Division Zero

by Matthew S. Cox

  Her VidPhone beeped within a minute. A head covered in short black hair above the hint of a brown coat appeared, and gave her a piercing look.

  “What is your connection to that address, Agent Wren?”

  Kirsten gave a straightforward explanation of everything, including the astral projection. “That’s it… why?”

  He stared in silence for some time. The reaction of a mundane to psionics often amused her.

  His expression remained clinical. “Mr. Tanaka was killed last night.”

  She leaned her forehead into her hands. “Albert. Let me guess, a doll went nuts?”

  A hint of amusement floated on his words. “I don’t know about went nuts, but it certainly tore them off. It seems old Tanaka-san had a thing for dolls. His little sex toy did one hell of a number on him.”

  Kirsten cringed. “Don’t waste your time analyzing its memory. A ghost possessed it.”

  “Riiight…” His eyebrows peeked up over his sunglasses. “I’ll note that in the report.” He feigned surprise. “Hold on a moment, there’s no checkbox for ‘ghost’ here.”

  Kirsten shrugged at him. “Whatever. It’s your time to burn if you don’t believe me. You know full well what we do over here is real, and trust me… I saw him myself.”

  “You were there?”

  “I already explained to you. I wasn’t physically there… my disembodied consc―oh, the hell with it. You’re not listening to me anyway, and even if you were, you don’t believe me.”

  The holographic frown betrayed his distrust. “I see.”

  “Check the logs. My body stayed at the dorm all night.”

  “I will.” The head shimmered away from looking real, and collapsed into a glinting point.

  “Well, there goes that.” She slumped over her desk, muttering into her arms.

  Going after Tanaka now was useless. Without a living brain to dive into or suggest, he could not help. Perhaps Albert had done her a favor. His death could slow down the assassins. Also, if Division 9 gave Tanaka’s terminal their usual digital enema, the man on the other end of the call would have major problems of his own soon. She wondered why Albert let him live this long.

  Probably because he wanted Tanaka to kill me, I must have scared him into tying up loose ends just in case I find him.

  As Nicole fluttered by, Kirsten looked up. “Hey, Nikki?”

  “Yo.” The redhead turned with a big smile. “What’s up?”

  “Can you do me a favor? I left my patrol craft in the field. Would you mind giving me a ride?”

  “Oh, sure. Hey what was it like to jump off a building?”

  Kirsten told her all about it as they drove into the city. At that hour, neither of them had eaten, and they stopped for food on the way. Kirsten opted for oatmeal, regretting her choice as soon as she felt the strawberries devolving back into flavorless OmniSoy paste on her tongue. Nicole chattered incessantly about everything from the color she had just painted her toenails to the attempt on Kirsten’s life yesterday. She asked again how it felt to be clinging to an ad-bot so high up in the air. The girl rambled from topic to topic so fast Kirsten lost track.

  For your sake, I hope whatever man you decide to marry has the attention span of a goldfish.

  “Hey!” Nicole blurted, blushing. “Sorry… hey, you know… I don’t mind if you listen to my head.”

  “What’s the point? It’s like holding a seashell to my ear.” Kirsten’s attempt to simulate the sound of the ocean cut off as she ducked a thrown mushroom from Nicole’s omelet.

  They both laughed.

  Kirsten waved at her. “It’s okay. I owe you one anyway.”

  Nicole blinked. “You do? What for?”

  On the walk to the car, Kirsten explained the grenade pins. Had Nicole not bothered trying to teach her, she might not be here. A short catnap ended with the jostle of the car landing.

  “Here we are!” Nicole’s voice fell from singsong to a normal speaking tone as she surveyed the other car. “Wow. Nobody stole it or shot it up, you’re lucky.”

  Dorian appeared next to it.

  “It’s got a… umm… good security system.” Kirsten hopped out and stuck her head back in to grin at her friend. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Anytime. Want me to wait here in case it won’t run? I heard all sorts of bad stuff about that car.”

