Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Why didn’t you just send it to the Newsnet? Why sit on it?” Dorian’s gaze hardened. “You were trying to make some money off it in the process, weren’t you?”

  “I wanted to verify it.” Vikram looked up, eyes tracking an illusory bluebird through the branches. “If it proved to be spurious, it would have ruined my career.”

  Dorian continued giving him a distrusting look.

  “Were you ever able to verify it? Maybe we should look for the data?” Kirsten tapped away at her armband console, searching through the site reports for the blast.

  “The deck is toast.” Vikram sighed. “My copy of the data is gone.”

  “Well then.” Kirsten let her arm fall to her side; the holo-panel turned itself off. “I guess we can worry about it once he’s no longer being hunted.”

  Dorian folded his arms. “So this is your plan? Dangle him as a lure and just wait?”

  “Basically. We know they are going to come after him again.” She stared sympathy at Vikram for a moment before firing a pointed look at Dorian. “The best we can do is be there for him when they do. Unless you have a better idea.”

  Dorian pursed his lips. “I got nothin’.”

  irsten held the NetMini to her chest, thumbing the edge. Through the windscreen, she gazed across the unnatural square patch of grass, trees, paths, and benches comprising Sanctuary Park. Branches swayed in an unsettled breeze, visible here and there in the glow of a handful of standing lamps. One entire sector, five miles square, had been sectioned off for this purpose. Few people had the time to bother with it during the day, mostly students or the elderly; at this hour, it was empty.

  Disappointment was obvious in Evan’s face when she asked him to stay at the dorm tonight. She did not want to leave him alone at the apartment, and had “work stuff” to do. His level of maturity at bad news tugged at her. All she wanted to do was fly to the school and squeeze him.

  “What are we waiting for?” Vikram leaned in from the back seat.

  She put the device in her pocket. Calm down, K. You’re acting like a child, it’s only one night. “Since we have time, I’m trying to help Dorian with another problem.”

  Dorian blinked. “Me? Is that why we’re sitting here in the dark?”

  “There.” Kirsten pointed.

  Out in the grass, two men walked from the shadows. One appeared a tattered vagrant, the other a well-to-do executive. They crossed through a patch of light cast by one of the streetlamps, striding right through a park bench. More figures appeared as the minutes ticked by, men and women from various parts of life: rich, poor, cybered-up, and intact. By the stroke of midnight, about two dozen spirits had collected in a group. Kirsten stared at Theodore as she got out of the car.

  She found it hard not to feel a twinge of anxiety as she crossed the grass. Some of these ghosts were quite old, one or two rumored to have been rather famous before the war. A muscular older man in a nice suit looked her up and down and smiled with a wink. The mass of them turned, a mixture of shocked, curious, and indignant stares fell on her.

  The Kind.

  “Kirsten.” Theodore held his arms wide, as if to embrace her. “Who are your friends?”

  “Forgive me if I don’t hug you, you’ll just grab my ass through my clothes.” She winked. “You know Dorian. This is Vikram.”

  “Dark energy upon that one,” said an old man in a cowboy hat, pointing.

  “The abyssals you saw are chasing him, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  The assembled spirits murmured amongst themselves, the large old man in the suit took a step closer, gesturing at Vikram. “Bringing him here could draw them to us.”

  Theodore laughed. “Calm down, Governor. They won’t bother an enclave this large, not here in Sanctuary.”

  “I won’t stay long.” Kirsten offered a respectful bow at the ancient spirit. “I wanted to ask you to help me find someone. The man that killed Dorian.”

  Dorian gazed at the stars. “For heaven’s sake, Kirsten. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Great, then I can hop in the sack with her.” Theodore winked. “Assuming she’s not an old maid when she bites it.”

  Kirsten pinched the bridge of her nose. “Theodore, you are a penis with legs. Dorian, I’m just trying to help you.”

  Theodore bowed, accepting her compliment. “Rene, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t,” said Dorian.

  Vikram fidgeted. “This is not getting us any closer to destroying Seneschal.”

  She rendered herself solid, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, Vikram. We could run all over the city and never find him. When he shows himself, I’ll be ready.”

