Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  Kirsten charged at him, taking two steps and bringing the energy whip down again. Seneschal rolled onto his back, catching it. He held the stream of brilliance; his eyes brightened and he roared with agony. The flesh of his fingers boiled and bubbled. Bones glowed beneath the skin. Kirsten forced more power into it, left hand grabbing her wrist for support as she pushed down. The anger in his eyes flickered to fear for an instant; his grip on the spectral weapon faltered. The tip swished like the tail of a cat, perilously close to his face.

  She screamed through clenched teeth, trying to power her way through this contest of wills. Just as she felt his grip failing, he dissipated in a cloud of ink black vapor. The sudden lack of resistance sent her stumbling to her knees. The tendril faded, she panted for breath. Spreading, the cloud that had been Seneschal expanded into a wide field, drawn through the gaps between the floor tiles.

  Gunfire erupted outside, as if an entire platoon participated in a firing squad. The sound snapped her out of her fatigue and she ran to the stairs. A row of Division 1 officers fired with wild abandon at something beneath the platform, nine weapons creating a rapid strobe in blue muzzle flash. She ran most of the way down the steps before leaping over the railing and landing in a three-point crouch below the stairs. Seneschal stalked through the dark underside of the PubTran station, phasing through fences and wire conduits. Bullets winked through him as tiny points of light, insignificant holes closing as fast as they appeared. He did not even bother to look back.

  “Ugh,” Dorian moaned.

  “Stop firing, you’re doing nothing!” she shouted at her forearm guard; the comm made her voice much louder in their helmets.

  The barrage trickled to a few isolated shots, the sound of a firecracker petering out to the last few charges. When quiet returned, she ran to Dorian, finding him on his back. He did not appear wounded, rather tired.

  “Dorian.” She slid to a halt by his side, kneeling. Willing herself tangible to the astral world, she cradled his hand. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  He squeezed her fingers, calming her. “Just tired; they beat the snot out of me. Gonna take a while to recover, but I’m okay. I can maybe handle one of them, but two at once, no way. They’re too strong.”

  “But they’ve only been dead for a few months.”

  “They’re not ghosts, K. They’re… something else.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I have to find Vikram before they do. They’re going to obliterate him.”

  “Poor guy.” He struggled to sit up. “Too bad there’s not enough left of him to use the trick Ritchie showed you.”

  Lights flooded into the chain link darkness, Kirsten held a hand over her eyes as Division 1 officers approached behind their guns. “Everything all right down here, ma’am?”

  A male officer lifted his visor. “Umm, are you okay?”

  “Zeroes talk to themselves sometimes,” said his partner.

  “What happened here? Did you find anything?” A sergeant stowed her weapon and approached, hesitating at the sight of Kirsten’s posture appearing to hug nothing.

  “I’ll be in the car,” Dorian wheezed, and his body faded out of sight, voice lingering. “I need a nap.” Pale luminescent fog crept among the weeds, through the chain-link fence, and past the legs of the street cops.

  Kirsten stood, wiping dirt from her hands as she surveyed the distant cavern full of power cables and fencing. “Yeah, I found something. I’m just not sure what it is.”

  irsten gazed into the sky, catching herself picking out the ad-bots displaying kid furniture, clothing, and certain electronic games. They coursed overhead, the blood of the city moving in veins defined by pre-programmed flight paths. Her fork nudged the vindaloo around the plate. Thinking of Evan made the advert droids seem less lonely, less as if they offered a window into a life that she was not good enough for.

  The patrol craft waited just past a squat ridge of plastisteel separating the open-air café from the sidewalk. Three feet tall, the eighteen-inch-thick barricade was theoretically able to stop a ground vehicle moving at ninety miles per hour. Not that anyone could drive at that speed on the ground here to begin with. There was too much traffic, too many red signals.

