Division Zero

by Matthew S. Cox

  Time for a shower.

  She took a step toward the bathroom and found herself nose to nose with an attractive woman in her later thirties in a coral colored skirt-suit stained red by a cluster of bullet holes at the center of her chest.

  Kirsten clamped both hands over her mouth to muffle a shriek of surprise. Her face turned crimson. After the initial shock ebbed, she rationalized it could be worse. At least it was not a male ghost―at least it was not Theodore.

  “Make yourself decent, girl. I’ll wait.” The woman turned away. Her voice had a tone of superiority, as if she had been rich in life.

  “Mind if I…” Kirsten motioned for the bathroom.

  “I’m not going anywhere, my dear. Do what you have to.”

  Kirsten sprinted through the door and infused a psionic blockade into the walls before jumping in the tube. As much as she wanted to stand there and enjoy the beautiful warm water, she had a guest as well as her Captain waiting on her. When she reached for a clean pack of undies from the machine, she gasped, horrified. Yesterday’s stuck to the wall above the sink where she had thrown them, trails of black slime in a snail-race for the drain. She imagined the white box on the wall begging her to throw them out.

  She emerged from the bathroom wearing a shiver of disgust, and clean undies. The ghost turned with a pleasant smile. Her face had a familiar look; she was all over the Newsnet.

  “Mrs. Talbot?”

  “Very good. I trust you can infer why I am here?”

  Following an impatient glance at the window, Kirsten collected the dirty underwear using the plastic wrapping from the clean set as a glove. She stuffed them into the top of the white box, patting it and apologizing. The machine whirred to life and filled the room with a soft thrum and the scent of detergent.

  “I guess you saw me at the tower the other night?”

  “Indeed.” She walked closer. “I won’t mince words. I don’t want Marisa to grow up like him. It would just kill me if she turned into some heartless little debutante. I need you to make sure he gets found out as a murderer, and I want her placed with my sister, Evelyn.”

  A tap at the window drew Kirsten’s attention, and she raced to take her now-clean uniform back from the droid. The ghostly Mrs. Talbot examined her nails while Kirsten dressed.

  “I’m kind of late for work, and I don’t really deal with normal people crime, but…” A light telekinetic tug dragged her boots into arms reach. “I can take down all the information you give me and send it to a detective. If it’s enough, they should be able to connect the dots. I have no way to control what happens to your daughter afterward unless she turns out to be a psionic. If you have surviving family, they will more than likely get custody of her.”

  Mrs. Talbot glared at nothing in particular. “There must be something you can do.”

  Kirsten fastened her boots. “I wish there was. Really though, wouldn’t Marisa be happier with all that money? Not wanting for anything and being safe?”

  The ghost growled as a skull flickered behind the skin. “Not with him. I don’t care how much money he has. He’s going to turn her into the same kind of bastard he is, and I don’t want him to destroy her soul. If he’s in jail she will still have the benefit of his money, won’t she?”

  Kirsten held up her hands. “I have no idea. Come with me to the station and I’ll take your statement. Tell me anything you can think of that might help. Did you find the man who killed you?”

  “Yes, I followed him to the little rat-hole he calls a home after his so-called robbery.”

  Kirsten backed toward the door. “Good, that’s a start. I won’t lie to you… anything you tell me is pretty much useless. Information obtained via paranormal means cannot be used for an inquest. We might be able to scare a confession out of him. There’s also the chance you may be able to give us enough to track down physical evidence they can use.”

  “I have to at least try, for my daughter’s sake.”

  Two hulking Division 6 power-assist armors, one on either side of door, turned at the spritely face that popped out into the hallway between them wearing a big grin.

  “You guys want some coffee or anything?” Kirsten’s voice came out chirpy, reminding her too much of Nicole.

  Black visors rose up and away from their dark blue helmets with a whirr. The eager look on both men held no trace of trepidation. It filled her with a rush of delight not to be stared at like some kind of fiend. So much so, she ordered breakfast for all six of them.

  Mrs. Talbot paced the back of the room, ignoring the cop banter and trying her best not to make impatient faces at the only person who could see her. Syneggs, vat bacon, sim-sausage, and OmniSoy pancakes arrived on the wings of delivery droids. Reserving herself to something a little healthier, she splurged on a hydroponic fruit salad, and stole a strip or two of the bacon.

  The guys sounded fearless to the point of stupidity, telling stories so bad they scared her, even hearing second-hand. Four returned two months prior from military assignment on Mars and rotated to the police side for a so-called break. Division 6 acted as the ‘broadsword’ of the police department; the difference from combat infantry only the color of the uniform and their theatre of operation.

  One of the troops, and Mrs. Talbot, accompanied her to the roof, where Dorian waited by the car. The look the ghostly woman gave Dorian caused a spark of jealousy in Kirsten.

  “Okay, so that’s the whole story, then?” Kirsten looked up from her terminal. “You can’t think of any more details?”

