Harbinger

by Matthew S. Cox

  He sighed. “Stop a sec. Breathe.”

  She halted in the middle of the corridor and fixed him with a stare.

  “You’re upset, angry, hurt, and feeling guilty because you are a fish who can’t climb a building. You’re so wound up that you can’t even process my metaphor.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense. A fish isn’t capable of climbing a building. Why would it be a failure at fish-dom for that?” She blinked. “Oh. You’re trying to tell me I can’t do anything and I shouldn’t be kicking myself for not stopping this guy?”

  “Do you have the ability to magically know where a ghost is at any given moment?”

  “No.” She scowled at the wall.

  “Do you have any solid information about where Malden Walker’s remains might be or where he ‘sleeps’?”

  “Okay. Okay.” She took a few deep breaths. “Thanks.”

  He patted her back, his touch a series of cool pulses.

  Kirsten steeled herself and opened the door.

  The smell of mildew laced with garbage hung in the small room. A young woman with fair skin and bright green hair down to her elbows sat at the edge of one of the bland cushioned chairs, both hands gripping her knees. Her long-sleeved top had a large neck that bared one shoulder, the faded pink fabric liberally stained with dirt. Neon green lip gloss covered half her mouth, the rest smeared up onto her cheek. The girl’s black skirt clung to her thighs like polished onyx glass, her legs bare, grimy and bruised. Black boots that looked a little too big for her had so many scuffs and scratches they had to have been scavenged from the trash.

  She looked as scrawny as Kirsten ten years ago when the police found her, only older.

  “Emma?” asked Kirsten.

  The girl lifted her head just enough to peer out from under her bangs. Slate grey-blue eyes ringed with red widened. “I need to talk to a psionic cop, not a kid.”

  “I understand you were attacked by a ghost?”

  Emma trembled harder. “Yes. I’m kinda surprised no one’s called me crazy yet.”

  “Because you’re not.” She sat in the nearest chair. “I’m Kirsten. Have you ever heard of an astral sensitive?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “I can see, talk to, and in some cases, destroy ghosts. I’m also not a kid. Just short.”

  Emma pulled her hair off her face. “Okay. The other cops didn’t take me seriously. Thought I was lying for attention.”

  “I believe you.”

  “How? I didn’t even say anything yet.”

  “A ghost touched you inappropriately, right?”

  Emma sniffled and looked down. “Yeah.”

  “Did this ghost take over your body?”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Emma at her lap. “I was raped.”

  Dorian glared at the wall.

  “I’m trying to find this ghost so I can destroy it, but he doesn’t have an anchor point like most spirits do. He’s free to roam the whole city and every piece of information I get helps me find him. Please, tell me as much as you’re comfortable with.”

  Emma fussed at her oversized shirt, then spent a moment picking at her flaking purple nail polish. “Umm. I was at home. Felt like someone stuck their hand under my clothes. I woke up screaming, but there wasn’t anyone there. Like, someone held me down and kept touching me for a while, then I blacked out. I woke up on a bed with some old dude on top of me.” She curled forward, shaking.

  “It’s okay. Take your time. I understand if it’s too much so soon.”

  “No, I’m good.” Emma sat up straight and let out a long breath. “Gotta say it now, so you don’t think I’m forgettin’ stuff, right? It’s just so damn scary.”

  Kirsten nodded.

  “I’m… so I blacked out. Woke up on a bed. I’m naked, my hands are chained to the top of the bed. This old guy with greasy hair’s on top of me. I’m begging him to let me go and stuff, but it’s not me. I’m not tryin’ to say a damn thing but I’m still talkin’. He whips it out, then puts a goddamn gun in my face. Says some creepy ass shit about how it’s like the ultimate thing to ‘shoot a bitch’ right when he gets off.”

  “We’re going after whoever this guy is,” said Dorian. “He needs to be taken off the street… preferably hurled into the Abyss.”

  Kirsten somehow managed to keep from cringing or crying.