  Kirsten relaxed the power before Theodore’s hand went through her chest. “Too slow.”

  “Aww.” He faked a bashful shrug. “Can’t fault a man for trying. I’ll help you, but you know my price.”

  Immediate crimson face.

  “You don’t have to do this. Don’t do this,” Dorian chided.

  Burning embarrassment saturated her, she looked at Dorian and then back to Theodore. “No contact.”

  He held his hands up. “No contact, I promise.”

  She focused on her feelings for Dorian, and closed her eyes. “Fine.”

  At that instant, she sensed a shift in the energy. Danger.

  Kirsten spun, arm whipping out as the lash unfurled. Mariko sprang out of nowhere, rolling into a tight ball under the passing tendril. The Kind moved as a mass, taking a step away all at once. The dark form creeping over the grass whipped her head up. Glowing red eyes showered Kirsten with hate, tempered with shock. The once-beautiful face of a young Japanese woman, not much older than her, twisted with an inhuman grin of pointed teeth, as if her mouth had been cut two inches wider on each side. She exhaled a raspy hiss that lofted the scent of sulfur on the wind.

  “Impossible… Gaijin girl.” Mariko tilted her head to the other side, hands held out like claws as she scuttled sideways.

  Vikram almost fainted.

  Kirsten frowned. “Ninja or not, you’re still dead. I can feel you.”

  A monstrous growl came from the tiny woman, beyond the vocal range of a mortal. She blurred into a streak of black tipped with two red glowing dots. Kirsten brought the lash up to defend herself, but miscalculated Mariko’s aim. She landed on Vikram, sinking her teeth into the crook of his neck and knocking him to the ground.

  Dorian whirled and grabbed Mariko, peeling the wispy shadow away from Vikram. The wounded spirit curled on his side, both hands over the wound as if ashamed of it. Mariko melted into a cloud of smoke, appearing to Dorian’s right and punching him in the side. Smoke, now on his left, kicked in the back of the head. Smoke, behind him, sword drawn; all in three seconds.

  The lash snapped through the air between them, sparing Dorian an impaling strike. The straight-bladed ninjato caught moonlight and gleamed as Mariko’s semi-ethereal form slid backwards into a crouch. Kirsten moved to stand over Vikram as Dorian shrugged off the assault.

  “Good thing I don’t have internal organs anymore.” He winced. “Hurts… pressure points.”

  “You are both fools,” snapped Mariko. “Get out of my way or die.”

  The ninja floated skyward, coming apart into four duplicate copies of shadow. Kirsten flicked the energy thread in the path of the one with the strongest sense of energy. Three false images landed on Vikram, making him howl from fright but doing little else. The real Mariko twisted in midair, avoiding the searing weapon.

  The demoness hit the ground in a three-point stance, sword held straight to the side in a one-handed grip. She skirted, growling.

  “You have no idea the pain I will cause you, Gaishō.” Mariko’s mouth seemed to grow even wider, sharpened teeth glinting. “I shall devour your precious little boy next. You shall hear his screams in your nightmares.”

  The lash fluttered the grass as Mariko leapt to the side cackling, her body flowed―liquid with limbs.
Dark laughter turned into a perfect reproduction of Evan’s voice screaming. “Mommy! Help! It burns!”

  Two shots from Dorian’s laser caught the apparition unaware. The projection of Dorian’s desire to harm it took on the form of his old familiar sidearm. Mariko’s head lolled to the side, glaring at him sideways, unimpressed. Neither shot appeared to have an effect.

  Kirsten’s howling cry startled Mariko’s gaze back to her as the lash came down with such fury it doubled in width. Aimed more by desire than physical motion, the energy whip scorched a jagged path through its target from forehead to crotch. The gap between two halves of ninja widened for an instant before it filled with crisscrossing tendrils of black vapor weaving together. They interlaced, thickened, and pulled her whole.

  Mariko slinked away, the malice in her eyes replaced with mortal dread.

  Kirsten’s voice came calm, chilling. “You fucking touch him, and there won’t be anything left for the Harbingers to throw in the trash.”