  Mrs. Talbot sat in a chair alongside the desk with her legs crossed, going over the same story several times, like an ordinary witness detailing her experience to an ordinary detective. She provided the address and the nickname of the man who shot her, told her where he tossed the gun, and the name of the man he was hired through. The story continued to lack any proof of her husband’s complicity, aside from Kirsten hearing the admission the other night. With Tanaka now dead, even that could not help.

  “Okay, Mrs. Talbot. I have everything here. I’ll send it to my Captain and he’ll pass it along. A detective will be assigned to the case within a few hours. As for how long it will take or even if they can get anything proven, I can’t say. Your husband has a lot of power and money.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath.” Dorian chimed in. “He’s the kind of guy Division 9 deals with. You’re better off haunting him till he cracks and getting him committed.”

  “Dorian.” Kirsten snapped, making the others in her squad jump and look. “That’s awful. Besides, the daughter could be grown up by the time he caves. This guy ordered his own wife killed. Do you really think he’s going to be afraid of some bumps in the night?”

  Nicole levitated her foam stress skull, bonking everyone in the room on the head except Kirsten. “She’s an astral, guys. Hello? Ghosts? Stop looking at her like that.”

  Thanks, Nikki.

  Nicole winked back.

  Mrs. Talbot looked between them. “Well, what can we do?”

  Kirsten leaned on the desk. “Please, let’s just see what happens with the regular channels first. If that doesn’t pan out I’ll think of something.”

  “Intera is one of the most powerful corporations in the entire United Coalition Front.” Dorian shook his head. “They have facilities on Mars, colony worlds, some of which they legally own. It’s unlikely Lucian Talbot will succumb to matters of legal maneuvering. Do you really want to subject your daughter to all of that?”

  Talbot picked at one of the bullet holes in her chest. “You’re saying we just let him win? Let him kill me with no recourse and corrupt my daughter?”

  Dorian rubbed his chin. “Well, you can do something. It may take you some time to learn, but you can try to communicate with Marisa.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Kirsten. “If the detectives can’t prove he was part of a conspiracy to have you killed, I’ll find some way to work it out. I promise.”

  “Very well.
I’ll be at the house.” Mrs. Talbot walked off through the wall.

  Kirsten sighed. “Talk to the kid, really? Do you have any idea how long it took me to be able to sleep again after the first time I saw a ghost?”

  “Yeah but you were what, five? Her daughter is eight or nine now.”

  Kirsten rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s so much better.”

  he strip of suburbia seemed brighter than the last time she visited, but the place still offered a somber treatise on the death of a way of life. After landing in front of the old yellow house, Kirsten walked past the ‘For Sale’ flickering through windblown debris.

  “Mr. Motte?” Kirsten walked in through the left-open door. “Are you still here?”

  Henry glided into the living room through the kitchen wall, offering a worried smile at her, and a welcoming nod to Dorian. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. Have you found him?”

  She gathered feathers into a pile. “No, not yet. I think I have a way to do just that, but I need to ask you for something you probably won’t like.”

  “What,” he said more than asked.

  Kirsten took a small metal cylinder on a cord out of her pocket, and held it up. “I need to borrow some of his ashes. I promise I will return them.”

  He squinted. “Why do you need to disturb what’s left of him?”

  “I can use the ashes to track him down before he stains his soul too much to save. There’s got to be some good left in him.”

  Henry paced for a moment, then stared. She stood in silence, biting her lower lip and making a plaintive face.

  “The more people he kills, the more they want him,” said Dorian.

  Kirsten looked down. “I have to find him before he hurts someone else. What he’s been doing has not caused trouble for Intera yet.”

  “Albert’s going to do something big and showy, so tragic the news plays it for weeks, maybe a neo-natal care doll.” Dorian shifted his weight.

  Dread leaked out of her eyes at the thought. “I can’t let him do something like that.”

  The elder Motte shuffled back and forth, jaw sliding side to side. “You’re not going to destroy him are you? I won’t be part of destroying him.”

  “I will do everything I can to end this without anyone else getting hurt, including your son.”

  Henry sighed hard before walking to a porcelain vessel covered with bas-relief cherubs. “Here.”

  Kirsten took enough ashes to fill her thumb-sized flask. Sealing it, she draped it around her neck. The trail would not be visible during the day, so she killed time talking with Henry while waiting for nightfall. The old man did not at all mind the companionship, and delighted in a young woman taking time out of her life for him.

  He told her Albert had never been much of a social sort. He had lost himself in schoolwork when he failed to make friends, and did not much care for pets either. The one attempt, a goldfish he named Quark, lived only a month. Kirsten felt sad for them both. Henry still thought of Albert as a bright young boy.

  By the time she excused herself, she knew Albert’s favorite food, color, movie, and type of car. Familiarity shrouded her task with a modicum of guilt. The anger of a violent death had changed someone more than Kirsten thought possible. The wraith who tried to strangle her seemed far removed from the Albert Henry knew. Kirsten closed her eyes and wished fate would spare Henry Motte the sight of his son in his current state.

  “Are you praying?” Dorian smiled.

  She sneered. “Hardly.”