  “So, like I can’t move, and not just ’cause my hands are tied. Like my whole body just won’t listen to me. Soon as this bastard pulls out a gun, feels like someone dumped a bucket of ice all over me. Dude flies off me, lands on the floor, and like starts kicking his own ass.” Emma pantomimed holding a gun and smashing it into her face.

  “That had to be the ghost. Is it okay if I look into your memory?” Kirsten leaned closer.

  Emma shrugged. “Sure, knock yourself out.”

  The interview room faded away. Kirsten’s point of view—Emma’s memory—stared over a glowing orange Comforgel pad at a fortysomething man in torn fringer clothes, grey jacket, dark pants, sprawled face down on the rug of a cheap motel room decorated with framed pornographic images. The man flew up as though an invisible bouncer grabbed him by the back of the coat. He spun around and smashed into the wall. The invisible man beat the guy back and forth around the room for a few minutes before leaving him in a bloody heap on the floor. Emma looked up at her wrists, secured with handcuffs through the headboard. She struggled for a few seconds before swinging her legs up and bracing her feet against the bed. Her hands turned purple as she strained to pull them loose.

  Bang.

  She screamed, but refused to look to her left, continuing to squirm and twist her hands around. After an agonizing few minutes, her malnourishment and delicate build paid off—her right hand popped loose. Emma jumped off the bed, vaguely aware of the man sitting in the corner with his brains blown out all over the wall. She hurriedly gathered her clothing from the rug, dressed, and ran outside, cuffs still dangling from her left wrist.

  Kirsten released the telepathic link.

  “So, maybe I lied a little,” whispered Emma.

  “About?” Kirsten raised an eyebrow.

  “The guy didn’t like stick me, so I guess it wasn’t really rape.”

  Kirsten rested her hand on top of Emma’s, still on her knee. “Oh, I think what you experienced still counts. I’m glad he didn’t get a chance to start.”

  “Yeah.” Emma fidgeted. “That was a ghost, right?”

  “Pretty sure it was.” Malden let go of the possession as soon as that guy made it clear he intended to kill her. That’s weird. The original inquest mentioned he tried not to hurt his victims, delicate flowers or some twisted crap like that. “This is getting strange.”

  “Getting?” asked Emma. “Being felt up by a ghost and nearly murdered is kinda beyond strange.”

  “Sorry. I meant this whole investigation.” Kirsten accessed her armband terminal, pulling up the case record, and Emma’s PID information. The girl turned eighteen four months ago. She had a handful of juvenile arrests for shoplifting, but nothing since her birthday. No information appeared in the address field. “Hmm. Your address is blank. Where do you live?”

  “Plastiboard box in Sector 8094.” Emma looked off to the side. “My father died a couple months ago. Construction… fell off the seventieth story.”

  Dorian cringed.

  “I’m sorry. No mother? Other family?”

  “Nah. Dad was lonely so he got me from FamilyPerfect.”

  Kirsten bit her lip. “Never heard of that.”

  “It’s for people who don’t wanna relationship but want a kid. They took his DNA and combined it with some synthesized DNA and… here I am. I’m basically a Cyberburger, half of me is like OmniSoy. My father designed me on their computer. No, my hair’s not really green. It’s dye.”

  “That’s… interesting.”

  Emma shrugged.

  “No other remaining relatives?”

  “Nah. Just an asshole boyfriend who lef
t me as soon as I told him I was on the street.”

  Kirsten sent a text message ‹Can you make her eligible for adoption?› to Sam along with Emma’s PID. “Well, since you’re four months away from turning eighteen and still legally a minor, you can still get in the door of colony adoption.”

  “I don’t wanna go to no other planet.” Emma folded her arms. “And I’m four months past eighteen.”

  Kirsten smiled at the screen when the girl’s birthdate changed and *minor* appeared at the top of the record. Thanks, Sam. “Is a colony worse than a plastiboard box? And…” She held her arm out to the side so the girl could see the screen. “Your age is just a number in a computer.”

  “Holy shit… did you hack the system?” Emma blinked.

