many of his organs have wound up in other people.” She sat. “I know at least one of the organs, the heart, was involved in an implantation performed here in this facility. The patient’s name is Julia Dominguez.”
Doctor Samuels chuckled. “That narrows it down to a few thousand.”
“Age forty-nine. Surgery was performed about four months ago in early July.” Kirsten waved her hand over her armband and flung Julia’s information at him.
“Illicit organ markets are dangerous business. People take too much risk. Never could understand how anyone could trust someone in an alley to do surgery, why they’d do that to themselves.”
“Forty or fifty thousand credits compared to two million? Maybe if more than three percent of the population could afford it, they wouldn’t have to.” She tried to keep emotion out of her voice.
“People have insurance.” Doctor Samuels’s face took on a beige glow as the contents of his screen changed. “Here we are. Mrs. Dominguez received a transplanted heart from a DOA donor. Her insurance provider selected that option.”
“Of course. Much cheaper for them, right?” Kirsten leaned forward. “Do you have any other organs listed as originating from one Darius Cook?”
“I’ll check.” He typed for a few seconds. “If you don’t mind me asking, you seem a bit hostile to the insurance industry… this sort of investigation sounds like you’re following up on a case they started.”
Kirsten bit her lip with a little shake of the head. “I wish it was that… calm. I don’t have that kind of time. The ripper doc’s victim is pissed off. I believe he is trying to kill everyone who received body parts taken from him.”
Doctor Samuels froze. After a second, his eyes shifted to look at her. “Wouldn’t that man be dead?”
“He is. I’m Division 0, Doctor Samuels. Specifically, an Astral Sensitive. I’m trying to stop a ghost from killing people.”
His head swayed around as though his neck lost all strength. The most epic of eye-rolls came her way. “Ghosts?”
“Look, Doctor. I don’t need you to believe me; I don’t care if you do. Please, I just need this information before someone gets hurt.”
“I can possibly cross link that information, but there are matters of doctor-patient privilege to consider.”
She sighed. I was waiting for that.
“His helpfulness seems to have given up the, uhh, ghost,” said Dorian.
Her eyes fluttered half closed as she let out another sigh. “Doctor, the privilege rule does not apply to an official investigation. I’m operating under the authority of the National Police Force, Division 0.”
“It applies to voodoo nonsense.” Doctor Samuels waved his hand about as if casting spells.
“Want me to―”
Kirsten held Dorian off with a raised palm. “Perhaps you can explain to me instead why Darius Cook is listed as having suffered three high-caliber rounds to center mass which reduced his heart to a wad of bacon strips? And somehow, that lump of dog food wound up transplanted into Mrs. Dominguez and works just fine. Unless the insurance company decided to pay three million credits to regenerate the heart of a dead gangbanger so they could avoid spending two million credits to regenerate Mrs. Dominguez own heart tissue, your records have been falsified. That gives me probable cause to have Division 2 come in here and tear the panties off every server cabinet in your basement and see what else is hiding in there.”
Doctor Samuels’s steely glare weakened after she refused to back down her challenging posture. “Ghosts… Wonderful. What’s next? Will your office be doing a tax audit on Santa Claus? Very well.” He poked a few buttons and the light tinting his face from the terminal shifted brighter. “It appears that the genetic profile of the heart also matches a pair of kidneys implanted around the same time.”
“Who got the kidneys?”
He steepled his fingers. “I’m not comfortable releasing that information. I’m muddy on the whole police walking back and forth over privacy rights thing.”
“If I was a nastier person, I could charge you with obstruction. I’m asking you as a human being. Someone’s life is in danger.”
“If you were a nasty person, you’d be slamming him against those fake windows.” Dorian made a heave-ho gesture.
“I don’t know if I can violate the patient’s―”
Kirsten leapt to her feet. “Is the name on the kidneys as fake as Darius Cook belonging to that heart? If the DNA matches, and the names are different, that’s only a little suspicious. I don’t have time for games, Doctor Samuels. I’m not the armored-up sort of cop who’ll mop the walls with your face to get what I want. I’m the sort of cop who’s concerned about the bigger picture and who else is getting screwed. How much will Div 2 find when they’re elbow deep in your network’s rectum?”
Doctor Samuels shifted in his seat. “Please calm down, Officer.”
“Lieutenant,” said Dorian, a trace of rasp in his voice hinted he projected it to the living.
The doctor twitched, staring at the approximate point where Dorian stood.
“Doctor?” asked Kirsten.