  Dorian had spent the rest of yesterday out of sight, and so far this morning had not shown up. Kirsten felt his presence during the ride, wondering how long it took a ghost to “sleep” their way back to full strength. The chicken went down slow, just a little too spicy for her to race through. A man two tables away gazed into nowhere, his head and hand moving as if in a silent conversation. Thin silver wire stranded from behind his ear into a NetMini tucked alongside his plate. She imagined her dad’s voice saying implanted comm whatevers, and let out a soft laugh.

  A citycam ball mounted to the corner of the building ceased its endless panning, fixating on her. She set a piece of chicken between her teeth and pulled her fork out, staring at the orb of smoky glass. Seconds passed. She bit down, chewing. It continued pointing right at her.

  Bet one of the techs is checking me out.

  The camera disregarded, she continued her lunch and tried to sort out her current mess. Okay, got a ghost who used to be a network security guy. Lyris Corporation sends a hit squad to take him out, everyone dies in a blast. Somehow, these assassins escape the Abyss and continue their original mission. What am I missing?

  “Mmm.” She exuded contentment as a sip of her mango lassi put out the spice fire in her mouth. As she went to set it down, she froze, staring at a ring of condensation on the table from the cold cup. The circle.

  Liquid bounced out of the glass as it landed hard. Of course. Find who made the circle, and I’ll know what the hell is going on.

  Loud rumbling pulled her attention into the street. A shot-up, battered, and rusting van creaked to a halt alongside the café, stopping right in the traffic lane. The image of a grim reaper had been autobrushed on the side; two copper coins perched upon a tongue that protruded through the teeth of the skull beneath the hood. Electricity sizzled around the front left wheel motor, as if one more bump would spell its demise. The driver door opened in time with the sound of a mechanized sliding door on the far side. The man who emerged from the driver’s seat had overdone it on black eyeliner, but otherwise had taken little care toward matters of personal hygiene. Belt-long hair, blackened by a substance never intended to be cosmetic dye, clung to him as he stared wild-eyed at Kirsten. His torn pseudo-leather vest covered a stained white shirt, as well as a pair of submachine guns. He gawked at her like a rutting bull about to charge.

  She tensed, fork slipping from her fingers at the sudden blaring horn from a small car trapped behind the van, pinned in the lane by unforgiving traffic. Gulping down her unease, she stood, preparing to order the van to move.

  Automatic gunfire shredded the calm as men on the other side of the van riddled the offending horn-bearing car with bullets. Diners hit the floor, sending tables, chairs, and food flying. The driver went for his weapons, an unblinking grin leveled off at Kirsten as though he did not want to spook her into running before he got a shot.

  The woman in the car dove down into the passenger seat, her screams inaudible over the roaring chatter of small automatic weapons. Kirsten caught a glimpse of a dozen small braids in the back seat, each tipped with pink clip-on ribbons. As windshield peeled away and coolant fogged out of holes in the hood, Kirsten lunged towards the crash-proof wall, E-90 in hand. Two pulses melted through the side of the van as the driver brought his weapons to bear. Men screamed on the other side, the barrage of fire aimed for the car came to a halt.

  Kirsten did not notice the driver in that second, too focused on her fear for the child in the tiny car being shot up for the crime of beeping at an idiot. In the two-second pause of gunfire, the screams of a woman and her daughter became clear. The second laser pulse had just melted through the van when the driver fired a burst from both weapons.

  Dorian came flying through the side of the van, leaping into the air tow
ard her as bullets whizzed around. A look of intense worry spread over his face, a snapshot preserved in adrenaline slow motion. He roared. She sensed his energy shift; when he hit her, he was close to solid. The effect was as though a sixty-pound plastic bag full of cold pudding landed on her. A rip of pain went through her left arm, between elbow and shoulder, as Dorian pulled her down. He slid over her, rolling through several tables.

  She scooted up against the little wall, her left arm numb and disobedient. It just wanted to hang there doing nothing. Cold came through her uniform as her back pressed into the three-foot-tall plastisteel traffic-protection barrier, thick enough to stop bullets. The driver fired again, wounding several people searching for cover under tables.

