Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (18 page)

“Like silver?”

“Indeed.”

“Why would a precious material concern the planes? It’s only precious because we make jewelry out of it.”

“Rarity.” An aloof expression of interest crossed his face. “The pattern and the intent is what matters, the preciousness is an element of exclusion. When the implements cost more than peasants earn in a lifetime, fewer people attempt it and many discount it as a hoax. It is just a means to achieve a degree of safety with secrecy and doubt.”

“Peasants?” Kirsten giggled. “Did we slip back into the dark ages?”

“This has been around for a very long time. Occasionally, someone with a gift tries something and gets it to work. Perhaps someone such as you, who can see other worlds?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to call anything out of anywhere. I have to send them back. Could that circle have enabled spirits to slip out of the Abyss?”

“If you believe in such things, perhaps.” He stood. “I would love to discuss this with you at length; you are an enigma of splendor.”

“Oh, you’re too kind.” She eased out of the chair, taking a step for the door.
Enigma of splendor… that’s a compliment, right?

“Wait, so you have a decent looking guy with an incredible amount of money who also happens to not care you’re psionic, and you’re ready to run like hell?” Dorian shook his head. “I give up on understanding women.”

“Let me copy these files; I’ll study them in detail and get back to you.” Konstantin glided around behind the huge desk, and eased himself into an enormous black leather chair.

“I’ll just need your PID.” He leaned into creaking leather. “So I can call you if I find anything.”

“Of course.”
Give him the department number.

Beep
. Her personal NetMini chimed.

Oh, shit, what did I just do?

he Archives faded into the distance on the rear-view monitors. Kirsten squeezed and released the control sticks to work out the tension in her body. Weaving through the ad-bot layer, she swerved hard to the right and climbed into the hovercar lane. The rain continued, appearing as brief pixilation in the windscreen, digitally removed from the pass-through display. Silence pervaded, save for the steady vibratory thrum of the various electronics in the patrol craft’s console. The pulsating rhythm of the ion drives ran down her back like massaging hands.

Kirsten settled into her seat, death grip relaxing. “That was strange.”

“I’m honestly surprised you didn’t―”

“Don’t even say it. What do you think I am? Sure, he’s tall, dark, and richer than God. I’m just gonna fling my pants off and leap onto his desk?”

“Umm.” He chuckled. “I was going to say peek into his surface thoughts.”

A minute of silence.

“The red goes quite nicely with the blonde.”

Kirsten wanted to scream in anger, cry from shame, and hide from embarrassment all at once. After a moment, she just muttered. “It was just too good.”

“You know, I think the man saw me.” Dorian glanced at the console; the heat ticked up two degrees.

“I had a feeling. If I wasn’t gawking at him like a cat in heat I might have eavesdropped on his head.” She growled. “I’m such a screw up.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. He could just be an undocumented astral. Really, he’s a foreigner, so it’s out of our purview unless he does something criminal with it. Usually ACC psionics come running to us waving their arms and begging for help.”

“He wanted to put me off balance.” She hung a left turn and climbed up a lane.

A teen rolled sideways and shot past on her right side; the look of “oh, crap” unmistakable when he realized he just cut off a police vehicle. He slowed down to the pace of a grandmother. Kirsten ignored him.
He’ll be too terrified to drive like an idiot for at least twenty minutes.

“Maybe he just found you attractive? You are very pretty; you have those tragic Cosette eyes.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kirsten looked away from traffic in short spurts to pin him with a quizzical stare.

“It’s from an ancient theater production you’ve never heard of. Whenever you’re not doing anything specific, you just seem to stare into space asking the world why it’s so mean to you.”

“I do not.” She frowned. “I’m doing okay now.”

“So where are you going?”

“Nowhere specific. I’m thinking.”

“Agent Wren, please acknowledge.”

Kirsten looked at the console. “Guess we have a destination now.” Poke. “Agent Wren here, go ahead.”

“21-47 reported at PubTran monorail Terminal, Sector 1471.”

A handful of small holo-panels opened: security camera footage of glass exploding for no reason, gunfire cracking out of thin air, and a man in a long black coat fading in and out as he walked down the concourse.

Kirsten whispered. “Seneschal.”

“Copy that, I’m en route. I suspect astral entities involved. Please advise Division 1 not to enter the area. I don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. Also, gimme a red dot on the station, I don’t want any trams arriving until it’s clear.”

“Acknowledged.”

Dorian glanced at the roof, the bar lights came on.

