“Well, there you go, you just proved me right. They are designed to play on your emotions. Would you feel as bad replacing your reassembler if it made puppy eyes at you?”
She stopped, gesturing at him with both hands. “It’s not the same thing, the food ‘sem is not aware of its own existence. It just reacts to buttons I push, it can’t think. Deirdre knows what she is and can learn like anyone else. She can react to the world around her… she’s not just running program code like a sex toy or a burger-flipper.”
The walk to the elevator remained silent from then on. She liked working with the one person who had never tried to get into her pants after five minutes of being in the same room. Of course, she hated it when he pushed her buttons.
She sank into herself, looking away. “What does that have to do with the whole religion thing anyway? People wrap up their beliefs in a certain way, and anyone who doesn’t fit their little vision of how the world is supposed to be must be possessed by a dark power named Satan.”
Without thinking about it, she massaged the back of her right hand.
“We are fickle creatures, humans. For everything we can’t understand, we make up stories to explain. Besides, you have seen the silver light. It may be this ‘god’ is simply too vast to be comprehended by our minds and all we see of it is that light.”
“That’s the great arrogance of man.” She startled as the elevator door opened. “Assuming you are correct and the silver light does represent some kind of benevolent divinity… that would put it so far out of the realm of human explanation how dare anyone try to claim they know what it is or what it wants.” She trudged into the garage. “Personally, I don’t think it has a sentience unto itself. Goodness is no more a person with desires and opinions than the concept of cold or hot.”
“What of the Harbingers?” Dorian held up his hands. “Don’t they have to work for someone?”
“Do maggots that eat dead things have a boss?” Kirsten opened the car door, and talked over the roof. “It’s a self-sustaining system. As you so fondly pointed out before, we have souls. Those who taint it with evil are dragged to that side of the other place. Those who lead a pure life move on to something I can’t even begin to explain.” She pointed at him. “That’s where I differ from the religious wingnuts. I admit I have no damn idea what goes on. I don’t try to wrap it in the shape of an old man with a beard or claim to know what he wants or says…” Her voice dropped to an emotional whisper as she fell into the seat. “…and then beat it into people I supposedly love.”
“If there’s no intelligence involved, why even bother to separate the good from the bad?” Dorian flapped his arms. “What about an Indian woman with six arms or a fat Asian man?”
Kirsten closed the door and powered the car up. “Six of one…”
“Don’t you think you’re being condescending?” He glanced over from the passenger seat.
The car lurched forward, Kirsten heavy on the stick. “I dunno… maybe.”
“You blame all religious people for what your mother put you through. Maybe someday you’ll be able to accept she was just psychotic? For every fanatic that kills in the name of God, how many thousands don’t? For every Catholic that holds their daughter’s hand to a hot plate, how many thousands teach them how to make cookies?”
Kirsten drove harder. At times, she regretted confiding in him about her past. She did not remember making a decision to open her mouth; it had just come out of her without a thought. Not even her father had gotten the full detail―he did not know about the closet. Something about Dorian made her feel safe. All things considered, she felt better letting it out. She knew he would not spread her secrets.
“She couldn’t handle my gift. She thought it was the Devil’s magic and tried to ‘purify’ me. It got worse when the ghosts started coming around asking for help. I was terrified to speak to them… she’d beat the shit out of me for talking to the Devil.” A shiver rattled through her. “Then they got mad I ignored them and started doing stuff around the house.” She cradled her right hand to her chest. “That’s when the burning started.”
Dorian shook his head. “I wish I could have found you.”
“There are only so many times you can suffer like that at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect you before you hate it all. Hearing her scream about Jesus while she tortured me… She cared more about her precious invented god and her reputation among her church friends than she did her own child.”
“Look, forget I brought it up. Your home is here now; I just worry about you not having anyone close.”
Kirsten shrugged. The pattern of lights reflecting off the interior of the car shifted as she banked around a fifty story parking deck toward a corporate district. “I’ll find someone, someday.” I hope.
The patrol craft slid around the edge of a corporate tower into the bright orange fire of the setting sun, reflected by the ocean of black glass and chrome spread out before her. They slid under a convoy of ad-bots past a thirty foot screen upon which a woman’s face hawked skin care products, and settled in for a landing the roof of Manticore Investments.
The wind tugged at her hair as she got out of the car. All around, the endless city glittered in the twilight of the fading sun. Too late in the day to speak to any of the witnesses, she came to do a cursory check of the area in search of residuals before they faded out.
No trace of anything paranormal remained inside, and she returned to the roof in an hour, in the midst of a discussion with Sheldon Marcus, head of security.
“So that’s it then, they’re just gonna release her?” He scratched at his coarse, greying hair.
“It’s complicated. An unknown entity ‘borrowed’ her body for a few minutes; it was not her in control.”
Sheldon shook his head. “Damn, that sounds like every lawyer on the Holo net; it wasn’t my fault.” He fell into a brief caricature of fictional lawyers.
“In this case it’s true. I think it was an angry ghost. Whoever it was had no particular hatred for this company or anyone in the room, there was no trace of significant emotion left behind.”