  “I’m not worried, but if you want.”

  When the patrol craft lit up without protest, Nicole waved and drove off. Dorian joined her in the passenger seat.

  “It’s been quiet. Intera hasn’t come back looking for you.”

  She blinked. “You’ve been in there all night?”

  “Not like I had other plans, besides, Henry’s quite the talker.”

  Kirsten kicked on the hover mode and pulled back on the controls to bring it up to cruising altitude. With no specific destination, she drove around in circles to think. Her mind drifted to Evan, a bright spot in an otherwise bleary month. The bizarre dream had sent her wandering down memory lane, where a stop on the way made her wonder if an old friend might be able to offer some help.

  “I had the strangest dream last night.”

  “What did your mother do this time?” Dorian frowned.

  She picked at the control stick. “I was back home as a kid again. It felt like no dream I’ve ever had, way too real, and pain didn’t wake me up. It felt like I was really confronting her.”

  “I’m hardly a psychiatrist, but these things do take time to cope with. Perhaps the time finally came for you to move on.”

  She slouched. “I dunno… It looked so vivid and real, I felt like something took me back there. If there was any truth to what I saw, I got it worse than I had let myself remember.” She turned to look him right in the eye. “I know she would have killed me if I didn’t run away, but I think I finally beat her.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “You were right. She was just pure crazy. How could anyone do those things to such a tiny child? Dammit, Dorian, you should have seen me… I was so little, and starved… and―” She choked up.

  He reached over, taking her hand. “Your mother is dead. Nothing can change what she did to you, but you have to allow yourself to accept the fact you survived. The only power she has over you is what you give her.”

  Sensing the way she stared at him, he smiled and turned to glance out the window.

  “You really shouldn’t go down that road. Given the nature of our relationship I don’t think it would be wise… or possible.”

  She looked back at the hover lane in front of her. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Besides, you’re not my type.”

  What is your type? On second thought, I don’t want to know.

  She exhaled. “I defied her. I never did back then. I just cowered and took it… even when she spanked me in front of all of her friends for sneaking out of the closet to steal food. Of course she lied to them about what I did.”

  “You did defy her: you ran. You found a form of defiance that wouldn’t get you killed,” he said pensively, and continued in a quiet tone, “They never told you this, but they put her away for what she did to you. She died in prison, someone started a rumor she killed a kid.”

  Kirsten clenched the sticks, lip quivering. Looking to her left as she turned a corner, she spoke with an eerie calm. “Running away wasn’t an awesome idea either. I could have died on the street too. Drugs… pimps… gangs…” She shuddered. “…perverts, the city isn’t kind to young girls. I wish someone had found me sooner.”

  “You can’t dwell on the what-ifs, and don’t tell me you’re jealous of, what’s his name, Evan?”

  “Of course not.” She sniffled. “I just wish I had a me.” She let off the sticks as tears welled up in her eyes. She had no time to give in to sadness, but despite herself, she could not stop crying.

  “You had to be your own you.” He rubbed her back through the seat. “That sounded so amazingly confusing I think we should change
the subject.”

  His laughter brought a smile to her face as she wiped her eyes. “Just a psychotic bitch excusing herself with God.”

  “On some level.” Dorian nodded. “Somewhere in that twisted mind of hers, she knew you were her daughter and had to find a way to justify what she did.”

  She shuddered, thinking of little Kirsten staring out from the oven glass. “There is no justification. You should have seen me. So help me if I ever walk into a place and see a kid in that condition, I’ll just shoot the parent.” Kirsten sniffled. “That little girl was looking at me, begging for love.”

  Dorian winked. “She still is.”

  As her vision blurred with loneliness and shame, she almost swerved into oncoming hovercar traffic. Screaming, she grabbed for the sticks, but the crash avoidance system had already corrected for her.

  “Easy! Don’t kill yourself.”

  She clung to the controls with a white-knuckled grip, ignoring the fast-distancing horn as it scared the sadness out of her. “Sorry!” she yelled at the closed window. “Holy shit, I hope he didn’t catch our tag number.”