“Uhh…” He blinked. “I want to go on record as being opposed to this, but… another patient suffered rena
l failure as a result of acute blood toxicity, requiring a replacement of both kidneys. Apparently, they suffered a prior crushing injury.”
Kirsten blinked. Lindsey? “Where? Crushing injury?”
“The patient was compressed between two large solid masses, which broke both legs in multiple places, both feet, and caused significant damage to the pelvis. It seems the patient remained stuck for some time before they were able to be extricated. They developed ‘crush syndrome’ soon after.”
“I’m… How does that work? Is the patient’s name Lindsey Park?”
Doctor Samuels’s expression gave away her guess as correct. “I can’t confirm the name. When a limb is compressed with enough force to damage muscles, and the compression blocks blood flow through the tissues, releasing that pressure causes ischemia and frees toxins into the bloodstream. Myoglobin, potassium, phosphorous from rhabdomyolysis―the breakdown of skeletal muscle destroyed during the injury―gets into the system. The kidneys can’t handle the rapid influx, may clog, and shut down. In this patient’s case, the muscle damage and length of time trapped contributed to a massive influx of toxic breakdown products which destroyed her kidneys.”
She typed as fast as she could with one hand, taking notes. “Was that the only other match?”
“Yes. Nothing else came up within an acceptable deviation from the genetic markers. The odds of there being another organ from the same donor in our system are about twenty-eight million to one.”
“Shit. That means he is going to go back for Lindsey. I have to warn her… I might not be able to get to the Moon fast enough to matter.”
“Is that all then?” asked Doctor Samuels.
She aborted her turn for the door. “How did the heart and kidney get into your system?”
“Both came in from one of our usual aggregator services, Life Vault Industries. They collect donor organs from various medical providers, sort them to a central storage facility, and send them out as necessary when matched to a recipient. It’s likely a random chance that two of them came here… then again, our hospital is among the top four in the UCF, so perhaps not so random.”
“You may want to do some housecleaning before someone else comes looking.” Kirsten grumbled, wishing she had more time (and the jurisdiction) to look into the records more. “Thanks for your help.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “I’ll appreciate your discretion if either patient decides to take legal action against us for divulging their information. I am on record as objecting.”
“Oh, if there’s legal action, it won’t be about divulging information…” She rushed a handshake. “But that’s not my case. I’m just trying to stop a ghost from killing people. They already cheated death once.”
Doctor Samuels muttered, “Ghosts, hmph,” and shook his head.
Kirsten leaned into her stride, walking a hair shy of a jog on her way back to the patrol craft.
ool air from the vents blasted Kirsten in the face as she cranked the patrol craft’s fans to the highest setting. Even with military grade filters, it took about two minutes to remove any trace of Cryomil from the air. Either that or the stink had been scorched into her mind. She coughed out the last of it and, still sitting on the parking deck of Easley Medical Center, swiped at the dashboard console while pulling up the Inquest file. She moved frames around the holo-panel by fingertip, grasping the one for Lindsey Park and pulling it to the forefront. Another tap initiated an outbound call to the Gravion orbital platform.
A pale blonde woman with bright blue eyes appeared a few seconds later. “Thank you for calling Gravion Corporation. How may I help you? Oh, Agent Wren. Hello.”
Kirsten stalled, staring at the face. “Have we met?”
“Oh, only for a moment in the café when you were up here. You probably don’t remember me… Mara Garcia?” She grinned. “I wanted to try blonde and blue. It’s so rare, and you’re so pretty.”
Dorian leaned over. “Wasn’t she a bit more tan?”
“Uhh… thanks.” Kirsten smiled only as long as needed for politeness. “I’m sorry to rush, but I need to speak to Lindsey Park. She’s probably in danger.”
“Oh no…” The woman glanced to the left. Light flickered on her face from another terminal panel. “Uhh… looks like she rotated off two days ago on medical leave. She’s got to be back on Earth by now.”
“I’ll need her info.”
“Of course.” The newly minted blonde grinned. “Sending now.”
A PID came up, associated to a physical address in Sector 4382 in East City.
“Thanks. I need to contact her right away.”
Mara nodded. “I understand. Good luck and stay safe.”
Dorian whistled. “Something’s wrong. People are being nice and helpful to you.”
She poked him, and tapped the PID to call Lindsey. It rang ten times and went to Vidmail.
“Lindsey, this is Lieutenant Wren, Division 0. We met on the Gravion platform. Please call me back immediately.” Hang up. Retry. Vidmail again. She didn’t bother leaving a second message. “Shit.”