  Dorian leapt at Mariko, effortlessly guided into a broken-neck landing on the ground behind her. Kirsten lunged, but the whip passed through a parting cloud of smoke. The inky cloud raced over the grass, coiled around the side of a building, and vanished into the night.

  Vikram rubbed the bite mark, hiding it from sight until he had reintegrated himself. Dorian picked himself off the ground and adjusted his apparition back to rights. Kirsten could not look at him until he fixed the way his neck seemed bent.

  “Calm down. They’re just using him to get to you, to goad you into getting reckless. You’ll do Evan no good if you get killed out here.”

  “Seems like it backfired.” A bare-chested scrawny man with a massive beard, long hair, blue jeans, and sandals smiled. “Made her stronger.” Despite the mirror sunglasses, it was evident he just winked before he rejoined the spirits.

  “What’s that smell?” Kirsten sniffed.

  “Marijuana.” Dorian laughed.

  The lash dispersed, evaporating from tip to hand as if it rewound into her arm. The world seemed darker for its absence. She covered her face with both hands, eyes open, nodding and breathing in search of calm. “You’re right… Mimicking his voice was just…”

  “One of their favorite tricks.” Dorian attempted to stretch away soreness. “Wow, I bet she was fun at parties.”

  “Girls what can move like that make big money in some places.” Theodore chuckled. “Kirsten looks pretty flex―” He stopped, raising his hands as both Dorian and Kirsten glared at him.

  “Thank you.” Vikram approached, offering a series of deep bows. “I see that you can stop them. I pray you will destroy them before they harm more innocents.”

  “Kirsten,” said Theodore, wandering closer. “Word among The Kind is your friend Rene is holed up in Sector 187, an abandoned hotel building at the middle of city road 2044.”

  “Oh, hell.” Dorian shook his head. “No. You are not going there. Absolutely not.”

  “One more thing.” Theodore held up a finger. “As Dorian can likely corroborate, he has a habit of padding his surroundings with thralls. He’s got about a dozen this time, course they’re just local gang types.”

  Dorian grew paler. “Kirsten, no.”

  “Black zone or not, I won’t let him get away with what he did to you… or Nila.”

  “Let it go, Kirsten. The law has trapped him in the black zone; for a high-society fluff like him, that’s even worse than death.”

  She nodded at Theodore. “Thanks.”

  He made finger-guns at her and winked. “Oh, you’ll be thanking me later.”

  She blushed.

  “But you can wait till you confirm my info’s good.” He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “I trust you.”

  he patrol craft rose over the edge of the apartment building roof, kicking up a cloud of dust and birds as the ionic downblast scoured a patch of metal. Thin sparks came spidery out of the ground, lapping at the car’s underside. Kirsten twisted the right-hand control stick just enough to rotate the vehicle parallel with a flat spot between two ventilation units and flicked the switch for the wheels. When the mechanical droning noise stopped, she set the vehicle down amid the electric fingers.

  Captain Eze’s holographic head appeared at the center of the console, eyes half open as though he had just been asleep. “Wren, I got your message. What’s the situation?”

  “I got a lead on where Rene Bollard may be hiding.” She shut down the drive system. “I want to go check it out.”

  He ran a hand over his face and shook off the last vestiges of sleep. “All right, let’s hear it.”

  “He’s using an abandoned hotel as a hideout, has maybe a dozen gangers under his influence.”

  “It’s in Sector 187,” Dorian yelled, though Eze could not hear him. He glared at Kirsten. “Tell him where.”

  “That does not sound too difficult, Agent. We can assemble a tactical response team and go in after him. There’s no need for you to get involved. You don’t have tactical training. I trust you have obtained an address?”

  She opened the door and got out. Eze’s virtual image leapt from the console to just over her armband, now half the size. She squinted into the wind as it tugged at her hair.

  “Wren… What aren’t you telling me?” Eze’s voice sounded smaller now, tinny.

  “He’s hiding in 187, sir.”

  Jonathan Eze’s pupils shrank; he pursed his lips around a sharp exhale. “That is a complication.”