  Men screamed; an older woman cried out. Without thinking, Kirsten popped up and took a poorly-aimed shot at the driver. The streak of light missed him by an arm’s length left, igniting the front-end of the van. He swerved his automatic fire toward her as if watering the lawn; a thin line of pain scratched over her ribs on the left as she ducked. Kirsten used the tip of the E-90 to poke the emergency call button on her left forearm guard. The arm still would not move.

  “Stay down!” Dorian screamed, as he ran to her side. “You’re shot through the arm, bone’s probably broken.”

  She felt more angry than scared. “He’s gonna keep shooting people.” Shock is wonderful.

  The sound of the other men shuffling around the van preceded a few random bullets into the café.

  At least they’re not shooting at the car… for the moment.

  Dorian scowled. “I don’t know if I have enough strength to scare them; knocking you down about tapped me.”

  She smiled, grimacing at the pain that only now radiated from her arm. Hot blood slid down her triceps; she blinked. Holding her pistol with her thighs, she pulled the stunrod off her belt and laid it across her lap.

  “Nonlethal?” Dorian blinked. “Are you kidding?”

  Kirsten’s sapphire eyes darkened. “There’s a kid in the car. I can’t just sit here.”

  She grabbed the wound in her left bicep, screaming through clenched teeth and coating her hand with blood. As she smeared it over the baton, wisps of luminous white vapor coalesced around her hand in response to her power. The blood glowed for a second before it appeared to soak into the stunrod as if absorbed by a towel.

  “Here, take it. Gimme a distraction.” She shifted to her knees, facing the wall. “I don’t use this trick too often ̓cause it needs blood and I’m a wimp.”

  Dorian noticed the change in the weapon right away; she had bound it with astral energy. For a time, it would be tangible to both ghosts and mortals. He picked it up, awestruck at a physical object solid in his hands.

  “Come on, man. Before I faint.”

  A little voice in the car screamed, “Mommy!”

  The desperation in the cry made Kirsten pop up again, facing four men with six submachine guns and a cheap assault rifle. Dorian ran at them. A trickle of gunfire went almost in Kirsten’s direction as they gawked at the floating stunrod coming at them. The one with the old rifle found it hilarious and laughed, right up until the thing hit him in the nose and sent him to the ground in convulsions.

  Two more felt it a good idea to try and shoot the weaving eighteen-inch rod with the glowing blue tip, and started throwing bullets all over the place. Kirsten sighted on the driver, and put one pulse straight through his chest and into the van. Steam and smoke wisped out of his mouth and he went forward like a plank. Dorian set upon one of the others, not even using the stun electronics. Side of the knee, collarbone, head, chest twice, down for the count; plus more than a few bullets from his idiot friend still trying to shoot the baton.

  Other cars swerved and crashed as errant fire went into traffic. Kirsten pivoted and fired at another of her attackers. Blood sprayed from two finger-sized holes, one on either side of his chest. He wheezed, dropped his guns, and doubled over, cradling the wound.

  Kirsten forced herself to stand, one-arming her gun, still pointed at the man coughing up blood. Dorian applied the stunner again to the rifle-bearing ganger for good measure, and then smiled at the novelty of it all over again.

  After kicking weapons out of reach, she backpedaled to the car while keeping the man in view. A series of quick rightward glances made her heart skip a beat. Both the woman and a girl of about ten in the back seat had taken hits. Blood spattered the interior of their little silver car. The girl lay on the floor, sweating and breathing in shallow gasps. The mother was out.

  “Dorian, stun that last son of a bitch.”

  She holstered her weapon, and found the door locked. Giving up, she clambered up the hood and slid through the destroyed windshield. The bones in her arm ground over each other as she tried to get a stimpak out of her left side belt case with her right arm.

  “Officer, is my momma gonna die?”

  Kirsten turned towards the voice, trapped by innocent brown eyes peering through a hanging curtain of tight braids. Finger trails of blood smeared over the chocolate-hued skin of the child’s cheek, staining the collar of a white shirt with big-headed caricatures of a boy band. Kirsten froze, staring at the girl, her right hand shaking with rage. She scowled at the men laid out on the road.