  “Doubtful at our speed.” He glanced back. “So what’s your plan, going to pay Lucian a visit?”

  “No. I’m not Div 9. I can’t just walk in there without some kind of probable cause. Psionics still won’t stand up in an inquest hearing.”

  “Do it for his protection then. You could always warn him about Albert.”

  Leaning back into the seat, she released a labored sigh. “The guy’s trying to have me killed. If I show up in his damn office, I’m walking right into the lion’s mouth. He’d probably just shoot me himself thinking he could get away with it.”

  “Love doesn’t have to come with dick you know.”

  “What?” she stammered, “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “I was just saying… the boy. Taking him under your wing could help you. He seems quite fond of you too, and your skills are similar. You’d make an excellent role model.”

  A contented smile spread over her face. She had developed protective feelings for him in short order, figuring it due to their similar circumstances. She made up her mind to talk to Evan about adoption as soon as she dealt with the Albert mess.

  “I just thought of someone who could help.” She looked at him for a moment as she turned the car north.

  “Oh?”

  “What pissed Mother off and what kept Dad on long trips were all the ghosts who came looking for me for help. I was too terrified to talk to them, and they took it out on the house. I got beat for making noise if I talked to them and burned for calling the Devil if I didn’t…” She shivered.

  Dorian shook his head.

  “This guy Ritchie wandered in once when I was getting it bad. Mom was going for a two-fer, both hands on the stove. At first I thought he shot her with some old gun, but he turned out to be a ghost and it just made her faint.” Kirsten watched the moment play through her mind. “It was his idea for me to run away.”

  Dorian chuckled despite the mood, imagining the face her mother made at a phantom gun. Kirsten glowered until he explained the reason beneath the laugh.

  “How do you know he’s even still around? Maybe he found peace by now.”

  “I don’t, but knowing him, he’s probably still hiding. He’s been a ghost for a very long time―if anyone knows a way to track one, it’s him.”

  A shadow in the rear-view cut short her idea.

  “We’re being followed.” A rush of adrenaline purged her lingering sorrow.

  Dorian looked over his shoulder. “Yep. Looks like one of the guys Intera’s been sending after you. Turn right up here, I don’t think he’s bringing you roses.”

  “So much for Tanaka’s influence.” She did as he suggested, accelerating up past two hundred. “Hey wait a second; we’re heading right toward sector 12.”

  “Yep. This guy will follow you into the black zone, probably thinks we’re doing him a favor. Climb a bit. We don’t want to take any rocket fire from the natives.”

  She sent a series of short stares at him, dividing her attention between the hover lane and her confusing partner. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  Smugness wrapped him like a cloak. “Trust me.”

  On the holographic map, their yellow triangle crept closer to the blacked out space with ‘warning’ glowing red in the middle of it. The buildings on either side progressed further into decay as they got closer. At first, they missed a few windows, then they had no windows at all, and finally she steered among twisted skeletons of exposed superstructure.

  Dorian shifted sideways, facing her with his arm draped over the back of his seat, his demeanor as casual as if they snacked upon wine and cheese. He kept his glance upon the car pursuing them, and the faint smile on his face worried her. Once the little yellow triangle plunged into the black, the other car closed the distance as the driver maneuvered a large rifle through the window.

  Dorian’s wry smile developed into a grin. “You know the problem with Timmons-Orben hovercars?”

  “No?” she asked more than answered, her voice shivering.

  “Their drive systems can’t cope with extended high speed pursuits.”

  His eyes closed. The headlights of the other car winked out, as did the cyan glow from the ion engines holding it airborne. All power drew out of it; the pursuing car became little more than a dark metal brick hurtling through the sky. Kirsten imagined the driver screaming through closed windows as it nosed down and tumbled end over end, consumed by the smog below.

  Whump.

  The sound echoed a few seconds after it smashed into the pavement, rumbling up out of a tremendous plume of dust and smoke.