Sheldon did a slow turn, looking around. “Are there any ghosts here?”
“None pertinent to the event, but the way the city is there are plenty of them around. You’ll probably pass two dozen on your way home at night.”
“Shit, I’m glad I can’t see ‘em. Anyway, good night, miss. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” Sheldon shook his head and walked back inside.
“So how do you deal with it?” Dorian leaned back in his seat and grinned.
“Deal with what?”
“Being able to see ghosts.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“I’ve been too embarrassed to touch myself for six years.”
Dorian took a deep breath. “Right, I’m sorry I asked.”
irsten nudged the patrol craft off the roof and dove over the side, flying nose-down along the building’s surface. At about the fortieth floor, she leveled off and guided the car below the traffic stream. The sun had gone down, leaving the city a writhing mass of artificial light. Gentle rain caused the view to make her feel even more abandoned.
Maybe I’ll take the car home tonight.
Spotting flashing kanji in the air up ahead, she changed course and pulled up alongside a floating faux-wood boat decorated in a Japanese style from many centuries ago. The flying sushi vendor catered to commuter hovercar traffic. The driver side window went black as the pass-through cut out, then the armor plate retracted down into the door. Cold air flooded the car, laced with the fragrance of teriyaki. Kirsten enjoyed the rustic charm of these vendors, placing an order to a real, live person was a rare treat.
“Sashimi regular, please, easy on the wasabi.”
The man nodded, dutifully going about preparing her meal and setting it piece by piece in a disposable tray.
“You’re eating late, officer.” He paused long enough to smi
le at her. “I was just about to head in.”
It did not matter if his pleasant demeanor came about due to his not realizing she was psionic. Most people tended to act on edge around cops in general, but psionic cops often made people flee. Kirsten leaned out of the window, making idle chat with him about random bits of his day. A story about a pair of corporates so incensed over a deal they worked on that they paid for their food twice had her laughing by the time he handed the sashimi over. She was careful to pay only once.
The armored panel whirred back into place, the dark slab lit up like a blank monitor for a second before the illusion of window returned. Kirsten nudged the heat up higher as she balanced the tray on her lap and unwrapped throwaway chopsticks.
“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff.” Dorian’s voice muffled through his hand.
Kirsten smiled hard enough to force her eyes closed. “It’s good… and healthy.”
He had all he could do not to gag. “It’s raw.”
She flashed a schoolgirl grin at him as she slurped a hunk of salmon sashimi into her mouth while leaning close to him. He recoiled. Kirsten fell back into her seat, giggling through a full mouth at his reaction, wondering if this explained why Nicole so often acted as immature as she did.
The comm crackled to life. “Agent Wren, copy?”
A weary smile crossed Dorian’s face. “Who said karma was slow?”
Always right after I get food.
“Copy, dispatch.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I should make you drive so I can eat.”
Dorian shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Proceed to Sector 114, Edmondson Memorial Starport. There is a 21-47 in progress on landing pad sixteen.”
She dropped the chopsticks into the tray and snapped the lid closed. “Copy that. En route.”
irsten fed the destination to the autopilot and hit the bar lights. From the air, the starport area resembled a square valley in the city. Zoning laws prevented the construction of anything over five stories for several miles in all directions to minimize loss of life in the event of a crash. The main terminal had the shape of a twenty-story chocolate chip made of white plastisteel and studded with millions of little lights.
Square fire containment walls sectioned off landing pads capable of handling everything from small inter-coastal craft to large shuttles used to carry passengers up to hulking interstellar vessels too ponderous to breach the atmosphere. Between the landing pad walls ran thousands of pipes and wire conduits.
21-47 meant a hostile manifestation. For it to be called in implied a non-psionic saw an apparition. Flashing lights littered a pad cordoned off by the starport security team and a few Division 1 cops who arrived seconds ahead of her. She circled around to bleed off altitude and came in low over the wall.
Her car cleared the barrier and settled onto a pad near a Mars shuttle. Two hundred feet long, the craft’s bell-like silhouette turned crimson from a coating of Martian dust, and the vapors of recent use still wafted from the engines. Near the right rear landing strut, a dark-skinned man in a grey jumpsuit hung suspended in a coil of silver fueling hose, screaming. The nozzle dripped luminous blue liquid that boiled upon contact with the ground.
Kirsten scrambled out of the car and ran over to him. Dorian paused to hold up a hand at the Division 1 cops by the entryway, warning them to stay back―but they ran past him as if he did not exist. Kirsten sensed spiritual energy in the hose, but saw no entity holding it. Her eyes found only a pair of shadows gliding along through the darkest point of the yard.
Oh, shit. If they are checking him out this could be dangerous.
Kirsten looked around. “Ok, where are you?”
“I’m right here,” shouted the suspended man. “Get me the hell down.”
“Sir, please stay calm. I’m trying to do that.”
“I’m held up in the bloody air by a bloody hose full of Cryomil, and she tells me to be calm. One little spark and I’m a samosa.”