  “Now you know why I did some things I’ve come to regret.” Dorian’s voice filtered in from behind. “If that girl was dead, would you finish off the survivors? Would you punish them?”

  Dorian’s voice snapped her out of the daze. “No, sweetie, I think she’s gonna be okay. Where are you hit?”

  The child sank into the seat, whining. Kirsten stifled the urge to scream in pain as she forced her hand into the awkward case, fingers scrabbling at a stimpak.

  “My side.” The girl pulled her shirt up, revealing a graze just over the hip and a few nicks from flying glass.

  Lot of blood, little danger.

  Kirsten’s relief almost let the light-headed urge to faint from pain win. She handed the girl a stimpak, and gave her mother a second.

  “Press the small end into your leg and hold it down until it stops hissing.”

  Sirens approached as the child did as instructed.

  “Agent Wren, please respond, what is your status?” The small silver bud in her left ear vibrated.

  Oh, shit, how long have they been trying to comm me?

  “Shots fired, numerous civilians wounded. I’m hit, but okay.”

  Relief was palpable in the voice. “Roger that, Agent. Hold on, backup is one sector out.”

  “I can hear them already.”

  The woman moaned. The girl tried to climb forward, but Kirsten held her back.

  “Medics are coming; your mom’s gonna be just fine.”

  Kirsten held the girl’s hand until the area swarmed with Division 1 police as well as medtechs. Once the medics had the woman extricated from the car and took the girl, Kirsten staggered toward the confused ghost of the van’s driver. Another medic came up behind her with a gentle grasp on her unhurt arm.

  “Come on, we got the civilians taken care of. Damn lucky thing you were here.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Kirsten groaned at the pain caused by pulling away from him. “They were after me.”

  “You’re losing a lot of blood. We need to get you to the facility.”

  She all but dragged the medtech to the side of the van. “In a minute.”

  “You, shithead.” She pointed with her good arm at the ghost.

  The medic blinked. The new spirit lunged into a choking grab, but flew right through her.

  “You’re a ghost, you jackass.” She turned to face him. “You do this for ha-has? Why me?”

  He growled steam from his nostrils. Kirsten glared at him, surrounded by the shimmer of emergency lights dancing along plastisteel and glass. Traffic had ceased, the entire area cordoned off as a crime scene. More flashing red and blue lights came in overhead as additional patrol craft set up a hoverlane exclusion zone. The advert bots rerouted their p
ath, but only because there was no one below interested in buying anything.

  “Nothing to say?”

  “Come on, Agent Wren. If you are hallucinating, we need to get moving.”

  She let the medtech hold her, bracing some of her weight against him. “I’m not hallucinating.”

  The dead ganger looked around, put his hand through the wall of the van, and stared. His murderous glower melted away to genuine fear as the reality of what happened to him sank in at last. Two patrolmen walked past, dispersing him into a cloud of mist for a second. When he re-formed, he took an angry step at Kirsten, pointing.

  “What the fuck did you do to me?”

  She would have folded her arms, but it was difficult to act tough in that much pain; not to mention one of her arms did not work. It was also difficult to be menacing while the only thing keeping her on her feet was a dark-skinned man in white. “What did you try to do to me?”

  “We’z ̓sposed to kill you.”

  She smiled a saccharin grin. “Well, there you have it.”

  “I’m dead?” He looked at the street, through transparent hands, and back at her. “You bitch!”

  A ripple of anger ran down her back. What balls. This asshole tries to kill me and is angry at me? She narrowed her eyes, wanting them to pay him a visit, calling out into the Aether.

  “Did you just decide to shoot at me because I was a cop in some kind of initiation? Or are you really just that damn stupid?”

  The sense of mood changed, darkened. Dorian wandered back to the patrol craft, whistling. As the shadows grew more intense, he dissipated into his car. The dead ganger coughed a cloud of smoke and looked around, addled by the approach of dread he could not see.

  “Someone gave us a pile of swag and an image cap of your face. More swag if we got you.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember it. Dude had a girl’s name, though.”