  “Terrible pity they make such poor ion drives, their interiors are quite nice.” Dorian made a clucking noise with his tongue.

  “Oh, he’s going to be pissed.” Kirsten brought the car to a halt, turning it to stare into the roiling mist.

  Dorian laughed. “I bet that one knows he’s dead.”

  Kirsten pulled on the sticks to go vertical, shoving the throttle all the way up. A pulse of energy rocketed away from the rear of the car, blowing debris deeper into the derelict building behind them. The patrol craft flew in an arc, up and out of the black zone, upside down at the point where it had reversed course. A flick of the wrist rolled the car back to rights and she entered a slow descent back to cruise altitude.

  “That was nice of you, looking for an area where no one on the ground would get hurt.”

  “I exist to serve.” Dorian bowed with a flourish of his hand.

  irsten set the patrol craft down in a forgotten grey zone far in the northern part of the city. Once known as Seattle, the decaying remnants of civilization howled in the wind of the approaching night. She got out, leaning an arm on the roof and surveying the area. The ground floor of an old hotel across the street had been converted into a shelter for the homeless. The faint smell of cheap food wafted on the breeze, entwined with the fragrance of dead city. Old century towers loomed into the sky; a hundred stories of crumbling blight on all sides. Automatic weapon fire echoed from distant streets, the denizens of the black zone a few miles away at play.

  Halfway down an alley just past the hotel, she found the reason she had come. She crouched and moved debris out of the way of a hatch set into the street, a gleaming silver disc amid the black traction coating. A blast of fog burst from the edges as it accepted the police code she typed into a glowing keypad set just below a rubberized handle. She twisted and pulled, lifting it into the air. Beneath it, a vertical shaft plunged into the city plate. Hot, wet foulness rushed forth and engulfed her. She coughed into the crook of her elbow, not having smelled such a stench in many years. A moment after she started down the ladder, the hatch closed on a timer. The console on the underside flooded the tube with reflected emerald light.

  “I remembered this tunnel being bigger.”

  Dorian’s voice followed her down. “Well you were
a kid when you were here last.”

  Rung by rung she descended into the darkness until her foot hit soft ground. Several inches of muck coated the plastisteel at the bottom of the plate interior. Metal girders, pipes, and cross beams glistened in the dark, outlined by a handful of white maintenance LEDs. The air, thick and stale, reeked with various industrial chemicals and organic decay. She paused to listen.

  She had entered the domain of the Discarded―wretched beings that ran the gamut from human to degenerated mutant. Rumor held that anyone spending too much time in The Beneath would become one, but Kirsten did not believe it. She spent almost two years deeper than this after running away. Corporations playing with genetics created the mutants, not time spent down here. The mutants did exist, but could not fit down child-sized pipes.

  I can’t either, now.

  Her eyes glowed as her vision extended into the realm of spirits, chasing away the darkness. The phantasmal echo of the real world superimposed itself over the physical one, lit by the glow of spiritual energy. She ducked under pipes and around girders, doing her best to avoid puddles of unidentifiable substances on her way to the secondary ladder mounted to the side of a support column. The first had taken her to the bottom of the city plate’s insides, twenty-five meters down.

  This one led to the Earth.

  Thick clumps of grey matter crumbled under her boots as she climbed down the outside of a metal column. The thought that her bare feet touched this decay the last time she came down here made her regret eating earlier. In The Beneath, no wind threatened to tug her off the precarious ladder, but she trembled from the height regardless.

  Twenty feet from the ground, she squeezed through a hole where the column plunged through the roof of an ancient house. The builders had not even bothered to level it.

  Four centuries ago, the dwelling would have been considered expensive. Now, it lacked a front door. She tiptoed through broken wood and rubble despite her boots, remembering her first time down here. Exploring these huge houses and empty neighborhoods had been quite fun compared to home―for a little while. The thrill of having a town of her own wore off in a few days, leaving her lonely and wanting the surface once more.