  “Oh, just wishing on a penny well then?”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Many years ago, humans would dig holes in the ground in search for water. Superstitious people got it in their head that spirits lived in these wells, and they would offer them tithes and gifts. As time went on, it developed into the belief that a person could make a wish and throw a penny into anything that held water.” Dorian winked at her. “Before you ask, a penny is an old coin, before credits.”

  She scoffed. “Statistically, the odds of success in either scenario are about the same.”

  “Then why do either?”

  “I dunno…” She stared for a moment as she tangled in her own confused opinions. “I guess it makes me feel better.”

  Dorian grinned. “At last she understands.”

  irsten flicked her finger over the controls, bringing the car’s systems online one by one. A short flight later, she chased down a sushi barge and pulled up alongside it. At least she could amuse herself with Dorian’s repulsed faces as she ate and waited for sundown.

  He stared out the window away from her. “You’re not at all worried about what that might have been swimming in?”

  “Swimming?” She lifted an eyebrow. “This fish was never swimming. They grow giant slabs of it in vats.”

  Dorian gurgled. “Oh, my.”

  “Oh come on. It’s genetically identical, not to mention free of contamination. Besides, no innocent little fishies have to die.”

  “Can you at least do something to get the smell out of the car?”

  “Do you want me to talk to Nila?”

  His head snapped around. “No, leave her alone, I’ve done enough damage.”

  “Dorian, a split-second tactical error does not mean you meant it. I want to help you.”

  “Stay alive, I don’t want to lose another partner.”

  “You didn’t lose your last one. Don’t you want to transcend?”

  Something lingered in his stare, something he could not yet say. “I’m not old enough to retire yet. Besides I don’t like what they’ve done with my pension plan.”

  “Okay. You know―”

  “All I have to do is ask.” His finger went from his forehead to pointing at the windscreen. “It’s dark now.”

  “Yeah.”

  She clutched the canister with both hands and centered her mind on it. A faint tug hinted at a connection, though many times weaker than the skull. With Ritchie, it felt like standing six inches away from a cinema holoscreen. With Albert’s ash, more like a NetMini at a hundred yards. Ritchie had lived in Seattle before the plates covered it, a fact that put him at four hundred years dead.

  “This is so weak.”

  “Maybe you’re just too far away?” suggested Dorian.

  “Can you drive?”

  He fought the urge to laugh. “Depends on how allergic you are to going through the windows of the fortieth floor.”

  “Right, forget it.”

  Her fingers flew through a virtual console, programming the autopilot with a slalom pattern over the entire city. The route started at the south end and traveled back and forth at low altitude and a modest hundred miles per hour. It would take a few hours to go from the Baja peninsula up into former Canada―but she had no other options and nothing else to do that night. She turned on the bar lights to warn other drivers and set the vehicle in motion.

  The cabin flashed with reflected azure light from passing buildings. She kept her consciousness filtered through the ash and worked up a sweat attempting to force the link to a state where she could see it.

  Dorian whispered, “You don’t have all of the remains. The connection has a fraction of the strength.”

  “Don’t distract me.”

  He watched their surroundings, mindful of the continued threat from Intera assassins as well as errant ad-bots. His hand settled into her shoulder and he closed his eyes.

  Kirsten gasped at the appearance of a diaphanous wisp of fog that exuded without warning from the little canister. It trailed off through Dorian, out into the sky. The pass-through system in the armor-plated windows could not see it, but its supernatural nature manifested as a wispy glimmer of video interference. With one hand on the ash, she disabled the autopilot and turned the car so the tendril passed through the forward windscreen and accelerated down the ectoplasmic thread.

  “You multitask quite well.”

  She stayed silent, not wanting to break her link. Several bloc
ks over, it led down through the roof of a CyberBurger fast food place. The sight of people running out of the door screaming caused her to drop the amulet back onto its cord and grab the controls with both hands. The craft came to a halt just outside the restaurant, skidding sideways in a hasty landing by the door that set the building’s windows wobbling. A few people staggered past, trying to sprint and vomit at the same time.

  What the hell is he doing in there?

  A man’s voice yelled for help from inside, becoming much louder as soon as Kirsten entered. The lights sparked and flashed, and a faint haze of smoke clung to the ceiling by several destroyed bulbs. The scent of roasting meat filled the air, carrying a strange queasy quality that brought the essence of salmon sashimi into her mouth. The screaming emanated from the kitchen. She ducked a yellow CyberBurger logo and ran across the maroon tile floor. She slid around the counter behind her E90, and gasped.

  A male serving doll tried to force a customer face-first into an industrial sized food assembler. His hands braced against the steel counter in a fight to keep his cheek above a glowing green energy field. The odor of burnt roasting meat saturated the room; a fragrance that became anything but appetizing at the sight of the manager slumped up to his shoulders in another unit; the majority of his head converted into cooked reassembled beef.

  A class 1 attendant at the closest register turned to face Kirsten. “I apologize, percent, name variable, percent, the kitchen is off limits to customers. Please move in front of the counter. I will be happy to take your order.” It looked like a fifteen-year-old girl with lines tracing around her chin from the corners of her mouth. Actuators whirred as it made its face as endearing as possible.