  “It was the first area to be blacked out on the NavMap, K.” Dorian put a hand into her shoulder. “For some reason, it attracted the worst of the gang warfare, then as soon as the police backed off to let them fight it out it got worse. Illegal augs flocked in, it…” He looked her right in the eyes. “I cannot even imagine what kinds of spirits lurk there.”

  She glanced at Dorian and made herself solid to him. He squeezed; she put her hand on his.

  “The stuff hiding out in there is…” Ad-bots whizzing by distracted his thoughts. “It’s… too dangerous. The military won’t even go in there. The grey perimeter around it has a standing Division 5 detachment to keep what’s in there, in there.”

  “Wren, you know the sector is off limits. I…” Eze’s lips curled into a frustrated snarl. “As much as I want to see this son of a bitch fry for killing a cop, I can’t authorize any operation going into a disavowed sector―especially that one.”

  Disavowed… He sounds like one of them now.

  “But, sir.” She held her left arm up, bringing him closer. “If we keep letting those areas rot, they’re only going to get worse. It sends a message that they are havens from the law.”

  The sound of fingers drumming on a metal desk came over the comm. “Decisions have been made. Retaking those areas failed a cost/benefit analysis―”

  “But―”

  Captain Eze gave her a look that stalled her interruption. “…and, if the military were to retake the disavowed regions, it would just force the criminal element into The Beneath. Down there, they could cause real damage to the city infrastructure. Command wants them up top where they are contained and relatively harmless to the city as a whole.”

  “Captain, with all due respect, I don’t think it’s right to let a cop killer go free just because the military is too chicken to go where he’s hiding. If I have to do it on my own time―”

  “No.” Dorian shook her. “Those disavowed sectors are worse than prisons; let him rot there.”

  Eze leaned closer to the VidPhone, enlarging the illusory version of his head. “Wren, it is only out of concern for you that I forbid it. Do not, under any circumstances, approach or enter Sector 187 in pursuit of Rene Bollard.” He leaned back, worry evident on his face. “You are too young to”―his face flashed orange from an unseen blinking light―“Oh, bother. Hold on, Wren. I have an official channel coming in.”

  The head faded. She let her arm fall limp. Dorian slid his hand across her back to the far shoulder. Her face shifted
with anger, sadness, and frustration. She leaned into him; the scent of his Mediterranean cologne grew stronger.

  Vikram emerged from the car, fidgeting. He paced around, occasional stares shot their way, several times he seemed about to speak, but held it back.

  “I would rather you didn’t risk your life to avenge me.” Dorian put his arms around her from behind, chin over her shoulder. “It would pain me more to see you die than have him go unpunished.”

  She clasped a hand over his, pulling his arm tight to her body. Light from the distant city caught in the smog, diffusing into a violet haze through the silhouettes of distant towers and streaks of glowing ad-bots.

  Dorian’s eyes glanced down as her thumb traced the back of his hand. “You can do much better than me. Stop torturing yourself.”

  Her head leaned back, against his shoulder. One small twist and she could kiss him. Kirsten stared into the deep green of his eyes, basking in the feeling of a man’s embrace. Her eyelids drew heavy; the urge to lean forward grew.

  His finger met her lips; her eyes popped open, and she looked away. He had the smile of an amused older brother. Dorian’s arms relaxed and she moved to the railing, leaning on it and watching the droids.

  “Kirsten…” He took a step after her. “I’m old enough to be your father… not to mention dead.”

  The absurdity of it made her laugh. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

  “You deserve a full life, a family. I know you want one or two of your own someday.” He winked. “There is a man out there for you, somewhere. What about Templeton? You got his PID, but haven’t called him.”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. I got the same kind of ‘big brother’ vibe from him that you give off. He’s in his thirties, later thirties.”

  “Kirsten, you’re twenty-two. You need to live a little, lighten up.”

  Leaning against the railing, she turned to smile at him. “Are you suggesting I do a Nicole and swap boys twice a month?”

  “Excuse me?” Vikram held up a hand. “Is this pertinent to the issue of three demons trying to kill me?”―he flashed a weak smile that faltered back to a flat line―“Again.”