“Well, you can see the Statue of Liberty from 4382 if I remember right,” said Dorian.
“The what?” She blinked. “Oh… wait, wasn’t that destroyed?”
Dorian shook his head. “You should be in school, sitting at the desk next to Evan. Good grief, woman. And yes, it was… they replaced it with a full-sized hologram. Don’t you remember the story about hackers making her do a strip tease a few years ago?”
“Uhh…” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t people have better things to do with their time?”
“Apparently not.” He grinned.
Kirsten powered up the patrol craft. It leapt off the roof of the Easley Medical Center and she headed right for the starport. “Outbound, Captain Eze.”
The console made a boop noise. Three seconds later, his virtual bust appeared. “All well?”
“Sir, I am going to East City. One of the victims isn’t answering. The Park woman, from the Gravion station. I’m afraid I’m going to find another ghost.”
“Understood. I’ll have them either hold or expedite the next shuttle… unless you think it critical enough for a DS2.”
Kirsten shook her head. “A military transport would take longer to set up. Even if it flies faster, I’d lose more time waiting for them to greenlight it.”
“Funny how it takes three hours to fly over West City but like twenty minutes to go coast to coast.” Dorian chuckled.
“Pat-vees don’t do Mach 8.” She glided in over a parking garage structure and landed in the emergency lane near the front of Edmonson Memorial Starport, programmed the auto-drive to move the car to the nearest open spot in the deck, and got out.
Two streams of civilians, one entering, one leaving, on a tall chrome-silver stairway slowed to watch her run up between them to the main entrance. Urgency coupled with getting pissed off at the expected static she’d get from a security person who didn’t think she was a real cop hardened her expression and turned her jog to a stomp. By the time she reached the PubTran terminal, her demeanor had a chilling effect on people nearby, many of whom hurried out of her way.
Three security officers at the terminal saw her coming and stared in silence as she breezed around the sensor tunnel. One even saluted. She ducked down a corridor line with blue carpet specked with little black shuttle shapes, going downhill into a large waiting area, alive with the din of a few hundred people.
“Lieutenant Wren, please go to Intercoastal terminal 4B.”
She looked at the ceiling as the voice came over the PA system. Twelve separate areas expanded from the walls, rounded sections where seats surrounded a boarding tunnel entry. She ran to the left, tracing signs until she spotted the one for 4B. No one but a PubTran employee in a blue skirt-suit and white folding hat remained. A good sign… people had already boarded. Kirsten, hand on her stunrod to keep it from banging into her thigh, sprinted past her with a wave and hurried along the tunnel c
onnected to a shuttle.
Small windows offered a brief glimpse of a ship with a profile somewhere between bell and arrowhead, large enough to seat about two hundred. People inside grumbled and moaned about the delay, filling the air with an almost solid mass of sound. She greeted two crewmembers by the entry, shook hands with the woman, and followed her pointing finger to a seat within five steps of the door. Dorian took the spot at her left, closer to the aisle. Someone behind her started to bitch about the police doing whatever they wanted and damned everyone else’s schedules, but a childish voice screamed at him.
“She’s goin’ ta help someone. If it was you, you wouldn’t care who had to wait. Don’t be an asshole.”
Kirsten glanced over the seatback at a girl about six glaring at a fiftyish man in a dark suit. Her father, presumably the guy in the seat to the child’s left, had the over-muscular build of a Gee-ball player. The other man whirled around, looking ready to scream, but at the sight of the father, he backed down, grumbling to himself. The girl smiled at Kirsten and waved. She grinned back, and settled into her chair.
The shuttle lights flashed and dimmed.
“Hello everyone,” said a female voice from speakers overhead. “We’re sorry for the delay and will be taking off within thirty seconds. Please remain seated and fasten your belts. PubTran Corporation is not liable for any injuries sustained during flight due to not wearing your seatbelt. It should be safe enough to move around the cabin once we are at cruising altitude, but for your own safety, please remain seated during takeoff and landing.”
Kirsten tried to vid Lindsey again, but the call went to her message inbox after eight rings.
The shuttle lifted off, going straight up while the world rotated past the windows. A heavy electronic thrum shook the cabin and her weight squished back into the cushions. The ground streaked away, soon replaced by bright blue, a flash of white clouds, and blue again.
Nineteen minutes later, the same woman’s voice announced they would begin descending in one minute, and again asked everyone to stay seated.
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