  “I did not alter anything.” Kirsten winked. “Off world colonies aren’t worse than living in an alley. In fact, they’re quite a bit better. You could pass yourself off as sixteen if you wanted to.”

  “I’m on this new celebrity diet.” Emma held her hands up, spreading them apart as if revealing a glimmering marquee. “It’s the ‘no money, no damn food’ diet. With a ‘run like hell or die’ fitness package.”

  “I can see why you’d rather stay on Earth.” Kirsten smiled.

  “Come on. I’m not a kid anymore. I’ll just go up there and be handed to someone as a wife. The colonies just want baby factories.”

  “That’s a common misconception put out by disinformation groups. From what I understand, the only thing they’ll really force on you is training for whatever job is in demand at the time that you’re an aptitude match for.”

  Emma stared down at herself, picking at her filthy clothes. “Ghosts can’t go to other planets, can they?”

  “Usually not. Though I’ve seen them go to the Moon, but they had to possess someone to get away from Earth. But… this particular ghost who attacked you chooses his victims at random and has never attacked the same woman twice. I honestly don’t think you’re at risk from him even if you stay on Earth.”

  “Okay, fine.” She reached down, scratching at the side of her leg. “Do I have to wait in line or something? How long before someone picks me up at home? Can I have a shower?”

  “Do you have a NetMini?”

  “Yeah.” Emma patted her small handbag.

  Kirsten spent a moment checking the trace logs for Emma’s NetMini. A line led out from the PAC to a grey zone thirty miles from Sector 8094. The system showed the device remaining in a static location for forty-six minutes. Also, an online order was placed from the account to a sex toy shop for one pair of handcuffs, delivered to that location. That has to be the cheap hotel. “Okay. I can’t think of any other information you can provide that would help me more than what you’ve already said. Is there anything at ho—that plastiboard box you want to keep?”

  “Not really. Landlord Fatass stole all my shit when he locked me out of my real home. My old life is gone.” Emma scratched at random itches. “Sorry if I give you fleas.”

  “Come on. I’ll walk you over to Div 1. They’ll get you set up with the adoption program, shower, new clothes, food, and a bunk until the paperwork’s finished.”

  “Wow. It’s really that easy?” Emma stood.

  “It is when a minor’s involved. Once past eighteen, it’s not quite as easy.”

  “There’s always joining the military,” said Dorian.

  “Oh. Cool. Umm. Thanks for that. Guess I gotta memorize a new hatch date.”

  “Hatch date?” Kirsten blinked.

  “Single dad… the uterus I came out of was plastic. I started callin’ it my hatch date. Dad didn’t think it was funny.”

  Kirsten guided her to the door. This world gets stranger and stranger.

  29

  The Big Guns

  Phantom itches sent Kirsten to the shower area once she returned from the Division 1 wing.

  It didn’t matter if the girl actually had fleas, the mere suggestion of it made her send the cloth parts of her uniform down for a quick wash while she hopped in an autoshower tube. Standing around naked for a few minutes in the locker room waiting for her stuff to come back up from being cleaned was well worth the peace of mind.

  When the tube steamed a little, she spotted the word ‘help’ smeared on the plastic as if by a finger. A look around revealed only two other officers showering and no spirits.

  Someone’s being a wiseass.

  She disregarded the smeared plea and concentrated on making sure she had no fleas in her hair. She exited the autoshower once it finished and tried to act casual while sitting on a bench waiting for her uniform and underwear to come back up from the automatic laundry.

  Once back in the squad room, she paced circles around her desk, furious and despondent over being unable to find Malden Walker. She wondered if he realized the girl he’d grabbed had been so young. The creep targeted women in their young twenties, which put Emma outside the usual profile. Of course, the girl slept in a box in an alley, so would’ve been alone and vulnerable. Perhaps a target of opportunity.

  Without remains or a ‘home’ to go to, she considered the possibility that he recovered his energy from people. Perhaps he’d possessed her before she noticed him, ‘sleeping’ inside her body. And the prolonged blackout didn’t fit the pattern either. He appeared to like having his victims aware of being controlled and helpless to stop what he planned to do to them.