“I’m surprised you even bother telling them to stay calm.” Dorian pointed. “I got this guy, check the splat by the nose gear.”
She trotted to the front while Dorian wrestled with the hose. The man wailed at her as he swayed back and forth, slipping free as Dorian strained against the force imbued in the serpentine line. The man slapped to the ground on his chest, shot Kirsten a terrified look, and ran off.
At the nose end, a wide pattern of blood spattered out from under the front landing cushion. A crumpled glove peeked out from beneath.
Kirsten cringed. “Damn. It landed on someone. He’s probably angry.”
“Damn right I’m pissed.” The sound folded in on itself like speech through a metal tube.
Kirsten crept forward. “Who’s there?”
A thirty-something man with scruffy brown hair sat up out of the landing gear, clad in a formerly-dark grey jumpsuit now black with blood. His helmet hung around his neck in a mass of cracked material like a stepped-on egg.
“What the hell are those?” He flailed at the drifting shadows.
“They are just watching, but I don’t think they have much interest. Of course, you might have changed their mind if you killed him.”
“Sanjay did this. He did not follow the safety protocols.”
“Do you think Sanjay wanted to kill you?”
The man fidgeted, his face a flurry of emotions. Speech started and stopped several times.
“You’re angry, and that’s perfectly understandable given the situation, but it looks like an accident.”
“W… What do those things want?”
“Well, if you were a bastard in life they take you where you belong. If not, they sensed your rage and came to see what they smelled.” Her voice softened. “Do you have any family or any friends you want me to pass any messages on to?”
He looked down at the tarmac, fury faded to sadness. “No.”
Dorian slipped behind, putting her between him and the Harbingers.
After a few minutes of reassuring talk, the ghost trudged off with his head down, muttering about the importance of the safety checklist. Halfway to the gate terminal, he vanished in a grey-silver cloud of light. Audible murmurs regarding procedure lingered for several seconds.
“Another lost soul ferried into the light. Nice job.”
She turned to the side, staring at the blinking lights along the top of the starport wall, a stark shift from gleaming white metal to infinite dark. Cold, lonely wind howled across the tarmac. Her eyes watered as she rubbed her arms for warmth. “I don’t want to wind up like that, dead with no one to care.”
“You won’t, but careful rushing into anything you’ll regret. I’d tell you to stop worrying and let things happen, but I know you.”
She plodded over to the police line, wearing a face like her cat just died. The Division 1 patrol team faced her; she filled her lungs with frigid air and her face with false stoicism. “There was a paranormal here but he’s gone now. The situation is resolved.”
Sanjay nudged a medic out of the way so he could see Kirsten. “That’s it? You just let him go?”
Kirsten blinked. “What exactly did you expect me to do? Arrest a ghost?”
Sanjay’s face said it all.
He’ll be drinking himself into a coma later.
fter what happened at the starport, Kirsten took the car home. Most of her peers did, so they could respond to emergency calls, though as she brought it to a landing on the roof she could not shake the nauseous feeling of doing something wrong.
“This doesn’t look like a landing port.” Dorian lifted an eyebrow.
“It isn’t. People that live here can’t afford hovercars, and it’s too wide for the parking deck downstairs. Hopefully Div 1 won’t wake me up at three in the morning and tell me to move.”
He laughed. “It’s an official vehicle, they’ll leave it alone.”
She let him join her for a while that night; happy to have someone to talk to ev
en if she often found herself mentioning things she would rather keep secret. Kirsten shirked her gear and set it on the table by the door, falling into a chair with her shirt hanging open and kicking her boots to the side. A minute passed in silence.
Both spoke at the same time. “How are you holding up?”
Rock paper scissors happened with a stare; Kirsten lost.
“Haven’t seen Dad in a few days. I was mad at him for so long. I was fifteen and living in the dorm when he died… I never even saw him alive again after I ran away.”
Dorian reclined. “You didn’t see silver light; he’s probably giving you the space you asked for.”
“How’s Corporal Assad doing?”
He shifted in the seat, away from her glance. “Nila is fine.”
“That’s good. Are you?” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You never want to talk about yourself.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he grumbled with a dismissive wave. “She got hurt, took some time to collect herself. Her daughter got scared, it’s fine.”
“She’s still out on leave; it’s been over three years. You don’t blame yourself for that, do you?”
Dorian fixed her with a hard look, but relaxed. “Maybe a little. I shouldn’t have just pulled right up to the door like I did.” He pounded the armrest. “Stupid, overconfident rookie move.”
“Don’t agonize over it. She survived without having to get cybernetics.”
“Her spirit broke.” He sat forward, head in hand. “She lost her nerve. Nila isn’t the same woman I used to ride with.”
She winked. “You liked her, didn’t you?”
His anger eased to a wistful smile. “Yeah… I suppose I did.”
Kirsten snapped awake out of an unintended nap to find him gone. Alone, she stood up to undress with a lump forming in her throat, but froze at her father’s familiar scent in the air. She called out, but silence answered. With blurry eyes, she slipped out of her uniform, crawled into bed, and hugged her pillow.
Division Zero Page 12