She yanked back on the left stick; the car shot vertical out of the hover lane and whirled to face Sector 1471. Kirsten tightened her grip on the controls as acceleration pressed her against the seat.

Chaos played out below. A row of parked cars along the street leading up to the station bore the marks of a roving gunfight, recent since the shattered remains of their windows still covered the road and sidewalk with twinkling crystalline glitter. People streamed down two large powered stairways that led from the small micro-park between the street and the station up to the elevated platform. The top of the long oval tube, the clear barricade over the monorail itself, peeked over the edge of the raised floor. Lights flickered inside.

A group of Division 1 patrol officers worked the base of the stairways, attempting to keep order among the fleeing crowd. Everyone ducked at once as gunfire echoed from the evacuated station. Kirsten elbowed her way into the opposing mass of bodies, plowing through the crowd and up the stairs. At the top, she stepped into the squint-inducing fluorescence of an empty plastisteel-floored mall. Metal support beams flanked bench seats, a plastic carton slid across in spurts of wind, and a few of the shopkeepers on the street-side end remained to defend their possessions.

Kirsten swallowed. The sight of an empty PubTran monorail terminal was scary in a post-apocalyptic sort of way that tensed the muscles in the back of her neck. A feeling simmered in the air, telling her something else was here. Dorian drifted right as they advanced, searching for any trace of activity.

Boots crunched on broken fragments of holo-bars; the damage appeared to be the result of bullets. The girder to which the device was once mounted showed no sign of harm, not even scratched paint, as though the projectiles ceased existing as soon as they hit the first object. She had seen a similar effect before. Some ghosts could learn how to cause direct harm to other beings, and that technique often manifested in something familiar to the ghost―like a gun. Of course, they did not fire real bullets, just bursts of energy.

An Indian man darted out of an empty store, dark grey sweater and black pants glimmering with adhering flakes of broken glass. He ran past an armed shopkeeper without triggering any sort of reaction. Someone in the store behind him fired a gun; the sound, heavy and booming, made Kirsten think shotgun.

Her shoulder hit the nearest metal post, which she leaned around. “Vikram?”

The runner looked, blinked, and dove over a bench as a shower of sparks scored dark gouges in the white paint on the column behind him. Seneschal stalked out of the one-room store, holding a rifle-shaped weapon with an almost two-inch thick barrel.

“42 millimeter.” Dorian blinked. “Those come with a coupon for a free mop. Even Div 5 thinks they’re overkill.”

Kirsten got down. “Five doesn’t use them because a mess of little bullets won’t scratch a cyborg. They want one big one.”

Boom
.

A scattershot pattern of sparks ended another holo-bar full of arrival and departure times, leaving the post unscathed. Icarus rushed out of a store a quarter mile away, dreadlocks trailing him like a cape as he ran towards the sound of combat.

Vikram scrambled into a forward crawl and screamed as another blast from the huge shotgun tore the slats out of a bench above his head.

“Over here,” Kirsten shouted, waving.

Dorian ran to the next column, taking cover. “Try shooting one.”

“Seneschal,” she yelled. “Stand down, we can’t―”

Boom
.

She hit the floor amid a rain of fragments on her back. Dorian leaned out, firing his E-90, though rather than a blue beam it made a white streak. The energy spread over Seneschal’s left shoulder, hitting him with the force of a punch. An annoyance.

Dorian ducked behind cover as the rifle pivoted in his direction. “They’re strong.”

“Guess it’s true what Theo said. They’re not who they were before.”

“Oh, they are.” Vikram appeared at her left, crawling. “They’re still trying to kill me.”

She waved a hand
through
his shoulder. “They already did.”

“I mean, they’re trying to kill me again.” He curled up behind another column six feet away. “It seems they are somewhat upset with me for blowing them up. The dark things took them but they came back.”

Kirsten popped up, firing. The laser seared through Seneschal’s chest, tearing an ember-edged channel several inches tall. Flakes of ash blackened and drifted off in the wind, and the hole sealed. In the distance, a small shop caught fire.

“Please, you can’t let them get me,” Vikram begged. “They murdered me once already.”

“Stay down.” She leaned around the column to take another shot.

Seneschal slid behind a vendomat. Kirsten kept her aim on the machine, nodding to Dorian, who ran to take cover at a closer post. Icarus emerged through a cloud of fire-suppression fog billowing out of the burning store, firing at Dorian with what appeared to be a standard assault rifle. Bullets clicked into the floor, but made no secondary ricochet.