  Maybe she fainted?

  She fell heavily into her chair and glared at the holo-panels over her desk.

  That Malden had saved her life and killed the man who almost shot her didn’t change how she felt about him much. After all, Emma would not have been in that situation to begin with unless he’d attacked her.

  Kirsten hammered the keyboard, going over the inquest files and the maps again. All the victims had been chosen at random. Nothing connected any of them together. The attacks had happened without pattern or predictability. Only that they had all occurred in the southern third of West City made for any sort of commonality among victims.

  “Grr. They don’t even all have cybernetic implants.”

  Dorian rested his hand on her shoulder. “That doesn’t matter to him now. He can get into their heads without it.”

  “And he made that poor girl spend the last of her credits on the damn handcuffs.” She eyed the terminal. “Hang on a sec…” Kirsten ran a search for purchases of cuffs by women between the ages of twenty and thirty over the past two months.

  The search came back with 118,740 hits.

  Kirsten blinked. “What the hell is wrong with people?”

  “Now that is a question no one should ever ask,” said Dorian.

  “I’ve got another effing Wharf Stalker on my hands, only that guy had a home.”

  Dorian pursed his lips. “A cargo box half buried under a pier is hardly a home.”

  “To a ghost? It’s where his remains were. He had a limited range based on his attachment. Like the way you couldn’t go more than 200 meters away from the car.”

  “I’m over that.”

  She crumpled over the desk, groaning. “I’m never going to find this bastard. And even if I do, he’ll just dive into the ground again.”

  “Now that I know he’s a bit on the strong side, I’ll focus more on holding him down than trying to beat the energy out of him.”

  “Dorian, he threw you a block away in a single punch.”

  “Well, he has been a ghost for over a century.” Dorian folded his arms. “Maybe it’s time you called in the big guns? Theodore?”

  “I… I can’t keep asking him for help for everything. The Kind will get sick of seeing me. If I overdo it, they might not want to help me when I really need it.”

  Dorian raised an eyebrow. “Fish climbing the building. This bastard is all over the city. You can’t go through walls. Asking Theodore and his friends for help might just be the only way you’ll ever find this guy. I don’t think this is wasting their time for something you could do on your own.
You’re not being lazy.”

  “Okay…” She hung her head. “Fine. You’re right. Wow. I sound like Emma being talked into a colony adoption.”

  “Well, you do look like a kid. Sam could tweak the records and they’d take you.”

  “Die,” said Kirsten, laughing.

  “Too late. Already did.” He grinned, and gave her shoulder a chilly squeeze. “Come on. At least talk to them. Start off asking them if they know of a way you could find him instead of asking them to go do it for you. I’ll mention how strong he was and that he dove into the ground to get away from you, and they’ll hopefully offer to help. You’ve spent years assisting spirits without ever asking anything in return for it. They know this. It’s okay to ask for help sometimes.”

  Kirsten infused her body with energy so it became solid to astral beings and hugged him. “Okay. I’ll talk to him tonight… assuming they show up. Might as well go check where that hotel used to be.”

  Evan sprawled on the living room floor, absorbed in homework.

  He divided his attention between two holo-panels projected from his datapad, one with the textbook page, the other with homework questions. Kirsten couldn’t read it from the couch, but animated pictures of various animals made her assume it science classwork.

  As expected, she found no sign of Malden’s presence anywhere around the location where he’d been vaporized. It confirmed her worst fear, that she had to find a genuinely untethered spirit. Perhaps that’s why she’d been holding off on going there. Deep down, she knew it would be useless and worse, eliminate the last of her hope she could track the guy.

  Speaking of classwork, she felt far too much like she’d gotten in trouble at school and had to go talk to the principal. Not that she dreaded speaking to Theodore or The Kind. She worried—rather irrationally—that they’d refuse to help her and leave her unable to do anything about Malden. In all honesty, those ancient ghosts had been happy to help with Senator Winchester. Her owing them a favor didn’t matter much because she’d always help a spirit in need. Unless, of course, they asked her to do something malicious.